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DIVINITY SCHOOL
TROWBRIDGE LIBRARY

J

THE

EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY.

THE EARLY DAYS

OF

CHRISTIANITY

BY
FEEDEEIC W. FAEEAE, D.D., F.R.S.;
LATE FELLOW Or TRINITY COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE ;
CANON OF WESTMINSTER ; AND CHAPLAIN IN ORDINARY
TO THE QUEEN.

iroXv/iepco? Kal troXinpoirco';. — Heb. i. 1.
»7 7ro\i/7rowa\os <ro(f>la rov Qeov. — Eph. iii. 10.

THIRD EDITION.

VOL. II.

Cassell, Pbtter, Galpin & Cp.
LONDON-, PARIS $• NEW YORK.
[ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.]
1882.

TABLE OF CONTENTS.

IBoofe EU. {continued).
JUDAIC CHRISTIANITY.
CHAPTER XXI.
Characteristics of the Epistle of St. James. FACE
Canonicity of St. James — Judaic Tone of Thought — Absence of Dis
tinctively Christian Dogmas — Luther's Rash Assertion — Ideal of St.
James — Readers whom he had in View — Date of the Epistle — Where
Written — Phenomena of the Epistle Explained hy its Palestinian
Origin — State of the Jewish Church at Jerusalem — Tyrannous Sad
ducean Priests — Maledictions against them in the Talmud — Their
Greed and Luxury — St. James in Writing to Christians was Thinking
partly of Jews — And his Words would he Respected hy Jews as well as
Christians — Asserted Essenism and Ehionism of St. James — Orphic
Colouring — Style of St. James — Outline of the Epistle — Its one Pre
dominant Thought — Controversial Aspect — Parties in the Christian
Church — A LaBt Appeal to Jews — Uniqueness of the Epistle — Its
Usefulness and Grandeur  1
CHAPTER XXII.
The Epistle of St. James.
The Title which he Adopts — The Dispersion — The Greeting — Translation
and Notes — Temptation and Trial — Need of Wisdom — Need of Prayer
— Address to Rich and Poor — Meaning of the Words addressed to them
— Transitoriness of Riches — Blessing of Endurance — God always in the
 Meridian — A Pregnant Clause — The True Ritual — Respect of Persons
— Justification by Works — Translation and Notes — Oracular Egotism
— Sins of the Tongue — Heavenly Wisdom — Translation and Notes —
• State of the Christian Communities — St. James is Thinking of Jeru
salem — False Religionism — " The Spirit that Dwelleth in us Lusteth
to Envy " — Various Exhortations — Overconfidence — Denunciation of
t Greed — Of Whom is he Thinking ? — Sadducean Hierarchs — The

CONTENTS. PAGE
Impending Doom — The Murder of the "Just One" — Despised
Warnings — Last Exhortations— Efficacy of Prayer — Perversion of the
-A Last Exhortation  32
CHAPTER XXHI.
St. James and St. Paul on Faith and Woeks.
St. Paul and St. James Contrasted — Is there a Real Contradiction ? — Views
of the Tubingen School — Is St. James thinking of St. Paul at all ? —
The Questions often Discussed — Jewish Reliance on the Benefit of
Theoretic Monotheism — On Circumcision — On National Privileges — On
Externalism Generally — St. James probahly Intended to Correct Per
versions of Pauline Teaching — St, Paul's Views Misrepresented even in
his Lifetime, and still often Perverted — No Intention to Refute St.
Paul — Is the Language of the Apostles Reconcilable ? — They are using
the same Words in Diiferent Senses—" Faith" in St. Paul and in St.
James— "Works" in St. Paul and in St. James — "Justification" in
St. Paul and in St. James — Illustrations drawn from different Periods
in the Life of Abraham — St. Paul was Dealing with the Vanity of
Legalism, St. James with the Vanity of Orthodoxy — Fundamental
Agreement between the two Apostles shown by what they say of Faith
and of Works in other Passages — No Bitter Controversy between them
— They used Different Expressions, and looked on Christianity from
Different Points of View — What Both would have Accepted — Blessing
of Truth revealed under Many Lights  79

3Soo& "B.
THE EARLIER LIFE AND WORKS OF ST. JOHN.
CHAPTER XXIV.
St. John.
The Pillar-Apostles — Individuality of Each — St. Paul Meets them at Jeru
salem — The Special Work of St. John — His Growth in Spiritual
Enlightenment — Continuity of his Godliness — His Boyhood — A Dis
ciple of the Baptist — His Natural Gifts — Independence of Galileans —
Messianic Hopes — Becomes a Disciple of Jesus — Why St. John Lived
at Jerusalem — Teaching of the Baptist — Was St. John Married? —
" Follow Me " — Belonged to the Innermost Group of Apostles — Not
Ideally Faultless — He had Much to Unlearn — His Exclusiveness— His
Intolerance at En Gannim — Mixture of Human Motives with his Zeal

CONTENTS. vii
PAGE
— "As Elias did" — "Ye Know not what Spirit ye are of" — Christ's Last
Journey to Jerusalem — -Ambition of the Sons of Zebedee — The Cup and
the Baptism — Leaning on the Lord's Bosom — Flight at Gethsemane —
The Earliest to Rejoin his Lord — In the High Priest's Palace — A
Witness of the Trials — A Witness of the Crucifixion — " Behold thy
Mother ! "— " To his own Home "—Blood and Water— At the Tomb—
A Witness of the Resurrection — On the Lake of Galilee — " If I Will
that he Tarry till I Come " — Mistaken Interpretation of the Words . 103

CHAPTER XXV.
Life of St. John aftee the Ascension.
In the Upper Room — Healing of the Cripple — Threatened and Scourged —
With Peter in Samaria — Years of Contemplation — Once Mentioned by
St. Paul — At the Synod of Jerusalem — A Judaist — Recognised the
Mission of St. Paul — Took no Part in the Debate — No further Records
of him in Scripture — At Patmos — Date of this Banishment — Causes
which led to his Departure from Jerusalem — Legends of his Banishment
to Patmos — The Boiling Oil and the Poison — Was he ever at Rome ? —
Certainty that he Resided in Asia Minor — " The Nebulous Presbyter "
— John the Presbyter was John the Apostle — The Quartodeciman Con
troversy — Greek of the Apocalypse — Revealing Effect of the Fall of
Jerusalem— The Apocalypse Judaic in Tone — St. John at Ephesus —
Patmos  137

CHAPTER XXVI.
Legends of St. John.
Legend of his Meeting Cerinthus at the Thermae — Reasons for believing
the Story to be a mere Invention — Spirit of Religious Intolerance in
which the Story Originated — Strange Legend about the Messianic
Grapes — Credulity of Papias — Possible Explanation of the Story —
Error of Irenaeus — Vehemence of Polycarp — Legend of St. John and
the Robber— Legend of St. John and the Tame Partridge— Tenderness
to Animals— St. John and the Petalon— Other Legends— St. John's
Last Sermons— Legends of the Death of St. John— Legends of his
Immortality  161
CHAPTER XXVII.
GENEEAL FEATTJEES OF THE AppCALYPSE.
The Earliest of St. John's Books— What we Lose by the Unchronological
Arrangement of the Book— The Apocalypse Written before the Fall of
Jerusalem— Impossibility thai it should have been Written after
the Gospel  ... 179

viii CONTENTS. SECTION I.
DATE OF THE APOCALYPSE. pA0E
The Apocalypse could Not have been Written in the Time of Domitian —
Possible Causes of the Error of Irenaeus — Key to the Apocalypse
found in the Neronian Persecution — Why the Book has been so
grievously Misunderstood — Theological Romances of Commentary —
The Neronian Persecution and the Jewish War — Lesson of the
Apocalypse — Nero the Antichrist — Nero amid the Ashes of Rome — All
Apocalypses deal with Events on the Contemporary Horizon — Outbreak
of the Jewish War— The Temple still Standing— The Flight of the
Christians to Pella — The Date of the Apocalypse Implied in Rev. xiii.
3, and xvii. 10, 11 — Written in the Reign of Galba— Or possibly a,
little Later — The Woes of the Messiah — The Doom of Rome . .184
SECTION II.
THE REVOLT OF JCD.fiA.
Delinquencies of Pilate — Threatening Symptoms — Hatred of the Jews for
the Romans — The Air Full of Prodigies — Wickedness of Gessius
Florus — Insolence of the Greeks at Csesarea — Disgraceful Tyranny of
Florus — The Jews Appeal to Cestius Gallus — Rise of the Zealots —
Seizure of the Tower of Antonia — Epidemic of Massacre — March of
Cestius Gallus — His Pusillanimity — His Defeat at Bethhoron— Ves
pasian Despatched to Judsea — Leading Citizens Involved in the Revolt
— Josephus in Galilee — Siege of Jotapata— Massacres — Siege of Gamala
— Mount Tabor — Giscala — Atrocities of the Zealots in Jerusalem — The
Ilumeans Admitted — Horrible Orgies— Advance of Vespasian Marked
by fresh Massacres — A River of Blood — Increasing Horrors — Factions
in Jerusalem — Dreadful Condition of the City — Aspect of the World —
Physically — Morally — Socially — Politically — Incessant Civil Wars —
General Terror — The Era of Martyrdoms — Style, Metaphors, and
Meaning of the Apocalypse — Dislike felt for the Book — Accounted for
by the Perversions to which it has been Subjected — Strange Systems of
Interpretation — The Praeterists — The Futurists — The Historical Inter
preters — Gleams of Tradition as to the True View of the Book —
Increasing Conviction that it Dealt with Events mainly Contemporary
— Multitudes of Fantastic Guesses — Their Extreme Diversity —
Essential Sacredness of the Book — Apocalyptic Literature — Necessity
for its Cryptographic Form . . . . 198
CHAPTER XXVIII.
The Apocalypse.
St. John "the Theologian" ... . . 238
SECTION I.
THE LETTERS TO THE SEVEN CHURCHES.
Only a Rapid Outline of the Apocalypse offered — Sections of the Book —

CONTENTS.

PAGR

The Seven Churches— The Letters Normally Sevenfold — The Letter to
Ephesus, &c— The Heresies alluded to— Theory that they are Aimed
at the Followers of St. Paul— Absurdity of the Theory— The Nico-
laitans— " The Depths of Satan "— " The False Apostles "— Volkmar—
The Tubingen School— Extravagant Opinions ... .239

SECTION II.
THE SEALS.
The Vision— The First Seal— The White Horse : The Messiah— The Second
Seal— The Red Horse : Slaughter— The Third Seal— The Black Horse :
Famine— "The Oil and the Wine"— The Fourth Seal— The Livid
Horse: Pestilence— The Fifth Seal— The Cry for Vengeance— The
Sixth Seal — Universal Catastrophe — Apocalyptic Style — The Pause —
The Sealing of the 144,000 — Symbols Iterative and Progressive . 248
SECTION ill.
THE TRUMPETS.
The Censer Hurled to Earth — The First Trumpet — Storms, Earthquakes,
Portents — The Second Trumpet — The Burning Mountain and the Sea
Turned into Blood— The Third Trumpet— The Star Absinth— The
Fourth Trumpet — The Smiting of Sun, Moon, and Stars — The Eagle
screaming "Woe!"— The Fifth Trumpet— The Fallen Star— The
Scorpion-Locusts — The Sixth Trumpet — Two Hundred Million
Horsemen .... . .... 260
SECTION IV.
AN EPISODE.
The Sunlike Angel — The Seven Thunders — The Book — The Measuring —
Character of the Symbols — The Two Witnesses — The Earthquake —
Difficulties of Interpretation — Remarks on these Visions . . 270

SECTION V.
THE WILD BEAST FROM THE SEA.
The Star-Crowned Woman; the Child; the Dragon — Meaning of the
Symbols — Flight of the Church to Pella — Certainty that by the Wild
Beast from the Sea is mainly meant the Emperor Nero — The Sixteen
Distinctive Indications — Every one of them Points Directly to Nero
and the Roman Empire — Especially in those Particulars which seem
most Enigmatical — Widespread Belief among Christians that Nero
would Return — The Number of the Beast — Sole Element of Difficulty
in it — Ancient Guesses — Its Kabbalistic Character— Its Certain
Solution — Commonness, of these Isopsephic Enigmas — The Solution
Confirmed by the Ancient Various Reading — The Belief about Nero
liedivivus — A priori Dogmas — Domitian was a Nero Redivivua . . 278

CONTENTS.

SECTION VI.
THE SECOND BEAST AND THE FALSE PROPHET. PAGE
Absence of Definite Traditions — Ten Indications as to the Person Intended
— Idle Guesses — Various Conjectures — The Roman Augurial System —
Simon Magus — Probability that Vespasian was Intended — Re
markable Adaptation to him of every one of the Ten Indications, even
in the most unexpected Particulars — Possibility that it is a Composite
Symbol — Nero and Domitian — The Name " Nero " often given to
Domitian  301

SECTION VII.
THE VIALS.
The Remainder of the Apocalypse — The Vials — The Seventh Vial —
Judgment of the Harlot City — Paean over the Fall of Babylon —
General Conception of the Apocalypse .... . 317

CHAPTER XXIX.
The Fall of Jeettsalem.
Sources of the History — Advance of Titus — Rage and Despair of the Jews
— Destruction of the Temple — Massacre and Devastation — A Second
Advent — Close of the JEon — Tremendous Significance of the Event —
Rightly Apprehended by Ancient Christian Historians — Effects of the
Event on the Mind of St. John — How he came to Write the Apocalypse
— Resemblances and Differences of the Apocalypse and the Fourth
Gospel  323
CHAPTER XXX.
The Geowth of Heeesy.
The Growth of Heresy Gradual — Original Meaning of the Word — Real
and Imaginary Heretics — Sources of Heresy — Sects — Jewish Sects —
Strange Vitality of Judaism — Rabbinism — A Nomocracy — Jewish
Sects — Nazarenes — Ebionites — Gentile Sects — Simon Magus — Legends
of him — An Antichrist — Cerinthus — His Errors — Gradual Rise of
Docetism — Gnostic Systems — Gnostics before Gnosticism — Opposite
Tendencies — How St. John met Heresy  336

CHAPTER XXXI.
Latee Weitings of St. John.
The First Epistle of St. John — Christianity had Entered on a New Phase-
Speculations and Errors — St. John's Method of Argument — The In
carnation of the Divine — Tradition about the Gospel — The Last of the

CONTENTS. xi

PAGE

Apostles— A New Era— Supreme Utterances— Righteousness, Sonship,
Sanctification ....... 354

CHAPTER XXXII.
The Stamp of Finality on the Wettings of St. John.
St. John sets the Seal to Former Revelations — Stamp of Finality upon his
Writings— The Idea of Eternity— The Logos—" God is Righteous"—
" God is Light " — " God is Love " — Importance of these Utterances —
Simplification of Essential Elements— St. Paul and St. John— The
Gospel— The Epistle— Where Written— Tradition— Tone of the Epistle
— Dangers which St. John Contemplates— Calm of the Style . . 364
CHAPTER XXXIII.
Chabactebisttcs of the Mind and Style of St. John.
His Contemplativeness— His Repose— His Style— His Sternness— How
Accounted for — The Personal Question— Ideas of Righteousness and
Love  382
CHAPTER XXXIV.
Object and Outline of the Fiest Epistle of St. John.
Object of the Epistle — Not Aphoristic — First Attempts at Analysis — Full
Analysis of the Epistle, showing its Remarkable Symmetry — Illustrates
the Characteristics of his Methods — Prevalent Triplicity of Arrange
ment — Certain Genuineness of the Epistle — An Epistle not a Treatise . 392

CHAPTER XXXV.
The Fiest Epistle of St. John.
se ction 1.
ETERNAL LIFE.
Translation and Notes — Introductory Theme — An Apparent Contradiction
— " God is Light " — Meaning of the Phrase — " Walking in Light " —
Translation, Notes, Comments — Propitiation — Prevalent Misunder
standings as to the Style and Manner of St. John — Symmetries of
Statement — Parallels — "Knowing God" — Love — "Abiding in God"
— The New and Old Commandment — In what sense " New " and
"Old"— The Ideal and the Actual— A Test of Professions— " Little
Children, Fathers, Young Men " — Meaning of the Passage — Warning
against Love of the World — What is Meant by " Antichrist " — Pre
valence of Antichrists — The Unction from the Holy Spirit is the
Christian's Security — Abiding in the Truth — Eternal Life . . . 402

xii CONTENTS. section ii.
THE CONFIDENCE OF SONSHIP. PAGE
Confidence of Sonship a Sign that we Possess Eternal Life — The " Mani
festation" of Christ— " Children of God"— How it will be Tested—
Translation and Notes — Awful Conceptions of Sin — Severity of Lan
guage—Doing Righteousness — Love to Man the Purpose of Revelation
— Cain— Christ — Perfect Love — Difficult Recapitulation— Self-condem
nation — God's Judgments— Confidence towards God — Last Discourses
of Christ  .... 430
SECTION III.
THE SOURCE OF SONSHIP.
"Abide in Him"— Denial of Christ— " Testing the Spirits "—Confessing
"Christ come in the Flesh" — Interesting Variation of Reading —
What is Meant by " Severing Jesus " — Argument for the Genuineness
of the Reading— The Recognition of God—" God is Love " — Summary
and Gathering up of the leading Conceptions . . . 444
SECTION IV.
ASSURANCE.
The Witnesses — Spurious Verse — The Water and the Blood — Sevenfold
Witnesses in the Gospel — Witnesses in the Epistle — No Direct Allusion
to the Sacraments — Distinct Reference to the Crucifixion — Meaning of
the Passage — Confirmation of the Divine Testimony .... 456
SECTION V.
CONCLUSION.
Recapitulation — Aim of the Epistle — Prayer—" The Sin unto Death " —
No One Definite Sin — Desperate Apostasy — The Prayer Not Forbidden
— Parallels in the Old Testament — " Delivering to Satan " — The Limi
tation belongs to the Realm of the Ideal — Rabbi Meier — Prayer for all
Men — Conclusion of the Epistle — "Little Children, keep yourselves
from Idols"  466
CHAPTER XXXVI.
The Second Epistle of St. John.
Brief Christian Epistles— Probability of their Genuineness — External
Evidence — Internal Evidence — John the Elder — To Whom was the
Second Epistle Addressed — Electa? — Kyria P — A Lady or a Church? —
Theory of Bishop Wordsworth — Founded on very Uncertain Hypotheses
— Theories of German Critics — Fantastic and Untenable — Improbability
of the Letter being Addressed to a Church — The AddresB better under
stood in its Simplest Sense — Where the Letter was Written — Analysis

CONTENTS. xiii
PAGE

— Translation and Notes— Keynotes of the Letter — Wrong Use made
of One Passage — Sin of Dogmatic Intolerance — Hatred can never be a
Christian Virtue— What St. John really Meant  481

CHAPTER XXXVII.
The Thied Epistle of St. John.
Gaius — Commonness of the Name — Object of the Letter — Translation and
Notes — Filioli, diligite alterutrum  , 505

APPENDIX.

Excursus I.— Asserted Primacy of St. Peter ... . 511
Excursus II. — Patristic Evidence of St. Peter's Visit to Rome . . . 512
Excursus ILT.— Use of the Name " Babylon" for Rome in 1 Pet. v. 13 . 514
Excursus IV.— The Book of Enoch  517
Excursus V. — Rabbinic Allusions in St. Jude ... . 520
Excursus VI. — Specimens of Philonian Allegory  524
Excursus VII. — Additional Illustrations of Philo's Views about the Logos 526
Excursus VIII. — Patristic Evidence as to the Authorship of the Epistle to
the Hebrews  528
Excursus IX. — Minor Resemblances between the Epistle to the Hebrews
and the Works of Philo  541
Excursus X. — " Salem " and Jerusalem  543
Excursus XI. — The Altar of Incense and the Holiest Place . . . 545
Excursus XII. — Ceremonies of the Day of Atonement .... 547
Excursus XIJJ. — Impressions left on the Minds of the Jews by the Cere
monies of the Day of Atonement  549
Excursus XTV.— The Identity of "John the Presbyter" with John the
Apostle  553

{continued).
JUDAIC CHRISTIANITY.

THE
Early Days of Christianity.
2500k $~&. (continued).
JUDAIC CHRISTIANITY.

CHAPTEE XXI.
CHARACTERISTICS OF THE EPISTLE OF ST. JAMES.
rlyetrOe 5e Troirjrat \6yov. — J A. i. 22.
Of the canonicity of the Epistle of St. James there can
hardly be a reasonable doubt, and there is strong ground
for believing it to be authentic. It is true that Origen
is the first who ascribes it to St. James, and he only
speaks of it as an Epistle " currently attributed to
him." 1 Clemens of Alexandria, though he wrote on the
Catholic Epistles, does not appear to have known it.2
Tertullian, from his silence, seems either not to have
known it, or not to have accepted it as genuine. It
is not mentioned in the Muratorian Fragment. It is a
curious fact that even in the pseudo-Clementines it is
not directly appealed to. It is classed by Eusebius among
the Antilegomena,3 but he seems himself to have accepted
1 Orig. in Joann. xix. If we could trust the translation of Rufiuus
{e.g., Horn, in Gen. xxvi. 18), in other parts of his commentaries he spoke
of it as St. James's, and even called it " the Divine Epistle.'"
2 Cassiodorus says that he wrote upon it, but " Jude " ought to be read
for James (see Westcott On the Canon, p. 353). Eusebius only says that
Clemens in his Outlines commented even on disputed books : " I mean
the Epistle of Jude, and the rest of the Catholic Epistles, and that of
Barnabas, &c." 3 voSeierai (Euseb. ii. 23).
b

2 THE EARLY DATS OF CHRISTIANITY.
it. Theodore of Mopsuestia rejected it. On the other
hand, there can be little doubt, from the occurrence of
parallels to its phraseology, that it was favourably known
to Clemens of Eome, Hermas, Irenseus, and Hippolytus.
Jerome vindicated its genuineness against the opinion
that it was forged in the name of James.1 It is quoted
by Dionysius of Alexandria ; and it has the important
evidence of the Peshito in its favour. Thus, the Syrian
Church received it early, though it was not till the
fourth century that it was generally accepted by the
Greek and Latin Churches. Nor was it till a.d. 397
that the Council of Carthage placed it in the Canon. On
the other hand, the Jewish-Christian tendencies of the
Epistle, and what have been called its Ebionising
opinions, agree so thoroughly with all that we know of
James and the Church of Jerusalem, that they form a
very powerful argument from internal evidence in favour
of its being a genuine work of the " Bishop " of Jeru
salem. Suspicion has been thrown on it because of the
good Creek in which it is written, and because of the ab
sence of the essential doctrines of Christianity.2 On the
first difficulty I shall touch later. The second is rather
a proof that the letter is authentic, because otherwise,
on this ground, and on the ground of its apparent con
tradiction of St. Paul, it would never have conquered
the dogmatic prejudices which were an obstacle to its
acceptance. The single fact that it was known to St.
Peter, and had exercised a deep influence upon him, is
enough to outweigh any deficiency of external evidence.3
In this Epistle, then, St. James has left us a precious
1 De Virr. Illustr. 2. It must, however, be admitted that Jerome's
remark is somewhat vacillating.
2 See Davidson's Introd. i. 303. 3 See supra, vol. i. p. 129.

JEWISH CHRISTIANITY. 3
heritage of his thoughts, a precious manual of all that
was purest and loftiest in Jewish Christianity. Having
passed into the Church through the portals of the
Synagogue, and having exulted in joyous obedience to a
glorious Law,1 the Hebraists could not believe with
St. Paul that the Institutions of Sinai had fulfilled no
loftier function than that of bringing home to the
human heart the latent consciousness of sin. They
thought that the abrogation of Mosaism would give a
perilous licence to sinful passions. St. James also writes"
as one of those who clung fast to the prerogatives of
Israel, and could not persuade themselves that the
coming of the Jewish Messiah, so long expected, would
have no other national effect than to deprive them of
every exclusive privilege, and place them on the same
level as the heathens from whom they had so grievously
suffered. Further than this, his letter shows some
alarm lest a subjective dogmatism should usurp the
place of a practical activity, and lest phrases about faith
should be accepted as an excuse, if not for Antinomian
licence, at least for dreamy indifference to the duties
of daily life. St. James keenly dreaded a falling
asunder of knowledge and action.2 His letter might
seem at first sight to be the most direct antithesis to the
Epistles of St. Paul to the Galatians and the Eomans,
and to reach no higher standpoint than that of an
idealised Judaism which is deficient in the specific
elements of Christianity. It does not even mention
the word Gospel. The name of Jesus occurs in it but
twice. Nothing is said in it of the work of Eedemption.
Even the rules of morality are enforced without any
appeal to those specific Christian motives which give
1 Ps. cxix. passim. 2 Wiesinger, EM. p. 42.
b 2

4 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY.
to Christian morality its glow and enthusiasm, and
which occur so repeatedly in the Epistles of St. Paul,
St. Peter, and St. John. " Be ye doers of the word," he
says, " not hearers only.''' 1 " Who is wise among you ? Let
him show forth his works with meekness of wisdom."
"Adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friend
ship of the worldis enmity with God.1"'3 " Take theprophets,
my brethren, as an example of suffering and of patience!'*
"Go to now, ye rich, weep and howl." '5 Is it possible to
deny that there is a difference between the tone of
these appeals and such as "I have been crucified with
Christ." 6 " But I say walk in the Spirit." "' " Tlte
love of Christ constraineth us." 8 " We were buried with
Him by baptism unto death . . . so let us also walk in new
ness of life." 9 " As he who called you is holy, so become
ye holy." 10 " This is the message which ye heard from the
beginning, that we love one another." u It was the pre
sence of such peculiarities which made Luther take up
his hasty, scornful, and superficial view of the Epistle.
"On that account," he said, "the Epistle of James,
compared with them (the Epistles of St. Paul), is a
veritable straw-Epistle (recht strohern), for it lacks
all Evangelical character." 12 " This Epistle of James,
although rejected by the ancients,13 I praise and esteem
good withal, because it setteth not forth any doctrine
of man  But to give my opinion, yet without the
prejudice of any one, I count it to be no Apostle's
writing, and this is my reason : first, because, contrary
1 i. 22. 2 iii. 13. 3 iv. 4. 4 v. 5.
6 v. 1. « g^ ji. 20. 7 Gal. v. 16. 8 2 Cor. v. 14.
9 Rom. vi. 4. ,0 1 Pet. i. 15. u 1 John iii. 11.
12 Preface to New Testament of 1524, p. 105.
13 This is hardly a fair account of the history of the Epistle and its
reception into the Canon.

LUTHER ON ST. JAMES. 5
to St. Paul's writings and all other Scriptures, it puts
righteousness in works," on which account he thinks
that its author was merely " some good, pious man,"
though in other places he seems to think that it was
written by James the son of Zebedee.1 It was, perhaps,
hardly strange that Luther, who did not possess the clue
by which alone the apparent contradictions to St. Paul
could be explained, should have arrived at this opinion.
To him the letter seemed to be in direct antagonism to
the truth which had wrought his own conversion, and
which became powerful in his hands for the overthrow
of sacerdotal usurpation and the revival of religious
faith. But this unfavourable opinion of the Epistle
lingered on. It is found in the Magdeburg centuriators
and in Strobel, who said that, " no matter in. what sense
we take the Epistle, it is always in conflict with the
remaining parts of Holy Writ." On similar grounds
Erasmus, Cajetan, Grotius, and Wetstein hesitated to
accept it.2 Such views are untenable, because they are
1 In 1519, he calls it " wholly inferior to the Apostolic majesty " (in
the seventh Thesis against Eck) ; in 1520, " unworthy of an Apostolic
spirit " {De Captiv. Babylon.). In the Postills he says it was written by
no Apostle, and is "nowhere fully conformable to the true Apostolic
character and manner, and to pure doctrine." In his preface to the Epistle,
in 1522 {Werlce, xiv. 148), he speaks almost contemptuously. " He" (St.
James), he says, " has aimed to refute those who relied on faith without
works, and is too weak for his task in mind, understanding, and wordr,
jnutilates the Scriptures, and thus directly {stracks) 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." Nor did he ever, as is sometimes
asserted, retract these opinions. His Table Talk shows that he held
them to the last, and considered St. James irreconcilable with St. Paul
( Colloq. Ixix. 4). See the quotation, infra, p. 90. Archdeacon Hare {Mission
of the Comforter, ii. 815) rightly says that " Luther's words cannot always
be weighed in jewellers' scales."
2 The objections of Schleiermacher, De Wette, Reuss, Baur, Schwegler,
Ritschl, Davidson, etc., are based on critical and other grounds.

6 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY.
onesided. We shall consider afterwards the alleged
polemic against St. Paul; and in judging of the Epistle
generally we must bear in mind its avowedly prac
tical character, and the entire training of the writer
and of those to whom it was addressed. The pur
pose for which it was written was to encourage the
Jewish Christians to the endurance of trial by stirring
them up to a brighter energy of holy living. And in
doing this he neither urges a slavish obedience nor a
terrified anxiety. If he does not dwell, as assuredly
he does not, on the specific Christian motives, he does
not at any rate put in their place a ceremonial
righteousness. His ideals are the ideals of truth and
wisdom, not of accurate legality. The Law which he
has in view is not the threatful Law of Moses, which
gendereth to bondage, but the royal Law, the perfect Law
of liberty, the Law as it was set forth in the Sermon on
the Mount. He is the representative, not of Judaism,
but of Christian Judaism — that is, of Judaism in its
transformation and transfiguration. A book may be in
the highest sense Christian and religious without
using the formulas of religion and Christianity. The
Book of Esther is a Sacred book, a book of the inspired
Canon, and a book justly valued, though it does not
so much as mention the name of God. The bottom
of the ocean is always presupposed as existent though it
be neither visible nor alluded to. And, as we shall see
later on, there are passages in the Epistle of St. James
which involve the deepest truths of that Christian
faith of which he avows himself a humble follower,
although it was not his immediate object to develop
the dogmatic side of Christianity at all. If some
of the weightiest Christian doctrines are not touched

DATE OF THE EPISTLE. 7
upon, there are, on the other hand, more references to
the discourses of Christ in this Epistle than in all the
others put together.1
If we could be certain of the date of the Epistle, and
of the characters whom St. James had chiefly in view,
some light would doubtless be thrown on these pecu
liarities. But on these subjects we are unfortunately
in doubt. Amid the differing opinions respecting the
date, I side with those who look upon the Epistle as
one of the later, not as perhaps the earliest, in the
Canon. One or two facts seem to point in this direction.
On the one hand, the Epistle could not have been
written after the year a.d. 63, because in that year
St. James was martyred. On the other hand, the
condition and wide dissemination of the Churches to
which it is addressed ; the prevalence of the name
Christ instead of the title " the Christ " ; 2 the growth
of respect for persons as shown in distinction of seats ;
the sense of delay in the Second Coming,3 and other
circumstances, make it necessary to assume that many
years had elapsed since the Day of Pentecost. Further,
it seems probable that some of St. James's allusions
may find their explanation in a state of political
excitement, caused by hopes and fears which, perhaps,
within a year or two of the time when it was
written, broke out in the wild scenes of the Jewish
revolt. Lastly, it seems impossible to deny that
although St. James may have written his arguments
about faith and works4 without having read what had
been written on the same subject by St. Paul,5 and in
1 See Dollinger, First Age of the Church, p. 107 (tr. Oxenhaml.
* ii. 7. 3 v. 7, 8. * ii. il— 26.
6 It is not necessary to assume in consequence that " Apostolical

8 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY.
the Epistle to the Hebrews, still his language finds its
most reasonable explanation in the supposition that he
is striving to remove the dangerous inferences to which
St. Paul's doctrine of justification by faith was liable
when it was wrested by the unlearned and the ignorant.1
If so, the Epistle cannot have been written more than
a year or two before St. James's death, since the date
of the Epistle to the Galatians is a.d. 57, and that of
the Epistle to the Eomans a.d. 58. It has been urged
against this conclusion that if it had been written later
than the so-called " Council of Jerusalem " in a.d. 50,
it must have contained references to the great dispute
about the obligations of circumcision. But the circum
cision question, fiercely as it was debated at the time,
was speedily forgotten ; and it must be borne in
mind that St. James is writing exclusively to Jews.
Again, it has been urged that the trials to which he
alludes must have been the persecutions at Jerusalem,
in which Saul and Herod Agrippa I. were respectively
the chief movers. But persecution in one form or
other was the chronic trial of Jewish as well as of other

Epistles were transcribed by the hundred and circulated broadcast " ; or
that " copies of what was written for Rome or Galatia would be at once
despatched by a special courier to the Bishop of Jerusalem " (Plumptre,
p. 42). The Church of Jerusalem was kept well acquainted with the
movements and tenets of St. Paul, and any of the Passover pilgrims from
Asia Minor might have informed James of the drift of the Apostle's argu
ments, and of some of his more striking expressions, even if he could not
procure a copy of a complete Epistle.
1 Baur says {Ch. Hist. p. 128), " It is impossible to deny that the
Epistle of James presupposes the Pauline doctrine of justification." He
admits that " it may not be aimed directly against the Apostle himself," but
says that, if so, " its tendency is distinctly anti-Pauline." Nevertheless,
both St. Paul and St. James might, in the sense in which they were alone
intended, have interchanged each other's apparently antagonistic formulse.
See infra, pp. 90 — 96.

WRITTEN AT JERUSALEM. 9
Christians. To refer to the existence of deep poverty
as a sign that the Epistle was written about the time
of the general famine of a.d. 44 is to rely on a very
shadowy argument, since famines at this period were by
no means unfrequent, and poverty was the perma
nent condition of the saints at Jerusalem. I therefore
disagree with the views of Neander, Alford, and Dr.
Plumptre, who argue for the early date ; and I agree
with those of De Wette, Bishop Wordsworth, and
many others, who fix the date of the Epistle about the
year a.d. 61 .1
If, however, the date of the Epistle be uncertain, we
have no uncertainty about the place where it was
written. That is undeniably Jerusalem. When
once settled in that city, St. James, with the natural
stationariness of the Oriental, seems never to have left
it. Its Temple and ritual would have had for him a
strong attraction. The notion of writing the Epistle
may have partly originated from the circumstance
that the Jewish high priest sent missives from the
Holy City, which were received with profound respect
throughout the length and breadth of the Disper
sion. Similarly, the first bishop of the metropolis of
Christianity was one to whom every Jewish Church
might naturally look for advice and consolation. The
physical allusions in the Epistle to oil, and wine,
and figs, to salt and bitter springs, to the Kaus6n, or
burning wind of Palestine, and, above all, to the former
and the latter rain, show that the letter was despatched
1 Eusebius {H. E. ii. 23 ; iii. 11) gives a.d. 69 as the date of St. James's
death, apparently because Hegesippus said that the siege happened
" immediately afterwards." But if the narrative of Josephus is correct,
St. James could not have been killed later than a.d. 63. This is the date
given by Eusebius in his Chronicon.

10 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY.
from Jerusalem. Some have supposed that it was written
at Joppa; but this is only a precarious inference from
the allusion to the life of the shore and the traffic in
the harbour, the fish and the wonders of the sea.1
There can, at any rate, be no doubt that it emanated
from Palestine.
In this Palestinian origin I see an explanation of
some of the phenomena of the Epistle. We see, for
instance, why it is that St. James seems to be speaking
sometimes to Jews and sometimes to Christians, some
times to all the Churches of the Dispersion and some
times almost exclusively to the Churches of Judaea.
The difficulty vanishes when we remember the position
of the writer. He is addressing "the Twelve Tribes
of the Dispersion." It was a sufficiently wide range —
wider than that of any one of the Epistles. It included
Parthians, and Medes, and Elamites, dwellers in Cap-
padocia, Galatia, Pontus, Asia, Phrygia, Pamphylia,
Egypt, the parts of Libya about Cyrene, strangers at
Eome, Cretes and Arabians, Jews and proselytes.2
But of the varying conditions of these widely-scattered
communities he could know almost nothing. He could
have no information about them except such as he
might now and then derive from the general talk of
some Passover pilgrim. He addresses them, indeed, as
a " Christian high priest wearing the golden mitre "
might have done, or as a sort of ideal Eesh Galutha, or
" Prince of the Captivity," might have addressed his
fellow-countrymen in later days.3 But he could only
1 James i. 6 ; iii. 4 ; iv. 13 (Hausrath, N. Test. Zeitg. 1, § 5).
2 Acts ii. 9 — 12. The reader will find a sketch of the character of the
Jewish Dispersion, and of the events which led to it, in my Life of St.
l'aul, i. pp. 115-125.
3 The Jews of the Dispersion in Babylonia were called " the Gola," or

TYRANNY OF THE RICH. 11
speak on topics which he might infer to be necessary
because he saw that they were necessary for the Syrian
Churches, with whose trials and temptations he had an
exclusive familiarity. His remarks, for instance, about
the conduct of the rich, and the bearing of the poor
towards them, have created the greatest perplexity.
These rich men, whose arrogance is described as so
outrageous, were they Jews, Christians, or Gentiles?
I think that I find an explanation of his allusions in
conduct which he saw daily taking place under his own
eyes. The Jewish Church at Jerusalem was at that
time governed by a clique of aristocratic Sadducees.
They were men of immense wealth, which they increased
by violent and dishonest exactions. Profoundly hated by
the people, they were yet kept secure in their positions
by the close understanding which they usually preserved
with the Herods and the Eomans. Outwardly, there
fore, they were treated with abject reverence, and in
spite of the curses, not loud but deep, which were secretly
uttered against them, and which were soon to burst in
vengeance upon their heads, they were able to exercise
an almost uncontrolled authority. When we read side
by side the denunciations hurled by St. James against
the tyrannous greed and cruel insolence of the rich,
and the eight-fold and thrice-repeated curse of the
Talmud1 against the blood-stained and worldly hierarchs
who disgraced the mitre of Aaron, it will be seen, I think,
that these passages of the Epistle sprang, at least in
part, from the indignation with which the Christian
" Deportation," and they enjoyed a sort of independence under a ruler of
their own choice known as the Resh Galutha. See on his office, Etheridge,
Hebr. Lit. 151, seq.
1 Pesachim, 57, a ; Tosefta Menachoth ; Derenbourg, Palest. 233 ;
Geiger, Urschrift, 118.

12 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY.
bishop had witnessed the conduct of the detested
Boethusim and Beni-Hanan. To their vengeance he
at last succumbed, and under their avarice and world-
liness the Jews of that day vainly struggled. St.
James says : —
" Do not rich men oppress you, and draw you before the judg
ment seats'! Do they not blaspheme that -worthy name by the
which ye are called 1 " '
And again —
"Go to now, ye rich men ; weep and howl for the miseries that
shall come upon you. . . . Behold the hire of the labourers which
have reaped down, your fields, which is of you kept back by fraud,
crieth. . . . Ye have lived in pleasure in the earth, and been
wanton ; ye have nourished your hearts as in a day of slaughter ; ye
have condemned and killed the just, and he doth not resist you." 2
It is obvious that these remarks could not apply to
the treatment of the poor by the rich throughout all the
Ghettos and Christian communities of the world. In
the infant Churches, during the whole of the first
century, there were " not many rich." 3 The few
wealthy and noble Gentiles who were converted were so
far from being able to wield such a tyranny as St.
James describes, that, in the gatherings of the converts,
they might be under the spiritual supervision of pres
byters and " bishops " who occupied no higher earthly
rank than that of slaves. Moreover, no Christian
could have dared to " blaspheme " — that is, to speak
injuriously of the name of " Christian " or of " Christ."
But St. James is not thinking exclusively of Christian
communities. He is writing of things which were on
the horizon of his daily life. Eead what the Tal-
1 Ja. ii. 6, 7. - v. 1- 6. 3 1 Cor. i. 26.

OPPRESSIVE SADDUCEES. 13
mudists say of the priestly families by which he was
surrounded, and his allusions at once become explicable.
For thus in the tract Yoma (f. 9, a) we find : —
" What is meant by Ps. x. 27, ' The fear of the
Lord prolongeth days, but the years of the wicked shall
be shortened'? The first clause . alludes to the 410
years of the first Temple, during which period there
were but eighteen high priests. But ' the years of the
wicked shall be shortened ' is illustrated by the fact that
during the 4:26 years of the second Temple there were
more than 300 high priests in succession. So that,
deducting the forty years of Simon the Eighteous, and
the eighty of Eabbi Jochanan, and the ten of Ishmael
Ben Phabi, it is evident that not one of the remaining
high priests lived to hold office for a whole year." *
The supposed fact is unhistorical, but the remark shows
in what low estimation these later hierarchs were held.
Again, in the tract Pesachim (57, a) we find one of
several repetitions of the famous malediction on those
priestly families : —
" Woe unto the family of Boethus,
Woe to their bludgeons !
Woe to the house of Hanan,
Woe to their viper hissings !
Woe to the family of Canthera,
Woe to their libels !
Woe to the family of Ishmael Ben-Phabi
Woe to their blows with the fist !
" They are themselves chief priests, their sons are treasurers, their
sons-in-law captains of the Temple, and their servants strike the
people with their staves."
1 Hershon, Talm. Miscell. p. 107. All insolent priests were supposed
to be descended from Pashur, the son of Immer. Kiddushin, f. 70 b. (id.
p. 244).

14 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY.
Again, we are told that the Vestibule of the Temple
uttered four cries — " Depart hence, sons of Eli, who
defile the Temple of the Eternal ! Depart, Issachar of
Kephar Barkai, who only carest for self, and profanest
the victims consecrated to Heaven!" And again:
" Open, ye gates, let Ishmael Ben Phabi enter, the
disciple of Phinehas (son of Eli), to do the duties of
high priest ; open, let John, son of Nebedseus, enter,
the disciple of gluttons, to gorge himself with victims."1
Tales of these priests — their luxury, their gluttony,
their simony, their avarice, their atheism — long lingered
in the hearts of the people. They told how this
Issachar, in his fastidious insolence, had had silk gloves
made to prevent the soiling of his hands while he sac
rificed; of the calves which John, son of Nebedseus,
had devoured, and the tuns of wine which he had
drunk ; how Martha, daughter of Boethus, had bought
the priesthood for her husband Joshua, son of Garnala,
for two bushels of gold denarii, and had carpets spread
from her house to the Temple when she went to see
him sacrifice ; how the house of Hanan deliberately ,
raised the price of doves, in order to make gain out of
the poor, till they were liberated from this tyranny by
Gamaliel, the grandson of Hillel ; how Eliezer Ben
Charsom went to the Temple in a robe which had cost
20,000 minse, and which was so transparent that the
other priests forbade him to wear it.2 Even Josephus
bears witness to the ruthless extortion and cruelty with
which they defrauded the inferior priests of their dues
1 Pesachim, Z. c, and Kerithoth, 28, a.
2 Yoma, 35, 6. See Raphall, Hist, of Jews, ii. 370 ; Gratz, Gesch. de
Juden, iii. 321 ; Derenbourg, Palest, p. 233, seqq., and my Life of Christ,
ii. 330 — 342, where the original references are given.

TONE OF ST. JAMES. 15
until they were almost reduced to the verge of starva
tion.1 In the section which follows his account of the
murder of James, he says that the greedy procurator
Albinus cultivated the friendship of Joshua, the high
priest, and the other chief priests, and joined with them
in robbing the threshing-floors by violence, and that
for this reason some of the priests died from inability to
recover the tithes which were their sole means of sus
tenance. But, while he thus alluded to the state of things in
Jerusalem, there can be no doubt that St. James mainly
intended to address Christians. Otherwise he would
have added some explanation of his simple title,
"James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus
Christ."2 Nor could he otherwise have said, " My
brethren, have not the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ,
the Lord of Glory, with respect of persons;"3 nor
again, " Be patient, therefore, brethren, unto the
coming of the Lord."4 How is it, then, that the
Epistle contains none of the rich and advanced
Christology of many other Epistles ? that the allusions
to specific Christian doctrine and motive are so rare ?
How is it that the word " gospel " does not once occur
in it ? that Christianity is still viewed under the aspect
of Law, though truly of an idealised and royal Law ?
that the general tone of appeal is much more like that
of John the Baptist than that of St. Paul, St. Peter,
and St. John ? How is it that next to the moral parts
1 Jos. Antt. xx. 8, § 8 ; 9, § 2. 2 i. 1. 3 ii. 1.
4 v. 7. See other distinctively Christian allusions in i. 18 : " Of His
own will begat He us by the word of truth;" ii. 7 : "Do they not blas
pheme that worthy name by which ye are called ?" v. 6 : " Ye condemned
and killed the Just ;" v. 14 : " Anointing him with oil in the name of the
Lord."

16 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY.
of the Sermon on the Mount, St. James is most fre
quent in his references to books of apocryphal wisdom,
written by unconverted Jews? How is it that there
are whole sections which might have been almost writ
ten by an Epictetus or a Marcus Aurelius ? I think
that the reason, and the only reason, which can be
given, is that while he is writing in the first instance
to Christians, he is thinking to a great extent of Jews.
The Christians were few, the Jews many. He has
begun by saying that he is writing to the Twelve
Tribes of the Dispersion, and he meant his letter to be
delivered primarily to the Christians among them. But
the Christians whom he has in view were also Jews.
He does not even allude to the Gentiles. The converts
whom he addresses had never thought of deserting the
ceremonies, or abandoning what they imagined to be
the exclusive privileges of the chosen seed.1 And he
was himself a Jew, living among Jews, and living in all
respects as a Jew of the strictest orthodoxy, reverenced
even by many who regarded his belief in Christ as a mere
aberration — a mere excrescence on his Judaic devotion.
It was from Jews, not from Christians, — it was because
ot accuracy in Jewish observances, not for strictness of
Christian morality, — that he had received the surname of
" the Just." Let it be borne in mind that, alike amid
Jews and Gentiles, the distinction between the Jew
and the Christian was infinitely less wide in the first
generation after Christ's death than it afterwards
became. St. Paul, even after he had written the
Epistles to the Eomans and Galatians, did not hesitate
1 We have observed the same phenomena of a sort of dual conscious
ness as to the readers whom he is addressing in St. Paul's Epistle to
the Romans. See Life and Work of St. Paul, ii. 168; 169.

JUDAISM AND CHRISTIANITY. 17
to exclaim before the assembled Sanhedrin, " Brethren,
I am a Pharisee, a son of Pharisees," and to reduce the
whole question between him and them to a question of
believing in the Eesurrection. As a Nazarite, as an
heir of David, as having priestly blood in his veins, as
one whose faithfulness was known to all the dwellers
in Jerusalem, and to all who visited it, as a Jew
who walked in all the commandments and ordinances
of the Law blameless, James might well consider
it his duty to address words of warning and exhor
tation, primarily indeed to the Christian Churches
of Judaea, but through them to all his countrymen.
To him the Church is still not only the Ecclesia
(v. 14), but the Synagogue (ii. 2) — a word which
even the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews
seems purposely to avoid, but which was used ex
clusively by the Ebionites.1 When alluding to the
object of faith, he speaks not of Christ, but of " One
God" (ii. 19). He warns against swearing by the
heaven and by the earth (v. 12), which we know from
the Gospels (Matt. v. 33) to have been common formulae
of Jewish adjuration. He saw in Jews the catechu
mens of Christianity, and in Christians the ideal Jews.
The fact is, that alike in the real and in the traditional
St. James we see the traces of views which distinguished
three parties of Jewish Christians in the first century,
and which continued to exist in three classes of Jewish
Christians in the second. Like St. Paul and like the
Nazarenes, he did not insist on the observance of
Mosaism by the Gentiles ; yet, like the milder Ebion
ites, he appears to have leaned — or, at any rate, his
followers leaned — to the belief that even for Gentiles
1 Epiphan. Saer. xxx. 18.
C

18 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY.
they might be of great importance ; and, like the Es-
sene or ascetic Judaists, he personally adopted the rigid
practices which may have been to him a valuable
training in self-discipline, but which the Colossian
and other heretics regarded as constituting a legal
righteousness. To us the name " Jewish Christian "
may seem almost an oxymoron — a juxtaposition of
contrary terms. We see with St. Paul — whose opin
ions had been the result of special divine training —
that between the bondage of ceremonialism and the
freedom of Christianity — between the righteousness of
legal ordinances and justification by faith — there is a
profound antithesis. But it was impossible that it
could wear this aspect to the early Christians. We
view the matter after nineteen centuries of Christian
experience ; they were the immediate heirs of nineteen
centuries of Jewish history.
But while in the first line of his letter St. James
testifies to his own faith, he must have known that
his words would be received with respect by genuine
Hebrews, and that it would be useless to enforce the
lessons which he wished to impress upon all his
countrymen by appeals distinctively Christian. His
whole nation was in a state of wild tumult; swayed
by passion and worldliness; indulging in the fierce
language of hatred, fanaticism, and conceit ; becoming
godless in their tone of thought; relying on the
orthodoxy of Monotheism; careless and selfish in
the duties of life; forgetful of the omnipotence of
prayer. And the Christians whom he is addressing,
being Jews, participated in these dangers. He wished
to make the Christians better Christians, to teach
them a truer wisdom, a purer morality. He wished

ESSENES AND EBIONITES. 19
to make them better Christians by making them
better Israelites ; and he wished to convert the
Israelites into being worthier members of the com
monwealth of Israel before he could win them to
become heirs of the covenant of the better promise.
If we bear these circumstances in mind, if we also
remember that his letter is not intended for a dogmatic
treatise, but for the moral exhortation of one to whom
the Law means the rule of life as Jesus had taught it,
we shall be better able to judge of the rashness which
has only condemned or slighted this Epistle because it
has failed to understand the true purpose of the writer.
Again, to grasp the full meaning of St. James, we
must appreciate the passionate earnestness of one whose
ideal is too stern to admit of any compromise with the
aims and pleasures of the world.
i. Critics have spoken of the Essenism and the Ebionism
of the Epistle. But although " help and mercy " were
special duties of the Essene, and though St. James
" writes mercy upon his flag," there is no trace that he
was an Essene. Doubtless he sympathised with many
of the views of that singular body. Any Essene might
have spoken just as St. James does about oaths, and
riches, and merchandise, and the virtue of silence, and
the duty of checking wrath;1 but so might any Chris
tian who had studied, as St. James had studied, the
precepts of the Sermon on the Mount. The later
Ebionites represented Judaism when it had passed into
heresy. The views and tendencies of the early Chris
tians in Jerusalem, before they had been modified by
1 Comp. Ja. i. 19; ii. 5, 13; iv. 13; v. 12; with Josephus, Bell.
Jud. II. 8, 6, and Philo, Quod omnia prob. lib., § 12 (Hilgenfeld, Mnleit.
p. 539). C 2

20 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY.
the teachings of experience, were only Ebionite in a
sense perfectly innocent. In these views and tendencies
St. James shared, but he did not fall into the extravagant
exaggeration by which they were subsequently carica
tured. ii. Some, again, have seen in the expressions of St.
James an Orphic colouring ; but of this we require
much stronger proof than the phrases " the engrafted
word," or "the wheel of being" (iii. 6), even though
those phrases may be illustrated by parallels in the
writings of Pythagoreans.1 Undoubtedly, however, we
find a peculiarity of the Epistle in the extreme frequency
of the parallels between its language and that of other
writers. These are so numerous that I have no space
to write them out at length, but no careful reader can
entirely miss them.2 They show how strong was the
originality which could absorb influences from many
different sources, and yet maintain its own perfect in
dependence. In this respect the Epistle of St. James
1 The hexameter in i. 17 (where the word Sup-qua is unknown to the
N. T. in this sense), and the expression "Father of lights" have been
suspected of being borrowed from Alexandrian sources. For the latter
see Dan. viii. 10.
2 Every chapter will furnish parallels to passages in the Sermon on the
Mount (see Matt. v. 3, 4, 10—12, 22, 24, 33—37, 48; vi. 14, 15, 19, 24;
vii. 1 — 5, 7 — 12, 21—23) and the eschatological discourse (Mk. xiii. 7, 9, 29,
32). For the very remarkable and close parallels to the Book of Eccle-
siasticus, comp. i. 5, 8—12, 13, 19, 23, 25 ; iii. 5, 6, respectively with
Ecclus. xx. 15; xii. 22; i. 28 ; xv. 11 ; v. 11 ; xx. 7 ; xii. 11; xiv. 23;
xxviii. 10, 19 (especially in the Greek). For parallels to the Book of
Wisdom, comp. Ja. i. 10, 11, 17, 20; ii. 21 ; iv. 14; v. 1—6, with Wisdom
ii. 8; v. 8; vii. 17—20; xii. 16; x. 5 ; v. 9—14; ii. 1—24. For parallels
to the Book of Proverbs, comp. i. 5, 6, 12, 19, 21; iii. 5; iv. 6; v. 20,
respectively with Prov. iii. 5, 6; xxiii. 34; iii. 11; Eccl. v. 2; Prov.
xxx. 12 ; xvi. 27 ; iii. 34 ; x. 12. Many more might be added, but the
student who will verify these references for himself will see how fully the
points mentioned in the text are proved.

STYLE OF ST. JAMES. 21
differs remarkably from the Epistle of St. Clemens of
Eome. St. James, even while he borrows alike ' from
Jewish prophets and from Alexandrian theosophists,
fuses their language into a manifesto of Judaic Chris
tianity by the heat and vehemence of his own indivi
duality. He strikes lightning into all he borrows. St.
Clemens is far more passively receptive. He has the
amiable and conciliatory catholicity which leads him
to adopt the moral teaching of all schools ; but he
has none of the individual force which might have
enabled him to infuse into what he has borrowed an
individual force.
iii. The style of St. James, as compared with his
tone of thought, presents the singular combination of
pure, eloquent, and even rhythmical Greek, with the
prophetic vehemence and fiery sternness of the Hebrew
prophet. The purity of the Greek idiom has been
made a ground for doubting the genuineness of the
Epistle.1 But the objection is without weight. Pales
tine — even Galilee — was in those days bilingual. James
had probably spoken Greek from his birth. He would
therefore find no difficulty in writing in that language,
and his natural aptitude may have given him a better
style than that of many of his countrymen.2 But even
if not, what difficulty is there in the supposition that
St. James, like St. Peter, employed an " interpreter,"3 or

1 E.g., De Wette asks, How could James write such good Greek ?
2 Incomparably better, for instance, than that of St. John in the
Apocalypse. 3 St. Mark and a certain Glaucias are both mentioned as "interpre
ters " of St. Peter. Of the latter — claimed as an authority by the
Basilidians— nothing is known ; but St. Mark may have acted as " in
terpreter " to St. Peter rather when he needed Latin at Rome than when
he wrote in Greek.

22 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY.
adopted the common plan of submitting his manuscript
to the revision of some accomplished Hellenist ? The
thoughts, the order of them, and the tone in which
they are expressed, are exactly such as we should have
expected, from all that we know of the writer. The
form of expression may easily have been corrected by
any literary member of the Church of Jerusalem. But
the accent of authority, the noble sternness, the demand
for unwavering allegiance to the laws of God — even the
poetic parallelisms1 — are all his own. When Schleier
macher speaks of " much bombast " in the Epistle, and
describes the style as being "in part ornate, in part
clumsy," it is because he criticises it from a wrong
standpoint. It is like Voltaire criticising iEschylus or
Shakspeare. It is due to the application of Hellenic
canons to Semitic genius. The style of St. James is
formed on the Hebrew prophets, as his thoughts are
influenced by the Hebrew gnomologists. He has
nothing of the Pauline method of dialectic ; he is never
swept away, like St. Paul, by the tide of his own im
passioned feeling. His moral earnestness glows with
the steady light of a furnace, never rushes with the
uncontrolled force of a conflagration. The groups of
thoughts follow each other in distinct sections, which
never interlace each other, and have little or no logical
connexion or systematic advance. He plunges in
medias res with each new topic; says first in the
plainest and most straightforward manner exactly what
he means to say, and enforces it afterwards with strong
diction, passionate ejaculations, rapid interrogatives,
and graphic similitudes. He generally begins mildly,
and with a use of the word "brethren," but as he dwells
1 Bishop Jebb, Sacred Literat. p. 273.

STYLE OF ST. JAMES. 23
on the point his words seem to grow incandescent with
the writer's vehemence.1 In many respects his style
resembles that of a fiery prophetic oration rather than
of a letter. The sententious form is the expression of
a practical energy which will tolerate no opposition.
The changes — often apparently abrupt — from one topic
to another ; the short sentences, which seem to quiver
in the mind of the hearer from the swiftness with
which they have been launched forth ; the sweeping
reproofs, sometimes unconnected by conjunctions,2
sometimes emphasised by many conjunctions ;3 the
manner in which the phrases seem to catch fire as the
writer proceeds ; the vivid freshness and picturesque
energy of the expressions ;4 — all make us fancy that we
are listening to some great harangue which has for its
theme the rebuke of sin and the exhortation to
righteousness, in order to avert the awfulness of some
imminent crisis. The power of his /style consists in the
impression which it leaves of the burning sincerity and
lofty character of the author.
iv. For these reasons it is almost impossible to write
an analysis of the Epistle. The analysis is only a cata
logue of the subjects with which it deals.6 Writing
1 As specimens of his method in these respects see ii. 1 — 13 ; iv. 11, 12.
2 Asyndeton, or absence of conjunctions, Ja. v. 3 — 6.
3 Polysyndeton, or multiplicity of conjunctions, Ja. iv. 13.
4 What the ancient critics call Zziv&ri\s. St. James is a perfect autocrat
in the use of words. He abounds in hapax legomena, or expressions either
not found elsewhere or not in the New Testament. These are mentioned
in the notes.
5 Ewald arranges it in seven divisions, followed by three shorter
paragraphs : —
i. 2—18. On trials.
i. 19 — 27. How we ought to hear and do God's Word.
ii. 1 — 13. Right behaviour in general.
ii. 14 — 26. The relation between Faith and Works.

24 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY.
to those who are suffering trials, he exhorts them to
endurance, that they may lack nothing (i. 1 — 4). But
if they lack wisdom, they must ask God for it, and
desire it with whole-heartedness (5 — 8). The enemy
of whole-heartedness is often worldly wealth, and he
therefore tells them how blessed poverty may be, and
how transitory are riches (9 — 11). Since poverty is in
itself a trial, he shows the blessedness of enduring the
trials which come from God. But there are trials
which, while they come in the semblance of trials from
God, have their origin in lust and their end death
(12 — 15). It is only the good and perfect gifts which
come from God ; above all, the gift of our birth by the
Word of Truth (16 — 18). Let them in meekness and
purity live worthily of that Word of Truth (19 —
21) ; let them be doers, and not mere hearers of it
(22 — 25) ; let them learn to distinguish between ex
ternal service and the true ritual of loving unselfishness
(26, 27).
Then passing to some of their special national
faults, he first sternly rebukes the respect of persons,
which was contrary to Christ's ideal, and a sin against
the perfect law of liberty (ii. 1 — 13). It is, perhaps,
iii- 1 — 18. Control of the tongue is true wisdom.
iv. 1—12. The evils of strife.
iT- 13 — v. 11. Perils of the rich, and duty of endurance with reference
to the coming of Christ.
(i.) v. 12. The sinfulness of needless oaths.
(ii.) v. 13 — 18. The power of prayer, especially in sickness.
(iii.) v. 19, 20. The blessing of converting others.
The reader will perhaps think some of the divisions somewhat artificial,
especially as Ewald himself describes them. But there is nothing sur
prising in the general fact that a Jewish-Christian should arrange his
work with some reference to numerical symmetry ; and Ewald points out
that the number three prevails in ii. 19, iii. 15, and the number seven in
iii. 17.

TOPICS OF THE EPISTLE. 25
because he saw the origin of this selfish arrogance and
abject servility in the reliance which they placed on
a nominal orthodoxy, that he enters into the question
about faith and works, to show that the former, in his
sense of the word, is dead, and therefore valueless
without the latter (14 — 26).
Then he powerfully warns them against the sins of
the, tongue in passion and controversy (iii. 1 — 12) ; and
to show that the loudest and angriest talker is not there
fore in the right, he draws a contrast between true and
false wisdom (13 — 18).
The source of the evils on which he has been
dwelling is the unbridled lust which springs from
worldliness. They need humility, and the determina
tion to fight against sin, and sincere repentance (iv.
1 — 10), which will show itself in an avoidance of
evil speaking (11, 12), and in a deeper sense that
their life is wholly in God's disposing hands (13 —
17). After this he bursts into a strong denunciation of
the rich who live in pride, oppression, and self-indul
gence (v. 1 — 6), while he comforts the poor, and
counsels them to patience (7 — 11). Then he warns
against careless oaths (12), gives counsels for the time
of sickness (13 — 15), advises mutual confession of
sins (16), dwells once more on the efficacy of prayer, as
shown in the example of Elijah (16 — 20), and ends
somewhat abruptly with a weighty declaration of the
blessedness of converting others.
v. If it be asked what is the one predominant
thought in the Epistle, its one idea and motive, the
answer seems to be neither (as some have supposed) the
blessedness of enduring temptation — though this is

26 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY.
very prominent in it ; x nor a polemic against mistaken
impressions respecting justification by faith, though
that occupies an important section ; 2 nor an Ebionismg
exaltation of the poor over the rich, though the rich
are sternly warned ;3 nor a contrast between the friend
ship of the world and the enmity of God.4 Each of
these topics has its own weight and importance, but to
bring any of them into exclusive prominence is to
confuse the general with the special. The general
object, as is shown again and again, is to impress the
conviction that Christian faithfulness must express
itself in the energy and action of loving service.5
" Temptations," indeed, occupy a large share in his
thoughts, but he wished his readers to try against
them the " expulsive power of good affections." The
ritualism of active love and earnestness in prayer are
with him the means of perfection.6
vi. It is this object which gives to the Epistle its
controversial aspect. St. Paul says that a man is justi
fied by faith ; St. James, that he is justified by works ;
but St. James is using the word " faith " from the
standpoint of Jewish realism, not of Pauline ideality.
With both of these Apostles the Law is an inward,
not an outward thing; a principle of liberty, not, a
1 Ja. i. 3 and 4, Inro/iovii ; 12, fuucdpios aviip, is inro/i.4vei ; V. 7, /j.anpo0v-
liio-are oiv, a$e\<po\ . . . fiaKpo6v/idv ; 8, fiaKpodvuio-aTe Kal i/iets ; 10, iir6Seiy/ia
A(£j8eTe . . . T7js ficutpoBvftias 11, iwo/tevovras.
2 ii. 10—26.
3 ii. 1—7 ; iv. 1—10 ; v. 1—6.
4 iv. 4, 5 (1 J. ii. 15—17), and he opposes special forms of worldliness
in i. 2—15 ; ii. 1—4 ; iii. 1—18 ; iv. 13, 14.
6 i. 4, 22 ; ii. 14-26 ; iii. 13—17 ; iv. 17, &c.
6 St. James dwells on this word, i. 3, 25 ; iii. 2 ; v. 4 ; " Tout dans
Pecriture est l'ideal " (Ad. Monod). He speaks of prayer in i 5 ¦ iv 2
3 8; v. 13— 18.

IDEAL OF ST. JAMES. 27
yoke of bondage ; a word of truth ; a living im
pulse of fruitful activity implanted in man.1 Seeing
the danger of doctrinal formalism, St. James writes to
counteract its unpractical tendencies, and to furnish us
— from the standpoint, indeed, of Jewish Christianity,
but still of an enlightened, liberal, and spiritualised
form of it — the delineation of the Christian as he ought
to be, " as a perfect man in the perfection of the
Christian life, which can only be properly conceived as
a perfect work." And from this point of view his
letter was a valuable contribution to the formation
of a Catholic Christianity. There is nothing harshly
intended in its statement of the counter-aspect of the
truth which St. Paul had proclaimed. St. Paul would
himself have rebutted the one-sided distortion of
his views; and he who opposes one-sided tendencies
always does a useful work. It is a duty of Catholic
Christianity to adjust one truth with another, and to
place apparent contraries in their position of proper
equilibrium.2 It is inevitable — it is even desirable —
that men should approach truth from many points
of view. We can only hope to gain completeness
of vision by combining their separate results. It is
certain that we ourselves shall be more inclined, by
temperament and training, to dwell on one aspect of
truth than we shall on others. Yet it is not there
fore necessary that we should become party men. It
is possible to insist upon party truths without being
tainted by party spirit. There existed at least three
marked parties in the early Christian Church — the
1 \6yos %/j.<pvTos. Ja. i. 21.
2 See the few but weighty remarks of Baur, Ch. Sist. pp. 128 — 130,
though he unfortunately denies the genuineness of the Epistle.

28 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY.
parties of Jewish, of Alexandrian, and of Pauline Chris
tianity. There were many Christians who would not
identify themselves with any of these parties, but who
aimed at being many-sided, conciliatory, catholic. Now
St. James stood at the head of the party of Jewish
Christians, though his followers thrust him more pro
minently into this position than he would have himself
desired.1 But if we would see the depth of difference
which separates him from the Jewish Christians to
whom the party-view was everything, and the common
Christianity was, by comparison, as nothing, we shall
be able to judge of it by reading his Epistle side
by side with the poisonous innuendoes and rancorous
calumnies of the pseudo-Clementines. Their polemic
consisted in secretly maligning the views and character
of the Apostle of the Gentiles. The polemic of St.
James issued in the delineation of the moral character
of a Christian man. The party controversialists only
fostered mutual hatred and opposition ; St. James drew
so noble a picture of Christian faithfulness that, as
has well been said, " a Church which lived in sincere
accordance with his lessons would in no respect dis
honour the Christian name."
In proceeding to examine the Epistle of St. James,
we shall do so with deeper interest if we bear in mind
that it is yet another appeal of a great Christian writer
to Jews and Jewish Christians shortly before the final
destruction of their separate nationality. St. Paul had
shown them the eternal superiority of the new to the
old covenant. St. Peter had shown them how Chris
tianity was the true kingdom, the royal priesthood, the
1 Acts xv. 24, " to whom we gave no such commandment."

CHARACTER OF THE EPISTLE. 29
theocratic inheritance. Apollos, in the Epistle to the
Hebrews, had furnished them with a masterly proof
that Christians had the true priesthood, which could alone
admit any man into the heavenly sanctuary. St. James
calls them to obey the royal Law, the law of liberty.
Thus they had been shown by St. Paul and Apollos
that the rejection of Christianity, or apostasy from it,
was the rejection of, or apostasy from, grace to sin — from
the substance to the shadow. St. Peter had warned
them against murmuring and faithless impatience ; St.
James sternly sets before them the perils of insincerity
and double-mindedness. And the common message of
all is that Jews who had embraced the faith of Christ
should hope and endure, and be faithful unto the
end. vii. In one respect the Epistle is unique. Alone of
the twenty Epistles of the New Testament, it begins
with no benediction, and ends with no message of
peace.1 We might, perhaps, see in this fact a reflexion
of the unbending character of the writer. He was a
man who in many respects stood alone, and whose
manner it was to say what he had to say without
formula or preamble, in the fewest and simplest
words. The times demanded sternness and brevity.
They resembled the days which had called forth the
sixfold woe of Isaiah2 on greed, and luxury, and un
belief, and pride, and injustice, and the reversal of
moral truths; and which had forced him to end those

1 This might be said also of the First Epistle of St. John ; but that
Epistle — even if we do not accept the view that it was sent to accompany
the Gospel — has no epistolary address, and is partly of the nature of a
treatise. 2 Is. v. 1—30.

30 THE. EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY.
woes with the denunciation of terrible retribution.
Hollow professions of religion, empty shows and
shadows of faith, partiality and respect of persons,
slavish idolatry of riches, observance of some of God's
commandments, together with open and impious
defiance of others; arrogant assumption of the office
of religious teaching without due call and authority;
encouragement and patronage of those who set them
selves up to be spiritual guides ; sins of the tongue ;
evil speaking against man and God ; envying and
strife ; factions and party feuds ; wars and fightings ;
adulteries ; pride and revelry ; sordid worldliness and
presumptuous self-confidence ; a Babel-like building up
of secular plans and projects, independently of God's
will, and against it; vainglorious display of wealth;
hard-heartedness towards those by whose industry that
wealth is acquired ; self-indulgence and sensuality ; an
obstinate continuance in that temper of unbelief which
rejected and crucified Christ ; " these," as we see from
this Epistle, " were the sins of the last days of Jerusa
lem ; for these she was to be destroyed by God ; for
these she was destroyed; and her children have been
scattered abroad, and have now been outcasts for near
two thousand years. . . . Amid such circumstances,
St. James, the Apostle and Bishop of Jerusalem,
wrote this Epistle — an Epistle of warning to Jerusalem
— the last warning it received from the Holy Spirit of
God. He thus discharged the work of a Hebrew
Prophet and of a Christian Apostle. He came forth as
a Christian Jeremiah and a Christian Malachi. A
Jeremiah in denouncing woe ; a Malachi sealing up the
roll of Divine prophecy to Jerusalem: and not to
Jerusalem only, but to the Jews throughout the world,

A FAREWELL VOICE. 31
who were connected with Jerusalem by religious
worship and by personal resort to its great festal anni
versaries. The Epistle of St. James is the farewell
voice of Hebrew prophecy."1
1 Bishop Wordsworth, whom I quote the more gladly because I dissent
widely from his exegetical views.

CHAPTEE XXII.
THE EPISTLE OF ST. JAMES.
" Christianorum omnis religio sine scelere et macula vivere." — Lac-
TANTIUS. " 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 ! . . . How he wants action ! Action ! not
words, not dead faith!" — Herder.
As we have now learnt all that we can about the
author of the Epistle, and the circumstances under
which he wrote, we shall be in a better position to
understand rightly his solemn teaching.
" James, a slave of God and of the Lord Jesus
Christ," l — such is the title which he assumes, and the
only personal word in his entire Epistle.2 It was a
simple title, and yet in his eyes, as in those of the
other Apostles, nobler than any other badge which he
could adopt, for they all felt that they were "bought
with a price." He will not call himself an Apostle,
1 This and ii. 1 are the only passages in which the names " Jesus " or
" Christ" occur, but by no means the only references to Him. See supra,
p. 15. Bengel says that it might have looked like pride if he had seemed
to speak too much of Jesus after the flesh. The real solution of the
matter lies in the object and character of the Epistle. He does not,
indeed, mention Christ in his speech (Acts xv. 14 — 21); but that was
brief and purely special. The wording of ii. 1, and the association of
Jesus with God the Father in this verse, clearly shows that to St. James
the Lord was not the tyi\bs avBpuiros of the Ebionites ; nor would James
have called himself " a slave " of any mortal man. See Christologie, i. 95.
2 imip iruv 5e Koaft-iKhv a£la>fui . . . rb SoCXoi elrai Xpicrrov KaXAtoiri^iJfiej'Oi
tovto yvdipurpia kavrutv fHovKoyrai iroielo-dai ((Ecumen.) ; Rom. i. 1 ; 2 Pet. i. 1,
etc.; 1 Cor. vi. 20; vii. 23.

"ADELPHOTHEOS." 33
because in the highest technical sense he is not an
Apostle, since he is not one of the Twelve.1 He had no
need of any such title to command the attention of
Christians, among whom he exercised unquestioned
authority, and it was not a title which would be recog
nised among the unconverted Jews, whom he also
desired to address. Nor, again, will he call himself
" a brother of the Lord." That was a claim which
was thrust into prominence on his behalf by others,
but it is not one which he would himself have approved.
It reminded him, perhaps painfully, of the wasted
opportunities of those years in which he had not
believed on Him ; nor could he forget with what
marked emphasis the Lord Jesus, from the begin
ning of His public ministry, had set aside as of no
spiritual significance the claims of fleshly relationship.
Of the Eisen, of the glorified, of the Eternal Christ,
he was in no sense "the brother," but "the slave."2 I
cannot imagine that he would have listened without
indignation to the name conferred on him by the
heated partisanship of those who in after days
called him " the brother of God." The name would
have shocked to its inmost depths the feeling which
every Jew imbibed from the earliest training of his
childhood respecting the nothingness of man and
the awfulness and unapproachable majesty of God.
He was, in a secondary and carnal sense, a half-
brother of Jesus in His earthly humiliation ; but
he must have learnt from the words of the Lord
Himself that this kinsmanship in the flesh could
1 " The thirteen Apostles were appointed by the Lord ; St. James, St.
Clemens, and others by the Apostles " {Apost. Constt. ii. 55).
2 Rom. i. 1 ; Pet. i. 1 ; Jude 1.
d

34 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY.
hardly redeem from unconscious blasphemy a name so
confusing, so unwarrantable, and so unscriptural, as
" brother of God." In the only sense in which the
word could have any meaning, every faithful Christian
was in all respects as much "a brother of God" as he.
That he was, in common parlance, " a brother of Him
who was called the Christ," there was no need for him
to mention. It was a fact known to every Jew of the
Dispersion who visited Jerusalem at the yearly feasts,
and it even stands as a description of St. James on the
indifferent page of the Jewish historian.
" To the twelve tribes that are in the Dispersion,1
giving them joy."2 The ten tribes had, as a body,
been indistinguishably lost among the nations into
whose countries they had been transplanted ; 3 but
there were probably some communities, and certainly
many families, which had preserved their genealogy,
and still took pride in the thought that they belonged
to this or that tribe of ancient Israel.4 And the
nation never lost the sense of its ideal unity. The
number " twelve " was to the Jews a symbolic number.
1 See Life and Work of St. Paul, i. 115 seq. The word Diaspora occurs
in John vii. 35 ; 1 Pet. i. 1 ; and in the LXX. of Ps. cxlvi. 2 ; Deut.
xxviii. 25.
2 See infra, p. 36.
3 Dean Plumptre points out that the first appearance of the fiction that
the Ten Tribes were somewhere preserved as one body is in 2 Esdr. xiii.
39—47, where the author says that, in the determination to keep their own
statutes, " they took this counsel among themselves, that they would leave
the multitude of the heathen, and go forth into a farther country, where
never mankind dwelt." The Talmud recognises their entire dispersion.
Thus Rabbi Ashe said, " If a Gentile should betroth a Jewess, the betrothal
may not now be invalid, for he may be a descendant of one of the Ten
Tribes, and so of the seed of Israel" (Yevamoth, f. 16, 6). Again, "the
Ten Tribes will never be restored (Deut. xxviii. 25) . . . so says R.
Akhiva" (Sanhedrin, f. 110, 6).
4 E.g., the widow Anna, who was of the tribe of Asher.

THE TWELVE TRIBES. 35
" Three " was to them the sacred number, the number
of Spirit, the number of the life that is in God;
"four " was the number which symbolised Divine
Providence ; " twelve " (4 x 3) was the number of
Heavenly completeness, the number of the consumma
tion of the Kingdom of God.1 Hence St. Paul also
speaks of " the dodekaphulon," 2 our " twelve-tribed
nation," and St. John, in the Apocalypse, echoes in
various forms3 the conception of the Elect of the Twelve
Tribes in Heaven which had been involved in the promise
of Christ, " Ye also shall sit upon twelve thrones judg
ing the Twelve Tribes of Israel."4
It is a curious and undesigned coincidence that this
letter, and the encyclical letter from the Church of
Jerusalem, of which St. James was the main author,
are the only two Christian letters in the New Testa
ment which begin with the greeting " giving them
joy."5 It was distinctively the Greek salutation. The
Jewish was Shalom — " Peace." 6 St. Paul, wishing to
combine in his salutations all that was most blessed
alike in ethnic and in spiritual life, combines the two
national methods of salutation in his %a/w ical elptfvr),
" grace and peace," which in his pastoral Epistles is
tenderly amplified into " grace, mercy, and peace."
1 See Herzog, Real. Encycl., s. v. Zahlen ; Lange, Apocalypse, Introd.,
§ 6, a.
2 Acts xxvi. 7.
3 12 tribes ; 24 elders ; 12,000 of each tribe ; 144,000 of the followers
of the Lamb, etc. The latter number is so far from being narrowly
restrictive, that it stands for a number ideally complete.
4 Matt. xix. 28 ; Rev. vii. 5—8.
6 Acts xv. 23, x<^Pel". The word also occurs in the Greek letter of
Claudius Lysias to Felix (Acts xxiii. 26), and in that of Antiochus in
2 Mace. ix. 19. Its recurrence here is one of the undesigned coincidences
between this letter and the account given of St. James in the Acts.
6 Is. xlviii. 22 ; lvii. 21, where Shalom is rendered x<»Ve»' by the LXX.
d 2

36 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY.
I have here rendered the word by " giving them
joy "1 because it forms the transition to the opening
passage, "My brethren, count it all joy." This mode
of transition by the repetition of a word — which is
technically known as duadiplosis — is very characteristic
of this Epistle, and forms, in fact, the writer's ordinary
method of passing from one paragraph to another.2
The remainder of the chapter — the phraseology of which
I will endeavour to elucidate in the notes, and the
general bearing in the text — runs as follows : —
" Count it all joy,3 my brethren,4 when ye suddenly fall into
varied temptations,5 recognising that the testing of your faith6 works
endurance ; but let endurance have a perfect work,' that ye may be
perfect and complete, lacking nothing 8 (i. 2 — 4).
" But if any one of you lacks wisdom,9 let him ask from God, who
1 Comp. 2 John 10, 11. The absence of any opening benediction may
be due to the general character of the letter.
2 Thus we have ver. 1, %aipav ; ver. 2, x&Pav ! &ro/u>rfiv, ver. 3, y Se
inrofiovf) • ver. 4, KenrS/ievot, ver. 5, ei Se rts \eimrai ; ver. 6, ^7)Sey hiaK.pivop.ivos
S yap Siaicptv6ixevos, &c. ; and so throughout.
3, irucrav xaP°-"j merum gaudium, eitel Freude. Comp. Luke vi. 22, 23 ;
Acts v. 41 ; Col. i. 24.
4 The perpetual recurrence of this word shows that the wounds which
St. James inflicts are meant to be the faithful wounds of a friend.
5 Tre/jiTre'oTjTe of sudden accidents, as Kytmus impieweo-ev, Luke x. 30;
irepiireo-rfj'Tes Se eis t6ttov Si8d\aocroi>. The word ttoIkiKos literally means
"many-coloured." Comp. iirtBuptais iroLKiKais, 2 Tim. iii. 6. The word
" temptations " includes all forms of trial : Luke xxii. 28 ; Acts xx. 19.
Persecution was rife at this time : 1 Thess. ii. 14 ; Heb. x. 32, 33.
6 Verse 3, rb Soxl/uov bii&v ttjs ir/oreois. St. Peter (1 Pet. i. 7) uses
the same phrase, and the coincidence can hardly be accidental.
1 Matt. xxiv. 13 — <S Se viro/ielvas eis Te'Aos o-aifl^treTai.
8 " The work of God," says Alford, " in a man is the man." The
word Te'Aeios is a favourite one with St. James (i. 3, 4, 17, 25;
iii. 2), borrowed, doubtless, from the words of our Lord (Matt. v. 48;
xix. 21). 'Oh6K\npos is also used by St. Paul (1 Thess. v. 23), and means
" well regulated in every part " (Acts iii. 16). Philo and Josephus use it
for unblemished sacrificial victims.
9 " Wisdom " with St. James is evidently that practical wisdom which
surpasses knowledge {yvSiais), because it not only knows truth, but acts

EPISTLE OF ST. JAMES. 37
giveth to all simply1 and upbraideth not,2 and it shall be given
him3 (5).
" But let him ask in faith,4 nothing doubting,6 for he that doubteth
is like a wave of the sea wind-driven6 and tossed about. For let not
that person think that he shall receive anything7 from the Lord — a
double-minded man,8 unsettled in all his ways9 (6 — 8).
upon that knowledge {Etym. Magn.). Comp. iii. 15—17; 1 Cor. xii. 8;
Col. ii. 3.
1 air\as. So in Rom. xii. 8 we are bidden to grow in " simplicity."
2 The meaning of this expression is best seen from Ecclus. xx. 15,
where it is said of the fool, " He giveth little, and upbraideth much ; he
openeth his mouth like a crier ; to-day he lendeth, and to-morrow he will
ask. Such an one is to be hated of God and man;" Id. xii. 22, "After
thou hast given, upbraid not" (M oi/eiSife). The " exprobratio benefici"
(Ter. Andr. i. 1) — i.e., the casting in the teeth of others what we have
done for them — is a vice of all ages.
3 See 1 Kings iii. 11, 12, "Because thou hast asked this thing
(wisdom), behold, I have done according to thy word," Luke xi. 13 ;
Ecclus. vii. 10, " Be not fainthearted when thou makest thy prayer.'' We
see here that by " faith " St. James means undivided confidence in God.
4 See v. 15 ; Matt. xxi. 22, " All things whatsoever ye ask in prayer,
believing, ye shall receive."
6 AiaKpiyoftevos, Matt. xxi. 21, " If ye have faith and doubt not
(^j) Sia/tpi077Te), ye shall do not only the miracle of the fig-tree, but," &c. ;
Rom. iv. 20, Abraham o« Sie/cp/fljj rrj cwno-Wa. " When faith says ' yes '
and unbelief says 'no,'" says Huther, "to doubt (8ioKp/ye<r8«i) is the
union of ' yes ' and ' no,' but so that ' no ' is the weightier. The deep-
lying ground of it is pride." Dean Plumptre quotes from Tennyson —
" Faith and unfaith can ne'er be equal powers,
Unfaith in aught is want of faith in all."
6 avc/iiCofiivcp r/col finrt£ofiEvij>. The words occur here only, and k\6Sui>
("billow") only in Luke viii. 24; but we have the metaphor in
Is. lvii. 20 ; Eph. iv. 14. The words well express the state of tumultuous
excitement which preceded the Jewish War.
7 That is, " any special answer to prayer."
8 'Aviip Sl<f/vxos. " The man who has two souls in conflict with each other."
This striking expression occurs only at iv. 8. Rabbi Tanchum (/. 84)
on Deut. xxvi 17 gives a close parallel, " Let not those who pray have
two hearts, one directed to God, one to something else." Comp. 1 Kings
xviii. 21; Ps. xii. 2, "a double heart" {lit. "a heart and a heart");
Ecclus. i. 28, " Come not unto the Lord with a double heart ; " Is. ii. 12,
" Woe be to . . . the sinner that goeth two ways ;" Matt. vi. 24, " No
man can serve two masters." The passage is imitated in " The Shepherd
of Hermas " {Mandat. ix.).
9 'AKardo-Taros. A classical expression (again) found only in St. James

38 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY.
" But let the humble brother glory in his exaltation, but the rich
in his humiliation,1 because as the flower of the grass he shall pass
away.2 For the sun ariseth with the burning wind, and drieth the
grass, and its flower fadeth away, and the beauty of its aspect
perisheth;3 so also shall the rich man fade away in his goings4
(9-11). " Blessed is the man5 who endureth temptation, for when he has
been approved he shall receive the garland of the life6 which He
promised7 to those who love Him8 (12).
" Let no one who is being tempted say, ' I am being tempted
from God.' For God is out of the sphere of evils,9 and Himself
(iii. 8). Comp. Is. liv. 11, " tossed with tempest ;" 'AKaraaraala, iii. 16 ;
Luke xxi. 9 ; 1 Cor. xiv. 33, &c. It is one who " never continueth in one
stay" (Job xiv. 2).
1 For the different views taken of this verse see infra, p. 43.
KavxaffBai is literally " to boast." Rom. ii. 17, &c.
2 For the metaphor, specially suitable to the brief life of flowers in the
scorching heat of Palestine, see Is. xl. 6, 7 ; Ps. ciii. 15 ; Job xiv. 2 ;
1 Pet. i. 24 ; Wisd. ii. 12, " Let us crown ourselves with rosebuds before
they be withered ;" riches are no " unwithering inheritance " (1 Pet. i. 4)
as the kingdom of God is.
3 The aorist tenses show us the whole story, so to speak. The kausSn
is usually taken to mean the kadim, or simoom, as in Jonah iv. 8 ; the
"east wind" of Ezek. xvii. 10; xix. 12; "the wind of the Lord from
the wilderness " of Hos. xiii. 15 ; but may mean merely " scorching
heat ;" Matt. xx. 12 ; Luke xii. 55.
4 MapavB-qaerai only in Wisd. ii. 8 and Job xv. 30 (LXX.). wopetais is
the best-supported reading, and alludes, perhaps, to travels for purposes
of gain, &c. (iv. 13). (A, iroplais, " gettings.")
6 aviip — " non mollis nee effeminatus sed vir " (Thos. Aquin.).
6 There is no special reference to athletes (Ps. xxi. 3 ; Rev. ii. 10 ;
Wisd. v. 16).
7 The " He " (as in «, A, B) is more emphatic than if he had inserted
" the Lord," and seems to show how early the Talmudic method of
reference had begun.
8 Amor parit patientiam (Bengel).
. B airdpaaTos occurs here only. It means (1) "untempted," and (2)
" one who does not tempt." Luther follows the Vulgate in understanding
it to mean " does not try evil men " {intentator malorum est), or " is not a
tempter of yvell things " (Wiclif ) ; but this St. James has said already.
It seems to mean " has nothing to do with evil things," and therefore
cannot tempt men to evil. CEcumenius quotes a heathen saying, " The
Divine neither suffers troubles nor causes them to others." " Why, then,
is it said that God did tempt Abraham in Gen. xxii. 1 ? That means that

EPISTLE OF ST. JAMES. 39
tempteth no one, but each is ever tempted when he is being drawn
forth1 and enticed by his own desire.2 Then the desire, having con
ceived, bears sin; but sin, when full grown, brings forth death
(13— 15).3
" Be not deceived, my brethren beloved. Every good giving
and every perfect gift4 is from above, descending from the Father of
the Lights,5 with whom there is no varying nor shadow of turning.6
He tried Abraham, not from evil motives to an evil end, but from good
motives to a good end " (Aug.).
1 Prov. xxx. 13 (LXX.). The word may be used of "dragging a
prey to land," as in Hdt. ii. 76, and so we might take the metaphor to be
one from fishing. The word 8eKea(£p.ei>os may also mean " enticing with
a bait," as in 2 Pet. ii. 14, 18 ; Xen. Mem. ii. 1, § 4. But the further
expansion of the metaphor shows that he is thinking of the enticement of
the harlot Sense (Prov. vii. 16 — 23), to which in classical and Hellenistic
usage the words are equally applicable (Horn. Od. ir. 294; Arist. Polit.
v. 10 ; Testam. XII. Patriarch, p. 702) ; and especially Plutarch's De Ser.
Nun. Vindict. ; " the sweetness of desire, like a bait (Se'Aeap), entices
(e|eXKei) men.''
2 " No man taketh harm but by himself ;" " passion becomes to each
his own God;" "sibi euique Deusfit dira cupido" (Virg. 2En. ix. 185).
3 Milton expands the metaphor into an allegory in Par. Lost, ii. 745 —
814. Lange points out the varying expressions of the New Testament :
" Sin brings forth death " (James) ; " death is the wages of sin " (Paul) ;
" sin is death " (John).
4 This forms in the original a perfect hexameter, except that the last
syllable of Siais is lengthened —
¦naua So'rris ayaBi) Kal tray Sdprifia ri\eiov.
On these metrical phrases see note on Heb. xii. 14. Sdpruia only occurs in
Rom. v. 16. " From above " (John iii. 3, 7, 31 ; xix. 11). Bishop Andrewes,
in two sermons on this text, says the Uats ayaBy refers to the gifts of eternal
life ; the 86pyp.a Te\eiov the treasures kid up for us in eternity.
6 By "the lights" is meant probably "the heavenly bodies," as in
Ps. cxxxvi. 7 ; Jer. iv. 23, called in Gen i. 14 <pwarr)pes, which is meta
phorically applied to Christians (John v. 35 ; Phil. ii. 15). The " Father "
then means the Creator (comp. Job xxxviii. 28, "Hath the rain a
father ? "). Some explain it of angels and spirits, and of Him who is
the "Light of the world" (John ix. 5). But the question is not what
meaning the words may be made to include, but what meaning they
originally had.
6 The words are curious — vapahKayri t) rpmys oiroer/t/oir/ta. The first
word is a hapax legomenon in the New Testament (but see 2 Kings ix.- 20,
LXX.), and has been understood to be a technical term of astronomy, like
parallax. But in Epictet. i. 14 it merely means " change," even in an

40 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY.
Because He willed it, He brought us forth by the word of truth that
we might be in some sense1 a first fruit of His creatures2 (16 — 18).
" Ye know,3 my brethren beloved. But let everyone be swift
to listening, slow to speaking,4 slow to wrath. For the wrath of a
man (avSpbs) worketh not the righteousness of God. Therefore laying
aside all filthiness and superfluity of malice, receive in meekness the
implanted word which is able to save your souls.5 But prove your
selves doers of the word, and not hearers only, misleading yourselves
(Col. ii 4 ; Luke xi. 28). For if any one is a hearer of the word, and
not a doer, this person is like a man6 contemplating the face of his
birth in a mirror. For he contemplated himself, and has gone
away,7 and immediately forgot what kind of person he was. But
he who has stooped down to gaze8 into a perfect law, the law of
astronomical sentence; and Plotinus speaks of "a change {irapaWayi)) of
days to nights." It seems, however, to have a semi-technical connexion
with astronomy. 'Awoo-Kiao-pa is also a hapax legomenon, and rponal fihlov
means " the solstices " (see Job xxxviii. 33). Here, however, there seems
to be a general allusion to the changes and revolutions of the sun, moon,
and stars (Wisd. vii. 17 — 19), as compared with the sun which never sets.
Comp. 1 John i. 5, "God is light, and in Him is no darkness at all;"
Ps. cxxxix. 11.
1 mrapxiqv. The nva shows that he is using a new metaphor.
2 On the great theological importance of this verse — all the more
noticeable because the Epistle is predominantly practical — see infra, p. 48.
3 The true reading seems to be fore, A, B, C (Heb. xii. 17 ; Eph. v. 5).
Its very abruptness probably caused the variations of the MSS.
4 Ecclus. v. 11 : " Be swift to hear .... and with patience give
answer ;" " Thou hast two ears and one mouth " (Riickert). CEcumenius
here quotes the proverb that " no one ever repented of having been silent,"
and every one will be reminded of the proverb, " Speech is silvern, Silence
is golden " (Prov. xiii. 3, See. ; Eccl. v. 2) — Philo has the phrase, " slow to
benefit, swift to injure." The Jews were ever " slow to hear " (Heb. v.
11 ; x. 25).
6 It is able, for it is a power of God (Rom. i. 16). Without it they are
unable, whether by outward works (as Pharisees said) or by determination
of will (as Sadducees said) to be saved. On Zp.<pvros, see p. 49.
6 apSpX. Some have referred the term to the comparative carelessness
of men in looking at mirrors (1 Cor. xiii. 12 ; Wisd. vii. 26 ; Ecclus. xii.
12), but it i-s doubtful whether St. James intends any special distinctive
ness in the word (see vers. 8 —12).
7 aireKriKvBev, perf. The tenses make the image more graphic.
8 The true meaning of the word will be seen by a reference to Luke xxiv.
12—" Stooping down and looking in" ; Ecclus. xiv. 23 ; John xx. 5, 11 ;
1 Pet. i. 12 (see the note on that verse). Doubtless St. James thought,

EPISTLE OF ST. JAMES. 41
liberty,1 and has stayed to gaze,2 proving himself not a hearer who
forgets, but a doer who works, he shall be blessed in his doing3
(19—25). "If any one fancies that he is 'religious '* while he is not
bridling his tongue (iii. 2, 3), but is deceiving his own heart, this
man's religious service is profitless. A religious service pure and
undenled6 before our God and Father is this — to take care of orphans
and widows in their affliction (Ex. xxii. 22 — 24; Actsvi. 1), to keep
himself unspotted from the world"6 (26, 27).
in passing, of the Cherubim bending down over the Ark as though to
gaze continually on the revelation of God's will in the moral law. See
on this Word Coleridge {Aids to Reflection, p. 15), " A more happy and
forcible word could not have been chosen to express the nature and ulti
mate object of reflection."
1 " Legum servi sumus ut liberi esse possimus " (Cic). We have seen
already that St. James's ideal of the Law is not that of Moses (Acts xv.
10 ; Gal. v. 1, but comp. Ps. xix. 8 — 11), but that of the Sermon on the
Mount (ii. 8 ; v. 12 ; John viii. 32), the law of the Spirit (Rom. viii. 2),
the law of faith (Rom. iii. 27).
2 Notice the antithesis, irapaKitf/as, Trapafietvas, ovk axpoarys eTn\T)<rp.oo-ivqs,
as against KarevS-qaev, airt\T]\vBev, iirehdBcro.
3 " Ut ipsa actio sit beatitudo '' (Sehneckenburger).
4 Qprio-Ktta means ritual service, external observance ; " gay religions, full
of pomp and gold" (Acts xxvi. 5), which (as we see from Col. ii. 18,
the only other place where the word occurs in the New Testament) have
a perpetual tendency to degenerate into superfluous and self-satisfying
human ordinances {iBeXoBpyo-Kela), and even, to use the bold coinage of
a later writer, iBeKoTrepio-croBprio-iceta. It is the peril and disease of the ex
ternally virtuous — vice corrupting virtue itself into pride and intolerance.
Hence the Oprjo-icos is one who plumes himself on his outward service.
This paragraph illustrates the " slowness to speak," as the last did the
" swiftness to hear." Obtrusiveness in talk is a natural consequence of
a spurious religion.
5 The Jewish notion of defilement was very different (John xviii. 28 ;
Lev. v. 3, and passim ; comp. Ecclus. xxxv. 14). For "the fatherless and
widows" (where "respect of persons" is also alluded to), and for the
general thought, compare Mark vii. 20 — 23 ; Luke xi. 40.
6 St. James would feel this duty all the more keenly, and would feel
that this, and not the performance of outward religious duties was what
God really desired, because the day had been when he too was of the world,
for which reason the world which hated Christ had not hated him (John
vii. 7). By " the world " is here meant everything in the world, and in
the worldly life which tempts to sin (1 Tim. vi. 14). With this thought
compare John xvii. 15 ; 1 Tim. v. 22. With the general thought of the

42 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY.
I have broken the chapter into brief sections to
indicate as far as possible the transitions of thought.
Special difficulties of expression are, I hope, sufficiently
elucidated in the appended notes, and the very literal
translation will show what I believe to be the best
reading and construction. But there are one or two
general points in the chapter which require notice.
i. It will be observed that St. James begins at once
with the subject of temptation, using the word in its
broadest sense of all forms of trial. It includes both
outward persecution — from which the Churches of scat
tered Jews, whether converted or unconverted, were
always liable, from the common hatred which Pagans
felt for them — and those inward temptations which are
often closely connected with outward circumstances.
St. James shows his readers how to turn these tempta
tions into blessings, by making them a source of patient
endurance, and so using them as the fire which purges
and tests the fine gold. Eor the Christian should aim
at such perfection1 (i. 2 — 4).
ii. Now for perfection he needs wisdom2 most of all ;
and if he lacks this wisdom he has only to ask for it
from One whose gifts are absolute and gracious (i. 5).
iii. Yet it is useless to ask without faith in Him to

paragraph comp. Ecclus. xxxv. 2 : "He that requiteth a good turn, ofEereth
fine flour ; and he that giveth alms, sacrificeth praise." The same thought
is found both in Scripture (Deut. x. 12 ; Ps. xl. 7 ; li. 17 ; 1 Sam. xv. 22 ;
Mic. vi. 6 — 9 ; Hos. vi. 6 ; xii. 6, &c.) and in heathen writers.
1 The Christian aims at " endurance," not at " apathy," as the Stoic
did. His endurance has " a sublimer origin, a milder character, a greater
duration, a more glorious fruit " (Van Oosterzee).
2 The history of the next few years shows how deeply the Jews needed
this wisdom. " Wisdom is justified of her children " (Matt. xi. 19) ;—
" and she abode not at Jerusalem, but with the Christians who fled in
time to Pella."

RICH AND POOR. 43
whom the petition is addressed, and without faith that
it will be granted. Such faithless prayers can only
arise from a wavering disposition, a want of stability,
a want of whole-heartedness, a dualism of life and
aim (i. 6—8).
iv. Then comes an apparently sudden transition of
exhortation to rich and poor.1 That the transition was
not so sudden in the mind of the writer is shown by his
connecting particle. " The man of two souls," he says^
" is restless in all his ways ; but let the humble brother
rejoice." The unexpressed connexion seems to be,
" Now, what is the cause of this spiritual distraction
and instability ? Does it not arise from worldliness ?
Well, ye cannot serve God and Mammon. If, then, any
brother be poor and humble, let him rejoice in his
exaltation. For if he take it rightly his earthly
humiliation is his true dignity. He is enjoying the
beatitude of poverty. It is something like the thought
expressed so tersely by our great philosopher,2 " Pros
perity is the blessing of the Old Testament, Adversity
is the blessing of the New" (i. 9).
v. "But the rich," he adds, "in his humiliation."
The meaning of these words is not clear. It has even
been supposed by some that the words " rich " and
"poor" are used in this Epistle in a metaphorical sense.3
1 So in Shemoth Rabba (§ 31, /. 129) we find, " Blessed is the man
who stands in his temptation ; for there is no man whom God does not try.
He tries the rich, to see if they will open their hands to the poor ; He
tries the poor, to see if they will not murmur," &c.
2 Lord Bacon, Essay Y.
3 Lange thinks that by " the brethren of low degree " are meant Jews
and Jewish Christians, and by the rich the Gentiles ; for, he says, the rich
Jews have always been kind to the poor. I think I have already met this
difficulty. It is surely extravagant to say that "the rich man with a
gold ring and splendid garment denotes the proud Ebionitish Jewish

44 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY.
Another discussion turns on the question whether by "the
rich " we are here to understand rich Christians, or rich
Jews and Gentiles. I feel convinced that the words are
to be understood in their primary meaning. As I have
already explained, St. James is not thinking of Gentiles
at all, and is drawing no marked distinction between
Jews and Christians. A further question is, are we to
understand this phrase hortatively in the sense of " but
let the rich man boast in his humiliation," or as a con
trast, " but the rich man rejoices or glories in that which
is in reality his humiliation"?1 In the one case it is an
exhortation to the rich man as to what he ought to do ;
in the other a censure upon him for what he does.
Neither interpretation is without difficulty, but on
the whole the meaning seems to be that worldliness,
with the temptations which it brings, is full of dan
gers. Poverty and riches stand in God's estimation in
reverse positions. Humble poverty is true wealth.
Pampered wealth is real poverty.2 Let the poor brother
glory in the beatitude of poverty ; it is a gift of God.
The rich brother, then, is worse off, is in a worse
position, than he — his riches are his humiliation in the
heavenly order, for they are a temptation to which he
is only too liable to succumb ; they tend to make him
more of a worldling, less of a Christian. Such views
belong to the so-called Ebionitism of St. James. But
the opinions of the Ebionites were due to the falsehood
Christian parading his ring of the Jewish Covenant (!), while the poor
man, with a vile garment, describes the Gentile Christian " {Introd. p. 27).
This is to introduce into New Testament exegesis fancies borrowed from
Lessing and Swift.
1 This would resemble Phil. iii. 19, " whose glory is in their shame."
Compare the saying of Pascal about man — " Gloire et rebut de l'Univers
s'il se vante, je l'abaisse ; s'il s'abaisse, je le vante."
2 Matt. v. 3.

RICH AND POOR. 45
of extremes. Neither is wealth in itself a sin, nor
poverty in itself a virtue. They are conditions of life
in which God has placed us, each liable to its own, and
each to different temptations. But as regards those
days — perhaps as regards all periods — riches were liable
to severer temptations than poverty. In the teaching
of St. James we recognise, not the exaggerations of
Ebionitism, but the impression left by the sermons
and parables of Christ x (i. 10).
vi. And the reason why the rich brother should glory
in the humiliation which the world regards as his
enviable superiority is that reason which Isaiah had so
exquisitely expressed, and to which St. Peter also refers.2
It is the transitoriness of riches.3 Often, even in
this brief life, they make themselves wings and fly
away. But they must always pass away with the fading
flower of life ; not even the poorest fragment of them
can be held by the relaxing hand of death. Is that a
condition to glory in, which Christ showed to be sur
rounded with peril, and which must soon become like
a withered blossom in a dead man's hand ? (i. 11).
vii. But whether our trial comes in the form of
wealth or of poverty it becomes a beatitude if it works
in us the spirit of patient endurance. And here it is
necessary for St. James to introduce a strong caution.
1 Matt, xxiii. 12 ; Luke xiv. 11 ; xviii. 14. The commoner view of the
clause is " Let the rich man rejoice when, he is humiliated by the "spoiling
of his goods " (Heb. x. 34). But (1) this loss of wealth happens only to a
few. (2) He is throughout addressing " rich men," who are in the full
flower of their prosperity.
2 Is. xl. 6 ; 1 Pet. i. 24 (comp. Matt. vi. 30; xiii. 26).
3 Some refer the passage chiefly to reverses in life. " The rich man,
overtaken by judgment, perishes in the midst of his doings and pursuits, as
the flower, in the midst of its blessings, falls a victim to the scorching heat
of the sun " (Huther)

46 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY.
The word which he has used for temptation is capable
of two meanings — trial in the sense of a difficult and
painful test (adversa pati) ; and trial in the sense of
strong impulse to sin (malis ad defectionem sollicitari).
In the first sense it comes from God ; it is a part of
His providential ordering of our lives. In the second
sense it by no means comes from God.1 When a man
pleads, as men have so often done, that " God has made
them so ;"2 or that " the flesh is weak," or that " God
for a moment deserted them ;" 3 when they say that
they have done wrong because they could not do other
wise ;4 when they contend that each man is practically
no better than an automaton, and that his actions are
the inevitable — and therefore irresponsible — result of the
conditions by which he is surrounded — they are trans
ferring to God the blame of their misdoings. " The
foolishness of man perverteth his way, and his heart

1 The history of temptation, says Bede, is (1) Suggestion; (2) Delight;
(3) Consent. Suggestion is of the enemy, delight and consent from our
own frailty. If the birth of a wrong action follows the delight of the
heart, the enemy leaves us as a victor, and we are liable to death." " Lust
is the mother of sin, sin the mother of death, the sinner the parent of both "
(Macknight). 2 St. Paul deals with this question — " Why doth He yet find fault ?
For who hath resisted His will P " (Rom. ix. 19.)
3 " Seems there any recess ? It is we forsake Him ; not He us (Jer.
ii. 17) " (Bishop Andrewes).
4 The unhappy Henry II., shortly before his death, passionately
exclaimed to God, " Since Thou hast taken from me the town I loved best
... I will have my revenge on Thee too. I will rob Thee of that thing
Thou lovest most in me " (see Green's Hist, of Engl. I. p. 181). There
can be little doubt that St. James had in his mind a magnificent passage
of Ecclus. xv. 11—17, " Say not thou, ' It is through the Lord that I fell
away .- ' for thou oughtest not to do the things that He hateth. Say not thou
' He hath caused me to err,' for He hath no need of the sinful man. ... He
hath set fire and water before thee : stretch forth thy hand unto whether
thou wilt. Before man is life and death, and whether him liketh, shall be
given him."

SIN AND DEATH. 47
fretteth against the Lord."1 The doctrine of fatalism
is but a poor and false excuse for crime.2 When pas
sively accepted it paralyses every nerve of moral effort ;
when it takes the form of materialism, and poses as
the final result of science, it lays the axe at the root
of every motive by which men rise to the dignity of
free and moral beings. Men become the children of
God by obedience to His laws, resulting not from
necessity, but choice. And so St. James gives the true
genesis of sin. It springs from lust — desire^the yetser-
ha-rd, or evil impulse, which plays so large a part in
later Jewish literature. This is to each soul the harlot-
temptress which draws him forth from the safe shelter
of innocence, entices him, and bears the evil offspring
of committed sin. But the bad genealogy ends not
there. Sin, too, grows to maturity, and the offspring of
her incestuous union is death (i. 12 — 15).
viii. No, God is not the author of evil ; it is only
every good gift which comes from Him. " God is
always in the meridian."3 He dwells in the </>&>? avk-
airepov, in the light whereof there is no eventide, the sun
whereof knows no tropic. No darkness can flow from
the fountain of that unchanging Sun, which is not
liable to the parallax and eclipses of the heavenly
bodies which He has made.4 And then, in one singu
larly pregnant clause which — although in this respect
'• Prov. xix. 3.
2 It was familiar to St. James, for, as Josephus says, it was a doctrme
of the Pharisees {Antt. xviii. 1, § 3; B.J. ii. 8, § 14). 3 Wetstein.
4 " Though the lights of heaven have their parallaxes, yea ' the angels
of heaven He found not steadfastness in them ' (Job iv. 18) ; yet for God,
He is subject to none of them. He is 'Ego sum qui sum' (Ex. iii. 14),
that is, saith Malachi, ' Ego Deus et non mutor (Mai. iii. 6). We are not
what we were awhile since, what we shall be awhile after, scarce what we
are ; for every moment makes us vary. With God it is nothing so. He

48 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY.
it stands somewhat isolated — shows how little the
practical tendency of the author was dissevered from
deep dogmatic insight, he tells us of God's most perfect
gift to us. He tells us that we need a new life ; that
God by one great act has bestowed it upon us ; that
this act sprang from His own free will and choice -,1
that the instrument of this new birth was the word
of truth,2 the Divine revelation of God to man, which,
of course, requires faith in them that hear it ; that the
result of this new birth is our dedication as " the first
fruits of a sacrificial gift"3 which shall only be comple
ted with the offering up of all God's creatures. Thus
in one brief sentence he concentrates many solemn
truths, and even by the one word, "of His own will"
(PovXijdeh), he repudiates alike the dangerous fatalism
of the Pharisees, and the arrogant assertion of the
is that He is ; He is and changeth not " (Bishop Andrewes, Serm. iii. 374 ;
John viii. 58).
1 God is the cause of His own mercy. " TTnde sequitur naturale
esse Deo benefacere " (Calvin). See John i. 13 ; 1 Pet. i. 23. £ou\r;0els,
" voluntate amantissima, Uberrima, purissima, f oecundissim§, " (John i.
13 ; 1 Pet. i. 3). 'Aveiciria-ev, the antithesis to the cb-oiciSei of sin, in ver. 17,
" Ipse Deus Patris et matris loco est " (Bengel) (Rom. viii. 15 ; Gal. iii.
26 ; 1 Pet. i. 23).
2 John xvii. 17, " Sanctify them by Thy truth. Thy word is Truth."
1 Pet. i. 23, " Having been born again by the word of the Living God."
It is the equivalent to the Gospel (2 Tim. ii. 15 ; Eph. i. 13). " The lying
word of the serpent has corrupted us, but the true word of God makes us
good again " (Luther). Here and elsewhere, some {e.g. Athanasius) give
to " the Word " its specific Johannine sense, and interpret it of Christ, the
Divine Logos. No doubt it may be made to bear this meaning in this and ,
many other passages ; but as this letter was addressed to the Jews of the
Dispersion, of whom many had no Alexandrian training or Alexandrian
sympathies, the question is, (1) Would they so have understood it ? and,
therefore, (2) Did St. James intend it so to be understood F
3 " First-fruit " (see Lev. xxiii. 10 ; Deut. xxvi. 2 ; 1 Cor. xv. 23 ; xvi.
15 ; Rev. xiv. 4). Christ is the true first-fruit, and then we in Him (Rom.
viii. 19 — 22). See a valuable note of Wiesinger, who was the first to call
due attention to the depth and importance of this verse.

PURE SERVICE. 49
Sadducees that salvation lies within the power of our
own unaided will (i. 16 — 18).
ix. They know this ; but let them apply it — let them
listen to this word of truth, hearing more, speaking
less, wrangling not at all. Passionate fanaticism does
not help forward God's righteousness. It deceives
itself when it brings into God's service that impure
mixture of human evil.1 The Gospel is meant to be
used for our own sanctification, not to be abused to
quarrelsomeness with others. God's word, implanted
in the heart,2 is powerful to save, but the condition ot
its power is its meek reception. It requires steady,
earnest contemplation, not a mere hasty passing gaze.
There were many, both Jews and Christians, who were
absorbed in outward service3 — who were content with
endless ablutions and purifications, and not with what
is true, pure, unspotted, and undefiled ; who made long
prayers, and yet devoured widows' houses. But all
service is fruitless if it does not lead a man to refrain
from bitter words. The only pure and perfect ritual is
active love/ and a freedom from " the contagions of the
world's slow stain."5
1 " Purius sine ira fit " (Bengel). There is always a germ of the
atheistical in the heat of fanaticism (Nitsch), as in Jonah's, " I do well to
be angry." Lange observes that Simeon and Levi, the ancestors of the
Jews in fanaticism, were disapproved by Jacob (Gen. xxxiv. 30), but after
wards upheld as patterns (Judith ix. 20).
2 Perhaps an allusion to the Parable of the Sower, and so parallel with
Matt. xiii. 23. The word Z/xQutos only occurs in Wisd. xii. 10. In classic
Greek it means also "innate," but this does not furnish so simple a
meaning, though it may be compared with such passages as Col. ii. 6, "as
ye have received Christ, so walk ye in Him.
3 See Dr. Mozley's admirable sermon on the Pharisees. " Qui crassiora
vitia exuerunt, huic morbo sunt ut plurimum obnoxii" (Calvin).
4 Comp. Tobit i. 16, 17.
6 " The outward service (Bprio-icela) of ancient religion, the rites, cere-

50 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY.
He proceeds, in the second chapter, to rebuke the
respect of persons,1 the worldly partialities, which are
so alien to "the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ, the
Lord of the glory."2 That faith teaches before all
things the Fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of
man. Since in God's sight all are equal — since in the
eye of His Church the greatest princess is but "this
woman," and the proudest emperor but "this man" —
was it not most unworthy to thrust oppressive dispari
ties into prominence in a wrong place by ushering the
gold-ringed man3 in the bright dress into the best seat
in the synagogue,4 while they made the squalidly
dressed pauper5 stand anywhere, or thrust him down
into a seat on the floor. When ye acted thus, " did ye
monies, and ceremonial vestments of the old law, had morality for their
substance. They were the letter of which morality was the spirit; the
enigma of which morality was the meaning. But morality itself is the
service and ceremonial {cultus exterior, Bp-qoKtia) of the Christian religion
(Coleridge, Aids to Reflection, Aph. xxiii).
1 Curiously enough the Talmud says, " God is a respecter of persons,"
Num. vi. 26 (Berachoth, f. 20, 6).
2 Lit. " of our Lord Jesus Christ, of the glory." Bengel takes the two
words in apposition — " ut ipse Christus dicatur, t) Siifa, Gloria." The
Shechinah was a Jewish name for the Messiah, but it is better, as in the
E. V., to understand it as " the Lord of the glory " (comp. John xvii. 5).
The title here implies the utter obliteration, by comparison, of petty
earthly distinctions.
3 The ostentation of gold rings was a fashion of this epoch, and Roman
fops wore them even inconveniently large ( Juv. Sat. i. 28, 30 ; Mart. xi. 60),
six on each finger. Lucian {Somn. 12) speaks of wearing sixteen heavy
rings. " All fingers are loaded with rings " (Plin. H. N. xxxiii. 6).
4 "A synagogue" is, on the whole, the best supported reading
(n, B, C). The passage is not a mere rebuke to " sexton rudeness." It
illustrates faithless partiality by a common instance, and this desire for
prominence was largely developed among the Jews (Matt, xxiii. 6). Chris
tians probably used Jewish synagogues (as St. Paul did) as long as they
were permitted to do so.
6 No doubt " gold rings " and squalid apparel (Zech. iii. 3, 4 ; Rev. xxii.
11) may be used symbolically, but to understand this passage as an allegory

RESPECT OF PERSONS. 51
not doubt in yourselves,1 and did ye not show wicked
reasonings as judges?" It shows doubt to act as
though Christ had never promised His kingdom to the
poor, rich in faith ;2 and wicked reasonings to argue
mentally that the poor must be less worthy of honour
than the rich. It is the evil schism in the heart
which leads to this evil judgment in the life. And was
not this a strange method of judging, when it was the
rich who played the lord over them, dragged them into
law-courts,3 and blasphemed the fair name by which
they were named ?4 It were nobler to fulfil the royal
law,5 " Love thy neighbour as thyself," and so to treat
all, whether rich or poor, with equal courtesy. Not to
act thus is sin. They must not regard such sin as
unimportant. There is in God's law a uniform soli-
of Jewish exclusiveness towards the Gentiles (as Lange does), is very far
fetched. Notice the picturesque antitheses —
You — sit — here — honourably (near the coffer which held the Law).
You — stand — there — under my footstool (out of sight and hearing, near
the door).
Even in courts of law the Jewish rule was that (to show the perfect
impartiality of the law) both suitors, whether rich or poor, should sit, or
both stand.
1 8i(Kpl8r\re. " Doubt " is the ordinary meaning of SiaKphop.ai, as in i. 6 ;
and there is no reason to change it here into " make differences, or judge,"
etc. (Matt. xxi. 21 ; Acts x. 20 ; Rom. iv. 20, etc.).
2 Matt. v. 3 ; Luke vi. 20.
3 Acts vi. 12 ; xvii. 6 ; xviii. 12 ; xix. 38.
4 Literally " which was invoked over you " (Deut. xxviii. 10, etc. ; Jer.
xiv. 9 ; Am. ix. 12 ; Heb. xi. 16), i.e., the name of Christ. Christians were
called of Xpio-roD (1 Cor. iii. 23). Nominal Christians, however rich, could
hardly have ventured to " blaspheme," or " speak injuriously of," the name
of Christ. St. James must be passing in thought to rich Jews, Sadducean
oppressors, etc. (Acts iv. 1, 6, v. 17), though he may include the conduct
of rich Christians which caused Christ's name to be blasphemed among the
Gentiles, as the Jews caused God's name to be (Rom. ii. 24; comp. 2 Sam.
xii. 14).
6 A royal law, because the best of all laws — a king of laws. " Love is
the fulfilment {irXypwpa) of the Law " (Rom. xiii. 10).
e 2

52 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY.
darity, and one God made all the law. To break one
commandment is to break all,1 for it is to violate the
principle of obedience, just as "it matters not at what
particular point a man breaks his way out of an en
closure, if he is forbidden to go out of it at all."2 Every
separate commandment has the same Divine source. The
sum total of all commandments is that law of liberty3
by which we shall be judged. That judgment shall be
merciless to the merciless.4 And then he adds, with
an emphasis all the more forcible from its brevity and
abruptness : " Mercy " — whether in the heart of God or
of man — " glories over judgment "5 (ii. 1 — 13).
The passage that follows is the famous passage
about justification by works : —
"What is the advantage, my brethren, if any say that he has
faith, but hath not works?6 Is the faith able to save him?7 But
if a brother or a sister be naked, and lacking the day's food, and one
1 " He who observes but one precept, secures for himself an advocate
(Parklit, or Paraclete), and he who commits one sin procures for himself an
accuser " (Pirke Avoth, iv. 15).
2 " A garment is torn though you only take away one piece of it ; a
harmony in music is spoiled if only one voice be out of tune " (Starke).
3 St. James is thinking of the free service of the will to Christ's pure
moral law, not of the law " which gendereth to bondage," and enforces
incessant restrictions on unwilling souls (Gal. iv. 10, 24), which was a yoke
which neither they nor their fathers had been able to bear (Acts xv. 10).
4 Matt. vii. 1.
5 This is a great law of the moral kingdom. It applies alike to God and
to men. 'Tis mightiest in the mightiest. It is the reason why Christian
universality is better than Judaising exclusiveness ; why the geniality,
love, and brightness of the Gospel is better than the gloomy hatred of the
Talmud ; why tolerance is better than the Inquisition ; why philanthropy
is nobler than sensual egotism (see Lange, p. 78).
6 Comp. oil yap orptiAi)o-ei riva rb \4yeiv a\\a rb iroin'iv' 4k iravrbs oZv
TpoVou nahuv epyav xpefa (Clem. Horn. viii. 7).
7 Not if it be the faith that St. James has in view, which is here merely
a theoretically orthodox belief, not a vital faith. Such a faith cannot save
such a man. Vital faith carries in itself the animating principle from

FAITH AND WORKS. 53
of you should say, ' Go in peace ;: warm yourselves and feed your
selves,' but ye give them not the necessaries of the body, what is the
advantage ? 2 So also faith, if it have not works, is dead in itself.
Yea, some one may say4 [quite fairly], 'Thou hast faith and I have
works. Show me thy faith without the works' — which you cannot
do — ' and I,' who do not pretend to believe in the possibility of such a
faith, ' will,' very easily, 'show thee my faith by my works ' " (ii. 14-18).
Assuming that the Solifidian — the believer in the
possibility of an abstract faith which can show no works
as an evidence of its existence — is thus refuted, St. James
proceeds to refute him still farther : — " Thou believest
that God is one."5 It was the proud boast of the Jew,
which works must emanate. The whole argument is aimed at those Anti-
nomians who said, " If you have faith, it matters little how you live "
(Jer. in Mich. iii. 5).
1 Such a parting benediction would, without some accompanying help,
be as incongruous a mockery as Claudius's reply of " Avete vos " to the
gladiators' " Moritwri te salutamus" (Judg. xviii. 6; 2 Kings v. 19; Lk.
vii. 50 ; viii. 48). Similarly, Plautus has " Of what use is your benevolent
language if your help is dead ? " {Epidic. i. 2, 13).
2 St. James uses an illustration of what faith leads to, which he borrows
from the teaching of Christ (Matt. xxv. 35 — 46).
3 Just as the compassion is dead and useless if it be that of
" The sluggard Pity's vision-weaving tribe,
Who sigh for wretchedness yet shun the wretched,
Nursing in some delicious solitude
Their dainty loves and slothful sympathies " — (Coleridge.)
so faith is dead and useless if it do not work by love. " No spirit, if no
work {Spectrum est, non spiritus) ; a flying shadow it is ; a spirit it is not,
if work it do not. Having wherewith to do good, if you do it not, talk not
of faith, for you have no faith in you if you have wherewith to show it
and show it not " (Bp. Andrewes).
4 'AKK' ipei ns, is something in St. Paul's manner (1 Cor. xv. 35 ; Rom.
ix. 19). The interlocutor is not here, however, an objector, but a Gentile
Christian, who makes a perfectly true criticism of the worthlessness of an
idle orthodoxy (see Tert. De Poenit. 5). " Faith," says Luther, " is the
mother who gives birth to the virtues as her children." And St. Paul
presses the same truth quite as clearly as St. James (Rom. ii. 13).
6 2i>, emphatic ; thou, as distinguished from the heathen. The Jews
had learnt Credere Deum, and Credere Deo, but not (according to St.

54 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY.
who, among all the nations of antiquity, gloried in
being a monotheist.
" Excellent so far ; the demons also believe and shudder.1 But
wilt thou recognise, O vain man,2 that faith apart from works is
idle?3 Abraham, our father — was he not justified by works,
when he offered up Isaac his son upon the altar ?4 Dost thou see
that faith wrought with his works,5 and by works the faith was
perfected ?6 And the Scripture was fulfilled which says,7 ' But
Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned unto him for righteous
ness, and he was called the Friend of God.8 Ye see that by works a
Augustine's distinction) Credere in Deum. This shows that St. James is
thinking of some sort of verbal orthodoxy, not of specific Christian faith.
The Unity of God was the very first and most important belief of Judaism.
The first line of the Talmud begins with discussing it ; it was daily repeated
in the Shema (Deut. vi. 4), to which, as to all their observances, the Jews
attached most extravagant virtue. Thus they said that the fires of Gehenna
would be cooled for him who repeated it with attention to its very letters.
To this they attached Hab. ii. 4. All the fine things which they called
hapardes (DTsn), the " Garden," or " Paradise," turned on the Unity of
God. Akhiva was supremely blessed because he died uttering the word
" One" {see infra, p. 83).
1 This unique and unexpected word {cpplo-oovai, horrescunt) comes in
with great rhetorical and ironic force. It explains the horror of physical
antipathy. For the fact, see Matt. viii. 29 ; Mark ix. 20, 26. " The
sarcasm lies in the fact itself. Formally, it only flashes out in the splendid
nat " (Lange).
2 The Hebrew Hj£! , Raca (Matt. v. 22). Some think that this objur
gation is aimed at St. Paul ! Apostles did not speak of each other in the
language of modern religious controversy (see Pirke Avoth, i. 17).
3 hpyi, B, C.
4 St. Paul does not refer to this act, which is indeed only alluded to
in Heb. xi. 17 (and Wisd. x. 5), but to the faith which Abraham had shown
forty years before. 6 " Operosa fuit non otiosa " (Calvin).
6 " Faith aided in the completion of the work, and the work aided in the
completion of the faith " (Lange). " His faith was completed, not that it
had been imperfect, but that it was consummated in the exercise " (Luther).
7 Says elsewhere, Gen. xv. 6 (before the sacrifice of Isaac).
8 Is. xii. 8. In Gen. xxv. 9, this clause seems to have occurred in some
readings (Ewald, Die Sendschreiben, ii. 225). Abraham is still known
through the East as El Khalil Allah (" the Friend of God "), and hence
Hebron is called El Khalil. Dean Plumptre points out the curious fact
that the title occurs neither in the Hebrew nor in the LXX., and is
first applied to Abraham by Philo {De resip. Noe, c. 11).

ORACULAR EGOTISM. 55
man is justified, and not by faith only.i But likewise also Rahab,
the harlot,2 was she not justified by works, when she received the
messengers, and hastily sent them forth by another way ? For even
as the body apart from the spirit is dead, so also faith apart from
works is dead,"3
Leaving the theology of this remarkable passage
for subsequent discussion,4 in order not to break
the thread of the Epistle, we proceed to the next
chapter. It was natural that those who had seized a Shib
boleth, of which they neither fathomed the full depth
nor even rightly understood the superficial meaning,
should endeavour to enforce it upon others with irate,
obtrusive, and vehement dogmatism. This "itch of
teaching," this oracular egotism, is the natural result
of vanity and selfishness disguising themselves under
the cloak of Gospel proselytism. With all such men
words take the place of works, and dogmatising con
tentiousness of peace and love. Therefore he warns
them against being many teachers5 — self -constituted
ministers — " other peoples' bishops"6 — persons of that
large class who assume that no incompetence is too
1 St. Paul had adduced Abraham as a proof of justification by faith,
not by legalism. St. James adduces him as an example of justification by
the works which spring from faith, not by orthodoxy.
2 This second example is chosen because he wishes to prove the unity
of faith in Jews and Gentiles, by two examples of faith manifested by works.
Abraham was a man, a Hebrew, a Prophet ; Rahab a woman, a Canaanite,
a harlot ; yet both were justified {i.e., shown to be righteous in the moral
sense) by works which sprang from their faith (Heb. xi. 31).
3 ii. 19—26.
4 See infra, pp. 79—100.
5 Any authorised person might speak, either in the synagogue or the
early Christian assembly (1 Cor. xiv. 26—34). The ordinary readers and
preachers were not clergy at all. The eager seizure of a party watchword
would be likely to lead to mere prating.
6 aWorpioeirto-KOTOi (1 Pet. iv. 15).

56 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY.
absolute to rob them of the privilege of infallibility in
laying down the law of truth for others. " My brethren,
do not become many teachers,1 being well aware that
we (teachers) shall receive a severer judgment than
others," since our responsibility is greater than theirs.
"For in many respects we stumble, all of us."2
Speech is the instrument of all teachers. If any man
stumbles not in word, he is a perfect man,3 able to
bridle also the whole body. Sins of speech are so
common, the temptations to them are so universal,
that there can be no question of the perfect wisdom and
self-control of him who has acquired an absolute im
munity from these. For how great is the power of the
tongue ! how evil its depravity, untameableness, and
duplicity ! It is like the little bridles which rule
the horse, like the little helms that steer the great
ships. It is like the spark which kindles a conflagra-
1 Matt, xxiii. 8 — 10. " But be not ye called Rabbi, for one is your
guide — even Christ ; but all ye are brethren." " Love the work, but strive
not after the honour of a teacher " (Pirke Avoth, i. 10).
2 St. James would no more have thought of claiming immunity from
sin than St. Paul (Phil. iii. 12) or St. John (1 John i. 8) did. When
Schleiermacher condemned this passage as " bombast," he condemned the
equally strong language of many great moralists of all ages. And it must
be remembered that St. James was living in the Jerusalem of a.d. 60.
There was not more backbiting then than there now is, but good men
felt its evil more strongly. They did not take an interest in it, let it
lie on their tables, subscribe to its dissemination. Compare the lan
guage of the Son of Sirach (xxviii. 15 — 26) : " Many have fallen by the edge
of the sword, but not so many as have fallen by the tongue. . . . Strong
cities hath it pulled down ; well is he that hath not passed through the
venom thereof. . . The death thereof is an evil death ; the grave were
better than it. . . . Such as forsake the Lord shall fall into it ; and it shall
burn in them and not be quenched ; it shall be sent unto them as a lion,
and devour them as a leopard." For Jewish views, even of the Talmudists,
see Schoettgen.
3 " By thy words thou shalt be justified " (Matt. xii. 37). See the great
sermon on this text by Barrow.

THE TONGUE. 57
tion in the forest.1 Yes, the tongue — that world of
injustice— is a fire. It inflames the wheel of being,2
and is ever inflamed by Gehenna.3 It is the sole un-
tameable creature — a restless mischief brimmed with
deathful venom.4 Therewith we bless the Lord and
Father, and therewith we curse the human beings Who
have been made after His likeness.5 Is this inconsis
tency anything short of monstrous ? 6 Is it not like
a fountain bubbling out of the same fissure the bitter as
well as the sweet ? Can a tree produce fruits not its
own ?7 Can the salt water of a cursing tongue produce
the sweet water of praise? (iii. 1 — 12).
1 Both these metaphors are common in classical writers (Soph. Antig.
332, 475), and both occur in the hymn of Clemens of Alexandria {Pcedog.
ad finem). " Quam lenibus initiis quanta incendia oriuntur " (Sen.
Gontrov. v. 5). ""Chrq is here probably " a wood," not " material." The
setting on fire of forests by sparks furnished similes even in Homer's
days (Hom. II. ii. 455 ; xi. 115 ; Virg. Georg. ii. 303 : " et totum involvit
flammis nemus ") ; but St. James is more likely to have adopted it from
Philo {De migr. Abr. p. 407). p.eya\avxii (ver. 5) occurs only in Philo.
2 iii. 6., rbv rpoxbv rrjs yeverreas (comp. Eccl. xii. 6). It is a phrase of
uncertain meaning, perhaps " the orb of creation " — hardly " the rolling
wheel of life " {avaKiK\-qo-is, see Windet, De Vita fund.), though Anacreon
nses that expression, and the Syriac here has, " it turneth the course of
our generations, which run as a wheel " (comp. Sil. Ital. iii. 6, " rota
volvitur aevi)."
3 Comp. Pss. Iii. 2 — 5 ; cxx. 3, 4 ; Prov. xxvi. 21 : " there is as a
burning fire ; " (Ecclus. v. 14 ; xxii. 24, " As the vapour and smoke of a
furnace goeth before the fire, so reviling before blood ").
4 Hermas, who has several references to this Epistle, says {Pastor.
ii. 2) : " Backbiting is a wicked spirit, and a restless demon " (comp. Ps.
cxl. 3).
6 Even in fallen man, " remanet nobilitas indelebilis " (Beng.). He still
retains sparks {scintillulae, Confess. Belg. 14) of the heavenly fire, though
" very far gone from original righteousness " (Art. ix.).
6 The word xph occurs here alone in the New Testament or the LXX.
The word which they use for "ought" is Sei, which expresses moral
fitness. " Praise is not seemly in the mouth of a sinner " (Ecclus. xv. 9).
7 Matt. vii. 16, 17. The metaphors both of this and the next verse
show a marked local colouring.

58 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY.
These sins of the tongue among Jews and Chris
tians sprang in great measure from the obtrusive
rivalries, the contentious ambitions to which he had
alluded in the first verse. Never have they been
extinct. Party spirit has always been a curse and
disease of every religion, even of the Christian. The
formulas of Christian councils have been tagged
with anathemas ; Te Deums have been chanted at
Autos da Fe. And because this factiousness shows
an absence of true wisdom amid the pride of its
imagined presence, he proceeds to contrast the false and
the true wisdom. True wisdom, true understanding,1
is shown by a course of life spent in meekness, which
is the attribute of wisdom.2 For a man to boast of
ivisdom when his heart is full of bitter emulation and
party spirit is a lying vaunt. The wisdom of which he
thus boasts is not, at any rate, the heavenly wisdom
of the Christian, but earthly, animal,3 demon-like. The
wisdom which evinces itself in party spirit leads to
unhallowed chaos and every contemptible practice.
" But the wisdom from above is first pure,4 then peace-
1 "Who is wise (chakam) and intelligent {nabhon) amongst you?"
(Deut. i. 13; iv. 6; Eph. i. 8; Col. i. 9). The eW-nj/t&v is one who
understands and knows ; the <ro<p6s is one who carries out his knowledge
into his life. " Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers " (Tennyson). (Job
xxviii. 12.) 2 Ps. 1. 16—20.
3 ipvxiicbs (see Jude 19) ; xf/vxiKol, irvevpa p.i) exoKTes. " Soulish " — i.e.,
sensuous — living only the natural animal life, and therefore unspiritual.
This wisdom is earthly, because it avariciously cares for the goods of earth
(Phil. iii. 19) ; animal, because it is under the sway of animal lusts (1 Cor,
ii. 14) ; demon-like, because full of pride, egotism, malignity, and ambition,
which are works of the devil (1 Tim. iv. 1).
4 " Pure," i.e., chaste, consecrated, free from admixture of carnal
motives. Even out of this strong condemnation of contentious dogmatism,
the universal misinterpretation of Scripture has extorted an excuse — nay,
an argument — for intolerance. But the wisdom- is only said to be "first
pure," because "purity" describes its inward essence, and the other

HEAVENLY WISDOM. 59
ful, reasonable, open to persuasion, full of mercy and
good fruits, without vacillation,1 without hypocrisy. . . .
But the fruit of righteousness is ever sown in peace by
those who work peace " (ii. 13 — 18). Thus we see
that with St. James, no less than with St. Paul, St.
Peter, and St. John, love, peace, mutual respect, mutual
toleration, is the highest form of wisdom, and is a
far truer sign than a contentious and bitter orthodoxy
that he who has it has reached to the highest ideal
of the Christian character.
But how strong are the feelings of St. James on this
subject ! It was a period of turmoil and contention
within and without the fold.2
"Whence," he asks, "come wars, and whence fightings among
you ? Is it not from hence, from your pleasures that militate in
epithets its outward manifestations. " Peaceable " (Matt. v. 9), " reason
able," i.e., " forbearing " (1 Tim. iii. 3), " open to persuasion " (Vulg.
suadibilis), or perhaps " winning its way by gentleness." Seven qualities
of wisdom — seven colours of the Divine rainbow — all blended into the one
" Light of the world." The phrase " the wisdom from above " is common
in the Talmudic writings, where it is attributed to Adam, Enoch,
Solomon, etc.
1 aSidicpiros, one of St. James's frequent hapax legomena. It is better
to interpret it by the ordinary sense of Siaxpivoixai, " to doubt." The E. V.
follows Luther in rendering it " without partiality." Bengel says, " Non
facit discrimen ubi non opus est." Lange, " unsectarian," " not Separatist,"
i.e., not Pharisaic. There is force in his remark that the epithet would
naturally refer to social conduct, and have some relation to awrt-6Kpiros.
If so, we may render it " not partial," or " censorious." " Being aSidxpiros
it does not spy out motes in a brother's eye ; and being awirSicpiTos, it does
not hide the beam in its own " (Wordsworth, who adds that " this beautiful
picture of true wisdom may be placed side by side with that of charity
portrayed by St. Paul, 1 Cor. xiii). Comp. Ecclus. i. 1 — 11, " All wisdom
ometh from the Lord, and is with Him for ever. . . Wisdom hath been
created before all things, and the understanding of prudence from ever
lasting. The Word of God Most High is the fountain of wisdom. . . She
is with all flesh, according to His gift, and He hath given her to them
that love Him."
2 See infra, Chapter xxix., on the Last Days of Jerusalem.

60 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY.
your members?1 Ye desire and have not. Ye murder2 and envy
and are not able to obtain. Ye battle and ye war, and ye receive
not because ye ask not for yourselves. Ye ask and receive not
because ye ask ill for yourselves that ye may squander it in your
pleasures. Adulteresses ! 3 know ye not that the friendship of the
world is enmity against God ? "Whosoever, then, prefers to be a
friend of the world, establishes himself as an enemy of God. Or
deem ye that it is vainly that the Scripture saith, ' The spirit which
He made to dwell in us jealously yearneth over us?'4 But" (because
of this jealous love for us) " He giveth greater grace. Wherefore
He saith God arrayeth Himself against the haughty, but giveth
grace to the humble" 5 (iv. 1 — 6).
i. This passage is in several respects remarkable.
First, we cannot but feel surprise at such a picture
as this. Wars, fightings, pleasures that are ever setting
out as it were on hostile expeditions,6 disappointed
desires, frustrate envy and even fruitless murder to
supply wants which would have been granted to prayer
1 " For in truth nothing else except the body and its desires causes
wars, and seditions, and battles " (Plato, Phcedo, p. 66, c).
2 Some conjecture tpBovtire, " ye grudge ; " but the reading is probably
right, and means " ye murder,'' not " ye wish to kill," etc. See below.
3 yioixa\ioes ! (The poixoi is omitted by «, A, B). The feminine word
is explained by the common Old Testament metaphor for idolatry (Isa. liv.
5; Jer. iii. 2; Ezek. xvi. 32). Hence in the New Testament yei/eo
noixaxis (Matt. xii. 39 ; xvi. 4 ; 2 Cor. xi. 2) ; and the strange expression of
2 Pet. ii. 14, " having eyes full of an adulteress " (see note there).
4 See infra, p. 63. irpbs (p86vov, not "against envy" (Luther), but
the phrase seems to be adverbial, like irpbs ptav, irpbs -qooviiv, etc. eWnroffe?
never means "lusteth," as in E.V., but expresses warm tenderness (2 Cor.
ix. 14; Phil. i. 8). This seems to be the only tenable translation. I
may mention one other version, which is to make in/eC^a an accusative —
" God yearns jealously for the spirit which He placed in us, and gives us
greater grace." Yet another way (but inconsistent with the usage of
the phrase i) ypaipi) \4yei) is to break the clause into two questions — " Do
ye fancy that the Scripture speaketh vainly P Doth the Spirit, which He
planted in us, lust to envy ? " (I see that this is accepted by the Revised
Version, with the other renderings in the margin.)
6 Prov. iii. 34 ; 1 Pet. v. 5 ; Clem. Rom. c. 30.
6 iv. 1, 0-rparevo/j.eviov.

A GLOOMY PICTURE. 61
— then, again, prayers utterly neglected or themselves
tainted with sin because misdirected to reckless gratifi
cation of pleasure, and because ruined by contentious
ness1 and selfishness — all this spiritual adultery, the
divorce of the soul from God to the love of the world —
is this indeed a picture of the condition of Christian
Churches within thirty years of the death of Christ ?
Again, I see no possible solution of the difficulty
except in the twofold answer — partly that St. James
is influenced by the state of things which he saw
going on around him in Judaea, and partly that
he is drawing no marked line of distinction between
Jews and Christians in the communities which he is
addressing.2 And this being so, there was certainly in
the Palestine of that day an ample justification for
every line of the dark delineation. Alike among priests
and patriots there was a fierce and luxurious greed.
Strifes about the Law were loud and violent.3 Even in
the days of our Lord, while the tree of Jewish nation
ality was still green, and not dry, as it had now
become, the very Temple had been polluted into a
brigands' cave.4 The dagger of the assassin was often
secretly employed to get rid of a political opponent. A
1 St. Peter saw no less clearly (1 Pet. iii. 7) that quarrelsomeness is
fatal to prayer.
2 It is a weighty remark of Lange (ad loc.) that " James put this
Epistle into the hands of the Jewish Christians that it might influence all
Jews, as it was a missionary instruction to the converted for the uncon
verted, and the truly converted for the half-converted.'"
3 St. Paul (Tit. iii. 9) applies to these the very word of St. James,
"legal battles" {p-dxai vop.itcai). There were the struggling sects of
Pharisees, Sadducees, Essenes, Herodians, Samaritans, etc. Laurentius
says — "Non loquitur Apostolus de bellis et caedibus, sed de mutuis
dissidiis, litibus, jurgiis, et contentionibus." Doubtless of these — but of
actual struggles also.
4 aici\Kaiov \yarS>v, Matt. xxi. 13. Comp. Mark xv. 7 ; Acts xxi. 38.

62 . THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY.
bloodthirsty spirit had possessed itself of the once
peaceful nation. Righteousness had once dwelt in their
city, but now murderers. Men like Barabbas had become
heroes of the people. Men like Theudas, and Judas, and
the Epygtian impostor, were crowding the horizon of the
people's life, and found no difficulty in leading after them
4,000 men or even murderers. Zealots had increased in
numbers and in recklessness. Bands of robbers were the
terror of every district which offered them hopes ot
plunder. Assassins lurked in the streets, and mingled un
noticed in the dense throngs which crowded the Temple
courts at the great annual festivals.1 Sects were arrayed
in bitter envy against sects, and all were united in
burning hatred against their Roman conquerors. It
became in popular estimation a pious act — an act which
even High Priests could hail and bless — for sicarii
to bind themselves under a curse to waylay and
massacre an enemy.2 The fury of fanatical savagery
assumed the guise of patriotism. False Christs and
false prophets abounded and flourished, but " Stone
him," and " Crucify him," and " Away with him," and
" He is not fit to live," were cries into which men
were ready to burst at a moment's notice against
those whose thoughts had been enlightened to believe
in the Son of God.
Besides all this, the world and the interests of the
world assumed a complete preponderance in the
thoughts of all men ; the fear of God seemed to
have been banished into the far background of life.
Could such men pray at all? Yes, and long prayers
and loud prayers in the Temple courts and at the
1 See Jos. B. J. ii. 1, §§ 2, 3; iv. 2 ; viii. 1 ; Antt. xviii. 1.
2 Acts xxiii. 12.

ANOMALIES OF PRAYER. 63
corners of the streets, at the very time when they were
devouring widows' houses, and making their proselytes
ten-times-worse children of Gehenna than themselves.
There is literally no end to the anomalies of prayers.
Rochester went home to pen a pious prayer in his private
diary on the very day that he had been persuading his
sovereign to commit an open sin. Cornish wreckers
went straight from church to light their beacon-fires,
and Italian brigands promise to their saints a share in
the profits of their murders.1 This " Italian piety " is
the terrible state of moral apostasy against which St.
James speaks with all the impassioned sternness of one
of the old prophets. Like Amos, who had, no less than
himself, been both a peasant and a Nazarite, he raised
his indignant voice against the luxury and idolatry
of the Chosen People. It is in the love of the
world that he sees the source of all these enormi
ties, and it is against this love of the world, arrayed
in the golden robe of the hierarchy, and wearing
" Holiness to the Lord " upon its forehead^ — it is
against this tainted scrupulosity and mitred atheism
that he speaks trumpet-tongued.
ii. But besides these remarks on the general purport
of the chapter, we must notice his unidentified quotation.
The English version renders it " the spirit that dwel-
leth in us lusteth to envy." The correct version, ac
cording to the best reading, is probably as I have given
it, " The spirit, which He made to dwell in us, yearneth
over us jealously." The meaning, then, is that the guilt
of worldly unfaithfulness is enhanced because the Spirit
of God, which He hath given us, longs with a jealous
1 Plumptre, p. 89.

64 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY.
fondness that we should pay to God an undivided alle
giance, a whole-hearted friendship ; and for that reason
He gives us greater grace — greater because of His
yearning pity and love.1 But where does this passage
occur in Scripture ? Doubtless from the library of the
writers of the Old Covenant, which forms our Old
Testament, we can produce analogies, more or less
distinct, to the general meaning of this utterance,2
but nowhere do we find the exact words. Only two
solutions are therefore possible — (1) St. James may
be quoting from some lost book, or some apocryphal
book — like the Testament of the Twelve Patriarchs.
The suggestion is rendered less unlikely by the
references which he makes in this Epistle to other
apocryphal books,3 and by the fact that his brother,
St. Jude, quotes from the Book of Enoch.4 We must
in that case understand the words r) ypacpr) in a lower
sense than that which we attribute to the Scripture.
Or (2) he may be adopting the method, not unknown to
the Scripture writers and to early Fathers, of con
centrating the meaning of several separate passages
1 Here, as elsewhere, I have not thought it worth while to trouble the
reader with masses of " explanations," which torture out of the words the
most impossible senses by the most untenable methods. Beza, Grotius,
&c, make it mean " the spirit of man has a natural bias to envy," but
eVi7ro0eI cannot bear this sense, nor that given by Bede, Calvin, &c, "Is
the Spirit (of God) prone to envy?" nor that of Bengel, "the Spirit
lusteth against envy." There is much less objection to the view of
Huther, Wiesinger, &c, " He (God) yearns jealously over the Spirit which
He has placed in us, and gives greater grace " {supra, p. 60).
2 It has been variously referred to Gen. vi. 3, 5 ; Num. xi. 29 ; Ezek.
xxiii. 25; xxxvi. 27; Deut. v. 9; xxxii. 10, 11; Ps. cxix. 20; Prov.
xxi. 10 ; Cant. viii. 6 ; Ecclus. iv. 4 ; Wisd. vi. 12, 23.
3 Ecclesiasticus and Wisdom. Similarly the writer of the Epistle to
the Hebrews makes distinct references to the Books of Maccabees (xi.
37, 38).
4 Jude 14.

WARNINGS AND REBUKES. 65
into one terse summary.1 In that case the word "saith"
will have to be understood generically to mean, " Is
not this the sense of Scripture?" If we adopt this
solution, we must suppose that the passages alluded to
are such as Gen. vi. 3, "My spirit shall not always
strive with men;" or Deut. xxxii. 11, where God
describes His love for Israel under the image of an
eagle covering her young in the nest, and bearing them
on her wings, and where in the Septuagint this very
verb epipothei, or " yearns over," occurs ; or, again,
Ezek. xxxvi. 27, " I will put My spirit within you."
The difficulty cannot yet be considered to have been
removed, but other methods of solving it are far less
probable than the two to which I have here referred.
iii. Having thus shown their dangerous condition,
he urges them, with strong exhortation, which reminds
us of the tone of Joel, to submission, moral effort,
resistance of the devil,2 the earnest seeking of God,
and deep humiliation of soul,3 which might lead God
to interfere on their behalf.
iv. Then, with a repetition of the word " brethren,"
which shows that his rebukes are being uttered in the
spirit of love, he warns them once more against evil-
speaking as a sin which is adverse to the humility
1 We find similar condensed quotations in John vii. 33, 42 ; Matt. ii. 23 ;
and perhaps Eph. v. 14. Dean Plumptre quotes from Clemens Romanus
(c. 46) the curious passage, " It has been written, ' Cleave to the saints,
for they who cleave to them shall be sanctified.' "
2 This is one of the few places in the New Testament where Sidpokos
occurs. " The devil," says Hermas {Past. ii. 12), " can wrestle with us,
but cannot throw us ; if, then, thou resist him, he will be conquered, and
flee from thee utterly ashamed." (Matt. iv. 1 — 11.)
3 Be uses the striking word Karityeia — " downcastness of face " —
which occurs nowhere else in the New Testament. He is thinking of the
outward manifestations as the signs of the inward humiliation.
/

66 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY.
which he has been urging on them, since it rises from
an imaginary superiority. It arrogantly usurps the
functions of God, who is the one true Judge, because
He alone stands above the Law on the behests of which
we are not capable of passing any final judgment.1
v. Passing to another sin, he strongly condemns
the braggart self-confidence2 and sensual security with
which, like the Rich Fool in the Parable, men make
gainful plans for the future without any reference to
God, or to His provident ordering of our lives, or to
the fact that life itself is — or rather that they them
selves are — but as a fleeting mist.3 They knew in their
hearts that they ought not to speak thus. If they
thought for a moment their consciences would condemn
them for thus ignoring all reference to God, and this
was a plain proof that it was sin4 (iv. 13 — 17).
1 " Nostrum non est judicare, praesertim cum exsequi non possumus "
(Bengel). " To offer to domineer over the conscience," says the Emperor
Maximilian, " is to assault the citadel of heaven."
2 iv. 16. aA.afoVeia only in 1 John ii. 16 : " Ye boast in your vain
glorious presumptions."
3 Job vii. 7 ; Ps. cii. 3 ; Wisd. v. 9 — 14. The best reading is arpis
yap eWe, " for ye are a vapour," B, and the Syriac and ^Ithiopic
versions (and practically A, K, for earai must be due to itacism).
" Pulvis et umbra sumus " (Hor.). But St. James turns the transitori-
ness of life to an opposite lesson from that of the Epicureans (Hor.
Od. 1,9; ICor. xv. 32).
4 " There shall no harm happen unto me " (Ps. x. 6) ; "I shall die in
my nest" (Job xxix. 18). For a Jew to talk thus, as if there were no God,
or as though He took no part in the concerns of life, was to run counter to
the central thought of their whole dispensation. A sense of God's nearness
was the one thing which more than all others separated the Jews from other
races as a chosen people. To abnegate this conviction in common talk was
to show a practical apostasy. The Rabbinists also felt this. In Debharim
Rabba, § 9, a father at his son's circumcision produces wine seven years
old, and says, " With this wine will I continue for a long time to celebrate
the birth of my new-born son." That night Rabbi Simeon meets the
Angel of Death, and asks him " why he is wandering about." " Because,"
said Asrael, " I slay those who say, We will do this or that, and think not

REBUKE OF THE RICH. 67
vi. Then in language full of prophetic imagery and
prophetic fire, meant to terrify men into thoughts,
of repentance, but not by any means as Calvin toe
characteristically said, absque spe veniae — " apart from
hope of pardon " — he bursts into terrible denunciation
of the rich, which shows how much his thoughts had
dwelt upon their arrogant rapacity.
" Go to now, ye rich, weep, howling1 over your miseries that are
coming upon you. Your riches are rotted, and your garments have
become moth-eaten. Your gold and your silver is rusted through
and through,2 and the rust of them shall be for a witness to you,3
and shall eat your flesh4 as fire. Ye treasured up in the last days.5
So the pay of your labourers, who reaped your fields, the pay kept
back by fraud, cries aloud from you,6 and the cries of the reapera
how soon death may overtake them. The man who said he would drink
that wine often shall die in thirty days." From this verse, and from
1 Cor. iv. 19, " I will come quickly to you, if God will," has come the
common phrase, " Deo volente."
1 Only in Isa. xiii. 6; xiv. 31; xv. 3; xxxiii.; Ezek. xxxviL The
language must be judged from the standpoint of prophetical analogies in
Isaiah, Amos, &c, and also in Matt, xxiii. ; Rev. xviii. And the warnings,
like all God's warnings, are hypothetical (Jonah iii. 10 ; Jer. xviii. 7 — 10).
2 v. 2. The perfects are prophetic perfects; they express absolute
certainty as to the ultimate result. Kartarai is another hapax legomenon
(except Ecclus. xii. 11), as are ai<rrfirev (Ecclus. xiv. 19) and <rqr6ppura in
this verse. Gold and silver do not rust, but the expression is perfectly
intelligible (Isa. i. 22, " Thy silver has become dross ").
3 " In their tarnish and consumption you may see a picture of what
will come on you." " Magna vanitas ! thesaurisat moriturus morituris "
(Aug.). 4 ras adpKas (plur.) has been taken to mean "your bloated bodies," &c,
but occurs in Lev. xxvi 29, &c.
6 There was much worldly prosperity and ostentatious legalism at this
epoch. Some take &s irvp after iByo-avpfoare — "your treasury of gold is in
reality a treasury of fire."
6 " From you," i.e., from your hands or treasures. Ecclus. xxxiv. 22,
" He that taketh away his neighbour's living slayeth him, and he that
defraudeth the labourer of his hire is a blood-shedder " (comp. Gen.
iv. 10 ; Deut. xxiv. 14, 15 ; Jer. xxii. 13 ; Mai. iii. 5). The rendering of
the E. V., "kept back by you," is also tenable. The tract Succah
/2

63 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY.
have entered into the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth.1 Ye luxuriated
on the earth and waxed wanton, ye fattened your hearts in a day of
slaughter.2 Ye condemned, ye killed the just man. He doth not
resist you3 (v. 1 — 6).
" Be patient, therefore, brethren, until the coming of the Lord.4
So the husbandman awaiteth the precious fruit of the earth, being
patient over it until he receive the early and latter rain.5 Be
patient then, ye also, stablish your hearts because the coming of the
Lord is near " (v. 7, 8).
vii. Here again we ask, Of whom is the Prophet
thinking? Were there indeed, in those early days of
Christianity, any — still more, could there have been
many — who correspond to this picture of voluptuous
and fraudful wantonness, which had forgotten God and
was so cruel and false to men ? Surely St. Paul gives
us the answer when he says, " Consider your calling,
brethren. Not many of you are wise after the flesh ;
not many mighty, not many noble "6 — and therefore
certainly not many rich — " are called." In those early
congregations of slaves and sufferers there was little
to attract, there was everything to repel, the ordinary
, (f . 29, 6) gives four reasons why the avaricious lose their goods, which
are (1) because they keep back the pay of their labourers; (2) because they
.neglect their welfare; (3) because they shift burdens upon them; (4)
because of pride.
1 The form of expression (used by no other New Testament writer,
except in a quotation, Rom. ix. 29) is characteristically Judaic. The
LXX. rendering is mostly iravroKpar&p. See Bp. Pearson On the Creed,
Art. 1.
2 Like cattle grazing in rich pastures on the day that they are doomed
¦ to bleed (Theile) ; Ezek. xxxiv. 1 — 10.
3 Hos. iv. 17 ; 2 Tim. ii. 24 ; Isa. liii. 7. This makes the conclusion of
the clause far more striking than the proposed renderings, " Does he not
set himself in array against you ? " or " bring the armies against you ?"
4 This must be a reference to Christ's coming.
5 The former in winter, the latter in spring (Deut. xi. 14 ; Jer. iii. 3 ;
v. 24 ; Joel ii. 23).
6 1 Cor. i. 26.

WHO WERE "THE RICH"? 69
multitude of the wealthy. In those days the truth of
the Lord's words was seen, "How hardly shall they
that have riches — how hardly shall they who trust in
riches — enter into the Kingdom of Heaven." The
" deceitfulness of riches " became very manifest, and
the " woe unto you that are rich " was seen in its full
meaning. Rich men, indeed, there were in the Church,
as there had been since Nicodemus and Joseph of Arima-
thsea brought their costly spices to the tomb ; for St.
Paul in one of his latest Epistles could give a charge to
the rich not to be arrogant, and not to trust in the
uncertainty of riches.1 But considering what a Chris
tian had in those days to suffer, is it conceivable that
any of the few rich men who had ventured to bear the
reproach of the cross would have lived the haughty,
greedy, oppressive life of the men on whom St. James
here hurls his unsparing denunciation ? So strongly has
this difficulty been felt that some, once more, see in "the
rich" only a symbol of the proud, haughty, exclusive,
self-satisfied religionist ;2 but though the words " rich "
and "poor" may not be confined to their literal
senses— yet certainly the literal sense is not excluded.
Once more, I see the explanation of his passion, the
moving cause of his righteous menaces, in the conduct
of the leading classes at Jerusalem — the gorgeously clad
Herodians, the aristocratic Sadducees. The extracts
from the Talmudists which I have given on a previous
page describe their conduct, and will show what bitter
need there was for the language which St. James em
ploys.
1 1 Tim. v. 17.
2 Comp. Rev. ii. 9 ; iii. 17 ; and see 1 Sam. ii. 8 ; Ps. lxxii. 13 ; Amos
ii. 6; Lukei. 52, 53; vi. 20, &c.

70 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY.
Nor is Josephus less emphatic.
"About this time," he says, "King Agrippa gave
the high priesthood to Ishmael Ben Phabi. And now
arose a sedition on the part of the chief priests against
the priests and the leaders of the multitude at Jeru
salem. Each of them gathered around himself a com
pany of the boldest innovators and became their leader.
And when they came into collision they both abused
each other and flung stones. There was no one to
keep them in awe, but all these things went on with
a high hand as though in a city where there was
anarchy. And such impudence and audacity seized the
chief priests that they even dared to send slaves to the
threshing-floors to seize the tithes due to the priests.
And it happened that some of the priests died of want
from being deprived of their sustenance, so completely
did the violence of the seditious prevail over all
justice."1 viii. And if these words of St. James were addressed to
Jews and Jewish Christians about the year a.d. 61, how
speedily were his warnings fulfilled, how terribly and
how soon did the retributive doom fall on these wealthy,
luxurious tyrants ! A few years later Vespasian invaded
Judaga. Truly there was need to howl and weep when,
amid the horrors caused by the rapid approach of the
Roman armies, the gold and silver of the wealthy op
pressors was useless to buy bread, and they had to lay
up, for the moth to eat, those gorgeous robes which it
would have been a peril and a mockery to wear. The
worshippers at the last fatal Passover became the
victims. The rich only were marked out for the
1 Jos. Antt. xx. 8, § 8. He repeats the same complaints against Joshua,
son of Gamala, in xx 9, § 2.

MURDER OF "THE JUST." 71
worst fury of the Zealots, and their wealth sank into
the flames of the burning city. Useless were their
treasures in those "last days," when there was heard
at the very doors the thundering summons of the
Judge ! In all their rich banquets and full-fed revel
ling they had but fattened themselves as human
offerings for that day of slaughter ! The Jewish
historian here becomes the best commentator on the
prophecies of the Christian Apostle.
ix. " Ye condemned, ye murdered the just." The aorist
tenses of the original may point equally well to some
single act, or to a series of single acts; and "the just
man " was a title of every devout and faithful Israelite.
The present tense, " he doth not resist you " — so
abruptly and pathetically introduced — seems to show that
St. James is alluding to a general state of things. In the
delivery of Christ to the Gentiles the Jewish Church
had slain "that Just One;"1 and since His death they
had consented to the murder of His saints in the
stoning of Stephen, and the beheading of James, the
son of Zebedee. But in the scantiness of the records of
the early Church of Jerusalem there is too much reason
to fear that there was a crowd of obscurer martyrs.2
And Christ suffered, as it were, again in the person of
His saints. When they were murdered He was, as it
were, led once more to unresisted sacrifice. And now
St. James himself bore pre-eminently the title of " the
Just." His words might seem to have been prophetic
of his own rapidly-approaching fate, while yet they
tacitly repudiate the title by which he was called, to
1 Acts vii. 52.
2 Acts xxvi. 10. " When they were condemned lo death," says St.
Paul, " I gave my voice against them."

72. THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY.
confer it on Him who alone is worthy of it. But the
state of things which he is describing was by no means
isolated. It had been already described at length in
the language of a book which also belonged to this
epoch, and with which St. James has more than once
shown himself to be familiar.
"For the ungodly said . . . Come on therefore, let us enjoy
the good things that are present; and let us speedily use the creatures
as in youth. Let us fill ourselves with costly wine and ointments,
and let no flower of the spring pass by us ; let none of us go without
his portion of our voluptuousness — let us oppress the poor righteous
man . . . for that which is feeble is found to be nothing worth.
Let us lie in wait for the righteous. He professeth to have the
knowledge of God, and he calleth himself the child of the Lord. He
was made to reprove our thoughts. We are esteemed of him as
counterfeits. He pronounceth the end of the just to be blessed, and
maketh his boast that God is his Father. Let us examine him with
despitefulness and torture, that we may know his meekness and prove
his patience. Let us condemn him with a shameful death, for by
his own saying he shall be respected " (Wisd. ii 6—20),
x. But all such warnings proved vain. Nay, it is
probable that they only precipitated the fate of the
speaker, and that he, like other prophets, felt the
vengeance of those whose unrepented sins he so un
sparingly denounced.1 When the priests had murdered
James the Just, not resisting them, but praying for
them, the day for warning had passed away for ever,
and over a guilty city and a guilty nation History
pronounced once more her awful verdict of " Too late."
"Ye condemned, ye murdered the just. He re-
sistelh you not."2 "And thus," says Wiesinger, "we
1 Hegesippus, ap. Euseb. ii. 23; Origen, c. Cels. i. 48; Jer. De Virr.
Illustr. ii.
2 Comp. Amos v. 12 : " They afflict the just .... therefore the
prudent shall keep silence in that time."

" WAIT ! " 73
have, as it were, standing before us the slain and unre
sisting righteous man, when, lo ! the curtain falls. Be
patient, brethren, wait ! " The coming of the Lord for
which they had to wait was not far distant. The
husbandman had to wait in patience, and often in
disappointment, for the early and latter rain. Let them
learn by his example. But since the Judge was standing
already before the doors,1 let them, that they might
escape His condemnation, not only bear with patience
the afflictions of persecutors, but also abstain from
murmuring at each other's conduct.2 It was patience
that they needed most; patience with one another,
patience under external trials. As an example of that
patience, let them take the prophets, and let the Book
of Job8 remind them that in the end God ever vindi
cates His attributes of compassionate tenderness.4
xi. His task is now done, but he adds a few need
ful admonitions. Let them avoid all rash and needless
oaths, and be simple in their affirmations.5 Let them
be more fervent in prayer.
1 Some have fancied that the question tauntingly asked of St. James
in the story of his martyrdom in Hegesippus — " Which is the door
of Jesus ? " — had reference to this saying of his ; as though they would
ask, " By which door will Christ come to judge ? " ; but it more probably
refers to John x. 7 — 9 (see Gieseler, Ch. Hist. § 31).
2 A clear reference to Matt. vii. 1 {pvq o-rwdfae kot' aw-q\av) ; lit.,
"groan not against one another." The E. V. "grudge," once meant
" murmur " (see Ps. lix. 15) ; " he eats his meat without grudging "
(Shakesp. Much Ado, iii. 4, 90).
3 Here alone referred to in the New Testament, though quoted in
1 Cor. iii. 19, and by Philo, De Mutat. Nom. xxiv.
4 v. 9 — 11. Others interpret " Ye have seen the end of the Lord," to
mean, " Ye saw the death of Christ," as in 1 Pet. ii. 22 — 25 ; iroxio-KXayxvos
is yet another unique expression for e6<rw\ayxvos (Eph. iv. 32 ; 1 Pet. iii. 8).
oiKripp.uv occurs in Ecclus. ii. 13 ; Luke vi. 36.
6 Comp. Matt. v. 35, 36. Jews (unlike Christians, alas ! ) were not
likely to take God's name in vain. " That ye fall not into judgment " ;
the reading tls imoKpiaiv, gives a worse sense, and is not well supported.

74 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY.
" Is any one among you in affliction ? Let him pray. Is any
cheerful ? Let him sing praise. Is any sick among you ? Let him
summon the elders of the Church, and let them pray over him,
anointing him with oil J in the name of the Lord,2 and the prayer of
faith shall save the sick man, and the Lord shall raise him (from his
bed of sickness, Acts ix. 34).3 Even if he shall have committed sin,
it shall be remitted him. Confess then to one another4 your trans
gressions, and pray for one another, that ye may be healed.5 Much
availeth the supplication of a just man, when it worketh with energy.
Elias was a man of like passions with us,G and he prayed earnestly
that it might not rain, and it rained not upon the earth three years
and six months.7 And again he prayed, and the heaven gave rain,
and the earth brought forth her fruit."8
1 A common Eastern therapeutic, as we see from Isa. i. 6 ; Mark vi.
13 ; Luke x. 34 ; Jos. B. J. i. 33, § 5 ; Antt. xvii. 6, § 5. It was also used
by Romans (Pliny, H N. xxxi. 47). The use of oil for bodily healing is
retained by the Eastern Church.
2 That is, of Christ (Matt, xxviii. 19; Acts ii. 38; iii. 16; iv. 10;
1 Cor. i. 13—15).
3 " Nisi mempe aliter ei suppeditat ad aeternam salutem " (Grotius).
In the first Prayer-book of Edward VI. the anointing was accompanied by
the prayer : " Our Heavenly Father vouchsafe for His great mercy {if it be
His blessed will) to restore to thee thy bodily health." The prayer will
not be thrown away ; it will be answered as is best for us and the sufferer.
How much connexion this has with Extreme Unction (of which with an
anathema the Council of Trent commanded it to be understood) may be
seen from the fact that extreme unction is forbidden, except in cases in
which recovery seems quite hopeless.
4 In the manipulation of this text by Cornelius a, Lapide, "to one
another" becomes "to a priest" ("frater fratri confitemini, puta sacer-
doti"). Confession in sickness is also enjoined in the Talmud (Shabbath,
f. 32, a).
5 " When Rabba fell sick he bade his family publish it abroad, that
they who hated him might rejoice, and that they who loved him might
intercede with God for him" (Nedarim, f. 40, a). "The wise men have
said, No healing is equal to that which comes from the Word of God and
prayer " (Sepher Ha Chayim).
6 Acts xiv. 15.
7 Luke iv. 25. This period (42 months, 1,260 days— comp. Rev. xi. 3)
was mentioned by the Jewish tradition (Yalkut Simeoni), and is per
fectly consistent with fair inferences from 1 Kings xviii.
8 T- 13 — 18. Thus the prayer of Elijah was one of mercy as well as
one of judgment. Dean Plumptre thinks that St. James may have had in

ANOINTING WITH OIL. 75
The leading idea of this passage, which Lange most
needlessly allegorises, is the efficacy of Christian prayer.
The course which St. James recommends in cases of
sickness is natural and beautiful, and in the small num
bers of the Christian communities could be easily followed.
It is the advice of which the entire spirit is carried
out in our service for the Visitation of the Sick. We
no longer, indeed, anoint with oil, because we do not
live in Palestine or in the first century.1 The thera
peutic means of one climate and age are not necessarily
the best to be adopted in another, but prayer belongs to
all countries and all times, and the mutual confession
of .sins is often helpful. We must always distinguish-
between the letter and the spirit, the accidental adjunct
and the eternal principle. If this passage has been per
verted into the doctrine and practice of extreme unction
regarded as a sacrament,2 and of sacramental confession
to a priest, it has only shared the fate of hundreds of
other passages. There are few prominent texts on
which the tottering structures of purely inferential
mind the sudden burst of rain after drought which fell in answer to prayer
after the troubles caused by the attempt of Caligula to set up his statue
in the Temple (Jos. Antt. xviii. 8, § 6). Analogous to this is the story of
the Thundering Legion (Euseb. H. E. v. 5 ; Tert. Apol. 5), and the well-
known story of Mr. Grimshaw. Hegesippus says of James himself,
that it was supposed by the people that he caused rain to fall by his
prayers. 1 " Things which were practised and prescribed by Christ Himself and
His Apostles are not of perpetual obligation unless they are conducive to
an end which is of perpetual necessity." — Bp. Wordsworth, who instances
feet-washing ( Jdhn xiii. 14) and the Kiss of Peace (1 Thess. v. 26 ; 1 Pet.
v. 14). 2 Anointing with oil was provided for in the first Prayer-book of
Edward VI., " if the sick man desire it " ; but as no miraculous results
can follow, and as oil is not specially valuable in our climate as a means
of healing in all diseases, it was wisely dropped in the Prayer-book
of 1552 (see Jer. Taylor's Preface to Holy Dying).

76 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY.
dogmas have not been reared. Thus do men build
upon Divine foundations the hay and stubble of human
fancies. And if the passage has thus been perverted
in one direction by the growth of sacerdotalism, it has
been perverted in another by the fanaticism of ignorance.
Because the promises of healing given by St. James
are unconditional, it has been assumed by some poor
fanatics that no one need ever die, as though death, in
God's good time, were not man's richest birthright,
and as though every good man's prayer for any earthly
blessing was not in itself made absolutely conditional
on the will of God.1 But neither for extreme unction,
nor for sacramental confession, nor for sacerdotal abso
lution,2 nor for fanatical extravagance, does this passage
afford the slightest sanction. Such inferences are only
possible to the exegesis which takes the sound of the
words, and not their true meanings. The lessons which
we must here learn are lessons of the blessedness of
sympathy, and of holy intercourse, and of the humble
confession of sin, and, above all, of prayer, at all times,
but most of all in times of sickness. Our faith, too,
may find encouragement in the efficacy of prayer for
the achievement of results which even transcend the
ordinary course of nature. In enforcing this faith by the
example of Elijah,3 St. James does so on the express
ground that, saint though he was, and prophet though
1 CEcumenius, on the other hand, has no warrant for confining the
reference of the verse to miraculous healings in the days of the Apostles
(the xapiayia iap-drav, 1 Cor. xii. 9).
2 Even Cardinal Cajetan admits, with perfect frankness : " Haec
verba non loquuntur de Sacramentali Unctione extremae unctionis — nee hie
est sermo de confessione sacramentali."
3 It is implied in 1 Kings xviii. 42, seq., that Elijah prayed for rain.
It was the Jewish tradition that he also prayed for the drought, but
Scripture does not say so. He announced it (1 Kings xvii. 1).

CONVERTING WANDERERS. 77
he was, he was no supernatural being, but one " of like
passions " with ourselves.
xii. Then, in one last weighty word, comes the
solemn close of the Epistle.
"My brethren, if any one among you wander from the truth,
and one convert him, know that he who has converted a sinner from
the error of his way shall save a soul from death, and shall cover a
multitude of sins" (v. 19, 20).
He has spoken many words of warning and con
demnation against the worldliness, the violence, the
forgetfulness of God, which were but too prevalent
among Jewish and Christian communities, and he
has given many an exhortation to patience, and
dehortation from iniquity. But this last word is a
word to those who were most faithful, and is meant
to stimulate them to the best and most blessed of all
duties — the endeavour to help and save the souls of
others. No reward could equal that of success in such
a task.1 To hide as with the gracious veil of penitence
and forgiveness the many sins of a sinner was a Christ
like service, and he who was enabled to render it would
share in the joy of Christ. And may not the thought
be at least involved that in covering the sins of another
he would also be helping to cover his own — that he
who waters others shall be watered also himself ?2
1 Ps. xxxii. 1, 2 ; lxxxv. 2 ; Neh. iv. 5 ; Prov. x. 12 ; 1 Pet. iv. 8. " He
commends the correction of brothers from its result, that we may more
eagerly devote ourselves to it " (Calvin). A faint analogy occurs in Yoma,
f . 87 a, " Whoever leads many to righteousness, sin is not committed by
his hands."
2 " Whosoever destroyeth one soul of Israel, Scripture counts it to him
as though he had destroyed the whole world ; and whoso preserveth one
soul of Israel, Scripture counts it as though he had preserved the whole
world" (Sanhedrin, f. 37, a). R. Meyer said — "Great is repentance,
because for the sake of one that truly repenteth, the whole world is

78 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY.
And there, as with a seal affixed to a testament,1 he
ends. He would leave that thought last in their minds,
and would suffer neither greetings nor messages to
weaken the force of the injunction, or the supremacy of
the blessing by which he would encourage them to its
fulfilment. " Insigni doctrind, velut colophone epistolam
absolvit." 2
pardoned (Hos. xiv. 4) " (Yoma, f. 86, 6). How much wiser and more
controlled is the language of St. James !
1 Herder. 2 Zuingliup.

CHAPTER XXIII.

ST. JAMES AND ST. PAUL ON FAITH AND WORKS.
" Thy works and alms and all thy good endeavour
Staid not behind, nor in the grave were trod ;
But, as Faith pointed with her golden rod,
Followed thee up to joy and bliss for ever." — Milton.
Our sketch of the Epistle of St. James cannot
conclude without a few words on the famous pas
sage in which, it has been supposed, the Bishop of
Jerusalem deliberately contravenes and argues against
the most characteristic formula of the Apostle of the
Gentiles.1 Let us first place side by side the passages which
are in most direct apparent contradiction :

" . . . if Abraham were justi
fied by works, he hath whereof
to glory, but not before God "
(Rom. iv. 2).
" Therefore, being justified by
faith, we have peace with God
through our Lord Jesus Christ "
(Rom. v. 1).
" By grace are ye saved thro'
faith . . . not of works, lest any
man should boast " (Eph. ii 8, 9).
"Therefore we conclude that a
man is justified by faith without
the deeds of the law " (Rom. iii.

" Was not Abraham our father
justified by works when he had
offered Isaac his son upon the
altar?" (Jas. ii. 21).
" What doth it profit, my breth
ren, though a man say he hath
faith, and have not works ? Can
the faith save him?" (Jas. ii. 14).
"... Faith, if it hath not
works, is dead, being alone "
(Jas. ii. 17).
" Ye see, then, how that by
works a man is justified, and not
by faith only " (Jas. ii. 24),

28). 1 I have consulted the treatment of this subject by Luther, Bengel,
Jer. Taylor (Sermon iii. " Fides formata"), Barrow (Sermon on Justify-

80 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY.
It is hardly strange that the opposite character of
these statements should have attracted deep attention,
and of late years there have been two distinct views
respecting them.
(1.) One is that the passages involve a real and
even intentional contradiction.1 Baur, while holding
that St. James meant to oppose the formulae of St.
Paul, or of his School, yet speaks with moderation.
He believes that St. James's arguments were not so
much meant to be polemical as corrective of misappre
hensions, and therefore that they were dictated by the
true spirit of catholic unity. Others, however, and
notably the advanced members of the Tubingen School,
regard the Epistle as a bitter manifesto of Judaising
Christians against the Paulinists.2 The research and
insight of Baur led him to a real discovery when he
pointed out the importance of the contest between
the Judaisers and the Paulinists. Those who pushed
his views to an extreme were prepared to sacrifice
the entire historical credibility of the Acts of the
Apostles in order to make out that St. James and St.
Paul, or at least their immediate followers, hated each
other with irreconcilable opposition. They thought, in
fact, that in the Clementine Homilies, with their strong
animus against St. Paul, they had discovered the true
key to the early history of the Church. They attributed
ing Faith), De Wette (whose note is quoted in Alford, ad loc), Hare (Vindi
cation of Luther), Bishop Lightfoot, Plumptre, Dean Bagot, Wordsworth,
Ewald, Lange, Pfleiderer, Baur, Wiesinger, Huther, Schaff, Reuss, Im-
mer (N. Test. Theol.), Neander, and other writers.
1 Luther, Cyril Lucar, Strobel, Kern, Baur, Schwegler, Renan.
2 The notion that Jas. iii. 13—18, and the praise of the wisdom which
is " earthly, unspiritual, demonish," is a reflection on 1 Cor. ii. 14, 15
(Hilgenfeld, Einleit. 536) is very baseless.

JUDAISTS AND PAULINISTS. 81
to the Apostles themselves heretical slanders which
they would have rejected with astonished indigna
tion. They think that three of the Apostles — St.
James, St. John, and St. Jude — were Judaists, who not
only took an impassioned part in the controversies
which were excited by the actions of St. Paul, but
have even recorded their abhorrence of his views upon
the Sacred page. In their opinion, it is St. Paul at
whom St. James is aiming one of the bitterest terms
of Hebrew condemnation when he exclaims, " But art
thou willing to recognise, 0 empty person^ that faith
without works is dead ? " The Epistle of St. Jude
becomes, in their view, a specimen of the " hatred-
breathing Epistles " which were despatched to the
Jewish Churches by the heads of the Mother Church
in Jerusalem, to teach Christians not only to repudiate,
but to denounce the special " Gospel " of the Apostle
of the Gentiles. According to their interpretation,
St. John, the Apostle of Love, hurled forth against
his great fellow-Apostle yet fiercer execration, and,
in " cries of passionate hatred," described him as a
False Apostle, a Balaam, a Jezebel, the founder of
the Nicolaitans, and a teacher of crime and heresy.
They, therefore, regard the addresses of the Apocalypse
to the Seven Churches as manifestoes directed by a
Judaist against the very Apostle by whose heroic
labours those Churches had been founded.2 The false
hood of this hypothesis has long been demonstrated.
It only furnishes an illustration of the ease with which
a theory, resting on a narrow basis of fact, may be
pushed into complete extravagance. That St. Paul
and St. James approached the great truths of Christi-
1 »jn, Raca. 2 Renan, St. Paul, p. 367.
9

82 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY.
anity from different points of view ; that they did not
adopt the same phrases in describing them ; that they
differed about various questions of theory and practice ;
even that they stood at the head of parties whose
mutual bitterness they would have been the first to
deplore — is clear from the Acts of the Apostles, and
still more clear from scattered notices in the Epistles
of St. Paul. But it is quite common for the adherents
of great thinkers to exaggerate their differences, and
fail to catch their spirit. Whatever may have been
the tone of the Jerusalem Pharisees towards Gentile
Christians who paid no regard to the ceremonial Law,
we have the evidence of St. Paul himself,1 as well
as of public records of the Church, that between him
and the other Apostles there reigned a spirit of mutual
respect and mutual concession. The view, therefore,
that St. James was trying, in the approved modern
fashion, to "write down" St. Paul, may be finally
dismissed. (2.) The other view, which has recently been main
tained by Bishop Lightfoot,2 is that St. James is not
thinking of St. Paul in any way ; that his expressions
have no reference to him whatever ; and that he is
only occupied with controversies which moved in an
entirely different world of ideas. Now it is, I think,
sufficiently proved that this view is possible. Evidence
has been adduced to show that the question of faith and
works was one which had been long and eagerly debated
in the Jewish Schools, and that the names of Abraham,
and even of Rahab,3 as forming two marked contrasts, had
1 Gal. ii. 9; Acts xv. 13—21 ; xxi. 17—25.
2 Galatians, pp. 152 — 162. This is the view of Schneckenburger,
Theile, Neander, Schaff, Theirsch, Hofmann, Huther, Lange, Plumptre.
3 That Rahab was prominent in Jewish thought we see from Matt. i. 5.

TRUST IN MONOTHEISM. 83
constantly been introduced into these discussions. It
is not, therefore, true to say that St. James must be
thinking of St. Paul. The "solifidianism" of the
Jews consisted in an exclusive trust in their Mono
theism, their descent from Abraham, their circumci
sion, and their possession of the Law.1 Justin Martyr
alludes to Jews who, " although they were sinners, yet
deceived themselves by saying that, if they knew God,
He would not impute sin to them."2 If, then, the early
date of the Epistle could be otherwise demonstrated, the
question as to any designed opposition between the
two Apostles would fall to the ground, and we should
only have to show whether it is possible to reconcile
independent statements which at first appear to be
mutually exclusive. It is so important to establish this
fact — so important to prove that whatever be the date of
the Epistle, St. James may be refuting the notion of a
justification by faith which is not that described by St.
Paul, but a blind Judaic trust in privileges and obser
vances — that it will be worth while to show from the
Talmud how prevalent these views were in the Jewish
world. a. Thus, as regards Monotheism, we find that in
repeating the Shema,, or daily prayer, " Hear, 0 Israel,
the Lord our God is one God " (Deut. vi. 4) ; " whoso
ever prolongs the utterance of the word One (echad) shall
have his days and years prolonged to him " (Berachoth,
f. 13, b).
When Akhiva was martyred by having his flesh torn
from him, he died uttering this word " One ; " and then
came a Bath Kol, which said, " Blessed art thou, Rabbi
1 Matt. iii. 9 ; John viii. 33 ; Rom. ii. 17 — 20, and compare Jer. vii. 4.
2 Just. Mart. Dial. § 141.
9 2

84 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY.
Akhiva, for thy soul and the word One left thy body
together" (id. f. 61, b).
/3. Again, as regards circumcision .-
" Though Abraham kept all the commandments,
including the whole ceremonial law (Kiddushin, f . 82, a),
still he was not perfect till he was circumcised " (Neda-
rim, f. 31, b).
" So great is circumcision, that thirteen covenants
were made concerning it" (Nedarim, f. 31, b).
Many Jews relied less on their observances than on
their possession of special privileges.
7. As regards their national position, they said that
God had given to Israel three precious gifts — the Law,
the land of Israel, and the world to come -,1 that all
Israelites were princes,2 all holy,3 all philosophers, " full
of meritorious works as a pomegranate of pips," i and
that it was as impossible for the world to be without
them as to be without air.5 They even ventured to
say that " All Israelites have a portion in the world to
come, as it is written, And thy people are all righteous,
they shall inherit the land" (Is. Ix. 21). (Sanhedrin,
f. 90, a.)
" The world was created only for Israel : none are
called the children of God but Israel : none are beloved
before God but Israel " (Gerim, 1).
S. In fact, on the testimony of the Talmud itself,
extern alism had triumphed in the heart of the Jewish
Church. The High Priests, though they were, accord
ing to the best Jewish testimony, shameful examples
of greed, simony, luxury, gluttony, pride, and violence,
were yet quite content with themselves if they were
1 Berachoth, f. 5, a. 2 Shabbath, f. 57, a. 3 Shabbath, f. 86, a.
4 The Machsor for Penteccst. 6 Taanith, f. 3, 6.

MECHANICAL HOLINESS. 85
rigorists in the minutise of Levitism instead of ex
amples of ideal righteousness. In the tract Sota (47, b)
there is a bitter complaint that moral worth was dis
regarded, and no regard paid to anything but external
service. In another tract (Yoma, 23, a) we are told
that outward observance was more highly esteemed
than inward purity, and that murder itself was con
sidered venial in comparison with a ceremonial defile
ment of the Temple.1 St. James was daily familiar
with this spectacle of men who, living in defiance ot
every moral law, yet thought to win salvation by the
easy mechanism of ceremonial scrupulosity. Against
such mechanical conceptions of holiness his Epistle
would have told with great power.
(3.) But believing as I do, on other grounds, that
the Epistle was written shortly before St. James's
death, it becomes difficult to suppose that St. James's
argument in favour of " justification by works " bears
no relation whatever to the great argumentative
Epistles in which St. Paul had established the truth
of Justification by Faith. And while I freely concede
that the question of faith and works was frequently
discussed in the Jewish Schools, and with special re
ference to the life of Abraham, there is not, I think,
sufficient evidence that the doctrine had ever been so
distinctly formulated, and certainly it had never been
so fully and powerfully discussed, as it was in the
Epistles to the Romans and Galatians.2 If we are right
in supposing that St. James wrote his Epistle about
1 For the various Talmudic quotations see Gratz, iii. 321, 322, and the
works of Schottgen, Meuschen, Eisenmenger, Hershon, Hamburger, &c.
No less than fourteen of the Treatises of the Talmud, both Mishna and
Gemara, have now been translated into French by Mo'ise Schwab.
2 " Und sicher kann man nicht leugnen dass die vom Apostel Paulus

86 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY.
the year 61 or 62, then some years had elapsed since
St. Paul had sent forth these great Epistles. Con
sidering that emissaries, who came from Jerusalem —
who came ostensibly from James — who boasted, though
not always truly, of his sanction and authority — who
carried with them letters which, if not written by him,
were written by leading personages in the Church of
which he was the Bishop — had penetrated into many
of the communities founded by St. Paul, and had half-
undone his work by reducing his converts to the legal
bondage from which he had set them free — it becomes
almost inconceivable that St. James, even if he had not
seen copies of one or other of those Epistles, should not
at least have been familiar with the general drift of
views which had become notorious wherever the name
of Christ was preached. Now, the teaching of St.
Paul was intensely original. It was not easy for
any one to grasp its full meaning ; and it was quite
impossible for any hostile and prejudiced person to
understand it at all. To many, educated in the
absorbing prejudices of Judaism, his opinions about
the Law would have appeared dubious. Their indig
nation would have been kindled by the fiery and almost
contemptuous boldness of some of the expressions which
he wrote and published, and which he must therefore
have frequently let fall in the heat of controversy.
In the Church of Jerusalem it is hardly likely that
the dialectics of St. Paul were lovingly or patiently
studied. St. James himself is our witness to the fact
that there, and throughout the Ghettos of the world,
the views of the great missionary were systematically
aufgestellbe Lehre iiber dem Glauben zu dieser Abhandlung die nachste
Veranlassung gab " (Ewald, Die Sendschreiben, ii. p. 198).

HATRED OF ST. PAUL. 87
misrepresented. To the ordinary Jewish Christian he
was known as one who constantly taught " apostasy
from Moses," as one who "forbad" not only Gentiles,
but " all Jews," to circumcise their children, and " to
walk according to the customs." 1 As regards Jews,
the charge was false. St. Paul never interfered witli
them ; and since he himself kept the general provisions
of the Law as a national duty — greatly as, to him,
they must have lost their significance — we have every
reason to suppose that he would have advised any Jew
who consulted him to do the same. But any lie, how
ever often refuted, is good enough for party-spirit ; and
no amount of explanation, however simple and sincere,
will prevent the grossest misrepresentations of opinion
from being used for their own purposes by religious par
tisans. Further than this, it is not only possible, but
probable, that some of St. Paul's followers did misinter
pret his characteristic expressions, did make a bad and
even dangerous use of them. We might easily imagine
that this would be the case, because every day shows
us how easy it is, first to turn any expression into a
watchcry, then to empty it of all significance, and
finally to use it in a sense entirely alien from that in
which it was originally used. Here again we are not
left to conjecture. We have the express testimony of
the second Epistle of St. Peter that there were those
who wrested the difficult parts of St. Paul's Epistles,
as they did also the rest of the Scriptures, to their own
perdition. Now, if it be merely snatched up as a
formula — without an earnest desire to understand it,
without the thought which was necessary to see it in its
proper perspective — there is no expression more liable
1 Acts xxi. 21.

88 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY.
to be perverted than St. Paul's characteristic formula of
" Justification by Faith." In his sense of the words it
is one of the deepest and most essential truths of Chris
tianity ; but in his sense only. And he had used both
words, "Justification" and "Faith," in meanings which
made them parts of one great system of thoughts. It
is owing to this that his words have been constantly
misunderstood, and are to this day deplorably misinter
preted. To this day there are some who use expressions
so objectionable as " works are deadly." There were even
in the days of the Apostles, as there have been since,
Nicolaitans and other Antinomians, who, on the claim
of possessing faith, have set themselves in superiority
to the moral law, and asserted a licence to commit
all ungodliness. Now, if St. James had come across
such men, or had been told of their existence, or
had even met with Jewish Christians who, without
understanding St. Paul's teaching, were perplexed by
the ignorant repetition of the formula which was
selected to represent it, would there have been any
thing derogatory to the character of St. James, or
unworthy of his position, in the endeavour to
refute the perversions to which this formula was
liable ? Is it not a high service to expose the empty
use of any expression which has been degraded to the
purposes of cant and faction ? Would not St. Paul
have rejoiced that such a task should have been per
formed ? Would he not have performed it himself, if
circumstances had led him to see that it was needful ?
It is, indeed, improbable that he would in that case
have used all the expressions which St. James has used ;
but his pastoral Epistles are sufficient to prove that he
would have cordially concurred with him in his general

ST. JAMES AND ST. PAUL. 89
opinion. I believe, then, with many of the Fathers,
that St. James wrote this passage with the express
intention of correcting false inferences from the true
teaching of St. Paul;1 and that, though there is no
contradiction between them, there is a certain antithesis
— a traceable difference in the types of dogma which they
respectively adopted.2
If the arguments of St. James had been intended
for a refutation of St. Paul himself, they would have
been singularly ineffectual. They do not fathom the
depths of his meaning ; they deal with uses of his words
which are more superficial and less specifically Christian.
A polemical argument must, as such, be a failure if
every word which the writer says could be adopted by
the person against whom he is writing. It is only as
the correction of onesided and erroneous inferences from
St. Paul's teaching, drawn by honest ignorance or cir
culated by hostile malice, that the argument of St.
James has a value, which the Church of all ages has
rejoiced to recognise.
But setting aside the question of conscious opposition
between the views of the two Apostles, as one which lies
outside the range of proof, we have to ask the far more
important question, How is their language reconcilable
with the truth of God ? How can it be said with equal
confidence " Ye are saved through faith .... not of works "
(Eph. ii. 8, 9), and
" Ye see . . . that by works a man is justified, and
not by faith only " (James ii. 24) ?
And here I must entirely differ from Luther in the
1 This is the view adopted by Bp. Bull in his Harmonia Apostolica.
2 So Schmid, Wiesinger, &c.

90 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY.
view that the two statements, in the senses intended by
their authors, are irreconcilable.1 The reconciliation
is easy when we see that St. James is using all three
words — Faith, Works, Justification — in a different sense
to different persons, with different illustrations, under
different circumstances ; and when we find, further, that
St. James, in other passages, insists no less than St.
Paul on the importance of faith ; and St. Paul, no less
than St. James, on the necessity of works.
i. For by Faith St. Paul never means dead faith
(fides informis) at all. He means, (1) in the lowest sense
of the word, general trust in God (assensus, fiducia) ;2
then (2) self-surrender to God's will;3 (3) in its
highest, and most Pauline sense — the sense in which he
uses it when he speaks of " Justification by Faith " — it
is self-surrender which has deepened into sanctification ;
it is a living power of good in every phase of life ; it is
unio mystica, a mystical incorporation with Christ in
unity of love and life.4 But this application of the
word was peculiar to St. Paul, and St. James does
not adopt it. He meant by faith in this passage
a mere theoretical belief — belief which may exist
without any germinant life — belief which may stop
short at a verbal profession of Jewish orthodoxy — belief
1 Luther says : " Plures sudarunt in Epistola, Jacobi ut cum Paulo
concordarent . . . sed minus feliciter, sunt enim contraria, 'fides
justificat ' ' fides non justificat ' — qui hsec rite conjungere potest, huic
vitam meam imponam, et fatuum me nominare permittam " (Colloq.
ii. 202). Strobsl, in a review of Wiesinger, says, "No matter in what
sense we take the Epistle of St. James, it is always in conflict with the
remaining parts of Holy Writ."
2 Eom. iv. 18 ; as in Heb. xii. 1.
3 Rom. x. 9; Phil. iii. 7.
4 Rom. xii. 5 ; Phil. i. 21; 1 Cor. vi. 17. See Life and Work of St.
Paul, ii. 188—193; Pfleiderer, Paulinismus, § 5; Baur, Paul. ii. 149;
Neu Test. Theol. i. 176.

WORKS AND JUSTIFICATION. 91
which does not even go so far as that of demons —
belief which, taken alone, is so inappreciable in value
that he compares it to a charity which speaks words of
idle comfort and does not give.1
ii. Again, by Works the two writers meant very
different things. St. Paul was thinking mainly of those
works which stood high in the estimation of his Jewish
opponents ; he meant the works and observances of the
Levitical and ceremonial Law — new moons, sabbaths,
sacrifices, ablutions, meats, drinks, phylacteries, and so
forth ; — or, at the very highest, works of ordinary duty,
" deeds of the Law," untouched by emotion, not
springing from love to God. He did not mean, as St.
James did, works of love and goodness done in obedience
to the royal law,2 those works which spring from a true
and lively faith, which must spring from it, which it is
as impossible to sever from it as it is to sever from fire
its light and heat.3
iii. And, finally, the sense of the word Justification
in St. Paul moves in a higher plane than that in which
it is used by St. James. St. Paul uses the word in a
special, a technical, a theological sense, to express the
righteousness of God, which, by a judgment of acquittal,
pronounced once for all in the expiatory death of Christ,
He imputes to guilty man. St. James uses the word in
the much simpler sense of our being declared and shown
to be righteous — not indeed, as many have said, before
1 In other passages " faith " connotes somewhat more than this, namely,
trust in God (i. 5 ; v. 15).
2 Ja. i. 25 ; ii. 12.
3 If St. Paul attaches to " works " a lower meaning than St. James,
St. James attaches to "faith'' a lower meaning than St. Paul; but there
can be no confusion about the results, because each writer uses the words
in senses which he makes perfectly clear.

92 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY.
men only1 — but righteous before God, as those whose life
is in accordance with their belief.2 St. Paul speaks of the
justification which begins for the sinner by the trustful
acceptance of his reconciliation to God in Christ, and
which attains its perfect stage when the believer is
indeed " in Christ " — when Christ has become to him a
new nature and a quickening spirit. St. James speaks
of the justification of the believer by his producing such
works as are the sole possible demonstration of the
vitality of his indwelling faith.3
Briefly, then, it may be said that the works which
St. Paul thinks of are the works of the Law, those of
St. James the works of godliness ; that St. Paul speaks
of deep and mystic faith, St. James of theoretic belief ;
that St. Paul has in view the initial justification of a
sinner, St. James the complete justification of a believer.4
iv. In accordance with this view, although both
1 This common explanation (Calvin, Grotius, Banmgarten, &c.) is quite
untenable. There is not a word in St. James to indicate that he is only
thinking of justification before men ; and the notion that he is, is refuted
by ver. 14.
2 As our Lord also said, "By thy words thou shalt be justified"
(Matt. xii. 37); and St. Paul himself, in Rom. ii. 13, "the doers of
the law shall be justified." Had this sentence occurred in St. James, how
eagerly would it have been seized upon as a flat contradiction of Rom.
iii. 20, " Therefore, from the works of the law shall no flesh be justified
before Him." But if the same author can thus in the same Epistle use
the same word in different senses, what difficulty can there be in sup
posing that this may be done by different writers, without any hostile
intention ?
3 " To justify " (Sinaiovv pis) has in the Bible two meanings : (1) " To
pronounce the innocent righteous in accordance with his innocence"
(Ex. xxiii. 7; Prov. xvii. 15; Is. v. 23; Matt. xii. 37, &c.) ; (2) to make
righteous, or lead to righteousness (Dan. xii. 31 ; Is. liii. 11 ; and Rom.
passim). In St. James true faith is imputed as righteousness, but justifi
cation follows works as the proof of true faith (Lange).
4 " Works," says Luther, " do not make U3 righteous, but cause us to
be declared righteous " (Luke xvii. 9, 10).

THE FAITH OF ABRAHAM. 93
Apostles refer, for illustration of their views, to the life
of the Patriarch who lived so many centuries before the
delivery of the Law, they do not refer to the same
events in his life. St. Paul illustrates his position by
Abraham's belief in God's promise that he should have
a son, when against hope he believed in hope.1 St.
James, taking the life and the faith of Abraham, so to
speak, " much lower down the stream," shows how
Abraham, many years afterwards, was justified as a
believer, justified by works, when he gave the crowning
proof of his obedience by the willingness to slay even
his only son and the heir of the promise.2 It is obviously
as true to say that Abraham in that act was (in the
ordinary meaning of the words) justified by faith, as that
he was justified by works. He was justified by faith,
because nothing but his faith could have led him to
such perfect endurance in the hour of trial ; he was jus
tified by works, because, without his works, there could
have been no proof that his faith existed. Faith and
works, in this sense, are, in fact, inseparably intertwined.
There cannot be such works without faith ; there cannot
be such faith without works. It is really the same
1 Rom. iv. 3, 9, 22; Gen. xv. 6.
2 James ii. 23 ; Gen. xxii. 12. See Huther ad loc. A remarkable
Talmudic story tells us that Satan slandered Abraham before God, saying
that God had given him a son when he was a hundred years old, and he
had not even spared a dove for sacrifice. God answers that Abraham
would not spare even his son if required. So God said, " Take now thy
son " {as if a king~ should say to his bravest warrior, Fight now this
hardest battle of all\ " for fear it should be said that thy former trials
were easy.'' " I have two sons," answered Abraham. " Take thine only
son." " Each," he answered, " is the only son of his mother." " Take
him whom thou lovest." " I love them both." Then God said, " Take
Isaac." Abraham obeyed, and on the way Satan met him, and tried to
make him murmur. Abraham answered, " I will walk in mine integrity "
(Sanhedrin, f. 89, 6).

94 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY.
thing to say that a man is (in one or other of the
senses of the word) justified by such a faith as must
from its very nature issue in good works, or by such
works as can only issue from a true and lively faith.
Nor is it surprising (as we have seen) that the
question should be illustrated by the example of
Abraham, whose life and faith were constantly discussed
in their minutest particulars by the Jewish Rabbis, and
who was asserted to have not only been saved by faith,
but to have observed even the oral commandments
centuries before they were delivered,1 If St. James
also takes the instance of Rahab, this does not involve
a necessary reference to the remark in the Epistle to the
Hebrews, that she, too, was saved by faith. For the
example of Rahab was also greatly discussed in the
Jewish schools, and for her faith and works it was said
that no less than eight prophets, who were also priests,
had sprung from her, and that Huldah, the prophetess,
was one of her descendants.2
v. And the superficial contradiction between the
Apostles vanishes to nothing when we bear in mind
that St. Paul is dealing with the vain confidence
of legalism, St. James with the vain confidence of
orthodoxy. St. Paul was writing' to Gentile Churches
to prevent them from being seduced into trusting
for salvation to the adoption of external badges
and ceremonials, or to good deeds done in a spirit
of servile fear. St! James is arguing either with
Jewish bigots who thought that a profession of
Monotheism and a participation in Jewish privileges3
would save them ; or with mistaken Paulinists who had
1 Yoma, f . 28, 6 ; Kiddushin, f. 82, a.
2 Meggillah, f. 14, 6. 3 Matt. iii. 9.

ST. JAMES ON FAITH. 95
snatched up a formula which they did not under
stand, and who thought that justification could be
severed from sanctification — that a saving faith was
possible without the holiness of an accordant life. St.
Paul is contrasting faith in Christ with works of the
Law ; St. James is contrasting a dead unreal faith with
a faith which evidences its reality by holy works. St.
Paul's arguments were meant to overthrow the vain con
fidence of the Pharisee1; St. James's tell equally
against the Jew who pillowed his hopes on fruitless
orthodoxy, and the Antinomian who identified saving
faith with barren profession.
For, lastly, there is no difficulty in showing that
both as regards faith and works the Apostles, however
much their expressions may differ, were substantially
at one. (i.) Thus as regards Faith, St. James says in this
very chapter : —
" And the Scripture was fulfilled which saith And
Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him for
righteousness"2 (ii. 23).
And St. Paul quotes the same verse in the same
words (Rom. iv. 3), with the introduction " What
saith the Scripture ? "
So- little does St. James exclude faith, that he speaks
of "the testing of faith " as working out that " en
durance" which is the appointed path of perfection-
ment (i. 3) ; he urges the duty of prayer offered in
1 Comp. Acts xiii. 39.
2 "Magnum opus sed ex Fide" (Aug. on Ps. xxxi.). Ewald briefly
says, " Faith is the first and most necessary thing ; this is here also taken
for granted throughout ; but it must prove its existence by corresponding
works, otherwise man cannot obtain Divine justification and final re
demption " (Die Sendschreiben, ii. 199).

96 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY.
unwavering faith as the means of obtaining Divine
wisdom (i. 6) ; he describes Christianity as being the
"holding the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ the Lord of
the Glory" (ii. 1) ; he speaks of the poor as being heirs
of the Kingdom because they are rich in faith (ii. 5) ;
he implies the absolute necessity of faith co-existing
with works — working with them, receiving its per
fection from them (ii. 22, 26), and does not imagine the
possibility of such works as he contemplates except as
the visible proofs of an invisible faith.
(ii.) And exactly as St. James neither ignores nor
underestimates faith, so neither does St. Paul ignore
nor underestimate the value and necessity of good
Works. He speaks of God as " being able to make
all joy abound in us, that having in all things always
all sufficiency (avTap/cetav) we may abound unto every
good work" (2 Cor. ix. 8). He speaks of good works
as the appointed path in which we are predestined to
walk (Eph. ii. 10). He describes the walking "in
every good work, bearing fruit," as being the worthy
walk, and the walk which pleases God (Col. i. 10). He
prays that the Lord Jesus may stablish the hearts of
His converts in every good word and work (2 Thess.
ii. 17). He devotes a practical section in every Epistle
to the inculcation of Christian duties and virtues (Rom.
xii. — xvi. ; 1 Cor. xvi. ; 2 Cor. ix. ; Gal. v. 6 ; Eph.
v., vi. ; Phil. iv. ; Col. iii., iv., &c). He devotes the
almost exclusive exhortations of his very latest Epistles
to impress on all classes of his converts the blessedness
of faithful working (1 Tim. ii. 10, v. 10, vi. 18; 2 Tim.
iii. 17; Tit. ii. 7 — 14, iii. 8). Nay, more, in the very
Epistle of which the central idea is Justification by
Faith, he does not scruple to use the word justification

AGREEMENT OF ST. PAUL AND ST. JAMES. 97
in the less specific sense of St. James, and to write
that "the doers of the Law shall be justified' 'x — a sen
tence which St. James might have adopted as his
text. Both Apostles would have freely conceded that
(in a certain sense) faith without works is mere ortho
doxy, and works without faith mere legal righteous
ness. Surely after these proofs that for all practical pur
poses the Apostle of the Gentiles and the Bishop of
the Circumcised are fundamentally at one — that they
agree in thought, though they differ in expression, or
at least that their minor differences are merged in a
higher unity —it is unjustifiable to speak as though, on
this subject at any rate, there was any bitter contro
versy between them. They approached the truths of
Christianity from different sides ; they looked at them
under different aspects ; they lived amid different
surroundings ; they were arguing against different
errors; they used different phraseology. The anti
thesis between them only lies in regions of literary
expression ; it in no way affects the duty or the theory
of the Christian life. There is not a word which St.
Paul wrote on these topics which would not have oeen
accepted after a little explanation by St. James, though
he might have preferred to alter some of the expressions
which St. Paul employed. There is not a word which
St. James wrote on them which — when explained in
St. James's sense — St. Paul would not have endorsed.
It is true, as St. Paul wrote, that we are " justified by
faith " ; it is true, as St. James wrote, that " we cannot
be justified without works." Amid the seeming verbal
contradictions there is a real agreement. Both Apostles
1 Rom. ii. 13.
h

98 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY.
held identical views respecting the will of Cod, the
regeneration of man, and the destiny of the redeemed.1
The ideal which each accepted was so nearly the same,
that St. James's brief sketch of the Wisdom from above
might be hung as a beautiful companion picture to St.
Paul's glorious description of Heavenly charity. Both
would have agreed, heart and soul, in the simple and
awful moral truth of such passages as these : —
" So speak and so do as they who shall be judged
by the law of liberty." (Ja. ii. 12.)
" Faith apart from works is dead, by itself." (Ja.
ii. 17, 26.)
" The work of each shall become manifest, for the
day shall reveal it." (1 Cor. iii. 13.)
" God shall give to each according to his works."
(Rom. ii. 6—10.)
"We must all be made manifest before the judg
ment-seat of Christ that each may obtain the things
done by the instrumentality of the body, with reference
to the things he did, whether good, or evil." (2 Cor.
v. 10.) Both, again, would have accepted heart and soul
such language as that of St. John, in which these
superficial discrepancies are finally reconciled — " If we
say that we have fellowship with Him and walk in
darkness, we lie, and do not the truth " (1 John i. 6) ;
— or as that of St. Paul himself in the very Epistle in
which he first worked out the sketch of his great
scheme, and in the three different conclusions to his
own favourite and thrice-repeated formula : —
" For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision availeth
anything nor uncircumcision," —
1 See supra, pp. 40, 48, the note on Jas. i. 18.

FAITH AND WORKS. 99
But, " Faith working effectually by means of love."
(Gal. v. 6.)
But, "A new creature." (Gal. vi. 15.)
But, " An observance of the commandments of God."
(1 Cor. vii. 19.)
Had St. Paul written, as Luther wrote for him, that
man is justified "by Faith only " — had he been in this
sense a Solifidian — then there would have been a more
apparent contradiction between him and St. James.
But what St. Paul said was, " Therefore we reckon
that a man is justified by faith, apart from the works
of the Law " (Rom. iii. 28), and it was Luther
who ventured to interpolate the word " alone " — the
" word alone" as Erasmus calls it — " stoned with so
many shoutings " — (" Vox sola tot clamoribus lapidata ").
In St. James's sense of faith this would have indeed
been open to the contradiction (ii. 24) "Not by faith
alone " (ovk iic iriaTecos jxbvov). But even had St. Paul
used the word " alone " he would have said what is
true in his sense of the words, and in the sense in
which they are adopted in the Articles of our Church.
His words only become untrue when they are transferred
into the different senses in which they are used by his
brother Apostle.1
In this, as in so many other cases, we may thank
God that the truth has been revealed to us under many
lights ; and that, by a diversity of gifts, the Spirit
ministered to each Apostle severally as He would,
inspiring the one to deepen our spiritual life by the
solemn truth that Works cannot justify apart from
Faith ; and the other to stimulate our efforts after a
holy life by the no less solemn truth that Faith cannot
1 See Article IX., and on it Bishop Forbes, Bishop Harold Browne, &c.
h 2

100 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY.
justify us unless it be the living faith which is shown
by Works. There is, in the diversity, a deeper unity.
The Church, thank God, is " Circumamicta varie-
tatibus " — clothed in raiment of many hues. St. Paul
had dwelt prominently on Faith ; St. Peter dwells
much on Hope ; St. John insists most of all on Love.
But the Christian life is the synthesis of these Divine
graces, and the Works of which St. James so vehemently
impresses the necessity, are works which are the com
bined result of operative faith, of constraining love, and
of purifying hope.1
1 See an excellent tract on St. Paul and St. James by Dean Bagot.

33oak Yf.
THE EARLIER LIFE AND WORKS OF ST. JOHN.

25rjrjfe V.
THE EARLIER LIFE AND WORKS OF ST JOHN.

CHAPTER XXIY.
ST. JOHN.
" For life, with all it yields of joy and woe,
And hope and fear — believe the aged friend —
Is just our chance of the prize of learning love,
How love might be, hath been indeed, and is." —
Bbowning, A Death in the Desert.
"And recognising the grace given to me,. James, and
Kephas, and John, who are thought to be pillars, gave
to me and Barnabas the right hand of fellowship, that
we to the Gentiles, but they Lo the circumcision"1 —
So wrote St. Paul to the Galatians, in one of the
passages of the New Testament, which — apart from the
Gospels — has a deeper personal interest, and which
throws more light on the condition of the Church
in the days of the Apostles than any other.2 It is an
inestimable privilege to the Church that we possess
writings of each of these three Pillar- Apostles — as well
as of that untimely -born Apostle on whose daring
originality they were inclined to look with alarm, until
he had fully set forth to them that view of the Gospel
which was emphatically "his Gospel,"3 and which he
had learnt "neither from men nor by the instrumen-
1 Gal. ii. 9. 2 Gal. i. 11— ii. 21.
3 " My Gospel," 1 Cor. xi. 23. rb ebayyixiov 8 KTipiaau (Gal. ii. 2).

104 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY.
tality of man."1 We are thus enabled to see the Gospel
in the fourfold aspect in which it appeared to four men,
— each specially enlightened by the Spirit of God, but
each limited by individual conditions, because each
received the treasure in earthen vessels. The minds of
men inevitably differ. The individuality of each
man — his subjectivity — his capacity to receive truth
— his power of expressing it — all differ. Hence the
truths which he utters, since they are uttered in
human language, must be more or less differentiated by
human peculiarities, and hence arises a gracious and
fruitful variety, not a perplexing contradiction. Had
the Apostles been bad men, had there been in their
hearts the least tinge of spiritual or moral falsity, the
pure stream of truth would have been corrupted by evil
admixtures ; but since they were sincere and noble
men, the individuality with which the style and
method of each is stamped so far from being a loss to
us is a peculiar gain. No one man, unless his powers
had been dilated almost to infinitude, would have been
able to set forth to myriads of different souls the perfec
tion of many-sided truths. It was a blessed ordinance
of God which enables us to hear the words of revelation
spoken by so many noble voices in so many differing
tones. We see from St. Paul's allusion, that twenty years
after the Resurrection2 the three Pillar- Apostles, at the
date of his conference with them, were at Jerusalem,
and were still regarded as the chief representatives of
Jewish Christianity. But their Judaic sympathies
were felt in very different degrees. St. James repre-
1 Gal. i. 1, ovk air' avBpanav oliSh Si' dvBpdnrov, 1 Cor. xi. 23 ; XV. 3.
2 About a.d. 52.

THE PILLAR-APOSTLES. 105
sents Christianity on its most Judaic side — spiritualising
its morals, but assuming rather than expounding its
most specific truths. He wrote exactly' as we should
have expected a man to write who was a Nazarite,
a late convert, a Bishop of the Church of Jerusalem, a
daily frequenter of the Temple, a man in the highest
repute among the Jews themselves, a man who, for
more than a quarter of a century, lived in the focus of
the most powerful Judaic influences. He was the ac
knowledged leader of those converts who were least
willing to break loose from the Levitic law and the
tradition of the fathers. St. Peter, on the other hand,
became less and less a representative of the narrower
phase of Judaic Christianity — more and more, as life
advanced, the Apostle of Catholicity. The vein of
timidity which, in his natural temperament, was so
strangely mixed with courage — the plasticity which gave
to his conduct a Judaic colouring so long as he was
surrounded by the elders at Jerusalem, or by emissaries
who came from James to Antioch — caused him to be
long regarded by the converted Jews (undoubtedly
against his will) as a party leader. Yet he was among
the earliest to see the universality of the Gospel mes
sage, and he flung himself with ardour into the sup
port of St. Paul's effort to emancipate the Gentiles
from Levitic observances. And when he began his
missionary journeys, his thoughts widened more and
more until, as we find from his Epistle, he was enabled
to accept unreservedly the teachings of St. Paul, while
he divests them of their antithetical character, and
avoids their more controversial formulae. When we
combine the teaching of St. James and St. Paul, we
find those contrasted yet complementary truths which

106 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY.
were necessary to the full apprehension of the Catholic
Faith in its manifold applicability to human needs.
St. Peter occupies an intermediate and conciliatory
position between these two extremes — more progressive
than St. James, less daringly original and independent
than St. Paul. But to utter the final word of Chris
tian revelation — to drop, as it were, the great keystone,
which was still needed to complete and compact the
wide arch of Truth — was reserved as the special glory
of the Beloved Disciple. And this was the crowning
work of that old age which, as a peculiar blessing to
the Church of Christ, was probably prolonged to witness
the dawn of the second century of the Christian Church.1
But in St. John too we see that growth of spiritual
enlightenment which made his life an unbroken educa
tion. In his latest writings we find a deeper insight
into the truth than it would have been possible for him
to attain before God had " shown him all things in the
slow history of their ripening." The "Son of Thunder"
of the Synoptic Gospels had the lessons of many years
to learn before he could become the St. John who in
Patmos saw the Apocalypse. The St. John who saw
the Apocalypse had still the lessons of many years to
learn, and the fall of Jerusalem to witness, before he
could gaze on the world from the snowy summit of
ninety winters, and become the Evangelist of the
fourth Gospel, the Apostle of Christian Love.
And yet the days of St. John were not divided from
each other by any overpowering crisis, but were, from
first to last, " Bound each to each by natural piety."
1 Qui in secreta divinae se nativitatis immergens ausus est dicere quod
cuncta saecula nesciebant, " In principio erat verbum " (Jer. in Isa. lvi. 4).

ST. JOHN. 107
In the life of St. Paul the vision on the road to Damascus
had cleft a deep chasm between his earlier and later
years. The character of the Apostle retained the same
elements, but his opinions were suddenly revolutionised.
Paul the Apostle could only look back with an agony
of remorse on the thoughts and deeds of Saul the In
quisitor. Like Augustine and Luther, he is a type of
the ardent natures which are brought to God and to the
service of the truth by a spasm of sudden change. But
St. John was one of those pure saints of whom the
grace of God takes early hold, and in whose life, as in
those of Thomas a, Kempis and Melancthon, " reason and
religion run together like warp and woof to weave the
web of a holy life." To him, from earliest days, the
words of the poet are beautifully applicable —
" There are who ask not if thine eye
Be on them ; who, in love and truth,
Where no misgiving is, rely
Upon the genial sense of youth :
Glad hearts ! without reproach or blot,
Who do thy work, and know it not ;
Oh, if through confidence misplaced
They fail, thy saving arm, dread Power ! around
them cast.''
Never, perhaps, was a more glorious destiny reserved
for any man, or a destiny more unlike what he could
have conceived possible, than that which was awaiting
the Apostle, when he played as a boy beside his father's
boat on the bright strip of sand which still marks the
site of Bethsaida. His father was Zabdia or Zebedee,
of whom we know nothing more than that he was a
fisherman sufficiently well-to-do to have hired servants
of his own.1 He was thus in more prosperous circum-
1 Mark i. 20.

108 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY. •
stances than his partner Jonas, the father of Peter and
Andrew. His wife was Salome, sister of the Virgin
Mary. The fact that she was one of those who min
istered to the Lord of her substance, and also bought
large stores of spices for His grave, are additional signs
that Zabdia and his wife were not poor. Their sons
were James and John, who were thus first cousins of
our Lord according to the flesh.1
We catch no glimpse of John till we see him among
the disciples of the Baptist on the banks of the Jordan.
We are told however that, in his manhood, he appeared
to the learned Sanhedrists of Jerusalem to be a " simple
and unlettered " man.2 Doubtless the term which they
actually used was the contemptuous am-haarets, a tech
nical expression far more scornful than its literal trans
lation, "people of the land."3 It is clear, therefore, that
he had never been what they called " a pupil of the
wise," and had not been trained in that cumbrous
system of the Oral Law which they regarded as the
1 Nicephorus and others rightly call Zebedee XSiovavKK-qpov, " an inde
pendent fisherman with a ship of his own." What St. Chrysostom {Horn..
i. in Joann.) says of the extreme poverty and humility of his lot {obsh
wevfo-repov ovSe dre\4(rrepov, k.t.a..) is rhetorical exaggeration (see Lampe,
Prolegomena, p. 5). The Lake of Galilee was extraordinarily rich in fish,
some of which were regarded as great delicacies, and — like the coracinus —
were extremely rare. The trade in fish at Tiberias, Sepphoris, Tariehea?,
and especially at Jerusalem, was so active that a leading fisherman like
Zabdia must have been almost rich.
2 Acts iv. 13. A man was called a mere ignoramus {am-haarets) even
if he knew the Scripture and the Mishna, but had never been one of the
" pupils of the wise " {Thalmidi hachakamim). If he knew only the Scrip
tures, he was called " an empty cistern " (66V) (Wagenseil, Sota, p. 517).
The idiotes is one who is no authority on a subject (see Orig. c. Cels. i. 30).
Augustine calls the Apostles " ineruditos . . . non peritos grammatical,
non arinatos dialectica, non rhetorica inflates " {De Civ. Dei, xxii. 5).
3 For the meaning and associations of this word see Dr. McCaul, Old
Paths, pp. 458-464.

GREATNESS OF ST. JOHN. 109
only learning. It was well for him that he had not.
The Rabbinism of that day was nothing better than a
system of scholastic pedantry, impotent for every
spiritual end, like many another vaunted system of
purely verbal orthodoxy, yet tending to inflate the minds
of its votaries with the conceit of knowledge without
the reality. Of such learning it might well be said, in
the words of Heraclitus, that " it teaches nothing." l
On the other hand, we see from St. John's own
writings that he was a man of consummate natural
gifts, and that he had been so far well educated as to
be acquainted with both Greek and Hebrew,2 of which
the latter was not an ordinary acquirement even of well-
educated Jews. Apart from his unequalled capacity for
the reception of spiritual grace, his natural gifts appear
in his deep insight into the human heart ; in the
dramatic power with which, by a few touches, he sets
before us the most vivid conception of the most varied
characters ; in his style, apparently so simple yet really
so profound — a style supremely beautiful, yet unlike
that of any other writer, whether sacred or profane ; and,
above all, in the fact that he was a fit and chosen vessel
for that consummate truth — the Incarnation of the
Word of God. That truth, while with one swift
stroke it summarised the speculations of Alexandrian
theosophy, became in its turn the starting-point for
the most sacred utterances of all Christian thinkers
till the end of time.
His native Galilee was inhabited by the bravest and

1 Tro\up.aBi7] oil SiSdo-Ket (Heracl.).
2 The quotations of St. John in the Gospel are not always taken direct
from the LXX., but are sometimes altered into more direct accordance
with the Hebrew (xix. 37 ; vi. 45 ; xiii. 18).

110 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY.
truest race in Palestine.1 They were remarkable for
faithfulness to their theocratic nationality. They de
tested and were ashamed of alike the Roman dominion
and the Herodian satrapy which was its outward sign.
Their temperaments were full of an enthusiasm which
easily caught fire. The revolt of Judas of Galilee
against the registrations of Quirinus showed the indig
nation with which Galileans contemplated the reduction
of the Holy Land to the degraded position of a Roman
province. The watchword of that uprising was that the
Chosen People should have " no Lord or master but
God." Wild and hopeless as the insurrection was, and
terribly as it was avenged, its failure was so far from
quenching the spirit of patriotism by which it had
been instigated, that it was not difficult for the sons of
Judas long years afterwards2 to fan the hot embers into
flame.8 The revolt of Judas took place when St. John
was about twelve years old — the age at which a Jewish
boy began to enter on the responsibilities of manhood.
It was impossible that an event which produced so
widespread an agitation should have failed to leave an
impression on his memory. His sympathies must have
been with the aims, if not with the acts, of the daring
patriot. In both the sons of Zebedee we trace a certain
fiery vehemence, and this it was which earned for them
from the Lord the title of " Boanerges." 4 It is probable
1 Jos. Antt. xviii. 1, § 1, 6 ; B. J. ii. 8, § 1.
2 a.d. 8 of our era.
3 In a.d. 47 and a.d. 66.
4 Boanerges, " Beni-regesh " (Mark iii.- 17). No doubt the title was
earned by the fire and impetuosity of their nature ; not because they
were, as Theophylact says, " mighty heralds and divines " (Theopkyl. in
Mark i. ; Epiphan. Haer. 73 ; Cyrill. Alex, ad Nestor. 1). For a multi
tude of the guesses about a matter perfectly simple, see Lampe, Prolegom.
24—30.

MESSIANIC HOPES. Ill
that they shared in some of the views which had once
actuated their brother Apostle, the Zealot Simon.1
If the home of Zebedee was in or near Bethsaida, his
two sons must have grown up in constant intercourse
with Philip and Andrew and Peter, and with his cousins,
the sons of Alphseus, and with Nathanael of the not-
far-distant Cana. Whether he ever visited the home
of the Virgin at Nazareth, and saw the sinless youth
of Jesus, and the sternly legal faithfulness of " His
brethren," we do not know, but in any case we can see
that he enjoyed that best of training which consists
in being brought up in the midst of sweet and noble
natures, and in the free fresh life of a hardy calling and
a beautiful land. And what most of all ennobled the
aspirations of these young Galileans was that, with
perfect trust in God, they were waiting for the consola
tion of Israel — they were cherishing the thought which
lay at the very heart of all that was best and deepest
in the old Covenant — the hope that the promised
Messiah at length would come.
We are not told a single particular about his early
years. We first see him — evidently in the prime of
early manhood — as a disciple of the Baptist.2 He does
not mention himself by name, because in his Gospel he
shows a characteristic reserve. But there never has
been a doubt that he is the disciple who was with St.
Andrew when they heard from their Master the words
which were to influence their whole future life. The
Baptist had received the deputation which the San-
1 Luke vi. 15, Kananite=Zealot. The Zealots formed the " extreme
left " division of the Pharisees politically, as the Essenes did religiously.
2 Ecclesiastical tradition says that he was called " adolescentior,"
and even "puer." Paulin. Nol. Ep. 51. Ambros. Offlc. ii. 20, § 101.
Augf. c. Faust, xxx. 4. Jer. c. Jovin, i. 26.

112 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY.
hedrin had sent to enquire into his claims, and had
told them that he was not the Christ, nor Elijah, nor
"the Prophet." On the next day he saw Jesus coming
towards him on His return from the temptation in the
wilderness. Then first he said, " Behold the Lamb of
God which taketh away the sins of the world ! " and
testified that he had seen the Spirit descending from
heaven like a dove, and it abode upon Him. Again,
the next day, fixing his eyes on Jesus as He walked
by, he exclaimed, " Behold the Lamb of God ! " At
once the two disciples followed Jesus. Turning and
gazing on them as they followed, He said, "What
are ye seeking?" Giving Him the highest title of
reverence they knew, the simple Galileans answered,
" Rabbi, where stayest thou ? " He saith to them,
" Come and see." They came and saw. It was now
four in the evening, and they stayed with Him that
night. That brief intercourse sufficed to convince them that
Jesus was the Christ. The next morning Andrew
sought his brother Simon, and with the simple startling
announcement, " We have found the Messiah," led him
to the Lord.
It is not mentioned that St. John sought his brother,
and it is clear that the elder son of Zebedee was not
called to full discipleship till afterwards on the Sea of
Galilee. It was from no difference in character that
James did not, so far as we know, become a hearer of
the Baptist. He was earning his daily bread as a
fisherman, and may have found no opportunity to leave
the Plain of Gennesareth. I have ventured elsewhere
to conjecture the reason why St. John was able to seek
the ministry of the Baptist though his brother was

A DISCIPLE OF THE BAPTIST. 113
not. He had some connexion with Jerusalem, and
even had a home there.2 We find an explanation of
this in the fact that the fish of the Lake of Galilee
were largely supplied to Jerusalem, and nothing is
more probable than that Zebedee, as a master fisher
man, should have sent his younger son, at least
occasionally, to the Holy City to superintend what
must have been one of the most lucrative branches
of his trade. If so, it would have been easy for St.
John to reach in less than a day the banks of
Jordan, and to listen to the mighty voice which was
then rousing Priests and Pharisees as well as people
from their sensual sleep.
The teaching of the Baptist appealed to the sternest
instincts of his youthful follower. Its lofty morality,
its uncompromising denunciations, its dauntless inde
pendence must have exercised a strong fascination over
the young Galilean. It made him more than ever a
Son of Thunder. It has been said of John the Baptist
that he was like a burning torch — that the whole man
was an Apocalypse. In the Apocalypse of him who
was for a time his disciple, we still seem to hear echoes
of that ringing voice, to catch hues of earthquake and
eclipse from tbat tremendous imagery.
The question here arises whether St. John was or
was not unmarried. The ancient Fathers are fond of
speaking of him as a " virgin." As early as the pseudo-
Ignatius we find an address to " Virgins," i.e., celibates,
with the prayer, " May I enjoy your holiness as that
of Elijah, Joshua the son of Nun, Melchizedek, Elisha,
1 See Life of Christ, i. 144.
2 John xix. 27. " From that hour the Disciple took hor to his own
home " {els ra XSia).
i

114 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY.
Jeremiah, John the Baptist, the Beloved Disciple,
Timothy, Evodius, and Clemens." Nothing corres
ponding to this praise of " virginity " is found either
in the Scripture or in the earliest Fathers, for "the
virgins" of Rev. xiv. 14, and "those who have made
themselves eunuchs for Christ's sake " of Matt. xix. 12,
are expressions which, when taken in the sense which
was familiar to the Jews themselves, convey no such
exaltation of the unwedded life.1 Tertullian, however,
in his book " On Single Marriage," calls St. John
" Christi spado," and St. Jerome, filled with his monastic
gnosis on this subject, says that " when St. John wished
to marry his Lord restrained him." 2 Similar testimony
is repeated by St. Augustine, Epiphanius, and others, but
it only seems to have been derived from the " Acts " of
Leucius. Apart from direct evidence, all the customs
of the Jews make it extremely improbable, and St.
Paul tells us that " the rest of the Apostles " as well
as Kephas were married.3 The notion of his celibacy
was strengthened by the erroneous misreading of a
superscription to his first epistle which is itself erro
neous. Augustine in one place quotes 1 John iii. 2,
as occurring in St. John's letter "to the JParthians,"41
and he is followed by Idacius Clarus, and (according to
1 See the passages of Zohar quoted by Schottgen, p. 159.
2 Tert. De Monogamia, 17 ; Epiphan. Haer. lviii. ; Jer. c. Jovinian.
1, 14, and in proleg. Joann., Praef. in Matt., ad Is. lvi. 4. Aug. c. Faust.
xxx. 4. The virginity of St. John became a commonplace with the Eccle
siastical writers. See Chrysostom, De Virg. 82 ( Opp. i. 332), Ps. Chrysostom
{Opp. viii. 2, 246, ed. Montfaucon) where Peter is a type of o-ep.voyap.ta, and
John of TrapBevia. Ambrose, De Inst. Virg. viii. 50. The belief originated
in the Acts of Leucius. See Zahn, Acta Joannis c. ciii.
3 2 Cor. xi. 2, on which Ambrosiaster remarks " omnes Apostoli, ex-
cepto Joharme et Paulo uxores habuerunt."
4 Est. Praef. in 1 John.

THE EARLY CALL. 115
Bede) by Athanasius. But as there are also traces
of its having been called " a letter to Virgins," it has
been supposed that Parthos is a mistaken contraction
for parthenous, or vice versa. But even if St. John
had thus written a letter to " virgins," it would not
be a necessary inference that he was himself un
married, or even that "virgins" and celibates were
equivalent terms.1
The first call of St. John on the banks of Jordan
was not the final call. St. John accompanied Jesus
to the marriage feast of Cana in Galilee, and saw
Him manifest forth His glory. Then, during the early
ministry of Jesus in Southern Judaea, the little band
of brethren seem to have resumed for a time their
ordinary avocations.
It was on the Lake of Galilee, after the miraculous
draught of fishes, that there came to him the decisive
call— "Follow Me." He obeyed the call. With his
brother he left his father Zebedee and the boat, and
the hired servants — -left all, and followed Jesus. Of
Zebedee we hear no more. It is probable that he died
soon afterwards ; for in the bright year of the Galilean
ministry, before Jesus was driven to fly northward,
and to wander through semi-heathen districts, we find
Salome, the mother of James and John, among "the
women who ministered unto Him of their substance."
The Apostles whom the Lord gathered finally
around Him before the Sermon on the Mount fall
into three groups of four, of which the first and most
privileged consisted of Andrew, Peter, James, and
1 Another cause of this belief was the fancy that our Lord specially
approved of St. John's celibacy, and that this also was the reason why
the Virgin was entrusted to his care. Zahn, Acta Joannis, p. 201, seqq.
i 2

116 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY.
John ; of these again the last three were the most
chosen of the chosen.1 Alone of the Apostles they
were permitted to witness the Raising of Jairus's
daughter, the Transfiguration, and the Agony in the
Garden. And of these three again the nearest and
dearest was John. Of both Peter and John it might
have been said that they, more than all the rest, were
disciples whom Jesus loved as personal companions 2 ; but
St. John alone — not with a claim of vainglory, but
with the simple testimony of truth — has indicated to
us unmistakably, yet with dignified reserve, that he
was the disciple whom Jesus loved and honoured with
the affection of high esteem.3 St. Peter was the more
prominent as the champion of the Christ ; St. John
was the closer friend of Jesus.4 And we see in his
Gospel the proof that he was so. The Synoptists witness
faithfully to external events. St. John gives a far more
inward picture. He writes as one to whom it had
been granted to know something of his Master's inmost
thoughts.5 And yet this high honour, this distinguishing per
sonal affection, arose from no faultless ideality in his
character. The youth with whom Italian art has made us
familiar — the youth of unearthly beauty, with features
1 'EK\eKrHv ixXeKrorepovs (Clem. Alex.).
2 In John xx. 2 we have the expression epxerai wpbs 2tp.ava Tlerpov xai
wpbs rbv aAXov p.a6-qr-qv ttv £<pl\ei 6 'l-qo-ovs. From the change of term
{{tyixei, not as in other places r\yd-wa), and from the structure of the
sentence, Canon Westcott {ad loc.) infers, with much probability, that
Peter is here included in the description.
3 iiydira, xiii. 23 ; xix. 2b ; xxi. 7, 20.
4 St. Peter has been called <ti\6xpi<rros, St. John *i\oofo-our.
6 See John vi. 6, 61, 64 : #8ei yap <!| apxys K.r.X. lve&pip.i<raro tijj
irvevp.ari Kal irdpa^ev eavr6v, xi. 33 ; xiii. 1, 3, 11, 21. iro.pdxB'n r$ irve'u-
P-an, xviii. 4 ; xix. 28, &c.

EARLY IMPERFECTION. 117
of almost feminine softness, with the long bright locks
streaming down his neck, and the eagle by his side,
is not the St. John of the New Testament : he is
neither the St. John of the Synoptists and the Apoca
lypse, nor of the Fourth Gospel and Epistles — but
is the one-sided idealisation of Christian painters.1
Jesus loved him because of his warm affections, his
devoted faithfulness, his glowing zeal, his passionate
enthusiasm ; not because his character as yet approached
perfection. The young St. John had very much both to
learn and to unlearn. He participated in the faults
of fretfulness, impatience, emulous selfishness, ambitious
literalism, want of consideration, want of tenderness,
dulness of understanding, and hardness of heart, which,
as the Gospels so faithfully tell us, were common to
all the disciples.2 Nay more, it, is remarkable that, in
nearly every instance in which he is brought into pro
minence, either singly or with his brother, it is in
connexion with some error of perception or fault of
conduct. He had to unlearn the exaggeration of the
very tendencies which gave to his character so much
of its human charm. He had to learn lessons of
tolerance, lessons of mercy, lessons of humility, which
perhaps it took him his whole life to understand
in all their fulness as falling under the one law of
Christian love.
1. Thus on one occasion a selfish dispute had arisen
among the Apostles as to which of them should be the
greatest.3 Our Lord rebuked it by taking a little child
1 Pictures of St. John existed in early days among the Carpocratians.
See the fragments of Leucius in Zahn, p. 223.
2 Matt. xv. 16 ; xvi. 6—12 ; John xii. 16. ; Mark ix. 33 ; Luke ix. 49 ;
xxii. 24 ; xxiv. 25, &c. 3 Luke ix. 49 ; Mark ix. 38.

118 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY.
and saying, by way of consolation as well as by way
of reproof, "Whosoever shall receive this little child
in My name, receiveth Me." 1 The conscience of St.
John seems to have smitten him as he listened to
the tender and moving lesson, and with an ingenuous
impulse he confessed to having taken part in conduct
which now struck him as a fault. " Master," he said,
" we saw one in Thy name trying to cast out the
demons, and we prevented him, because he does not
follow with us." To prevent him had been a natural
impulse of sectarian pride and ecclesiastical jealousy.
The man was not an Apostle, not even a professed dis
ciple ; what right had he thus, as it were, to steal the
credit of miracles which belonged to the Lord only, and
which He had delegated to none but His genuine fol
lowers? "Who," St. John may have thought, "is
this unknown exorcist, who thus encroaches on our
privileges ? " and so, with other Apostles, he had dis
owned the man, and peremptorily forbidden him.2 It
was an impulse somewhat similar to that which had
made Joshua exclaim, " O my lord Moses forbid them,"
when he heard that Eldad and Medad were prophesying
in the camp. Instantly and nobly the great law-giver
had answered, "Enviest thou for my sake? Would
God that all the Lord's people were prophets, and
that the Lord would put His Spirit upon them."3
So now came at once the answer, the spirit of which in
two thousand years Christians have hardly begun to

1 An old tradition, mentioned by Hilary, seems strangely to have said
that St. John was the boy to whom Jesus pointed in order to rebuke the
ambition of the disciples. See Zahn, Acta Joannis, p. cxxxiv.
2 Luke ix. 49 ; 4ica>\vo-ap.ev.
3 Num. xi. 38.

VIOLENCE HATEFUL TO GOD. 1L9

learn, " Prevent him not ! for he who is not against
us, is on our side."
2. But, once again, John and his brother James
had needed a stern and public lesson. They had been
taught that sectarian jealousy is alien from the heart
of Christ; they had now to learn that religious in
tolerance and cruel severity are violations of His spirit.
They had to learn, or begin to learn, the lesson — of
which (once more) nineteen centuries have failed to
convince the self-styled representatives of Churches —
that violence is hateful to God.1
The incident occurred at the beginning of the Lord's
great public journey from Galilee to Jerusalem, when
He now openly assumed the dignity of the Messiah,
and was accompanied not only by His disciples, but by
a multitude of followers, all — like Himself — pilgrims on
their way to the Holy City. The first village which
lies between the borders of Galilee and Samaria, at
the foot of the Hills of Ephraim, is the pleasant
village of En Gannim, or the " Fountain of Gardens,"
then, as now, inhabited by a rude and fanatical com
munity. The numbers of His retinue, and the fact
that He was now about to enter on the territory of
Samaria, made it necessary to send messengers before
Him to provide for His reception. It was not always
that the Galileans ventured to take the road through
Samaria, for the intense exacerbation between Jews and
Samaritans constantly showed itself by collisions be
tween Samaritans and Passover pilgrims. Still this
road was taken sometimes by the festival caravans, and
it may be that our Lord was willing to test whether
the memory of His previous stay among the Samari-
1 Bta 4x8pbv 0e#.

120 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY.
tans would secure for Himself and His followers a
friendly welcome. But one of the numberless quarrels
which were constantly arising had made the Samaritans
more than usually hostile. Violating the rule of hospi
tality, though it is the very first rule of Eastern life,
the villagers of En Gannim refused to receive the Mes
sianic band.
It was a flagrant wrong thus to dismiss a weary
and hungry multitude at the foot of the frontier
hills, at a distance from other villages, and at the
beginning of their sacred pilgrimage. But besides
this it was an undisguised insult, a refusal, open as
that of the Gadarenes, to admit the now public claims
of Him who asked their courtesy. Instantly the hot
spirit of the sons of Zebedee took fire. It was in this
very country that Elijah, to avenge a much smaller
wrong, had called down fire from Heaven.1 Had not
the time arrived for One greater than Elijah to vindi
cate His majesty, and to revive by some signal miracle
the drooping spirits of His followers ? " And on
seeing it His disciples James and John said, Lord,
wiliest Thou we should bid fire to descend from heaven,
and consume them, as even Elijah did ? " What
wonder, it has been said, "that the Sons of Thunder
should wish to flash lightning ? " But how significant
are the touches of character even in those few wrords,
" Wiliest Thou that we — " ! They want to take part
in the miracle themselves. They, too, have been in
sulted in the person of their Lord. They have an
uneasy sense that calling down fire from heaven does
not quite accord with the character of Him who " went
about doing good," but they are ready to undertake the
1 2 Kings i. 9—14.

THE' ELIJAH-SPIRIT. 121
task for him. Yet, even in expressing the wish, they
feel a little touch of shame. Is not such conduct vin
dictive and impatient? Well, at least, their excuse is
ready — " as Elijah did." They can shelter themselves
behind a great name. For their earthly wrath they can
adduce a Scripture precedent. They have " a text "
ready to consecrate their personal resentment. Alas !
had it been in their power to make the heavens blaze
they would but have furnished another instance of the
crimes which have been committed or excused in the
name of Scripture. What is it that we learn from
remorseless persecutions, bitter hatreds between those
who bear the common name of Christian — from the
atrocities of the Inquisition, from savage Crusades,
from brutal witch-murders, from the fires of Smithfield
and of Toledo, from the condonation and even the
approval of mere assassins, from medals struck in
honour of massacres of St. Bartholomew, from sermons
preached amid the agonies of martyrs, from the slanders
and calumnies weekly used to write down imaginary
opponents by those who think that in the hideous forms
of their fanaticism they are doing God service ? — what
do we learn from these most miserable and blood-stained
pages of ecclesiastical controversy, but that
" In religion
What damned error but some sober brow
Will bless it and approve it with a text,
Hiding the grossness with fair ornament " 1
But the lesson of all Scripture is that, though the
Elijah -times may require the Elijah -spirit, yet the
Elijah-times have passed for ever, and that the Elijah-
spirit is not the Christ-spirit. For Christians, at any

122 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY.
rate, it is written, bright and large, over every page, of
the New Testament, that "the wrath of man worketh
not the righteousness of God." x And how full of in
struction is Christ's reproof! He does not stop or
stoop to argue. He does not unfold the hidden springs
of selfishness and passion which had caused their fierce
request. He does not dispute their Scripture precedent.
He does not point out that texts must be misused if
they be applied to exacerbate human hatreds born
in the inflation of religious vanity. He does not
reproach them for the indifference to the agony of
others which lay in the words " Wiliest Thou we
should bid fire to descend from Heaven and consume
them ? " No ; but, turning round, He rebuked them,
and said, " Ye know not — -ye — of what spirit ye are.2
For the Son of Man came not to destroy men's souls,
but to save." His words were brief and compassionate,
because in their error, flagrant as it was, there was
still a root of nobleness. Their zeal for the Lord,
their love of His person, their impassioned estimate of
the heinousness of any insult directed - against Him —
these were the salt of good motives which saved their
conduct from being entirely evil. Where they erred
was in the fancy that love to Him can be rightly
shown by fury and vengeance against those whom
1 The needfulness of the lesson becomes even more clear when we find
St. Ambrose {in Luke ix. 54, 55) deliberately defending the Apostles:
" Nee discipuli peccant, qui legem sequuntur," &c. How greatly do we
all need to offer the prayer —
" Let not this weak unknowing hand
Presume Thy bolts to throw,
And deal damnation round the land
On each I judge my foe."
2 Luke x. 55. o'tov weip-aris io-re i/itts. Both the expression of the
word iip-iis and its position make it extremely emphatic.

Bia ix&pbv Gem. 123
they deemed to be His enemies ; and that it was His
will that any should perish rather than come to re
pentance. It was a lesson, for all ages, of infinite
tenderness and infinite tolerance ; a lesson which
during these long centuries theologians and religious
parties and partisans have for the most part failed to
learn. Of old, when it was permitted them, they
resorted to chains and stakes ; now that the secular
weapons have been struck out of their grasp, they
shoot out their arrows, even bitter words. And they
take this to be religion, — this to be the sort of service
which Christ approves !
3. Once again in the Gospels the sons of Zebedee
come into separate prominence, and once again they
appear as disciples who have misunderstood Christ's
promises, and but imperfectly learnt His lessons. The
incident occurred at one of the most solemn moments
in His life. From the plots and excommunications of
His enemies, with a heavy price upon His head, He
had taken refuge in deep obscurity in the little town of
Ephraim. There He remained for some weeks between
the death of Lazarus and the Passover,1 until from the
summit of the conical hill on which the little town was
built, He could see the long trains of Galilean pilgrims
streaming down the Jordan valley on their way to
Jerusalem. Then He knew that He could join them
and proceed at their head to the Holy City. He set
forth to what He foresaw would be His death of
agony and shame. As seems to have been common
with Him, He walked alone, and in front, while the
Apostles followed in a group at some little distance
1 John xi. 54.

121 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY.
behind Him. But on this occasion the majesty of His
purpose seems so to have clothed His person with awe
and grandeur — He seemed to be so transfigured by the
halo of Divine sorrow, that — as we learn from St.
Mark — in one of those unexplained references which
he doubtless borrowed from the reminiscences of St.
Peter — the disciples as they walked behind Him were
amazed and full of fear.1 From His look and manner
they felt instinctively that something more than
usually awful was at hand. Nor did He leave them
long in doubt as to what it was. He beckoned them
to Him, and in language more definite and unmis
takable than ever before, He revealed to them not only
that He should be betrayed, and mocked, and scourged,
and spit upon, but even the crowning horror that He
should be crucified — and then that, on the third day,
He should rise again.
It was at that most inopportune moment that
Salome came to Him with her two sons, James
and John, worshipping Him, begging Him to grant
them something. The facile mother was but the
mouthpiece for the ill -instructed ambition of her
sons. Relying on her near earthly relationship to
Him, on her services in His cause, on His known
regard for them both, on His special affection for one
of them, they wanted thus to forestall the rest, and
to secure a special and personal blessing for themselves.
They wanted thus, and finally, to settle the dispute,
which had so often arisen among the half-trained
Apostles, as to which of them should have the prece
dence, which should be the greatest among them. Yet
1 Mark x. 32.

LOVE AND AMBITION. 125
we must not think that their motive was altogether
earthly in its character. It was not all selfishness ;
it was not mere ambition — at any rate, not vulgar
selfishness, not ignoble ambition. In the strange com
plexity of human motives there was doubtless a large
admixture of these impurer elements, and there was
also a complete ignorance as to the nature of the ap
proaching end. But there was also a loving desire
to be nearest to Jesus, one at His right hand, one at
His left. They had thought of material power and
splendour in their interpretation of His promises.
His thoughts had been of the cross, theirs were of
the throne. In their ignorance they had asked for
the places which, seven days afterwards, were occupied
in infamy and anguish by two crucified robbers. Oh,
fond, foolish mother ! oh, too presumptuous sons ! the
kingdom of Heaven is not as ye think. It is not
a place for ambitious precedence and selfish rivalries.
Not there do Michael and Gabriel contrast the respec
tive value of their services, or compete as to which
shall do " the maximum of service on the minimum of
grace." There the success of each is the joy of all,
and the glory of each the pride of all. Nor is there,
as ye vainly imagine, any favouritism, any private
partiality, any acceptance of men's persons with God
and with His Christ. All are alike the children of
His impartial mercy — " all equally guilty, all equally
redeemed." With Him many of the first shall be last,
and many of the last first, and many whom their
brethren would altogether exclude shall be heirs of His
common heaven, and many who, on earth, figured as
saints, and great divines, shall be far below the peasants
and little ones of His kingdom — and, alas ! here on

126 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY.
earth, how many, glorying in themselves, have delighted
in anathemas and misrepresentations —
" Who there below shall grovel in the mire,
Leaving behind them horrible dispraise ! "
But once more, because the request was not all
selfish or all ignoble, and because in true hearts
deeper lessons spring from loving forbearance than
from loud rebuke, Jesus gently said to them, " Ye
know not " — again, " Ye know not" for it was igno
rance, not badness, from which their errors sprang
— "Ye know not what ye are asking for yourselves.
Can ye drink the cup which I am about to drink, and
be baptised with the baptism wherewith I am being
baptised?"1 They say to Him, "We can." And He
saith to them, " My cup indeed ye shall drink, and with
the baptism wherewith I am being baptised shall ye
be baptised ; but to sit on My right hand and on My
left is Mine to give to those only for whom it has been
prepared by My Father."2 In that bold answer, " We
can I " had flashed out all the true nobleness of the
sons of Zebedee. For the answer of Jesus had by that
time partially undeceived them. It had shown them
the mistaken nature of their chiliastic hopes. They
saw that the blessing for which they had asked
had been, so far as things earthly were concerned, a
primacy of sorrow ; that the only passage to Christ's
throne of glory lay through the endurance of suffering ;
that to be near Him was — as the oldest Christian tradi
tion quoted some of His unrecorded words — to be "near
the sword and near the fire : "3 — and yet they had not
1 The Fathers speak of the triple baptism in water, by the Spirit, and
in blood. 2 Matt. xx. 23.
3 d tyyis p-ov iyyvs rov irvp6s (Didymus in Ps. lxxxviii. 8).

ANGER OF THE DISCIPLES. 127
shrunk. Whatever the price was, they were ready to
pay it. To be near Him was worth it all.
And the punishment of their fault came in part
and at once in the indignant disapproval of their
fellow Apostles. The other disciples, too, had their
chiliastic hopes; they wanted their thrones and their
prerogatives ; and all that had been selfish and un
worthy in this attempt of the Sons of Thunder . to
wring, as it were, from private influence or private
kinsmanship an exclusive privilege, aroused a strong
counter selfishness. Doubtless the voice of Judas was
loudest in the complaint that this was a mean attempt
to steal from others their fair share of a private ad
vantage ; that it was " just what might have been
expected of Salome and her sons."1 But instantly
the Lord healed the rising feud. He called them all
round Him. He taught them that arrogant lordship
and domineering despotism2 were the characteristics of
Gentile self-assertion. " Not so shall it be among you.
But whosoever wills to become great among you shall
be your servant ; and whosoever wills to become first
of you shall be slave of all. For even the Son of Man
came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to
give His life a ransom for many."
Yet the fault and the rebuke of which St. John
had had his share in no ways alienated from him the
affection of his Lord. We see him again at the last
supper, and he is leaning on Christ's breast. It is
from this that he gains his title in the early Church
of " the bosom disciple."3 Although he does not men-
1 Matt. XX. 24, oi Sexa iiyavditrrio-av irep. rav Sio aSeXtpav.
2 Mark X. 42, KaraKvpiebovmv . . Karet\ovaid£ovoiv.
3 & iiriar-qBios.

123 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY.
tion his own name, he is himself the describer of the
incident. Jesus and the Twelve are reclining at the
quasi-paschal meal. Our Lord is in the centre of the
couch leaning on His left arm. At His right, in
the place of honour, was perhaps Peter, or perhaps —
as an office-bearer of the little band — the traitor Judas.
At his left, and therefore with his head near the
breast of Jesus, is reclining " the disciple whom Jesus
loved." The anguish of the soul of Jesus wrung from
Him the groan, " Verily, verily, I say to you that one
of you shall betray Me." The words fell very terribly
on the ears of the Apostles. They began to gaze on
one another with astonishment, with perplexity, al
most with mutual suspicion.1 They thought that if
any one knew, John knew the secret ; and supposing that
Jesus had whispered into his ear the fatal name which
He would not speak aloud, St. Peter, catching his eye
by a sign, whispered to him, " Tell us who it is of
whom He speaks?"2 John did not indeed know the
traitor's name, but leaning back his head with a sudden
motion, so as to look up in the face of Jesus,3 he said,
" Lord, who is it ? " Then Jesus whispered, " It is
that one for whom I shall dip the sop, and give it
him." He dipped the piece of bread in the common
dish, and gave it to Judas. Then Satan entered into
him, and he went forth into the night. Relieved of
the oppression of that painful presence, Jesus began
those Divine discourses which it was granted to John
1 John xiii. 22, diropoipevoi irepl rtvos \tyei.
2 B, C, L.
3 John xiii. 25, 4mireo-dv, not " leaning " {dvaxtipevos), as in the E. V., but
suddenly changing his posture. The ovras, which is read in B, C, E, F,
etc., is a vivid touch of reminiscence, describing the actual posture as in
iv. 6

"KNOWN TO THE HIGH PRIEST." 129
alone to preserve — so "rarely mixed of sorrows and
joys, and studded with mysteries as with emeralds."
We see John once again, with Peter and James, in
the Garden of Gethsemane sleeping the sleep of sorrow
and weariness, when it had been better had he kept
awake ; and then we see him showing no greater courage
than the rest when " all the disciples forsook Him and
fled."

U l

What should wring this from thee 1 ' — ye laugh and ask ;
What wrung it ? Even a torchlight and a noise,
The sudden Roman faces, violent hands,
And fears of what the Jews might do ! Just that,
And it is written ' I forsook and fled.'
There was my trial, and it ended thus." '
But if he was one of those who fled, he was the
earliest of all to rejoin his Lord. Braving the mul
titude, and the peril, and the shame, he at once returned
from his flight, and followed the group who, under the
traitor's guidance, were leading Jesus bound to the
joint palace of Hanan and Caiaphas. He even ventured
to enter the palace with those who were guarding the
Prisoner.2 He gained admission because he was known
to the High Priest. It is unlikely that this has
anything to do with the fact that he had some
distant affinity with priestly families,3 or with the
strange and probably symbolical tradition that, in his
old age at Ephesus, he wore the petalon or golden plate
which marked the mitre of High Priesthood.4 Nor is
it easy to imagine how a Galilean fisherman should
1 Browning, A Death in the Desert.
1 John xviii. 15, " went in with Jesus."
3 The Virgin Mary was a kinswoman of Elizabeth, who was the wife of
a leading priest ; and, therefore, the sons of Zebedee, through their
mother, must have had some priestly connexions.
4 Euseb. H. E. v. 24, quoting Polycrates.
j

130 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY.
have known anything personally of these wealthy
Sadducean aristocrats, with whom he had not a single
thought or a single sympathy in common. To me
it seems probable that he knew Hanan and his house
hold only in the. way of his business, and I see in this
incidental notice a fresh confirmation of my conjecture
that the duties of this business obliged him sometimes
to reside at Jerusalem.
And thus the beloved disciple stayed with Christ
during the long hours of that night of shame and
agony. He was doubtless an eye-witness of all that he
narrates respecting Peter's denial, and the scenes which
took place before Annas, Caiaphas, and Pilate. He saw
Jesus — with the murderer by His side — standing on the
pavement, wearing the crown of thorns, and the purple
robe, dyed a deeper purple with His blood. He heard
the Jews prefer to Him Barabbas as their favourite,
and Tiberius as their king. He heard the bursts of
involuntary pity and involuntary admiration which
wrung from the half-Christianised conscience of the
cruel governor the exclamations, " Behold the man ! "
" Behold your king ! " He saw Him bear His cross
to Golgotha ; and saw Him crucified ; and saw the two
brigands occupying the places for which he and James
had asked so ignorantly, at His right hand and at His
left. Four women stood beside those crosses. They were
the mother of Jesus ; Salome, His mother's sister ;
Mary, the wife of Clopas, perhaps another sister ; and
Mary of Magdala. With them, alone apparently of
all the Apostles, stood St. John. No other disciple,
except standing in a group afar off, was present during
those awfully agonising, those supremely crushing

BESIDE THE CROSS. 131
moments which seemed to dash into indistinguishable
ruin all their hopes, and to give an almost fiendish
significance to the taunts of priests and mob. Let us
recognise the heroism, the faith, the endurance which
enabled the three Maries, and Salome, and her son, to
stand gazing at a scene which must have made the
sword pierce their souls with unutterable agony. Let
us see in it the proof that if Salome and John had
indeed looked to share with Him a pre-eminence of
blessedness, they were not ashamed to stand beside
Him in the hour of His humiliation, and in the Valley
of the Shadow of His Death.
And even in His hour of agony, His kingly eye
was on them. To them were addressed the second,
perhaps the first words which He uttered after the actual
elevation of His cross.1 " Seeing then His mother
and the disciple standing by, whom He loved, He said
to His mother ' Woman, behold thy son ! ' Then He
saith to the disciple, ' Behold thy mother ! ' " Very few
words, but there was compressed into them a whole
world of meaning and of tenderness ! And what can
appear less strange than that to St. John was en
trusted that precious charge ? True that Christ had
"brethren;" but apparently they were not there; or,
if they were there, it was only among " the many " who
stood " beholding from afar " — the many whose love
was not at that moment strong enough to overcome the
1 The prayer for His murderers seems to have been breathed when the
hands were pierced, and before the cross was uplifted (Luke xxiii. 34).
The omission by B, D, etc., may be due to some lectionary arrangement,
but is surely insufficient to throw doubt on its genuineness, since it is
found in «, A, C, F, G, etc. We cannot tell whether the promise to the
converted robber was spoken before or after these words to His mother
and St. John. i 2

132 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY.
horror and the fear. But John was there — almost His
earliest disciple ; whom He loved most ; who believed
on Him unreservedly; who was akin to Him; whose
mother was the Virgin's sister ; who was rich enough to
undertake the charge ; whose natural character, at once
so brave and so loving, fitted him for it ; who had power
ful friends; who was probably the only Apostle and
the only relative of Jesus who had a home at Jerusalem,
where, in the bosom of the infant Church which Christ
had founded, it was fitting that the Virgin should
henceforth dwell. "And from that hour that disciple
took her into his own home." 1
" From that hour ; " — he felt probably that the
Virgin had witnessed as much as human nature could
sustain of that awful scene. There would be no rescue;
no miracle. Jesus would die — would die, as He had
said, upon the cross. The Virgin had suffered enough
of agony ; she had received her last farewell ; it needed
not that she should witness the deepening anguish,
the glazing eye, the horrible crurifragium which pro
bably awaited Him. The Beloved Disciple took her
to his own home.
But he must himself have returned to the cross,
for he tells us expressly and emphatically that he was a
personal eye-witness of the last scenes. He was standing
by when the soldiers broke the legs of the two robbers
to hasten their deaths, which otherwise might not have
happened till after two more days of lingering agony.
1 The tradition to which the Fathers refer as " ecclesiastica historia "
(probably derived from the Acts of Leucius) assign another reason.
" Cujus privilegii sit Joannes, immo Joannis Virginitas ; a domino virgine
mater virgo virgini discipulo commendatur " (Jer. c. Jovin. i. 26). Sij\or
Sri 'laavvp Sia r^v irapdevtav (Epiph. Haer. lxxviii. 10 ; Paulinus of Nola,
Ep. 51, &c). See Zahn, p. 206.

THE CLOSING SCENES. 133
He was close by the cross when, seeing that Jesus was
already dead, a soldier gashed His side "with the broad
head of his lance," and " immediately there came out
blood and water"1 — to be for all the world the mystic
signs of imparted life and cleansing power. " And he
that hath seen hath borne witness, and his witness is
true, and he knoweth that he saith things that are
true that ye also may believe." That witness was to
be henceforth the work of his life ; — the winning over
of men to that belief was to be henceforth the main
end of all he did and all he wrote.2 And to that
incident, narrated by him alone of the Evangelists,
he refers with special emphasis in the Epistle which
enshrines his final legacy to the Church of God.
How long the Apostle stood to the Virgin in the
place of a son we do not know. She is mentioned in
the New Testament but once again, when we see her
united in prayer and supplication with the other holy
women and the Apostles, and with the " brethren of the
Lord," now at last fully converted by the miracle of the
Resurrection. After that slight notice she disappears
not only from Scripture history, but from early tra
dition. It was unknown, even as far back as the second
century, whether she died in Jerusalem, where the tomb
of the Virgin is now shown, close to Gethsemane ; 3 or
whether, after more than eleven years had elapsed, she
accompanied St. John to Ephesus, and died and was
buried there.4
1 John xix. 34, \6yxv ¦ • ¦ ^vv^ev. 2 xix. 35 ; xx. 30.
3 This supposed tomb was unknown for at least six centuries. Nice-
phorus, in the fourteenth century — from whom has been derived such a
mass of entirely untrustworthy tradition — says that she died at Jerusalem,
aged fifty-nine {H. E. ii. 3).
4 Epiphan. Haer. lxxviii. 11. This was asserted in a synodical letter

134 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY.
The subsequent glimpses which we obtain of St.
John in Scripture are not numerous. He does not once
appear alone, but always in conjunction with St. Peter,
and for twenty years and more he does not seem to have
manifested any independent or original action. On the
morning of the Resurrection he was with St. Peter,
when they two were the first who received from Mary
of Magdala the startling tidings that the tomb was open
and empty. Instantly they ran to visit it. The swift
step of St. John, who was the younger of the two,
outran Peter ; and as he stood stooping and peering
into the darkness he saw that Jesus was not there, and
caught only the white gleam of the linen clothes. But
when Peter came to the place no awe, no danger of
Levitical pollution, could restrain his impetuous eager
ness. He would see all, know all. Instantly he plunged
into the dim interior, and stood gazing on the scene
which presented itself.1 The shroud which had swathed
the body lay there ; the napkin lay rolled up in a place
by itself. As they went home together, the Divine
necessity that Jesus should rise from the dead dawned
first with full conviction upon their minds.
Once more we see St. John separately and as a dis
tinct figure in his own Gospel. He was with the Eleven
on that first Easter evening when Jesus appeared to them
in the closed upper room, and said, "Peace be with
you," and showed them His hands and His feet, and
breathed on them, and said, " Receive ye the Holy
Ghost." He was with the Twelve when Jesus again
of the Council of Ephesus, a.d. 431. It seems, however, to be very
unlikely, for had she died at Ephesus her grave would have been even
more likely to be pointed out than the grave of John.
1 John XX. 6, eio^KBev . . . Qewpei.

BY THE LAKE OF GALILEE. 135
appeared to them on the next Sunday, and Thomas was
convinced. Then for a little time the Appearances of
the Risen Lord seem to have been intermitted. Driven
to earn his daily bread, Peter proposed to resume the
fishing, which had for so long a time been abandoned.
Thomas and Nathaniel, James and John, and two other
disciples, accompanied them. They toiled all night;
but they caught nothing. But when day began to
dawn,1 Jesus stood suddenly upon the beach. They,
however, did not recognise Him in His glorified body,2
and in that unexpected place, as He stood with His
figure looming dimly through the morning mist. He
said to them, "Children, have ye anything to eat?"
They answered, " No." Then He bade them cast
the net on the right side of the ship, and immediately
they were not able to drag the net into the boat for
the multitude of fishes. The meaning of the sign
flashed at once upon the soul of the disciple whom
Jesus loved. He said to Peter, "It is the Lord!"
Instantly Peter had snatched up his fisher's coat, and
plunged into the sea to swim to land. More slowly the
rest followed in the little boat,3 dragging to land the net
full of one hundred and fifty-three fishes, which they
were unable to haul into their ship. When they got to
land they saw there a charcoal fire with a fish broiling
on it, and a loaf beside it, as one may often see
now when the poor Fellahin are fishing in the Sea of
Galilee. Jesus bade them bring some of their fish,
and share in the morning meal. They dared not ask
Him, " Who art Thou ?" knowing that it was the Lord.
Jesus brought them the bread and the loaf, and they
1 John xxi. 4, yivop,ivqs. 2 John xx. 14 ; Luke xxiv. 31.
3 Xii. 8, vKoiapltf.

136 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY.
broke their fast. Then, after the meal, there took
place that deeply touching interview in which Jesus
bade the now-forgiven and deeply-repentant Peter to
feed His little lambs, and to feed and tend His sheep,1
and prophesied to him the martyr-death that he should
die. Peter, as he turned away, caught sight of John,
who was following them, and with sudden curiosity
asked, " Lord, but this man — what ?"2 " If I will him
to abide while I am coming,3 what is it to thee?
Follow thou Me." The expression was misunderstood,
as those of the Lord so often were. It led to the
mistaken notion among the brethren that that disciple
was not to die. It is to remove that erroneous im
pression that he relates the incident. It is clear from
his language that he did not even then, in extreme old
age, understand its complete significance, because Christ
had never revealed the secrets about the time and
manner of His coming. But his correct version of the
misquoted words did not prevent the continuance of
the error. Even when he was dead, legend continued
to assert that he was living in the grave, and that his
breath gently heaved the dust.4
1 xxi. 15, fiioice Tci apvta p.ov ; 16, irolpaive ; 17, fiicrKe ra irp6$ard pov.
2 xxi. 21. Kvpic, olros 8e ri ; Yulg. Domine, hie autem quid 1
3 See Canon Westcott's note on this expression {Speaker's Corwm.
ad loc). 4 St. Augustine {in Joh. exxiv. 2) seems to have been half inclined to
accept this strange and unmeaning legend on the testimony of grave
people who imagined themselves to have witnessed it !

CHAPTER XXV.
LIFE OF ST. JOHN AFTER THE ASCENSION.
" jEterna sapientia sese in omnibus rebus maxime in humanS, mente,
omnium maxime in Christo Jesu manifestavit." — Spinoza, Ep. xxi.
After this St. John is mentioned but thrice, and alluded
to but once in the New Testament.
i. He is enumerated among the eleven Apostles who
were gathered in the Upper Room with the rest of the
little company of believers after the Ascension, and who
were constantly engaged in prayer and supplication.1
ii. He was going up with Peter to worship in the
Temple at three o'clock in the afternoon — one of the
stated hours of prayer — when Peter healed the lame
man, and afterwards addressed the assembled worship
pers, whose amazement had been kindled by that act
of power. This great address — in which, as we infer
from Acts iv. 1, St. John took some part — was inter
rupted by the sudden arrest of the Apostles. They
were seized in the sacred precincts by the dominant
Sadducees — the priests and the captain of the Temple.
As it was now evening the two Apostles were thrown
into prison. Next morning they were haled before the
Sanhedrin which gathered for their trial in the impos
ing numbers of all its three constituent committees.
The accused, according to the usual custom, were set
1 Acts i. 13.

138 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY.
in the midst of the semicircle and sternly interrogated.
The two Apostles — Peter again being the chief spokes
man — gave a bold and noble testimony, from which the
Sanhedrists recognised the two facts that " they had
been with Jesus," and that they were simple and un
lettered persons. The Pharisees from the whole
height of their ignorance looked down on them as
" no theologians." Their Galilean dialect, and their
obvious unacquaintance with Rabbinic learning, in
clined the Sanhedrin to despise them. On the other
hand, they were perplexed by the presence and witness
of the lame man who had undeniably been healed.
They therefore remanded the Apostles while they held
a discussion among themselves. In spite of the severity
for which the Sadducees were notorious, they did not
feel justified on this occasion in doing anything more
than threatening them with worse consequences if they
ventured to preach again in the name of Jesus. The
Apostles gave them frank warning that such threats
must be in vain, since it was a plain duty to obey
God rather than man. Afraid, however, of exciting a
tumult among the people who, up to this time, sided
heartily with the Christians, and were glorifying God
for the recent miracle, the Sanhedrin were forced to
content themselves with renewing their threats, and
they set the Apostles free.
The return of Peter and John to the assembled
brethren was followed by a song of triumphant glad
ness, and by another outpouring of spiritual influences.
During these earlier scenes of Christian history there
is no doubt that St. John lived mainly at Jerusalem —
though he may have made short excursions to places
in Palestine. He must have lived through the short

THE APOSTLES SCOURGED. 139
period during which the Church adopted the experiment
of community of goods ; must have heard of, or
witnessed, the terrible fate of Ananias and Sapphira ;
and must have shared in the outburst of supernatural
power, followed by multitudes of conversions, which
marked the early energy of St. Peter. He was
arrested with the other Apostles in a fresh alarm of
the priestly party, and thrust into the public prison.
Having been delivered in the night by an angel, at the
dawn of the next day they were once more led before
the startled Sanhedrin. This time they were arrested
without violence, for the priests feared a violent inter
vention of the people on their behalf. Stung, however,
to madness by the firm attitude of the Apostles, who,
to the remonstrances of the High Priest, answered
by their spokesman St. Peter that they were bound
to refuse obedience to the murderers of their Lord,
the Sanhedrin seriously debated whether they should
put them all to death, and were only saved by the wise
counsel of Gamaliel from the commission of that fatal
crime. They determined, however, to scourge the
Apostles ; and then first St. John knew what it was to
suffer disgrace and bodily anguish for his Lord. But
that anguish failed of its intended purpose. The
Apostles rejoiced that they were deemed worthy to
suffer shame for His name, and daily in the Temple
preached the good news of Jesus Christ.
iii. Then followed the appointment of the Seven ; the
preaching and martyrdom of St. Stephen; the scattering
of all the Church except the Apostles, in consequence
of the fierce persecution of Saul the Pharisee ; the work
of Philip in Samaria ; the journey of St. Peter and St.
John to confirm the new converts, and the stern en-

140 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY.
counter with Simon Magus.1 After this the two friends
travelled through Samaria, preaching in many of the
villages. Perhaps En Gannim was one of those villages,
and by that time St. John had learnt the meaning of
the rebuke " Ye know not — ye — of what spirit ye are."
He saw then why Jesus had rebuked the evil wish to
call down fire from heaven and consume them all.
Then, too, he learnt what Jesus meant when He had
said to them by the well of Jacob, " Lift up your eyes
and gaze on the fields, because they are white unto
harvest already. . . I sent you to reap that wherein
ye have not toiled. Others have toiled, and ye have
entered into their toil." 2
iv. After this the name of St. John disappears
entirely from the Acts of the Apostles. We cannot
tell what view he took at first of the bold conduct
of Peter in admitting to baptism a Gentile soldier and
his household — in " going in to men uncircumcised and
eating with them." We can only feel sure that Peter's
conviction would — in the close union which had ever
subsisted between them — have gone far to help his own.
By the time when he wrote the Apocalypse he had
learned to look upon the Gentiles as true and equal
members of the Church of God.3
It was four or five years after the conversion of
Cornelius4 that Herod Agrippa I. seized James, the
elder brother of John, and put him to death with the
sword. We are told so little of St. James, the son of
1 Acts viii. 14.
2 John iv. 35—38.
3 On the much disputed question whether in the Apocalypse the
Gentiles are placed on a footing of absolute equality with the Jews, see
Gebhardt, Doctrine of the Apocalypse, pp. 180 — 194.
4 A.D. 44.

MARTYRDOM OF JAMES. 141
Zebedee, that we do not know by what bold deed or
burning word he had provoked his doom. We may
judge with what mingled feelings of anguish and
exultation St. John would witness or hear of the
murder of the elder brother with whom he had spent
his life. St. James was the first martyr of the Apostles.
How vast were to be the changes in the Church and in
the world during the long half century before John
passed away to join his brother — the last survivor of
that high and glorious band ! But, doubtless, he was
in some measure prepared for this lengthening of his
life. In that memorable scene on the misty lake at
early morning Jesus had spoken to Peter of martyrdom ;
to John He had spoken only of tarrying while He was
coming. It is as though He had said, " Let finished
action follow Me, shaped by the example of My pas
sion ; but let contemplation, now commenced, abide
until I come, to be perfected when I have come."1 " The
one Apostle," says Canon Westcott, "is the minister of
action, whose service is consummated by the martyrdom
of death; the other is the minister of thought and
teaching, whose service is perfected in the martyrdom
of life." v. The name of St. John occurs but once in the
thirteen Epistles of St. Paul. Perhaps in the early
years of St. Paul's stormy ministry the two would not
have been naturally drawn together. They would be
separated in part by the memories of " the great per
secution,"2 of which Saul had been the most furious
agent, and in which John may have lost many friends.
They would be still more separated by deeply-seated
differences of character. St. John, as we have said, was
1 Aug. in Joh. cxxiv. 3. 2 Acts viii. 1, piyas Siuyuds.

142 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY.
wholly unlike the effeminate pietist of Titian's or of
Raphael's pictures. We have seen that there was
within him a spring of most fiery vehemence. Yet, so
far as we can judge, this passion was not often or easily
aroused. None could have written as St. John wrote
who had not thought long and deeply ; and the slight
part which he is recorded to have taken in the
history of the Church during the first twenty-five years
of its existence shows that he was either absorbed in
the care of the Virgin, or that he was Kving a
life of meditation and devotion. This was almost
necessitated by the atmosphere of persecution which
was continuously breathed by the Church of Jerusalem.
But St. John must have been naturally inclined to a
quiet and contemplative life. Men of very opposite
temperaments are not readily drawn together, and
there must have been much in the almost feverish
energy of the Apostle of the Gentiles which would not
at once win the sympathies of the beloved disciple.
Besides this, the glimpse which we are allowed to see
of John shows him still devoted to the outward life of
the Jewish system. He was a daily worshipper in the
Temple at the stated hours of prayer, and remembered
even to his last days — though with ever -widening
vision and ever-deepening insight into the meaning of
the words — that " salvation was from the Jews." One,
therefore, who loved peace as he loved it — one who
could only be prepared by the training of experience
for the immense development which the Church was
to undergo from its earlier conditions in the days of
Galilee — one who as a mystic lived in the absorbing
realisation of a Divine idea — would hold aloof from
the loud questions which began to agitate the Church,

ST. JOHN AND ST. PAUL. 113
and almost unconsciously would feel inclined to shrink
from him who stirred them up. It is easy to conceive
that to one trained as John had been in the intensest
feelings of nationality, and in the most absolute devotion
to the Law, the characteristics of St. Paul were not at
tractive. Paul's breadth and cosmopolitanism, his eman
cipation from Judaic prejudices, his vehement dialectics,
his irresistible personality, his daring expressions, the
independence of his course of action, the bitter feelings
which he kindled in the hearts of men among whom
John lived, and whom he could not but respect — all
tended to prevent any close union between the two.
When Saul first returned from Damascus an ardent and
controversial convert, St. John seems to have been absent
from Jerusalem.1 At any rate, St. Paul did not see
him, either on that occasion or on his subsequent visit
to convey to the elders the alms of the Gentiles at
Antioch. But on the occasion of the third visit of
St. Paul to Jerusalem with Barnabas, in order to
settle the question — so momentous to the future of
the Church — whether or not the yoke of circumcision,
and therewith of all Levitism, was to be laid on the
necks of the Gentiles — St. Paul tells us that St. John
was at Jerusalem as one of the Three Pillar- Apostles,
and that he met him in conference. I have elsewhere
described that most important scene in the history of
the world. St. John was at that time by conviction a
fervid Jewish Christian. He was living with and acting
with the Jewish Christians, side by side with St. Peter,
who at Jerusalem conformed to all their usages. Both
of them — though all three " were held to be pillars " —
were overshadowed by' the commanding personality of
i Gal. i. 19.

144 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY.
the Lord's brother, St. James, the Bishop of Jerusalem.
Between the first reception of the delegates from Antioch
and the stormy meeting in which the question was de
bated, St. Paul, with the consummate statesmanship
which was one of his intellectual gifts, had privately
secured the assent of the three leaders of the Church to
his views and proposals. All three were convinced ; all
three gave to him and Barnabas the right hands of
fellowship ; all three recognised their mission to the Gen
tiles. Nay, they not only recognised this mission, but
formally handed it over to the care of those who had
hitherto been its all but exclusive ministers. They
made to Paul and Barnabas but two requests — both most
readily granted : the one that they should themselves be
left undisturbed in the ministry of the circumcision ; the
other that the needs of the poor saints at Jerusalem
should not be overlooked in the wealthier churches of
the Gentiles. The fact of this mutual recognition —
this interchange of Christian pledges in a spirit of
friendship — is the best answer to the dreams of those
who would persuade us that St. John, in the Apocalypse,
condescended to attack St. Paul himself, as well as his
followers, in language of unmitigated hate.
This seems to have been the only occasion — at any
rate, it is the only one known to us — on which there
was any meeting between the Beloved Disciple and the
Apostle of the Gentiles. St. John took no part in the
great debate. He seems to have shrunk from everything
which bore any resemblance to noisy publicity. On this
occasion he left the speaking to St. Peter and St. James,
only supporting their concession by his vote and silent
acquiescence. His was not the temperament which
delights, as did that of St. Paul, in ruling the stormy

TRAINING OF ST. JOHN. 145
elements of popular assemblies. In the earlier days,
when he and Peter worked together in close com
munion, it is Peter who on every occasion comes
forward as the chief speaker. Yet we must not infer
from this that the relation of John to the elder Apostle
was at all like that which subsequently arose between
Paul and Barnabas. In the first missionary journey
Paul took the lead by virtue of his superior intellect
and more vigorous energy. He was, in human esti
mate, the abler and greater of the two. It was not so
with St. Peter. His, doubtless, was the readier, the
more practical, the more oratorical ability ; but, judging
by their writings, we should again say that in human
estimate St. John's was the profounder and more gifted
soul. But his sphere was by no means the sphere of
daily struggles and controversies —
" Greatest souls
Are often those of whom the noisy world
Hears least."
We can think of St. John in the cave at Patmos ; we
cannot fancy him addressing a j-elling mob on the steps
of Castle Antonia. His was to be a very different, yet
a no less necessary work. It was his to be guided by
the Spirit through the education of outward circum
stances to truths deeper, richer, more comprehensive,
more final than it had been granted even to St. Paul to
set forth. From this time we lose sight of St. John in Holy
Scripture, so far as any external record or notice of him
is concerned. All our further knowledge respecting
the outward incidents of his life is reducible to the
fact that when he wrote the Apocalypse he was " in the
k

146 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY.
isle that is called Patmos, because of the word of God
and the testimony of Jesus Christ." But, meagre as is
this one personal fact, we learn much respecting him
from early tradition, and from the precious legacy of his
own writings. From these sources we are able to trace
the Apostle in his advance towards Christian perfection
— in the expansion of his enlightened intellect, in the
deepening of his universal love.
It will be better to separate the story of his remain
ing years as it is handed down to us by early tradition,
from the proofs furnished by his own writings of his
gradual growth in the wisdom and knowledge of the
Lord Jesus Christ. Yet tradition helps us to realise the
conditions under which the beautiful but partial dawn
which we witness on the banks of Jordan and the shores
of Galilee broadened at last into the perfect day.
Many details of his history are left in the deepest
obscurity. During a period of at least eighteen years
we neither know where he lived nor what he did. In
the New Testament we lose sight of him in a.d. 50, at
the date of the Synod of Jerusalem ; we do not meet
with him again till we find him in the isle called
Patmos, in a.d. 68.
Perhaps some readers may feel surprise that the
latter date should be given with any confidence. It
was the general belief of antiquity that his residence in
Patmos was owing to his banishment. Even this has
been disputed on the ground that it is only an inference
from his expression that he was there " because of the
word of God and because of the testimony of Jesus
Christ." These words have been interpreted by some
to mean that he retired from Ephesus to the seclu
sion of the rocky islet in order to concentrate his

ST. JOHN AT PATMOS. 147
mind on the thoughts and visions which were being
revealed to him. There are, however, no certain grounds
for setting aside the old tradition. It furnishes the
most natural interpretation of his language, and well
accords with his saying that he was " the companion "
of those to whom he was writing, "in their tribulation,
and in the kingdom and endurance of Jesus Christ.'-'
But the date of this banishment, if banishment it were,
is most variously conjectured. Epiphanius1 says that it
took place in the reign of Claudius; Theophylact and
the superscription of a Syrian MS. say that it was in
the reign of Nero. Irenaeus,2 Jerome,3 and Sulpicius
Severus4 agree that it was in the reign of Domitian, and
Eusebius in his Chronicon places St. John's banishment
in the fourteenth year of that reign ;5 Dorotheus places
it in the reign of Trajan. On the other hand, Clemens
of Alexandria6 and Tertullian7 do not venture to name
the particular emperor, and Origen8 observes that St.
John himself is silent on the subject. But — as I hope
to show hereafter — there can be no reasonable doubt
respecting the date of the Apocalypse, and therefore
none as to St. John's stay in Patmos, if, as I myself
believe, he was the author of that book. That he was the
author is the all but unanimous testimony of antiquity
from the days of Justin Martyr to those of the great
Fathers of the third century, and it is, I believe, the
inference to which the book itself most decisively points.
The notion that it was written either by John the
1 Haer. Ii. 33. 2 Iren. c. Haer. v. 30, 3.
3 De Virr. Illustr. 9. 4 Sacr. Hist. ii. 31.
6 H. E. iii. 18 ; xx. 23 ; and Chron. He says he returned from exile
in the reign of Trajan.
6 Quis div. Salv. 42. 7 De Praescr. Haer. 36.
8 Comm. in Matt. iii. p. 719.
h 2

148 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY.
Presbyter, or by the Evangelist John Mark,1 requires
for its support far weightier and more decisive evidence
than any which modern ingenuity has even attempted
to provide. Of this hiatus of eighteen years in the life of
the great Apostle tradition has very little to tell us,
and what it does tell us is of no value. That he left
Jerusalem is certain, and he probably left it for ever.
This may have been at the end of the twelve years
during which, as tradition says, Jesus had bidden His
Apostles to stay in the Holy City ; 2 but, more pro
bably, it was at a much later period. What were
the circumstances which induced him to leave his
own home,8 we cannot tell, but it may have been
the result of that terrible combat between Romish
oppression and Jewish exasperation which arose during
the Procuratorships of Albinus and Gessius Floras. We
have seen that the agitation which affected the minds
even of Christian Jews had given occasion to the
warnings of the Bishop of Jerusalem that " a man's
wrath worketh not the righteousness of God." The
death of the Virgin,4 the murder of " the Lord's brother "
— perhaps precipitated by his own stern rebukes — the
meditated flight of the Christians to Pella — the actual
outbreak of the Jewish war, any of these may have been
St. John's motive for thus changing the settled habits
1 Beza, Prolegg. in Apoc. ; Hitzig, Ueber Joh. Markus, 1843.
2 Apollonius, ap. Euseb. H. E. v. 18 ; Clem. Alex. Strom, vi. 5,
quoting from the Praedicatio Petri.
3 ™ ISia, John xix. 27.
4 Nicephoms, H. E. ii. 42. There is nothing to be said for the con
jecture of Baronius and Tillemont that the Virgin accompanied St. John
to Asia. oiiSapov \4yeTai Sti iirriydyero p.e6' iavrov r^v aylav irapBivov
(Epiphan. Haer. lxxviii. § 11). This statement was made at the Council
of Ephesus (Labbe, Concil. iii. 547).

HE LEAVES JERUSALEM. 149
of his life. Perhaps by this time, when a race of
young men was growing up around him to whom the
Crucifixion was but a tale which they heard from the
lips of their fathers, he may have been led to the
conviction that the day of Jerusalem had passed away
for ever, that Jewish obduracy had finally hardened
itself against the message of the Gospel. Any peace
which the Church of Jerusalem had enjoyed had been
owing to the famines, and political troubles, which had
diverted the attention of the Jews from the Christians
to the desperate struggle against the encroachments of
the Romans and their Herodian nominees. Perhaps
it had been due, to an even greater degree, to the
legal " righteousness " of St. James, his faithfulness
to all Jewish traditions, his conciliatory and respectful
attitude towards the Mosaic Law. But the death of
James seemed to open a new chapter in the history
of the Mother Church. Simon, son of Alphseus, an
other kinsman of Christ according to the flesh, was
chosen to succeed him. St. John may have felt
that his work at Jerusalem was now finished ; that
his thoughts had ripened ; that his labours were
needed in wider regions of the mission field. Of this
we are sure — that he would leave himself to be guided
in all the main decisions of his life by the influence of
the Holy Spirit of God.1
1 He may even have stayed in Jerusalem till Nero sent Vespasian to
suppress the Jewish revolt (Luke xxi. 20 ; Jos. B. J. ii. 25 ; Euseb. iii. 5).
One tradition says that on leaving Jerusalem he went and preached to
the Parthians. It rests on such very shadowy foundation that it may
safely be set aside (see Lampe, p. 48, and supra, p. 114). Even if there
were not some strange error in St. Augustine's reference to his Epistle
as being written " to the Parthians " {Quaest. Evang. ii. 19), his writing to
them would not prove that he had preached among them, and there is no
trace that he did.

T50 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY.
Two common legends account for his presence in
Patmos by a supernatural deliverance from martyrdom.
It is said that he was plunged into a caldron full of
boiling oil at the Latin gate of Rome, and so far from
suffering, only came out of the caldron more vigorous
and youthful than before.1 Another story, frequently
represented in Christian art, says that an attempt was
made to kill him by a poisoned chalice, but that "it
was rendered harmless when he signed over it the sign
of the cross, and the poison fled from it in the form
of a little asp."2 The silence of Irenseus, Hippolytus,
Eusebius, Chrysostom, Sulpicius Severus, and many
others is alone sufficient to prove that these are un
authorised fables.
But these legends bring us face to face with the
question, Was St. John ever at Rome ? It is t*ue that
the legends furnish no conclusive evidence, and that
there is no authentic trace of St. John's visit to Rome
in the history of the Roman Church.3 On the other
hand, there is throughout the Apocalypse so intensely
1 Tert. de Praescr. Haer. 36, " in oleum igneum demersus, nihil passus
est." Jer. adv. Jovin. i. 26, and in Matt. xx. 23 ; Origen, in Matt, Hom.
12. Baronius says truly enough of Tertullian that he was so credulous
that he would snatch up any old woman's story with avidity (Annal.
a.d. 201). On these two legends see the various references in Zahn, Acta
Joannis, cxvii. — cxxii.
2 Augustine, toliloq. ; Isidor. Hispalensis, De Vit. et Mort. Sand. 73 ;
Ps. Abdias, Hist. Apost. v. 20 (Fabric. Cod. Apocr. ii. 575) ; Cave, Lives of
the Apostles. Papias tells the same story of Joses Barsabbas, and it may
be allegorically deduced from Mark xvi. 18.
3 It is curious that in the Latin translation of the Journeys of the
Divine {irepi68oi) by the Pseudo-Prochorus {Bibl. Patr. 1677), an attempt
is made to fix his martyrdom at Rome. The MS. was found in the
library of the monastery of St. Christodulus in Patmos. See Zahn, Acta
Joannis, p. 191. Tischendorf, Act. Apocr. 266 — 271. Hippolytus exclaims
" Tell me, blessed John, what didst thou see and hear about Babylon ? "
De Christ, et Antichrist. 36

WAS HE EVER AT ROME? 151
vivid a realisation of the horrors of the Neronian
persecution, and the wickedness of the agents by which
it was brought about, that we feel strongly inclined
to believe that the visions of that book reflect the
terrible experiences of an eye-witness. St. John may
have reached Rome as St. Peter and St. Paul did,
either as an Evangelist or as a prisoner, during
the final spasms of that dreadful movement which
first caused the blood of martyrdom to flow in rivers.
In any case the Apocalypse is the echo of a harp
whose perturbed strings have been smitten by fierce
and bloodstained hands, and then have been swept
by the mighty wind of inspiration. St. John did
not indeed perish as did his brother Apostles dur
ing those years of horror, but the legends of the
poison-cup and the boiling oil may be dim reflections
of the narrowness of the escape which ended in
what was (perhaps erroneously) believed to be his
deportation to a rocky island, and his condemnation
to toil as a labourer in its quarries-.1
We must, however, be content to remain in igno
rance as to the causes of his presence in Patmos.
The tone of his letter to the Seven Churches speaks
of an intimate knowledge of their circumstances,
and the possession of an unquestioned authority
over them. He must have resided in Asia Minor
before we find him at Patmos, and the- attempt to
prove that his connection with Ephesus is apocryphal
must be pronounced to have egregiously failed. That
attempt, first made by Liitzelberger, in 1840, has been
1 Yictorinus and Primasins say that he was " in metallum damnatus."
There are no mines in Patmos, but metallum may mean " a stone-quarry.''
It was not one of the islands usually selected for deportations.

152 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY.
seriously followed up by Keim, in 1867/ and by the
Dutch theologian Scholten, in 1871,2 but it surely
shows " the very intemperance of negation." Not only
Baur, and Strauss, and Renan, but even the most
advanced followers of the Tubingen school — such as
Schwegler, Zeller, and Volkmar — admitted the cogency
of the evidence for a fact which till the last ten years
has been universally accepted. The notion that the
Apostle John was mistaken for the Presbyter John —
if ever there was such a person — is wholly baseless.
Even if we accept the wild conjecture that the Apoca
lypse is by John Mark the Evangelist, or by the
supposed Presbyter John — conjectures which crumble
to nothing before the first serious examination — it re
sults from the whole manner and phraseology of the
book that the writer meant himself to be regarded as
the Apostle. And such being the case, it is equally
clear that his residence in Asia Minor is assumed as
a thing well known to all readers of the book. It
would have been absurd for a forger to start with an
assumption which, if false, would at once have proved
that he was not the person whom he pretended to be.
Even if we set aside the authority of such men as
St. Clemens of Alexandria,3 and Origen,4 the fact that
St. Polycarp, in a.d. 160,6 who had actually seen and
heard the Apostle, appeals to his authority for the
Eastern custom of keeping Easter on Nisan 14, ought
alone to be decisive. Polycrates, in a.d. 190, who as
1 Keim, Jesu von Nazara, i. 161 — 167; iii. 44 — 45.
2 Scholten, Der Apost. Joann. in Klein-Azie (Leyden).
3 Clem. Alex. Quis Div. Salv. § 42, and ap. Euseb. iii. 23.
4 Orig. in Gen. (Euseb. iii. 1, 1).
6 Tert. De Praescr. Haer. 32 ; Jer. De Virr. Illustr. 17 ; Chron. Pasch.
p. 252. Waddington places the martyrdom of Polycarp in 154 or 155.

ST. JOHN AT EPHESUS. 153
Bishop of Ephesus was a man likely to be well in
formed, made the same appeal,1 as also did St. Irenseus
in his letter to Florinus.2 When we remember the
statement of St. Irenseus that as a boy (about a.d.
150) he had heard from the mouth of Polycarp, Bishop
of Smyrna, and many other elders, many memorable
things about John, the Lord's disciple, who, as a
successor to St. Paul, lived in Ephesus, wrote the
Revelation and the Gospel, and died at a great age in
the reign of Trajan,3 — does it not require an extraor
dinary stretch of credulity to suppose that he made a
confusion between John the Bosom-friend of the Lord,
the beloved Apostle and Evangelist, the immortal
survivor of the Apostolic choir, and a "nebulous
presbyter," whose very existence is problematical ?
And who can believe that when Polycrates ranks
John with the Apostle Philip as " the two great stars
of Asia,"4 he is thinking only of this dubious presbyter?
Eusebius does indeed in one place (iii. 39) infer from
a well-known passage that Papias had been a personal
hearer of Aristion and John the Presbyter, and not of
John the Apostle. In the style of Papias, so inartificial
and inexact, it cannot be regarded as certain that this
is his meaning ; but even if it is, the inference drawn
from this, that St. John had not lived in Asia, has no
weight against the clear statements of Polycarp and
Irenaeus. It has never been doubted that Cerinthus
taught in Asia, and from the first the Church has, in
1 Ap. Euseb. v. 18, 24. Comp. Haer. III. iii. 4.
2 Euseb. v. 20, 24.
3 Surely this testimony more than outweighs the mere silence of
Ignatius {ad Eph. 12 ; ad Trail. 5).
4 Ap. Euseb. H.E. iii. 31. I believe, with Renan, that the Philip
intended was the Apostle not the Deacon.

154 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY.
many ways, connected the names of Cerinthus and St.
John. By a strange fatality the writings of St. John
were actually attributed to Cerinthus (against whom
they were perhaps written) by the Alogi, who denied
the doctrine of the Logos.1 A scholar so accomplished
as Dionysius of Alexandria, in expressing his doubts
about the Apocalypse, thinks it worth while to record the
legend that Cerinthus had written it, and fraudulently
prefixed to it the name of John.2 But even if it should
be proved that the Apocalypse was not written by
John, it still bears decisive testimony to the belief
that he was the acknowledged head of the Christians of
Asia. Relegating to the Excursus3 the intricate inquiry as
to the identity of the Apostle with John the Presbyter,
we may here be allowed to assume that the belief of the
Church — unquestioned for nineteen centuries — is still
to be accepted. It is not difficult to discover why
St. John should have fixed his new home in the
famous capital of Proconsular Asia. The Church in
that city was large and flourishing. It stood at the
head of many churches of great importance. The
position of the city as an emporium of the Mediter
ranean made it an eminently favourable centre for
missionary labours. The Christians of Asia were liable
to severe temptations, and had long been tried by the
influx of various errors. Everything called for the
presence of St. John. St. Paul was imprisoned, if
not dead, and had, at any rate, bidden farewell to
1 Epiphan. Haer. Ii. 3. The other Fathers are unanimous — Chrys.
Praef. in Ephes. ; Theod. Mops. Prooem. in Cat. Patr. ; Tert. c. Marc.
iv. 5. 2 Ap. Euseb. iii. 28.
3 See Excursus XIV.

WORK OF ST. JOHN. 155
Ephesus for ever.1 The other Apostles were scattered
or dead. The Church, largely composed of Judaising
Christians, naturally looked for the support of an
Apostle from Jerusalem. St. John was alone avail
able for the work ; nor is it impossible that he may
have felt all the more need to obey the call because,
like St. James, he may have been aware of the danger
which arose from the perversion of St. Paul's teaching
by Gnostic and Antinomian heresiarchs, who were ever
mixing it up with alien elements borrowed from Greek
or Eastern speculation.
That St. John's individual leanings long continued
to be in favour of the Judaists is proved by the im
pression which he left upon the minds of those with
whom he had lived2 ; as well as by the countenance he
gave to the Quartodecimans, who kept the Passover on
the 14th of Nisan. It is proved most of all by the
general tone of the Apocalypse, which, amid many
resemblances, differs so widely from that of the Gospel
and Epistles. That the Apocalypse was written many
years before the Gospel and Epistles, ought to be re
garded as a certain conclusion. The difference of style
alone — apart from the deeper differences on which I
shall dwell hereafter — is sufficient to prove it. The
Greek of the Gospels and Epistles, though Hebraic
in the structure of its sentences, is yet perfectly smooth

1 Acts xx. 25, 38.
2 E.g., by the story that he was a priest (Upeis) wearing the high-
priestly mitre, Ex. xxviii. 36 (Polycr. ap. Euseb. v. 24). But it must be
borne in mind that St. John regarded all Christians not only as priests,
but as high priests (i. 6 ; xx. 6 ; and ii. 17, where the mystic stone seems
to be analogous to the Urim and Thummim which were put inside the
ephod). The word " mitre of the faith " is used metaphorically in Test.
XII. Pair. iii. 8.

156 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY.
and correct. It is the Greek of one who had long
been familiar with the language. Bui the Greek of
the Apocalypse is so ungrammatical and so full of sole
cisms as to be the worst in the entire Greek Jestament.
Now it is natural that St. John, after so many years
in which he had spoken little but Aramaic, should
write Greek imperfectly ; and that he should subse
quently gain power in writing Greek by residence in
heathen cities and among a Greek-speaking population.
But it is inconceivable that he should have written the
Gospel and Epistles in pure Greek, and then, after
years of familiar practice, should have come to write
the language incomparably worse. The attempts to
explain the difference of style by the peculiarities of
Apocalyptic writings are impossible after -thoughts,
wholly inadequate to account for the phenomena. But
besides this, without the invention of a moral miracle,
we cannot regard it as possible that, by writing the
Apocalypse after the Gospel, St. John could have
gone back from clear thought to figures, and have
reduced the full expression of truth to its rudimentary
indications.1 Perhaps it needed nothing less than the fall ot
Jerusalem to teach to St. John, as it taught to most
Jewish Christians, that though Judaism had been the
cradle of Christianity it was not to be its grave. Their
intense belief in the symbolism of the Mosaic worship,
their identification of faithfulness and orthodoxy with
obedience to the Levitic law, were opinions so in
veterate that nothing could shake them save that
visible interposition which, when Christianity was fairly
planted in the world, rendered impossible the fulfilment
1 On this subject see Canon Westcott, Introd. to Gospel, p. lxxxvi.

THE APOCALYPSE. 157
of Mosaic ordinances. The extreme Judaisers had so
long encouraged themselves in the belief that St. Paul
was a dangerous, if not a wicked, teacher, that they
could not be convinced that after all they had been
immeasurably inferior to him in insight, until their
eyes were opened by the catastrophe which closed the
order of the old ages, and which was the First Coming
of Christ. St. John of course would not have agreed
with these Judaisers in their extreme views, but no
one can read his Gospel and Epistles, written some
time after the destruction of Jerusalem, without see
ing how much his knowledge of the truth had been
widened since he wrote the Apocalypse in the days
when the Holy City had not as yet been made a
heap of stones.
It has been said, and with scarcely any exaggera
tion, that the Apocalypse is of all the books in the New
Testament the most intensely Jewish, and the Fourth
Gospel the least so. In the Apocalypse " Jew " is a
term of the highest honour ; in the Gospel it usually
describes the enemies of Jesus, the Pharisees and
Priests. Yet these differences are capable of explana
tion, and we must remember that they are found in
connexion with close resemblances. Even in the Gos
pel there is no higher eulogy than "an Israelite
indeed, in whom is no guile."
We must be content to remain in uncertainty as
to the chronology of this part of St. John's life, and
as to the circumstances which took him to Ephesus.1
1 A legend preserved by the author of the Life of Tvmotheus, of which
some extracts are furnished by Photius, says that he was shipwrecked on
the coast of Ephesus during the Neronian persecution. It is also men
tioned by Simeon Metaphrastes, Vit. Joh. 2 (Lampe, Proleg. p. 46).

158 THE EARLI DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY.
We may, however, be sure that his residence alike in
the rocky islet and in the thronged Ionian capital were
very fruitful in his divine education. In Ephesus he
saw — perhaps for the first time — the wicked glittering
life of a great Gentile city, with its merchandise not
only of fine linen, and purple and scarlet, and vessels
of ivory and precious wood, and amomum, and incense,
and wine, and horses, and chariots, — but also of "slaves,
and souls of men." There, on the centre of the western
coast of Asia Minor, he could as from a beacon-tower
look back over the plains and valleys watered by the
Hermus and Mseander, and while he kept watch over
all the Churches of Asia, his voice could sound like a
trumpet of God over the Isles of Greece, and westward
to the great cities of Greece and Italy, and Gaul and
Spain.1 Amid that busy scene, with its harbour
thronged with the sails of the civilised world, and its
Temple frequented by nations of worshippers, there
could have been little time for contemplation in the
midst of the work which life in such a city entailed
upon a Christian Apostle. But in his retirement at
Patmos, whether voluntary or compulsory, he would
have leisure for peaceful thought. Patmos, with its
strangely shattered configuration, is little more than a
huge rock, and it can never have had many inhabitants,
In its grotto of La Scala, on its bare hills, by its pro
jecting promontories, as he sat alone — with man distant
from him, but God near — he could meditate in undis
turbed devotion. He might naturally pass into mystic
ecstasy, as he sat under some grey olive and looked
up in prayer to the glow of heaven, or ' gazed on the
1 Magdeb. Eccl. Hist. Cent. ii. 2; see too Chrysost. Hom. i. in
Johan.

PATMOS. 159
silent expanse of the sea, which under the burning
sun gleams so often like a sea of glass mingled with
fire. No outward circumstances could have been more
providentially ordered to bring out his noblest faculties
than the interchange of a life spent " amid the madding
crowd's ignoble strife," with one spent in seclusion and
solitude, wherein he could commune with his own
thoughts and hear the voice of God speaking to him,
and be still.1
The history of Patmos itself throws no light on
this interesting subject. It is scarcely alluded to by
any ancient author, which is the more surprising be
cause it furnished a convenient point at which vessels
could touch on their way from Ephesus to Italy. It
is only mentioned incidentally by Pliny and Strabo,2
and there seem to be no adequate grounds for Renan's
assertion that in the first century it was very populous.
A sterile rock, about eighteen miles in circumference,3 can
never have been important. We have no mention of its
being used for the deportation of criminals, and when
1 " Patmos ressemble a toutes les lies de l'Archipel : mer d'azur, air
limpide, ciel serein, rochers aux sommets denteles, a peine revetus par
moments d'un leger duvet de verdure. L'aspect est nu et sterile ; mais
les formes et la couleur du roe, le bleu vif de la mer, sillonnee de
beaux oiseaux blancs, oppose aux teints rougeatres des rochers sont
quelque chose d' admirable " (Renan, VAntechrist, p. 376). "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.
The stones speak of him, and in every heart he lives " (Tischendorf, Reise
in's Morgenland, ii. 257 ; see too Ross, Reisen auf griech. Inseln, ii. 123,
and Guerin, Descr. de Vile de Patmos, 1856). It consists of three masses
of rock united by narrow isthmuses.
2 Strabo, x. p. 488; Pliny, H. N. iv. 12; Thuc. iii. 23.
3 Tournefort, Voy. du Levant, i. 168. In his time there were only
300 inhabitants. See on Patmos, Stanley's Sermons in the East, p. 230.

160 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY.
St. John says that he was there " for the word of God
and the testimony of Jesus," the phrase is indecisive.
Patmos was, indeed, so completely in the highway of
the Icarian sea, and its port was so convenient, that
it would not, under ordinary circumstances, have suited
the object for which islands were selected as places
of exile. It is curious that the pseudo-Prochorus in
his Periodoi says nothing about any banishment to
Patmos, and does not even mention the Apocalypse,
but says that St. John went there to write his Gospel.
We can trace no special influences of the scenery on
his mind, unless it be in the mention of " a burning
mountain in the midst of the sea," which may be a
reminiscence of the then active volcano of Santorin,
the ancient Thera.1
1 Pliny, H. N. iv. 12, § 23 ; Sen. Qu. Nat. ii. 26 ; vi. 21. But it is
just as easy to suppose that St. John may have sailed past Stromboli in
going to Rome.

CHAPTER XXVI.
LEGENDS OF ST. JOHN.
Ae? Se Kal irapaS6o-ei xpyoSai. oh yap irdvra dirb rrjs Betas ypatprfs Shvarai \aa-
Pavea-Bai.— EPIPHAN. Haer. lxi. 1.
No account of St. John would be complete without
some estimate of the many legends which cluster round
his later years. We may say at once that some of
them, if true at all, belong — in spirit at any rate — far
more to the epoch in which he wrote the Apocalypse
than to that in which he wrote the Gospel.
1 . One of the best-known of these tells us that once
at Ephesus he was entering into one of the great
public baths (thermae), when he was informed that
Cerinthus was in the building. Thereupon he in
stantly turned away, exclaiming, "Let us fly, that thd
therma? fall not on our heads, since Cerinthus, the
enemy of the truth, is therein."1 In another version of
the anecdote, given by Epiphanius, the name of the
mythical Ebion2 is substituted for that of Cerinthus,
and this variation happily serves to throw great doubt
on a story which is still quoted with applause by
religious partisans, because it is supposed to furnish a
sanction for violent religious animosities. We catch,
indeed, in this story the old tone of the passion and
1 Iren. c. Haer. iii. 3 ; Euseb. H. E. iii. 28 ; iv. 14 ; Theodoret, ii. 3 ;
Nicephorus, iii. 30. Besides the original authorities here quoted, I may
refer to Lampe {Proleg. 68), Krenkel (Der Apostel Johannes, pp. 21 — 32),
and Stanley {Sermons on the Apostolic Age).
2 Epiphan. Haer. xxx. 24.
/

162 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY.
intolerance of the Son of Thunder, at a period of his
life when we might have hoped, from other indications,
that he had climbed to that region " where above these
voices there is peace." Cerinthus was a Jewish Chris
tian, and the earliest of the Christian Gnostics. He
was one of those who believed in two principles, making
a distinction between God and the Demiurgus or Creator.1
Further than this, he was one of the founders of Doce-
tism, in that form of it which spoke of" Jesus " as being
a mere man, on whom " Christ," the Son of the Most
High God, had descended at His baptism in the form of
a dove, leaving Him again at the moment of His cruci
fixion. We can understand how abhorrent such views
would be to St. John ; how they would run counter to
his inmost and most precious convictions. But in the
idly superstitious notion that the thermae must there
fore necessarily fall and crush the heretic, we could onlj-
trace (were the story true) the spirit which had once
wished to perform Elijah-miracles of fire — the spirit of
one who forgot for the moment that Christ came to
save, not to destroy — that God maketh His sun to
shine upon the evil and upon the good, and sendeth
His rain upon the just and upon the unjust.2
1 Iren. c. Haer. i. 25 ; Hippol. Philosoph. vii. 33.
2 "A man," said the Rabbis, "should not wade through water, or
traverse any dangerous place, in company with an apostate, or even a
wicked Jew, lest he be overtaken in the same ruin with him " {Kitzur
Sh'lah, f. 10, 6). This is not the spirit of Eph. v. 7, or Rev. xviii. 4,
which forbid, not the ordinary intercourse of life, which St. Paul expressly
told his converts that he did not mean to forbid (1 Cor. v. 10), but partici
pation in the sins of others. It is more like the heathen notion —
" Vetabo qui Cereris sacrum
Vulgarit arcanum sub isdem
Sit trabibus, fragilemve mecum
Solvat phaselon," etc.
By entering the same baths, St. John would certainly not have been

CERINTHUS AND THE BATH. 163
There is another reason for hoping that this
favourite story of religious hatred is a fabrication.
It was not the usual custom of Jews to frequent the
public baths. They could hardly do so without ren
dering themselves liable to the grossest insults.
Further, the baths were almost invariably adorned
with statues, and it would have been strange indeed
if those statues were not sometimes those of heathen
deities. The iconoclasm of the Jew made such places
detestable to him, and it was thought an instance of
reprehensible laxity when the younger Gamaliel entered
a bath which contained one of the common statues of
Aphrodite.1 Then, too, the Ionian baths were thought
to be very luxurious. We are told that for this reason
they were never used by St. James.2 Epiphanius also
asserts that St. John "used neither bath nor oil."3
Cerinthus was surely not worse than thousands of bad
Christians and worse Pagans — Pagans dyed in every
extreme of vice — whom St. John would be quite sure to
encounter if he went to public baths at all. Strange
to say — heretical as were the speculations of Cerinthus
— he is actually asserted by one ancient writer to have
been the author of the Apocalypse. That conjecture
is absurd, but it surely shows that Cerinthus — who, in
virtue of his restless and impressionable nature, has
thus become " the spectre of St. John " — could not have
been so flagrantly wicked as to render it dangerous to be
supposed by any human being to make himseK a "partaker of the evil
deeds " of Cerinthus (2 John 10, 11).
1 Avoda Zara, f. 44, 6. The excuse which the Rabbi made, " that the
statue was a mere appendage of the bath," showed more good sense than
the impetuous conduct ascribed to the Apostle
2 Iren. c. Haer. v. 33.
3 Epiphan Haer. lxxviii. 14.
I 2

164 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY.
under the same roof with him ! The story is surrounded
by difficulties, and I for one am glad to dismiss it from
my memories of the holy Apostle, as an anachronism in
the history of his life, and wholly unworthy of the later
period of his career. If there be any truth in it, it can
only be regarded as an expiring flash of that old in
tolerance which Christ had reproved; or again, any
slight basis of truth in it may be reducible to the
utterance of a strong metaphor by way of expressing
marked disapproval.1 In that case the Apostle would
not have meant it to be taken literally and d'un trop
grand serieux. That it was so taken is due to Polycarp —
through whom we get the story third-hand in Irenasus
— and of Epiphanius, who repeats it fourth or fifth-
hand, and tells it wrongly. Polycarp, who would not
notice Marcion in the streets, and when challenged as
an acquaintance replied — not surely in the true Chris
tian spirit, which is peaceable and meek and gentle —
" Yes, I know thee, the first-born of Satan ; " Irenasus,
who tells these stories with approval ; Epiphanius, who
spent his credulous age in hunting for heresy in the
dioceses of wiser men and better saints than himself
— would not have been likely to soften the features
of an anecdote which had an evil effect even on the

1 Epiphanius, though glad to retain the story, is puzzled by the visit to
the baths, and thinks that it must have been a quite unusual, providential
visit ; that he must have gone " compelled by the Holy Spirit " {TivayKaaB-n
iiwb roii aylov Tlveiparos), to give him an opportunity for the valuable
anathema ! Baronius {Annal. ad a.d. 74) thinks to reconcile Epiphanius
with Irenseus by the suggestion that perhaps both Cerinthus and Ebion (!)
might have been in the bath, a conjecture which Ittigius {DeHaeresiarchis,
p. 58) approves. See on the story generally, Lampe, Proleg. p. 69. I am
sorry that Holtzmann should say (Schenkel, Bib. Lex., s. v. Joh. d. Apost.)
" Diese Tradition ist von alien ... die glaubwurdigste," assigning
as his reason its accordance with the character of St. John.

STORY ABOUT THE VINE. 165
saintly mind of John Keble, and is but too dear to the
odium ecclesiasticum.1
2. Another curious story was current in the Churches
of Asia long after the Apostle's death. It rests upon
the authority of Papias,2 who professes to have heard it
from Polycarp and others, who had heard it from St.
John. It is as follows : — " The Elders who had seen
John, the disciple of the Lord, related that they heard
from him how the Lord used to teach about those times,
and to say, ' The days will come in which vines shall
spring up, each having ten thousand stems, and on each
stem ten thousand branches, and on each branch ten
thousand shoots, and on each shoot ten thousand clusters,
and on each cluster ten thousand grapes, and each grape
when pressed shall give five-and-twenty measures of
wine. And when any saint shall have seized one
cluster, another shall cry, " I am a better cluster, take
me; through me bless the Lord."' And he used to
add, ' These things are believable to believers.' And
when Judas the traitor did not believe, and asked,
'How will such products be created by the Lord? ' the
Lord said, ' They shall see who shall come to those
times.' "3
1 Dean Stanley {Sermons on the Apostolic Age, p. 273), to show how
stories do not lose by repetition, quotes the purely imaginary sequel of
the story in Jeremy Taylor {Life of Christ, xii. 2), that the bath did fall
down, and Cerinthus was crushed in the ruins ! Jeremy Taylor, however,
was not, the inventor of this story. It is first found in the Elenchus
Haeresvwm, by Prateolus (" De suo addit Prateolus, etc., at apud primi-
tivae ecelesiae auctores altum est de hac re silentium " (Ittigius, Haeresiarch.
p. 58). 2 On Papias see the Excursus on " John the Presbyter."
3 Iren. Haer. v. 33, 3. ; Euseb. H. E. iii. ad fin. ; Routh, Rel. Sacr. p. 9.
Grabe rightly observes that the narrative must be reckoned among the
pjBiK&repd nva and t,evai itapaflohal, which Eusebius charges Papias with
recording.

166 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY.
What are we to make of this strange story? It
comes to us only fifth-hand, in a free Latin translation
of a passage of Papias; and Papias, on whose authority
it rests, was generally looked on as a weak and
credulous person. To make it still more suspicious,
it is found also in the Apocalypse of Baruch. As to
its right to belong to the agrapha dogmata, or unre
corded sayings of Christ, two suppositions alone are
possible — either that it rests on no foundation, or that
it is due to an unintelligent literalism which has mis
taken some bright symbol used by our Lord in the genial
human intercourse of His happier hours. He may
have been speaking with His Apostles of the festal an
ticipations which, in the common notions of the people,
were mingled with their Messianic hopes ; and in
touching on their true aspects — the aspect which, for
instance, makes the wedding festival a picture of the
Lord's kingdom — He may have used some such words
in the half -playful irony which marks some of the finer
shades of His familiar language. Perhaps He may
only have meant to expose the carnal notions of Jewish
chiliasm, which appear again and again in the teaching
of the Rabbis. If so, St. John — fond at that time,
as the Apocalypse shows, of material symbolism —
may, with due oral explanation, have repeated some
of His words. A literal-minded hearer like Polycarp
may have repeated the tale on the authority of
St. John, while he robbed it of all the nuances which
alone gave it any beauty or significance.1 It would
become still more prosaic and material in the writings
1 So Eusebius says of Papias that he failed to understand the apostolic
traditions which he received, t« iv lnroSelyp.aoi ivpbs avriov pvBiKas eip-qpeva psq
avveapaK6ra (if. E. iii. 39).l

IREN^US AND PAPIAS. 167
of a commonplace reporter, and the last traces of its
real bearing might easily evaporate* in the loose trans
lation and paraphrase of Irenseus.
In this point of view the story has a real value. It
shows us that we can only attach a modified credence to
any report intrinsically improbable, even when it comes
to us attested by one who professes to have known at least
two of the Disciples of the Lord.1 If the anecdote be
based upon fact at all, it has come to us so reflected and
refracted through the medium of a weak mind as to have
lost its real significance. Experience shows that a
story told second-hand, even by an honest narrator,
may be so tinged in the narrator's subjectivity as to
convey an impression positively false. We are thus
obliged to discount the tales and remarks for which
Irenseus refers us to the authority of "the Elders,"2
by whom he seems chiefly to mean Papias and Polycarp.
Now Eusebius does not hesitate to say that Papias
was a source of error to Irenseus and others who relied
on his "antiquity." When Irenseus says that the
Pastor of Hermas is canonical ; that the head of the
Nicolaitans was the Deacon Nicolas ; and that the version
of the LXX. was written by inspiration ; — we know what
estimate to put on his appeals to apostolic tradition.
But there is one instance of mistake or credulity even
more flagrant. The whole Christian world unites in
rejecting the assertion that our Lord was fifty years
1 Namely, Aristion and " the Presbyter John." Renan needlessly
conjectures that the true reading of Papias in this passage is 8. re 'hpiarioiv
Kal 6 irpefffivrepos 'ludvirqs ol rov Kvpiov paB-qral [paB-qrav] Xeyovoi (Euseb.
iii. 39). 2 "Audivi a quodam Presbytero ; quidam ante nos dixit; !mb rov
Kpeirrovos r)p.u>v elp-qrai, etc. See his forms of quotation, collected in West-
cott, On the Canon, p. 80.

168 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY.
old when he died, although Irenseus asserts it on the
authority of " elders who received it from the Apostles."1
If in these particulars Irenseus followed too hastily the
credulous Papias, he may have derived the harsher
elements of the story about Cerinthus from the aged
Polycarp. The accentuation of that dubious anec
dote is what we should expect from the old man
whose way of expressing disapproval of heresy was not
to refute it, but indignantly to stop his ears. The
description of the passion and vehemence of Polycarp
given by Irenseus in his fine letter to Florinus ex
actly resembles the conduct attributed to St. John.
Irenaaus says that if Polycarp had heard the views of
Florinus, " I can testify before God that the blessed
and apostolic elder, crying out loud, and stopping his
ears, and exclaiming in his usual fashion, ' Oh, good
God, to what times hast thou kept me alive, that I
endure such things!', would have fled away from the
place in which he had been sitting or standing when he
had heard such words." Here we have indeed the
story of St. John and Cerinthus in all its distinctive
features ! But how ineffectual and how little Christ-like
is such a method of meeting error ! How widely does
it differ from the calm reasoning, and " Ye therefore do
greatly err," of the Divine Master ! Neither Papias nor
Irenseus are safe authorities for stories like these. Papias
has evidently fallen into some confusion, and Irenseus
has probably mixed up his reminiscences of Polycarp
with Polycarp's reminiscences of St. John.2
3. Far different is another story related for us at
1 See for these opinions Iren. i. 26 ; ii. 22 ; iii. 21 ; v. 20, § 2.
2 Euseb. H. E. v. 20. See some excellent remarks in Lampe's Prole
gomena, pp. 67—71.

ST. JOHN AND THE ROBBER. 169
full length by Clemens of Alexandria, and worthy
in every respect of the great Apostle. We may assume
that it rests on some foundation, because it is full
of touches which could not easily have been in
vented. It shows St. John to us in the full tide of
his apostolic activity, appointing and reproving bishops,
visiting and directing Churches, and yet finding time
to care for individual souls, loving the young, and
willing to brave any danger in order to rescue them
from temptation. I will tell it mainly in the words
of St. Clemens himself.1
" But that you may be still more confident, when
you have thus truly repented, that there remaineth for
thee a trustworthy hope of salvation, hear a legend —
nay, not a legend but a true narrative — about John the
Apostle, handed down and preserved in memory.
When, on the death of the tyrant, he passed over to
Ephesus from the island of Patmos, he used to make
missionary journeys also to neighbouring Gentile cities,
in some places to appoint bishops, and in some to set in
order whole Churches, and in some to appoint one of
those indicated by the Spirit. On his arrival then at
one of the cities at no great distance, of which some even
mention the name, .... he saw a youth of stalwart
frame and winning countenance, and impetuous spirit,
and said to the bishop, ' I entrust to thee this youth
1 Quis Div. Salv. c. 42. Perhaps the life of Apostolic journeyings, of
which this story furnishes a trace, may show that even if Timothy was
" bishop " of Ephesus there would have been no conflict between his func
tions and the Apostolic duties of St. John. But we do not know whether
Timothy returned to Ephesus or not after the visit to Rome, which
we may assume that he made at the urgent summons of St. Paul (2 Tim.
iv. 9). The notion of a double succession of bishops — of the circumcision
and of the'uncircumcision — which is mentioned in the Apostolic Constitu
tions (vii. 16), does not agree with the indications of the Apocalypse.

170 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY.
with all earnestness, calling Christ and the Church
to witness.' The bishop accepted the trust, and made
all the requisite promises, and the Apostle renewed
his injunctions and adjuration. He then returned to
Ephesus, and the Elder taking home with him the
youth who had been entrusted to his care, maintained,
cherished, and finally baptised him. After this he
abandoned further care and protection of him, con
sidering that he had affixed to him the seal of the
Lord as a perfect amulet against evil. Thus pre
maturely neglected, the youth was corrupted by certain
idle companions of his own age, who were familiar
with evil, and who first led him astray by many costly
banquets, and then took him out by night with them
to share in their felonious proceedings, finally demanding
his co-operation in some worse crime. First familiarised
with guilt, and then, from the force of his character,
starting aside from the straight path like some mighty
steed that seizes the bit between its teeth, he rushed
towards headlong ruin, and utterly abandoning the
Divine salvation, gathered his worst comrades around
him, and became a most violent, bloodstained, and reck
less bandit-chief. Not long afterwards John was recalled
to the city, and after putting other things in order
said, ' Come now, 0 bishop, restore to me the deposit
which I and the Saviour entrusted to thee, with the
witness of the Church over which thou dost preside.'
At first the bishop in his alarm mistook the meaning
of the metaphor, but the Apostle said, ' I demand back
the young man and the soul of the brother.' Then
groaning from the depth of his heart and shedding
tears, ' He is dead,' said the bishop. ' How. and by
what death ? ' * He is dead to God ! For he has

ST. JOHN AND THE ROBBER. 171
turned out wicked and desperate, and, to sum up all,
a brigand ; and now, instead of the Church he has
seized the mountain, with followers like himself.'
Then the Apostle, rending his robe and beating
his head, with loud wailing, said, ' A fine guardian
of our brother's soul did I leave ! Give me a horse
and a guide.' Instantly, as he was, he rode away
from the Church, and arriving at the brigands' out
posts, was captured without flight or resistance, but
crying, ' For this I have come. Lead me to your
chief.' The chief awaited him in his armour, but when
he recognised John as he approached, he was struck
with shame and turned to fly. But John pursued him
as fast as he could, forgetful of his age, crying out,
' Why, my son, dost thou fly from thine own father,
unarmed, aged as he is ? Pity me, my son, fear not ;
thou hast still a hope of life. I will give account to
Christ for thee, should need be. I will willingly abide
thy death ; the Lord endured the death on our behalf.
For thy sake I will give in ransom my own soul.
Stay ! believe ! Christ sent me.' But he on hearing
these words first stood with downcast gaze, then flung
away his arms, then trembling, began to weep bitterly,
and embraced the old man when he came up to him,
pleading with his groans, and baptising himself afresh
with his tears, only concealing his right hand. But
the Apostle, pledging himself to win remission for him
from the Saviour by his supplications, kneeling before
him, covering with kisses even his right hand as
having been cleansed by repentance, led him back to
the Church, and praying for him with abundant
prayers, and wrestling with him in earnest fastings,
and disenchanting him with various winning strains,

172 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY.
he did not depart, as they say, till he restored him to
the bosom of the Church, affording a great example
of true repentance, and a great badge of renewed birth,
a trophy of visible repentance, when in the close of
the age the angels receive those who are truly peni
tent into heavenly habitations, radiantly rejoicing,
hymning their hymns, and opening the heavens."1
4. Other traditions may be briefly mentioned. One
beautiful story rests solely on the authority of the
monk Cassian (a.d. 420), and is far too late and un
supported to have any authentic value.2 It is yet in
many respects characteristic. It tells us that St. John,
in his hours of rest and recreation, used to amuse
himself by playing with a little tame partridge. On
one occasion a young hunter, who had greatly desired
to see him, could hardly conceal his surprise, and
even his disapproval, at finding him thus employed.
He doubted for a moment whether this could in
deed be the last survivor of the Apostles. " What
is that thing which thou earliest in thy hand ? " asked
St. John. " A bow," replied the hunter. " Why
then is it unstrung ? " " Because," said the youth,
" were I to keep it always strung it would lose its
spring, and become useless." " Even so," replied the
aged saint, " be not offended at this my brief re
laxation, which prevents my spirit from waxing
faint." 1 The Chronicon Alexandr. mentions Smyrna as the city. Rufinus,
in adding that John made the youth a bishop, seems to be mistaking the
meaning of Karear-qae rfj 'EKK\-qo-ia. If, however, the story be well
attested, it is strange that no use should have been made of it in the con
troversies against Tertullian and the Montanists.
2 Cassian, Collat. xxiv. 21. The twenty-four Collationes of Cassian
are prefixed to the works of John Damascene. See Zahn, p. 190.

ST. JOHN AND THE PARTRIDGE. 173
The beauty of the anecdote lies far less in the
common illustration of the bow which is never unbent,
than in the old man's tenderness for the creatures which
God had made. The Jews were remarkable among
the nations of antiquity for their kindness to dumb
animals. Even Moses had taught careless boys not
.to take the mother bird when they took the young
from their nest, and had meant to inculcate the
lesson of mercy in the thrice-repeated command : " Thou
shalt not seethe the kid in its mother's milk."
It is a beautiful Rabbinic legend of the great legis
lator that once he had followed a lamb far into the
wilderness, and when he found it, took it into his
arms, saying, " Little lamb, thou knewest not what
was good for thee. Come unto me, thy shepherd,
and I will bear thee to thy fold." And God said,
" Because he has been tender to the straying lamb,
he shall be the shepherd of my people Israel."
Another Talmudic story will show how much the
Jews thought of this duty. Rabbi — the title given
by way of pre-eminence to Rabbi Judah Hakkodesh,
the compiler of the Mishna — was a great sufferer.
One day a calf came bellowing to him, as though to
escape slaughter, and laid its head on his lap. But
when Rabbi pushed it away with the remark, "Go,
for to this wast thou created," they said in heaven,
" Lo ! he is pitiless ; let affliction come upon him."
But another day his servant, in sweeping the room,
disturbed some kittens, and Rabbi said, " Let them
alone ; for it is written, ' His tender mercies are over
all His works.'" Then they said in heaven, "Let us
have pity on him, for he is pitiful."1
Bava Metsia, f . 85, a. \

174 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY.
" He prayeth well who loveth well
Both man, and bird, and beast.
He prayeth best who loveth best
All things, both great and small ;
For the dear God who loveth us,
He made and loveth all."
5. The tradition that St. John lived in Ephesus
the life of a rigid ascetic, eating no animal food,
having the unshorn locks of a Nazarite, and wearing
no garments but linen, has little to recommend it.
It rests solely on the authority of Epiphanius, who
wrote three centuries after St. John was dead.
No hint of it is found in the writings of those who
had conversed with friends and pupils of the great
Apostle. But when the possibility of Apostolic labours
and journeyings was over, he doubtless lived a life of
peaceful dignity, not indeed, except in metaphor, as " a
Priest, wearing the golden frontlet,"1 but as a beloved
and venerated old man whose lightest words were
treasured up because he was the last of living men who
could say, " I have seen the Lord."
6. The unsupported assertion of Apollonius, that he
had raised a dead man to life at Ephesus,2 may be
passed over without further notice ; as also may be the
assertion that he was, in the Apocalyptic sense, " a
virgin."3 The expression of St. Paul in 1 Cor. ix. 5,4
1 Polycr. ap. Euseb. iii. 31, is iyeviB-q Upevs rb irerahov TreQopeKiis. Hege
sippus affirms the same thing of James {ap. Euseb. ii. 23). Epiphanius
{Haer. xxix. 4) appeals to the authority of Clemens in favour of this
legend (ciAAa Kal rb irera\ov iirl rqs KeipaArjs 4^rjv axnip <pepeiv) (comp. id.
lxxviii. § 13).
2 Apollon. ap. Euseb. v. 18 ; Sozomen, vii. 26.
3 Rev. xiv. 4 (see Life of St. Paul, i. 80 ; Tert. De Monogam.
" Joannes . . Christi spado; " Ambrosiaster on 2 Col. xi. 2 ; and in the
Pistis Sophia, and Apocalypse of Esdras (Fabricius, Cod. Apocr. II. 585).
4 "As the rest of the Apostles."

"LOVE ONE ANOTHER." 175
at least gives some probability to the belief that all
the Apostles were, like St. Peter, married men.
7. One more tradition has met with almost universal
acceptance.1 It is that when St. John " tarried at
Ephesus to extreme old age, and could only with dif
ficulty be carried to church in the arms of his disciples,
and was unable to give utterance to many words, he
used to say no more at their several meetings than
this: — ' Little children, love one another.' The disciples
and fathers who were there, wearied with hearing
always the same words, said, ' Master, why dost thou
always say this ? ' ' It is the Lord's command,' was
his worthy reply ; ' and if only this be done, it is
enough.' " 2
8. We cannot with certainty name those with whom
he was familiar during the closing epoch of his life.
We only know that, according to the unanimous testi
mony of antiquity, Polycarp was his friend and hearer,3
There is less certainty about Ignatius, Papias, and
Quadratus.4
1 Lessing has touched on this story in his Testament des Johannes,
as Herder has told the story of the Ephesian robber in his Der gerettete
Jungling. 2 "Beatus Joannes Evangelista cum Ephesi moraretur usque ad
extremam senectutem, et vix inter discipulbrum manus ad ecclesiam
deferretur, nee posset in plura vocem verba contexere, nihil aliud per
singulas solebat proferre collectas, nisi hoc ' Filioli, diligite alteku-
tbum,' Tandem discipuli et fratres qui aderant, taedio affecti quod
eadem semper audirent, dixerunt : ' Magister, quare semper hoc loqueris P '
Qui respondit dignam Joanne sententiam : ' Quia praeceptum Domini est,
et si solum fiat, sufficit " (Jer. in Gal. vi. 10).
3 lren. ii. 3, and ap. Euseb. v. 20 ; Euseb. iii. 36 ; Jer. Chron. a.d.
101 ; de Virr. Illustr. 17 ; Suidas, s. v. ; and Tert. de Praescr. Haer. 32.
4 Ignatius is said to have been a hearer of St. John, in Jer. Chron.
A.D. 101. The question about Papias will be touched upon in Excursus
XIV., about John the Presbyter. Quadratus is mentioned by Eusebius
and Jerome. Prochorus and Bucolus are mentioned by later writers of no
authority.

176 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY.
9. Respecting the death of St. John we are left in
the completest darkness. Two words — dveCke p.aj(a,tpa
" slew with the sword " — suffice to record the martyr
dom of his elder brother ; 1 not one word tells us how
the last, and in some respects the greatest, of the
Apostles passed to his reward. It is only a very late
and worthless rumour which says that he was killed by
the Jews. From the silence of all the early Fathers
as to this supposed martyrdom, we may assume it for
certain that, so far as they knew, he died quietly at
Ephesus in extreme old age. His grave was shown at
Ephesus for several centuries, and the legend, before
mentioned, that the dust was seen to move with the
breathing of the great Apostle, as he lay in immortal
sleep, arose from the awe with which it was regarded.2
But the age which he attained — far surpassing, if
some of our accounts are true, the ordinary three score
years and ten3 — only deepened the impression that he
1 Acts xii. ?.
2 See supra, p. 136; Polycrates, ap. Euseb. H. E. iii. 31, 39; v. 24;
Jer. de Virr. Illustr. ix. ; Aug. Tract. 124, in Joann. " Assumat in argu-
mentum quod illic terra sensim scatere et quasi ebullire perhibetur atque
hoc ejus anhelitu fieri " (Niceph. H. E. ii. 42 ; Zahn, p. 205).
3 According to Isidore Hispalensis {De ortu et obitu, 71), he lived to
the age of eighty-nine. But if he lived till the reign of Trajan (Iren. c.
Haer. ii. 225 ; Jer. de Virr. Illustr. ix., adv. Jovin. i. 14) he must have been
nearly ninety-eight. The Chronicon Paschale says he lived one hundred
years and seven months, and pseudo-Chrysostom {de S. Johan.) that he lived
to one hundred and twenty ; as also Suidas. s. v. 'imdwqs, and Dorotheus
(Lampe, p. 92). In the ninth century a writer named Georgius Hamar-
tolos quotes the authority of Papias, " who had seen him,'' for the statement
in the second book of his Words of the Lord, that John was " put to death
by the Jews." On the other hand, (i) Polycrates {ap. Euseb. iii. 31,
v. 20), Irenffius {Haer. ii. 22, § 5), and Tertullian {de Anim. 50) speak
of his having died a, natural death, which they certainly would not
have done if there had been any tradition of his martyrdom; and (ii)
the epithet "martyr" was only applied to him in consequence of the
legends about the caldron of oil (Tert. Praescr. Haer. 36) and the poison

LEGENDS ABOUT ST. JOHN. 177
would not die till Christ returned. He did not die
till Christ had returned, in that sense of the " close of
the aeon " to which His own words and that of His
Apostles often point ; but legend said that he had
been taken alive to Heaven like Enoch and Elijah,1
and that sometimes he still wandered and appeared
on earth.2 So prevalent were such notions as to his
immortality, even during his lifetime, that in the
appendix to his Gospel he thought it necessary to point
out the erroneous report of the words of Jesus from
which they had been inferred.
cup ("Acts of John," Fabricius, Cod. Apocr. i. 576), as well as with reference
to his banishment to Patmos (Origen, in Matt. xvi. 6 and Rev. i. 9).
Keim most erroneously says {Jesu von Nazara, III. 44) that Herakleon,
the Valentinian, quoted by Clemens of Alexandria {Strom, iv. 9, § 73),
asserted that the only Apostles who had not suffered martyrdom were
Matthew, Thomas, and Philip. But, in the first place, Herakleon added
" Levi, and many others," of whom, therefore, John may have been one ;
and, secondly, he is speaking not of martyrdom at all, but of various kinds
of " confession," one of which is " confession by the voice in the presence
of authorities," and certainly John had made such a " confession " (Acts
iv. 13, 19). Even Scholten gives up the value of this testimony and that
of Georg. Hamartolos (see Wilibald Grimm in Hilgenfeld's Zeitschr. (1874),
p. 123)- How loosely Hamartolos quotes may be seen in the same passage
(which was first discovered by Nolte, Tub. Quartalschr. 1862, and is quoted
in Hilgenfeld's Einleit. p. 399), from his reference to Origen, who does
not say that St. John was martyred in our sense of the word, but only
that he was banished to Patmos. Nor can any counter-inference be
drawn from a rhetorical passage of Chrysostom, Hom. in Matt. lxv.
1 Tert. de Animd, 50. Obiit et Johannes, quern in adventum domini
remansurum frustra fuerat spes. Ps.-Hippolyt. de Consummat. Mundi.
Photius Myriobybl. Cod. 229. The notion that he revised the Canon is
quite baseless, nor is it worth while to do more than mention the story of
his having degraded the Presbyter who forged the Acts of Paul and
Thecla (Jer. de Virr. Illust. ,- Tert. de Baptismo). See, for all legendary
particulars about his death, Zahn, Acta Joannis, cvii. sqq., 200 sqq.
2 As in the famous legends of his appearance to Theodosius (Theodoret,
H. E. v. 24), to Gregory Thaumaturgus {Vit. d. Greg. Nyss.), and to
Edward the Confessor and the English pilgrims, which is represented on
the screen of the Confessor's Chapel in Westminster Abbey ; and of his
appearance to James IY. before the battle of Flodden.
m

178 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY.
He died, as his brother had died, unnoticed and
unrecorded, but he will live in his writings till the
end of time, to teach and bless the world. " His
body is buried in peace, but his name liveth for ever
more. The people will tell of his wisdom, and the
congregation will show forth his praise."1
1 Ecclus. xliv. 14, 15.

CHAPTER XXVII.
GENERAL FEATURES OP THE APOCALYPSE.
" Volat avis sine meta,
Quo nee vates, nee propheta
Evolavit altius.
Tarn implenda quam impleta
Nunquam vidit tot secreta
Purus homo purius." — De S. Joanne.
Milton has spoken of the Apocalypse as " the majestic
image of a high and stately tragedy, shutting up and
intermingling her solemn scenes and acts with a seven
fold chorus of hallelujahs and harping symphonies."1
In this aspect of the book — though the notion of its
dramatic form must be rejected — we may perhaps be
content with the arrangement which places it as the
last book of Holy Writ. But the whole weight of
evidence now tends to prove that it is not the last book
in chronological order; that it was written nearer the
beginning than the end of St. John's period of apostolic
activity amid the Churches of Asia ; 2 that the last
1 Reasons of Church Government.
2 Modern criticism tends more and more to the conclusion that the
Apocalypse is a genuine work of the Apostle St. John. Even Baur and
Zeller regard it as one of the most certainly authenticated of the Apostolic
writings. The Alogi at the close of the second century rejected it only
on internal grounds, and their judgment is of no importance. Gains (circ.
200) appears to attribute it to Cerinthus. Dionysius of Alexandria (A.D.
247) was inclined, on grounds of style, to assign it to some other John,
but speaks of it with reverence. Eusebius wavers about it, placing it
among the spurious books in one passage, and among the acknowledged
books in another. Cyril of Jerusalem (f 386) deliberately excludes it
from the Canon. The Council of Laodicea (A.D. 381) omits it. Am-
m 2

180 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY.
accents of revelation which fall upon our ears are not
those of a treatise which, though it ends in such perfect
music, contains so many terrible visions of blood and
fire, but are rather those of the Gospel which tells us
that " the Word was made flesh," and of the Epistle
which first formulated the most blessed truth which
was ever uttered to human hearts — the truth that " God
is Love."1 And if this conclusion be correct, it is impossible
to say how much we lose — what confusion we introduce
into the divine order — by neglecting the indications

philochius, in his Jamb, ad Seleueus, says that " most " regard it as
spurious. Junilius, even in the sixth century, says that among the
members of the Eastern Church it was viewed with great suspicion.
Theodore of Mopsuestia (f 429) never cites it. Theodoret (f 457) alludes
to it very slightly. It is not found in the Peshito. The Nestorian
Church rejected it. It is not mentioned in the sixth century by Cosmas
Indicopleustes. Nicephorus (ninth century) in his Chronographia omits
it. Even in the fourteenth century Nicephorus Callistus, while accepting
it, thinks it necessary to mention that some held it to be the work of
" John the Presbyter," regarded as a different person from " John the
Apostle." But, on the other hand, these adverse views are to some extent
accounted for by dislike to the difficulty and obscurity of the book {Sia rb
dffatpes avr-qs Kal Sv(rd<piKrov Kal ohiyois Sta\ap8av6pevov Kal voovpevov), and by
the dangerous uses to which it was often turned {pTqSe avpKpepov eivax ro'is
iroXKots to iv airy fidB-q ipewav, Prol. to MS. 224). Dislike to chiliastic
fanaticism, as well as obvious critical difficulties, also led to its disparage
ment in many quarters. The positive evidence in its favour is very
strong. It was accepted by Papias, Justin Martyr, Dionysius of Corinth,
Hermas, Melito of Sardis, Theophilus of Antioch, Apollonius, and Ire
nseus, the Canon of Muratori, and the Yetus Itala, in the second century ;
by Clemens of Alexandria and Origen in the third; by Victorinus
of Pettau, Ephraem Syrus, Epiphanius, Basil, Hilary, Athanasius,
Gregory of Nyssa, Didymus, and Ambrose, in the fourth. Besides this,
the internal evidence, in spite of differences and difficulties, is too clear to
be overlooked, and too subtle to have been forged.
1 It is hardly worth while to mention the Apocryphal writings at
tributed to St. John, such as the one on the Descent from the Cross, on
the Death of the Virgin Mary, &c. See Lampe, Prolegomena, p. 131 ;
Fabricius, God. Apocr. N. T. pt. iii. p. 200.

ORDER OF BOOKS. 181
of chronology. Chronological sequence is always of
the utmost importance for the right understanding of
what a. writer says. We are always liable to judge of
him erroneously if we intermingle his writings, and
put those messages last which he delivered first. It
is impossible to say how much the difficulty in under
standing the mind of St. Paul has been increased for
ordinary readers by the unfortunate arrangement — an
arrangement made on the most haphazard and unintel
ligent principles — which obliterates the lessons which
would naturally spring from the right arrangement of
his Epistles. It is a subject of regret that the Revisers
of the Authorised Version did not render a permanent
service by placing them in that sequence which is now
ascertained with certainty as regards the four several
groups into which they fall, and which is known with
approximate certainty respecting almost every one of
the separate Epistles. How is it possible for any one
to enter into the real working of St. Paul's mind — the
effects produced upon his thoughts by years of divine
education — who is led to infer that he wrote the two
Epistles to the Thessalonians after he had written not
only those to the Romans and Galatians, but even after
those to the Philippians, Colossians, and Ephesians?
It is to be hoped that the day will come when the
obstinacy of custom will no longer prevent the cor
rection of these conventional misplacements. But even
graver misapprehensions result from the misplacement
of the writings of St. John. Their present arrange
ment is due to suppositions, which lead to endless
difficulties. It confuses the value of precious lessons,
and paves the way for grievous errors. Some may
think it an exaggeration to say that this closing of the

182 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY.
Holy Book with the Apocalypse has not been without
grave consequences for the history of Christendom ;
but certainly it would have been better both for the
Church and for the world if we had followed the divine
order, and if those books had been placed last in the
canon which were last in order of time. Had this
been done, our Bible would have closed, as the Book
of God to all intents and purposes did close, with the
gentle and solemn warning of the last Apostle — "Little
children, keep yourselves from idols."
This then is the order which we here shall follow.
In the Apocalypse the New Testament seems to be
still speaking in the voice and in the tones of the
Old Testament. In trying to see something of the
meaning of the Apocalypse, we shall see the mind of St.
John when he first emerged from the overshadowing
influence of St. James and the Elders of Jerusalem;
when, from the narrowing walls of the metropolis of
Judaism, he passed forth into the Christian com
munities which had grown up in the heathen world.
We shall see how he wrote and what he thought
while under the guidance indeed of God's Holy Spirit,
but before he had profited by his thirty last years of
continuous education, and -while yet he was but im
perfectly acquainted with the language in which his
greatest message was to be delivered. The Apocalypse
was written before he had witnessed the Coming of
Christ and the close of the Old Dispensation, in the
mighty catastrophe which, by the voice of God in
history, abrogated all but the moral precepts which
had been uttered by the voice of God on Sinai. The
moral conceptions of the Gospel transcend the sym
bolism of visions, and the kabbalism of numbers. We

APOCALYPSE AKD GOSPEL. 183
do not pass from the purest and most etherial region
of thought to dim images of plague and war, fore
shadowed by fire-breathing horses and hell-born frogs.
When we have grasped the abstract and absolute forms
in which the Gospel and the Epistles set forth to us
the eternal conflict of life with death, and light with
darkness, we have learnt higher and deeper lessons than
when we gaze on the material symbols of scarlet
dragons and locust-horsemen, and the warring of
Michael with the devil and the beast.
A few words from one of our latest and best
students of the writings of St. John, though not
written with this purpose, may serve to show what
we lose by our customary reversal of the proper order.
" In the Apocalypse," says Canon Westcott, " the
thought is of an outward coming for the open judg
ment of men ; in the Gospel, of a judgment which is
spiritual and self-executing. In the Apocalypse, the
scene of the consummation is a renovated world; in
the Gospel, the Father's House. In the former, the
victory and the transformation are from without, by
might, and the ' future ' is painted in historic ima
gery ; in the latter, the victory and the transforma
tion are from within, by a spiritual influence, and the
' future ' is present and eternal  The
Apocalypse gives a view of the action of God in regard
to men in a life full of sorrow, and partial defeats
and cries for vengeance ; the Gospel gives a view of
the action of God with regard to Christ, who esta
blishes in the heart of the believers a presence of
completed joy  In a word, the study of
the Synoptists, of the Apocalypse, and of the Gospel
of St. John in succession, enables us to see under what

184 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY.
human conditions the full majesty of Christ was per
ceived and declared, not all at once, but step by step,
and by the help of the old prophetic teaching." 1
SECTION I.
DATE OF THE APOCALYPSE.
But before we enter on the difficult task of attempt
ing to see the significance of the Apocalypse, we must
once more pause to cast a glance over the condition of
the world at the time when it was written.
The chief obstacle to the acceptance of the true
date of the Apocalypse, arises from the authority 01
Irenseus. Speaking of the number of the Beast,
and repeating those early conjectures which, as I
shall show elsewhere, practically agree with what is
now known to be the true solution, he remarks that
he cannot give any positive decision since he believes
that, if such a solution had been regarded as necessary,
it would have been furnished by " him who saw the
Apocalypse. For it is not so long ago that it (the
Apocalypse) was seen, but almost in our generation,
towards the close of the reign of Domitian." Three
attempts have been made to get rid of this evidence.
Guericke proposes to take " Dotnetianou" as an ad
jective, and to render the clause " near the close of
the Domitian rule," i.e., the rule of Domitius Nero?
But the absence of the article on which he relies gives
no support to his view, and no scholar will accept
this hypothesis, though he may admit the possibility
of some confusion between the names Domitius and
1 Introd., pp. lxxxv — Ixxxvii.
2 Guerike, Einleit. ins N. Test. p. 285.

DATE OF APOCALYPSE. 185
Domitian.1 Others again make the word ecopddr)
mean " he, i.e., St. John, was seen," since no nomi
native is expressed. Now Irenseus, in the same pas
sage and elsewhere, dwells so much on the fact of
testimony given by those who had seen John face to
face, that we cannot set aside this suggestion as im
possible.2 It has the high authority of Wetstein. Again,
the Latin translator of Irenseus renders the verb not
" visa est," " the Apocalypse was seen," but " visum est,"
" the Beast (to drjpiov) was seen." The language is,
unfortunately, ambiguous, and as, in uncritical times, it
would naturally be understood in what appears to be
the most obvious sense, it is not surprising that St.
Jerome follows the supposed authority of Irenseus in
dating the Apocalypse from the later epoch. Eusebius
says that St. John was banished to Patmos in the reign
of Domitian, but, even if he be not misunderstanding
the meaning of Irenseus, his evidence goes for little,
since he leant to the view that the Apocalypse was
written by John the Presbyter, and not by the Apostle.
But the authority of Irenseus was not regarded as de
cisive, even if his meaning be undisputed. Tertullian
places the banishment to Patmos immediately after the
deliverance from the cauldron of boiling oil, and Jerome
says that this took place in the reign of Nero.8 Epi
phanius says that St. John was banished in the reign of
Claudius, and the earliest Apocalyptic commentators,
as well as the Syriac and Theophylact, all place the
writing of the Apocalypse in the reign of Nero. To
1 This is the view of Niermeyer.
2 paprvpoivruiv iKetvwv rwv Kar' t^iv 'liadvvqv eo?paK6rtav (Iren. ad Haer.
v. 30). 3 Tert. De Praescr. 36, Jer. c. Jovin. i. 26.

186 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY.
these must be added the author of the " Life of Timo-
theus," of which extracts are preserved by Photius.
Clemens of Alexandria and Origen only say that " John
was banished by the tyrant," and this on Christian
lips may mean Nero much more naturally than
Domitian.1 Moreover, if we accept erroneous tradition
or inference from the ambiguous expressions of Irenseus,
we are landed in insuperable difficulties. By the time
that Domitian died, St. John was, according to all
testimony, so old and so infirm that even if there were
no other obstacles in the way, it is impossible to
conceive of him as writing the fiery pages of the
Apocalypse. Irenseus may have been misinterpreted;
but even if not, he might have made a " slip of me
mory," and confused Domitian with Nero. I myself,
in talking to an eminent statesman, have heard him
make a chronological mistake of some years, even in
describing events in which he took one of the most
prominent parts. We cannot accept a dubious expres
sion of the Bishop of Lyons as adequate to set aside
an overwhelming weight of evidence, alike external and
internal, in proof of the fact that the Apocalypse was
written, at the latest, soon after the death of Nero.2
For the sole key to the Apocalypse, as to every
book which has any truth or greatness in it, lies in the
heart of the writer; and the heart of everv writer
must be' intensely influenced by the spirit or the cir-
1 See Epiphan. Haer. Ii. 12 and 33 ; Andreas on Rev. vi. 12 ; Arethas
on Rev. vii. 1 — 8 ; Syriac MS. No. 18 ; Theophylact. Comment, in Joann.
2 This result is now accepted, not only by Liicke, Schwegler, Baur,
Ziillig, De Wette, Renan, Krenkel, Bleek, Reuss, Reville, Volkmar,
Bunsen, Diisterdieck, &c, but also by such writers as Stier, Neander,
. Guerike, Auberlen, F. D. Maurice, Moses Stuart, Niermeyer, Desprez,
S. Davidson, the author of The Parousia, Aube, &c.

THE APOCALYPSE. 187
cumstances of the times in which he writes. His
words are addressed in the first instance to his living
contemporaries, and it is only through them that he
can hope to reach posterity. Now, if there was ever
any book which bears upon every page the impress ot
reality — the proof that it is written in words which
came fresh and burning from the heart, and passed
fresh and burning into the hearts of others — that
book is the Apocalypse. " Without tears," says
Bengel, " it was not written ; without tears it cannot
be understood." It comes to us with tenfold force
when we remember the tumult of emotions with which
the small and persecuted communities of early Chris
tians found themselves in direct antagonism to the
Roman Empire, as well as to the Jewish religion.
Could any powers more venerated and more por
tentous than these be ever banded together to crush
a nascent faith ? The Apocalypse is not in the least a
book of dim abstractions, of fantastic enigmas, of
monstrous symbols. It had a very definite object, and
a very intelligible meaning for all who had been trained
in familiarity with the strange form of literature to
which it belongs. The single phrase of Tertullian —
" Sub Nerone damnatio invaluit " — goes far towards
giving us a clue to the meaning of the Apostle. John
writes as a Christian prophet would be likely to write
who may have seen a Peter crucified and a Paul be
headed.1 The book is a rallying cry to the Christian
warriors who might seem liable to be trampled to the
earth in irremediable defeat.
1 The remarkable expression, "And I saw the souls of them that had
been beheaded {iretreKeKto-pevav) for the testimony of Jesus " (Rev. xx. 4),
may (as Ewald thinks, Gesch. vi. 618) point especially to the death of St.
Paul. " Beheading " was the form of death adopted for Roman citizens.

188 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY.
The book has been persistently misunderstood.
Herder might well ask, " Was there a key sent with
the book, and has this been lost? Was it thrown
into the Sea of Patmos, or into the Maeander?"
Intolerance, ignorance, sectarian fierceness, the san
guinary factiousness of an irreligious religionism, the
eternal Pharisaism of the human heart, have made of
it their favourite camping-ground. Others have been
driven into a natural but irreverent scorn of it, because
thej' turn with disgust from the degradation to which
it has been subjected by fanatical bigotry. But when
rightly used, it is full of blessed instruction, and it
wo aid never have been discredited as it has been, if
its own repeated assertions and indications had not
been ignored. Instead of seeking out the meanings
which must have made it precious to its original
readers, as, in great part at least, to all loving and
humble Christian hearts, men have wandered into the
quagmire of private interpretations after the ignis
fatuus of religious hatred. God has revealed himself
in the history of the Church and the World, but this
manifestation of God in history has been hopelessly
confused by an attempt to make it correspond with
symbols with which it has no connexion. The surest
and deadliest injury to which the Apocalypse can be
subjected is to treat it as a sort of anticipated Gibbon,
or a controversial compendium of ecclesiastical disputes.
Its symbols have become plastic in the hot hands of
party factiousness, but under such manipulations they
have been rendered unintelligible to the eyes of truth
and love.
Happily these "theological romances"1 of Apoca-
1 Moses Stuart.

ORIGIN OF THE APOCALYPSE. 189
lyptic commentary have had their day. Like a thou
sand other phantoms of exegesis, they are vanishing
into the limbo of the obsolete. They may linger on
for a time, like spectres not yet exorcised, but they are
doomed to disappear for ever in the broadening light
of a sounder knowledge.
The Apocalypse had its immediate origin in two
events which happened at this period of the life of
St. John. One was the Neronian persecution. The
other was the outbreak of the Jewish war. It was
not until these events were over, it was not until, their
divine teaching had done its work, that a third and
more gradual event — the development of Gnostic teach
ing in the form of new Christologies — called forth in
its turn the Gospel and the Epistles of St. John
as the final utterance of Christian revelation.
Unless we study these events there is no chance
of our understanding the writings of St. John. Those
writings, like all the Books of Scripture, are indeed
full of sacred lessons for every humble heart. The
comprehension of such lessons — which, after all, are
the best and deepest — requires nothing but the spiritual
enlightenment of a pure and truthful soul. But the
historical and critical knowledge of a book demands
other qualifications ; and it has been a fatal mistake
of Christians to claim infallibility for their subjective
convictions, not only in matters of religious experience,
but in questions of history and criticism, respecting
which they may be quite incompetent to pronounce an
opinion of any value.
We have already seen what manner of man Nero
was. The spectacle of such a man seated on the Im-

190 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY.
perial throne of the heathen world accounts for the
abhorrence which he inspired as a living impersonation
of the "world-rulers of this darkness."1 We have
also seen the origin and history of the Neronian per
secution, and the circumstances which connected it
with the burning of Rome. For the history of these
events we must refer back to the first volume. But
we must remind the reader that the Apocalypse of St.
John can only be rightly read by the lurid light which
falls upon it from the Burning City — under the hor
rible illumination flung by the bale-fires of martyrdom
upon the palace and gardens of the Beast from the
abyss. A great French artist has painted a picture of
Nero walking with his lictors through the blackened
streets of Rome after the conflagration. He represents
him as he was in mature age, in the uncinctured robe
with which, to the indignation of the noble Romans,
he used to appear in public. He is obese with self-
indulgence. Upon his coarsened features rests that
dark cloud, which they must have often worn when
his conscience was most tormented by the furies of
his murdered mother and his murdered wives. Shrink
ing back among the ruins are two poor Christian slaves,
who watch him with looks in which disgust and de
testation struggle with fear. The picture puts into
visible form the feelings of horror with which the
brethren must have regarded one whom they came to
consider as the incarnate instrument of Satanic an
tagonism against God and against His Christ, — as the
deadliest and most irresistible enemy of all that is
called holy or that is worshipped.
1 Eph. vi. 12.

THE NERONIAN PERSECUTION. 191
Did St. John ever see that frightful spectacle of a
monster in human flesh? Was he a witness of the
scenes which made the circus and the gardens of Nero
reek with the fumes of martyrdom ? We have already
observed that tradition points in that direction. In
the silence which falls over many years of his bio
graphy, it is possible that he may have been compelled
by the Christians to retire from the menace of the
storm before it actually burst over their devoted heads.
St. Paul, as we believe, was providentially set free
from his Roman imprisonment just in time to be
preserved from the first outburst of the Neronian perse
cution.1 Had it not been for this, who can tell whether
St. Paul and St. John and St. Peter might not have
been clothed in the skins of wild beasts to be torn
to pieces by the bloodhounds of the amphitheatre?
or have stood, each in his pitchy tunic, to form one
of those ghastly human torches which flared upon
the dark masses of the abominable crowd? But even
if St. John never saw Rome at this period, many
a terrified fugitive of the " vast multitude " which
Tacitus mentions must have brought him tidings about
those bloodstained orgies in which the Devil, the
Beast, and the False Prophet — " that great Anti-
Trinity of Hell" — were wallowing through the
mystic Babylon in the blood of the martyrs of the
Lord. Supposing that St. John had written an apocalyptic
book at this time, is it not a priori certain that these
events, and the appalling figure of the Antichrist who
then filled the world's eye, would have been prominent
in such a book ? Do not contemporary events and
1 See my Life of St. Paul, ii. 604—607.

192 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY.
contemporary persecutions figure in every one of the
numerous Apocalypses in which Jews and Christians
at this epoch expressed their hopes and fears? Is it
not a matter of certainty to every reasonable man, that
the Apocalypse must be interpreted by laws similar to
those which regulate every other specimen of that
Semitic form of literature to which it avowedly belongs ?
Does not the fact that the anticipated Antichrist of
Daniel is the persecutor Antiochus Epiphanes, make it
in the highest degree probable that the incarnate Anti
christ of St. John is the persecutor Nero ?
The Neronian persecution, then, was one of the
two events which awoke in Christian hearts those
thundering echoes of which the Apocalypse of St. John
is the prolonged and perpetuated reverberation. The
other event was the outbreak of the Jewish war and
the siege of Jerusalem. If we succeed in fixing the
date of the Apocalypse, we shall be able to know what
was the exact condition of the Empire and of the Holy
Land, of Judaism, Heathendom, and Christianity —
of the world and of the Church of Christ — when St.
John saw and wrote.
But while the date may be fixed with much pro
bability, it cannot be fixed with certainty. All that
can be asserted is that the book was written before the
destruction of Jerusalem, and the burning of the
Temple. This is clear from the beginning of the
eleventh chapter. The Temple is there spoken of
as still standing, in language which closely resembles,
and indeed directly refers to, the language of our Lord
in his great Eschatological discourse. Such language,
and the whole sequel of it, would have been unreal and
misleading, if, at the time when it was penned, nothing

OUTBREAK OF JEWISH WAR. 193
remained of the Temple and city of Jerusalem but
heaps of bloodstained stones. But though Jerusalem
was not yet taken, there are signs that the armies had
already gathered for her anticipated destruction, and
that the whole length of the land had been deluged
and drenched with the blood of its sons. We cannot
tell the exact year in which the Christians — warned,
as Eusebius says, " by a certain oracle given to their
leaders by revelation;"1 or, as Epiphanius tells us, "by
an angel " 2 — left the doomed and murderous city and
took refuge across the Jordan, in the Persean town
of Pella.3 There can be little doubt that their flight
took place before the actual blockade of Jerusalem
by Titus, and probably in a.d. 68. It seems to be
alluded to in Rev. xii. 14. Now the first threatening
commotions in Judsea began in a.d. 64, shortly after
the fire of Rome. The actual revolt burst forth at
Csesarea in a.d. 65. Vespasian was despatched to
Judsea by Nero during his visit to Greece in a.d. 66.
He arrived in Palestine early in a.d. 67. The years
1 Euseb. H. E. iii. 5 {Kara riva xpvvpbv K.r.\.). Probably the leading
Presbyters of the Church pointed out that the signs of the times indicated
by our Lord, as He sat two days before His death on the Mount of Olives
(Matt. xxiv. 15, seq.), now clearly required obedience to His warning.
2 Epiphan. De Mensuris, 15. In Haer. xxix. 7, he refers directly
to the command of Christ. Jerusalem might be said to be " circled
with armies " (Luke xxi. 20), long before its actual circumvallation by
Titus. 3 Which might well be described as in "the mountains." Pella
is in a lofty position, and is on one side surrounded by precipices. It
was the nearest city to Jerusalem which was at once safe and neutral.
Though a free city, it had placed itself more or less under the protection
of Agrippa II., and by so doing had severed its fortunes from those of
the Jews. By their flight to this town, the Jewish Christians cast in
their lot with the opponents of Jewish fanaticism. It was one of the steps
in that Divine education which showed them that the days of Mosaism
and of the synagogue were past.

191 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY.
67 and 68 were spent in suppressing the brave resis
tance of Galilee and Persea. Nero died in June, 68.
Political uncertainties caused a suspension of the Roman
measures during the year 69, but when Vespasian felt
himself secure of the throne, in a.d. 70, he sent Titus
to besiege Jerusalem. The siege began early in March,
70, and was brought to its terrible conclusion in August
of the same year.
But there are two passages, Rev. xiii. 3, and xvii.
10, 11, which might seem to give us the very year in
which the book was written. The former tells us
about the Wild Beast, and how " one of his heads was
smitten to death and his deathstroke was healed ; " the
other, explaining the previous symbols, tells us that the
seven heads of the Beast " are seven kings ; the five are
fallen ; the one is ; the other is not yet come." Now
we shall see hereafter, with perfect certainty, that the
Wild Beast, and the wounded head of the Wild Beast,
are interchangeable symbols for Nero. The five
" kings " then can be no other than Augustus, Tiberius,
Gaius, Claudius, and Nero. The reckoning of the
" kings "J from Augustus is the natural reckoning, and
is the one adopted by Tacitus. If Suetonius begins
his Twelve Csesars with the life of Julius, the greatest
of them all, the reason is that he wishes to give an
account of the Csesarean family, and of the hero
eponymus who raised them to the summit of earthly
power.2 So far then it might be regarded as certain
that Galba is the sixth emperor, and therefore that the
1 "Kings" was a common title for the Roman Emperors in the
Eastern provinces (see Ewald, Gesch. vi. 604, segq.).
2 " Imperator " was a title which Julius Cassar bore, in common with
Cicero and other private persons. He never was " Princeps." The last
private Imperator was Junius Blaesus, in the reign of Tiberius.

THE FIVE KINGS. 195
Apocalypse was written between June, 68, when Nero
committed suicide, and January, 69, when Galba was
murdered. And since the news of Galba's successful
rebellion could not have been known without a little
delay, we might fix the date of the Vision in the summer
or autumn of a.d. 68.
This is, indeed, the all but certain date of the book.
We have already seen reason to set aside the notion of
its having been written in the reign of Domitian, as
due partly to the mistake of Irenseus,1 and partly to
idle repetition and idle inference. It is not, however,
impossible that Vespasian and not Galba may have been
regarded by the Apostle, no less than by others, as
having been in reality the sixth emperor. Galba,
Otho, and Vitellius passed like phantoms across the
imperial stage. The Sibylhst dismisses them in the
single line — " After him three kings shall be destroyed
by one another."2 They neither belonged to the old
imperial family, nor did they found a new one. Be
tween them they barely covered the space of a year
and a half. It is true that they are spoken of as
" Caesars " both by Tacitus and Suetonius, though
Vitellius refused the name. But when Vespasian
succeeded the murdered Vitellius, at the end of a.d.
69, it was believed that the Flavian dynasty would
be secure and lasting, and the fashion arose of re
garding the reigns of Galba, Otho, and Vitellius as
a mere "rebellion of three military chiefs."3 If this
1 The Commentary of Andreas, Bp. of the Cappadocian Csesarea, in
the fifth century, rightly says, in contradiction of Irenseus. that it was
supposed to have been written before a.d. 70.
2 Orac. Sib. v. 35.
3 The language of Suetonius is very remarkable, and certainly lends
n 2

196 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY.
were the view of the seer, the date of the Apocalypse
would be brought down to a.d. 70. The earlier date
accords better with his own indications.
The tension of feeling caused by the tremendous
conflict of the Antichrist against the Saints must have
been still further strained by the imminent destruc
tion which seemed to threaten the existence of the
Jewish race. To minds already glowing with expec
tations of the Coming of Christ, and the close of
the ages, the signs of the times must have worn a
portentous aspect. The sunset sky of the ancient dis
pensation was red and lowering with the prophecy
of storm. The " woes of the Messiah " — the travail
throes of the Future Age — the pangs which were
to accompany the new birth of the Messianic king
dom — were already shaking the world.1 There were
wars and rumours of wars. There were famines and
earthquakes. The Church had barely passed through
the anguish of the great tribulation. Christians had
realised what a tremendous thing it was to be " hated
of all men," and to be treated as the offscourings of
the world. Hundreds of martyrs had been baptized in
blood. The name of " Christian " was regarded as the
synonym of malefactor ; and all the world hated Chris
tians, on the false charge that Christians hated all the
world. Many were faltering in the faith; many had
some sanction to the views of those who regard Vespasian as the sixth
Emperor. He says, " Rebellione trixvm, principum et caede incertum diu
et quasi vagum Imperium suscepit firmavitque tandem gens Flavia"
(Vesp. 1).
1 This is the term used not only by the Rabbis, but also by the
Evangelists, kpxh wSlvwv (Matt. xxiv. 8 ; Mark xiii. 8). It is a rendering
of the Hebrew Chebeli hammeshiach. (See Hos. xiii. 14 ; Isa. xxxvii. 3 ;
Mic. iv. 9, v. 2, &c.)

SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 197
proved false to it. Even within its sacred fold
many regarded each other with suspicion and hatred.
There were false Christs and false Prophets. The
powers of heaven were being shaken. Suns and moons
and stars — from Roman Emperors down to Jewish
Priests — were one after another waxing dim, and
shooting from their spheres. Clearly the day must be
at hand of which the Lord had said that it would come
ere that generation passed away, and that all the things
of which He had spoken would be fulfilled. Men were
not expecting it. They were eating and drinking, as
in the days of Noah, marrying and giving in marriage,
drinking with the drunken, and beating their fellow
servants in all the security of greed, in all the insolence
of oppression. But, none the less were the powers of
vengeance nursing the impatient earthquake, and a
belief in the eternal laws of morality was alone suffi
cient to make every Christian feel that the fiat had
gone forth —
" Rome shall perish ! write that word
In the blood that she hath spilt :
Perish hopeless and abhorred,
Deep in ruin as in guilt."
The fields were white for the harvest, the grapes were
purple for the vintage of the world. The carcases of
a corrupt Judaism and a yet corrupter heathendom
seemed already to be falling in the wilderness ; and on
the distant horizon were visible the dark specks which
the seer knew to be the gathering vultures of retribu
tion, which should soon fill the air with " the rushing
of their congregated wings."

198 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY.
SECTION II.
THE REVOLT OF JUDjEA.
' Conquest, thy fiery wing their race pursued,
Thy thirsty poniard blushed with infant blood."
Hebee.
On the whole the Jews had borne with reasonable
patience, for nearly a hundred years, the odious yoke
of the Herods and the Romans. The volcano of their
fanaticism was, indeed, only slumbering; and every
now and then such events as the rebellion of Judas
of Galilee, or the bold teaching of the Pharisee Mat
thias Ben Margaloth, or some turbulent movement
of the Zealots, or some secret assassination by the
Sicarii, proved to the Procurators that it was not ex
tinct. The affair of the Standards, and of the Gilt
Votive Shields, and of the Corban Money, under the
rule of Pilate — the fierce persistency with which the
Jews braved death by the sword or by famine, rather
than admit the desecration of their Temple by the
Colossus of Caligula — showed the Romans that they
were walking over hot lava and recent ashes.
The rise of false Messiahs under Fadus, the seditious
movements in Samaria under Cumanus, the spread of
brigandage under Felix, the establishment of a sort of
vehmgericht, which carried out by murder its secret
decrees, the quarrels between Agrippa and the Jews
under Festus about the wall of his palace, the avarice
of Albinus (a.d. 63), and the manner in which he
allowed the disgraceful factions of rivals in the High
Priesthood to assail each other unchecked, all tended
to precipitate the end. But though the Jews and the
Romans felt for each other a profound hatred, there was

MUTUAL HATRED. 199
no overt rebellion till the days of Gessius Florus, who
was appointed Procurator in a.d. 65. Under the best
of circumstances the administrative customs of the
Romans were odious to the Jews, and although the
Romans were anxious to extend to them the utmost
limits of a contemptuous tolerance, yet they looked
upon the conduct of the Jews as so unreasonable, so
fanatical, so unworthy of ordinary human beings, that
they were in a state of perpetual exasperation. The
Jews, in return, regarded the Romans as the imper
sonation of brutal violence, infamous atheism, and
impure greed. In the Talmud, and in the Books of
Esdras and Enoch, we see how they loathed their
political rulers. The arrogance of Jewish exclusive
ness constantly betrayed itself in language which
showed that they regarded Gentiles as worthless,1 and
even Proselytes as little better than a blotch on the
health of Israel.2 On the other hand, Tacitus shows us
how a grave Gentile historian could describe the Jews
as no people at all, but the mere scum and offscouring
of peoples, the descendants of a horde of leprous slaves,
devoted to execrable superstitions, degraded by ass-
worship, and animated by phrenetic hatred of all
nations except themselves. The mutual aversion of
Semites and Aryans thus finds ample illustration in
the literature of both.
Between such elements there could be no deep or
lasting peace, least of all when the Jews were so seeth-
1 Bava Kama, f. 113, 6 ; Sanhedrin, f . 59, a ; Sopherim, 15 ; Rosh
Hashanah, f. 23, a. These, and other similar passages, may be seen trans
lated in Dr. McCaul's Old Paths, Hershon's Treasures of the Talmud, &c.
2 " The following three are attached to each other — proselytes, slaves,
and ravens " {Pesachim, i. 113, 6). Rabbi Chelbo said, " Proselytes are
as injurious to Israel as the scab " (see my Life of St. Paul. i. 666).

200 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY.
ing with Messianic expectations that even the Gentiles
had come to believe that some one from the East was
to be Master of the World. The Romans afterwards
explained this prophecy as applicable to Vespasian;
but Suetonius tells us that the Jewish revolt was due
to their understanding it in a Messianic sense.1 The
air, too, was full of prodigies. A great writer has
said that the most terrible convulsions of nature
have often synchronised with the political catas
trophes.2 However this may be, it is certain that
events are often influenced by the effect produced on
the imagination by strange portents or uncommon
appearances. The tension of men's minds among the
heathen made them notice or imagine all sorts of
prodigious births, storms, inundations, comets, showers
of blood, earthquakes, strange effects of lightning,
abnormal growths of trees, streams of meteorites.3 In
Jerusalem men told how, at the Passover of a.d. 65,
a mysterious light had gleamed for three hours at
midnight in the Holiest Place ; how the enormous
gates of brass, which it required the exertions of twenty
men to move, had opened of themselves, and could not
be closed ; how, at Pentecost, the priests had heard
sounds as of departing deities, who said to each other,
"Let us depart hence;"4 how
" Fierce fiery warriors fought upon the clouds,
In rank and squadron, and right form of war,
Which drizzled blood."
1 Suet. Vesp. 4. " Percrebuerat Oriente toto vetus et constans opinio
esse in fatis ut eo tempore Judea profecti rerum potirentur. Judaei ad se
trahentes rebellarunt " (Jos. B. J. vi. 5, § 4 ; Tac. Hist. v. 13).
2 Niebuhr. 3 Suet. Vesp. 5.
4 Jos. B. J. ii. 22, § 1; vi. 5, 2—4; Tac. H. v. 13, and in the
Talmud.

TROUBLES AT C^SAREA. 201
"Every one," says Renan, "dreamed of presages; the
apocalyptic colour of the Jewish imagination tinged
everything with an aureole of blood."
It seems to have been the wicked object of Ges-
sius Florus — the last of the Procurators of Judsea —
to bring these elements of rebellion to a head.1 Though
he owed his appointment to the friendship of his wife,
Cleopatra, with Poppsea, who, if not a proselyte, was
very favourable to the Jews, it seems as if he took
every step with the intention of escaping from legal
enquiries into his own administration, by maddening
the Jews into acts which the Romans would regard as
irreparably criminal. The legions of Palestine were
not purely Roman. They were recruited from the
dregs of the provincials, especially from the Syrians
of Csesarea and the Samaritans of Sebaste, two places
in which the Jews were regarded with special anti
pathy.2 At Csesarea the population was half Jewish,
half Greek and Syrian. Nothing but the Roman
authority prevented these hostile nationalities from
flying at each other's throats. In a.d. 66 Nero settled
their rivalries by giving the precedence to the Greeks
and Syrians. A Greek immediately built a wall so
close to the Jewish synagogue that the Jews had
hardly room to pass. The young Jews assaulted the
workmen, and John, a Jewish publican, gave Florus
the immense bribe of eight talents to prohibit the con
tinuance of the building. Florus accepted the money,
and, without taking any step, went to Sebaste. The
1 "Duravit tamen patientia Judaeis usque ad Gess. Florum ....
sub eo bellum ortum " (Tac. H. v. 10).
2 "Ekron shall be rooted up" (Zeph. ii. 4). "This is Cffisarea, the
daughter of Edom (Rome) " (Megillah, f. 6, a).

202' THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY.
next day, being the Sabbath, some worthless Greek,
in order to insult the Jews, turned up an earthen
pot near the door of the synagogue, and began to
sacrifice birds upon the bottom of it. This was in
tended to be a parody on Lev. xiv. 4, 5, and therefore
an allusion to the old calumny that the Jews were a
nation of lepers.1 The Jews flew to arms, and since
the Roman Master of the Horse could not quell the
tumult, they carried off their sacred books to Narbata.
When John and twelve of the leading Jews went to
Sebaste to complain to Florus, he threw them into
prison. As though this was not enough, he sent to
Jerusalem, and demanded seventeen talents from the
Corban treasury for the use of the Emperor. This
was more than the Jews could tolerate. They not
only refused the demand, but heaped reproaches upon
the Procurator. He set out for Jerusalem, with a
body of horse and foot, to enforce his requisition ; and
when the people came forth to pay him the customary
compliment of receiving him with a shout of joy, he
ordered his cavalry to drive them back into the city.
Next day, with outrageous insolence, he refused every
apology which was offered him, demanded the surrender
of those who had reproached him, and scourged and
crucified some of the Jewish publicans, though they
held the rank of Roman knights. In these disturb
ances 3,600 Jews were slain. Even then the chief
citizens tried to calm the people, and to hush the voice
of their natural lamentations. But Florus now bade
them all go out and welcome with a shout of joy two
cohorts which were advancing from Caesarea. To these
cohorts he had given the brutal order not to return
1 See Jos. c. Apion. i. 25 ; Tac. H. v. 4.

FLORUS AT JERUSALEM. 203
the shout, and to fall on the Jews, sword in hand, if
they showed any signs of dissatisfaction. A tumult
naturally arose, and many of the defenceless Jews
were massacred or crushed to death. Next day the
people were in open revolt. They drove back Florus
from the Temple into Antonia, and demolished the
covered way, down which it had been the custom of
the Roman soldiers to rush when any disturbance arose
in the Temple. After these acts pardon was impos
sible, and Florus, having effected his infamous purpose,
retired to Csesarea, leaving only a single cohort in the
Castle of Antonia.
The principal Jews, with the Queen Berenice, then
went to complain of Florus to Cestius Gallus, the
Legate of Syria. He sent Neapolitanus and Agrippa
to Jerusalem to make enquiries, and Agrippa sincerely
tried to save the people from rebellion. They were
willing to make every concession except that of con
tinuing to obey Florus. When Agrippa urged them
to do this, they pelted him with stones, and drove him
from the city.
The revolt continued. Though occasioned by the
tyranny of Florus, it was inspired by Messianic hopes.1
The strong fortress of Masada was seized by the
Zealots,2 and the Roman garrison was put to the sword.
Eleazar, captain of the Temple, refused to permit any
sacrifices for the Emperor. The loyal party, aided by
1 Jos. B. J. vi. 5, § 4. Josephus and Tacitus are almost our sole autho
rities for the history of the revolt. Gratz (Gesch. d. Juden. iii. 331 — 414)
and Derenbourg {Mist, de Tal. 255 — 302) add a few particulars gleaned
from the Talmud.
2 The Zealots {Kannaim) were the fiercest and most unscrupulously
reckless of the national party. They were chiefly Galilseans. Simon the
Apostle was a' Kananite — i.e., a Zealot.

204 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY.
3,000 Batanean horsemen, sent them by Agrippa, could
only command the upper city, and this was stormed
after a few days by the Zealots and Sicarii, who burnt
the palaces of Agrippa, Berenice, and the High Priest
Ananias. Two days after — on July 5, a.d. 66 — they
took the tower of Antonia, and though they had
sworn to let the Roman garrison depart, they massacred
the whole cohort with the exception of their head cen
turion, Metilius, who basely purchased his life by
accepting circumcision. The High Priest Ananias was
dragged out of his place of concealment, a sewer of the
Asmonsean Palace, and was murdered. By the end of
September, 66, Jerusalem was in the hands of the
rebels. The Romans in the strong fortress of
Machserus capitulated. Cypros was taken. In five
months the whole of Palestine — Judsea, Perasa, Galilee,
and even Idumsea — was in open rebellion against the
Roman Empire.
Then began that internecine war of races — that
horrible " epidemic of massacre " — which is unparal
leled in the whole of history. The rebellion failed
chiefly because of the hatred with which the Jews
had inspired the Syrians. In Csesarea the Greeks
and Syrians attacked the Jews, and massacred them
to the number of 20,000 ; while Florus seized the
few that had escaped and sent them to the galleys. The
Jews avenged themselves by massacring the Syrians
in Philadelphia, Heshbon, Gerasa, Pella, Scythopolis,
and other towns ; and by laying waste with sword
and fire every city and village which they could seize
in Decapolis, Gaulonitis, Samaria, and the maritime
plain. The Syrians took fearful reprisals at Ascalon,
Ptolemais, Tyre, Hippo, and Gadara. The madness

EPIDEMIC OF MASSACRE. 205
spread even to Alexandria. The Prsefect at that time
was the apostate Jew, Tiberius Alexander, a nephew
of Philo. The quarrel broke out when the population
were assembled in the huge wooden amphitheatre.
Insulted by the Greeks, the Jews hurled stones at
their adversaries, and seized torches to set fire to the
amphitheatre, and involve the whole population in
destruction. Unable to stop them in any other
way, Tiberius let loose 17,000 soldiers upon them,
and 50,000 Jews were slain. Before the year was
ended there was another horrible plot of massacre at
Damascus, and 10,000 Jews, unarmed and defenceless,
were shamefully butchered by their fellow citizens.
Early in the next year, the streets of Antioch also
were deluged with Jewish blood.
Cestius Gallus now marched southward with
Agrippa, at the head of a considerable force, to quell
the rebellion. Conflagration and massacre marked his
path. Zabulon, Joppa, Narbatene, Mount Asamon,
Lydda, were the scenes of various tragedies. In October
he arrived at Gibeon. Though it was the Sabbath,
the Jews, with whom intense zeal supplied the place
of skill and discipline, rushed to encounter him, and
killed 515 men, with the loss of only twenty-two on
their own side, while the rear of the Romans was
harassed by Simon Bar Giora. Of the ambassadors
sent by Agrippa to appeal to the Jews, one was killed,
the other wounded. All hope of peace being now at
an end, on October 30, Cestius advanced to Scopus, at
the north of Jerusalem, seized Bezetha, fired the timber
market, and drove the rebels within the second wall.
If he had shown the least courage and resolution, he
might now without difficulty have taken the city by

206 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY.
assault, and ended the war, for large numbers of the
peaceful citizens were ready to open the gates to him.
His irresolution and cowardice frustrated their plans.
Even when he was on the verge of success he so un
accountably sounded a retreat, that the Zealots, in a
fury of reviving hope, chased him first to Scopus,
thence to Gibeon, and finally inflicted upon him a
desperate defeat at the famous path of Bethhoron,
over which, in old days, Joshua had uplifted his
spear to bid the sun " stand still upon Gibeon, and
thou moon in the valley of Ajalon." Cestius left 5,300
footmen and 380 horsemen dead upon the field, lost
an eagle, and, flying to Antipatris., left behind him
the military engines which the Jews afterwards turned
to such good account against the besiegers of Jerusalem.
The sheep, as in the Book of Enoch, were now armed
to do battle against the wolves. The Legate died soon
after, weary of a life which had suffered so severe a
shame. The defeat of Cestius took place in November, 66.
When the news of it reached Nero in Greece, even
the supreme folly and disgrace of his daily proceedings
did not prevent him from realising the gravity of the
crisis. He saw that an able general was necessary to
recover the country, which he had been taught by
soothsayers to regard as his future Empire.1 He had
such a general in Vespasian, whose humble origin and
plebeian surroundings secured him from jealousy.
Vespasian was then in disgrace, for having gone to
sleep or yawned while Nero was singing. When the
messenger came to announce his elevation to the post
1 Suet. (Ner. 40) : " Spoponderant tamen quidam destituto ei ordina-
tionem Orientis, nonnulli nominatim regnum Hierosolymorum."

JOSEPHUS. 207
of commander-in-chief of the Judsean legions, Vespasian
thought that he was the bearer of a death-warrant
from the imperial buffoon. But accepting the proffered
command, he at once took vigorous measures, and was
ably seconded by Titus, his son.
Meanwhile — though it was clear from the first that
the revolt was foredoomed to defeat, and that the rebels
would drag nation and city and Temple to destruction
— even serious citizens were swept away by the tide of
frenzied enthusiasm. They may have thought that
the only way to control the revolt was to range them
selves at the head of it. The city was placed under
the younger Hanan and Joseph Ben Gorion. The
country was divided into military districts. Gamala
and Galilee were assigned to the protection of the
historian Josephus.
It was on him, and the forces under his command,
that the first shock of battle fell. Vespasian had
formed the plan of conquering the country in detail,
and of driving the defeated population southwards in
disorderly masses towards Jerusalem, where he hoped
that famine would expedite the work of war. He
started from Antioch in March, a.d. 67. Then once
more began the bath of blood for the hapless race.
Josephus, though he displayed both genius and courage,
and was the nominal general of "more than 100,000
young men,1 " was hindered by want of cavalry, and
hampered by the rashness, treachery, and opposition of
followers, from whom his very life was often in danger.
Gadara was the first city to fall. There, as well as in
1 So he says {B. J. ii. 20, § 6) ; but perhaps his numbers would bear
dividing by ten at least, and his items {id. § 8) seem only to amount to
65,350.

208 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY.
the surrounding villages, men, women, and children
were indiscriminately slain. For forty-six days Josephus
defended Jotapata. On the forty-seventh it was be
trayed. Forty thousand Jews had fallen in the siege ;
1,200 were made prisoners ; the city was committed to
the flames. At Ascalon 10,000 Jews were slaughtered.
At Japha 27,000 were killed, and the women and chil
dren were sold into slavery. On Mount Gerizim many
Samaritans perished of thirst, and 11,600 fell before the
soldiers of Celearis. At Joppa, 8,400 had been slain
by Cestius and the city burnt. But a number of fugitives
had ensconced themselves in the ruins, and were living
by piracy and brigandage, These Jews fled to their ships
before the advance of the Roman soldiers. Next morning
a storm burst on them, and, after a frightful scene of
despair, 4,200 were drowned, and their corpses were
washed upon the shore. Tarichese was a strongly-
fortified city on the shores of Lake Tiberias. It was
taken by Titus, and 6,000 Jews dyed with their blood
the waters of that crystal sea. Titus had promised
safety to the inhabitants, but in spite of this 2,200 of
the aged and the young were massacred in the Gymna
sium ; 6,000 of the strongest were sent to Nero to dig
through the Isthmus of Corinth; and 30,400 citizens
of this and neighbouring cities, including some whom
Vespasian had given to Agrippa, were sold as slaves.
After this dreadful experience, nearly the whole
district submitted to the conqueror. Gamala, however,
still resisted. It was deemed impregnable by its
citizens, since it was built at the top of a mountain.
accessible only by one path, which was intersected by
a deep ditch. Agrippa besieged it for seven months
in vain. Then Vespasian invested it. Pressed by

GAMALA AND GISCALA 209
hunger, of which many died, some of the citizens
climbed down the precipice, or escaped through the
sewers. At last, aided by a storm, the Romans took
it on October 23, a.d. 67. Once more there was a
fearful slaughter. Two women alone escaped; 4,000
were slain in the defence ; 5,000 flung themselves
down the precipices ; all the rest — even the women
and children — were cut to pieces or thrown down the
rocks. Mount Tabor, which Josephus had fortified, still
held out. Placidus drew away some of its defenders by
a feigned flight, and the rest were driven to surrender
from want of water. We are not informed of the
number of the slain.
Giscala, the native city of the Zealot John, was the
last to succumb. John fled from it with his adherents,
and in the pursuit of them by the troops of Titus,
6,000 women and children were slain.
After this the Roman generals led their troops into
winter quarters, postponing the siege of Jerusalem till
the following year. But this respite brought no peace
to the miserable and polluted city. John of Giscala,
escaping to Jerusalem, excused his flight by saying
that it was not worth while to defend other cities so
long as the Jews possessed such a stronghold as Jeru
salem, which the Romans, unless they made themselves
wings, could never reach. By such boastings he fired
the audacity of the young and the fanatical. Brigand
age increased on all sides, and the Zealots were guilty
of such atrocities that many preferred to throw them
selves on the mercy of the Romans. By night and
by day, openly and in secret, murder, pillage, and
every form of crime raged in the Holy City. The

210 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY.
rich and noble were seized in multitudes on the false
charge of treachery, and were put to death, partly to
get rid of their authority, partly to plunder their
goods. For the purpose of humiliating the priests,
it was pretended that the High Priest ought to be
chosen by lot, and they thrust into the venerable
office a poor peasant, who was totally ignorant of
the necessary duties. Hanan the Younger, a man of
great courage and of high authority, because he and
his family had long been the wealthiest and most
eminent of the High Priests, made one more attempt to
rouse the wretched citizens against this brutal tyranny,
which, in the name of religion and patriotism, was
guilty of the most awful crimes. To the last, and to
the utmost of his power, he was true to the traditional
policy of his house, which was so to act that " the
Romans might not come and take away their place
and nation."1 It was for this reason only that he
had so far yielded as to give an apparent sanction to
the revolt. But he was as little able to stay the
shocks of the subsequent earthquake as Mirabeau or
Lafayette to stem the course of the French Revolu
tion. When these tremendous outbreaks have fairly
begun, their issues always belong to the most violent.
The Zealots were the Montagnards of the Jewish revolt.
John of Giscala, while he swore a most solemn oath
that he was faithful to the party of moderation, be
trayed all their plans to the Zealots. A combat ensued,
in which the party of Hanan succeeded in driving the
Zealots into the inner courts of the Temple. Then, at
1 John xi. 48 — 50 ; xviii. 14. Josephus, with his usual untrustworthi-
ness where he had any purpose to serve, directly contradicts himself as to
the character of Hanan (B. J. iv. 3, § 7 ; Vit. 39).

ZEALOTS AND IDUMEANS. 211
the instigation of John, the Zealots introduced 3,000
Idumeans into the city, by sawing through the bars
of the city gates, on a night of such violent storm that
they were not heard or suspected. The Idumeans)
once admitted, began to massacre the people. When
their presence was discovered, a wild wail of terror
rang through the night, and many of Hanan's party
flung themselves in despair from the walls and porticos
of the Temple. The massacre was continued in the
city. Zealots and Idumeans scourged and tortured the
most eminent citizens, and murdered the wealthy
Zachariah, the son of Baruch, under circumstances of
peculiar brutality.1 They not only killed Hanan the
Younger, and Jesus son of Gamala, but, with unheard-
of ruthlessness, stripped naked the bodies of these
venerable priests, and flung them forth unburied to be
devoured by dogs and jackals.
The scenes enacted at Jerusalem during this year,
a.d. 68, and the year following, may perhaps be faintly
paralleled by the worst orgies of the Reign of Terror,
but far exceeded them in stark and irredeemable
wickedness. The Idumeans, says Josephus, " fell
upon the people as a flock of profane animals, and
cut their throats." It was not long before they were
so gorged with plunder, so sated with blood, so sick
of their own brutalities, that with a qualm of self-
disgust they expressed repentance, opened the prisons
which they had themselves filled, and, leaving the city,
joined Simon, the son of Giora. But the Zealots did
not pause for a moment in their work of horror. They
murdered Gorion, and Niger of Perea, and every noble
1 In Matt, xxiii. 35, " Son of Barachias," is probably an ancient but
mistaken gloss (see my Life of Christ, ii. p. 246, n.).
o 2

212 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY.
citizen that was left. They sold to the rich permission
to fly, and murdered all who attempted to escape
without bribing them. Vespasian and his soldiers
were glad to look on and see these infatuated wretches
do the work of their Roman enemies. Mercy seemed
to be dead. All the streets of the city, all the roads
about the city, were heaped with unburied corpses,
which putrefied in the sun. Brigands and sicarii
raged uncontrolled, and the Zealots, who had seized
Masada, attacked the town of Engedi, murdered
more than 700 women and children, pillaged the town,
and terrorised the whole coast of the Dead Sea.
Such was the state of things when the campaign
reopened in the spring of 68. The first task of Ves
pasian was to seize Gadara. At Bethennabris there
was another slaughter. Placidus pursued the fugitive
Jews to Jericho. It happened that at this time the
Jordan was in flood. Such multitudes were drowned
that the river and the Dead Sea were filled with corpses,
as the Sea of Galilee had been after the siege of Tari-
chea. Thirteen thousand were left dead upon the field ;
2,200 were taken prisoners. Every other Perean town
which offered resistance was taken. Those who took
refuge in boats on the Dead Sea were chased and slain
On the eastern bank of the Jordan Machserus alone
remained in the hands of the rebels.
The reader may now understand something of the
force of the expression in the Apocalypse, that when the
vintage of the land was trodden, the blood without the
city rolled in a torrent, bridle deep, for a distance of
1,600 furlongs.1 The length of the Holy Land, from
Dan to Beers heba, is 139 miles; but over a still
1 Rev. xiv. 19, 20.

VESPASIAN. 213
larger area, from Tyre — nay, even from Damascus
— in the north, to Engedi in the south, the whole
country had been scathed with fire and drowned
in blood. The expression of the seer would hardly
seem an hyperbole to one who had seen the foul red
stains which had polluted the silver Lake of Gen-
nesareth ; the Jordan choked with putrefying corpses ;
even the waves of the Dead Sea rendered loathlier than
their wont with the carcases of the countless slain. No
one could witness, no one could think of those un
sparing massacres without having his eyes dimmed, as it
were, with a mist of blood. " For seven years," says
the Talmud, "did the nations of the world cultivate
their vineyards with no other manure than the blood
of Israel."1 But in truth when we read the Jewish annals of
these years, we never seem to have reached the cumulus
of horrors. It was in vain that — even after he seemed
to have drawn round Jerusalem his " circle of exter
mination " — Vespasian was called away from the scene.
He arrived at Jericho on June 3, a.d, .68, but his at
tention was at once diverted into an entirely different
direction. Vindex revolted from Nero on March 15;
Galba on April 3 ; the Prsetorians revolted on June 8 ;
on June 9 Nero committed suicide. Vespasian had
been flattered by dreams and prognostications of future
Empire, to which his ears were always open. Up to
this time, however, he had not committed himself, and
he now sent Titus with Agrippa to salute Galba as
his legitimate Emperor. Before they arrived, the news
came that on January 2, a.d. 69, Vitellius had been
proclaimed Emperor by the legions of Germany, and
1 Gittin, f. 57 a.

214 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY.
that on January 15 Galba had been murdered, and
Otho proclaimed by the Praetorians. Vespasian was
not prepared to acknowledge either Otho or Vitellius.
He paused in his warlike operations to watch the course
of events. But the doomed and miserable land, and
the yet more doomed and miserable city, were far from
profiting by this respite. It seemed as if the Zealots
were now drunken with blood and fury. Simon, son
of Giora, had got together an army of slaves and cut
throats, and was spreading terror far and wide. He
conquered the Idumeans, and desolated their country
with fire and sword. He repelled an attack of the
Zealots, and drove them back into Jerusalem. When,
by a stratagem, they had captured his wife, he seized
all who came out of the city, cut off their hands, sent
them back, and threatened to treat every one of the
citizens in the same way, if his wife were not restored
to him. Power was given to the mystic rider of the
Red Horse, says St. John, " to take peace from the
earth, and that men should slay one another."1 Civil
war raged within and without the city with such fury,
that the Romans almost appeared in the guise of friends.
All who attempted to fly from Simon were murdered
by John ; all the fugitives of John were murdered by
Simon. At last, in despair at the tyranny of John, the
people admitted Simon within the walls. The only
difference was that they had now two tyrants instead
of one. John and his Zealots were confined to the
Temple, and were the fewer in number ; but from its
height and impregnable position they were enabled to
make sallies, and to hurl down upon their enemies from
the captured engines of the Romans, a perfect hail of
1 Rev. vi. 4.

HORRORS AT JERUSALEM. 215
missiles. In the incessant collision between the hostile
factions, all the houses in the neighbourhood of the
Temple were burnt down. It was surrounded by a
chaos of blackened ruins, in which unburied corpses
bred pestilence in the summer noon. Not only the
streets, but even the courts and altar of the Temple
constantly swam in blood. Priest and pilgrim mingled
their blood with their sacrifices, smitten down by
balistse or catapults as they stood beside the altar.
Their feet were soiled, so that they polluted every
corner of the holy precincts with steps encrimsoned
by the uncleansed pools of gore, which told the tale of
daily slaughter. Every semblance of performing the rites
of religion was reduced to the most monstrous mockery.
It was impossible that men could breathe this reeking
atmosphere of blood and crime; in which every brain
seemed to reel with the hideous intoxication, without a
total collapse of the moral sense. At the very time that
the Zealots were representing themselves as the God-
protected champions of a cause the most sacred in the
world, they had become so dead to every precept of
religion, that, putting on the robes and ornaments of
women, decking their hair, painting underneath their
eyes, but carrying swords under their gay female
apparel, they plunged headlong into such nameless
obscenities, that it seemed as if the city had become
not only a slaughter-house, and a robbers' cave, but
a very cage of unclean beasts, fit only to be taken and
destroyed. " How is the faithful city become an
harlot ! It was full of justice! Righteousness lodged
in her, but now murderers."1 Very early, amid these
scenes of horror, it must have been evident to the
1 Isa. i. 21.

216 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY.
little Christian community, that " the abominable wing
that maketh desolate,"1 was standing in the Holy
Place, which was now more shamelessly defiled than
any shrine of Moloch or Baal Peor. Well might they
recognise that the city which was known as " the Holy,
the Noble," was " spiritually called Sodom and Egypt,
where also their Lord was crucified."2

Thus horrible was the aspect of the world — politi
cally, morally, socially, even ph}rsically — during the
months in which the Apocalypse was written. Physi
cally men seemed to be tormented and terrified with
catastrophes and portents. " Besides the manifold
changes and chances of human affairs," says Tacitus,
" there were prodigies in heaven and on earth, the
warnings of lightnings, and the presages of the future,
now joyous, now gloomy, now obscure, now unmis
takable. For never was it rendered certain by clearer
indications, or by more deadly massacres of the Roman
people, that the gods care nothing for our happiness,
but do care for our retribution."3 In Rome a pesti
lence had carried off tens of thousands of the citizens.
A disastrous inundation of the Tiber had impeded the
march of Otho's troops, and encumbered the roads
with ruins.* In Lydia an encroachment of the sea
had wrought fearful havoc. In Asia city after city
had been shattered to the dust by earthquakes.5 " The
1 Dan. ix. 27 ; xi. 31 ; xii. 11 ; Matt. xxiv. 15 ; Mark xiii. 14.
2 Rev. xi. 8. 3 Tac. H. i. 3. 4 Tac. H. i. 86.
6 Eusebius {Chron. a.d. 17) mentions Ephesus, Magnesia, Sardis,
iEgae, Philadelphia, Tmolus, Apollonia, Dia, &c. In the third book of
the Sibyllines (iii. 337 — 366) many others are mentioned.

STATE OF THE WORLD, 217
world itself is being shaken to pieces," says Seneca,
"and there is universal consternation."1 Comets,
eclipses, meteors, parhelions, terrified the ignorant,
and were themselves the pretexts for imperial cruelties.2
Auroras tinged the sky with blood. Volcanos seemed,
like Vesuvius, to be waking to new fury.3 Morally,
the state of the Pagan world was such as we have
seen. It was sunk so low that, in the opinion of the
Pagan moralists of the empire, posterity could but
imitate and could not surpass such a virulence of
degradation. The state of the Jewish world is re
vealed alike in the Gospels, in the Talmud, and in
the writings of Josephus. It may suffice to quote
the opinion of the latter that his own generation in
Judea was the wickedest that the world had seen, and
that if the avenging sword of the Romans had not
smitten Jerusalem with God's vengeance, the very
earth must have opened to swallow up her iniquities.
Socially, we see how desperate was the condition
alike of Jews and Pagans, in St. Paul, St. James, and
Josephus on the one hand, and in Tacitus, Suetonius,
and the Satirists on the other. Politically, the whole
empire was in a state of agitation. That the sacred
sun of the Julii should set in a sea of blood seemed an
event frightfully ominous, while, owing to the obscurity
which hung about the death of Nero, and the very
small number of those who had seen his corpse, and
the prophecies which had always been current about his
complete restoration, not only was there a universal
belief that he would return, but as early as the end
of a.d. 68 a false Nero gained many adherents, and
1 Sen. Nat. Qu. vi. 1. 2 Suet. Ner. 36.
3 Tac. Ann. xv. 22.

218 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY.
caused wide-spread alarm.1 The election of Galba by
the legions of Spain seemed to divulge a secret full
of disaster — the fact that an emperor could be created
elsewhere than at Rome. Emperor after emperor died
by suicide or by the hands of assassins.
"In outlines dim and vast
Their fearful shadows cast
The giant forms of Empires on their way
To ruin ; — one by one
They tower, and they are gone — "
The Romish world and the Jewish world were alike
rent by civil war. There were banquets in the reign
of Nero at which seven emperors and the father of an
eighth — for the most part entirely unrelated to one
another — might have met under the same roof, namely
Nero, Galba, Otho, Vitellius, Vespasian, Titus, Domi
tian, Nerva, and the elder Trajan ; 2 and five of these,
if not six, died violent deaths. Every general of the
smallest eminence became ambitious to raise himself
to " the dread summits of Csesarian power."3 Vindex,
Nymphidius, Galba, Vitellius, Vespasian, Claudius
Macer in Africa, Fonteius Capito in Germany, Betuus
Chilo in Gaul, Obultronius and Cornelius Sabinus in
Spain, were all seized with the vertigo of this ambi
tion ; while the generals who helped their various
attempts — such as Caecina, Valens, Mucianus, Antonius
Primus — became themselves the objects of jealousy and
suspicion. More than once the soldiers had serious
thoughts of murdering all the senators, in order to
keep the whole government of the world in their own
hands.4. Almost alone among the crowd of military
1 Suet. Ner. 40, 57. 2 Renan, L' Antichrist, p. 481.
3 See Merivale, Hist. vi. 374. 4 Tac. H. i. 80 ; Dion Cass. lxiv. 9.

MASSACRE AT BEDRIACUM. 219
chieftains Virginius stood superior to these dreams of
usurpation, and when he died peacefully, full of years
and honours, he deserved the proud epitaph which he
engraved upon his tomb, that he, when Vindex was
defeated,1 " claimed the Empire not for himself but for
his country."2 The fatal results of consular ambition
might be seen on the field of Bedriacum. There the
very roads were obstructed with the mounds of the dead,
and the massacre was all the more deadly because
Romans could not be sold as slaves, so that no one on
either side was tempted to pause from slaughter in the
hope of booty. After a desperate hand-to-hand con
flict between Romans and Romans, which heaped the
field with an almost incredible number of the slain,3 " the
soldiers fell sobbing into one another's arms, and all
denounced in common the wickedness of civil war."
Amid portents so threatening and scenes so terrible,
it is not strange that the hearts of men should have
been failing them for fear. There had been for many
years an all but universal impression that the days of
Rome were numbered. It had probably originated
from the expectations of Jews and Christians, and is
found again and again in the Sibylline books.4 In
Dion Cassius we read that a proverb was prevalent
that when thrice three hundred years had passed, or in
the beginning of the tenth century since Rome was
founded, she should perish.5 It was even sung as a
1 " Hie situs est Rufus, pulso qui Vindice quondam,
Imperium asseruit non sibi sed patriae." — (Plin. Ep. vi. 10.)
2 Tac. H. ii. 44.
3 Dion Cassius (lxiv. 10) mentions the fearful but most improbable total
of 400,000 {riaaapes pvpidSes). Tacitus {H. ii. 44) calls it a strages.
* Orac. Sibyll. ii. 15, 19; iii. 46—59; vii. 111—112, &c.
6 Dion Cass. lvii. 18 ; lxii. 18.

220 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY.
song in the streets, that after thrice three hundred
years internal sedition should destroy the Romans ; and
at a later period, the line " Last of the descendants of
iEneas, a matricide shall reign," was on everybody's
lips. " Rome shall be ruins," says one of the Sibyllists,
writing long before the Apocalypse. The calculations
of that Jewish form of Kabbalism which was known
as Gematria — or the substitution of numerical values
for words — led the writers of the Sibyllines to notice
that the numerical value of the letters of Rome was
948, and they therefore prophesied that in that year
Rome should be destroyed.1 They thought that Nero
would awake from the dead to accomplish this ven
geance ; and that " dark blood should mark the track
of the Beast."2 The Sibyls, says Lactantius, "say
openly that Rome shall perish, and that by the judg
ment of God."3 The topic of them all is, in prophetic
language, " The burden of Rome."
And amid all these evils — these multiplied signs
of the approaching end — the " woes of the Messiah "
afflicted the Church also. Two of the greatest cities
of the world — Rome, the spiritual Babylon, Jerusalem,
the spiritual Sodom — had drunk deep of the blood of
the prophets and saints of Christ. Nor had the guilt
of such murders been confined to them. " Through
all the provinces " it seemed as if Satan had come
down having great wrath, as knowing that his time
was short. Many a nameless martyr in the various
cities of the Empire had been added to that "vast
multitude," who, in the Neronian persecution, had
suffered their baptism of blood. Yet even persecu-
1 "Paph = 100 + 800 + 40 + 8 — 948. ( Orac. Sib. viii. 147. )
2 Id. 157. 3 Lactant. Div. Inst. vii. 15.

SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 221
tion from without had not secured the Church from
the growth of deadly heresies within. Every one of
the Apostles had been driven to utter words of sternest
warning against teachers who, while they called them
selves Christians, were guilty of worse than heathen
wickedness — who turned the grace of God into lasci-
viousness, and made their liberty a cloak for evil lives.
Thus alike the Jewish and the heathen world, each at
the nadir of their degradation and impiety, were bent
upon the destruction of Christ's little flock ; and even
into that little flock had intruded many who came in
sheep's clothing, though inwardly they were ravening
wolves.

Such were " the signs of the times " during the
course of these awful years in which St. John found
himself on the rocky isle " that is called Patmos," ]
and uttered his prophecies respecting the past, the
present, and the immediate future. In those pro
phecies we see the aspect of the age as it presented
itself to the inspired mind of a Christian and an
Apostle ; and we can compare and contrast it with the
aspects which it presented to heathens like Tacitus
and Suetonius, or to Jews like Josephus and the
authors or interpolators of the Books of Enoch and
Esdras. It is true that our want of familiarity with
Apocalyptic symbols which were familiar to the
Jewish Christians of that epoch, seems at first to give
to many of the Apostle's thoughts an unwonted ob
scurity. But, on the one hand, the obscurity does not
1 The expression militates against the notion of Renan, that Patmos
was at this time populous and well-known.

222 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY.
affect those elements of the book which we at once feel
to be of the most eternal import ; and on the other,
we are only left in the dark about minor details which
have found no distinct record in history. Let any
student compare the symbols of the Apocalypse with
those of Joel, Isaiah, Ezekiel, Zechariah, and Daniel;
let him then see how those symbols are applied by
the almost contemporary writers of such Jewish Apoca
lypses as the Book of Enoch, the Fourth Book of Esdras,
and the Vision of Baruch ; let him meditate on the
conditions of the age in the particulars which we
have just been passing in review; lastly, let him
bear in mind the luminous principle that the Apoca
lypse is a stormy comment upon the great discourse
of our Lord on Olivet, as it was being interpreted
by the signs of the times, and he will read the
Vision of the Apostle with a freshness of interest and
a clearness of apprehension such as he may never
previously have enjoyed. He will then see in it, from
first to last, the words "Maran atha! the Lord cometh!"
He will recognise that the contemplated Coming
was first fulfilled in the catastrophe which closed
the Jewish dispensation, and the inauguration of the
last age of the world. He will find that the Apoca
lypse is what it professes to be — an inspired outline
of contemporary history, and of the events to which the
sixth decade of the first century gave immediate rise.
He will read in it the tremendous counter-manifesto
of a Christian Seer against the bloodstained triumph
of imperial heathendom ; a psean and a prophecy over
the ashes of the martyrs; "the thundering reverbera
tion of a mighty spirit," struck by the fierce plec
trum of the Neronian persecution, and answering in

DISLIKE OF THE APOCALYPSE. 223
impassioned music which, like many of David's Psalms,
dies away into the language of rapturous hope.
And thus we shall strive to overcome that spirit of
dislike to the Revelation of St. John which has existed
in so many ages. We have already seen that this
dislike existed among the Alogi,1 and that it finds
expression in the remains of the Presbyter Gaius,
Dionysius of Alexandria, and Eusebius of Csesarea. In
later ages the disinclination to accept its authenticity
found more or less open expression in the writings
of Erasmus, Calvin, Zwingli, Luther, OEcolampadius,
Bucer, Carlstadt, as well as in those of Scaliger, Lowth,
Schleiermacher, Goethe, and many others. This alie
nation from the book arose in the ancient Church from
the abuse of it by the fanaticism and narrowness of the
Chiliasts ; in the modern Church from the Hellenic
taste which took offence at its Judaic imagery, and
from the discredit which it has suffered at the hands
of rash, uncharitable, and half- educated interpreters.
Even the most reverent enquirers have pronounced it
to be unintelligible.2 Such views of it can only be
1 The Alogi were those who rejected the doctrine of the Logos, and
therefore the writings of St. John. The name of this obscure sect, which
had its headquarters at Thyatira, seems to have been invented by
Epiphanius : — ivel odv rbv k&yov oh Sexovrai .... &\oyoi KX-qB-qo-ovrai
{Haer. Ii. 3). They attributed the Apocalypse to Cerinthus, declaring
that a book about seals, trumpets, &c, was unworthy of an Apostle, and
saying that he addressed a Church in Thyatira, when there was no
Church in Thyatira.
2 Dionysius of Alexandria says that the Alogi spoke with positive
scorn {x\evd£ovres) of the Apocalypse, and that some, before his day, not
only rejected it, but criticised it chapter by chapter to demonstrate its
illogical character, and denied that it could be a Eevelation, seeing that
it had been covered with so dense a veil of non-intelligibility. They, like
Gains, attributed it to Cerinthus. Junilius tells us that the Eastern
Church had great doubts about it. " Fateor multa me in ejus dictis
saepissime legendo scrutatum esse nee imtellexisse," says Primasius,

224 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY.
removed by a reasonable, a charitable, and — at least
within broad limits — a certain exegesis.
For if indeed the Apocalypse were the kind of
treatise which it has become in the hands of contro
versialists from the Abbot Joachim downwards — if it
were a synopsis of anticipated Church history, ringing
with the most vehement anathemas of sectarian hatred,
and yet shrouded in such ambiguity that every suc
cessive interpreter has a new scheme for its elucidation
— if it were a book in which only Protestants could
take delight because it is supposed to express the
intensest spirit of denunciation against the errors of
even in the sixth century. St. Gregory of Nyssa {Opp. ii. 44, ed. Paris)
quotes from the Apocalypse as a writing of St. John, iv airoKpv<pots . . .
Si' aivlyparos xiyovros, but this expression does not necessarily mean that
he regarded it as deutero-canonical. Jerome, in the fourth century, said
that the book had as many mysteries as words (Ep. liii. ad Paulinum),
and Augustine admitted that it was full of obscurities, due in part to its
repetition of the same events with different symbols, and in part to the
absence of definitive clues. " Et in hoc quidem libra obscure multa
dicuntur . . . etpauca in eo sunt ex quorum manifestatione indagentur
caetera cum labore, maxime quia sic eadem multis modis repetit " (Aug.
De Civ. Dei, xx. 17). Nicolaus Collado {Methodus, 1584) dwells on the
same peculiarity (see Diisterdieck, p. 17). " Apocalypsim fateor menescire
exponere juxta sensum literalem ; exponat cur Deus concessit," wrote Car
dinal Cajetan {Opp. v. 401). Zwingli said he took no account of it : "Dann
es nit ein biblish Buch ist " { Werke, ii. 169). Tyndale wrote no preface to
the Apocalypse. Luther calls it " a dumb prophecy." He says, " Mein
Geist kann sich, in das Buch nicht stricken, und ist mir Ursach genug
doss ich sein nicht hoch achte dass Christus darinnen weder gelehrt
nach erkannt wird." Gravina says, " Mihi tota Apocalypsis valde
obscura videtur, et talis cujus explicatio citra periculum vix queat
tentari." Quite recent commentators have held similar language. " Ein
Buch von dem man ganze Capitel nach Ausdruckung von einigen Tropfen
sauft als leere Schalen beiseite-legen muss " (De Wette). " No book of the
New Testament has so defied all attempts to settle its interpretation "
(Bloomfield). " I cannot pretend to explain the book ; I do not understand
it " (Adam Clarke). " No solution has ever been given of this part of the
prophecy " (Alford). " Deutero-kanonische Dignitdt kommt ihr zu, aber
nicht weniger " (Diisterdieck).

, MISUSE OF THE APOCALYPSE. 225
a Church which, whatever may be its errors, is still
a sister Church — then it might be excusable if the
spirits of those who seek peace and ensue it, and who
look on brotherly love between Christians as the crown
of virtue and the test of true religion, should turn
away from the book with a sense of perplexity and
weariness. They could never gain much comfort and
edification from any pulpit in which
"A loud-tongued pulpiteer,
Not preaching simple Christ to simple men,
Announced the coming doom, and fulminated
Against the scarlet woman and her creed
For sidewise up he flung his arms, and shrieked
'Thus, thus with violence,' as though he held
The Apocalyptic millstone, and himself
Were that great Angel — ' thus with violence
Shall Babylon be thrown into the sea.
Then comes the end.' " 1
There are few of us who would find much music
in such " loud-tongued anti-Babylonianisms " as these.
The blind fumes of party hatred can only distract and
lead astray. The spirit of the Inquisition, even when
it is found in Protestants, is essentially anti-Christian.
It is a scorpion-locust out of the abyss. But when
we put ourselves in the position of the Seer, and grasp
the clues to his meaning which he has himself fur
nished — when we accept his own assurance that he is
mainly dealing with events which were on the imme
diate horizon — when, lastly, we discount the Oriental
hyperboles which, in fact, cease to be hyperbolical if
they be understood in their normal usage, then for the
1 Tennyson {Sea Dreams). " Totum hunc librum . . . spectare prae-
ciipue ad describendam tyrannidem spvritualem Romani papatus et totius
eleri ejus " (Nic. Collado, ap. Diisterdieck, p. 48).
P

226 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY. ¦
first time we begin to understand the Apocalypse in
all its passion and grandeur, as it was understood by
those for whom it was written. We no longer expect
to find in it the Saracen conquests, or the Waldenses,
or the French Revolution, or "the rise of Tracta-
rianism." We are soothed by its heavenly consolations
and inspired by its inextinguishable hopes. When read
in the light of events then contemporary, it rolls with
all its thunder and burns with all its fires. Over the
guilt of Jerusalem, over the guilt of Rome, it hurls
the prophecy of inevitable doom. Around the diadem
of Nero and the hydra-heads of Paganism in its hour
of tyranny and triumph it flashes the sure wrath of
heaven.1 But, like all prophecy, it has " springing and
germinal developments." It is the defiance uttered
by true Christianity for all time against the tortures,
the legions, the amphitheatres, the fagots, the prisons,
the thumbscrews, the falsehoods, the inquisitions of
that demoniac spirit of persecuting intolerance, which,
whether it uses the asp-poison of slander or the sword
of murder, is never so irreligious as when it vaunts its
zeal for God. Though he wrote in the hour of seeming
1 The use of the word " diadem " of the Roman Emperor in this book
is made much of by the commentators, who try to overthrow the sure
results of recent exegesis. They urge that Caligula alone of the Cssars
ever attempted to wear a diadem, as distinguished from a crown or
wreath ; that Julius Csesar refused a diadem ; that Sulpicius Severns is
mistaken when he describes Vespasian as wearing one ; and that the first
Emperor who boldly assumed this badge of Oriental autocracy — a purple
silken fillet, embroidered with pearls — was Diocletian. Meanwhile this
imposing array of arguments crumbles at a touch. When Antony offered
the diadem to Julius, he betrayed the secret as to the real character of
Imperial power. Orientals in the provinces both thought and spoke of the
Emperors as " Kings," though such a name would have horrified the
Romans; but Oriental kings wore diadems, and therefore the Oriental
symbol of the Roman Emperor was the diadem.

SCHOOLS OF INTERPRETATION. 227
ruin, such is the passionate intensity with which the
Seer pours forth the language of victory, that it seems
as though the hand which he has dipped in the blood
of the martyrs flames like a torch as he uplifts it in
appeal to the avenging heavens. And since the truths
which he utters become needful at the recurrence of
every similar crisis — and most of all when the exe
crable weapons of tyranny are grasped by the reckless
hands of sectarian bitterness — the Apocalypse has ever
been dearest to God's true saints at the hour of their
deepest trials. It ceases then to be a great silent
sphinx, reading its eternal riddle at the gate of Scrip
ture, and devouring those who fail to answer it; it
becomes a series of glorious pictures, wherein " are set
forth the rise, the visible existence, and the general
future of Christ's kingdom, in figures and similitudes
of His First Coming, to terrify and to console."1
There have been three great schools of Apocalyptic
interpretation: — 1. The Prseterists, who regard the
book as having been mainly fulfilled. 2. The Futurists,
who refer it to events which are still wholly future.
3. The Continuous-Historical Interpreters, who see
in it an outline of Christian history from the days of
St. John down to the End of all things. The second
of these schools — the Futurists — has always been
numerically small, and at present may be said to be
non-existent. The school of Historical Interpreters
was founded by the Abbot Joachim early in the 13th
century, and was specially flourishing in the first fifty
years of the present century.2 The views of the Prse-
1 Herder.
2 There are two schools of the interpreters who make the Apocalypse
a prophecy of all Christian history. The school of Bengel, Vitringa,
Elliott, &c, make it mainly a history of the Church. Another school
p 2

228 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY.
terists have been adopted, with various shades of modi
fication, by .Grotius, Hammond, Le Clerc, Bossuet,
Eichhorn, Hug, Wetstein, Ewald, Herder, Zulhg,
Bleek, De Wette, Liicke, Moses Stuart, Davidson,
Volkmar, Krenkel, Diisterdieck, Renan, and almost the
whole school of modern German critics and interpreters.
It has been usual to say that the Spanish Jesuit Alcasar,
in his Vestigatio arcani sensus in Apocalypsi (1614), was
the founder of the Prseterist School, and it certainly
seems as if to him must be assigned the credit of having
first clearly enunciated the natural view that the Apoca
lypse, like all other known Apocalypses of the time,
describes events nearly contemporaneous, and is meant •
to shadow forth the triumph of the Church in the
struggle first with Judaism and then with Heathen
dom. But to me it seems that the founder of the
Prseterist School is none other than St. John himself.
For he records the Christ as saying to him when he
was in the Spirit, "Write the things which thou sawest,
and the things which are, and the things which are
about to happen (a peWec ytvecrdai) after these things."
No language surely could more clearly define the bear
ing of the Apocalypse. It is meant to describe the
contemporary state of things in the Church and the
world, and the events which were to follow in immediate
sequence. If the Historical School can strain the latter
words into an indication that we are (contrary to all
analogy) to have a symbolic and unintelligible sketch of
many centuries, the Prseterist School may at any rate
regards it more generally, and less specifically, as an outline of Epochs
of the History of the world and the great forces which shape it into a
Kingdom of God. To this latter school belong Hengstenberg, Ebrard,
Auberlen, &c.

PRSETERIST INTERPRETATION. 229
apply these words, a elo-lv, " the things which are," to
vindicate the application of a large part of the Apoca
lypse to events nearly contemporary, while they also give
the natural meaning to the subsequent clause by under
standing it of events which were then on the horizon.
The Seer emphatically says that the future events which
he has to foreshadow will occur speedily (iv Ta^et,)1 and
the recurrent burden of his whole book is the nearness
of the Advent (6 Kcupb<; 6771;?). Language is simply mean
ingless if it is to be so manipulated by every successive
commentator as to make the words " speedily " and
" near " imply any number of centuries of delay. The
Prseterist method of interpretation does not, however,
interfere with that view of prophecy which was so well
defined by Dr. Arnold. This is the view of those who
have been called the " spiritual " interpreters. It admits
of the analogical application of prophecy to conditions
which, in the cycles of history, bear a close resemblance
to each other. It applies to all times the principles
originally laid down with reference to events which
were being then enacted, and starts with the axiom of
Bacon, that divine prophecies have steps and grades
of fulfilment through divers ages.2 All that is really
valuable in the works of the Historical Interpreters
may thus be retained. No importance can be attached
1 Comp. raxv (Rev. ii. 5, 16 ; iii. 11 ; xi. 14 ; xxii. 20). It is curious to
see with what extraordinary ease commentators explain the perfectly simple
and ambiguous expression "speedily" (iv rdxei), to mean any length of
time which they may choose to demand. The word " immediately," in
Matt. xxiv. 29, has been subject to similar handling, in which indeed all
Scripture exegesis abounds. The failure to see that the Fall of Jerusalem
and the end of the Mosaic Dispensation was a " Second Advent " — and
the Second Advent contemplated in many of the New Testament prophe
cies — has led to a multitude of errors.
2 De Augment. Scient. ii. 11.

230 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY.
to their limitation of particular symbols, but the better
part of their labours may be accepted as an illustration
of the manner in which the Apocalyptic symbols convey
moral lessons which are applicable to the conditions of
later times.
But, apart from St. John's own words, it cannot be
conceded that the central conception of the Prseterist
exegesis is a mere novelty of the 17th century. On
the contrary, we can trace from very early days the
application of various visions to the early emperors of
Pagan Rome. Thus Justin Martyr believed that the
Antichrist would be a person who was close at hand, and
who would reign three and a haK years.1 Irenseus also
thought that Antichrist, as foreshadowed by the Wild
Beast, would be a man; and that "the number of the
Beast " represented Lateinos, " a Latin."2 Hippolytus
compares the action of the False Prophet giving life
to the Beast's image, to Augustus inspiring fresh force
into the Roman Empire.3 Later on, I shall furnish
abundant evidence that a tradition of the ancient Church
identified Nero with the Antichrist, and expected his
literal return, just as the Jews expected the literal return
of the Prophet Elijah. St. Victorinus (about a.d. 303)
counts the five dead emperors from Galba, and supposes
that, after Nerva, the Beast (whom he identifies with
Nero) will be recalled to life.4 St. Augustine mentions
a similar opinion.5 The Pseudo-Prochorus, writing on
Rev. xvii. 10, says that the "one head which is" is
meant for Domitian. Bishop Andreas, in the fifth cen-
1 Dial. c. Tryph. p. 250.
2 Iren. Haer. v. 25.
3 De Antichristo, p. 6.
* " Bestia de septem est quoniam ante ipsos reges Nero regnavit."
6 De Civ. Dei, xx. 19.

PR^ETERISTS. 231
tury, applies Rev. vi. 12 to the siege of Jerusalem, and
considers that Antichrist will be "as a king of the
Romans." Bishop Arethas, on Rev. vii., implies that
the Apocalypse was written before the Jewish War.
The fragments of ancient comment which we possess
cannot be said to have much intrinsic value ; but such
as they are they suffice to prove that the tendency of
modern exegesis approaches quite as nearly to the
earliest traditions as that of the Historic School. It is
a specially important fact that St. Augustine, as well as
many others, recognised the partially retrogressive and
iterative character of the later visions, and thereby sanc
tioned one of the most important principles of modern
interpretation.1 The internal evidence that the book
was written before the fall of Jerusalem has satisfied not
• only many Christian commentators, who are invidiously
stigmatised as "rationalistic," but even such writers
as Wetstein, Lucke, Neander, Stier, Auberlen, Ewald,
Bleek, Gebhardt, Immer, Davidson, Diisterdieck, Moses
Stuart, F. D. Maurice, the author of " The Parousia,"
Dean Plumptre, the authors of the Protestanten-Bibel,
and multitudes of others no less entitled to the respect
of all Christians.
If, however, the reader still looks with prejudice
and suspicion on the only school of Apocalyptic exegesis
which unites the suffrages of the most learned recent
commentators in Germany, France, and England, I
hardly know where he is to turn. The reason why
the early date and mainly contemporary explanation
of the book is daily winning fresh adherents among
unbiassed thinkers of every Church and school, is
partly because it rests on so simple and secure a
1 Id. ib. 17.

232 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY.
basis, and partly because no other can compete with
it. It is indeed the only system which is built on
the plain and repeated statements and indications of
the Seer himself, and the corresponding events are so
closely accordant with the symbols as to make it
certain that this scheme of interpretation is the only
one that can survive. A few specimens may suffice to
show how completely other systems float in the
air. Let us suppose that the student has found out that
in viii. 13 the true reading is " a single eagle," not an
angel; but, whether eagle or angel, he wants to know
what the symbol means. He turns to the commen
tators, and finds that it is explained to be the Holy
Spirit ( Victorinus) ; or Pope Gregory the Great (Elliott) ;
or St. John himself (De Lyra) ; or St. Paul (Zeger) ; or
Christ himself (Wordsworth). The Prseterists mostly
take it to be simply an eagle, as the Scriptural type of
carnage — the figure being suggested not by the re
semblance of the word " woe ! " (" ouai ") to the eagle's
screams, but by the use of the same symbol for the
same purpose by our Lord in His discourse about the
things to come.1
But this is nothing ! The student wishes to learn
what is meant by the star fallen from heaven, in ix. 1.
The Historical school will leave him to choose between
an evil spirit (Alford) ; a Christian heretic (Words
worth) ; the Emperor Valens (De Lyra) ; Mohammed
(Elliott) ; and, among others, Napoleon (Hengsten-
berg) !
The confusion deepens as we advance. The locusts
1 Matt. xxiv. 28.

HISTORICAL INTERPRETERS. 233
are " heretics " (Bede) ; or Goths (Vitringa) ; or Vandals
(Aureolus) ; or Saracens (Mede) ; or the mendicant
orders (Brightman) ; or the Jesuits (Scherzer) ; or
Protestants (Bellarmine).
The same endless and aimless diversity reigns
throughout the entire works of the Historical inter
preters ; none of them seems to satisfy any one but
himself. The elaborate anti-papal interpretation of
Elliott — of which (to show that I am far from pre
judiced) I may mention, in passing, that I made a
careful study and a full abstract when I was seventeen
years old — is all but forgotten. Mr. Faber admits
that there is not the least agreement as to the first
four trumpets among writers of his school, and he
rightly says that " so curious a circumstance may
well be deemed the opprobrium of Apocalyptic inter
pretation, and may naturally lead us to suspect that
the true key to the distinct application of the first four
trumpets has never yet been found."
Not that this school leave us any better off when
we come to the seven thunders. They are seven un
known oracles (Mede) ; or events (Ebrard) ; or the seven
crusades (Vitringa) ; or the seven Protestant king
doms (Dunbar) ; or the Papal Bull against Luther
(Elliott). The two wings of the great eagle in xii. 14 are the
two Testaments (Wordsworth) ; or the eastern and
western divisions of the empire (Mede, Auberlen) ; or
the Emperor Theodosius (Elliott).
The number of the Beast — which may be now re
garded as certainly intended to stand for Nero — has
been made to serve for Genseric, Benedict, Trajan,
Paul V., Calvin, Luther, Mohammed, Napoleon — not

234 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY.
to mention a host of other interpretations which no one
has ever accepted except their authors.1
It is needless to multiply further instances. They
might be multiplied almost indefinitely, but their
multiplicity is not so decisive of the futility of the
principles on which they are selected, as is the diversity
of results which are wider than the poles asunder.
What are we to say of methods which leave us to
choose between the applicability of a symbol to the
Holy Spirit or to Pope Gregory, to the Two Testa
ments or to the Emperor Theodosius ? Anyone, on the
other hand, who accepts the Prseterist system finds a
wide and increasing consensus among competent en
quirers of all nations, and can see an explanation of
the book which is simple, natural, and noble — one
which closely follows its own indications, and accords
with those to be found throughout the New Testament.
He sees that events, mainly contemporary, provide an
interpretation clear in its outlines, though necessarily
uncertain in minor details. If he takes the view of the
Spiritualists, he may at his pleasure make the symbols
mean anything in general and nothing in particular.
If he is of the Historical School he must let the
currents of Gieseler or Gibbon sweep him hither and
thither at the will of the particular commentator in
whom he for the time may chance to confide. But if
he follows the guidance of a more reasonable exegesis,
he may advance with a sure step along a path which
becomes clearer with every fresh discovery.
But I cannot leave this subject of Apocalyptic
interpretation without repeating my conviction, that
1 The majority of guesses which have the least seriousness in them
point to Rome, the Roman Empire, or the Roman Emperor.

APOCALYPTIC LITERATURE. 235
the essential sacredness and preciousness of the book
lies deeper than the primary or secondary interpreta
tions of its separate visions. Whatever system of
exegesis we adopt — whether we suppose that St. John
was indicating to the Churches of Asia the influence
of Mohammed, Hildebrand, and Luther centuries later
— whether he was foreshadowing events of which they
could not have the remotest comprehension, or events
with which they were immediately and terribly concerned
— he is, at any rate, dealing on the one hand with awful
warnings, and on the other with exceeding great and
precious promises. His teaching is needful for our
education in the ways of God. It will be well for every
Christian to take it deeply to heart. Amid endless
diversities, here at any rate is a point respecting which
all true Christians may be cordially agreed.
It is admitted by every unbiassed critic that
Apocalyptic literature is inferior in form to the Pro
phetic. The Jews themselves have marked their sense
of this by excluding the Book of Daniel from the
prophetic canons, and placing it among the Hagio-
grapha. Apocalypses belong, as a rule, to later ages
and less vivid inspiration. Why then, it may be
asked, did St. John choose this form of utterance ?
The answer is simple. It was, first, because it was in
this form that his inspiration came to him ; it was in
this form that his thoughts naturally clothed them
selves. It was, next, because the Apocalypse was the
favourite form of the prophetico-poetic literature of
this epoch, with which many instances had made his
readers familiar. But lastly, and perhaps chiefly, it
was from the dangers of the time. An Apocalypse, by
the very meaning of the term, implies a book which

236 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY.
is more or less cryptographic in its contents. Hence
in every Apocalypse — in the Books of Esdras, Enoch,
and Baruch, no less than in St. John — there are for us
some necessary difficulties in the details of interpretation
which perhaps did not exist for contemporary readers.
But if anything were obscure to them, this was more
than compensated by the resultant safety. No danger
incurred by the early Christians was greater than that
caused by the universal prevalence of political spies. If
one of these wretches got possession of any Christian
writing which could be construed into an attack or a
reflexion upon their terrible persecutors, hundreds might
be involved in indiscriminate punishment on a charge
of high treason (laesa majestas), which was then the
most formidable engine of despotic power. St. Paul,"
writing to the Thessalonians even so early as a.d. 52,
had found it necessary to speak of the Roman Empire
and of the Emperors Claudius or Nero in terms of
studied enigma.1 St. Peter, making a casual allusion
to Rome, had been obliged to veil it under the mystic
name of Babylon.2 Even Josephus has to break off his
explanation of the Book of Daniel with mysterious sud
denness, rather than indicate that the fate of the Roman
Empire was there foreshadowed. Concealed methods of
allusion are, for similar reasons, again and again adopted
in the Talmud. St. John saw in Nero a realisation
of Antichrist ; but it would have been fatal to whole com
munities, perhaps to the entire Church, if he had openly
committed to writing either the indication of Nero's
character or the prophecy of his doom. He could
only do this in the guise of Scriptural and prophetic
symbols, which would look like meaningless rhapsodies
1 2 Thess. ii. 3—12. 2 1 Pet. v. 13.

APOCALYPTIC LITERATURE. 237
to any Gentile reader, but of which, as he was well
aware, the secret significance was in the hands of those .
for whom alone his revelation was intended. It may
be laid down as a rule, to which there is no exception,
that the commentator who approaches the Apocalypse
without the fullest recognition of the fact that in its
tone and in its symbols it bears a very close analogy
to a multitude of other Apocalyptic books, both Jewish
and Christian, is sure to go utterly astray. But if he
knows the symbols and their significance, not only from
the Old Testament but also from seeing how the
imagery of the Old Testament was applied in the first
century to contemporary events, he will be prepared to
see that to the original readers of the Apocalypse, at
any rate, the book had and could have but one meaning,
and that the intended meaning is still partially discover
able by those who do not read its visions through the
ecclesiastical veil of unnatural and fantastic hypotheses.

CHAPTER XXVIII.
THE APOCALYPSE.
" Apocalypsis Johannis tot habet sacfamenta qtlot verba. Parum dixi
pro merito voluminis. Laus omnis inferior est." — Jee. ad Paulin.
In the superscription of the Apocalypse found in some
of the cursive manuscripts, St. John is called by the title
of " the Theologian," or, as it is rendered in our version,
" the Divine." It was a title borne by the highest order
of priests in the Temple of the Ephesian Artemis, as
appears from inscriptions discovered by Mr. Wood at
Ephesus. It is, however, unlikely that St. John bore the
title in his own day, or that it was intended to contrast
him with the local and pagan hierarchy. It was more
probably due to the grandeur of his witness to Christ
as the Divine Logos. It is remarkable that only one
great Christian writer has shared it with him^— the
large-hearted St. Gregory of Nazianzus. The true
Theology is the glorious mother of all the sciences, and
differs infinitely from the narrow and technical pedantry
which has in modern times too often usurped the
exclusive name. It would have been well for the world
if it could have rescued the term from the degradation
to which it has been subjected by Pharisaism and self-
assertion. Theology would have received the honour of
all mankind if it had not so often mistaken verbal
minutise for divine essentials, if its self-styled votaries

THE SEVEN CHUECHES. 239
had caught something of the love and something of
the loftiness of the Beloved Disciple of Galilee and the
eloquent Patriarch of Constantinople. SECTION I.
THE LETTERS TO THE SEVEN CHURCHES.
To write a full commentary upon the Apocalypse, or to
enter into the numerous questions to which it gives rise,
would be impossible in the space at my disposal. All that
I can hope to do is to give a rapid outline of its con
tents, and, so far as ascertainable, of its probable mean
ing in those parts of its symbolism which are capable of
explanation, or which do not at once explain themselves.
After the Prologue,1 the main sections of the book
are arranged in accordance with the number Seven,
which is the most prominent among the symbolic
numbers with which the book is filled. Thus we have : —
Prologue, i. 1 — 8.
1. Letters to the Seven Churches of Asia, i. 9 — iii. 22.
2. The Seven Seals, iv. — vii.
3. The Seven Trumpets, viii. — xi.
4. The Seven Mystic Figures, xii. — xiv.2
5. The Seven Vials, xv. — xvi.
6. The Doom of the Foes of Christ, xvii — xx.
7. The Blessed Consummation, xxi. — xxii. 7.
1 The Vision takes place on " the Lord's Day," which probably means
neither "Easter Day," nor the " Day of Judgment," but " Sunday." It is
the earliest use of the expression, but furnishes no proof at all of the later
date assigned to the Apocalypse.
* I borrow this ingenious suggestion from the author of the " Parousia,"
a book full of suggestiveness, although I disagree with the author in its
limitation of the Apocalyptic horizon mainly to Jerusalem. The Seven
Mystic Figures are : — (1) The Sun-clothed Woman ; (2) The Red Dragon ;
(3) The Man-child; (4) The First Wild Beast from the Sea; (5) The
Second Wild Beast from the Land; (6) The Lamb on Mount Sion;
(7) The Son of Man on the Cloud.

240 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY.
The Epilogue, xxii. 8— 21. x
The Seven Churches addressed in the person of
their Angels2 are : —
Ephesus, the Church faithful as yet, but waxing cold.
Smyrna, the Church faithful amid Jewish perse
cutions. Pergamum, the Church faithful amid heathen
persecutions, but liable to swerve into Antinomianism.
Thyatira, the Church faithful as yet, but acqui
escent under Antinomian seductions.
Sardis, the Church slumbering, but not past awaken-
ment. Philadelphia, the Church faithful and militant.
1 Ewald divides the book into three main sections of seven members
each: — The Seven Seals (iv. — vii.) ; the Seven Trumpets (viii. — xi. 14);
the Seven Vials, with the group of associated Visions (xi. 15 — xxii. 3),
which are divided into three members (xi. 15 — xiv. 20 ; xv. — xviii. ; xix. —
xxii. 5). He thinks that the book has an Introduction in four parts ;
Preface and Dedication in seven parts (ii., iii.) ; and a Conclusion in three
parts. Volkmar's division is into two main parts : — (I.) The Announce
ment of the Judgment (i. — ix) ; (II.) The Achievement of the Judgment
(x. — xiv.). The subordinate parts are : — Prologue (i. 1 — 7) ; (1) First
Vision (i. 8— iii.); (2) Second Vision, the Seals (iv.— vii.); (3) Third
Vision, the loud Declaration of God's Judgment (viii, ix) ; (4) Fourth
Vision, the Introductory Judgment (x. — xiv.) ; (5) Fifth Vision, Avenging
Justice (xv., xvi.); (6) Sixth Vision, the overthrow of the World-Power,
or Rome (xvii, xviii.) ; (7) Seventh Vision, the Completion of the Judg
ment (xix. — xxi) ; Epilogue. — Whatever division of the book be adopted,
it will be seen at once that it is constructed in a very artificial manner,
and dominated by the numbers seven, three, and four. Seven is the
mystic number of peace, expiation, and the covenant between God and
man. Three is the signature of the Deity. Four is the number of the
world and created things. Ten = 1 + 2+3 + 4, indicates completeness.
On the symbolism of numbers, see Bahr, Symbolik. i. 187, &c. Herzog.
Real. Encycl. s. v. Zahlen ; Lange, Revelations, Introd. § 6, &c.
2 The Angels cannot be the Bishops, for even if the Domitianic date of
the Apocalypse be accepted, episcopacy had not even then attained to such
proportions, and if the Ancients had supposed the Bishops to be meant,
they would have adopted this title in speaking of them. Probably the
title implies the Genius of the Church, ideally represented as a Responsible

THE SEVEN CHURCHES. 241
Laodicea, the Church unfaithful, proud, lukewarm,
and luxurious.1
The letters to these Seven Churches are normally
sevenfold, consisting of : — 1. The address; 2. The title
of the Divine Speaker; 3. The encomium; 4. The
reproof; 5. The warning; 6. The promise to him that
overcometh; 7. The solemn appeal to attention. These
elements are, however, freely modified. Two Churches
— Smyrna and Philadelphia — receive unmitigated praise.
Two — Sardis and Laodicea — are addressed in terms of
unmitigated reproof. To the three others — Ephesus,
Pergamum, and Thyatira — is awarded a mixture of
praise and blame.
The Angel of the Church of Ephesus is praised for
"having tried them which ealled themselves Apostles,
and they are not,2 and having found them false," and
also for hating the works of the Nicolaitans. The
Angel of the Church of Smyrna is praised for faith
fulness amid " the reviling of them which say they are
Jews and are not, but are a synagogue of Satan." The
Angel of the Church of Pergamum is blamed because
he has there " some who hold the teaching of the
Head, or Guardian of it ; just as Daniel idealises the Angels of the nations
(Dan. x. 20, 21; xii. 1).
1 The number seven is ideal. It is idle to suppose that there were no
churches at Tralles, Hierapolis, Laodicea, &c. The book is pervaded by
the number seven (i. 4 ; iv. 5 ; vii. 1 ; viii. 2 ; x. 3 ; xii. 3 ; xv. 1 ; xvii. 9,
10, &c). It should be observed that the sacred nnmbers are throughout
parodied by the anti-sacred numbers.
2 Men (Dean Plumptre says) of the Hymenaens, Alexander, and
Philetus type (1 Tim. i. 20 ; 2 Tim. ii. 17). In the days of Nero there
were still false teacliers, who called themselves " Apostles " (2 Cor. xi.
13, 14). It is tolerably certain that there were none in the days of
Domitian. Hippolytus (recently discovered in an Arabic translation) says
that they were " Judaisers from Jerusalem," and certainly no such agents
were at work so late as A.D. 95.

242 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY.
Nicolaitans, and the teaching of Balaam, who taught
Balak to cast a stumbling-block before the children of
Israel, to eat things offered to idols, and to commit
fornication." The Angel of the Church of Thyatira
is blamed for " suffering the woman Jezebel1 to seduce
my servants to commit fornication, and to eat things
sacrificed to idols." The Angel of the Church of Phila
delphia is promised the victory "over the synagogue
of Satan, of them which say they are Jews and they
are not, but do lie."
Little is known about the special characteristics
of the heresies here alluded to. It would hardly be
necessary to notice the wild guesses respecting them
but for the increasing confidence of the assertion that
these expressions are aimed. at St. Paul or his followers.
St. Paul is supposed to be the chief of the heresiarchs,
and the leader of those who falsely claimed to be
Apostles.2 In other words, we are to believe that the
virtue of the Ephesian Church consisted in castirig
forth the doctrines and adherents of its glorious
founder — of the Apostle who had there faced martyr
dom, who had there "fought with beasts," who had
won the passionate affection of the first presbyters, who
had toiled there with infinite devotion for more than
two years, admonishing them night and day with
tears, and with his own hands ministering to their
necessities. The whole theory is monstrous. The
1 Or, " thy wife Jezebel," A, B, g, Andreas, &c. Dean Blakesley pre
cariously identifies Jezebel with the Hebrew sibyl Sambetha, who was
worshipped at Thyatira (Smith's Diet. Bibl. s. v. Thyatira). If "thy
wife " be the true reading, it presents a curious parallel to the state of
the Philippian Church in the days of Polycarp. In his letter to the
Philippians (ch. xi.), he speaks of the wife of one of the Presbyters, named
Valens, who was guilty of much the same wickedness as this " Jezebel."
2 See Volkmar, Commentar zur Offenb. pp. 79, seqq.

THE TWELVE APOSTLES. 243
tone of deep respect in which the Asiatics Polycarp
and Irenseus speak of St. Paul is alone sufficient to
overthrow it. St. Paul himself had warned his
Churches against " false Apostles." They did not, of
course, pretend to be of the number of the Twelve ;
neither did St. Paul. The notion that St. John
jealously excludes St. Paul by saying that on the
Twelve foundation stones of the New Jerusalem were
the names of the " Twelve Apostles of the Lamb," is
the idlest extravagance. St. Paul's Apostolate was
neither from men, nor by means of men. Unless
the calm and definite testimony of St. Luke is to
be set aside for the fictions of nameless heretics,
the Twelve, and St. John among them, had ex
pressly sanctioned St. Paul's Apostolic claim, had
given him their right hands of fellowship, had recog
nised his equality, had found no fault with his
teaching, had sanctioned his independence in his own
wide sphere of toil, had even appealed to him for
sympathy and assistance in the support of their poor.
Polycarp was the hearer and devoted admirer of St.
John. If St. John had been actuated by a fanatical
horror of St. Paul's teaching, would Polycarp have
spoken of the Apostle as "the blessed and glorious
Paul?"1 As for the Nicolaitans, we know of no excuse for
regarding them as Paulinists, even if we admit the
absurd notion that Nikolaos, which means " conquering
the people," is a Greek translation of Bileam, which is
precariously rendered "corrupting the people."2 The
conduct of Balaam, and the traditional teaching of the
1 Polyc. Ep. ad Philip. 3.
2 Gesenius and Fiirst explain the name to mean ' Not of the People,"
?2

244 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY.
Deacon Nicolas,1 would have been at least as abhorrent
to St. Paul as to St. John. He has himself again and
again denounced such impure and Antinomian tenets,
in language as powerful as and more profoundly reasoned
than that of the Apocalypse. He has even drawn the
same warning illustration from the example of Balaam.2
To say that in any sense, literal or allegorical, he or
any one of his genuine followers ever seduced Chris
tians to fornication, whether in the form of tampering
with idolatry, or thinking lightly of uncleanness, is to
affix a wanton calumny on one of the purest of the
saints of God. If it be true that any Christians
distorted to their own perdition, or to that of others,
his doctrme of Christian liberty, he was himself the
first to utter his warning against such perversions.
Nor did he, directly or indirectly, induce men to eat
" meat offered to idols." In cases where the conscience
was in no way wounded by doing so — in the instance
of those who were firmly convinced that an idol is
nothing in the world — where the meat was innocently
bought in the open market, or eaten in the ordinary
intercourse of social life — in those carefully limited
i.e., a foreigner. Vitringa makes it mean " lord of," and Simonis " destruc
tion of the people." In no sense is it an equivalent of Nikolaus.
1 On Nicolas, see my Life of St. Paul, i. 133. There is no absolute
proof that the heretic was the Deacon, but Irenaeus {Haer. i. 26 ; iii. 11) and
Hippolytus {Haer. vii. 36) supposed him to be so. Clemens of Alexandria
{Strom, ii. 20 ; iii. 4) tells a dubious story that when he was accused of
jealousy of his beautiful wife, he disproved the charge in a very strange
and unseemly way. He is the reputed author of the rule that " we must
abuse the flesh " {Sn Be? irapaxpyo-Bai ri) aapK.1), which might convey the
innocent meaning that stern self-denial was requisite to repress evil
passions. The verb was, however, capable of the meaning " use to the
full," and possibly some may have founded on this phrase the wicked
inference that criminal passion should be cured by unlimited indulgence.
See Ewald, Gesch. vii. 172. 2 1 Cor. x. 7, 8.

SUPPOSED ATTACKS ON ST. PAUL. 245
circumstances he had taught, and rightly taught, that
the matter was one of pure indifference. If in saying
" I will lay on you none other burden," St. John meant
(as Renan says) that those had nothing to fear who
kept the concordat arranged at the Synod of Jerusalem
(Acts xv.), it is strange to overlook that this very con
cordat had only been won by the genius, the energy,
and the initiative of St. Paul. But so far from " cast
ing a stumbling-block " in the path of others, he had,
on the contrary, always maintained, as his Lord had
done before him,1 that the casting of stumbling-blocks
—-which he expressed by the very same word as
St. John — is the deadliest of crimes against Christian
charity,2 and that it would be better to eat no meat of
any kind while the world lasted than to cause a weak
brother to offend.
Again, to suppose that because St. John (Rev. ii. 24)
reflects severely on those who talked of " knowing the
depths of Satan" he must necessarily be uttering a
malignant sneer against St. Paul, who had spoken of
" the Spirit searching all things, yea, even the depths of
God,"3 is to use a style of criticism which builds
massive systems upon pillars of smoke. The utmost
which we could infer would be that false teachers
had distorted and parodied the expression of St. Paul.
The single grain of truth in the whole hypothesis is
that St. John speaks in a more sweeping and less
limited way than St. Paul about eating "meats
offered to idols." It was natural that it should be
so, both because St. John's Judaic training had given
1 Matt, xviii. 6, 8, 9 ; Mark ix. 43 — 47.
2 1 Cor. viii. 13 ; x. 32 ; 2 Cor. xi. 29 ; Rom. xiv. 21.
3 1 Cor. ii. 10 ; comp. Rom. xi. 33.

246 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY.
him a deeper instinctive horror of even the semblance
of participation in idolatry, and also because he was
writing at a later date and in days of persecution,
in which the act itself had acquired a more marked
significance. Had St. Paul been writing under the
same circumstances as St. John, he would have spoken
no less strongly on the sin of a cowardly conformity.
To eat of idol offerings in cases where no mistaken
inferences could be drawn from doing so, was perfectly
innocent ; but it became a very different thing to eat
of them in days, like those of the Neronian perse
cution or those of Justin Martyr, when to do so
meant to be indifferent to the sin of idolatry. This
attempt to represent the Apostles as actuated by a
burning animosity against each other, and a determi
nation to " write each other down," as though they
were contributors to modern religious newspapers, is a
total failure. It is time it were dismissed. When the
Apostles differed from each other — as we know, from the
Acts of the Apostles and the Epistle to the Galatians,
that they sometimes did — it was only in the spirit of
mutual respect and affection in which Luther differed
from Melancthon, and Bossuet from Fenelon.1
The false Jews, the false Apostles, the Nicolaitans,
the Balaamites, were immoral sectarians, whether Judaic
or anti-Judaic, against whom St. Paul had before
hand warned his Churches, very much as St. John has
done, and against whom every one of the sacred writers
has lifted up his voice. To admit that St. John could
have written such railing accusations against his
1 Luther, as a friend reminds me, is sometimes a little severe upon
" Philippismus,'' and Bossuet admitted that he had sometimes argued in
opposition to Fenelon without naming him.

THE TUBINGEN SCHOOL. 247
glorious brother Apostle, is to imply that he was un
worthy to be an Apostle, or a sacred writer at all.
It is to degrade him at once to the level of modern
partisans. The early Christians had not yet been
taught that religion consisted in breathing the atmo
sphere of faction, slanderousness, and hate. There were
some, even then, " who preached Christ of contention,
supposing to add affliction to St. Paul's bonds," and
they would have been well qualified to write anonymous
articles of unfair and unchristian depreciation. But
they incurred a stern censure from the lips of Christ's
Apostle. Such orthodoxy is heterodoxy ; such religion
is irreligion ; such Christianity is worse than heathen
dom, and is no Christianity at all.
We reach the culmination of these exegetic ab
surdities when we find Volkmar also identifying the
Second Wild Beast from the Land, and the False
Prophet of Rev. xiii. and xvii., with St. Paul !
Writers of the Tubingen School were so enchanted
with their discovery that the struggle between Jewish
and Pauline Christianity was longer and more perma
nent than had been supposed, that they exaggerated
the significance of the second century calumnies
against St. Paul. They forgot that the Clementines
were heretical, and that these Ebionite attacks were,
after all, subterranean and pseudonymous. As for
the grounds on which St. Paul is identified with the
False Prophet — namely, because in writing to the
Romans1 he taught loyal obedience to the powers that
be as being "ordained of. God"2 — Volkmar surely
forgets that the teaching of St. Paul on this subject
was the normal teaching of all the Apostles, of all
1 Rom', xiii. 1—7. 2 1 Pet. ii. 13, 14—17.

248 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY.
the early Christian Fathers and Apologists, nay, more,
of the Lord Jesus Himself. St. Peter — writing in
the days of Nero — writing, in all probability, during the
Neronian persecution, had not only said " Honour the
king," but even " Submit yourselves unto every ordi
nance of man for the Lord's sake, whether it be to the
king as supreme, or unto governors, as unto them that
are appointed by him for the punishment of evil doers,
and for the praise of them that do well." And as to
the Divine authority of heathen government, St. John
himself records in his Gospel how our Lord said to
Pilate, " Thou couldest have no power at all against
me, except it were given thee from above."1 Indeed,
such teaching was so obviously based on common sense
and common duty, that even after the destruction of
Jerusalem — even in the days when detestation of the
Gentiles had been reduced to something like a system
— Rabbi Chanina used to say, " Pray for the established
government, for, but for it, men would devour each
other."2 SECTION II.
THE SEALS.
After the letters to the Seven Churches begins the
more definitely Apocalyptic portion of the book. The
Apostle hears a voice bidding him ascend to heaven, and
see things which must come to pass after these things.
Instantly, in an ecstasy, he sees a throne in heaven, en
circled by an emerald rainbow, whereon was seated One
whose lustre was as a jasper and a sardine. Round the
throne were twenty-four enthroned elders, representing
1 John xix. 11. 2 Mechilta on Exod. xix. 1.

THE FIRST SEAL. 249
the Patriarchs of the redeemed Church of both dispensa
tions, arrayed in white and crowned with gold. Out
of the throne came an incessant rolling of thunders and
voices, and a stream of lightnings; and before it there
burned, as with the flame of seven lamps, the sevenfold
Spirit of God. Before the Throne flowed a glassy sea
of crystal brightness, and about it were the fourfold
cherubim, six-winged and full of eyes, symbols of all
that is most perfect in creation, hymning the perpetual
Trisagion, and joining in the endless liturgy of prayer
and praise. On the right hand of Him who sat on the
throne was a book, seven -sealed, and written within and
without. In answer to the appeal of an angel none
is found worthy to open the book but the Lion of the
Tribe of Judah, who is also the Lamb that was slain.
When He has taken the book there is a fresh outburst
of universal triumph and blessing, in which even those
join who are "under the earth."1
i. The Lamb opens one of the seven seals, and one
of the Immortalities cries with a voice of thunder,
"Come!" Instantly there springs forth a white horse, bearing
a rider with a bow in his hand, to whom a crown is
given, and who goes forth conquering and to conquer.
It is a symbol of the Messiah riding forth to victory,
but armed only with a bow to smite his enemies, not as
yet in close conflict, but from afar.2
But the coming of the Messiah was to be ushered
1 Verse 13, comp. Phil. ii. 10. With the vague numbers of the num
berless multitude comp. Dan. vii. 10.
2 Comp. xix. 11. Both Victorinus, in his commentary, and Tertullian
{de Cor. Mil. 15) understand the Rider of the White Horse to be Christ.
The white horse is a sign of victory (Virg. Mn. iii. 537). The symbol of
the bow is, perhaps, derived from Pss. vii. 13, xiv. 6.

250 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY.
in by the woes which are the travail-pangs of a new
dispensation. ii. The Lamb opens the Second Seal, and the second
Immortality cries " Come ! "
Instantly a fiery horse — a horse red as blood1 — leaps
forth, whose rider is armed with a great sword. It is
the symbol of War. To him it is given to take peace
from the earth, and that — as in the fierce conflicts
between Otho and Vitellius, between Vitellius and
Vespasian, between the Jews and the Romans, between
John of Giscala and Simon — men should slay one
another in internecine and civil discord. It was an
epoch of wars and massacres. There had been massacres
in Alexandria ; massacres at Seleucia ; massacres at
Jamnia; massacres at Damascus; massacres at Csesarea;
massacres at Bedriacum. There had been wars in
Britain, wars in Armenia, wars in Gaul, wars in Italy,
wars in Arabia, wars in Parthia, wars in Judea. Dis
banded soldiers and marauding troops filled the world
with rapine, terror, and massacre. The world was like
an Aceldama, or field of blood. The red horse and
its rider are but a visible image of the words of our
Lord — " For nation shall rise against nation, and king
dom against kingdom; " and "Ye shall hear of wars
and rumours of wars, which things are the beginning
of the birth-throes."2
iii. The Lamb opens the Third Seal, and the third
Immortality utters the word " Come ! "
Instantly a black horse leaps forth. Its rider is
1 2 Kings iii. 22, irvfrpa. Sis alpa.
2 Matt. xxiv. 4, 7. For corroborative authorities see Jos. Antt. xviii.
9, § 9 ; xix. 1, § 2 ; B. J. ii. 17 ; x. 18 (where he says that " a terrible
disturbance prevailed throughout Syria, and every city had been divided
into two camps ") ; Tacitus and Suetonius passim.

THE THIRD SEAL. 251
unarmed, but holds in his hand a balance ; and by way
of explanation a voice is heard from among the four
Immortalities saying, "A chcenix of wheat for a
denarius, and three of barley for a denarius." The
rider is Famine. A chcenix was less than a quart,
and was the minimum allowance for a day's food,1 yet
it was to cost a whole day's wages ; 2 and a third of the
same price was to be given for even so coarse a grain
as barley — a food to which Roman soldiers were only
degraded by way of punishment. Thus wheat and
barley were to rise to twenty times their usual price,
to the infinite distress of men.
"He calls for Famine, and the eager fiend
Blows poisonous mildew from his shrivelled lips,
And taints the golden ear." 3
It was an epoch of constant famines. The de
pendence of Rome and Italy upon Alexandria for corn
caused bitter and constant distress. In the reign of
Claudius the famine and its accompanying prodigies
had been deemed an omen, and only fifteen days' food
had been left in Rome.4 About this very time, a.d. 68 —
in the midst of Nero's impotent buffooneries — the people,
already burdened by famine prices, were nearly mad
dened by the discovery that a ship from Alexandria,
which had been mistaken for one of the famous wheat-
ships, had a lading of sand with which to strew the
amphitheatre.5 The overflow of the Tiber, early in the
1 Herod, vii. 187 ; Diog. Laert. viii. 18.
2 Matt. xx. 2 ; xxiv. 7 ; Mark xiii. 7 ; Tac. Ann. i. 1. In Sicily, in the
day of Cicero, twelve chcenixes of wheat could be bought for a denarius
(Cic. Verr. iii. 81), and therefore thirty-six of barley. 3 Cowper.
4 Tac. Ann. xii. 43 : " frugum egestas et orta ex eo fames." Suet.
Claud. 18, " assiduae sterilitates." (Comp. Jos. Antt. iii. 15, § 3.)
6 Suet. Ner. 46.

252 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY.
reign of Otho, caused, as Tacitus says, famine among the
common people, and a scarcity of the commonest
elements of life.1 It was the deliberate object of
Vespasian to cause famine and dissensions at Rome by
stopping the supplies of provisions, nor did he let the
corn-ships sail till only ten days' supply was left in the
city.2 In Jerusalem, during the final state of siege which
was now rapidly approaching, the anguish and horror of
the famine were unspeakable. Josephus tells us that
many sold their all for a single chcenix of wheat if they
were rich, of barley if they were poor, and shut them
selves up in the inmost recesses of their houses to eat it
raw ; and that many had to undergo unspeakable tortures
to make them confess that they had but one loaf of
bread, or so much as a handful of barley meal.3 Terribly
— both in Italy and in Judsea — did the fearful rider of
the black horse do his appointed work ! He is a visible
symbol of the Lord's words — •" There shall be famines
. in divers places."4
But the third Immortality added the strange words,
" And the oil and the wine hurt thou not." Oil and
wine are not necessaries but luxuries. It is as though
he had said, "In the wild anguish of famine let their
pangs be aggravated by having the needless accessories
of abundance." So it was — strange to say — in both
the places on which the Seer's eye is mainly fixed,
Jerusalem and Rome. In Jerusalem, while myriads
were starving, John of Giscala and his Zealots had
access to the sacred stores of wine and oil in the Temple,
and wasted it with reckless extravagance,5 and Simon's
1 Tac. H. i. 86 : " fames in volgus, inopia quaestus, et penuria
alimentorum " (Suet. Otho, 8). 2 Tac. H. iii. 48 ; iv. 52.
3 Jos. R. J. v. 10, § 2. 4 Matt. xxiv. 7.
6 Jos. B. J. v. 13, §6; 1, §4.

THE FOURTH SEAL. 253
followers were even hindered from fighting by their
perpetual drunkenness. In Rome immense abundance
of wine was a frequent concomitant of extreme scarcity
of corn. So marked was the evil, that Domitian en
deavoured to secure by edict the diminution of the
vinelands, and the devotion of wider areas to the
cultivation of cereals for human food.1
iv. The Lamb opens the Fourth Seal. The fourth
Immortality utters his solemn " Come ! "
Instantly a livid horse leaps forth. His rider is
Death ; and Hades follows to receive the prey. They
usher in a crowd of calamities over a quarter of the
earth— sword, and famine, and pestilence, and wild
beasts. Sword and famine had done part of their
work; pestilence and the increase of wild beasts
naturally follow them. God's four sore judgments
usually go hand in hand.2 Christ had already said of
these days that there should be famines and pestilences,
as well as wars and rumours of wars. Apart from the
inevitable prevalence of wild beasts in places where the
inhabitants are thinned and weakened by calamity, an
incredible number of human beings were yearly sacri
ficed to wild beasts in the bloody shows of the amphi
theatres, not only at Rome but throughout all the
provinces. Lions and tigers were literally fed with
men.3 A pestilence at Rome carried off 30,000 in a
single year.4 At Jerusalem there was from these com-
1 Suet. Dom. 7.
2 Ezek. xiv. 21 ; Matt. xxiv. 6, 8 ; Mark xiii. 7, 8.
3 Hence one of the wild plans of revenge which chased each other
across the brain of Nero on his last day of life, was to let loose upon
the people the wild beasts of the amphitheatre. Suet. Ner. 43 : " urbem
incendere feris in populum immissis."
4 Suet. Ner. 39 ; Tac. Ann. xvi. 13.

254 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY.
bined causes " a glut of mortality " almost incredible.
It was calculated that upwards of a million perished in
the siege, and Mannseus, son of Lazarus, told Titus
that even before the Romans encamped under the
walls, he had seen 115,880 corpses carried through
one single gate.1
v. The Lamb opens the Fifth Seal.
Immediately under the golden altar of incense
before the throne, are seen the souls of the " great mul
titude " who had perished " for the word of God and
for the testimony which they held,"2 some at Jerusalem,
some in the provinces, but most of all in the Neronian
persecution at Rome. They are impatiently appealing
for vengeance and judgment.3 Hero after hero had
fallen in the Christian warfare. Apostle after Apostle
had been sent to his dreadful martyrdom. St. Peter
had been crucified ; St. Paul beheaded ; St. James the
Elder beheaded; St. James, the Bishop of Jerusalem,
hurled down and beaten to death ; hundreds of others
burnt, or tortured, or torn to pieces in the gardens of
Nero and in the Roman circus ; yet no Deliverer flashed
from the morning clouds. How long, oh Lord, how
long ! When all the world is arrayed against Thy saints,
must not deliverance assume the inevitable guise of
temporal vengeance ? — White robes are given them, and
they are bidden to wait till the number of the martyrs
is complete, till their brethren who are still on earth
1 See Jos. B. J. v. 12, § 3; 13, § 7.
2 Rev. vi. 9 ; vii. 13 ; xvii. 6 ; xx. 4.
3 This has been variously excused by different commentators. " Non
haec odio inimicorum," says Bede, " pro quibus in hoc saeculo rogav-
erunt, orant, sed amore aequitatis." Bengel explains their impatience
as zeal for the truth and holiness of the Lord (comp. Ps. Ixxiv. 19 ; Luke
xviii. 7, 8).

THE FIFTH AND SIXTH SEALS. 255
shall have fulfilled their course.1 They are those of
whom Christ had prophesied when he said " Then " —
after the " beginning of sorrows " — " shall they deliver
you up to be afflicted, and shall kill you." The time
had come for judgment to begin at the throne of
God. Meanwhile the fire of olden prophecy was re
kindled for their inspiration, and they found that the
more they were trodden down the more did they feel
the conviction ot glorious triumph, and the exultation
of inward peace. They who have an invisible King
to sustain them, and a John to utter His messages,
may brave the banded forces of secular despotism and
religious hatred — and may stand undismayed between
a Zealot-maddened Jerusalem and a Neronian Rome.
If the judgment began with Christians, what should
be the end of those who obeyed not the Gospel of
God?2 vi. The Lamb opens the Sixth Seal.
Instantly there are all the signs which usher in a
Day of the Lord. The darkened sun, the lurid moon,
the showers of meteors, the shrivelling heavens, the
terror with which men call on the rocks and mountains
to fall on them and hide them, are the metaphors of
vast earthly changes and catastrophes. At first sight
it might well seem as if they could describe nothing
short of the final conflagration and ruin of the globe.
But there is not one of these metaphors which is not
found in the Old Testament Prophets,3 and in them
1 Comp. Enoch civ. 1 — 3 . " Ye righteous, . . . your cries have cried for
vengeance . . . wait with patient hope." See too Gen. iv. 10; Job xvi.,
xix. ; Is. xxvi. 21 ; 2 Esdras xv. 8, etc.
2 1 Pet. iv. 17.
3 See Is. ii. 12, 19 ; xiii. 10 ; xxxiv. 3, 4 ; 1. 3 ; lxiii. 4 ; Jer. iv. 23—26 ;
Ezek. xxxii. 7, 8; Joel ii. 10, 31; iii. 4, 15; Hos. x. 8; Nah. i. 6; Mai.

256 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY.
they refer in every instance to the destruction of cities
and the establishment of new covenants, or to other
earthly revolutions. Not only had our Lord adopted
these vivid Oriental symbols to describe the signs of
His Coming in the fall of Jerusalem, and the close of
the old seon, but he had expressly said that " this gene
ration shall not pass away until all these things be ful
filled."1 It is clear, therefore — as nearly every school
of interpreters has seen — that they are but a descrip
tion, in the language of Eastern poetry and metaphor,
of an age terrified alike by political crises and physical
calamities. Such a description accords -exactly with
the reality. In the sudden collapse of the deified line
of the Julii, who had governed them for four genera
tions, the Romans saw an omen which seemed to
threaten the world with destruction.2 There reigned
everywhere a universal terror.3 Throughout the length
and breadth of the Roman Empire, but most of all in
Judsea, in the midst of the violent revolutionary move
ments which marked the day, men's hearts were failing
them for fear.4
vii. Then, before the opening of the Seventh Seal,
there is a pause. The Angels of the winds had been
bidden to prevent their ravages5 until the servants of
iii. 2, etc. The extent to which the Apostle borrows the phrases of the
Old Testament may be seen by taking Rev. i. 12 — 17, and comparing it
phrase by phrase with Zech. iv. 2 ; Dan. vii. 13 ; x. 5 ; vii. 9 ; x. 6, 11, 12 ;
Is. xlix. 2 ; Ezek. xliii. 2.
1 Matt. xxiv. 29—34. 3 See Tac. H. i. 11. 3 Luke xxiii. 36.
4 Here, if any one believes that the Apocalyptic symbols are infi
nitely plastic, he may hold with Godet that the seals foreshadow " all
the wars, all the famines, all the persecutions, all the earthquakes, etc.,
which the earth has seen or will see until the last scene for which the
trumpets give the signal."
6 Among other things they are forbidden " to hurt any tree," vii. 1
(comp. ix. 4). The Jews felt deeply the destruction of all the trees in the

THE SEALING. 257
God are sealed upon their foreheads by the Angel from
the sunrising. The seal is doubtless the cross of
baptism, just as in Ezekiel (ix. 4, 6) those alone are to
be spared from slaughter who have "the sign Thau,"
— that is the cross — upon their foreheads.1 A purely
ideal number are sealed — namely, twelve times twelve
thousand — twelve thousand from each of the twelve
tribes. The tribe of Dan is alone omitted, probably
because it had almost disappeared from the annals of
Israel.2 Besides these, the seer beheld an innumerable
multitude of every nation, and all tribes and peoples and
tongues arrayed in white and with palms in their hands.
One of the elders tells him3 that these are they who
came " out of the great tribulation " — that is, the Nero
nian persecution — and have washed their robes and
made them white in the blood of the Lamb. The whole
company are "the elect gathered together from the
four winds, from one end of heaven to the other." 4 The
144,000 seem to represent the ideal Israel. The " num
berless multitude," which is almost the identical expres
sion used of the Neronian martyrs alike by Tacitus and
by Clemens Romanus,5 are those who have died for the
neighbourhood of Jerusalem during the Jewish war. Rabbi Yochanan
said, " The Holy One— blessed be He ! — will in future replace every
acacia which the heathen have taken away from Jerusalem." He supported
this by Is. xii. 19, saying that " the wilderness " (Is. lxiv. 10) was meant
to indicate Jerusalem (Rosh Hashanah, f . 23, a).
1 The ancient form of the letter Thau was +
2 It is not worth while to repeat all the idle conjectures about this
point. The Targum of Jonathan on Ex. xvii. 8 represents Dan as " a sinner
from the beginning " — a tribe thoroughly idolatrous (see Ewald, Gesch. i.
490). Simeon is omitted in Deut. xxxiii, and Dan in 1 Chron. iv. After
1 Chron. xxviii. 22 it is not mentioned. Levi is here counted as one of the
tribes, because all the Lord's true people are now priests.
3 Cf. Zech. iv. 4, 5.
4 Matt. xxiv. 31. 6 ix^os vo\hs, " ingens multitudo.''

258 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY.
truth of Christ, whose souls St. John has already seen
in shadowy throngs beneath the altar.
viii. We still await in dread expectation the opening
of the Seventh Seal. But when it is opened there is a
pause of terrified astonishment, a silence for half an hour
in Heaven, as though the dwellers in Heaven drew their
breath in anguish of expectation. It is like the awful
pause before the hurricane, when we hear " the destroy
ing Angels murmuring together as they draw their
swords in the distance," and " the questioning in ter
rified stillness of the forest leaves which way the wind
shall come." For hitherto the judgments of the earth
have only been seen in Heaven by the shadowy images
of those who went forth for their accomplishment ; but
now are to be seen the very judgments themselves.
There are seven Angels l —
" the Seven
Who in God's presence, nearest to His throne
Stand ready at command, and are His eyes
That run through all the Heavens, and down to the earth
Bear His swift errands."
To these Angels are given seven Trumpets to blow the
signals of doom.2 The results that follow the blast of
their seven trumpets practically form the issue of the
breaking of the seventh Seal. But the troubles which
follow are neither definite, nor continuous, nor rigidly
historical. They closely resemble those which have
followed at the opening of the sixth Seal, only that these
trumpet calamities affect a third, and not a fourth, part
1 See Tobit xii. 15 ; Dan. x. 13 ; Zech. iv. 10. The names are given
differently in the Book of Enoch, the Targum of Jonathan, and other
sources (see Gfrorer, Jahrb. d. Heils. i. 361).
2 Comp. 1 Cor. xv. 52; 4 Esdr. v. 3; Matt. xxiv. 31.

THE TRUMPETS. 259
of the earth.1 They indicate the widening spread and
deepening intensity of judgment; and although it is
not possible to point out in chronological sequence the
exact events which they describe in hyperbolic sym
bolism, they resemble those signs in the sun, the moon,
the stars, and the sea by which the Lord on the Mount
of Olives had shadowed forth the troubles of the ap
proaching end. The language is also coloured by
reminiscences of the Plagues of Egypt.2 Further, it
must be borne in mind that to the eye of the seer the
outlines of time are indistinct, and there is a com
mingling of the events of the present and the immediate
past with those of the instantly anticipated future. The
repetition of the vision of judgment in various forms is
one of the recognised Hebrew methods of expressing
their certainty. The same general calamities are indi
cated by diverse symbols. Let it not be supposed that
there is anything novel in this view. On the contrary,
it is found as far back as the close of the third century,
in the most ancient of all the extant Scholia on the
Apocalypse — those by St. Victorinus of Pettau, who
was martyred in the days of Diocletian.3 He regards
the visions as mainly retrogressive and iterative. " The
phials," he says, " are a supplement of what he said of
the trumpets. We must not regard the mere order
of the statements, for the Holy Spirit, after he has

1 The " third part " is evidently a general expression, as in Zech. xiii.
9. It probably indicates the Roman Empire (ix. 18 ; xii. 4).
2 See Luke xxi. 25.
3 See Aug. De Civ. Dei, xx. 14. So too Andreas, Corn, a Lapide,
Vitringa, Bengel, and many commentators of, all schools, including
writers so unlike each other as Bossuet, Ewald, De Wette, and ReUss,
on the one hand, and Elliott, Wordsworth, and Hengstenberg, on the
other.
r 2

260 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY.
advanced to the end of the latest time, often returns to
the same time again, and supplies all which was before
partially stated." And just before this passage, he says,
" that though the seer repeats by the vials (what had
been implied by the trumpets) this does not imply a
repetition of the fact, but is a twofold statement of a
single decreed event." There is fair reason to suppose
that Victorinus derived this valuable, and by no means
obvious, principle of interpretation from early, and
perhaps from Apostolic tradition.
SECTION III.
THE TRUMPETS.
Before the seven Angels sound, another Angel,
standing at the altar, mixes abundant incense in a golden
censer with the prayers of the saints. Some at least of
these prayers are represented as having been a unani
mous cry for speedy vengeance. In answer to these,
the Angel takes the censer, fills it with fire from the
altar, and hurls it upon the earth, which echoes back
its crashing fall in thunderings, lightnings, voices,
and earthquakes. Such thunderings and Hghtnings
and earthquakes were, according to Tacitus and Sue
tonius, characteristic of the epoch. I have already
quoted the solemn language in which Tacitus sum
marises the manifold calamities of this very period.1
Speaking of the day on which Galba adopted Piso
— Jan. 10, a.d. 69 — he says that the day was foul
with rain-storms, and disturbed beyond natural wont
with thunders, lightnings, and the threats of heaven" 2 —
1 Tac. H. i. 3. It had long been customary to connect such phenomena
with political events (Cic. De Div. i. 18 ; Suet. Aug. 94).
2 Tac. H. i. 18.

THE FIRST TRUMPET. 261
omens which he blames Galba for neglecting. Speaking
a few years earlier, he observes that " never had the
storms of lightning flashed with more frequent violence;"1
and this he mentions among the prodigies which were
the indication of imminent calamities. In Asia, where
St. John was writing, the era might well be called the
era of earthquakes. "Nowhere in the whole world,"
says Solinus, " are earthquakes so constant and cities so
frequently overthrown." They are referred to again and
again by all the writers and historians of the age.2
i. Then the first Angel sounded. Hail followed, and
fire mingled with blood, and a third part of the surface
of the earth, with its grass and trees, was scorched up.3
They are but the beginning of the worse hail (xvi. 21)
and fire (xx. 9) and blood (xiv. 20) which are to follow.
They point to years of burning drought and rains of
blood,* and to disastrous conflagrations, such as those
at Lyons, Rome, and Jerusalem, and to fierce storms of
hail — such as so often destroy in a few hours the vine
yards of Lombardy — and to scenes of human bloodshed.
1 Tac. Ann. xv. 47.
2 Dion Cass. lxvi. 23—24; Jos. Antt. xv. 5, § 2; B.J. 1. 19, § 3; iv.
4, § 5 ; Tac. Ann. ii. 47 ; iv. 13 ; xii. 43—58 ; xiv. 27 ; Sen. Qu. Nat. vi.
1 ; Suet. Tib. 74, Ner. 20 ; Juv. Sat. vi. 411 ; Carm. Sib. iii. 471 ; Strabo,
xii. 8, § 16, &c. Seneca exclaims, " How often have the cities of Asia,
how often those of Achaia, fallen by one shock ! How many towns in
Syria, how many in Macedonia, have been devoured ! . . . . Often have
the ruins of whole cities been announced to us " {Ep. 91).
3 See Ex. ix. 22 ; Joel ii. 3. The reference to the destruction of trees
in the Apocalypse may be due to the terrible destruction of the trees and
the vegetation of Palestine in the Jewish war, especially round Jerusalem ;
a destruction from which it has never recovered. The "third part" may,
as we have seen, vaguely correspond to the Roman Empire.
4 Liv. xxxix. 46 ; and often mentioned among Roman portents. Dion
Cassius (lxiii. 26) mentions such a rain in a.d. 68, and says that " the
blood " — really a natural phenomena, which happened at Naples so late as
1869 — discoloured even the streams.

262 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY.
And we must once more remind the reader that these
storms and prodigies, so far from being peculiar to the
Apocalypse, or understood in a peculiar significance, are
referred to in very similar terms and explained in a very
similar way by other Christian, heathen, and Jewish
writers. Speaking of the earthquake of a.d. 63, Dion
Cassius, reflecting the impression of contemporaries,
calls it the " greatest that had ever happened." Can we
be surprised if, in a book which reads like a hundred
fold reverberation of older prophecies, the contemporary
phenomena are depicted in the same imagery as that
which had been used in their day by the Prophets of
Judah and Israel to describe the calamities which were
then happening before their eyes ? Is the language of
St. John about contemporary calamities anything like
so hyperbolical as that in which the Prophet Joel had
described the ravages produced by a plague of locusts ?
It is only to the tamer and colder imagination of
Teutonic races that such terms sound hyperbolical if
applied to anything short of the final consummation.
ii. The second Angel sounds, and something which
resembles a burning mountain is flung down into the sea,
and the third part of the sea is turned into blood, and
the third part of the fish die, and the third part of the
ships is destroyed. The image is original. St. John
may have derived this terrific picture of " a burning
mountain cast into the sea " either from seeing the lurid
flashes that leap up night and day from the cone of
Stromboli, which he may have passed in a voyage to
Rome, or more probably from seeing on the horizon,
as he gazed from Patmos, the dense smoke vomited from
the burning island-mountain of Thera, the modern San-
torin. The notion of seas and rivers turned into blood

THE SECOND TRUMPET. 263
by way of punishing the guilty is well known to the
imagery of the Prophets and Apocryphal writers.1 The
language is obviously that of daring symbolism. Taken
literally, the fall of the burning mountain resembles no
event ever seen or known in the history of the world.
Taken metaphorically, it may be meant to depict great
calamities connected with the sea and ships, deaths by
drowning and massacre which " incarnadined the multi
tudinous seas." The times of Nero furnished abundant
instances. Such were the inundation which devastated
the coasts of Lydia, and the destruction of fleets, and the
waves reddened with the blood of men, as at Joppa, and
on the coasts of the Dead Sea, and on the Lake of Gali
lee. At Joppa, " the sea was bloody a long way, and
the maritime parts were full of dead bodies ; and the
number of bodies that were thus thrown out of the sea
was four thousand two hundred."2 At Tarichese "one
might see the Lake of Galilee all bloody, and full of dead
bodies . . . and the shores were full of shipwrecks and
of dead bodies all swelled, and as the dead bodies were
inflamed by the sun they putrefied and corrupted the air,
insomuch that the misery was not only an object of com
miseration to the Jews, but to those that hated them and
had been the authors of that misery . . . and the
number of the slain was six thousand five hundred." 3
Considering, however, that in no age of the Church has
there been any accepted identification of the scenes thus
pictured, it must always remain uncertain whether the
seer meant to point to any very definite events. His
object may have been to express in imaginative emblems
broad general circumstances and conditions of warning
and judgment.
1 Wisdom xi. 6, 7. 2 Jos. B. J. iii. 9, § 3. 3 Jos. B. J. iii. 10, § 9.

264 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY.
iii. The third Angel sounded, and a great star called
Absinth " fell upon the third part of the world's waters,
and made them so bitter that men died of them." Here
again we are in the abstract region of apocalyptical
imagination tinged by reminiscences of the Plagues of
Egypt. Alike the result and the agency by which it
is accomplished are indefinite. As stars are the images
of rulers, and fallen stars of rulers flung down from
heaven,1 the symbol may dimly express the bitterness
and terror caused by the overthrow of Nero and the
ominous failure of the Julian line. The details of the
image may have been suggested by the wicked habit of
poisoning the waters of which an enemy was to drink.
The Romans excused their cruelty at Jerusalem by
asserting that the springs and fountains had been
poisoned by the Jews.2
iv. The fourth Angel sounded, and the third part of
the sun and moon and stars, and day and night are
smitten ; 3 in other words — in accordance with the recog
nised imagery of Apocalypse and Prophecy — ruler after
ruler, chieftain after chieftain of the Roman Empire and
the Jewish nation was assassinated and ruined. Gaius,
Claudius, Nero, Galba, Otho, Vitellius, all died by murder
or suicide ; Herod the Great, Herod Antipas, Herod
Agrippa, and most of the Herodian Princes, together
with not a few of the leading High Priests of Jerusalem,
1 " How art thou fallen from heaven, oh Lucifer, Son of the Morning !"
(Is. xiv. 12).
2 As a specimen of the strange diversities of interpreters, I may
mention that Bede understands the fallen star of heretics generally;
N. de Lyra applies it to Arius and Macedonius ; Luther thinks that it
represents  Origen ! Mede understands it of Romulus Augustulus ;
Grotius of " that Egyptian " ; Herder of the Zealot Eleazar ; others of
Gregory the Great !
3 Matt. xxiv. 29.

THE FIFTH TRUMPET. 265
perished in disgrace, or in exile, or by violent hands. All
these were quenched suns and darkened stars. It must
be again borne in mind that all the events thus sym
bolised are not meant to be consecutive. Although pro
gressive, they are analogous to, or even identical with,
those already described. The plagues of the trumpets are
but the deadlier form of the plagues indicated by the
seals ; and in the vials the same woes reach their consum
mation. So far, therefore, as the effects of the fourth
Trumpet are meant to be historical, and not a general
echo of our Lord's great discourse about the Last
Things, they allude, like those of the sixth Seal, to
political perils and revolutions in the Roman Empire,
which were the special characteristic of that epoch, and
of which every comet and every eclipse and every
unusual tempest was believed to be a threatening sign.1
v. The trumpets are broken into divisions of four and
three. To prepare for the remaining three, a single
eagle2 flies in the mid region of Heaven, screaming with
loud cry a triple " Woe ! " by reason of the Angel trum
pets which were yet to sound. The eagle denotes
carnage ;— " where the slain are there is she."3 The
massacres of these years stained, as we have seen, both
the land and sea. The furrows of earth were red with
slaughter ; the waves were dyed with blood.
The fifth Angel sounds, and a star falls to earth, to
whom is given the key of the abyss. He opens the
1 Stars are the well-understood Scripture symbol for persons in
authority (Gen. xxxvii. 9 ; Jer. iv. 23 ; Ezek. xxxii. 7, 8 ; Isa. xiii. 9, 10,
17). The symbol is a natural one. Similarly, Shakspere tells us how —
" Certain stars shot madly from their spheres
To hear the sea-maid's music."
j
2 Rev. viii. 13. evbs $erov, N, A, B, &c.
3 Hos. viii. 1.

266 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY.
abyss, and in the issuing smoke which dims the air
comes forth a host of scorpion-locusts, which are for
bidden to hurt the grass or green things or trees, but
are bidden, for a space of five months, to torment with
out killing all who have not the seal of God on their
forehead. These scorpion-locusts resemble war-horses,
with crowns like gold, with the face of men, the hair of
women, the teeth of lions ; they have breastplates as of
iron, and the sound of their wings is like the sound of
chariots, or of horses charging to battle. The anguish
they inflict makes men desire to die ; 1 and their king is
called Abaddon, Apollyon, or the Destroyer.
The fallen star may again be meant for Nero ; but
on the whole I agree with those who see in this vision
a purely demoniac host. The fallen star will then be
Satan, of whom the Lord said, " I saw Satan as light
ning fallen from heaven." 2 The abyss is pre-eminently
the abode of " demons."3 It is their speciality to cause
torment.4 They are as appropriately symbolised by scor
pion-locusts as by frogs.5 Christ had specially prophe
sied that " this wicked generation " should be more
grievously afflicted by demons. As time went on, Rome
and Jerusalem — the two places typically prominent in
the mind of the writer — were becoming more and more
" a habitation of demons, a hold of every unclean spirit,
a cage of every unclean and hateful bird." 6 In Rome
1 Jer. viii. 3 : " Death shall be chosen rather than life, by all them that
remain of this evil family."
2 Luke x. 18. The Book of Enoch is full of good and evil angels,
who are spoken of as stars (Enoch xviii. 13 ; xxi. 3, &c).
3 Luke viii. 31. 4 Matt. xv. 22.
6 Rev. xvi. 13. Renan may be right in saying that the notion of frogs
and locusts coming from the abyss, may have been partly suggested by the
actual phenomena of the Solfatara, or some similar district.
8 Rev. xviii. 2

THE DEMON-HOST. 267
the loose, disbanded soldiery and the scum of the forum
had degraded society to the lowest levels of infamy.
The city had become a foul pool, into which every
polluted river had poured its dregs. In Jerusalem,
according to the emphatic testimony of Josephus, never
since the beginning of the world had there been any
generation more prolific of wickedness. Stier says,
"that in the period between the Resurrection and the
Fall of Jerusalem the Jewish nation acted as if pos
sessed by seven thousand demons. The whole age had
upon it a stamp of the infernal." 1
Whether in this general picture of the host of hell
swarming out of the abyss, there is any direct allusion
to the Idumeans, Zealots, and Sicarii stinging themselves
to death with untold anguish, like scorpions encircled
by a ring of fire ;— or, again, to the tumults, bloodshed,
and agonies of Rome, the frequency of suicide, and the
many tales of those who seemed to long for death in
vain — cannot be affirmed. The description of the
scorpion-locusts evidently recalls the Egyptian Plague,
and the language of Joel, and the fanciful allusions to
locusts which abound in the songs and proverbs of the
East.2 The five months may. point to the summer
period, which is the time of locust plagues.3 But two
1 Reden Jesu, ii. 187.
2 Locusts are called " cavaletti" in Naples. Hermas {Vis. iv. 1) sees
" a great beast .... and fiery locusts coming out of his mouth," which
appears to be {Vis. iv. 3) "the type of the great tribulation which is to
come." Compare Claudian's description —
" Horret apex capitis ; medio fera lumina surgunt
Vertice ; cognatus dorso durescit amictus.
Armavit natura cutem dumique rubentes
Cuspidibus parvis multos acuere rubores." — {Epigr. xxxiii.)
3 Bochart, Hierozoie. ii. 495 ; Plin. H. N. ix. 50 : " latent quimis men-
sibus." If any one desires to see once more the endless guesses of inter-

268 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY.
circumstances seem to show that we are here dealing
not with human avengers but with invisible demons
of the air. One is that their leader is the Demon
Destroyer ; the other is that Christians, and Christians
only, are expressly exempted from their power to hurt.
vi. Two woes yet remain. A voice is heard from the
horns of the golden altar, bidding the sixth Angel loose
the four Angels which are bound at the great river
Euphrates,1 who were prepared for the due time, to slay
the third part of men. Immediately there ride forth
two hundred million horsemen, breathing fire and smoke,
on lion-headed steeds, armed with breastplates as of fire,
jacinth, and brimstone. With their flames and their
amphisbsena-stings they slay the third part of men ; —
and yet the rest do not repent.2
It is probable that the facts which loom large and
lurid through this blood-red mist of Apocalyptic sym
bols are the swarms of Orientals who gathered to the
destruction of Jerusalem in the train of Titus,3 and the
overwhelming Parthian host which was expected to
prefers, I may mention that Bede explains the " five months " of human
life, because we have five senses ; the scorpions are heretics. Vitringa
makes the five months mean 150 years — the time of Gothic domination.
Calovius explains them of the prevalence of Ariauism. Bengel makes
them mean 79y years — the time of the Jewish afflictions in Persia in the
sixth century. Hofmann refers to the five sins ; and Ziillig to the time
of the Deluge (Gen. vii. 24). Some consider that Apollyon meant
Napoleon. Bullinger explains the locusts of the monks ; Bellarmine of
the Protestants ; and so on. And this is "Exegesis !"
1 These four bound angels have never been explained. Some refer
them to the Angel princes of the Assyrians, Babylonians, Medes, and
Persians. Some to the four Roman stations on the Euphrates. Bound
angels would recall to St. John's readers the notion of evil spirits. Comp.
Tobit viii. 3; Matt. xii. 43—45.
Et gravis in geminum surgens caput amphisbaena" (Luc. Phars.
ix. 719). 3 Jos. B.J. iii. 1, §3; 4, § 2. Four kings — Antiochus, "Soheinus,

HOSTS OF HORSEMEN. 269
avenge the ruin of Nero. It was a popular belief that
he was still living ; that he had taken refuge in the
East ; or that in any case Tiridates, who greatly admired
him, or Vologeses, whose relations with him were very
amicable, would bring him back with a whirlwind of
triumphant horsemen.1 These great Eastern Empires
took deep and dangerous interest in the affairs of Rome.
" Vologeses, King of the Parthians," says Suetonius,
" had sent ambassadors to the Senate about the renewal
of amity, and earnestly made this further request, that
the memory of Nero should be held in honour. In my
youth, twenty years after, when a false Nero had arisen,
his name was so popular among the Parthians that
he, was strenuously assisted and with difficulty given
up." 2 Both Suetonius and Tacitus relate that Vologeses
offered to assist Vespasian with forty thousand mounted
archers.3 One of the circumstances which most deeply
aroused the indignation of Titus against the Jews was
that they had sent embassies for assistance to their kins
men beyond the Euphrates.4 In the Sibylline Oracles
and in the Ascension of Isaiah we find distinct and
repeated allusion to some expected catastrophe from the
realm of Parthia.5 The metaphor will then closely re-
Agrippa, and Malchus — contributed archers and horsemen. The latter,
who was an Arabian Prince, sent 5,000 archers and 1,000 cavalry.
1 See Suet. Nero, 13, 30, 47, 57; Carm. Sib. iv. 119—147; v. 93, and
passim; viii. 70, &c.
2 Comp. Tac. H. i. 2.
3 Tac. H. iv. 51 ; Suet; Vesp. 6.
4 Jos. B. J. vi. 6, § 2.
5 "Towards evening war will arise, and the great fugitive of Rome
(Nero) will raise the sword, and with many myriads of men ride through
the Euphrates" {Carm. Sib. iv. 116, seq.). In the fifth book of Sibylline
verses Nero is called " the dread serpent," who though vanished would
return, and give himseK out as God {Id. v. 93, and passim). Nero is the
" godless king," and murderer of his mother, of the Vision of Isaiah,

270 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY.
semble that of Jer. Ii. 27, " Cause the horses to come
up as rough caterpillars ; prepare against her the nations
with the Kings of the Medes." These vaticinations do
not belong in the least to the essence or heart of the
Apocalypse. They are but passing illustrations of the
great principles — the hopes and warnings — which it was
meant to inculcate. Warriors from the Euphrates had
their share in the siege of Jerusalem ; and though
Parthian horsemen did not sweep down from the East
at that time against pagan Rome, yet in due time
vengeance did fall on her, and in due time the count
less hosts which swarmed from beyond the Euphrates
may well be said to have destroyed a third of men, and
yet to have left the rest impenitent for their crimes. ,
SECTION IV.
AN EPISODE.
Then follows another pause.
A mighty Angel arrayed with cloud, and with a
rainbow encircling a sunlike face, descends from
Heaven. His feet are like pillars of fire, and he
sets one on the land and one on the sea.1 A little
open book is in his hand, and when he speaks in his
lion-voice seven thunders utter their voices. But the
seer is forbidden to write, and it is, therefore, absurd
who shall be destroyed after 1,335 days. Jerome, on Dan. i. 28, says
that many Christians expected the return of Nero as Antichrist.
1 Since, in xi. 3, he says, " I will give power to my witnesses," we may
perhaps see in this mighty Angel a representation of the Son of God.
The descriptions correspond with those of the first (i. 15) and fourth
Angel (iv. 3) ; see too Dan. xii. 1. Nic. de Lyra supposes that the Angel
is meant for the Emperor Justinian ; Luther, for the Pope ; and Bede,
for St. John himseK ! But it is worse than useless to record the vagaries
of Apocalyptic interpretation.

THE SEVEN THUNDERS. 271
to conjecture what they uttered. Then the Angel, lift
ing his right hand to Heaven, swears by the Almighty
Creator that no further time shall intervene, but that,
at the trumpet-blast of the seventh Angel, the mystery
of God shall be finished.1 The seer is bidden to take
the book and eat it. In his mouth it is sweet as honey;
in his belly it is bitter. He is then bidden to prophesy
again concerning many peoples, nations, tongues, and
kings. This magnificent episode tends to deepen and
heighten the expectation of what the seventh Trumpet
is to bring. The incident of eating the roll is also found
in Ezek. ii. 9 ; iii. 3,2 and the command to seal up the
" utterance " of the seven thunders resembles those
given to Daniel, in Dan. viii. 26; xii. 4 — 9. The
general meaning seems to be that much of the future is
to be left in deep mystery, and that the messages yet to
be delivered are of mingled import, sweet with consola
tions, yet bitter with awful judgments. The little book
is intended to contain the issues of the seventh Trumpet.
They are as yet undeveloped. Much of the vision hitherto
has referred to the past. It has explained the meaning
of the signs in the physical and political world which
pointed to the Coming Judgment. It has made clear
to believers that the woes which had shaken and were
still shaking the earth were the beginning of the Palin-
genesia. What the seer has now to foreshadow is the
Coming Dawn itself.
1 This is a reference to vi. 11, where the souls of the martyrs are
bidden to rest, " still a little time."
2 Comp. Jer. xv. 16, " Thy words were found, and I did eat them."
The contents of the roll were sweet in anticipation, because he had hoped
to read in them the perfect conversion of Jerusalem ; but were bitter
when their real import was known.

272 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY.
His first warning prophecies are addressed to the
Jews. The judgments of the first six Seals affect the
fourth part of all men alike — Christians, Jews, heathens.
Before the opening of the seventh Seal, the servants of
God — that is, all the members of the Christian Church —
are sealed upon their foreheads. The judgments of the
first six Trumpets affect, therefore, only the Jews and the
heathens. But now, before the actual sounding of the
seventh Trumpet, the Jews are won to God (xi. 13).
St. John, like St. Paul, sees that it is only " in part "
that " blindness hath befallen Israel," and only " until
the fulness of the Gentiles be come in." Consequently,
the judgments of the first six Vials, though they extend
over the whole earth, fall only upon the heathen. The
seventh Vial brings upon all the unconverted the final
judgment. So that before the seventh Trumpet sounds the seer
is bidden to measure the Temple, and altar, and wor
shippers with a measuring reed,1 exclusively of the court
which has been given over to the Gentiles, who are to
trample down the Holy City for forty-two months —
i.e., three and a half years.2 During these twelve hun
dred and sixty days, the Two Witnesses are to prophesy
in sackcloth. They resemble the two olive trees and the
two lamp-stands of the Temple.3 With fire from their
1 Ezek. xl. ; Zech. iv.
2 Dan. viii. 13 ; 1 Mace. iii. 45, 51 ; iv. 60 ; Luke xxi. 24. "Jerusalem
shall be trodden down of the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles be
fulfilled." The period 3| years, 42 months, or 1,260 days (the half of
seven years), is often found in Scripture in connexion with judgments.
Dan. vii. 25 (Antiochus Epiphanes rages for " a time, times, and half a
time ") ; ix. 27 (the oblation ceases for haK a week) ; xii. 7, 11 ;
comp. Luke xxi. 24; James v. 17 (time of drought at Elijah's
prayers). 3 Zech. ii. 3, 11.

THE WITNESSES. 273
mouth they can destroy their enemies.1 They can shut
up the Heavens and smite the earth with plague.
When their testimony is over, the Wild Beast out of the
abyss shall kill them. Their dead bodies shall lie for
three and a half days in the streets of Jerusalem, the
spiritual Sodom2 and Egypt, where their Lord was
crucified. Men of all nations shall rejoice over their
corpses,3 and will not suffer them to be buried.4 Then
the breath of life from God shall enter into them. To
the terror of all they shall stand upon their feet,5 and at
the bidding of a voice from Heaven shall ascend in cloud.
Then a great earthquake, in which seven thousand shall
perish, shall shake down a tenth of the city. The rest
of its inhabitants repent in their terror, and give glory
to the God of Heaven.
Every item of the symbolism, as will have been seen
from the references, is borrowed from ancient prophecy :
and yet neither in its details nor in its general import is
the vision clear. There neither is nor ever has been in
Christendom, in any age, or among any school of
interpreters, the smallest agreement, or even approach
to an agreement, as to the events which the seer had in
view. What is the object of the measuring ? Judging from
Ezekiel and Zechariah, we should say that it is for con
struction and preservation ; but in other passages the
1 2 Kings i. 10 ; Jer. v. 14; Ecclus. xlviii. 1. " Then stood up Elias
the Prophet as fire, and his word burned like a lamp."
2 Jerusalem (Sodom) ; Isa. i. 10 ; iii. 9 ; Jer. xxiii. 14 ; Ezek. xvi. 48,
49. There may be a passing allusion to the detestable crimes of the
Zealots, as recorded by Josephus, B. J. iv. 6, § 3.
3 Congratulations of the enemies of God. Heb. viii. 10, 12 ; Esth. ix.
19, 22.
4 1 Kings xiii. 22 ; Isa. xiv. 19; Tobit i. 17.
6 Ezek. xxxvii. 10.

274 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY.
" stretching out of a line," or " setting a plumbline," or
"measuring with aline," are emblems of punishment
or destruction.1 As both destruction and preservation
follow, the question is not easy to answer.
Again, is the seer now dealing with more or less
definite history, whether contemporary or impending, or
are the limits of past, present, and future obliterated in
illustrating the Divine principles of the Eternal Now ?
Again, does the vision refer to the actual Jerusalem,
or to Jerusalem as an emblem of the whole Jewish race ?
Once more, who are the Two Witnesses ? Were
there during the siege of Jerusalem, or during the
general epoch of its imminent doom, two witnesses for
God and for Christ, who in their characteristics recalled
Moses and Elijah? Or are Moses and Elijah themselves
symbolically described ? Was the seer thinking of St.
John the Baptist and our Lord ? 2 or of the two Christian
martyrs, James the son of Zebedee and James the Bishop
of Jerusalem? or of two Christian witnesses of whom no
history is recorded?3 or of the murder of men like Zecha-
riah, son of Berachiah ? or is he indeed only thinking of
Enoch and Elijah,4 according to the almost unanimous
tradition of the early Church ?5 Or, again, widening the
symbol of Jerusalem to apply to the whole Jewish and
1 Lam. ii. 7, 8 ; Isa. xxxiv. 11 ; Amos vii. 7—9 ; 2 Sam. viii. 2 ; 2 Kings
xxi. 12, 13.
2 Matt. xvii. 9—13. 3 Compare Rev. xi. 3 with Acts i. 8.
4 In the Gospel of Nicodemus, Enoch says of himseK and Elijah,
" We are to live until the end of the world ; and then we are to be sent
by God to resist Antichrist, and to be slain by him, and after three days
to rise again, and to be caught up in clouds to meet the Lord" (Gosp.
Nieod. ii. 9).
6 As preserved in the Commentary of Andreas, Bp. of Cffisarea in
Cappadocia (comp. Gospel of Nicodemus xxv.). The view derives some
sanction from Luke xvi. 31 ; and the Transfiguration, Matt. xvii. 3.

THE TWO WITNESSES. 275
Christian Church, is he thinking of St. James and St.
Peter ? or even of St. Peter and St. Paul as the two most
illustrious victims of the Neronian persecution? None
of these guesses are certain ; and perhaps the same may
be said of a solution which has sometimes occurred to me,
that the Two Witnesses represent Jewish and Gentile
converts to the Church. Is the description of their
unburied corpses and subsequent ascension a symbol of
the true fulfilment of their prophecies, the vindication
of the truths they taught, the posthumous honours paid
to their memories? Are we to understand the vision
literally, or ideally, or allegorically ? None can tell us ;
and who shall say ?
Lastly, in the earthquake and the overthrow of a
tenth part of the city, and the resultant terror and repen
tance, are we to see a picture of the anticipated results
from the rapidly approaching siege of Jerusalem, or do
they shadow forth the fate of the besieged, and the effect
of their awful judgment upon the minds of their co
religionists throughout the world ? x
These questions have never been satisfactorily
answered, and perhaps never will be. We must be
content to leave them in the half-light in which the
uncertainty of nineteen Christian centuries has left
them hitherto. There are no two writers of any
importance who even approximately agree in the
interpretation of the symbols. Those symbols were
probably coloured not only by the language of the
Old Testament, but by actual events in the siege.
Such, for instance, was the terrific storm, the bursts of
rain, the earthquake, "the amazing concussions and
1 Doubtless the imagery is coloured by reminiscences of the events
mentioned in Matt, xxvii. 51 ; xxviii. 2.
* 2

276 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY.
bellowings of the earth," during which the Idumeans
were admitted, and in which Josephus says that " the
whole system of the universe seemed to be in disorder." J
In the subsequent massacres, the outer Temple — that is,
the Court of the Gentiles — "was all overflowed with
blood," and eight thousand five hundred corpses lay
about its precincts. The insults to the unburied wit
nesses recall for a moment the fate of the younger Hanan
and the priest Jesus, whose bodies were " cast out naked
and unburied to be the food of dogs and wild beasts,"
but whose reputation was so thoroughly vindicated in
the eyes of their countrymen, that Josephus pronounces
a high eulogy upon them, and attributes the final doom of
the city to the guilt incurred by their murderers.2 The
three and a half years, again, correspond with the actual
length of the siege, together with the special horrors by
which it was preluded. On the other hand, we know
of nothing which corresponds to the fall of only the
tenth part of the city, or to any repentance on the part
of its inhabitants. Every interpretation seems to be
beset with insuperable difficulties. No one school of
commentators has been more successful than its rivals
in furnishing an historical solution. May not this
be a sign that no exact historical counterpart to these
symbols was contemplated by the seer, and that he is
only moving in the region of ideal anticipation in order
to use material symbols as the vehicle for eternal
principles? He who has learnt the lesson, "not by
power nor by might, but by my Spirit, saith the Lord
of Hosts ; " he who feels that the downfall of Evil
and the ultimate triumph of Good has all the certainty
of an inevitable law ; — he who is waiting for the con-
1 Jos. B. J. iv. 5, § 5. 2 Ibid. iv. 5, § 2.

THE FATE OF JERUSALEM. 277
solation of the spiritual Israel and the gathering of
all nations into one flock under one shepherd at the
Coming of the Lord, — he, it may be, has learnt more of
the inner spirit and essential meaning of the Apocalypse
than if he followed all the flickering lights of Exegesis
which have led men into the marshes of rival fictions
from the days of St. Victorinus down to the present
time. It has been often asserted that St. John meant to
indicate the preservation of the Temple, in accordance
with the general expectation and what was believed to
be the express wish of Titus. But he does not say so.
The measuring-rod may have been, as we have seen,
a mark of coming overthrow. There is indeed an
absolutely fatal argument against the notion that
St. John anticipated that the Temple would be pre
served. It is that our Lord on Olivet, in the very
discourse on which the Apocalypse is an expanded
and symbolic commentary, had declared without the
least ambiguity, and in exact accordance with the
result, that of that Temple not one stone should be
left upon another. St. John indicates the conversion of
the Jews, not the deliverance of Jerusalem.
But all that we cannot understand of St. John's
symbolism belongs — the very failure of the Christian
world in any age to understand it is a sufficient proof
that it belongs — to the secondary, the subordinate,
the less essential elements of the book. It must always
be more than doubtful whether, in the very small frac
tion of the book which touches on the yet earthly and
historic future, St. John intended to deal with specific
vaticinations. At any rate, the meaning and literal
accomplishment of such vaticinations is irrevocably

278 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY.
lost for us, and, in point of fact, has never been known
to any age of the Church — not even to the earliest,
not even — so far as our records go — to Irenseus, the
hearer of Polycarp, or to Polycarp, the hearer of St.
John. What we can see in the whole vision of the
Holy City and the Two Witnesses, is a prophecy of
the ultimate conversion of the vast mass of Israel, and
the final triumph of Christian testimony over, every
opposing force ; further than this, there is nothing to
be found in any commentary but fancy and guess
work, and arbitrary combinations, which may seem
irrefragable to those who indulge in them, but which
have not succeeded in convincing a handful of readers.
Then, at last, the seventh Angel sounds. There is
a shout of jubilee in Heaven, because the kingdoms of
the world have become the kingdom of our Lord and
of His Christ. The Jews are now converted. There
remains nothing but the judgment of the Gentiles and
the Coming of Christ in the close of the seon. The
earthly Temple has at last disappeared. In the Heaven
is seen the Temple of God, open even to the Holiest
Place, to which there may now be universal access at
all times, through the blood of Christ.
SECTION V.
THE WILD BEAST FROM THE SEA.
But, as though to compensate for the uncertain
idealism of the last Vision, the meaning of the next
Vision is retrospective, and, in its main outlines, per
fectly clear.
A woman, arrayed with the sun, with the moon
beneath her feet, and a crown of twelve stars around

THE WOMAN AND THE DRAGON. 279
her head, brings forth a man-child. A huge scarlet
dragon, with ten horns and seven diademed heads,
whose tail sweeps after it the third part of the stars
to the earth,1 stands before her to devour the child the
moment it is born, since the child is to rule the nations
with a rod of iron. But the child is snatched up to
the throne of God, and the woman flies into the wilder
ness, where she is to be nourished for 1,260 days.
All agree as to the interpretation. The star-crowned
woman is the ideal Church of Israel.2 Tha child she
brings forth is a symbol, partly of the Messiah, partly of
the Christian Church.3 The scarlet dragon is an emblem
of Satan, with the attributes of the world-power, as
specially represented by the Roman Empire — of which
a dragon was one of the later insignia. A dragon
or serpent (for between the two words there is no real
distinction) was also the apt inspirer for an Emperor who
was believed to wear as an amulet a serpent's skin, and
whose life, according to popular legend, had been saved
by a serpent when he was an infant in the cradle.4 Its
seven heads and ten horns are seven Emperors5 and ten
Provincial Governors. But no power of legions, no
violence of martyrdoms, can slay the infant Church of
1 Dan. viii. 10 (of Antiochus Epiphanes).
2 Isa. lxvi. 7, 8.
3 The narrative is doubtless coloured by the perils and escapes of the
Infant Christ (Matt. ii. 11—15).
4 Suet. Ner. 6.
5 The "seven" may include Julius Csesar; or, excluding him, may
include Otho. In the days of Julius, however, the name Imperator had
not acquired its exclusive significance, and he never had the title of
Princeps. Apocalyptic. symbolism, dealing in mystic numbers, does not
greatly trouble itself with these minor details. Thus the seven heads of
the Beast serve alike to symbolise seven hills and seven Emperors. The
Dragon is at once Satan and the representative of Satan — the Empire of
Pagan Rome.

280 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY.
Christ. The Mother Church, the Church of Jerusalem.
which, as it were, rocks the cradle of Gentile Christianity,
is saved alike from Idumeans, and Zealots, and the
Roman armies which advance to besiege the Holy
City. She flies to the mountains ; to the wilderness ;
to the secure and desolate region of Pella, in which
town, on the edge of the deserts of Arabia,1 at an early
period of the impending siege, the Christians took
refuge, in accordance with their Lord's command.2
They thus escaped the horrors of the three and a half
years which elapsed between a.d. 67, when Vespasian
began his dreadful work in Judea, and September,
a.d. 70, when the city and Temple perished in blood
and flame.
The attempts of the dragon are practically fore
doomed. Michael and his Angels have warred against
him, and flung him down to earth. There is no place
for him in Heaven as an accuser of the brethren, because
the blood of the Lamb amd the blood of the martyrs
prevails against him. His great wrath must be con
fined to earth, and that only for a little time.3
He rages against the sun-clad woman, but she
escapes from him into the wilderness, with the two
great eagle-wings of divine protection.4 There may
have been, and doubtless was, an attempt to pursue
and murder the flying Christians. We know that de
sertion from the city was checked by the most violent
1 Josephus says of Perea, " its eastern limits reach to Arabia "
(B. J. iii. 3, § 3). Pella is now Tabakat Fahil.
2 Matt. xxiv. 16 ; Luke xxi. 21.
3 Comp. Luke x. 18. " I beheld Satan as lightning fallen from heaven,''
John xii. 31. " Now is the judgment of this world, now shall the prince
of this world be cast out " (comp. 1 John iii. 8).
4 For eagles' wings as the symbol of the Divine protection, see Ex.
xix. 4 ; Deut. xxxii. 11.

VISION OF THE WILD BEAST. 281
measures. Had any details of the flight to Pella
been preserved to us, we should understand what is
exactly meant by the dragon vomiting out of his
mouth water as a river that she might be swept away,
and by the earth helping her and swallowing the river.
When Vespasian sent Placidus to chase the Jewish
fugitives from Gadara, they were stopped by the
swollen waters of the Jordan, and being compelled to
hazard a battle, were driven in multitudes into the
river, and 15,000 of them perished.1 It is very pro
bable that some such obstacle may have impeded the
flight of the Christians, and that while they were
enabled to escape safely by some manifestation of special
Providence, many of their pursuers perished in the
swollen stream.
The next Vision is not only plain, but must hence
forth be regarded as so certain in its significance as to
furnish us with a point de repere for all Apocalyptic
interpretations. It is the Vision of the Wild Beast
from the Sea ; and beyond all shadow of doubt or un
certainty, the Wild Beast from the Sea is meant as a
symbol of the Emperor Nero. Here, at any rate, St.
John has neglected no single means by which he could
make his meaning clear without deadly peril to him
self and the Christian Church.
He describes this Wild Beast by no less than
sixteen distinctive marks, and then all but tells us in
so many words the name of the person whom it is
intended to symbolise.
These distinctive marks are as follows : — -
1. It rises from the sea ; — by which is perhaps indi
cated not only a Western power, and therefore, to a Jew,
1 Jos. B. J. iv. 7, § 5.

282 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY.
a power beyond the sea,1 but perhaps especially one con
nected with the sea- washed peninsula of Italy.2
2. It is a Beast like one of Daniel's four Beasts, but
more portentous and formidable. Daniel's four Beasts
were the Chaldean lion, the Median bear, the Persian pan
ther, and the Beast of Greek dominion, of which the ten
horns represent the ten successors of Alexander,3 and the
little horn represents Antiochus Epiphanes. St. John's
Beast being the all-comprehensive Roman power, is a
combination of Daniel's Beasts. It is a panther, with
bear's feet and a lion's mouth. It has seven heads,4
which indicate (in the apparently arbitrary but perfectly
normal vagueness of Jewish apocalyptic symbolism)
both the seven hills of Rome and seven kings.5 The
Beast is a symbol interchangeably of the Roman empire
and of the Emperor. In fact, to a greater degree than at
any period of history, the two were one. Roman history
had dwindled down into a personal drama. The Roman
Emperor could say with literal truth, "L'Etat c'est moi."
And a Wild Beast was a Jew's natural symbol either
for a Pagan kingdom or for its autocrat. When St.
Paul was delivered from Nero, or his representative, he
says quite naturally that " he was delivered out of the
mouth of the lion " (2 Tim. iv. 17 ; comp. Heb. xi. 33).
When he is alluding to his struggles with the mob and
1 In the Sibylline Oracles (iii. 176) the beast rises " from the Western
sea." In 2 Esdras xi. 1 the Eagle (Rome) comes from the sea.
2 Such is the not improbable conjecture of Ewald. From xvii. 15 we
might explain it of " the peoples, and multitudes, and nations, and
tongues," over which Rome ruled. In Shabbath, f . 56 6, we are told that
when Solomon married Pharaoh's daughter, Gabriel thrust a reed into the
sea, and of the mud formed an island, on which Rome was built.
3 The Diadochi, as they were called. See Grote, xii. 362.
4 Comp. Orac. Sibyll. iii. 176, where also the many-headed beast is
Rome. 6 Rev. xvii. 9, 10.

THE WILD BEAST. 283
their leaders at Ephesus, he describes it as " fighting
with wild beasts " (1 Cor. xv. 32). When Marsyas
announced to Agrippa I. the death of Tiberius, he did
so in the words, " the lion is dead." 1 Princes, as well
as kingdoms, had been described under the same symbol
by the Old Testament prophets.2 Esther, in the Jewish
legends, was said to have spoken of Xerxes as " the
lion." Lactantius speaks of Nero as a tarn mala bestia.3
But, besides all these reasons, which made the symbol so
easily intelligible, Renan may be right in conjecturing
that there was yet another. It was that, on an occasion
which was exceptionally infamous even for Nero, he had
been disguised as a wild beast, and in that disguise had
been let loose from a cage and personated the furies of
a tiger or panther.4
3. This wild beast of Heathen Power has ten horns,
which represent the ten main provinces of Imperial
Rome.5 It has the power of the dragon— that is, it
possesses the Satanic dominion of the " prince of the
power of the air."
4. On each of its heads is the name of blasphemy.
Every one of the seven " kings," however counted, had
1 Jos. Ant. xviii. 6, § 10. 2 Ezek. xix. 1—9.
3 The SibyUists call Nero "the Beast." De Mort. Persec. 2.
4 L' Antichrist, p. 175. Suet. Ner. 29. I am told that to this day, in
the Had Gadyo, which the Jews of Germany use at the Passover, their old
persecutors are compared to various animals.
6 Ten horns, as in Dan. vii. 24. There they are the Diadochi ; here
the provinces of Italy, Achaia, Asia, Syria, Egypt, AJrica, Spain, Gaul,
Britain, Germany (Renan, L'Antechrist, p. 13). The history of this
troubled epoch amply justifies the additional touch of description in
which, later on, they, in conjunction with the Beast (i.e., the Provincial
Governors and Generals, together with the Emperor), hate the harlot
{i.e., the City of Rome, and the Senatus Populusque Romanus), and
devour her flesh, &c. Again and again in the civil disorders Rome was
brought by Emperors and Proconsuls to the verge of ruin and despair.

284 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY.
borne the (to Jewish ears) blasphemous surname of
Augustus (Sebastos, " one to be adored ") ; had received
apotheosis, and been spoken of as Bivus after his death ;
had been honoured with statues, adorned with divine
attributes ; had been saluted with divine titles ; and in
some instances had been absolutely worshipped, and that
in his lifetime, with temples and flamens — especially in
the Asiatic provinces.
5. The diadems are on the horns, because the Roman
Proconsuls, as delegates of the Emperor, enjoy no little
share of the Csesarean autocracy and splendour ; but —
6. The name of blasphemy (for such is the true read
ing) is only on the heads, because the Emperor alone
receives divine honour, and alone bears the daring title
of " Augustus."
7. One of the heads is wounded to death1 but the
deadly wound is healed. If there could be any doubt
that this indicates the violent end, and universally
expected return of Nero — or, which is the same thing
for prophetic purposes, of one like him — that doubt
seems to be removed by the parallel description of the
1 7th chapter, where we are told that of the seven kings
of the mystic Babylon —
8. The five are fallen, the one is, the other is not
yet come ; and " the Beast that thou sawest was, and is
not, and is about to come out of the abyss ;" " the Beast
that was and is not, even he is an eighth, and is of the
seven."2 Can language be more apparently perplexing ?
Yet its solution is obvious. No explanation worth the
name has ever been offered of this enigma except that
which makes it turn on the widespread expectation that
1 Just as the eagle's head (Nero) in 2 Esdras xi. 1, 36.
2 Rev. xvii. 8, 10, 11. In ver. 8 the true reading is koI irapeorai.

THE WILD BEAST. 285
Nero was either not really dead, or that, even if dead,
he would in some strange way return. Only two or
three slaves and people of humble rank had seen his
corpse. All of these, except one or two soldiers and a
single freedman of Galba, had been his humble adherents.
It seemed inconceivable that after a hundred years of
absolutism the last of the deified race of Csesars should
thus disappear like foam upon the water. The five kings
are Augustus, Tiberius, Gaius (Caligula), Claudius, and
Nero. Since the seer is writing in the reign of Galba,
the fifth king (Nero) was, and is not ; Otho, the seventh
king, was not yet come. When he came, which could
not be long delayed, for Galba was an old man — he was
to reign for a short time, and then was to come the
eighth, who, it was expected, would be Nero again, one
of the previous seven, and so both the fifth and the
eighth. For, strange to say, Nero still lived in the
regrets alike of Romans and of Parthians.1 Since Rome
is the great city (xvii. 18), and the ten horns its pro
vincial governors — -" kings who had received no kingdom
as yet" (xvii. 12)2 — it seems difficult even to imagine
any other explanation of symbols which it is quite clear
that the Apostle meant to be understood, and which he
assumed would be understood, since otherwise they would
have been useless to his readers. But, after he has thus
all but told us in so many words whom he means, the
seer continues the hints by which he describes the cha
racteristics of the Beast. He says that —
9. " All the earth wondered after the Beast." In
1 Suet. Ner. 49, 50, 57; Tac. H. i. 2, 78; ii. 8; Dion Cassius, lxiv. ;
and Dio. Chrysost. Orat. xxi. 10.
2 As yet — but several of them were to do so in the course of the
next few years. This completely disposes of the supposed refutation of

286 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY.
that day men rejoiced in the omnipotence of evil, and
did homage to it in its concrete form. The Roman
plebs had become " sottish, licentious, gamblers ; " and
one who was more gigantically sottish than themselves
had become their ideal.1 The best comment on this par
ticular may be found in the description of Tacitus of the
manner in which all Rome, from its proudest senators
down to its humblest artisans, poured forth along the
public ways to receive with acclamations the guilty
wretch who was returning from Campania with his
hands red with his murdered mother's blood.2
10. That the world " worshipped the dragon, who gave
his power to the Beast" would be a natural Jewish way
of indicating the belief that the Pagan world, when it
offered holocausts for its Emperor, was adoring devils for
deities.3 11. The cries of the world, " Wlio is like unto the
Beast? who is able to make war with him? " sound like
an echo of the shouts " Victories Olympic ! victories
Pythian ! Nero the Hercules ! Nero Apollo ! Sacred
one ! The One of the iEon," i.e., unparalleled in all the
world ! with which Dion Cassius tells us that he was
greeted by the myriads of the populace when, with
the crowns of his 1800 artistic triumphs, he returned
from his insane and degraded perambulation of
Greece. 12. " The mouth speaking great things and blasphemies "
is the mouth which was incessantly uttering the most
the views here maintained on the plea that the Roman Emperors did
not wear diadems. The ten horns are kingdomless kings (i.e., Provincial
Governors), and yet even these horns are diademed (xiii. 1).
1 Maurice, Revel, p. 238.
2 Tac. Ann. xiv. 13. Dion Cass. lxi. 16. Suet. Ner. 39.
« 1 Cor. x. 20.

THE WILD BEAST. 28J
monstrous boasts and pretensions,1 declaring that no
one before himself had the least conception of what
things an Emperor might do, and of the lengths to
which he could go ; the mouth which ordered the erec
tion of his own colossus, 120 feet high, adorned with
the insignia and attributes of the sun.2 As for his
blasphemies, Suetonius tells us that he was an avowed
and even contemptuous atheist — "religionum usquequa-
que contemptor." 3
13. "Power was given him to act4, forty -two months."
The exact significance of this mystic number, which is
also described as 1260 days (xi. 2; xii. 6), and as "a
time, times, and half a time" (xii. 14), is variously
explained. The simplest explanation is that it refers to
the time which elapsed between the beginning of Nero's
persecution in Nov., 64, and his death in June, 68,
which is almost exactly three and a half years. '
14. " It was given him to make war with the saints,
and to overcome them," for it was he who began the
terrible era of martyrdom, and put " a vast multitude "
to death with hideous tortures on a false accusation.5
15. "Power was given him over all kindreds, and
tongues, and nations." Of the representatives of the
world-powers in that day, Greece received him with

1 The "mouth speakmg great things" of Antiochus Epiphanes, in
Dan. vii. 8, 20, never uttered half such monstrous boasts as that of Nero.
2 Pliny, H. N. xxxix. 7. Suet. Ner. 30—32. Dion Cass. lxvi. 15.
Mart. Spectac. ii. 1, Ep. i. 71. It required twenty-four elephants to
drag it away in the reign of Hadrian. Spart. Hadr. 19.
3 Nero, 56. The first object of his veneration was the Syrian goddess
" hanc mox ita sprevit ut urina contaminaret."
4 xiii. 5. iroiTjo-ai, can hardly mean " to continue " as in the English
version. It must mean " to act," " to do what he will ; " and, i£ so, the
addition of 8 8e\et in « is at least a correct gloss.
6 Tac. Ann. xv. 44.

288 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY.
frantic adulation, Parthia was in friendly relations with
him, and Armenia, in the person of Tiridates, laid its
diadem before his feet.1 Even Herod the Great, though
himself a powerful king, had been accustomed to talk
of the " Almighty Romans."
16. All "the inhabitants of the earth, except the fol
lowers of the Lamb, worshipped him." This, as we have
seen, was literally true of the Emperors, both in their
lifetime and after their death. At this dreadful period
the cult of the Emperor was almost the only sincere
worship which still existed.2
Then follow two verses (xiii. 9, 10) which do not bear
directly upon the symbol. They are either a prophecy
of retribution given for the consolation of the suffering
saints,3 or, if we take what seems on the whole to be
the more probable reading, they are a declaration that
the saints must indeed suffer, but that their sufferings
should be endured in faith and patience.4
In these paragraphs, then, we have sixteen hints
as to who and what is intended by the Apocalyptic
Wild Beast, and it is undeniable that every one of
these directly points to Pome and Nero. They point
so directly to Rome and to Nero that it is difficult
to conceive how the writer could have expressed
his meaning less enigmatically, if he adopted at all
that well-understood literary method of Jewish Apoca
lypses which was enigmatical in its very nature.5 The
1 Tac. Ann. xiv. 26 ; Suet. Ner. 13.
2 See Boissier, La Religion Romaine, i. 122 — 208. Augustus disliked
all personal worship, and insisted that his cult should be joined to that
of Rome. But Caligula claimed to be worshipped in person (Suet. Cal.
21), and Nero received apotheosis in his lifetime. Tac. Ann. xv. 74.
3 Perhaps an allusion to Nero's supposed death and flight.
4 Rev. xiii. 10.
6 How strange were the symbolic devices of Apocalyptists we see in

NERO. 289
most remarkable indication that Nero is mainly in
tended is that it is exactly in the most enigmatical par
ticulars that the resemblance is most close. He was
mortally wounded, and yet (according to the then belief,
which is here adopted for purposes of description, and
which was symbolically though not literally true) the
wound was healed ; and he was a fifth king who was, and
is not, and yet (so St. John indicates him by the popular
belief) should be once more the eighth king, and one of
the seven.1 If we had not the perfectly simple clue to
what was indicated by this strangely riddling descrip
tion, we might give up the interpretation as insoluble ;
but the clue is preserved for us, not only by Jewish
Talmudists,2 and Pagan historians and authors, such as
Tacitus,3 Suetonius,4 Dion Cassius,5 and Dion Chry
sostom ;6 but also by Christian fathers like St. Irenseus,7
Lactantius,8 St. Victorinus, Sulpicius Severus,9 and the
Sibylline books ; 10 and even by St. Jerome n and by St,
the 8th Book of the Sibyllines, where Hadrian is described as " having a
name like that of a sea " (the Hadriatic), and is called " the wretched
one," because of the resemblance of his name (.<Elianus) to the Greek
eleeinos {Orac. Sib. viii. 52, 59).
1 It was believed that he would return from the East, by the aid of
Parthians, among whom he was thought to have taken refuge.
2 The tract Gittin, quoted by Gratz, Gesch. d. Judenth. vol. iv. p. 203.
3 Tac. Hist. ii. 8.
4 Suet. Ner. 57, et ibi Casaubon.
5 Dion Cass. Xiphilinus, lxiv. 9. See Zonaras, Ann. xi. 15 — 18. The
expectation was most current in Asia Minor, and Nero's thoughts were
incessantly turned to the East by astrologers, etc. Tac. Hist. ii. 95 ;
Ann. xv. 36. Suet. Ner. 40 — 47.
e Dion Chrysost. Orat. xxi. (i. p. 504, ed. Reiske : " Even now all
desire him to live, and most persons think that he is still alive.")
7 Iren. I.e.
8 Lactant. De Mori. Persec. 2.
9 Sulp. Sever. Hist. Sac. ii. 28. " It is the current opinion of many
that he is yet to come as Antichrist." This was written a.d. 403.
10 Sibyll. v. 33 ; viii. 71. " Jer. In Dan. xi. 28.
t

290 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY.
Augustine.1 Nothing can prove more decisively than
these references that for four centuries many Christians
identified Nero with the Beast. An Eastern kingdom
had long been promised to him by soothsayers.2 The
author of the Ascension of Isaiah says that Beliar shall
descend from the sky in the form of man, an impious
king, the murderer of his mother (i.e., in the form
of Nero).3 So, too, Commodianus, in the third cen
tury, talks of Nero being raised from the under
world.4 Nay more, we can appeal to the earliest
extant Greek commentary on the Apocalypse — that of
Andreas, Bishop of the Cappadocian Csesarea, who says
that " the king of the Romans shall come as Antichrist
to destroy " the four kingdoms of Daniel. It would
have been strange that the Christian world should have
felt any doubt that Nero is intended, if all history did
not show the extent to which dogmatic bias — which
only resorts to Scripture in order to find there its own
ready-made convictions — has dominated for centuries
over simple and straightforward exegesis. But as
though to exclude any possibility of doubt about the
matter, St. John, after all these clear indications, has
all but told us in express words the name of the man
whom he means by his Antichrist and Wild Beast —
by this deified yet slain and to-be-resuscitated murderer
of the saints. He does so in the last verses of the
chapter. They furnish a seventeenth detail, in which
the indications of the seer point immediately and dis
tinctly to the worst of the Roman Emperors.
1 Aug. De Civ. Dei, xx. 19, 3. " Unde nonnulli ipsum (Neronem)
rosurrecturum et f uturum Antiohristum suspicantur, alii vero nee occisun
putant sed subtractum potius."
2 Suet, Ner. 40. 3 Ascens. Is. iv. 2 — 14. 4 Cominodian. Insir. 41.

NUMBER OF THE BEAST. 291
17. "Here is wisdom," he says (chap. xiii. 18) ; or,
as he expresses it in chap. xvii. 9, " wisdom is needed
to grasp the meaning of my symbol ; " or, perhaps, as
Ewald understands it, " this is the sense, — whoever has
wisdom will understand it thus." " Let him that hath
understanding count the number of the Beast ; for it is
the number of a man." In other words, he tells us that
he now intends to indicate numerically the name which
he dared not actually express. A Jew or Jewish Chris
tian would at once be aware that he now intends to give
an instance of one of the forms of that Kabbalistic
method, of which traces are found even in the ancient
prophets, and which was known to the Rabbis as
Gematria, i.e., Geometry, or the numerical indication of
names.1 Gentile Christians were not so familiar with
this method ; 2 but we see from Irenseus that they could
easily have got the general clue from their Judaic
1 For an account of Gematria, and numerous illustrations of it, I may
refer to my paper on Rabbinic Exegesis in the Expositor for 1877, vol. v.
Similarly among Egyptian mystics the God Thouth was spoken of by
the cypher 1218. On the Gnostic gems the word Abraxas is used as
isopsephic to Meithras (the Sun) because the letters of both names
= 325. 2 It was, however, by no means unknown to educated Greeks under
the name of isopsephia. For instance, they called verses isopsephics
when their letters made up numerically the same sum. In the Anthology
we find an epigram which begins —
" One, hearing the words Demagoras and Plague (Loimos), which are
of equal numerical value " —
which he could test in a moment, since, in Greek letters, Demagoras is —
4 + 1 + 40 + 1 + 3 + 70 + 100 + 1 + 200 = 420
AAMATO PAS
and Loimos (Plague) is —
30 + 70 + 10 + 40 + 70 + 200 = 420
A O I M O 2
There are isopsephic inscriptions in the Corpus Inscr. Grcec. 3544 — 3546.
(See Aul. Gell. xiv. 14.)
t 2

292 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY.
brethren, to whom the Apocalypse is mainly addressed.1
There was not much danger of a secret being betrayed
which might cost the life of any one who mentioned
it, and at the same time imperil the whole community.
What St. John says in effect is : "I shall now give
you the name of the Wild Beast in its numerical
value. You have heard many specimens of this method,
so that you can apply it in this instance, though I warn
you that it may give you some difficulty." He evidently
intended some of them to find out the number of the
Beast, which was also the number of a man, while he
pointed out that there was one unexpected element
in the particular solution. If it had been merely a
name in the numerical value of its Greek letters there
would have been so little difficulty about it that any
ordinarily educated reader might have discovered it
after a few trials. He would only have to find out
what living men there were who had the dozen or
more attributes which the seer had given to the Beast,
and whose names, counted by the value of the letters,
made up the number of 666. As there was scarcely
any other living person to whom the Apocalyptic de
scription could apply, Nero's was probably the first
name which a Jewish Christian reader would have
tried. And here he would have been at once baffled.
In Greek letters he would have found that Neron made
50 + 5 + 100 + 800 + 50 = 1005. If he tried Neron
1 The Sibyllist describes Nero as the Emperor whose sign is 50,
" a fearful serpent who shall cause a grievous war." N, the initial letter
of Nero, = 50. I have already referred to the fancy of Barnabas about
Abraham's 318 servants as represented by IHT, and so a sort of symbol
of Jesus on the Cross. Similarly in Tertullian {Carm. adv. Marc. iii. 4),
the victory of Gideon's 300 is connected with the fact that 300 = T,
the sign of the Cross : " Hoc etiam signo praedonum stravit acervos."

NUMBER OF THE BEAST. 293
Kaisar, it would only make 1005 + 332 = 1337. Almost
every combination which he tried would fail, and very
possibly he would give up the task in despair, with the
thought that he did not possess the requisite " wis
dom," though he may have solved many such problems
in Sibylline or similar books. Thus, in the Sibylline
books, the poet indicates the name Jesus, in Greek
'Iria-ovs, by saying that it is a word which has 4 vowels
and 2 consonants, and that the whole number is equiva
lent to 8 units, 8 tens, 8 hundreds, i.e. 888 ('Ir/a-ovs
= 10 + 8 + 200 + 704- 400 + 200 = 888), and no Greek-
speaking Christian would have had any trouble in
solving the riddle. Since, however, all the other indi
cations pointed so clearly to Rome and Nero, the Greek
Christian reader might very naturally have hit upon
"Latinus" (Aarewh = 30 + 1 + 300 + 5 + 10 + 50+70
+200 = 666) as a sort of general indication of Rome
and " a Latin man." This accounts for the prevalence of
this explanation among the Fathers, beginning with St.
Irenseus, who may have heard it from St. Polycarp, who
had seen St. John in his old age.1 These early Chris
tian writers were, so to speak, on the right track ; yet
with " Latinus " they could hardly have been quite
satisfied. It is a vague adjective, and the names Latium
and Latinus had long been practically obsolete. If this
were indeed the solution, they might have put down its
vagueness to intentional obscurity. We can hardly
conceive what care a Jewish writer had to take if he
touched in any respect unfavourably upon the imperial
power in those days of delators and laesa majestas?
Josephus was in high favour, first with Poppsea and
1 Iren. Adv. Haer. v. 30. Hippolyt. De Christo, p. 26.
2 See Tac. Ann. iii. 38 ; iv. 50 ; Hist. i. 77. Suet. Ner. 32 :— "turn ut

294 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY.
then with the Flavian dynasty ; at Rome he was so great
and influential that he probably had the honour of a
statue in the imperial city : 1 — yet he stops abruptly in
his explanation of the prophecies of Daniel, with a mys
terious hint that he does not deem it prudent to say
more.2 This evidently was because he feared that, if he
touched on any explanation of the work of destruction
wrought by the " stone cut without hands," he might
seem to be threatening future ruin and extinction to the
Roman empire ; and to do this wentbeyond his very limited
daring. It was perhaps the complete unsatisfactoriness
of the solution " Lateinos " which made some Christians,
as Irenseus further tells us, try the name Teitan, which
also gives the mystic number 666 (Teitan = 300 + 5+10
+ 300+1 + 50 = 666), and which has the additional
advantage of being a word of six letters. In this
instance also ingenuity was not very far astray; for
Titan was one of the old poetic names of the Sun, and
the Sun was the deity whose attributes Nero most
affected, as all the world was able to judge from seeing
his colossus with radiated head, of which the substruc
ture of the base still remains close by the ruins of the
Colosseum.3 The mob which greeted him with shouts
of "Nero-Apollo ! " were well aware that he had a pre
dilection for this title.
On the whole, however, the Greek Christians must
have remained a little perplexed, a little dissatisfied,
¦lege majestatis, facta dictaque omnia, quibus modo delator non deesset
tenerentur." 1 Juv. Sat. i 130.
2 Jos. Antt. x. 10, § 4 : " Daniel did also declare the meaning of the
stone to the king ; but I do not think proper to relate it."
3 What was meant by the guess Euanthas is uncertain. Could it be
an allusion to the " aurea caesaries " which grew down over Nero's neck ?

NUMBER OF THE BEAST. 295
and must have been inclined to say, with some of the
Fathers,1 that only time could reveal the secret ; or else
to believe that perhaps there was more than one solution.
They must, however, have known what was meant, even
if the exact equi-numeration of any words which they
could hit upon did not entirely satisfy them. And this
was the general condition in which the secret remained
in the early Christian Church. At any rate there stood
the strange number before them.

x&

The very look of it was awful. The first letter was the
initial letter of the name of Christ. The last letter was
the first double-letter (st) of the Cross (sfeuros). Be
tween the two the Serpent stood .confessed with its
writhing sign and hissing sound.2 The whole formed
a triple repetition of 6, the essential number of toil
and imperfection; and this numerical symbol of the
Antichrist, 666, stood in terrible opposition to 888 —
the three perfect 8's of the name of Jesus.
But Jewish readers, and, as we have said, it was tc
Jewish readers that the Apocalypse was primarily ad
dressed, would find none of the difficulties which per
plexed their Gentile fellow-Christians. The Apostle
had warned them that the solution did not lie so much
en the surface as was usual in similar enigmas. Every
Jewish reader, of course, saw that the Beast was
a symbol for Nero.3 And both Jews and Chris-
1 Irenseus, v., 30. 2 Rev. xii. 9; xx. 2.
3 The Sibyllists had already spoken of Caligula as Beliar {Carm. iii.
63), and as a serpent. The stories of the serpent which had crawled
from Nero's cradle, and of his serpent-amulet (v. supra, p. 279) would
add significance to the symbolism.

296 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY.
tians regarded Nero as also having close affinities
with the serpent or dragon. That Nero was in
tended would be as clear to a Jew as that Babylon
meant Rome, though Rome is never mentioned. He
would not try the name Nero Caesar in Latin, because
isopsephia (which the Jew called Gematria) was almost un
known among the Romans, and their alphabetic numera
tion was wholly defective. He might try Nepcov Kalaap
in Greek, but it would not give him the right number.
Then, as with a flash of intuition, it would occur to him
to try the name in Hebrew.1 The Apostle was writing
as a Hebrew, was evidently thinking as a Hebrew.2 His
solcecistic Greek was sufficient to prove that the lan
guage was unfamiliar to him, and that all persons of
whom he thought would primarily present themselves
to his mind by their Hebrew designations. This, too,
would render the cryptograph additionally secure against
the prying inquisition of treacherous Pagan informers.
It would have been to the last degree perilous to make
the secret too clear. Accordingly, the Jewish Christian
would have tried the name as he thought of the name —
that is in Hebrew letters. And the moment that he did
this the secret stood revealed. No Jew ever thought of
Nero except as " Neron Kesar," and this gives at once —
^ ,™ = 50 + 200 + 6 + 50 + 100 + 60 + 200 = 666.3
1 I am not sure that a Jew would not have tried Hebrew letters at
once. A Talmudic scholar wrote to tell me that my number for Rome
{supra, p. 220) was wrong, because he had tried it in Hebrew letters.
It had not occurred to him to try it in Greek letters !
2 See the startling Hebraism in the Greek of Rev. i. 4, and comp.
Rev. ix. 11; xvi. 16.
3 The name was so written in Jewish inscriptions. See Ewald, Die
Johann. Schriften, ii. 203 ; Buxtorf. Lex. Rabbin, s. v. The name Ceesarea
appears in the Talmud as pep. Renan mentions the remarkable fact
that the name for the Antichrist in Armenian is Neren (ii. 23). Ewald

GEMATRIA. 297
Jewish Christians were familiar with enigmas of this
kind. They occur even in the ancient Prophets after
the days of Jeremiah, and are found in the Old Testa
ment Scriptures.1 The Jewish Christians could not have
hesitated for a moment in the conclusion that in the
Hebrew name of Nero the solution of the riddle stood
revealed. The Jews were remarkable for reticence, and
men are specially liable to keep their secrets to them
selves when they involve matters of fife and death. Many
methods and secrets of Rabbinic exegesis, though of great
value, have remained unrevealed by Jews to Christians,
simply because the jealous exclusiveness and haughty
prejudice of that singular race — feelings which, it must
be confessed, have been due in no small degree to the
brutality of their enemies — makes them indifferent to the
religious views of others. It is, therefore, by no means
remarkable that the Asiatic Judaists, who first read St.
John's Apocalypse, did not betray what they must have
recognised to be the name which exactly corresponded
with the number of the Beast. They might be pardoned
if they were reluctant to place their lives and the very

found that Josippon writes the name "iDp. The secret has been almost
simultaneously re-discovered of late years by Fritzsche in Halle, by
Benary in Berlin, by Reuss in Strasbourg, and by Hitzig in Heidelberg.
See Bleek, Vorlesungen, 292 ff. ; Krenkel, Der Apostel Johannes, 88 ;
Volkmar, Offenbarung, 18 and 214. Ewald was only prevented from
making the discovery in 1828 by the assumption, which he afterwards
found to be erroneous, that Caesar must be spelt in Hebrew with a yod.
He therefore conjectured " Caesar of Rome " ( on nD<p) (Johann. Schrift.
ii. 263). 1 Thus in Jerem. Ii. 41, " Sheshach " stands for " Babel," by the trans
mutation of letters known as Atbash (a subspecies of what the Rabbis
call Themourah or " change") ; and in li. 1, " they that dwell in the midst
of them," means the Chaldaeans {lebh kamai = Kasdim) ; and in Isa. vii.
6, Tabeal, by another sort of Themourah, gives us the name of Remaliah.
See my Paper in the Expositor, v. 375.

298 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTLANITY.
existence of their churches at the mercy of Gentile breth
ren, of whose prudence and fidelity they could not in
every instance be perfectly secure. Enough, however, may
have escaped them to put others in the right direction ;
and, as far as the general understanding of the Apostle's
meaning was concerned, it mattered very little whether
the guessed solution was Lateinos, or Teitan, or Neron
Kesar, since all three words were but varying forms of
the same essential thing. All the earliest Christian
writers on the Apocalypse, from Irenseus down to
Victorinus of Pettau1 and Commodian in the fourth,
and Andreas 2 in the fifth, and St. Beatus in the eighth
century, connect Nero, or some Roman Emperor, with
the Apocalyptic Beast.
If any confirmation could possibly be wanting to this
conclusion, we find it in the curious fact recorded by
Irenseus, that, in some copies, he found the reading 616.
Now this change can hardly have been due to careless
ness. The letters %£?' were so singular, even in their
external form, that no one could have been likely to alter
them into %^ or 616.3 But if the above solution be
correct, this remarkable and ancient variation is at once
explained and accounted for. A Jewish Christian,
trying his Hebrew solution, which would (as he knew)
defend the interpretation from dangerous Gentiles, may
have been puzzled by the n in Neron Kesar. Although

1 "Huncergo — se. Neroneni — suscitatum Deus mittet regem dignum
dignis et Christum, qualem meruerunt Judaei" (Viet. Pett. in Apoc.
xiii.). 2 av Kparijo-ei 6 'Avrlxpioros Sis Vapalaiv Pa<ri\ebs 4\euo-6pevos (Andr.).
3 etfKovra SeKa ef, is the reading of the Codex Ephraemi. Irenaens
appeals for the correctness of the reading 666 not only to all the good
and ancient MSS., but to the direct testimony of those who had seen
St. John {paprvpoiivrwv avruv eKelvwv rwv Kar' tyiv rbv 'luidvvqv eapaK6rwv).

NERO REDIVIVUS. 299
the name was so written in Hebrew, he knew that to
Romans, and Gentiles generally, the name was always
Nero Csesar, not Neron. But Nero Kesar in Hebrew,
omitting the final n, gave 616, not 666 ; and he may
have altered the reading because he imagined that, in an
unimportant particular, it made the solution more suit
able and easy.
One objection will at once be made to this solution.
Nero, it will be said, never did return. The belief in
his return, though it showed an obstinate vitality, was
a mere chimsera. St. John could not have enshrined in
his Apocalypse what turned out to be but a popular mis
take. Such an objection is entitled to respect, but it imports
a priori considerations into a plain matter of exegesis.
This belief about Nero's return did prevail in the
Christian, no less than in the Pagan, world. It is found
again and again in the Sibylline books, and in later
Christian writers. In the Pagan world it led to the
success of more than one false Nero. It is probable that
one of these was making himself extremely formidable
in the very region in which St. John was writing, and at
that very time.1 In the Christian world the belief was
still existent three centuries later, that Nero would re
turn in person as the future Antichrist. The vividness
of the contemporary belief must be measured by its ex
traordinary permanence.
We have no right, then, to frame our interpretation
of Scripture by our theories respecting the character
and limits of how it ought to be written. Our duty
is, on the contrary, to discover its interpretation, and to
be guided by this to the true theory of its claims.
1 Tac. HA. 2; ii. 8; Suet. Ner. 57 ; Zonaras, xi. 15, 18, &c.

300 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY.
When we study the meaning of a passage, our sole and
our solemn aim should be to get at the real meaning,
and not to repudiate or to gloss over that meaning in
obedience to subjective convictions. We should not
conceal from ourselves that to get rid of a plain explana
tion because it does not at once fall in with our ready-
made dogmas is a dishonesty which, in the language of
the Book of Job, is a form of " lying for God." God's
own rebuke to Job's three friends was meant to teach
mankind for ever that truth and charity are infinitely
more sacred than either conventional orthodoxy or
traditional exegesis.
In reality, however, this question is not one which in
any way affects the dignity of revelation. St. John uses
the common belief, as he might have used any other
contemporary fact, or any other contemporary notion,
merely to help him in the elaboration of his symbol,
and to enable him to point out the person whom he is
describing. The arrangement of the symbolism affects
in no wise the truth of the great principles which he
reveals. The Divine hopes and consolations of which
the Apocalypse is full, the priceless lessons in which it
abounds, are not in the slightest degree affected by the
circumstance that he depicts the Neronian Wild Beast
in the colours which every other historian, whether
secular or sacred, would have used for his delineation.
But farther, be it observed that, even if this detail of
Nero's personal return had been meant to be in any way
essential to the general prediction, it was, with singular
exactness, symbolically fulfilled. Although Nero had not
(as was popularly supposed) taken refuge among the
Parthians, and never was restored by their aid, as was
the common expectation of that day, yet such an

NERONIAN ANTICHRISTS. 301
anticipation is not directly involved in the Apocalypse,
and in any case does not belong to its essential meaning.
Every successive Antichrist has shown the Neronian
characteristics. If the prophecy of the return of Elijah
the Prophet was adequately fulfilled in the ministry of
John the Baptist, the prophecy of the returning Nero
was adequately fulfilled in Domitian, in Decius, in Dio
cletian, in many a subsequent persecutor of the saints of
God. Allegory is only susceptible of allegoric interpre
tation ; and in the person of Domitian, as we shall see
further on,1 the prophecy of Antichrist in the person of
Nero redivivus may be regarded as having been almost
literally, and in every sense symbolically, fulfilled. I am
well aware that even recent English commentators have
done their best to treat this view of the Apocalypse
with suspicion and contempt, to treat it as un
worthy of their modern theory of " verbal dictation."
Let them beware lest in so doing they be haply found
to fight against God, and lest, in their attempts to force
upon Christendom their private interpretations of pro
phecy, they only succeed in bringing all prophecy into
suspicion and contempt.2 SECTION VI.
THE SECOND BEAST AND THE FALSE PEOPHET.
But if Nero be the Wild Beast from the sea, who
is the Wild Beast from the land ? If Nero be, in the
parallel passages, the death-wounded yet unslain head of
the Beast, who is the False Prophet which wrought the
signs before him ?
Our great difficulty in answering this question rises
1 See infra, pp. 315, 316.
2 See some wise remarks of Ewald, Johann. Schrift. ii. 15.

302 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY.
from the fact that not the lightest breath of tradition
upon the subject has been preserved in the first two
centuries. The earliest suggestion is furnished by
Victorinus at the close of the third. All commentators
alike, Prseterist, Futurist, Continuous-Historical, and
Allegorical, with all their subdivisions, have here been
reduced to manifest perplexity, and have been forced to
content themselves with explanations which do violence
to one or more of the indications by which we must
be guided. What are those indications ?
They are mainly given in Rev. xiii. 11 — 17, and are as
follows : —
1. I saw another wild beast coming up out of the
earth. 2. And he had two horns like unto a lamb.
3. And he spake as a dragon.
4. And he exercised all the authority of the first
Beast in his sight.
5. And he maketh the earth to worship the first
Beast whose death-stroke was healed.
6. And he doeth great signs which it was given him
to do in the sight of the Beast, that he should even
make fire to come down from heaven upon the earth
by reason of the signs which it was given him to do
in the sight of the Beast, saying to them that dwell
on the earth that they should make an image to
the Beast who hath the stroke of the sword and
lived. 7. He gives breath to the image of the Beast, and
makes it speak.
8. He causes the execution of those who will not
worship the image of the Beast.

THE SECOND WILD BEAST. 303
9. He makes men of all ranks and classes receive
a stamp on their right hand or their forehead.
10. He prevents all who have not the mark of the
Beast (his name and the number of his name) from
buying and selling.
The only additional clue is that in the parallel des
cription of Rev. xix. 20 he is described under another
aspect as " the False Prophet that wrought the signs
in the sight of the Beast wherewith he deceived those
that had received his mark and worshipped his image."
Now in trying to discover the meaning of the symbol,
we may again pass over the countless idle guesses of
those who have endeavoured to torture the Apocalypse
into a prediction of the details of all subsequent
Christian history. With these guesses we are not
concerned. They have, as a rule, only been adopted by
the individual commentators who suggested them.
Nothing, we may be sure, was further from the mind
of the writer than a desire to gratify the fantastic
curiosity of eighteen centuries of Christians as to events
yet future which they have been always unable to
foresee, or even subsequently to recognise. The resem
blance of Nero to Antiochus Epiphanes as the personi
fication of savage enmity to the people of God in the
book of Daniel, is enough to suggest the certainty
that in the case of the second Beast, as in the case of
the first, the seer has primarily in view some con
temporary person or phenomenon.
Setting aside many conjectures, which I have fully
examined elsewhere,1 that the second Beast is meant
for Balbillus of Ephesus, or Tiberius Alexander, or
Josephus, or Gessius Florus, three conjectures alone
1 In the Expositor, for Sept. 1881.

301 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY.
seem to me to be worthy of special considera
tion : —
I. One is suggested by Victorinus of Pettau
(a.d. 303). He thinks that by this Wild Beast and
False Prophet is meant the Roman Augurial system.
There is in this suggestion much probability, and
we may point out in passing that Victorinus in the
third century, no less than Irenseus in the second, saw
that the Apocalypse moved in the plane of contem
porary events. The early mention of this solution may
have been due to some echo of still more ancient tradi
tion. Certain it is that, in appearing to identify the
second Beast with the "False Prophet" (xvi. 13; xix. 20;
xx. 10), St. John lends some sanction to this view. The
influence exercised by Chaldeeans, Mathematici, Astrologers,
Magi, Augurs, Medici, Prophets, Casters of Horoscopes,
Sorcerers, Bream-interpreters, Sibyllists1 — Oriental char
latans of every description, from Apollonius of Tyana
and Alexander of Abonoteichos down to Peregrinus —
is a phenomenon which constantly meets us in the Age
of the Csesars. They appeared in Rome more than
two centuries before Christ. Ennius mentions them
with contempt.2 As early as B.C. 139, they had been
ordered to quit Italy in ten days. In b.c. 33 they had
again been banished by the iEdile M. Agrippa. Augus
tus and Tiberius had also directed severe edicts against
them.3 But they held their ground.4 Tacitus calls the
edict of Claudius "severe and ineffectual." We see,
1 S,i^v\Kiarat. Plutarch, Marius, 42. See Tac. Ann. xii. 52 ; Hist. i.
22 ; ii. 62 ; Suet. Tib. 36, Vitell. 14 ; Juv. Sat. vi. 542.
2 Cic. De Div. i. 58.
3 See Val. Max. i. 3; Dion Cass. xlix. 1; Tac. Ann. ii. 27, 32; iii. 22
iv. 58 ; vi. 20.
4 Tac. Ann. xii. 52

AUGURIAL SYSTEM. 305
both from Tacitus and from the anecdotage of Suetonius,
that almost every Emperor felt and indulged in some
curiosity about these divinations. Tiberius reckoned
the " Chaldsean " Thrasyllus among his intimate
friends.1 Poppsea, the wife of Nero, had " many " of
them in her household.2 Nero had his Balbillus;3
Otho his Ptolomseus;4 Vespasian his Seleucus;5 Domi
tian his Ascletarion.6 Agrippina depended on Chaldseans
for the favourable hour of Nero's usurpation.7 There is
scarcely one of all the Emperors whose history had not
some connexion or other with auguries, prophecies, and
dreams.8 In the reign of Nero these prognosticators were
brought into special prominence,9 because the restless
and tortured conscience of the Antichrist was con
stantly seeking to pry into futurity. It is remarkable
that they especially encouraged his Oriental dreams,
and that some of them even went as far as to promise
him the empire of Jerusalem.
It has, however, been generally felt that the in
stitution of Prophets was not so prominent even in
Nero's reign as to admit of our applying to it the ten
definite indications of the Apocalyptic seer. False
prophets were hardly in any sense a delegate and alter
ego of the Emperor. There is at least a probability
that as one person is specially pointed to by the symbol
of the Beast, so one person is intended by his False
Prophet. 1 Tac. Ann. vi. 21
2 Tac. Hist. i. 22 3 Suet. Nero, 36.
4 Suet. Otho, 4; Tac. Hist. i. 22, 23.
6 Tac. Hist. ii. 8. 6 Suet. Domit. 15. 7 Tac. Ann. xii. 68.
8 Suet. Jul. Caesar, vii. 61 ; Octav. 94 ; Tiber. 16 ; Calig. 57 ; Otho, 4 ;
Titus, ii. 9 ; Domit. xiv. 16. For Nero, see Tac. Ann. xiv. 9.
9 Suet. Ner. 34, 36, 40. Plin. H. N. xxx. 2.
U

306 THE EARLY DATS OF CHRISTIANITY.
II. More, on the whole, is to be said in favour of
the view that the Second Beast, or False Prophet,
is Simon Magus. In one direction he corresponds
with remarkable closeness to the symbols. His bap
tism gave him a certain lamb-like semblance to Chris
tianity, while his gross deceptions were the voice
of the serpent. Christian tradition, which may well
be founded on facts, has much to say about his
pretended miracles, and two classes of those miracles
are of the very character here indicated. It is
said, for instance, that the Second Beast makes fire
come down upon the earth. Now among the miracles
of Simon we are told that one was to appear clothed
in flame.1 It is said that the Second Beast animates
an image of the Beast, and Simon is expressly said to
have made statues move, so that he may well have
also pretended to make them speak.2 If he attempted
this imposture at all he is more likely to have applied
it to the statue of the Emperor — "the image of
the Beast " — than to any other. All that would have
been needed was a little machinery and a little ven
triloquism. If the Middle Ages were deceived by wink
ing Madonnas and glaring crucifixes it must have been
equally easy to delude the Roman mob by moving
statues. Further, it was at Rome that Simon dis
played his magic powers, and they are said to have
been exercised with the immediate object of winning
influence over Nero. In this the legend declares that
he entirely succeeded, and that his influence was
1 Arnobius {Adv. Gent. ii. 12) speaks of Simon being precipitated from
a fiery chariot. Augustine {Haer. i.) says that he professed to have come
to the Apostles in fiery tongues. Nicephorus says that he pretended to
pass through fire unhurt.
2 Clem. Recogn. iii. 47. " I have made statnes move about."

SIMON MAGUS. 307
wielded to induce the Emperor to persecute and
massacre the Christians. These features appear not in
one, but in many authors,1 and though the sources from
which we now derive this information are exceedingly
dubious, there is nothing improbable in the supposition
that Simon Magus did find his way to Rome — the
reservoir, as Tacitus says, into which all things in
famous and shameful flowed2 — and did there endeavour
to win dupes by the same magical arts which had
gained him so many votaries among the simple Samari
tans.3 If we suppose that he dazzled the mind of
Nero, and that he was one of those men of Jewish
race, who, with Aliturus and Josephus, taught Nero
and his servants to discriminate between Jews and
Christians, and to martyr the latter while they
honoured the former, then in Simon Magus the Second
Beast of the Apocalypse — especially in the attri
butes of a False Prophet — would stand revealed. It
is true that the Pagan historians are silent about
him and his doings; but the events themselves
had no political significance, and lay outside their
sphere. They belong to the history of the Church
not of the State.4 And Victorinus seems to be re
ferring to Simon Magus when, with reference to the
1 Justin Mart. Apol. ii. p. 69 ; Tertull. De Ani/m. 34 ; De Praescr.
Haer. 37 ; Snip. Sev. Hist. Sacr. ii. 42 ; Clem. Hom. ii. 34 ; iv. 4 ; Recogn.
ii. 9 ; iii. 47, 57 ; Constt. Apost. vi. 9 ; Epiphan. Haer. xxi. 5 ; Arnob.
Adv. Gentes, ii. 12 ; Ambros. Hexaem. iv. 8, § 33 ; Cyrill. Catech. 6 ; Ps.
Egesipp. De excidio Hieros. ; August. Serm. iii. de SS. Petro et Paulo ;
Nicephorus Callistus, H. E. ii. 27.
2 Tac. Ann. xv. 46 ; v. supra, vol. i. p. 116.
3 Acts viii. 11.
4 I have already mentioned that Justin's mistake about a statue to him
as a god was dispelled in 1574, when the inscription to the Sabine god,
Semo Sancus was found in the place which he mentions ; v. supra, vol. i.
p. 115.
u 2

303 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY.
signs wrought by the False Prophet, he says that " the
Magi do these things even to this day by the help
of the banished Angels."
III. We now pass from what may be called the
ecclesiastical and the religious fields of conjecture to the
political. It must be remembered that it is as it
were only by an afterthought that the Second Beast
is called the False Prophet. May we not look for him
in another region of Roman life ?
There is, I think, much to be said in favour of
Hildebrandt's suggestion1 that by the False Prophet,
or the " Second Beast from the land." is meant Vespasian.
Let us apply to him the ten indications which the seer
has furnished.
1. Being a " wild beast" it is a priori probable that
he will belong to the heathen world. He rises " from
the earth " or " from the land." If we take the former
rendering it may point to his taking his origin, as an
important power, not from the sea, or any sea-washed
peninsula like Italy, whence Nero had sprung, but from
the vast continent of Asia ; i.e., the growth of his
power is connected with the East. If the words be
rendered "from the land" they then apply to Judaaa.
Now both Jews2 and Pagans3 were struck with the
fact that Vespasian, as Emperor, " went forth from
Juda?a," and they connected his rise in that country
with many prophecies then current, not only in the
East, but among the Romans themselves — prophecies
which were familiar to more than one of the Caesars,
and had exercised no small influence on their aims and
actions.
1 Hilgenfeld's Zeitschr. 1874.
2 Jos. B. J. vi. 5, § 4. 3 Suet. Vesp. 6.

VESPASIAN. 309
2. He had two horns like unto a lamb. There is
hardly one of those who have been suggested as answer
ing to the False Prophet to whom this description in
any way applies. To Vespasian it does apply in a
remarkable manner. His nature and his language, as
compared with those of a Caligula and a Nero, were
absolutely mild. He was indeed as indifferent to the
blood and misery of a hostile people as all the Romans
were ; but there was nothing naturally ferocious and san
guinary in the character of this worthy bourgeois.1 Now
since the ten horns of the first Beast are ten provincial
governors — ten powers which are, primarily, a source ot
his strength — we should expect that the two horns also
indicated persons, and especially persons more or less
imperial in their functions, in whose existence lay the
strength of the Lamb-like Beast. And this was the
exact position of Vespasian. His force lay in the fact
1 Josephus boasts of the generosity of Vespasian as something extra
ordinary (Antt. xii. 3, § 2). His natural kindness, and freedom from
hatred and revenge, are freely admitted, and may account for his external
semblance to " a lamb " in the Apocalyptic symbol. Suetonius says that
from the beginning to the end of his reign he was " civilis et clemens "
{Vesp. 11) ; that he bore all kinds of opposition in the gentlest manner
{lenissime, c. 13) ; and that he neither remembered nor revenged injuries
(c. 14). But St. John, a Jew by birth and a true patriot, saw with Jewish
eyes the inner wild-beast nature of the man. He would be little likely
to share in the renegade admiration of Josephus for the general who,
like his son, caused such myriads of Jews —
" To swell, slow pacing by the car's tall side,
The Stoic tyrant's philosophic pride ;
To flesh the lion's ravenous jaws, and feel
The sportive fury of the fencer's steel ;
Or sigh, deep-plunged beneath the sultry mine,
For the light airs of balmy Palestine."
St. John's estimate of him is that of the Rabbis, who narrated that he
died in frightful torments ; and that of the 2nd book of Esdras, that he
ruled " with much oppression " (2 Esdr. xi. 321.

310 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY.
that he had two sons, both of them men of mark : Titus,
the conqueror of Judaea, who kept the allegiance of the
army firm for him while he was awaiting his actual
accession to power ; Domitian, who headed his party
in Rome. But for their assistance his cause could
not have prospered so decisively, and both of them
succeeded to the empire after his death.1
3. He spake as a dragon or serpent, that is, he used
the language generically of Paganism, and specifically
of subtle and deceptive intention. The allusion may
be to circumstances which were better known to St.
John than to us ; but meanwhile, whether it be generic
or specific, there is sufficient evidence that it is appro
priate in a sketch of the rise of Vespasian, and
corresponds with the serpentine wisdom and caution
with which his designs were carried out.
4. He is a visible delegate of, and responsible to,
the first Beast. This applies better to Vespasian than
to any one. The first outbreak of the Jewish war took
place while Nero was indulging in his frantic follies of
sestheticism in Greece, a.d. 66. He instantly des
patched Vespasian to suppress the rebellion. To a
general so placed it would have been an easy matter
to revolt against the blood-stained actor who then
afflicted the world. But as long as the Emperor lived,
Vespasian, though not a favourite of Nero, remained
conspicuously faithful.
5. And he made the earth worship the first Beast,
whose death-stroke was healed. To enforce subjection
to Nero, who even in his lifetime was " worshipped " as
1 Titus and Domitian are probably the two heads on each side of the
central head of the eagle in 2 Esdr. xi. 30, and ver. 35 may allude to the
belief that Domitian poisoned Titus.

VESPASIAN'S "MIRACLES." 311
a god, was the express object of Vespasian's mission to
the East. Moreover, it must be borne in mind that by
the Wild Beast is meant the Roman Empire in general
as well as Nero ; and Rome was worshipped as a goddess
in many of the provinces.1
6. It might seem an impossibility that any Roman
general should have pretended to work signs, still more
that there could be anything in his history which could be
specifically described as a bringing down fire from heaven.
It happens, however, that Vespasian is the one Roman —
the only Roman in high places, the only Imperial dele
gate — to whom such language will apply. His visit to
Alexandria was accompanied by signs and wonders which
obtained wide credence. Not only had the Nile risen
in a single day higher than it had ever done before,
but Vespasian was believed to have worked personal
miracles.2 He had anointed with spittle the eyes of a
blind man, and restored his sight ; before a full
assembly he had healed a cripple ; and he had shown
a remarkable example of second sight.3 We do not,
indeed, read that he had called down fire from heaven ;
but that expression may be metaphorical of the
fire and sword with which he scathed and devastated
Palestine, and we can see the circumstance which may
have given shape to the image. It represents the
False Prophet as a pseudo-Elias, and there was a cir
cumstance which might well have suggested a sort of
antithesis between the two. Vespasian had visited
Carmel, and had received a remarkable communication

1 On the apotheosis of Emperors, often even in their lifetime, see
Sueton. Octav. 59; Tiber. 40; Claud. 2; Calig. 22, 24; Vesp. 9; Tac.
a. i. 10, 74 ; iv. 15, 37 ; xiv. 31, etc., and supra, vol. i. p. 6.
2 Dion Cass. lxvi. 8 ; Suet. Vesp. 7. 3 Tac. Hist. iv. 82.

812 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY.
from " the god Carmelus " (evidently intended for
Elijah),1 who, though not worshipped under the form of
any image, had there an altar which was regarded as
peculiarly sacred. This god Carmelus had given him an
Oracle, which, even in the version of Suetonius, reminds
us strongly of Dan. xi. 36, namely, that " everything
which he had in his mind should prosper, however great
it was."2 As a " fulmen belli," and as the supposed re
cipient of a favourable oracle from Elijah, Vespasian, in
his brilliant successes at the beginning of the Jewish
war, might well be said, in the style of writing which
constantly intermingles the symbolic and the literal, to
have flashed fire from heaven upon the enemies of the
Beast. 7. He gives breath to the image of the Beast and makes
it speak. Whether in this instance again we have some
allusion to the story of a magic wonder current in that
day we cannot tell. All that we know is that Ves
pasian would certainly enforce homage and reverence
from the conquered Jews to the statues of the Em
peror,3 which Nero was specially fond of multiplying,
and which the Jews regarded with peculiar abhor
rence.4 In the Ascension of Isaiah it is made a cha
racteristic of Nero that " he shall erect his statue
in all cities before his face."5 Since Simon Magus
pretended to animate statues with life, there may have
been a rumour that something of the kind had taken
place in Judsea. If not, the metaphorical meaning —
1 Ritter, Erdkunde, viii. 705. Carmel is now called Mar Elyas.
2 Suet. Vesp. 5 ; Tac. Hist. ii. 78.
3 Jos. Antt. xviii. 8, § 1.
4 " The image of the beast is clearly the statue of the Emperor." —
Milman. 5 Ascens. Isa. iv. 11 ; Lactant. ii. 7.

DOINGS OF VESPASIAN. 313
the reanimation of the Roman power in Palestine,
which the successful revolt of the Jews had for a time
extinguished — is quite sufficient to meet the language
of the seer.
8. The putting to death of those who will not worship
the image of the Beast: — the slaughter, banishment,
and sale into slavery, of all who refused to accept the
imperial authority, reverence the imperial images, and
accept the imperial coinage, is a circumstance which
will explain itself. It is a symbolic condensation of all
that had already occurred in the Jewish war at Ascalon,
at Sepphoris, at Gadara, at Jotapata, at Gerasa, at
Japha, Joppa, Tarichese, Giscala, Gamala, and through
out the whole north and west of Palestine.
9. He stamps men of all ranks and classes, high and
low, rich and poor, with the image of his Beast, and the
number of his name. This detail, which only applies
in the loosest possible manner to any of the others
who have been regarded as the antitypes of the False
Prophet, suits Vespasian very closely. It exactly de
scribes his natural conduct in giving his soldiers the
brand of their service,1 and exacting from all classes
the oath of allegiance, making them swear "by the
genius of Csesar "• — first of Nero, then of Galba.
Lastly, 10. The forbidding all to buy and sell who
have not got the mark of the Beast, seems to be a very
natural reminiscence of one of Vespasian's most re
markable acts. When Nero was dead, and Galba
murdered, and Otho also had committed suicide after
the terrible battle of Bedriacum, neither Vespasian
nor his soldiers felt inclined to obey the imbecile rule
of the glutton Vitellius. Vespasian accepted his own
1 See Ronsch, Das N. T. Tertullians, p. 702.

314 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY.
nomination to the Empire by the legions of Mucianus
as well as by his own soldiers, and he hastened to make
himself master of the occasion by establishing his head
quarters at Alexandria. Any ruler who had hold of
Alexandria could command the allegiance of Egypt, and
the lord of Egypt could always put his hand upon the
very throat of Rome. For if the corn ships did not
sail from Alexandria the populace of Rome was starved.
Accordingly, the first thing which Vespasian did was to
forbid all exports from Alexandria. That stern edict
was felt throughout the Empire. The object of it
was to starve Rome into an absolute acceptance of his
" mark of the Beast," i.e., his imperial claim. It was
entirely successful. Galba, Otho, and even Vitellius,
were regarded as isolated military usurpers ; Vespasian,
the Wild Beast's delegate, the Wild Beast's miraculous
upholder, mounted the Wild Beast's throne, and like
him became one of the seven heads, and wielded the
power of the ten provincial horns — once rebellious —
now subdued; often inimical to the harlot-city, but
always faithful to the Roman Empire.1
To me these circumstances, which I have drawn
out in my own way, but of which the original dis
covery is due to Hildebrandt, seem to be nearly
decisive. My only doubt is whether, in that subtle
interchange of ideas which marks all symbolic litera
tures, St. John may not have mingled two conceptions in
his description of the Second Beast. If so, I should
feel no doubt that the subordinate monster was meant
to combine the features observable in the position and
conduct of Simon Magus, as the False Prophet and
Impostor who supported Nero at Rome, and of Josephus
1 Rev. xvii. 12, 13, 16, 17.

A COMPOSITE SYMBOL. 315
the False Prophet who embraced the cause of Vespasian
in Palestine, with that of Vespasian himself as a two-
horned Wild Beast maintaining the power of Rome in
the Holy Land. The composite character of such a
symbol presents no difficulty. It closely corresponds
with known apocalyptic methods ; — and certainly in
this instance if the Second Wild Beast and False Pro
phet be regarded as a composite symbol (as is suggested
by the alternative description), I think that I have here
offered a closer approximation to every one of the re
quirements of the imagery than I have found in the
pages of any other interpreter.
Lastly, to revert for one moment to the return of
the Antichrist in the person of Nero, it is — as I have
said — in apocalyptic and Oriental style amply fulfilled
in the reign of Domitian. If Galba, Otho, and Vitellius
be omitted from the list as mere transitory usurpers who
would hardly be regarded as Emperors at all, then Nero
the fifth Emperor did reappear, not indeed in person, but in
symbol, in the eighth Emperor, Domitian.1 Even Titus
was regarded as likely to be a coming Nero.2 The
Jews were very far from looking upon him as the
amor et deliciae humani generis. It is probable that
Sulpicius Severus may be preserving for us the testi
mony of Tacitus when (ii. 97) he attributes to Titus the
thoroughly Neronian and Antichristian purpose of
uprooting both Christianity and Judaism in one and the
same stroke. This purpose, if he ever had it, he did
not live to carry out. But Domitian, at any rate, was,
1 The Eight would then be Augustus, Tiberius, Gaius, Claudius, Nero,
Vespasian, Titus, Nero again in the form of Domitian; so that Nero was
and is not, and yet was to recur : he was at once the fifth and the eighth.
2 " Denique propalam alium Neronem et opinabantur et praedicabant "
(Suet. Tit. 7).

316 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY.
like Nero, an open persecutor of Christianity. Tertullian
not only sets him side by side with Nero, but even calls
him "a fragment of Nero, as far as his cruelty was con
cerned," and a sub-Nero.1 In Domitian the Christians
saw the legend of Nero redivivus symbolically and effec
tively if not literally fulfilled.
So great was the resemblance between him and his
blood-stained prototype that the common nickname of
Domitian in Rome was "the bald Nero." "Titus," says
Ausonius, " was fortunate in the shortness of his rule :
his brother followed him, whom his Rome called 'a
bald Nero;""1 and Juvenal talks of the time when " the
last Flavius was rending the half-dead world, and Rome
was enslaved to the bald Nero."3 The identification of
the spirit of Domitian with that of Nero was also familiar
to Christian historians. Eusebius says that towards
the close of his reign Domitian established himself as
a successor of Nero's hatred to God and hostility
against Him.4 It was natural to St. John to symbolise
Nero as " the Wild Beast," and the very same term
(immanissima bellua) is applied by Pliny to Domitian.5
Tacitus even draws a parallel between the two to the
advantage of Nero.6 Both showed the wild beast
nature, but the ferocity of Domitian was more cruel
and more innate. In him the death-wounded Antichrist
was once more restored to life.

1 Tert. Apol. 5 ; De Pall. 4.
2 Auson. Monost. de Ord. XII. Imp. 11, 12.
3 Juv. Sat. iv. 34, 35.
4 reKevruv rrjs Vtepwvos Beoex&ptas re Kal Beopaxtas SidSoxov eavriv Kareff-
riio-aro (Euseb. H. E. iii. 17).
6 Paneg. 48.
6 Tac. Agric. 45 " Nero tamen subtraxit oculos, jussitqne scelera non
spectavit."

THE VIALS. 317
SECTION VII.
THE VIALS.
We have now passed in review all the more difficult
Apocalyptic visions. A great part of the remainder of
the Book is occupied with scenes which require but little
comment, and convey directly their own great lessons.
First, we have the glorious vision of the Lamb upon
Mount Zion with the redeemed and virgin multitude.
Then three Angels fly in rapid succession through the
mid region of heaven. The first bears in his hand
an eternal gospel which must be preached to every
nation, tribe, tongue, and people before the End.1 The
second cries out in prophetic anticipation, "Fallen,
fallen is Babylon the Great." A third utters an awful
warning to the Gentiles who worship the Beast and
receive his mark. Then a Voice proclaims the blessed
ness of the dead who die in the Lord from henceforth,
and immediately afterwards there appears on a white
cloud one like unto the Son of Man, wearing a golden
crown and grasping a sharp sickle. Then follows the
harvest of the elect, and the vintage of the wrath
of God, which seems to take place in the valley of
Jehoshaphat,2 and of which the imagery is tinged by
reminiscences of the terrible Jewish War, with its
deluge of rolling blood3 — rolling 200 miles, or, roughly,
1 Matt. xxiv. 14.
' Rev. xiv. 20; Isa. xvii. 5; lxiii. 1—6; Joel iii. 2, 11—14; Mic
iv. 13 ; Hab. iii. 12.
3 Isa. lxiii. 3 ; comp. Enoch xcviii. 3 : " The horse shall wade up to his
breast, and the chariot shall sink to his axle in the blood of sinners." So
too Silins Italicus (iii. 704) speaks of "nammam exspirare furentes
cornipedes, multoque fiuentia sanguine lor a''

318 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY.
the whole length from Tyre to Rhinocolura, from north
to south of the Holy Land.1
Then, after an episode of resplendent triumph and
thanksgiving in heaven, seven Angels, arrayed in pre
cious stone,2 pour out their vials of wrath upon the
heathen world.3 Like the plagues of the first four
trumpets, they affect the earth, and the sea, and the
rivers,4 and the heavenly bodies, the seat of the Beast,
and the River Euphrates, and they are ended by the
terrible phenomena of storm and earthquake. They
are again but a vivid picture of the repeated signs in
the sun, and the moon, and the stars, the distress of
nations with perplexity, the sea and waves roaring,
men's hearts failing them for fear, and the shaking
of the powers of heaven, of which Christ had pro
phesied.5 At the outpouring of the sixth Vial, the
Euphrates is metaphorically dried up to prepare for the
invasion of the kings of the East; and out of the
mouths of the Devil, the Beast, and the False Prophet
come three froglike spirits of demons working miracles
which gather the heathen kings to the great battle of
Har-Magedon — a symbol of satanic opposition gathering
to a final head, and meeting with its final overthrow.6
1 Jerome, Ep. ad Dard. states this at 160 miles; but the deluge of
blood began to roll from a point far north of Tyre.
2 Leg. fdBov, A, C, Vulg., and some MSS. known to Andreas. Comp.
Ezek. xxviii. 13 {-ndvra \lBov xpvvrbv ivSeSeo-ai), "Every precious stone
was thy covering " (see Westcott and Hort, Greek Test. ii. ad loc, and
compare Milton's— ., His vaunting foe
Though huge, and in a rock of diamond armed)."
3 Ezek. xxii. 31 ; Zeph. iii. 8.
4 Comp. Wisd. xi. 15 — 16 ; xvi. 1, 9 ; xvii. 2, seqq.
6 Luke xxi. 25, 26. We have already seen that the practical identity
of the seals, trumpets, and vials was known by tradition even to the
earliest commentators ,- v. supra, pp. 224, 231, 265.
0 The hill and plain of Megiddo were the scenes of great battles.

JERUSALEM AND ROME. 319
The seventh Angel pours out his vial on the air.
There are thunders and a mighty earthquake. The
great city (Jerusalem) is divided into three ; the cities
of the Gentiles fall ; Rome — the mystic Babylon —
comes into remembrance before God for vengeance ;
islands and mountains flee away, and there is a mighty
plague of hail. We seem here to be in a region beyond
the limits of history; but we can see that the images
were in part suggested by that remarkable epoch of
earthquakes which affected especially the cities of Asia,
and by the three camps occupied by the army of Titus,
and the three factions which occupied the three regions
of Jerusalem — Simon in Bezetha, John in the Upper
City, Eleazar in the Temple — and tore it to pieces with
their internecine fury.
Then the great harlot city (Rome), drunken with the
blood of the Neronian martyrs, is judged. Her judg
ment comes in part from the ten horns, which should
have been the source of her strength, but which hate
her, and eat her flesh, and burn her with fire. Part
at least of the symbol corresponds with the horrors
inflicted upon Rome and Romans in the civil wars by
provincial governors — already symbolised as the horns
of the Wild Beast, and here characterised as kings yet
kingdomless. Such were Galba, Otho, Vitellius, and
Vespasian. Vespasian and Mucianus deliberately plan
ned to starve the Roman populace ; 1 and in the fierce
struggle of the Vitellians against Sabinus and Domi-
They are in the Plain of Jezreel, the battle-field of Palestine (Judg. v. 19 ;
2 Kings xxiii. 29 ; Zech. xii. 11). Hence Ewald's conjecture that Har-
Magedon is a cypher for Rome the Great (Ha Romah Haggedolah) is
needless. Otherwise we might see here another instance of Gematria, for
Har-Magedon and Romah Hagedolah are both = 304.
1 Jos. B.J. iv. 10, §5.

320 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY.
tian, and the massacre which followed, there occurred
the event which sounded so portentously in the ears of
every Roman — the burning to the ground of the
Temple of the Capitoline Jupiter, on December 19th,
a.d. 69.1 It was not the least of the signs of the
times that the space of one year saw wrapped in flames
the two most hallowed shrines of the ancient world —
the Temple of Jerusalem and the Temple of the great
Latin god. The Jews were not alone in interpreting
these events of the final dissolution of the Empire.
Josephus saw, in the establishment of the Flavian
dynasty, "the unexpected deliverance of the fortunes
of Rome from ruin ; "2 Tacitus looked on the year a.d.
68 as one which threatened to be the final year of
the Roman commonwealth.3 The Apocalyptist of II.
Fsdras says of the Eagle in which he symbolises Rome,
" Thou hast afflicted the weak, thou hast hurt the
peaceable, thou hast loved liars, and hast cast down
walls of such as did thee no ^harm ; therefore appear
no more, O Eagle ! nor thy horrible wings, nor thy
wicked feathers, nor thy malicious heads, nor thy hurt
ful claws, nor all thy vain body." (2 Esdr. xi. 42 — 46.)
The author of the Book of Baruch says of Rome, the
city which afflicted Jerusalem, " Fire shall come upon
her from the Everlasting, long to endure ; and she shall
be inhabited of devils for a great time" (Bar. iv. 85).
The next chapters are occupied by the mingled wail
and psean over the doom of fallen Babylon, which is
echoed in heaven.4 The armies of heaven ride forth
1 Tac. H. iii. 83 ; Jos. B. J. iv. 11, § 4.
2 Jos. B. J. iv. 11, § 5. 3 Tac. H. i. 11.
The expressions throughout chapters xvii. — xviii. are almost entirely
borrowed from the ancient prophets (Isa. xiii., xxiii, xxiv., &c. ; Jer. xvi.,
xxv. ; Ezek. xxvi., xxvii. ; Amos vi. 5 — 7.

CLOSING VISIONS. 321
after the Word of God, and the fowls of the air are
summoned to feed on the flesh of kings and captains
slain in impious battle. The Beast and the False
Prophet are cast into the Lake of Fire, and their
followers are slain by the sword of the heavenly Rider.
Satan is bound for a thousand years, and the Millen
nium of the Saints begins.1 When the thousand
years are ended, Satan is to be loosed to gather all the
heathen, Gog and Magog,2 to the final battle against
God, after which he shall be flung to join the Beast
and the False Prophet in the Lake of Fire. The great
White Throne is set. The dead are judged. There
is a new heaven and a new earth. Glowing with gold
and gems,3 the New Jerusalem descends out of heaven
from God,4 through whose streets flows, bright as crystal,
the River of the water of life, and there is no Temple
there, nor light of moon nor sun, for the Lord God
gives them light; — and there shall be no more curse.5
The book ends with that which is the burden of the

1 A literal millenarianism has been generally condemned by the
Catholic Church. Victorinus and the earliest commentators understood
the 1,000 years to have begun at the Incarnation. Origen and most of
the Fathers understood it spiritually and metaphorically.
2 Barbarian nations from the North (Ezek. xxxviii, xxxix.). Abarbanel
on Jer. xxx. calls them nations from the East.
3 Derived from Is. liv. 12 ; and comp. Yalkut Shimeoni, f . 54, a.
4 The Rabbis inferred from Ps. cxxii. 3, that there was " a Jerusalem
above " (Taanith, f. 5, a) ; and Rabbi Johanan says, " The Holy One will
bring precious stones and pearls, each measuring 30 cubits by 30, and
after polishing them down to 20 cubits by 20, will place them in the
gates of Jerusalem " (Bava Bathra, f. 25, a). Again, " The Jerusalem of
this world is not as the Jerusalem of the world to come. The former is
open to all; to the latter (Rev. xxi. 5) none shall go up but those who are
ordained to enter " (id. 75, 6). As to its height (Rev. xxi. 16) the Rabbis
say that God will place it on the summits of Mounts Sinai, Tabor, and
Carmel (Isa. ii. 2).
6 Zech. xiv. 11.

322 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY.
whole — Yea ! I come quickly. And the seer answers,
as all Christians have ever answered, Amen ! Come,
Lord Jesus ! x
And thus the whole book, from beginning to end,
teaches the great truths — Christ shall triumph ! Christ's
enemies shall be overcome ! They who hate Him shall
be destroyed; they who love Him shall be blessed
unspeakably. The doom alike of Jew and of Gentile
is already imminent. On Judsea and Jerusalem, on
Rome and her Empire, on Nero and his adorers, the
judgment shall fall. Sword and fire, and famine and
pestilence, and storm and earthquake, and social agony
and political terror are nothing but the woes which are
ushering in the Messianic reign. Old things are rapidly
passing away. The light upon the visage of the old
dispensation is vanishing and fading into dimness, but
the face of Him who is as the sun is already dawning
through the East. The new and final covenant is
instantly to be established amid terrible judgments;
and it is to be so established as to render impossible the
continuance of the old. Maranatha ! The Lord is at
hand ! Even so come, Lord Jesus ! Mane nobiscum
Domine, nam advesperascit !
1 The solemn curse against any one who adds to, or takes from, the
book, was not uncommon in days when literary forgery and interpola
tion were remarkably common. Thus Irenseus ended one of his books
with the words : — " I adjure you, copyists of this book, by the Lord Jesus
Christ, and by His glorious coming to judge the quick and the dead, that
you compare and carefully correct your copy by this exemplar, and like
wise place this adjuration in your copy" (Opp. i. p. 821, ed. Stieren). A
similar passage is found at the end of Rufinus's prologue to his version
of Origen's De Principiis (see Huidekoper, Judaism at Rome, p. 289).

CHAPTER XXIX.
THE FALL OF JERUSALEM.
" The Lord, whose fire is in Zion, and His furnace in Jerusalem " (Isa.
xxxi. 9).
" What was the cause of the destruction of the Second Temple, seeing
that the age was distinguished for the study of the laws ? ..... It was
groundless hatred " (Yoma, f. 9, 6).
There is no need to dwell upon the last days of Jeru
salem. Very little can be added to the horrible story
beyond what is to be read by every one in the pages of
Josephus.1 It is true that Josephus has effectually
blackened his own memory. It would have been well
for him if he had only written the Antiquities and the
Bialogue against Apion. In his Jewish War, and, above
all, in his autobiography, he stands confessed as a
false, heartless, and designing renegade. The man who,
standing in sight of- the ruins of Zion and the blackened
area on which had shone the Holy of Holies, compla
cently tells us how Titus gave him other lands in Judsea,
because those which he had possessed near Jerusalem
had become useless ; the man who gloatingly recounts
the honours heaped upon him by the conquerors who
flung thousands of his brave countrymen to the wild
beasts, and sold tens of thousands more into brutal
1 For modern narratives derived from him, see F. de Saulcy, Les
Derniers Jours de Jerusalem, 1866 ; Milman, Hist of the Jews, chaps.
xvi., xvii. ; Merivale, Hist, of the Romans, ch. lix ; Ewald, Gesch. vi. 696
—813.
v 2

324 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY.
misery ; the man who, in the sumptuous palace which
he owed to his conqueror, could detail without a sob the
extermination of his people ; the man who could gaze
with complacent infamy on the triumph which told ot
the destruction of his nation's liberty, and could look
on while the hallowed vessels of the Sanctuary were
held aloft before a Pagan populace by bloodstained
hands ; the man who in youth haunted the boudoir of
Poppaea, and in old age hung about the antechambers of
Domitian ; the man who pursued with the posthumous
hatred of successful treachery the brave though mis
guided patriots who had held it a glory to die for
Jerusalem — must stand forth till the end of time in the
immortal infamy which his own writings have heaped
upon himself.1 We cannot be surprised that all the
patriots of his nation hated him, and tried to
disturb his base prosperity and " gilded servitude."
No one trusts the word of Josephus where he has the
least interest in palming off upon us a deception.
But he had no particular reason to misrepresent the
general facts of the awful and heroic struggle in which
for a few months he bore a part. And since the
writings of Justus of Tiberias, and Antonius Primus
have perished, as well as the later part of the History
of Tacitus, Josephus becomes our sole guide. The
Talmud has almost nothing to tell us. In it we look
in vain for the names of John, or Simon, or Eleazar.
We only see a dim glimpse of flames and assassination,
and ruin, mixed up with curious legends and tales of
individual agony.2
1 See Derenbourg, p. 264, and n. xi. ; Gratz, iii. 365, seq., 386, 411 ;
Salvador, Hist. ii. 467 ; De Quincey, Works.
2 Derenbourg, pp. 266, 282—288. Some of the stories which Josephus

FALL OF JERUSALEM. 325
In April, a.d. 70, Titus, with a force of 80,000
legionaries and auxiliaries, pitched his camp on Scopus,
to the north of the city. Besides the 2,400 trained
Jewish warriors who defended the walls, the city was
thronged with an incredible number of Passover pil
grims, and of fugitives from other parts of Judsea. Feats
of heroic valour were performed on both sides, and the
skill of the besiegers was often checked by the almost
insane fury of the besieged. Fanatically relying on the
visible manifestation of Jehovah, while they were in
famously violating all His laws, the Zealots rejected
with insult every offer of terms. At last Titus drew a
line of circumvallation round the doomed city, and
began to crucify all the deserters who fled to him. The
incidents of the famine which then fell on the besieged
are among the most horrible in human literature. The
corpses bred a pestilence. Whole houses were filled with
unburied families of the dead. Mothers slew and devoured
their own children. Hunger, rage, despair, and mad
ness seized the city. It became a cage of furious madmen,
a city of howling wild beasts, and of cannibals, — a hell I1
For the first time for five centuries, on July 17, a.d. 70,
the daily sacrifices of the Temple ceased for want of
priests to offer them. Disease and slaughter ruthlessly
accomplished their work. At last, amid shrieks and flames,
and suicide and massacre, the Temple was taken and re
duced to ashes. The great altar of sacrifice was heaped
with the slain. The courts of the Temple swam deep in
blood. Six thousand miserable women and children sank
with a wild cry of terror amid the blazing ruins of the
recounts of himself are transferred in the Talmud to the celebrated Rabbi
Yochanan Ben Zakkai.
1 Renan, L'Antechrist, 507.

326 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY.
cloisters. Romans adored the insignia of their legions
on the place where the Holiest had stood. As soon as
they became masters of the Upper City they only ceased
to slay when they were too weary to slay any longer.
According to Josephus, it had been the earnest desire of
Titus to preserve the Temple, but his commands were
disobeyed by his soldiers in the fury of the struggle.
According to Sulpicius Severus, on the other hand, who
is probably quoting the very words of Tacitus, Titus
formed the deliberate purpose to destroy Christianity and
Judaism in one blow, believing that if the Jewish root
were torn up the Christian branch would soon perish.1
The tallest and most beautiful youths were reserved for
the conqueror's triumph. Of those above seventeen
years of age multitudes were doomed to work in chains
in the Egyptian mines. Others were sent as presents to
various towns to be slain by wild beasts or gladiators,
or by each other's swords in the provincial amphi-
1 " Alii et Titus ipse evertendum templum imprimis censebant, quo
plenius Judaeorum et Christianorum religio tolleretur. Quippe has
religiones licet contrarias sibi, iisdem tamen auctoribus profectas ; radice
sublata, stirpem facile perituram " (Sulp. Sev. Sacr. Hist. ii. 30, § 6, 7).
He had access both to the lost part of the Histories of Tacitus, and also
to the work of Antonius Julianus, De Judaeis. The latter, who was one
of Titus's council of war, wrote with far less biassed motives than
Josephus, who is not to be trusted when he had anything to gain by
disguising the truth. Dr. Bernays, of Breslau, believes that Sulpicius
Severus is quoting Tacitus in the sentence quoted above. Gratz (iii. 403)
contemptuously rejects this suggestion, on the ground that Titus could
scarcely have heard of the Christians. But Titus saw a great deal of
Josephus and of Agrippa II. , and there are signs that Josephus knew a
good deal more about Christianity than he ventures to say, and that
Agrippa had not been uninfluenced by the arguments of St. Paul (see
Derenbourg, p. 252). On the other hand, Ewald thinks that this assertion
as to the purpose of Titus is weakened by the repetition of it in the case
of Hadrian : " existimans se Christianam fidem loci injuria " (i.e. by pro
faning the site of the Temple) " peremturum " (Sulp. Sev., Sacr. Hist.
ii. 31, § 3 ; Ewald, Gesch. vi. 797).

FALL OF JERUSALEM. 327
theatres. The young of both sexes were sold as slaves.
Even during the days on which these arrangements
were being made, 11,000 perished for want of food;
some because their guards would not give it to them,
others because they would not accept it. Josephus
reckons the number of captives taken during the war at
97,000, and the number of those who perished during
the siege at 1,100,000. The numbers who perished
in the whole war are reckoned at the awful total of
1,337,490, and the number of prisoners at 101,700;
but even these estimates do not include all the items
of many skirmishes and battles, nor do they take into
account the multitudes who, throughout the whole
country, perished of misery, famine, and disease. It
may well be said that the nation seemed to have
given itself " a rendezvous of extermination." Two
thousand putrefying bodies were found even in the
subterranean vaults of the city. During the siege all
the trees of the environs had been cut down, and hence
the whole appearance of the place, with its charred and
bloodstained ruins, was so completely altered, that
one who was suddenly brought to it would not (we
are told) have recognised where he was. And yet
the site had been so apparently impregnable, with its
massive and unequalled fortifications, that Titus freely
declared that he saw in his victory the hand of God.1
1 It is curious to contrast the pious, gentle, and amiable Titus of
Josephus, and the " Love and darling of the human race " of Roman
historians, with " Titus the Bad " (Ha-rasha), or " the Tyrant," of the
Talmudists. Their well-known legend tells that, being caught in a
terrible storm, and getting safe to land, he defied God, Who, to punish
him, sent a little gnat (raw), which crept up his nostrils into his brain,
and caused him incessant and sleepless anguish. At his death it was
found to be "as big as a bird, and to have a beak and claws of steel "
(Bereshith Rabba x. ; Tanchuma, 62, a, &c.) It may be imagined how

328 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY.
From that time all Jews on seeing Jerusalem rend theif
garments, and exclaim, " Zion is a wilderness, Jerusalem
a desolation. Our holy and beautiful house, where our
fathers praised Thee, is burned with fire, and all our
pleasant things are laid waste."1
It was to this event, the most awful in history —
"one of the most awful eras in God's economy of
grace, and the most awful revolution in all God's
religious dispensations " 2 — that we must apply those
prophecies of Christ's coming in which every one of the
Apostles and Evangelists describe it as near at hand?
To those prophecies our Lord Himself fixed these three
most definite limitations — the one, that before that
generation passed away all these things would be ful
filled ; 4 another, that some standing there should not
taste death till they saw the Son of Man coming in His
kingdom;5 the third, that the Apostles should not have
gone over the cities of Israel till the Son of Man be
come.6 It is strange that these distinct limitations
should not be regarded as a decisive proof that the Fall
of Jerusalem was, in the fullest sense, the Second
Advent of the Son of Man, which was primarily con
templated by the earliest voices of prophecy.
And, indeed, the Fall of Jerusalem and all the events
which accompanied and followed it in the Roman world
and in the Christian Church, had a significance which it
patriotic Jews felt towards Titus Flavius Josephus. The name on which
he prided himself would be to them a veritable " brand of the Beast."
1 Isa. lxiv. 10, 11 ; Moed Eaton, f . 26, a.
2 Bp. Warburton's Julian, i. p. 21.
3 Acts ii. 16—20, 40; iii. 19—21; 1 Thess. iv. 13—17; v. 1—16
2 Thess. i. 7—10 ; 1 Cor. i. 7 ; x. 11 ; xv. 21 ; xvi. 22 ; Rom. xiii. 11, 12
Phil. iii. 20 ; iv. 5 ; 1 Tim. iv. 1 ; 2 Tim. iii. 1 ; Heb. i. 2 ; x. 25, 37
James v. 3, 8, 9 ; 1 Pet. ii. 7 ; 2 Pet, iii. 12 ; 1 J. ii. 18. .
4 Matt. xxiv. 34. 6 Matt. xvi. 28. 6 Matt. s„23.

THE END OF THE OLD DISPENSATION. 329
is hardly possible to over estimate. They were the
final end of the old Dispensation. They were the full
inauguration of the New Covenant. They were God's
own overwhelming judgment on that form of Judaic
Christianity which threatened to crush 'the work of St.
Paul, to lay on the Gentiles the yoke of an abrogated
Mosaism, to establish itself by threats and anathemas
as the only orthodoxy. Many of the early Christians —
and those especially who lived at Jerusalem — were at
the same time rigid Jews. So long as they continued to
walk in the, ordinances of their fathers as a national and
customary duty, such observances were harmless ; but
it is the inevitable tendency of this external rigorism
to usurp in many minds the place of true religion.
In every Church, as we see from most of the Catholic
epistles, as well as in "those of St. Paul, the Judaists
asserted themselves, and won over the devoted adhe
rence of the multitude, which is ever ripe for the slavery
of rigid dogmas and narrow forms. It required the
whole force of St. Paul's inspired and splendid genius
to save Christianity from sinking into- an exclusive
sect of repellent Ebionites. No event less awful than
the desolation of Judsea, the destruction of Judaism,
the annihilation of all possibility of observing the
precepts of Moses, could have opened the eyes of the
Judaisers from their dream of imagined infallibility.
Nothing but God's own unmistakable interposition —
nothing but the manifest coming of Christ — could have
persuaded Jewish Christians that the Law of the
Wilderness was annulled ; that the idolised minutise of
Levitism could no longer claim to be divinely obliga
tory ; that the Temple, to which so many myriads had
resorted from every region of the world, as to a common

330 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY.
refuge, where they found peace and forgiveness and
holy thoughts and joyous hopes,1 had been smitten to
the ground as though by flashes of God's own avenging
fire ; that the sacrifices, of which Philo had so recently
said, " they are being offered even until now, and they
shall be offered for ever,"2 had been finally, decisively,
and, by the direct action of Divine Providence, annulled.
It was absurd to imagine that salvation could in any
way depend on obedience to a law to which obedience
had been rendered impossible by God's own decree. The
facts, so terrible to Jewish imagination, that the steps
of the profane had carried their bloody footprints into
the Holiest, where only the High Priest could enter once
a year; that, the unclean hands of Gentiles had been
laid on the golden altars ; that the sacred rolls of the
Torah, for which any Jew would have been ready to
die, had been carried captive, for every profane eye
to gaze upon, along the streets of Edom and Babylon —
were but symbols of the yet deadlier fact that henceforth
that law could not be kept, nor the Paschal lamb slain,
nor the ceremonies of even the Great Day of Atonement
any longer observed. Judaism, a religion of which the
Temple was the most essential centre, of which sacri
fices were the most essential element, became a religion
without a temple and without a sacrifice. It became
no longer possible for even the most Pharisaic of sacer-
dotalists to talk as though the very universe depended
on ceremonies and vestments, or on the right burning
of the two kidneys with the fat.
Christian historians rightly appreciate the signi
ficance of the event. The Temple, says Orosius, was
1 Philo, De Monarchia (Mangey, ii. 223).
2 Id., Leg. ad Gaium (Mangey, ii. 569).

ABROGATION OF JUDAISM. 331
overthrown and done away with, because it could no
longer serve any good or useful object, since now the
Church of God was vigorously germinating throughout
the world.1 When, in a.d. 120, iElia Capitolina was
built by Hadrian on the ruins of Jerusalem, and Chris
tians were allowed free access to it, while no Jew was
suffered to approach it, the Church of the Circumcision
was practically at an end. " Up to that time," says
Sulpicius Severus, " almost all Christians in Judsea
observed the Law while they worshipped Christ as God ;
but it was the result of God's ordinance that hence
forth the slavery of the Law should be taken away from
the freedom of the Church."2 The Church of .Mia
Capitolina was no longer prevalently Judaic ; nay more,
in a mission to Hadrian it formally severed itself from
the Jews. For the first time, in a.d. 137, it selected as
its bishop Marcus, an uncircumcised Gentile.3 The event
significantly proved that even in Judsea the future
destinies of the Christian Church were in no further,
danger of falling into the hands of either Ebionites or
Nazarenes.4 The Church then emancipated itself finally
and for ever from the trammels of the Synagogue.
No one was more deeply influenced by this event than
St. John. A full quarter of a century elapsed between
the ripe manhood when he wrote the Apocalypse and the
1 "Ecclesia Dei jam per totum orbem germinante, hoc (templum) tan.
quam effoetum et vacuum nullique usui bono commodum arbitrio Dei
auferendum fuit" (Oros. vii. 9).
2 Sulp. Sev. H. S. ii. 31.
3 Euseb. H. E. iv. 6 ; Gratz, Gesch. d. Juden. iv. 183.
4 The furious persecutions and massacres of Christians by the False
Messiah Bar Cochba (a.d. 132 — 134), which first thoroughly opened the
eyes of the Pagan world to the difference between Jews and Christians,
were due alike to the rejection of his claims by the Christians, and their
refusal. to join him in his revolt " (Gratz, Gesch. iv. 154, 457).

332 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY.
old age in which he wrote the Gospel and Epistles. The
colouring and spirit of the Apocalypse are clearly
Judaic ; but we see alike in the advanced Christology,1
and in the recognition of the equality of the re
deemed Gentiles,2 and in the absence of any Temple
in the New Jerusalem, how far St. John was removed
from the heresies of those Jewish Christians to whom
Christ was no more than the Jewish Messiah, and
Christianity no more than an engrafting of their belief
upon an otherwise unchanged Pharisaism. And yet,
though the Gospel and Epistles are identical with the
Apocalypse in essential doctrines — though the thought
of Christ as the Victim Lamb is prominent in both — we
see how wide is the difference which separates them; how
much calmer is the style, how much deeper the revelation,
contained in the later writings ; how the light which
had dawned so brightly upon the Apostles in the
Church of Jerusalem had shone more and more unto
the perfect day. The Gospel and Epistles contain the
same truths as the Apocalypse,3 but the symbols are
spiritualised. Jerusalem, even as a symbol, no longer
occupies the foreground of his thoughts, and positive
Judaic ordinances sink into insignificance in comparison
with the knowledge of God which is eternal life. The
Apocalypse is mainly occupied with the awfulness of
retribution : the Gospel and Epistles are dominated by
the ideal of love.
Unless these considerations be admitted in their
fullest extent, it becomes impossible to maintain that
writings so different, even amid their partial similari-
1 Rev. iii. 14 ; v. 13 ; xix. 13 ; xvii. 14 ; xix. 16, &c.
2 Rev. vii. 9.
3 As even Baur admits (Three Christian Centuries, i. 154).

THE APOCALYPSE AND THE GOSPEL. 333
ties, could have come from the same hand. It is true
that in the Apocalypse we have a material eschatology,
and in the later writings a spiritual consummation. It is
true that the Apocalypse is an expression of Judaic Chris
tianity, and that the Gospel and Epistles are not. It is
true that the points of contrast which they offer are more
salient than their resemblances. It is even true that
both could never have existed simultaneously in the same
mind. In the Apocalypse the symbols of Heaven itself
are mainly Jewish and Levitical, and in the Gospel the
evanescence and annulment of such forms is clearly
proclaimed. In the Apocalypse the elements of Divine
wrath are mainly depicted in phraseology borrowed
from the old prophetic images ; in the later writings
God is depicted almost exclusively in the attributes of
compassion and love. In the Apocalypse Christ is the
Lion of the Tribe of Judah, the ruler who, with a rod
of iron, shall dash the nations in pieces like a potter's
vessel; in the Gospel He is the Good Shepherd who
layeth down His life for the sheep. In the later writings
there are no wars and collisions — no acts of awful ven
geance at which the saints look on with exultation ; but
the world is something wholly apart from the kingdom
of the saints, and that kingdom is spiritual and in the
heart. In the Apocalypse the Antichrist is a blood
stained Roman Emperor ; in the Epistles there are many
antichrists, and they are forms of speculative error. In
the Apocalypse there are two resurrections, both
physical, one before, one after, the Millennium ; in the
Gospel the first and chief resurrection is that from the
death of, sin to the life of righteousness. In the Apo
calypse Heaven is wholly a future splendour; in the
Epistles it is already a living and present realisation of

334 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY.
God's presence in the heart. The Apocalyptist consoles
the Christian sufferer with the hope of what he shall
be ; the Evangelist with the knowledge of what he is.1
How, then, it may be asked, can the Evangelist and
the Seer of Patmos be one and the same person ?2
They are one and the same, but divided from each
other by nearly a quarter of a century — by more than
twenty years of divine education and broadening light.
Many of these differences arise from the dealing with
truths which are indeed widely diverse, but which yet
are equally true, and which are necessary to complement
each other. Many of them may be summed up and
accounted for in the single remark that the Apocalypse
is an Apocalypse, and that it was written amid the
throbbing agonies of the Jewish war and after the
bloodstained horrors of the Neronian persecution. At
that time St. John still belonged in training and sym
pathy to the Church of the Circumcision. The Gospel
and Epistles, on the other hand, were written after long
residence among Gentiles, when the whole perspective
of the Apostle's thoughts had been altered by the flood
of divine illumination cast alike upon the Old and the
New Covenant by the fulfilment of Christ's own pro
phecies of His coming. After the Fall of Jerusalem
He had established His kingdom upon earth by closing
for ever the Jewish dispensation.
Nor must it be forgotton that amid all the differences
which separate these writings there are many subtle
similarities in the temperament of the writer, in his
1 See Reuss, Hist, de la Thiol. Chr'et. ii. 564 — 571.
2 Ewald says with his usual positiveness, " Sie ergibt sich je genauer
man sie nach alien Seiten hin untersucht . . . desto gewisser als von
einem ganz andern Schriftsteller und als nicht vom Apostel verfasst '
(Johann. Schriften, ii. 1).

THE APOCALYPSE AND THE GOSPEL. 335
phraseology, and in his theological standpoint. In both
we have the prominent conception of Christ as the Lamb
of God ; x in both — and in them alone — He is called
"The Word." In both we read of the " Living Water."
In both we find the recognition of the priority in time of
the Jew and of the admission of the Gentiles. Both
books give prominence to the prophecy of Zechariah
(xii. 10), "they shall look upon me whom they have
pierced," and both in their reference to this verse
diverge in the same way from the LXX. No careful
student of St. John's writings can fail to see that in
many respects, and in relation to many doctrines, an
identity of essence underlies the dissimilarity of form.2
Not one of the Johannine books could be spared from
the sacred canon without manifest and grievous loss ;
all of them are rich in truths which are necessary to
make us wise unto salvation.
1 In the Gospel apv&s, in the Apocalypse apviov. It has been ingeniously
suggested that apviov may have been chosen as physiologically equivalent
in sound to 8-qplov.
2 For a most satisfactory proof of this, see Gebhardt, Doctrine of the
Apocalypse (E. Tr., Clark, Edinb. 1878). Isolated resemblances are Rev.
ii. 2; John xvi. 12 ("cannot bear"); Rev. ii. 3; John iv. 6 ("faint");
angels and saints "in white" (iv KevKoTs, Rev. iii. 18; John xx. 12) ; effects
of " anointing " (Rev. iii. 18 ; 1 John ii. 20). Besides these there are other
verbal resemblances, such as r-qpeiv \6yov, or \iyovs (Rev. iii. 8, 16 ; xxii.
7, 9, &c. ; John viii. 51 ; 1 John ii. 5) ; iroie'iv tf/evSos, or dx^Beiav (Rev. xxii.
15 ; 1 John i. 6) ; aipara (? B, &c.) (Rev. xviii. 24 ; John i. 13) ; " He that
is true " (Rev. iii. 7 ; xix. 11 ; John i. 14 ; xiv. 6 ; 1 John v. 20) ; and the
common peculiar usage of the words a\riBiv6s, fipovr-q, Saip6viov, efjpaicrrt,
iKKevreiv, &i/is, irop(pvpeos, OK-qvovv, B(pdrreiv, &C. On the Other side see,
among others, Diisterdieck, pp. 73 — 80; Ewald, Johann. Schriften, ii.
52, 53, 61, 62.

CHAPTER XXX.

THE GROWTH OF HERESY.

. ... Sis apa pexpi raiv rire XP^VWV TapBevos KaBapa Kal aSid<p8opos epeivev f)
'EKKK-qo-la. — Hegesifp. ap. Euseb. H. E. iii. 32.
" La f umee qui obscurcit le Soleil c'est a, dire 1'heVesie." — Bosstxet.
There were, as I have said, three great events which
deeply influenced the last and most active period of
the life of St. John — the Neronian persecution, the
fall of Jerusalem, and the growth of Heresy. The
two former events, which were sudden and overwhelm
ing, woke their tremendous echoes in the Apocalypse.
The third event was very gradual. We find traces
of it in the letters to the Seven Churches, but it had
a still deeper influence on the Gospel and the Epistles,
which were the inestimable fruit of the Apostle's
ripest years. According to the tradition of the Church,
they were especially written to combat heresy, not
by the method of direct and vehement controversy, but
by that noblest of all methods which consists in the
irresistible presentation of counter truths.
The word "heresy," though it is used in the
Authorised Version to translate the hairesis of the New
Testament, has not the same meaning. The word was
not originally applied in a bad sense. In Classic
Greek, for instance, it merely meant a choice of prin
ciples, a school of philosophy or of thought.1 In the
1 Sext. Empir. i. 16 ; Cic. ad Fam. xv. 16, 3.

HERESY. 337
New Testament it comes to mean " a faction," and the
sin condemned by the word is not the adoption of
erroneous opinions, but the factiousness of party spirit}
It was, however, perfectly natural that it should come to
mean2 a wrong choice, a false system. For Christianity
being a divine revelation involves a fellowship and unity
in all essential verities, and he who gives undue prepon
derance to his own arbitrary conceptions, he who allows
to subjective influences or traditional errors an un
limited sway over his interpretations of truth, becomes
a heretic. And in this sense many are heretics who
most pride themselves on their vaunted catholicity ;
for the source of all heresies is the spirit of pride,
and the worst of all heresies is the spirit of hatred.
The word " heretic " has indeed been shamefully
abused. It has again and again been applied, in a
thoroughly heretical, and worse than heretical manner,
to the insight and inspiration of the few who have
discovered aspects of truth hitherto unnoticed, or
restored old truths by the overthrow of dominant
perversions. A Church can only prove its possession of
life by healthy development. Morbid uniformity, en
forced by the tyranny of a dominant sect, is the most
certain indication of dissolution and decay. Since
Christianity is manysided, the worst form of heresy
is the mechanical suppression of divergence from
popular shibboleths. Every great reformer in turn,
every discoverer of new forms or expressions of religious
truth, every slayer of old and monstrous errors, has been
called a heretic. When a new truth could not be refuted,
1 It only occurs in Acts v. 17 ; xv. 5 ; xxiv. 5, 14 ; xxvi. 5 ; xxviii. 22 ;
1 Cor. xi. 19; Gal. v. 20 ; 2 Pet. ii. 1.
2 See Neander, Ch. Hist. ii. 4.
W

338 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY.
it was easy for the members of a dominant party to gratify
their impotent hatred by burning him who had uttered
it ; and though religious partisans can no longer commit
to the flames those who differ from them, it is as true
in our days as in those of Milton, that —
" Men whose faith, learning, life, and pure intent
Would have been held in high esteem by Paul,
Must now be called and printed ' heretic '
By shallow Edwards and Scotch what d'ye call."
But the real heretics were, in most cases, the sup
porters of ecclesiastical tyranny and stereotyped igno
rance, by whom these martyrs were tortured and slain.
He, and he only, is, in the strict and technical sense
of the word, a heretic, who denies the fundamental
truths of Christianity, as embodied in the catholic
creeds which sufficed to express the doctrines of the
Church in the first four centuries of her history.
But we are taught by daily experience that it is
possible to hold catholic truth in an heretical spirit,
and heresy in a catholic spirit. By the fraud of the
devil many a Catholic has acted in the spirit of
an infidel ; and, by the grace of God, many a heretic
has shown the virtue of a saint. As for the existence of
diversity in the midst of general unity, it is not only
inevitable, but, in our present condition of imperfection,
it is the only means to secure a right apprehension of
truth. Christianity may be regarded in two aspects —
as a law of life and as a system of doctrines. But
neither was the law of life laid down in rigid precepts,
nor was the plan of salvation set forth in dialectics.
Men may be pure and true Christians, though their
holiness reveals itself in manifold varieties of form;

SOURCES OF HERESY. 339
they may be in faithful and conscientious communion
with the Catholic Church, though the inevitable
differences of individuality lead to different modes of
apprehending the essential Gospel. All that is indis
pensable is that their varieties of opinion should be subor
dinate to one divine unity, and that their mode of life
under all differences should express some aspect of
the one divine ideal.
The moral fibre of bitterness from which all heresies
spring is one and the same. Whether they result from
the blind and tyrannous unanimity of corrupt Churches,
or the wild self-assertion of opinionated individuals, they
owe their ultimate origin to the pride and ambition of the
heart. But the intellectual sources of heresy were mani
fold. It was produced by the contact of Christianity
with Heathenism and with Judaism, and was especially '
derived from the forms of philosophy which had sprung
up in the bosom of both religions.
The Gentiles, as a rule, hated the Mosaic Law, and
looked on Christianity as the antagonist of Judaism,
rather than as its dissolution and fulfilment. The Jews,
on the other hand, saw in Christianity only an accre
tion to the Law of Moses, and clung to the most rigid
letter of institutions which Heathenism despised. Hence,
amid the numberless ramifications of heretical sects
which disturbed the Church of the first century, and
which were massed together under the vague and often
inappropriate name of Gnosticism, some were Judaic
and some were anti- Judaic.
1. To the Jewish sects we have already alluded.
They may be classed under the two heads of Nazarenes
and Ebionites.
We have been obliged again and again to notice
w 2

340 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY.
that the earliest decades after the Ascension were
marked by a severe struggle between the views of
Judaising and of Gentile Christians. St. James, the
head of the Judaisers, had nevertheless adopted the
views of St. Peter as regards the freedom of the
Gentiles, and while he continued to be a blameless
observer of the Mosaic Law, he gave full tolerance
to all converts from Paganism who did not violate the
Noachian precepts. This was the decision of the Synod
at Jerusalem. But the party who wrote upon their
banners the name of the Bishop of Jerusalem went
much further. It was one of the main works of St.
Paul's life to counteract their surreptitious methods of
strangling the growth of true Christianity by insisting
that all Gentiles must be circumcised, and must observe
the entire Levitic Law. It was in the ranks of these
Judaists that there arose that imminent danger of
apostasy against which they had received such solemn
warnings in the Epistle to the Hebrews, and the
Epistle of St. James himself; it was from their ranks
also that there arose the two sects of Ebionites and
Nazarenes. It may well be thought strange that the most
definite existence of these Jewish Christian sects falls in
the era after the Fall of Jerusalem, when it might
have been deemed impossible for any one to retain the
opinion that God had intended the Jewish Law to be
eternally obligatory. But prejudice, fortified by custom,
is almost ineradicable. Judaism, when robbed of all
power to observe its ritual, took refuge in its Law, re
garded as a separate and ideal entity. The disease
uncured even by the amputation of its chief limb,
fastened itself with unabated virulence on the vital

ADORATION OF THE LAW. 341
organs. The Mosaic Law assumed in the minds of
Talmudists the place of God Himself, and by the Law
they meant not morals but Rabbinism, not the Deca
logue but the Halacha. When Pope says that in some
of the discussions of the Paradise Lost —
" In quibbles angel and archangel join,
And God the Father turns a school divine,"
he was using the broadest satire ; but his words are
applicable in their most literal sense to the teachings of
the Rabbis, who arrogantly usurped the exclusive name
of Hachakamim, or " the Wise." They represent God as
Himself a student of the Torah. They disputed whether
God Himself did not wear phylacteries.1 They represent
Heaven as a great Rabbinic school in which there are
differences of opinion about the Halacha. On one
occasion, they assert, there was a dispute in the celestial
academy about the minutiae of a Levitic decision, and
as the Deity took one view while the angels took the
opposite, it became necessary to summon the soul of
Rabbi Bar Nachman. To him consequently the Angel
of Death is despatched. The Rabbi is asked his
opinion, and gives it on the side of the Almighty, who
is represented — with a naivete astonishing in its blas
phemous arrogance — as highly pleased with the result
of the discussion ! 2
If then the Jews could still find space for the
practice and idealisation of their Levitism when scarcely
one of its directions could be carried out — if almost
without an effort the schools of Jamnia and Tiberias and
Pumbeditha could transform their theocracy into a
, 1 Bab. Berachoth, 6 a, 7 a (p. 240, Schwab).
2 Babha Metzia, 86, a.

342 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY.
nomocracy, and their theology into a Levitic scholasticism,
we are hardly surprised to find that the influence of
old traditions was sufficiently strong, and especially
within the limits of the Holy Land, to keep ahve the
spirit of Jewish Christianity. Far on into the fourth,
and perhaps even down to the fifth, century there con
tinued to be not only " Genists," or Jews by race, and
" Masbotheans," who observed the Jewish Sabbath, and
" Merists," who kept up a partial observance of the
Jewish Law,1 but also organised Christian sects, who,
although they were excluded from the bosom of the
orthodox Church, had a literature of their own — the
ancient counterpart of the modern "religious news
paper" — and not only maintained their ground, but
even displayed a wide-spread and proselytising activity.
a. The Nazarenes, as a distinctive sect, were the
Jewish Christians who did not remove from Pella
when — if we may accept the ancient tradition — the
fugitive Church of Jerusalem returned to ^Elia Capi
tolina,2 which no Jew was allowed to enter. But they
existed much earlier, and are to be regarded less as
deliberate heretics than as imperfect, narrow-minded,
and unenlightened Christians. Epiphanius calls them
" Jews, and nothing else ; "3 but since they accepted
the Epistles of St. Paul, and acknowledged the true
divinity of Christ,4 we may set aside his uncharitable
description of them. If, as is probable, their views are
1 Hegesippus, ap. Euseb. H. E. iv. 22.
2 Neander, Ch. Hist. i. 475.
3 Epiphan. Haer. xxx. 9.
4 They are said, however, to have denied His Prae- existence (Euseb.
H. E. iii. 27), but we may class them with the rbv 'lricrovv a.TroSexi^>">i of
Origen (c. Cels. v. 61). The reason why the early allusions to them are
contradictory, is because the opinions of these " subdichotomies of petty
schisms " were doubtless ill-defined.

NAZARENES AND EBIONITES. 343
represented by the Testament of the Twelve Patri
archs, we can see that while they clung with needless
tenacity to the obsolete and the abrogated, this was
only the result of limited insight and national custom.
Their reversion to the religion of the Patriarchs, as
representing a purer and more absolute religion than the
Levitic system, is distinctly Pauline, and they honestly
accepted the faith of Christ.1 It has been inferred from
passages of this book that they held the view that
Jesus only became a Divine Being at His baptism, but
the expressions used seem to be at least capable of
a more innocent and orthodox interpretation.2
b. The Ebionites, on the other hand, were daringly
heretical. They rejected altogether the writings of St.
Paul,3 and pursued his memory for some generations
with covert but virulent calumny. They insisted on
the necessity of circumcision and the universal validity
of the Law. They regarded Christ as a mere man, the
son of Joseph and Mary, justified only by his legal
righteousness.4 To these views some, of the Ebionites — ¦
who died away as an obscure sect on the shores of the
Dead Sea — superadded ascetic notions and practices
which they seem to have borrowed from the Essenes.5
Hence, in all probability, was derived their name of
Ebionites, from the Hebrew word Ebion, " poor." The
error that there was such a person as Ebion was due to
1 See Neander, Ch. Hist. ii. 19 — 21 ; Mansel, Gnostic Heresies, pp.
123—128; Lightfoot, Galatians, pp. 298—301; Ritschl, Altkath. Kirche,
pp. 152, seq.
2 Test. XII. Patr., Levi, 18 ; Simeon, 7.
3 Orig. c. Cels. v. ad fin.
4 Hence Marius Mercator calls them Homuncionitae (Refut. anath.
Nestor. 12), and Lactantius Anthropiani (Instt. iv. ad fin.).
5 Tert. De Cam. Christi, 14; De Praescr. 33, 48; Philastr. Haer. 37 ;
Aug. de Haer. 16.

344 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY.
Epiphanius, who calls him " a successor of Cerinthus."
The assertion that they were called " paupers " because
they thought " meanly and poorly " of Christ, was
merely a way of turning their name into a reproach.2
The Elcesaites, or followers of Elxai, who were Ebionites
with Essene and Gnostic admixtures, were never more
than a small and uninfluential sect.
By the time when St. John wrote his Gospel and
Epistles, the question of circumcision, and all the most
distinctively Judaic controversies, had ceased to be dis
cussed. They had, at any rate, lost all significance for the
Church in general. The Nazarenes and Ebionites had
at best but a local influence. Even the Nicolaitans are
charged, not with heresy, but with immoral practices, and
with teaching indifference to idolatry by the ostentatious
and indiscriminate eating of meats offered to idols.3
This tendency to Antinomianism was the natural result
and the appropriate Nemesis of that extravagant legal
rigorism to which the Judaists strove to subjugate the
Church. 2. The two heresiarchs who came into most danger
ous prominence in the Apostolic age are Simon Magus
and Cerinthus. If any credit can be given to the vague
and much-confused traditions as to their tenets, it is
clear that those tenets, at least in their germ, were

1 Dial. c. Lucifer. 8 ; Ps. Tert. Append, de Praescr. 48.
2 Euseb. H. E. iii. 27.
3 On the Nicolaitans see notes on Rev. ii. 6, 14, 15. An account
of them, taken from Iren. Haer. i. 27 ; iii. 11 ; Euseb. H. E. iii. 29 ;
Epiphan. Haer. xxv. 1 ; Clem. Alex. Strom, ii. 20 ; iii. 4, will be found
in Ittigius, De Hceresiarchis, 1. 9, § 4 ; Mosheim, De rebus Christ, ii. 69.
They, like other sects, are charged with cloaking licentious habits under
specious names (Clem. Alex. Strom, iii. 4 ; Constt. Apost. vi. 8 ; Ignat.
Ep. ad Trail, and ad Philad.).

SIMON MAGUS. 345
strongly and directly condemned in several of the
Epistles. a. Of Simon Magus, " the hero of the romance of
heresy," little is known which is not legendary.
In the Acts of the Apostles1 we find him in the position
of a successful impostor in Samaria, where the whole
population, amazed by his sorceries, accepted his asser
tion that he was "the Power of God which is called
Great." He was baptised by Philip, but proved the
hollo wness of his religion by being guilty of the first act
of the sin which from him is called " simony ; " — he
endeavoured " to purchase the gift of God with money."
According to the high authority of Justin Martyr —
who was himself a Samaritan — Simon was a native of
Gitton in Samaria.2 Josephus, in calling him a Cypriote,
(if he be speaking of the same person) may have con
fused Gitton with Citium in Cyprus.3 Felix made use
of his iniquitous agency in inveigling from her husband
the Herodian princess Drusilla.4 He is the subject of
many wild and monstrous legends. He is said to have
been the pupil of a certain Dositheus, and to have fallen
in love with his concubine Luna (Selene or Helena).
When Dositheus wished to beat him he found that the
stick passed through his body as through smoke.5 The
" sorceries " which he practised are said to have consisted
in passing through mountains and through fire, making
bread of stones, breathing flames, and turning himself
into various shapes. With the money that he offered to
St. Peter he purchased as his slave and partner a woman
1 Acts viii.
2 Just. Mart. Apol. i. 26.
3 Jos. Antt. xx. 7, § 2. Euseb. H. E. ii. 13.
4 See Life and Work of St. Paul, ii. 341.
6 Constt. Apod. vi. 8 ; Clem. Recogn. ii. 31 .

346 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY.
of Tyre named Helena.1 Hence his followers are called
by Celsus Heleniani. Irenaeus says2 " that he carried
this woman about with him, calling her his first Con
ception (Ennoia) and the mother of all things. Descend
ing to the lower world, she had produced the angels
and powers by which the lower world was made, and
had been by them imprisoned and degraded. She had
been Helen of Troy, and in her fallen condition was
"the lost sheep," whom he had recovered. He himself,
though not a man, became a man to set her free. His
adherents, he declared, had no need to fear the lower
angels and powers which made the world, but they
might live as they pleased, and would be saved by resting
their hopes on him and on her. Later on he is said to
have gone to Rome, and to have met with his end in an
attempt to fly, which was defeated by the prayers of
St. Peter and St. Paul.3
It is clear that Simon Magus was not only a here-
siarch, but also a false Christ or antichrist. His notions
were partly Jewish and Alexandrian. Philo had spoken
of " Powers " of God, of which the greatest was the
Logos. According to Jerome, Simon used to say, " I
am the word of God, I am beautiful, I am the Paraclete,
1 Clem. Recogn. ii. 31 ; Niceph. H. E. ii. 27.
2 Iren. Haer. i. 23 ; ii. 9, and comp. Hippol. Ref. Haer. vi. 19 ; Tert.
De Anima, 34 ; Epiphan. Haer. xxv. 4 ; Theodoret, Haer. Fab. i. 1.
-¦* Hippolytus says that he was buried — promising to rise again (Ref,
Haer. vi. 26). As to this legend — which (as we have seen) may have
sprung from the attempt of an actor taking the part of Icarus (Suet.
Ner. 12) — Irenseus, Tertullian, and Eusebius are silent. It is found in
Arnobius, adv. Gent. ii. 12, and with many varying details in the Apostolic
Constitutions (vi. 9) ; Ambrose (Hexaem. iv. 8) ; Sulp. Severus (ii. 41);
Egesippus (De Excid. Hierosol. iii. 2), &c, as well as in Cedrenus,
Nicephorus, Glycas, &c. I have already alluded to the mistake which led
Justin Martyr to suppose that he was worshipped at Rome (Apol. 11,
69, 91 ; Tert. Apol. 13).

CERINTHUS. 347
I am the Almighty, I am the all things of God;" J and
Irenseus says that he spoke of having appeared to the
Jews as the Son, to the Samaritans as the Father, and to
the Gentiles as the Holy Spirit. Hippolytus gives an
account of his opinions from a book called The Great
Announcement (Apophasis Megale), which, though it
can hardly be his, may be supposed to express the
views of his followers. The views there stated resemble
those of the later Gnostics and Kabbalists. The " In
definite Power " is described as Fire and Silence. This
Fire has two natures, the source respectively of the
Intelligible and the Sensible Universe. The world was
generated by three pairs of roots or principles — namely,
Mind and Consciousness, Voice and Name, Reasoning
and Thought ; and the Power in these roots is manifested
as " he who stands," or who shall stand — by which he
seems to mean himself as the perfect man. It is clear
that in these roots we see the germ of the Gnostic Aeons
and the Kabbalistic Sephiroth — the object of which, like
that of every Gnostic system of emanations, was to
separate God as far as possible from man and from
matter. The inmost conception of Gnosticism is con
tradicted — its very basis is overthrown — by the words
of St. John's Gospel, " The Word became flesh."
b. The name of Cerinthus is less mixed up with
fantastic legends ; but the accounts given of his views
are full of uncertainty and contradiction, and seem to
show that he was one of those who "wavered like a
wave of the sea," and was tossed about by every wind
of doctrine. Thus it is that he mixed up Millenarianism
and other Judaic elements with fancies which were
Jer. in Matt. xxiv. 5.

348 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY.
afterwards developed by the most anti- Judaic Gnostics.1
Thus, too, he has been credited with the authorship
of the Apocalypse, though, in accordance with early
Church tradition, he was the very teacher against whom
the later writings of St. John were specially aimed.2
Of his personal life scarcely anything is known. It
is conjectured that he must have been a Jew by birth,
but he had evidently been trained in Egypt,3 and he cer
tainly taught in Asia. The name Merinthus, which is
sometimes given him, is probably a nickname, since the
word means " a cord." But even his date is uncertain.
He is usually believed to have taught in the old age of
St. John ; but Tertullian places him after Karpokrates,
who did not flourish till the reign of Hadrian, a.d. 117.
His errors, as noticed by Irenseus,4 are as follows : —
(1). He declared that the world was made by a
Virtue or Power far inferior to the Essential Divinity.
(2). That the human Jesus was not born of a virgin,
but was the son of Joseph and Mary, and that he only
differed from men in supreme goodness.
(3). That the Divine Christ only descended upon
Jesus at His baptism ; 5 and —
(4). That, when Jesus suffered, the Divine Christ
flew back into His Pleroma, being Himself incapable of
suffering.6
1 The assertion of Philastrius (Haer. 36) and Epiphanius (Haer. xxviii.
2) that he was the person who stirred up the dispute about circumcision at
Jerusalem (Acts xv.), is an unchronological guess.
2 Jer. Cat. Script. 9, and so too Irenaeus, &c.
3 Hippolyt. Ref. Haer. vii. 33 ; Theodoret, Haer. Fab. ii. 3.
4 Haer. i. 26.
6 This view was afterwards elaborated by Bardesanes. Valentinus, on
the other hand, taught that the body of Christ was celestial, but merely
passed through the Virgin without partaking of her nature.
6 Epiphanius and Theodoret repeat this testimony of Irenseus, and

CERINTHUS. 349
Besides these errors, he is said to have regarded
Jesus as a teacher only, not as a redeemer ; to have re
jected the Epistles of St. Paul; and to have sanctioned
the practice of being baptised for the dead.
Even from these glimpses we can see that he did not
exactly deny the Divinity of Christ. The first who is
said to have done this was Theodotus of Byzantium.1
But Cerinthus was evidently actuated by the Gnostic
desire to remove as far as possible the notion of any con
tact, much more any intercommunion, between God and
Matter. Now, the Christian doctrine of the Incarna
tion cut at the root of the Alexandrian and Gnostic
fancies that Matter was evil, and that God was so infi
nitely removed from man that he could hold no imme
diate communion with him. It was the fatal system of
Dualism which led to so many heresies. It was the
cause of Ebionism, which denied Christ's Divinity al
together ; of Docetism, which maintained that the body
of Jesus was purely phantasmal and unreal ; 2 and it
probably lay at the base of Nestorianism, which lost
sight of the indivisible union of the human and the
Divine in the one God-man. Cerinthus, like other
Gnostics of Egyptian training, denied the hypostatic

say that Cerinthus attributed the miracles of Jesus to Christ, whom he
represented as identical with the Holy Spirit. Jesus was to Cerinthus
only " the earthly Christ," or " the Christ below " (<S Kdra Xpio-r6s), while
the Divine Christ was " the Christ above " (<5 &va Xpto-r6s).
1 Euseb. H. E. v. 28.
2 Clemens of Alexandria (Strom, iii. 13) ascribes the invention of
Docetism to Julius Cassianus, A.D. 173, but it is clear that the germs of it
existed long before, and are even found, as Hippolytus says (Ref. Haer. vi.
14), in Simon Magus. It was taught in the Apocryphal Gospel of
Peter (Euseb. H. E. vi. 23), which was perhaps forged by Leucius, a
disciple of Marcion, about a.d. 140. The Docetae were also called
Phantasiasts and Opinarians.

350 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY.
and eternal union of the two natures in Christ. He
taught that Christ alone was the Son of God, and that
until His baptism, and at His crucifixion, Jesus was an
ordinary man. In the one pregnant expression of St.
John, he " loosed " or " disintegrated Jesus." 1
Views essentially similar to these are found in all
the Gnostic systems.2 They all sprang from speculations
about the origin of evil, and about the method of
bridging over the chasm between absolute and finite
being. Since they identified evil with matter, they led
at once to a Manichean dualism ; and it was only by in
venting elaborate series of hermaphrodite pairs of asons
or emanations that they could imagine any communica
tion of God's , will to man.3 They were all influenced
by the Platonised Judaism of Philo 4 and the Alexan
drians, as well as by Persian and other Oriental elements
of thought.5 But the deadliness of their system revealed
1 See infra, p. 448.
2 The name Gnostic — " one who knows " — was first adopted by the
Naassenes or Ophites, " alleging that they alone knew the depths " (Hippol.
Haer. v. 6). Irenteus (ap. Euseb. H. E. iv. 7) calls Karpokrates "the
father of the heresy which is called that of the Gnostics " (comp. id. Haer.
i. 25, 6 ; see Lipsius, Gnosticismus, p. 48). The original sources for the
history of Gnosticism are to be found in Irenseus (adv. Haereses), Ter
tullian (adv. Marcionem, De Praescr. Haereticorum, and Scorpiace),
Epiphanius (adv. Haereses), and passages of Clemens Alex, and Origen,
and Hippolytus Philosophumena. For modern treatises see Beausobre
(Hist, du Manicheisme), Matter (Hist, du Gnostidsme), Burton (Inquiry
into Heresies of the Apostolic Age), Mansel (Gnostic Heresies), and Baur
(Die Christ. Gnosis). See too Milman, History of Christianity, ii. 68 ;
Robertson, Ch. Hist. i. 31 ; Neander, Ch. Hist. ii. 82 ; Gieseler, Ch.
Hist. i. 114; Burton, Bampt. Led. iv., &c. Later treatises are Ad.
Harnaek, Quellen d. Gesch. d. Gnost. (1873); Lipsius, Quellen d. alt,
Ketzergesch. 1875.
3 So Plato, in the Timaeus, said that it was the function of the subor
dinate gods " to weave the mortal to the immortal."
4 " Haereticorum patriarchae philosophi " (Tert. adv. Hermog. 8) ;
" Plato omnium haereticorum condimentarius " (De Anim. 23).
6 Some of the Gnostics referred to Zoroaster. Porphyr. Vii. Plotin. 10,

GERMS OF GNOSTICISM. 351
itself in many and in opposite forms. It exalted an
imaginary knowledge above a pure and unsophisticated
faith. It mistook a terminology for a creed. It
confused a manipulation of words with a removal of
difficulties. It puffed up its followers with an inflated
sense that they were an intellectual aristocracy, pos
sessed of an esoteric teaching which elevated them far
above their simple brethren. The doctrine of the
inherent evil of matter, and the confusion of "the
body " with " the flesh," drove the Gnostics either into
an extravagant ascetism, which destroyed the body
without controlling it, or into Antinomian license,
which destroyed it in the opposite way by shameful
self-indulgence. This they excused either on the plea
that to the true Gnostic the spiritual was everything,
and that anything which his body did was of no
moment, since it did not affect his true self; or by
arguing that the moral law was only the work of the
evil or inferior Demiurge.1 In both extremes they
confused the true nature of sin, turned religion and
morality into curious questions, placed salvation in
systems of metaphysics, and by vain speculation and
verbal analyses lost sight of the practical answer which
Christianity had given to all the deepest problems of
human life.
These errors existed in their germs from a very
early period. We often hear the voice of St. Paul
raised in warning respecting them, especially in the
Epistles to the Colossians and Ephesians, and in the
later Epistles. Against their Antinomian develop-
1 Clemens Alex. (Strom, iii. p. 529) points out that they taught
extravagant asceticism (iniprovov eyxpareiav), or moral mdifferentism
(a.5la<p6pa>s Cf/v).

352 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY.
ments we have the strong denunciations of St. Jude.
But St. John lived at a time when they had acquired
a more definite consistency. He saw and he declared
that all of them began or ended with a denial of Christ,
or with errors as to His nature. He discountenanced
alike their exaggerated spirituality and the carnality
into which it passed. He erected a bulwark against
them all in those inspired words which contain the
essence of all the truths which are most precious to
Christianity, and which form the Prologues of his
Gospel and First Epistle. He regards them all as
forms of Antichrist. He who denies that Jesus is the
Christ the Son of God — in other words, who asserts,
as Cerinthus did, that the historical Man Jesus was
not in the fullest sense Divine — is an Antichrist in a
far different sense than Nero was, and yet in a true
sense. St. John tells us this in his usual way, both
positively and negatively.1 He tells us that Jesus is
the Christ, and the Son of God, and that the Divine
Eternal Being tabernacled in human flesh.2 He says,
in every possible form of words, that Jesus is Christ ;
that Christ is Jesus ; that Jesus is Divine — that Jesus
is not a separate being from the Son of God, but indis
tinguishable from Him. The Gnostics made the Divine
"come and go to Jesus like a bird through the air," but
St. John testifies throughout Gospel and Epistles, as
he had also done, though with less absolute distinctness,
in the Apocalypse, that the Divine became Human, and
dwelt in our Humanity indivisibly.3 The Eternal Son
of God not only filled the whole person of Jesus, which
1 1 John ii. 18, 22 ; iv. 3, 15 ; v. 1, 10.
2 1 John iv. 2, 3 ; 2 John 7.
3 See Keim, Jesu von Nazara, Introd. II. £

THE FULNESS OF CHRIST. 353
is Himself, but also filled all believers — who are born of
God, not of " the will of the flesh." He fills aU life and
death and resurrection with Divine life and glory. Yet
while thus protesting alike against Psilanthropia — the
Ebionite doctrine that Christ was a mere man — and
against Docetism, and against the Dualistic theories
of incipient Manichees, and against all severing of the
Person of Jesus into a Man who is not God, or a God
who refuses to be a man — he at the same time makes it
clear that he does not identify religion with orthodoxy,
but places true religion in love to God shown by love
to man. The self-satisfaction of a supercilious ortho
doxy which might at any time soar into Pharisaic
asceticism, or sink into reckless immorality, is confronted
with the assurance — Oh that in all ages the Christian
Church had better understood it, and taken it more
deeply to heart ! — that " he who saith I know God,
and keepeth not His commandments," were he ten-
times-over orthodox in his asserted knowledge, is yet
"a liar, and the truth is not in him;"1 and that "he
who loveth not, knoweth not God ; for God is love."2
1 1 John ii. 4. 2 1 John iv. 8.

X

CHAPTER XXXI.
LATER WRITINGS OF ST. JOHN.
"Sumtis pennis aquilae et ad altiora festinans de Verbo Dei dispu-
tat." — Jeb. ad Matt., Proem.
" Transcendit nubes, transcendit virtutes coelorum, transcendit angelos,
et Verbum inprincipio repperit." — Ambbos. Prol. in Luc.
Apart from its own beauty and importance, the Epistle
of St. John derives a special interest from the fact
that it is the latest utterance of Apostolic inspiration.
It is addressed to Churches which by the close of the
first century had "advanced to a point of development
far beyond that contemplated by St. Paul in his
earlier Epistles. Many of the old questions which
had raged between Judaisers and Paulinists had
vanished into the back-ground. The Gospel had
spread far and wide. It had become self-evident that
nothing could be more futile than to confine those
waters of the River of God in the narrow channels of
Jewish particularism. The fall of Jerusalem had
illuminated as with a lightning flash the darkness
of obstinacy and prejudice. It had proved the inade
quacy of the Pharisaic ideal of " righteousness," and
the ignorance of the system which proclaimed itself
to be the only orthodoxy. The liberty for which
St. Paul had battled all his life long against storms of
hatred and of persecution, had now been finally
achieved. St. John himself had advanced to a stand-

FRESH QUESTIONS. 355
point of knowledge far beyond that of the days when
he had lived among the Elders of the Church which
was dominated by the views and example of St. James.
He had learnt the full meaning of those words of the
Lord to the woman of Samaria, that the day should
come in which men should worship the Father neither
on Gerizim or in Jerusalem but everywhere, and accept
ably, if they worshipped in spirit and in truth. On
the other hand, new and dangerous errors had arisen.
Christianity had come into contact with Greek philo
sophy and Eastern speculation. Men were no longer
interested in such questions as whether they need be
circumcised; or to what extent their consciences need
be troubled by distinctions between clean or unclean
meats ; or whether they were to place the authority
of James or Kephas above that of Paul ; or what was
the real position to be assigned to the gift of tongues ;
or whether the dead in Christ were to lose any of the
advantages which would be granted at His second
return to the living. All such questions had received
their solution in the Epistles of St. Paul. Christians
as a body were by this time fully acquainted with his
arguments, and acquiesced in them all the more un
hesitatingly because they had been stamped with
irrefragable sanction by the course of History. All
men could see the rejection of the once chosen people.
Far different were the questions which now agitated
the minds of Christian thinkers. They were questions
of a more abstract character, relating above all to the
nature of Christ. Was He, as the Ebionites main
tained, a mere man? Was He, as Cerinthus argued,
a twofold personality, the Eternal Christ and the sinless
Jesus, united only between the Baptism and the Cruci-
x 2

356 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY.
fixion ? 1 Or, was He, again, as the intellectual pre
cursors of the Docetse were beginning to suggest, a
man in semblance only — who had but hved in the
phantasm of an earthly life? Nay more, men were
beginning to speculate about the nature of God Him
self. Could God be regarded as the author of evil?
Must it not be supposed, as the Manichees subsequently
argued, that there were two Gods — one the supreme
and illimitable Deity belonging to regions infinitely
above " the smoke and stir of this dim spot which men
call earth," the other a limited and imperfect Demiurge?
Again, what was the relation between these questions
and the duties of daily life ? Christians were free
from the Law; that was a truth which St. Paul had
proved. But was there any fundamental distinction
between the authority on which rested the ceremonial
and the moral law ? Might they not regard them
selves as free from the rules of morality, as well as
from the routine of Levitism ? Was not faith enough ?
If men believed rightly on God and on His Son Jesus
Christ, would He greatly care as to how they hved?
So argued the Antinomians, and many of them were
prepared to carry their arguments from theory into
practice. Such, then, were the errors which it became
the special mission of St. John to counteract.
But he does not counteract them controversially.
The method of Pauline dialectics was entirely unsuited
to his habit of mind. That method in its due time
and place was absolutely necessary. It met the doubts
of men in the intellectual region in which they had
originated. It broke down their objections with the
1 Iren. Haer. xi. 7. " Qui autem Jesum separant a Christo et impas-
sibilem perseverasse Christum, passum vero Jesum dicunt . . ."

METHOD OF ST. JOHN. 357
same weapons by which they had been maintained.
But when that work was done there was another way
to bring home the truth to the conviction of the uni
versal Church. It was by witness, by spiritual appeal,
by the statement of personal experience, by the lofty
language of inspired authority. Hence the method
which St. John adopts is not polemical but irenical.
He overthrows error by the irresistible presentation
of counter truths. In the Gospel, as Keim says,
he counteracted heresy thetically, in the Epistles anti
thetically ; in other words, in the Gospel he lays down
positive truths, in the Epistles he states those truths
in sharp contrast with the opposing errors. To those
who moved in the atmosphere of controversy "diffi
culties" loomed large and portentous all around the
doctrines of the Church. St. John dealt with those
difficulties from a region so elevated and serene that
to all who reached his point of view they shrank into
insignificance. At the heights whence he gazed
men might learn to see the grandeur of the ocean,
and to think little of the billows, and nothing of the
ripples upon its surface. Hence it has been a true
Christian instinct which has assigned to St. John the
symbol of " the eagle," in the four-fold cherub of
the Gospel-chariot. The eagle which sails in the
azure deep of air " does not worry itself how to cross
the streams." Dante, in the Paradiso, showed no little
insight when he called him " Christ's own eagle," and
when he describes the outlines of his form as lost in the
dazzling light by which he is encircled. " The central
characteristic of his nature is intensity — intensity of
thought, word, insight, life. He regards everything on
its divine side. For him the eternal is already ....

358 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY.
He sees the past and the future gathered up in the
manifestation of the Son of God. This was the one
fact in which the hope of the world lay. Of this he
had himself been assured by the evidence of sense and
thought. This he was constrained to proclaim : ' We
have seen and do testify.' He had no laboured process
to go through ; he saw. He had no constructive proof
to develop ; he bore witness. His source of knowledge
was direct, and his mode of bringing conviction was to
affirm." 1 His whole style and tone of thought is that
of "the bosom disciple."2
Thus then the one consummate truth which St.
John had to offer to the gathering doubts and per
plexities of all unfaithful hearts was the Incarnation of
the Divine. This is the central object of all faith.
This is the one counteraction of all unbelief.
And by the manner in which he set forth this
truth — by this presentation to the world of " the
spiritual Gospel "3 — he at once obeyed the divine im
pulse of inspiration which came to him, and met the
natural wishes which the Church had earnestly ex
pressed. The tradition which records that he was
urged to write his Gospel by the Elders and Bishops
of the Church,4 is one which has every mark of pro
bability. The generation of the Apostles was rapidly
1 Westcott, St. John, p. xxxv.
2 This title (S imari]Bios) was given to St. John as early as the second
century. It is found (6 iirl rb o-rriBos rov Kvpi6v dvaireo-dv) in Polycrates,
Bp. of Ephesus (see Routh, Rel. Sacr. i. 15, 37, 370) and Iren. c. Haer.
iii. 1, 1.
3 Clem. Alex. ap. Euseb. H E. vi. 14.
4 " Impelled by his friends " (Clem. Alex. 1. c). The legend is, that
on being requested to write the Gospel, he asked the Ephesian elders to
join him in fasting, and then suddenly exclaimed, as if inspired, " In the
beginning was the Word " (Jer. de Virr. Illustr. 29). Irenseus only says
that he was asked to write the Gospel (Haer. iii. 1).

NEED FOR THE FOURTH GOSPEL. 359
passing away. St. John had now long exceeded the
ordinary limits of human age. The day would very
soon come when not a single human being could say
of the Lord "I saw." But he could still say this;
he had not only seen and heard and gazed upon
and handled the Word of Life, but had even been
the beloved disciple of the Son of Man. The facts
of the life of Jesus had been recorded by the three
Synoptists. What the world now needed was some
guide into the full and unspeakable significance of
those facts. Who was so fit to give it as St. John?
nay, who besides him was even capable of giving it with
authority? He had hitherto written nothing but the
Apocalypse. The Apocalypse had indeed depicted the
glory of the Eternal Christ, but it was a book of pe
culiar character ; it was full of symbols ; it was difficult
of interpretation ; it was based on the imagery and
prophecies of the Old Testament ; it was full of storm
and stress. It was the Book of Battle, the Book of
the Wars of the Lord ; it portrayed the struggles of
the Church with the hostile forces of the Jewish and
Gentile world ; and its celestial visions were interposed
between scenes of judgment,
" As when some mighty painter dips
His pencil in the hues of earthquake and eclipse."
There were, moreover, many Christian doctrines on
which the Apocalypse did not touch, and, above all, it
had been written before that divine event which had
evidently been the beginning of a new epoch in the
history of Christianity. In the final removal of the
candlestick of Judaism, the Christian Church had
rightly seen the primary fulfilment of those prophecies

360 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY.
which had spoken of the Immediate Coming of the
Lord. To all the living members of the Church, that stu
pendous event had set the Seal of God to the revelation
of the New Covenant. It was the obvious close of the
epoch which had begun at Sinai. It was the extinction
of the Aaronic in order to establish the Melchizedek
Priesthood. It had rendered the system of Jewish
sacrifices impossible, in order to show that the one true
sacrifice had now once for all been offered. It had been
the burning desecration of the sin-stained Temple in order
that men might see in the Church of God the new and
spiritual Jerusalem which had no need of any temple
therein, because the body of every true believer was
the spiritual temple of the one God. But to St. John
especially that event had come as with a burst of light.
It had been, perhaps, the greatest step since the death
of Christ in that education for the sake of which his
life had been so long preserved. The oral teaching of
the Apostle must have been sufficient to show that the
gradual revelation which had so long been going on
within him had now reached its fulness. The light
which had begun to pulse in the Eastern sky over the
banks of Jordan had shone more and more towards the
perfect day. Was this teaching to be lost to the world
for ever ? Was it only to be entrusted to the shifting
imperfections of oral tradition ? Was it to be but half-
apprehended by the simplicity, or misrepresented by
the limitations, of such men as Papias and Irenasus ?
How little had the Synoptists detailed respecting the
Judsean ministry of which St. John so often spoke !
They had not recorded the earliest call of the Disciples,
nor the raising of Lazarus, nor the washing of the

TEACHING OF ST. JOHN. 361
Apostles' feet. They had reported some of the public
sermons of Jesus, but they had not preserved any me
morial of such private discourses as that to Nicodemus
and the woman of Samaria, or as those divine farewells
delivered at the Last Supper. Nor, again, had they
spoken of Christ's prse-existence ; nor had they used that
title of " the Word," which was now so frequently on
the lips of St. John, and to which he gave such pregnant
significance ; nor did they furnish a final insight into
the two natures in the one Person of the Son of Man.
It was true indeed, as the Elders and Bishops who
urged their request upon St. John would at once have
admitted, that as regards the divinity and atoning work
of Christ, the knowledge of the Church had been greatly
widened and systematised by the teachings of St. Paul.
He had brought into clear light the truth that Jesus
was not only the Messiah of the Jews, the Prophet,
Priest, and King, but that He was the incarnate Son
of God, the eternal Saviour of the World ; that only
by faith in Him could we be justified; that the true
life of the believer is merged in absolute union with
Him ; and that because He has risen we also shall rise.
Yet none could have listened to St. John in his
latter years without feeling that, while he accepted the
doctrines of St. Paul, he had himself, in the course of a
longer life, enjoyed more of that teaching which comes
to us from the Spirit of God in the lessons of History.
Whilst he gave no new commandment, and had no
new revelation to announce, he yet stamped with the
impress of finality the great truths which St. Paul had
taught. There is not a single doctrine in the writings
of St. John which may not be found implicitly and
even explicitly in the writings of St. Paul ; and yet —

362 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY.
to give but two instances out of many — the Church
would have been indefinitely the loser had she not
received the inheritance of sayings so supreme, so clear,
and so final as these of St. John, —
" The Father sent His Son to be the Saviour of the
world," and
" We are in Him that is true, even in His Son Jesus
Christ. Tlds is the true God and eternal life!' x
No one, again, had yet uttered such clear words
respecting the Divinity and Humanity indissolubly yet
distinctly united in the Person of Christ as those which
are contained in the Prologue to the Gospel and the
opening address of the Epistle, and which are con
centrated in the four words, " The Word became Flesh."
No one had so briefly summarised the Atoning and
Mediatorial work of Christ, as, "He is the Propitiation2
for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the Whole
World!" Indeed, as they listened to the white-haired Apostle,
men must have felt that there was something in his
manner of exposition which tended to remove all
difficulties, to solve all apparent antinomies. Take,
for instance, the apparent contradiction between
the terms used by St. Paul and St. James as to
Righteousness by Faith and Righteousness by Works.
Would it not cease to be a difficulty — was. not the
controversy lifted to a higher region — when they
heard such words as, " He that doeth righteousness is
righteous, even as He is righteous," in connexion with
" WJioso keepeth His Word, in them verily is the love of
God perfected, and every one that doeth righteousness is
1 1 John, v. 20.
2 1 John ii. 2 ; l\aap.6s, a unique expression of St. John.

TEACHING OF ST. JOHN. 363
born of Him ; " and, " Behold what and how great love God
hath given us that we should be called the children of God" ?
Or, again, if men felt the difficulties which rise from the
forensic and sacrificial aspects of the Atonement, how
would they feel that the forgiveness in the Court, and
the cleansing in the Temple, was simplified when it was
mingled with the thoughts of the perfection of our
sonship in union with the Son of God, and indicated in
terms so sublimely final as,
" If we say that we have no sin we deceive ourselves,
and the truth is not in us. But if we confess our sins,
God is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to
cleanse us from all unrighteousness " ?
The expressions of the New Testament which de
scribe the privileges of the Christian estate fall into
three classes, of which one revolves around the word
Righteousness; another round the word Sonship; a
third around metaphors expressive of Sacrifice. Now
let the reader study the First Epistle of St. John,
from ii. 29 to iii. 5, and he will find the order there —
Righteousness (ii. 29), Sonship (iii. 1), Sanctification
(iii. 2 — 5) ; but the three are one. The terms of the
Court, the Household, and the Temple confirm and illus
trate each other. Jesus Christ — the Righteous, the
Son of the Father, the Holy One — presides, in the
glory of His holiness, over all and over each.1
1 I owe this thought to Dr. Pope's excellent Introduction to his trans
lation of Haupt's First Epistle of St. John, p. xxxi.

CHAPTER XXXII.
THE STAMP OF FINALITY ON THE WRITINGS OF ST. JOHN.
"Aquila ipse est Johannes, sublimium praedicator, et lucis internae
atque aeternaa fixis oculis contemplator." — Atra. in Joh., Tract. 36.
It is in ways like these — by the use of expressions
at once larger and simpler, more comprehensive and
more easily intelligible ; expressions which transcend
controversy because they are the synthesis of the com
plementary truths which controversy forces into antithesis
— that St. John, the last writer of the New Testament, in
traversing the whole field of Christian theology, sets the
seal of perfection on all former doctrine. This is exactly
what we should have desired to find in the last treatises
of inspired revelation. And one remarkable peculiarity
of his method is that he indicates the deepest truths
even respecting those points of doctrine on which he
does not specifically dwell. Thus, he does not dwell on
the explanation (if the term may be allowed) of Christ's
Atonement ; he does not offer any theory as to the
reason for the necessity or efficacy of Christ's death ; yet
he involves all the teaching of St. Paul and of Apollos
in the words, that " Christ is the propitiation for our
sins and for the whole world," and that " the blood of
Jesus Christ cleanseth us from all sin." He does not
use the words " mediator between God and man," but
he sets forth, with a clearness never before attained,
that our mediator is God and Man. He does not con-

FINALITY OF ST. JOHN. 365
trast God's love with His justice, but he shows that
love and propitiation were united in the antecedent will
of God. He does not work out the details of Christ
ology, but he so pervades his Gospel and Epistle with
the thought that "the Word was God," and that
" without Him was not anything made that was made,"1
as to produce a Christological impression, sublimer even
than that which we derive from the Epistles to the
Ephesians and the Colossians. He does not dwell on
the sacraments, and yet in his few words on the witness
of the Water, and on the Bread of Life, he brings out
their deepest significance. He does not develop the
reasons for the rejection of the Chosen People, after the
grandeur of their past mission ; but he illustrates both
no less fully than the Epistles to the Romans and the
Hebrews, when, in his Gospel, he contrasts, step by
step, the unbelief of the Jews with the faith of the dis
ciples, and yet records the expression of Christ's eulogy
" an Israelite indeed." He records Christ's saying to the
woman of Samaria, that salvation — the salvation of
which all the Prophets had spoken — was from the Jews;
and, in his own words, he writes of Christ's coming to
the Jews as a coming to " His own people and His
own house."3 Once more, St. John nowhere enters into
any formal statements about the Triune God; yet in
whose writings do we see more fully than in his the
illustration of St. Augustine's saying, "Ubi amor ibi
Trinitas," when we hear him say that " God is Love,"
and that " God is Light ; " and that in Christ was

1 "These words, taken in their widest significance, constitute the
signature of the Johannaean writings " (Haupt).
2 John iv. 22, r\ o-anqpia e/c rwv 'lovSaiav iffriv.
3 John i. 11, of XSioi ... to ISta. Comp. John xix. 27.

2

366 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY.
Light, and that Light was the Life of Men ; and that
all Christians have an Unction from the Holy One, and
that the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of Christ ?
But there are three points in the last writings of
St. John which more especially stamp his teaching with
the mark of finality.
1. The first of these is the new and marvellous light
which he throws on the Idea of Eternity.
The use of the word aionios, and of its Hebrew
equivalent, olam, throughout the whole of Scripture
ought to have been sufficient to prove to every thought
ful and unbiassed student that it altogether transcends
the thoroughly vulgar and unmeaning conception of
"endless." Nothing, perhaps, tends to prove more clearly
the difficulty of eradicating an error that has once taken
deep and agelong root in the minds of "theologians"
than the fact that it should still be necessary to prove
that the word eternal, far from being a mere equivalent
for " everlasting," never means " everlasting " at all,
except by reflexion from the substantives to which it is
joined ; that it is only joined to those substantives
because it connotes ideas which transcend all time ; that
to make it mean nothing but time endlessly prolonged
is to degrade it by filling it with a merely relative
conception which it is meant to supersede, and. by
emptying it of all the highest conceptions which it pro
perly includes. I am well aware that this truth will,
for some time, be repeated in vain. But, once more, I
repeat that if by aionios St. John had meant " endless"
when he speaks of " aeonian life," there was the per
fectly commonplace and unambiguous word akatalutos
used by Apollos in Heb. v. 6, and there were at least
five or six other adjectives or expressions which were

ETERNAL LIFE. 367
ready to his hand. But the Life which had been mani
fested, which he had seen, to which he was bearing
witness, which stood in relation to the Father, and was
manifested to us,1 was something infinitely higher than
a mere "endless" life. The life — if mere living be life —
of the most doomed and apostate of the human race —
the Hfe even of the devil and his angels — is an "endless"
living, if we hold that man and evil spirits are immortal.
But by qualifying the divine life by the epithet
" eternal " (aionios) St. John meant, not an endless life
(though it is also endless), but a spiritual life, the life
which is in God, and which was manifested by Christ
to us. By calling it aionios he meant to imply, not —
which was a very small and accidental part of it — its
unbroken continuance, but its ethical quality. The
hfe is " endless," not because it is the infinite extension
of time, but because it is the absolute antithesis of
time ; and aionios expresses its internal quality, not as
something which can be measured by infinite tickings
of the clocks, but as something incommensurable by
all clocks, were they to tick for ever. The horologe of
earth, as Bengel profoundly expresses it, is no measure
for the aeonologe of heaven. The meaning of "eternal"
ought long ago to have been vindicated from its popular
degradation. St. John is the last of all Scripture
writers who uses it ; he alone of all Scripture writers
defines it ; and he makes it consist not in idle duration,
but in progressive knowledge. In defining it, he says
that it is the gift of Christ, " and that the eternal life
is this, that they may know Thee the only true God,
and Him whom Thou sendest, even Jesus Christ."2
1 1 John i. 2.
2 John xvii. 2, 3. Literally " that they may be learning to know •'" —

368 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY.
For thus we see at once, that, in the mind of St.
John eternal life is an antithesis not to the temporal,
but to the Seen -1 that it is not a life which shall be,
but one that, for the believer, now is ; that " every one
who beholdeth the Son has— not shall have, but has —
eternal life ; "2 that " he who hath the Son, hath the
life " here and now ; and that one of the objects why
St. John wrote at all was that they might know that
they had it.3 He who will lay aside bigotry and
factiousness and newspaper theology, and will sincerely
meditate on these passages, will see how unfortunate
is the antique and vulgar error as to the meaning of
this word. If a man be incapable of seeing this, or
unwilling to admit it, for such a man reasoning is
vain.4 2. Another mark of finality is St. John's teaching
about the Logos, or Word. In the Epistle he enters
into no details or description respecting the nature and
Person of the Logos ; and yet — in accordance with that
peculiarity of his method which we have already noticed
— the doctrine of the Logos, as the source of all hfe,
is the fundamental matter and pith of the Epistle.5
This, we may remark in passing, is one of the indica
tions that the Epistle was a didactic accompaniment of
not so much the possession of a completed life as of a life which is
advancing to completion.
1 John iv. 14, 36 ; vi. 27 ; xii. 25.
2 iii. 36 ; v. 24 ; vi. 40, 47, 54.
3 1 John v. 13, 14.
4 I should not use language so positive if I had not furnished the most
decisive and overwhelming proof of my position in Mercy and Judgment,
pp. 391 — 405. Of that proof another generation will be able to judge.
From the false and fleeting criticisms of to-day I appeal once more to a
diviner standard. I exclaim again, with Pascal, " Ad tuum, Domine Jesu,
tribunal appello."
6 See Haupt, p. 4.

DOCTRINE OF THE LOGOS. 369
the Gospel. But in the use of the Logos as a distinct
name of Christ St. John stands alone. Other Apostles
— St. Paul, St. James, and, above all, the writer of the
Epistle to the Hebrews — seem to hover on the verge of
it ; but they do not actually use, much less do they insist
on it ; and when they approach it they are thinking
always of the Divinity more than of the Humanity — of
the glorified, Eternal Christ, and not immediately of the
man Christ Jesus. Other writers, again, both Hebrew
and Hellenistic, had employed terms which bore some
resemblance to it, but not one had infused into it
the significance which makes it a concentration of the
Johannine Gospel. Philo had repeatedly dwelt on the
term, and surrounded it with Divine attributes ;
but Philo knew not the Lord Jesus, and in Philo the
Logos is surrounded with associations derived from the
Platonic and Stoic philosophies. The Targums had
used the words Meymra (wwn) and Bebura (H. which
could indeed only mean " the Word " ; but in these the
use had been intended simply to avoid the rude anthro
pomorphism of early Hebrew literature, and to make
God seem more distant rather than more near. Alike
the Alexandrians and the Targumists would have read
with a shock of astonishment and disapproval that utter
ance which St. John puts in the very forefront of his
Gospel, as containing its inmost essence, and as solving
all the problems of the world, that " the Logos became
flesh." It was a truth far beyond anything of which
they had dreamed, that the Word — who was in the
beginning, who was with God, who was God, by whom
all things were made, in whom was life, which hfe was
the light of man — that this Word was in the world,
came to His own people and His own home, and was
9

370 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY.
by most of them rejected — that this Word became
flesh, and tabernacled among us, and we beheld His
glory, a glory as of the only -begotten from the Father
— full of grace and truth. To make such a use of the
word Logos was to slay those conceptions which lay at
the heart of the Alexandrian theosophy with an arrow
winged by a feather from its own breast. It was to
adopt the most distinctive watchword of the Philonists
in order to overthrow their most cherished concep
tions. 3. I see yet another mark of Finality in what St.
John says of God, and especially in the First Epistle.
It is not indeed possible to make the whole analysis
of the Epistle turn on the three great utterances —
definitions we dare not call them, yet approximations to
some description of the Essence of Him who is Divine
— that God is Righteous, that God is Light, and, above
all, that God is Love. But I regard it as a most
blessed fact, that words so full of depth and blessedness
should occur in what is practically, and perhaps literally,
the latest utterance of Holy Writ.
"God is Righteous," and therefore He hates all
unrighteousness in others, and there can be no un
righteousness in Him. Unrighteousness, masking itself
as righteousness — unrighteousness putting on as its
disguise the flaming armour of religious zeal — un
righteousness in the form now of persecution, now of
violence, now of scholastic orthodoxy, now of deprecia
tion, unfairness, and slander — has been again and again
represented as doing Him service. But because He is
righteous He hates it. Whether it take the form of
Inquisitorial cruelty or of anonymous falsehood, all
violence is hateful to Him. Lying for God is to God an

GOD IS LOVE. 371
abomination, even when the lie claims to be a shibboleth
of His most elect. Want of candour, want of gentle
ness, want of forbearance, are unhallowed incense which
does but pollute His altar. Notions that represent Him
as a God of arbitrary caprice, treating men as though
they were nothing but dead clay, to be dashed about
and shattered at His will — notions which represent His
justice as something alien from ours, and those things as
good in Him which would be evil in us — notions which
imagine that in His cause we may do evil that good
may come — those idols of the School are shattered on
the rock of the truth that God is Righteous.
"God is Light."1 Notions that represent Him as
taking pleasure in man's blind and narrow dogmatism,
self-satisfied security, and bitter exclusiveness — as
making His chosen and His favoured ones not of
earth's best and noblest, but of the wrangling . reli
gionists who claim each for his own party the monopoly
of His revelation — as though one could love the dwarfed
thistles and the jagged bents better than the cedars of
Lebanon — these idols of the fanatic, idols of the sec
tarian, idols of the Pharisee, are shattered by the
ringing hammerstroke of the truth that God is
Light. God is Love. The words do not occur in the Gospel,
and yet they are the epitome of the Gospel, and the
epitome of the whole Scriptures, and the epitome of the
history of mankind ; and as such they are; a standing
protest against all that is worst and darkest in many of
1 Rabbi Simon Ben Jehosadek asked R. Samuel Ben Nachman " from
what the light was created ? " He answered, in a whisper of awe, " God
wrapped Himself in light as in a garment, and caused its bright glory to
shine from one end of the world to the other " (Bereshith Rabba, ch. iii.)
V 2

372 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY.
the world's schemes of inferential theology. God is
Love — not merely loving, but Love itself. The notions,
therefore, which would represent Him as living a life
turned towards self, or folded within self, caring only
for His own glory, caring nothing for the endless
agonies of the creatures He has made, predestining them
by millions to unutterable torments by horrible decrees,
regarding even the sins of children as infinite, " draw
ing the sword on Calvary to smite down His only
Son " — these idols of the Zealot, idols of the Calvinist,
idols of those who think that they by their wrath can
work the righteousness of God, and that they " can deal
damnation round the land on each they deem their
foe," — these idols of the Inquisitor, idols of the perse
cutor, idols of the intolerant ignorance of human infalli
bility, idols of the sectarian newspaper and the religious
partisan, are dashed to pieces by the sweeping and
illimitable force of the truth that God is Love.
And, therefore, those three final utterances of Reve
lation will become more and more, we trust, the protec
tion, the emancipation, the precious heritage of all
mankind ; they will be the barrier against wicked per
secutions, against unjust calumnies, against savage
attacks of sectarian hatred. They are as a charter of
Humanity against the misrepresentations of religion by
misguided Infidelity — against its no less perilous perver
sion by the encroachments and usurpations of religious
hatred and religious pride.
4. We may see a last mark of finality in the simplifi
cation of the ultimate essential elements of Christian
truth which we find in St. John. In reading St. Paul
we are at once struck with the richness and variety of
the terms and phrases which he has introduced into the

ST. JOHN AND ST. PAUL. 373
statement of Christian dogma. St. John, on the other
hand, moves in the sphere of a few ultimate verities.
St. Paul is like a painter who works out his results by
the use of many colours, and with an infinitude of
touches ; St. John produces the effect which he desires
by a few pure colours and a few sweeping, but consum
mate strokes. St. Paul is discursive, St. John intuitive.
St. Paul begins with man, St. John with God. In other
words, St. Paul passes from anthropology to theology,
and St. John moves chiefly in the purely theologic
sphere. St. Paul reasons most respecting the righteous
ness of God and how it becomes the justification of
man ; St. John's aim is to show the nature of Eternal
Life, and how man participates therein. Hence the
different tone of their moral teaching. The aim of St.
Paul is human and practical, and he dwells incessantly
on Faith, Hope, and Charity. St. John's Divine idealism
is mainly occupied with the abstract conceptions of Love,
and Life, and Light. St. Paul is pleading with men as
they are, and building them up into what they should be.
St. John assumes that the Christians to whom he writes
are resting with him in the full knowledge of Christ.
The Churches of St. Paul are full of disturbing elements ;
the Church which St. John mentally addresses is the
true and inner Church, which has no new doctrine to
learn, which has received the unction from the Holy
One, and which is separated by an unimaginable abyss
from the world and from its own false members.1 St.
Paul is ever yearning for an ultimate fraternity of all
men, a universal and absolute triumph of the work of
redemption ; St. John fixes his eyes on the Perfect
Church and the Perfect Christian, with whom the
1 1 John ii. 20 ; iii. 14 ; v. 15.

374 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY.
virulence of evil and the ultimate destiny of evil seem
to have no immediate concern.1
5. Now we cannot suppose that these blessed and
mighty thoughts occurred for the first time on St. John's
written page. They must have been previously expressed
in his oral teaching. And would it have been strange
if — after having heard so much about the Life of
Christ, so much about His nature and person, so
many of His discourses, so many applications of the
truth of His Gospel to meet every phase of moral
temptation and philosophic difiiculty — the Bishops and
Elders came to St. John to urge him, before he died,
to set forth his testimony to the world in writing ? At
first he shrank from so solemn a task out of humility.2
But on their still pressing him, " Fast with me for
three days," he answered — so runs the deeply-interesting
tradition preserved for us in the Muratorian fragment
— "and let us tell one another3 any revelation which
may be made to us severally (for or against the plan).
On the same night it was revealed to the Apostle
Andrew that John should relate all in his own name,
and that all should review his writing." " And then,"
says St. Jerome, in his allusion to this tradition, " after
the fast was ended, steeped with inspired truth (revela-
tione saturatus), he indited the heaven-sent preface, 'In
the beginning was the Word.'" 4
1 See the able essay, "Paul et Jean," in Reuss, Thiol. Chret. ii.
572—600. 2 Epiphan. Haer. Ii. 12, Sib So-repov avayKd£ei rb aytov irvevpa irapairoipevov
. . . Si' evkdfieiav Kal raveivoippoo-vv-qv. Comp. Euseb. iii. 24 (itravayKes),
and Jer. Prol. in Matt. (" Coactus ab omnibus paene tunc Asiae
episcopis," &c).
3 This seems to be the meaning of alterutrum, as in the Vnlg. of
James v. 16 (Westcott, Hist, of Canon, p. 527 ; St. John, p. xxxv.).
4 Jer. Comm. in Matt. Prol. Comp. Clem. Alex. ap. Euseb. H. E.

THE GOSPEL AND THE EPISTLE. 375
Such, then, having been the origin of the Gospel, it
supplies us with a certain clue to the origin of the Epistle.
A mere glance at the two writings shows that, on the
one hand, there is the closest possible connexion between
them, and that, on the other hand, the Gospel was the
earlier of the two.1 For the Gospel contains the more
explicit, the Epistle the more allusive and concentrated
expressions. The Gospel is intelligible by itself ; the
Epistle would hardly be intelligible without some pre
vious instruction to explain its phraseology. The
Gospel shows us how various expressions originated ; the
Epistle adopts, generalises, and applies them. The
Gospel furnishes us with a history, inspired throughout
by certain immanent ideas ; the Epistle assumes those
ideas to be known, and points out their practical bearing.
The Gospel deals with the manifestation of the Word in
the flesh as an event which the Evangelist has actually
witnessed in all its phases ; the Epistle shows how that
vi. 14. But see Basnage, viii. 2, § 6. This was afterwards improved into
the story that he wrote the whole Gospel impromptu (avrooxeSiao-rl), and
that his autograph, in letters of gold, was preserved in the Church of
Ephesus (see Lampe, Proleg. p. 171).
1 The reader will find the proof of this placed visibly before him if he
will study the parallels between the Gospel and the First Epistle of
St. John, as gathered (among others) by Canon Westcott, in his edition
of the Gospel. There are no less than thirty-five such passages, and
it may be seen at a glance that they are neither borrowed nor imitated,
but independently introduced in the way which would be most natural
in two works written by the same author. More than half of the
parallels are drawn from the last discourses (John xii. — xvii). To me
it seems clear that the Epistle represents the later, less developed, and
more allusive form of expression. Reuss says that the Gospel is needed
as a commentary on the Epistle ; but it is at least equally true to say
that the Epistle is needed as an application of the Gospel. It is clear
that both gain indefinitely when they are read together. St. Clemens
implies tha"t the Epistle was written after the Gospel, for he says that
" the Epistle begins with a spiritual proem, following that of the Gospel,
and in unison with it " (Adumbratt. p. 1009).

376 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY.
event bears on the errors which were beginning to creep
into the Church, and on the lives of its individual
members. We may, therefore, safely conclude that the Epistle
had distinct reference to the Gospel ; but we may also
infer that they were published together, or in very close
succession. The Epistle implies that the truths of the
Gospel are known to the reader with all the freshness of
recent study. It is based upon them as though they
would be already prominent in the reader's mind.
This is explicable if we suppose that the one treatise
accompanied the other, and it would also account for
the absence of salutation and benediction, which would
only partially be accounted for by the encyclical character
of the Epistle. The Epistle is most easily understood
if we suppose it to be addressed not only to the Churches
of Asia, whom the Apostle may have had primarily in
view, but to all readers of the Gospel. The external proof
of this is indeed insignificant ; but it is sufficiently
established by internal probability. If we may accept
with reasonable confidence the tradition that the Gospel,
as well as the Apocalypse, was written in Patmos and
published in Ephesus, the same tradition will apply
to the Epistle also.1 And this would be a further light
on the absence of salutations. Patmos is a small and
rocky island, with few inhabitants. It is doubtful
whether it had any Christian community within its
narrow limits ; but even if it had, such a community
would be all but wholly unknown, and could hardly be
regarded as an organised Church.
1 Patmos was within a day's reach of Ephesus, and if St. John had
already felt that the loneliness of the island was suitable to meditation,
he might have been led to retire thither once more while he was medi
tating on his last and greatest work.

WHERE WRITTEN. 377
6. The only supposed clue as to the readers to whom
the Epistle was addressed is the curious statement of St.
Augustine, in one single passage, that it was written
" to the Parthians." It is clear that this is either a
misreading, or a blunder. If, however, it be a mis
reading, all the conjectural emendations of it have been
quite unsuccessful. Hug's supposition, that it crept
in by mistake from the superscription of the Second
Epistle, " pros parthenous" " to Virgins," will be con
sidered farther on.1
7. The supposition that the Apostle wrote in Patmos
well accords with the whole tone of the Epistle. It
was written evidently at a time when the Church was
not under the stress of special persecutions.2 Dangers
and sufferings are not alluded to ; there are no trum
pet-calls to courage or endurance. This period of
peace may have been due to the crushing destruc
tion which had now fallen on the Jewish nation
ality ; for, as we are again and again informed, both
in history and in Scripture, the deadly animosities of
the Gentiles were in the early days stirred up for the
most part by Jewish hatred.3 Now in the Epistle there
1 See on the Second Epistle, p. 488.
2 This would point to some date after the reign of Nero (a.d. 54 — 68).
We see further that it must have been written, as the Gospel was, after
the destruction of Jerusalem (a.d. 70), and either before the persecution
of the Christians in a.d. 95, during the reign of Domitian (a.d. 91 — 96),
or between that date and the persecution of the Christians in the reign of
Trajan (a.d. 98). Ewald (Die Johan. Schriften, i. 471) suggests a.d. 90
as a probable date. Canon Westcott says that the Gospel may be
referred to the last decennium of the first century, and even to the close
of it (St. John, p. xl.). This view is supported both by early tradition
and by the facts that (1) the Gospel assumes a knowledge of the substance
of the Synoptic narratives ; (2) it deals with later aspects of Christian
life and opinion than these ; (3) it corresponds with the circumstances of
a new world (id., pp. xxxv. — xl.).
3 Acts xvii.; 1 Thess. ii. 14—16; Phil. iii. 2, &c. See too the
remarks of Justin in his Dial. c. Try ph.

378 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY.
is no distinct reference either to Jews or Gentiles. All
the old questions between the Church and these two
great masses of mankind have sunk out of sight. The
controversies as to the relations which should subsist
between Jewish and Gentile converts within the limits
of the Church itself are regarded as settled. In the
eyes of St. John there are but two great existing com
munities, and those are not Jews and Gentiles, but the
Church and the world. The severance between them
is complete and absolute. In this respect, as in so
many others, the Epistle recalls the last discourses
of our Lord. In them, too, the hatred of the world
means that of the Jew no less than that of the Gentile.
But this hatred is here calmly assumed without being
dwelt upon. There is no complaint respecting it. Not
a word is said as to its origin ; not a hint is breathed as
to its issues. The world is not even spoken of as a
source of special temptation, or as a sphere for mis
sionary activity. It is simply set on one side as a
satanic kingdom, a kingdom of darkness and of death,
with which it is impossible to conceive that the Christian
should have anything to do. But such a view is little
possible to one who lives in the heart of great cities,
and is in daily struggle with hostile forces from without.
It would be far more possible to the contemplative
recluse in some secluded retirement than to the toiling
Apostle in the streets of Sardis or Ephesus.
8. Yet there are dangers which St. John evidently
contemplates. They are dangers from heresy and from
antichrists ; dangers not arising from attacks of the
world outside the Church, but from developments
of the world within it. The perils which the Chris
tians have to encounter are perils from those who them-

DANGERS FROM WITHIN. 379
selves profess the faith; from wolves — clad in sheep's
clothing ; from Satan — disguised as an angel of light.
What St. John dreads is not flagrant wickedness and
open blasphemy, but " false types of goodness," and
"false types of orthodoxy." Such perils had existed
from the very earliest days in which the Church was a
Church at all ; but now, in the pause from outward
assault, they were assuming subtler and more seductive
forms. In one shape or other, in their moral or their
intellectual aspects, every Apostle has lifted up against
them his warning voice. St. Paul had been obliged,
even weeping, to warn his converts against false
teachers ; St. Peter, St. Jude, St. James had " burst into
plain thunderings and lightnings " against them. Far
different is the tone of St. John. That they are greatly
in his thoughts is evident. Nay, since he frequently
refers to their several tenets, since in two passages he
expressly names them,1 since the very last words of his
Epistle refer to them,2 it is clear that it was one of his
primary objects to protect the Church from their in
sidious teachings. Yet how instructive is the tone in
which he speaks about them ! It is calm, not tumultuous
or agitated. It leads to the establishment of positive
truths, not to anathemas against negative errors. It
does not betray the least touch of anxiety. What St.
John has to teach is the nature of eternal life ; its
concentration in the Word; its communication to the
world. The passages about the antichrists might even
be omitted without materially affecting the structure of
the Epistle. Here again we find not only the stamp of
finality, on which we have already dwelt, but an
indication of the circumstances under which St. John
i 1 John ii. 20—26 ; iv. 1—6. 2 1 John v. 21.

380 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY.
was writing. He is not in the thick of the battle. His
soul is not harrowed by daily watching the ravages of
error. Removed from the scene of conflict, living
in daily meditation on the truth, in daily communion
with God, he can write in the tone of serene joy, of
sovereign conviction. It is the peculiarity which we
have already noticed in St. Paul's Epistle to the Philip-
pians. The keynote of that letter is joy. In the
prison, amid general desertion, left face to face with
God, St. Paul seems as if the one thought which
inspires his whole being is "Rejoice in the Lord
always : again I will say Rejoice." It is the same with
St. John. He speaks with the composure which befits
the last of the Apostles, the composure of a man who
knew the certainty, who had witnessed the victories of
the faith. "The unique consciousness which an Apostle,
as he grew older, could carry within himself, and which
he, once the favourite disciple, had in a peculiar mea
sure ; the calm superiority, clearness, and decision in
thinking on Christian subjects; the rich experience of
a long life steeled in the victorious struggle with every
unchristian element; and a glowing language lying
concealed under their calmness, which makes us feel
intuitively that it does not in vain commend us to
love, as the highest attainment of Christianity —
all this coincides so remarkably in this Epistle, that,"
— in spite of its purely impersonal character and the
lofty delicacy with which, as in the Gospel, the writer
retires into the background, unwilling to speak of him
self — " every reader of that period, probably without
any further intimation, might readily determine who he
was." 1 In its " unruffled and heavenly repose, it
1 Ewald, Die Johan. Schriften, i. 431.

LOFTY SPIRITUALITY. 381
appears to be the tone not so much of a father talking
with his beloved children, as of a glorified saint speaking
to mankind from a higher world. Never in any writing
has the doctrine of heavenly love, of a love working in
stillness, a love ever unwearied, never exhausted, so
thoroughly proved, and approved itself, as in this
Epistle." J 1 Id. ib.

CHAPTER XXXIII.
CHARACTERISTICS OF THE MIND AND STYLE OF ST. JOHN.
" Columba sancta Ecclesia est ; quae duas alas habet per dilectionem
Dei et proximi." — A. de St. Victobe.
The effect which the Epistle thus produces upon us
is due partly to the habit of St. John's mind, partly to
the peculiarities of his style.
1. One great peculiarity of his mind — on which we
have already incidentally touched — is his contemplative
ness ; — what has been sometimes, but not very accu
rately, called his mysticism. It was the invariable
tendency of his mind in these his later years to live
and move in the region of abstract thought. The
abstractions are, however, by no means treated as ab
stractions, but. rather as facts and experiences of life.
In St. John we see yet another illustration of the
fundamental distinction between the Nominalist and
the Realist; — the Nominalist who regards abstract terms
as representing nothing but the generalisations of the
mind out of concrete presentments, the Realist who
regards them as representing those eternal ideas which
are the only absolute realities. St. John is entirely a
Realist. It has been truly said of him that " TJniversalia
ante rem" is the principle of all his philosophy. With
him Ideas — Light, Darkness — Truth, Falsehood — are
not mere concepts, but are the actual reality, the prin
ciples of life out of which all individual things emerge.

IDEALISM OF ST. JOHN. 383
In his point of view Mankind, the individual man, the
particular action, only exist as the Idea prescribes. The
Idea, indwelling in them, moulds them as a law, by
virtue of which all that belongs to them is fashioned.
Thus, to St. John, history is the invisible translated
into the visible.1 In the Gospel it is shown how the
ideas have been introduced into this earthly life ; in the
Epistle how the life of the individual may be modified
in accordance with them.2 Thus once more we see how
every thought which St= John utters depends upon his
doctrine of " the Word made flesh." The Divine ideas
of which he speaks — Truth, Life, Light — are realities,
and the only realities, because they are inherent in the
Logos. They are in men only because He is in men,
and they are the only Life, the only Light, the only
Truth. The Gospel shows how, by the manifestation
of the Logos on earth, the fulness which was in Him
is imparted to us ; the Epistle speaks throughout of
our personal appropriation of this fulness and the way
in which it is expressed in Christian lives.
2. But all this at once accounts for another of his
characteristics — namely, the sovereign calm of the
Apostle's tone. In this region of the Idea there is no
room for jarring conflicts. He is building the super
structure, not laying the foundation. He is reminding,
not instructing. He is perfecting, not commencing.
He is stating, not arguing. He is delivering a solemn
homily, not conducting an embittered controversy.
He can appeal to his readers, as those who know ;3 as
i Haupt, pp. 376, 377.
2 " The Gospel seeks to deepen faith in Christ, the Epistle sets forth
the righteousness which is necessary to faith, and only possible to faith "
(Hoffmann). 3 1 John ii. 12—14

384 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY.
those whose sins have been forgiven ; who have an
unction from the Holy One -1 who already believe ;2
to whom the new commandment can be represented as
the old. And this is the reason why his defensive
polemics can take the form of positive instruction.
He can teach true Christians to conquer heresy by
the expulsive power of right affections. He can
invigorate their interior life as the best means of
strengthening their outward warfare. The multiplica
tion of antichrists was a serious danger, but the
Churches would be less likely to succumb to it if he
could inspire them with the victorious tranquillity with
which he himself regarded all dangers, as he looked
forth on the troubled sea from the haven of his island
rest. 3. A third secret of St. John's power lies in his style.
It is a style absolutely unique, supremely original,
and full of charm and sweetness. Under the semblance
of extreme simplicity, it hides unfathomable depths. It
is to a great extent intelligible to the youngest child, to
the humblest Christian ; yet to enter into its full meaning
exceeds the power of the deepest theologian. Thus, St.
John remarkably exemplifies the definition that genius
is " the heart of childhood taken up and glorified in
the powers of. manhood." In his Gospel and Epistles
the artless ingenuousness of a child is intimately blended
with the deep thoughtfulness of a man. But the style,
by its very characteristics, would be ill suited to con
troversy. It is not syllogistic, like that of St. Paul; nor
rhetorical, like that of the author of the Epistle to the
Hebrews. It is rather contemplative, " noting the sub
stance of the thoughts without marking the mutual
1 1 John ii. 20, 27. 2 1 John v. 13.

STYLE OF ST. JOHN. 385
relations of the thoughts themselves."1 The logic moves,
as has been said, in circles rather than straight onwards.2
The sentences are ordinated by simple conjunctions, not
subordinated to each other by final particles. The
periods are par -atactic, not syntactic. The particles, as in
Aramaic, are few.3 Hence, though the Greek is pure, in
so far that it is free from solecisms, it is as unlike Greek
as possible in its periodic structure. There is scarcely
a single oblique sentence throughout St. John's Gospel.
Often the sentences follow each other without any con
junction between them, and only by taking up again
the chief word in the previous clause. But under the
appearance of incessant repetitions the thought is still
constantly advanced. " The still waters," as Herder says,
"run deep, flowing along with the easiest words, but
the profoundest meaning." The thoughts are pressed
home in the simplest fashion of Aramaic idiom by being
expressed first positively, then negatively.4 They gain
1 Braune calls it " the dialectics of contemplation."
2 Diisterdieck. Tholuck had already given to St. John's style the
epithet " cycloidal." Renan admits that the style has " fervour, and
occasionally a kind of sublimity, but withal something inflated, unreal.
obscure — an utter want of naivete."
3 Ebrard, Introd. He points out that the sentences are often
joined by Kal, when St. Paul would have used Se or yap. St. John con
stantly makes use of anaphora, i.e., the introduction of a new sentence
by the repetition of a word which has just been used. Erasmus
excellently describes it : " Dicendi genus ita velut ansulis ex sese
cohaerentibus contextus, nonnunquam ex contrariis, nonnunquam ex
similibus, nonnunquam ex iisdem subinde repetitis . . . ut orationis
quodque membrum semper excipiat prius, sic ut prioris finis initium sit
sequentis. 4 St. John seems to " think in antitheses." It is his manner " to
construct the matter of a positive idea out of its combination or contrast
with its opposite." By a curious variation of style, for which it is not
easy to account, we have conditional sentences (" if we walk," " if we
say," " if we confess ") in the first section of the Epistle (i. 6 ; ii. 8), and
participial construction (" he that loveth," " he that saith ") afterwards.

386 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY.
further from the numerical symmetry of the clauses
into which they are thrown.1 The same word occurs
again and again as the leading word of an entire section
until it becomes impressive by the very monotony of its
iteration. It is like a stone flung into a smooth lake,
round which the ripples widen to the shore in concentric
circles. No style could be worse to imitate. In feeble
hands it would deserve the charges of weakness, tauto
logy, senility, which have been so idly made against
it. On the other hand, no style could better suit the
character of a mind absorbed in heavenly contemplation ;
— of a mind filled with conceptions of a depth so inex
haustible that words, however often repeated, failed to
convey the fullness of meaning with which they were
charged. 4. But — to revert to the characteristics of St. John's
later teachings — it must not be supposed that St. John
has no sternness in him. Had such been the case he
could not have been the Son of Thunder. Probably the
natural character of no man had ever been so softened
and ennobled as his had been by the long years of
Christian suffering and Christian education; yet the
elements of the natural character remained. The essence
of St. John's temperament, the foundation of his

1 There is an interesting specimen of this numerical concinnity of
expression in ii. 9 — 11, where, in steady progression, the first verse has
one predicate : " He who saith that he is in the light, and hateth his
brother " (a) " is in the darkness even still." The second verse has two
predicates : " He who loveth his brother " (a) " abideth in the light,"
(0) " and there is no stumblingblock in him." The third verse has three
predicates: "But he who hateth his brother" (a) "is in the darkness,"
(j8) " and walketh in the darkness," (y) " and knoweth not whither he
goeth, because the darkness blinded his eyes." The symmetry is so
absolute in its musical flow and rhythmic balance that even the double
clause of the last line corresponds to the double clause of the first.

TONE OF SEVERITY. 387
teaching, in these his later years, was love ; but where
there is an intense and perfect love there must also
be hatred of all that most offends and injures love ;
not hatred of men — that becomes impossible — but
hatred of all that degrades men into beasts or devils.
It is impossible not to feel that there is an accent of
intense severity — of a severity even more intense than
that of St. James — in such words as,
"He that doeth sin is from the Bevil, because the Bevil
sinneth from the beginning!' " Fvery one who abideth in
Him sinneth not; every one who sinneth hath not seen
Him, nor even known Him." " Everyone who doeth not
righteousness is not from God, nor he who loveth not his
brother." 1
How does such language accord with Christ's un
bounded love to sinners, to publicans, to harlots, even
to Pharisees ? How is it reconcilable with the paternal
tenderness, the overflowing love, the gentle tolerance,
which breathes through the rest of the Epistle ? How
is it in unison with certain and universal Christian ex
perience? How is it consistent with St. John's own
gentleness to most flagrant offenders ? How can it be left
side by side with language so apparently contradictory
to it as that which urges God's children to confess their
sin, and even lays it down that,
"If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves,
and the truth is not in us." 2
Does not the only solution lie in the fact that here
too, St. John is moving in the regions of the ideal, and
that every sin is, in its ultimate issue, in its final nature,
Satanic? As children of God we cannot sin, and
children of God we are. We are so by His gift,3
1 1 John iii. 4—10. - i. 8—10. 3 iii. 1.
z 2

388 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY.
we must become so by our own act. In so far as
we by our own choice are sinners, so far we are not
children of God ; and if, at the last day — if, in the
general and unerring sentence of judgment pronounced
upon us — we are declared to be in a state of permanent
and willing sin,1 then, in spite of the imparted gift
of sonship, we are children of the Devil. The ideal of
oar position as children of God is the impossibility to sin ;
and a nearer and nearer approximation to this ideal
is required of us in actual life. But if to the very end
we fall very far short of that ideal, and so might be
driven to despair, St. John himself has saved us from any
such despair by his previous sayings that if we confess
our sins God will forgive them,2 and that if any man
sin we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ
the righteous, and He is the propitiation for our
sins.3 5. The personal question indeed remains. " If we say
that we have fellowship with Him, and walk in the dark
ness, we lie." "He who doeth sin is of the Bevil!' "If
any one come to you and bring not this teaching, receive
him not into your house, and give him no greeting.
Are those the accents of the Apostle of Love ? Does not
St. John by such expressions and such advice reopen the
floodgates of party railing, ignorant zeal, mahgnant
• The force of the present tenses, and the alleviation which they in
troduce into the force of the sentences, must not be overlooked.
2 i. 9.
3 ii. 12. We may remark in passing that this word " propitiation "
(i\aopbs) (here and in iv. 10), is one of the very few which introduce into
the Epistle conceptions which are not directly touched upon in the
Gospels. Another is xp^lia, the " unction " of the Holy One, in ii. 20, 27.
Another is the application of the name Paraclete (" advocate") to Christ
(ii. 1), though this is indeed involved in John xiv. 16.
4 See infra in the remarks on this passage.

SIN OF INTOLERANCE. 389
persecution, bitter intolerance ? So, at any rate, those
have thought who forget that hatred of any kind is the
essential note of the world. Those very " texts " have
been seized with avidity by the fierce party-spirit which
all the Apostles alike so unhesitatingly denounce as
godless and anti-Christian. Heated controversialists
have revelled in the imaginary license to set aside
all the precepts of Christian love which breathe from
every page of the New Testament in order that they
may, with these texts, bless and approve ' with sober
brows the very sin which is never more deadly or more
inexcusable than when it shamelessly intrudes into the
sphere of religious life. All that can be said is that such
partisans wrest these, as they do also the other Scriptures,
to their own perdition. These phrases, rightly under
stood, belong to that sphere . of the Ideal and the
Abstract in which St. John moves, but in which those
do not move who pervert his meaning in order to undo
the teaching which he loved best. No texts in Scrip
ture can authorise any man to hate and persecute those
who teach the truths which he in his ignorance regards
as heresy. St. John's words do not confer on persecuting
zeal the attribute of infallibility. They do not exempt
religious differences from the realm of Christian charity.
If they did, they would have to be themselves overruled
as proofs of weakness, because in that case they would run
counter to the best and-holiest teachings of him who ut
tered them. Religious persecution, religious intolerance,
religious hatred are not religious but irreligious, even if
St. John be distorted into their defence. If he did
indeed defend them — as he does not — his plea could
only be due to the still lingering traces of the Elijah
spirit ; it could only be ranked with the conduct of

390 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY.
St. Carlo Borromeo, who, after tending the plague-
stricken with the gentleness of a saint, persecuted those
whom he regarded as heretics with the fury of an
inquisitor. The Apostle and Evangelist of Love would
have destroyed the very essence of his own divinest
work if he had meant — as I believe he never meant
— to gratify the meanest and fiercest champions of
party in the indulgence of exactly those forms of hatred
which have ever been the most virulent, the most
ignorant, the most hateful, and the most intense.
6. I will mention only one more characteristic of this
rich and profound Epistle, which is, that though it is
ethical and didactic, it does not resemble the treatment
of ethics by any other of the Apostles. Here, again, the
manner of the writer finds a fresh illustration. Other
Apostles enter into many details, touch on many succes
sive duties. Not so St. John. In his view two words
enclose the whole cycle of moral conceptions. Those
two words are Righteousness and Love. Both words
have their roots in the divine. God is righteous. God
is love. Therefore man must be righteous towards God,
and must manifest that righteousness by love towards
the brethren. Even these broad conceptions are lost in
others still broader — namely, those of Light and Truth.
God is Light, and therefore every sin partakes of the
nature, and belongs to the realm, of darkness. God is
True — i.e., Real, and therefore all sin partakes of the
nature of unreality and falsehood. All details, all
special applications are involved in this. He who does
the truth, he who walks in the light, he who does
righteousness, he who confesses the name of Jesus
Christ, he who loves his brother — he has eternal life.
He will therefore need no instruction as to outward and

TREATMENT OF ETHICS. 391
individual acts.1 For him even the Church and the
Sacraments, and all ecclesiastical questions of organisa
tion and ritual, may, in St. John's manner, be passed
over as " silent presuppositions." He is forgiven ; he is
cleansed; he is a son of God. His faith in the Divinity
of Christ is transposed into life, and his life in Christ
deepens his faith in Christ's Divinity. The two are
inextricably interlaced. A righteous life is the result of
faith, and faith is deepened by a righteous life.2 He
who denies Christ, he who " severs Christ," is of the
Devil, and belongs to the lie, the world, the darkness.
Thus St. John moves as through the empyrean in the
region of absolute antitheses. All controversy is over
for him. Like an eagle after one vast beat of his wings,
so this " own eagle of Christ "
" Scindit iter liquidum celeres neque promovet alas."
1 See ii. 27. Hence the constant words otSare (ii. 20; iii. 5, 15),
otSapev (iii 2, 14; V. 15, 18, 19, 20), yivioiKopev (ii. 5, 18; iii. 19, 24;
iv. 6, 13 ; V. 2), eyviiKapev (iii. 16 ; iv. 16), iyvuKare (ii. 13, 14), yivdmere
(ii. 29 ; iv. 2), SoKip,d(ere (iv. 1). Thus the thought that they already know
the truth of what he is saying recurs some thirty times. Otia represents
knowledge generally ; yivdo-Ka represents " recognition," " experiential
knowledge." 2 Braune (in Lange's Bibelwerk), Introd. § II. ; Hofmann, Schrift-
beweis, p. 337.

CHAPTER XXXIV.
OBJECT AND OUTLINE OF THE FIRST EPISTLE OF ST. JOHN.
" Sed Joannes ala bina
Caritatis, aquilina
Forma, fertur in divina
Puriori lumine." — Adam de St. Victobe.
After these considerations we shall, I trust, be better
prepared to understand St. John's object in the Epistle,
and how it bears on the circumstances in which the
Epistle was written. We shall be better able to under
stand that it is a coherent whole, and that its purpose is
worked out in continuous development.
As to the object, we can have no doubt, because
St. John tells it to us quite distinctly in the first four
verses. It was to set forth to his readers his witness
respecting the Word of Life, in order that he and they
might have fellowship with one another in their
common fellowship with the Father and with His
Son, and that in consequence of this their joy may
be full. He expresses the same object in other terms
at the end of the Epistle, when he says " These
things I have written to you that believe on the name
of the Son of God, that ye may know that ye have
eternal life."1 In pursuing this object he shows that
1 v. 13. The reading of B is here most probably correct, and the
source of the other variations — ravra eypatya (epistolary aorist) vpTv 'iva
eiS-qre '6ri faijv exere al&vtov, rots iriarevovffiv eis rb uvopa rov vlov rov ®eov.
Compare the closely-analogous description of the object of the Gospel in
John xx. 31.

METHOD OF THE EPISTLE. 393
there can be no fellowship with God without righteous
ness, rooted in faith and manifested by love ; and that
the Christian not only ought to live such a life, but does
so, because he is born of God. Thus does St. John
refute the antichristian lie which was alreadjr prevalent.
He would empty these souls of falsehood by filling
them with truth. He writes in order that, by fellow
ship with one another and with God and His Christ —
by perfected joy, by assured confidence in their present
possession of eternal life — the seductions of the teaching
of antichrists may become impossible to souls filled with
Christian love.
An analysis of the Epistle, such as may serve
to show that it is not merely aphoristic, is perfectly
possible. When Calvin spoke of it as containing
" doctrine mixed with exhortation ; " when Episcopius
said that "the method of treatment was arbitrary,
and not bound to rules of art ; " they had missed
its meaning. The art is concealed, but it is consum
mate. The method is unique, but it is most powers
ful. It is an entire mistake to speak of the Epistle
as " incoherent," as a congeries of scattered remarks
about the Divinity of Christ, about the blessings
of adoption, about love, and as " briefly touching on
other things also, such as being on our guard against
impostors, and such matters."1 Schmid, Oporinus,2

1 " Doctrinam exhortationibus mistam continet . . . sparsim docendo
et exhortando varius est " (Calvin).
2 Joachim Oporin, in a Gottingen programme. " De constanter tenenda
communione cum Patre et Filio — i.e., Joannis Ep. i. nodis interpretum
liberata, dec," 1741. Some have called the Epistle aphoristic, which is a
misleading term if meant to exclude the notion of a definite plan. The
idea seized upon by Oporin is certainly the leading one of the Epistle. So
too Liicke — "As the ground and root of all Christian fellowship is the

394 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY.
Bengel, and the other scholars who first endeavoured to
prove its consecutive and systematic character, ren
dered a real service to biblical theology. The student
who reads it in the light of some well-considered scheme,
will gain more advantage from it than others, even if
details of his scheme be untenable. It is, for instance,
very tempting to arrange the Epistle under the three
heads which are suggested by the three great thoughts
that God is Light, God is Righteous, God is Love. I
myself tried hard to do so in first studying the Epistle.
But though these great utterances throw some light on
the order of thought, it is evident that they are not the
pivots of arrangement in the mind of the writer.1 Nor,
again, is it possible to analyse the Epistle, as Bengel
endeavoured to do, with reference to the doctrine of the
Trinity, an attempt into which that great theologian was
misled by his acceptance as genuine of the verse about
the Three Heavenly Witnesses. There is, indeed, as
we shall see, a remarkable triplicity in the subordinate
divisions, due to the Hebraic training of St. John, and
to the rhythm and symmetry of the sacred idioms with
which he was familiar. Bengel, of course, rightly saw
that the Epistle falls at once into the three divisions of
Exordium, i. 1 — 4.
Treatment of the Subject, i. 5 — v. 12.
Conclusion, v. 13 — 21.
But the unreality of his other divisions arose from his
attempting to analyse the Epistle in the interests of an
a priori conception instead of following step by step
fellowship which each has with the Father and the Son in faith and love,
so this latter necessarily unfolds and exhibits itself in that former."
1 Huther, who, in his first edition, in Meyer's Commentary, adopted an
analysis on this plan (at De Wette's suggestion), abandoned it in his
second edition.

WAVES OF THOUGHT. 395
its own indications. The reason why it is so difficult
to analyse, is the extreme richness and fulness of the
thoughts, and the manner in which they interfuse each
other. I said just now that the leading words of
St. John — words expressive of some inexhaustible and
abstract idea — might be compared to stones thrown into
a lake, which raise around them a far-spreading con
centric ripple ; but of this Epistle it would be even
truer to say that word after word exercises its influence
over the surface, and that the innumerable ripples
which they create overflow and are influenced by each
other, so that the concentric rings of thought are broken
and interlaced.1 Hence it is probable that no analysis
will be accepted by any careful student as final or un
objectionable in all its details. Let each perform the
task as he thinks best ; but for myself ,1 can find no
analysis so helpful and thorough as that which has been
indicated by one of the latest, and by far the pro-
foundest, expositor of the epistle, Eric Haupt.2 In

1 I find that Huther has expressed exactly the same thought under a
completely different image. He says that in St. John's style " the leading
thought is like a key-note, which he strikes and causes to sound through
the derivative thoughts until a new keynote is struck that leads to a new
key." 2 Generally speakmg, throughout this and my former books on the
New Testament, I have, I trust, shown that my line of thought is always
independent ; that I have tried in each instance to think and to judge for
myself, nullius addictus jurare in verba magistri. It is right, however,
to say that in the exegesis of the First Epistle of St. John I have been
guided to an unusual extent by the admirable treatise of Haupt. I have
not always agreed with him. At times he seems to me to be over-subtle.
I do not always accept his views of scholarship. But though I have also
studied the views of many other editors — Huther, Diisterdieck, Ebrard,
Braune, Alford, Wordsworth, Beuss, &c. — I have not found in any one of
them the depth and insight of this little-known writer. I have, therefore,
been specially indebted to him, and desire thus generally to express my
obligation. From Reuss I have gained scarcely any help. His treatment

396 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY
giving it, however, I must remind the reader that we
do not pretend to imply that St. John, in writing the
Epistle, had any such scheme definitely before him,
but only that, in the development of the great central
thoughts which he desired to impress upon his readers,
one general object dominated through all the separate
passages, and coloured the particular expressions.
Introduction, i. 1 — 4.
A. The main theme — Eternal Life manifested by the
Word.
B. Certain assurance of this as an irrefragable truth ; — ¦
the object of setting it forth being that it is the
ground and root of Christian fellowship with God
and with one another.
A. Eternal Life, i. 5 — v. 5.
I. The evidence that it has been communicated to
us by the Word is Walking in the Light, which must
show itself —
1 . Towards God — in the form of sinlessness (i. 6 —
ii. 2.)
a Sinlessness is effected positively by re
demption through Christ's blood (i. 5 — 7).
/3 Negatively, by forgiveness of past sin
(i. 8—10). '
7 Hortative recapitulation (ii. 1, 2).
2. Towards the brethren — as brotherly love (ii.
3—13). a Keeping God's commandments is union
with God (ii. 3—5).
of the Johannine writings in his Theologie Johannique seems to be
decidedly poor, and far inferior to his treatment of the Epistles of St.
Paul. Nor have I learnt much from the wordy obscurity of Braune.

ANALYSIS OF THE EPISTLE. 397
/3 Love as the new commandment (ii. 6 — 11).
7 Hortative encouragement (ii. 12 — 14).
3. By utter severance from the world.
« No fellowship with the world or with
Antichrist (ii. 15—19).
/? Security by means of the unction from the
Holy One (ii. 20—26).
7 Recapitulation (27).
II. If we possess Eternal Life we have confidence,
because we have been born of God (ii. 28— v. 5).
1. The evidence of this sonship is seen in action (iii.).
a Towards God it is evidenced by doing
righteousness (iii. 1 — 10).
/3 Towards the brethren, by love (iii. 11 — 18).
7 Recapitulation (iii. 19 — 23).
2. The source of this sonship is the reception of the
Spirit of God.
a The confession of Christ through the Spirit
saves us from false Spirits (iv. 1 — 6).
/3 Human love is a reflection of the Divine
and is derived from the Spirit (iv. 7 —
12).
7 Recapitulation (iv. 14 — 16).
Retrospective conclusions : — when the Divine birth
is thus manifested in action (iii.), which may be traced
back to the Spirit, (iv. 1 — 6), then we have the perfect
confidence of sonship, and may stand unabashed in the
Day of Judgment (iv. 17, 18).
III. Final illustrations.
A. Love and Faith.
<*¦ The Idea of Love embraces love both to God and
to the brethren (iv. 19—21).

398 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY.
/3 The Idea of Faith involves love both to God and
to the brethren (v. 1 — 3).
7 And also involves Victory over the world (v. 4, 5).
B. Assurance that the Word is the Giver of Eternal
Life.
i. Because it is founded on the certain witness of
God (v. 6—9).
ii. And this witness is echoed from within (v. 10 —
12).
C. Conclusion. a The substance of Eternal Life, as consisting of
faith in Christ, and confidence, and intercessory
love (v. 13—17).
fi The signatures of the child of God (v. 18—20)
in the threefold knowledge that he is sinless,
that he is from God, that he is in Christ.
7 Emphatic conclusion, showing the practical aim
of the Epistle.1
I have inserted this formal analysis of the Epistle
into the text, and not placed it in a note, because of its
great importance, and because it illustrates to no small
extent the characteristics of St. John's method, and the
colouring of his thoughts. Some may be inclined to
look on it with suspicion, from the very fact of its pre
vailing triplicity ; and no doubt this might be justly
regarded as unfavourable to its reception if we pretended
to imply that St. John drew up beforehand any outline
of this definite division. Had he done so, it would at
1 It would only confuse the reader to give the analyses of Hofmann,
Ebrard, Huther, &e. Ewald adopts three divisions, i. 1 — ii. 17 ; ii. 18 —
iv. 6 ; iv. 7 — v. 21. Diisterdieck, closely followed by Alford, who gives
his analysis at length, divides as follows — Exordium, i. 1 — 4 ; two main
sections, i. 5 — ii. 28 ; ii. 29 — v. 5 ; a double conclusion, v. 6 — 13, 14 — 21.

TRIPLICITY OF STRUCTURE. 399
once have stamped his Epistle with formalism of state
ment and want of spontaneity. But this is not the
case. The triplicity is entirely unintentional. It is so
little insisted on, that some of the sections, and especially
the minor divisions which I have not here pointed out,
fall into pairs. The detection of this involuntary tri
plicity and duality of statement does not arise from any
a priori determination to find it, but results naturally
from careful study of the Epistle step by step. The very
same peculiarity is observable in the Gospel. Any one
who analyses it sees at once that there is scarcely one,
either of its main or its minor divisions, which does not
fall into double or triple parts. This was pointed out by
Luthardt, and may be seen by a glance at Canon West-
cott's analysis of the Gospel, though he does not ex
pressly allude to it. As to the Epistle, " the order and
symmetry which pervade all, down to the minutest
details, only show how clearly and sharply the Apostle
was accustomed to think, and that, in consequence of an
inherent sense of order, his thoughts grouped them
selves with facility in a definite way."

The genuineness of the Epistle may be regarded as
beyond all suspicion. It was known to and quoted by
Papias (a.d. 140).1 There are unmistakable allusions to
it in the Epistle to Diognetus (a.d. 117), in the Epistle of
the Churches of Lyons and Vienne (a.d. 177), and in
Polycarp's letter to the Philippians.2 It was often
quoted by Irenseus.3 There can be little doubt that the
1 Euseb. 3. E. iii. 39, Kexpqrai . . . paprvpiats airb rrjs 'ladvvov irporepas
iirio-roK-qs. 2 Polyc. ad Philipp. 7. This quotation constitutes a strong proof of
genuineness. 3 Euseb. H. E.v.8; Iren. c. Haer. iii. 16, 5, 7.

400 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY.
testimony of the Muratorian fragment (circ. a.d. 170) is
in its favour.1 It is translated in the Peshito ; is con
stantly quoted by the Fathers of the, third century; is
ranked among the Homologoumena by Eusebius,2 and is
said by St. Jerome to have been accepted by all true
Churchmen.3 This external evidence combines so over
whelmingly with the internal, that we are not surprised
to find that from the days of Marcion4 (about a.d. 140)
and the Alogi 6 down to the days of Joseph Scaliger, the
Epistle has been received with unquestioning reverence.6
The notion that it shows signs of senility is the super
ficial conclusion of careless and prejudiced readers. The
endeavour of Baur to find Montanism in the Epistle, and
that of Hilgenfeld to prove that it is a forgery of the
middle of the second century, need be no further debated,
because they have found scarcely any followers. And even
Hilgenfeld spoke of the writer as "a great independent
thinker," and called his Epistle, not as Baur had done,
a " weak imitation " of the Gospel, but a " splendid
type " of it.7 The notion that such Epistles as this,
and the Epistles to the Ephesians and Colossians and
the Pastoral Epistles could have been second-century
1 See infra.
2 Euseb. H. E. iii. 24, 25.
3 Jer. De Virr. Illustr. 9. It is quoted by Clemens Alexandrinns
(Strom, ii. 66; iii. 32, &c), Tertullian (c. Marc. v. 16; c. Prax. 15, &c.)
Cyprian (Ep. 28, &c), and pseudo-Chrysostom (in Matt. xxi. 23) says,
&iravres elvai 'ludvvov (Tvp<p&vws direty-qvavro.
4 Marcion either did not know or rejected the writings of St. John.
0 rdxa Se Kal ras *'EiriffTo\ds, trvvaSovo-i yap avrai t$ Evayye\i<p Kal ry
'A-woKaAfyei (Epiphan. c. Haer. Ii. 34).
8 The isolated exception of Cosmas Indicopleustes in the sixth century
is hardly worth mentioning, for his remark is evidently made in great
ignorance of the subject. He foolishly observes that "the majority"
regarded the Catholic Epistles as not being the writings of the Apostles,
a\K' erepuv rivoiv irpeo-^vrepuv atpeAetrrepwv.
7 Hilgenfeld, Das Evang. und die Briefe Johannis, 1849.

SENT WITH THE GOSPEL. 401
forgeries is refuted by the entire literature of that century,
whether authentic, or anonymous, or pseudonymous.
That literature is of a character incomparably more
feeble, and is animated by a spirit incomparably less
divine. Some have preferred to regard this Epistle as a theo
logical treatise, or a religious homily; but the form
which it assumes, and the direct addresses with which
it abounds, show that it really was intended as an
encyclical letter, addressed neither " to Parthians " nor
" to Virgins," x but to the Churches of Asia, with which
the Apostle was most familiar. The conclusions which
have here been indicated may be considered certain ; —
namely, that it was written towards the close of the first
century ; and — which is a deeply interesting and sug
gestive circumstance — that it was, in some instances, at
least, accompanied by copies of the Gospel, to which it
is closely related in its tone of thought, and to which
it served as a practical commentary.2
1 Thus ypdipa occurs seven times, eypaij/a six times, ip?v, ipeis, &c,
thirty-six times, rexvia, iraiSta six times, fcymrjiTo! six times, &c. The uncon
strained style, the hortatory tendency, the informal transitions, all point to
its epistolary character.
2 This is the view of Michaelis, Augusti, Hug, Thiersch, Ebrard,
Haupt, &c.

a a

CHAPTER XXXV.
THE FIRST EPISTLE OF ST. JOHN.
" Ubi Amor, ibi Trinitas." — S. AtrG.
" Locuturus est multa, et prope omnia de caritate." — S. Aug. Expos.
in Ep. Johann.
" The main substance of this Epistle relates to love." — Luther.
" Put off thy shoes from off thy feet, for the place whereon thou standest
is holy ground." — Ex. iii. 5. SECTION I.
ETERNAL life.
" That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which
we have seen with our eyes, which we gazed upon, and our hands
"handled,1 concerning the Word of Life ; and the Life was mani
fested,2 and we have seen it, and are witnessing and announcing to
you 3 that Life — even that Eternal Life which was with the Father,
and was manifested to us. That which we have seen and have heard
we announce to you also, that ye also may have communion with us ;
and indeed our communion is with the Father, and with His Son,
Jesus Christ.4 And these things we write,5 that your joy may be
fulfilled " (i. 1—4).
1 Luke xxiv. 39 : ^rqKa(p^o-are pe Kal iSere. The word would be the
strongest possible refutation of Docetic error. In Ignat. ad Smyrn. 4, 5,
our Lord says to Peter after His Resurrection, " Take, handle me, and see
that I am not a bodiless spirit" (Saip6viov do-dparov) ; "and immediately
they took hold of Him and believed, convinced by His flesh and His
Spirit." 2 By " the life " is here meant the Absolute Life, ^ aurofajf, y
!rjj7(S£bu<ra rb Crjv (Schol., John i. 4).
3 The reading of « is Kal cMra-yyeAAo/iev Ko.l ip'iv.
4 The Holy Spirit is not mentioned, because He is in us, rather than
with us (2 Cor. xii. 13).
6 "There are two species of testimony — announcement and writing.
Announcement lays the foundation : writing builds the superstructure "
(Bengel).

THE PROLOGUE. 403
We have here the introductory theme of the whole
Epistle. It should be compared with the golden pro
logue of the, Gospel to which it is so closely analogous,
and the knowledge of which it assumes.1 Though St.
John seems to be labouring with the desire to express
a truth too great for the power of his language to
utter, the clause, so far from being, as Calvin said,
" abrupt and confused," is to the highest degree preg
nant with clear and majestic thought. It compresses
into a few lines a world of meaning, while at the same
time it is steeped in the deep emotion of the writer.
What he has to announce — f or he only uses the plural
as one of the Apostolic witnesses — is not the Word,
1 John i. 1. 1 John i. 1, 2.
'Ev apxy fy 6 A6yos Kal i Aiyos if ^v air' dpx^s ¦ . . (ij fiojj) %ris
^v vpbs rbv @e6v. %v irpbs rbv Xlarepa.
Yer. 4.
ev airoj fwr; $v Kal t) fto7) ^v rb irepl rov \6yov rris fwrjs . . . v
$S>s rav dvBpdyiray, Kal rb <pG>s iv rf £(o}j icpavepdB-q . . . Kal i<pavepd>BTj
ffKoria (jiaivei. ypitv.
Ver. 14.
Kal iBeaffdpeBa r^jv oo'^av avrov. ft iBeao-dpeBa.
Others of the ideas found in the prologue of the Gospel occur else
where in the Epistle. Thus compare —
i. 1, " The Word was God." v. 20, " This is the true God."
i. 9, " There was the true light." ii. 8, " The true light already
shineth."
i. 12, " To become children of iii. 1, " That we should be called
God." children of God."
i. 13, "Born .... of God." v. 1, "Begotten of God."
i. 14, " The Word became flesh." iv. 2, " Jesus Christ is come in
the flesh."
i. 18, " No man hath seen God at iv. 12, " No man hath beheld God
any time." at any time."
This opening clause of the Epistle resembles that of the Epistle to the
Hebrews in the absence of name and greeting, but the majestic beginning
of that Epistle is more rhetorical and less emotional.
a a 2

404 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY.
but something respecting Him — namely, that He is
the source from which all life streams. In hearing
and seeing Him, the Apostles had heard and seen this
inward significance of His Person and of His acts by
the immediate perceptions of sense ; and in gazing on
and handling Him, as they all did, and Thomas especi
ally, after His resurrection, they had learnt, by yet
fuller investigation, that He is indeed the Conqueror of
Death and the Source of Life. And this Life of His
was " from the beginning," so that the announcement
of it is as though he were now inspired to write a new
Book of Genesis, but one which dated backwards to a
yet earlier — nay, to an absolute eternity. Thus the
" from the beginning " of the last book of the Bible
repeats, but in even deeper tones, the " in the begin
ning " of the first book. The one speaks of the Incarna
tion, the other testifies to the Eternity, of Him by
whom the worlds were made.
The procem of the Gospel declared that " the Word
became flesh," because in the Gospel St. John is treating
of Christ's person ; but in the Epistle he says, " the
Life was manifested," because he is about to deal, not
directly with His Person, but with the influence which
flowed from it — namely, life. And the quality of that
life is that it is eternal, i.e. spiritual, supratemporal,
Divine, seeing that (r/-™?) it stands in immediate relation
to (777309) the Father, and was only manifested to man,
in its priority and fulness, when Christ appeared. This
was the Life which the Apostles had seen, to which they
bore witness as true, which they were communicating to
the world, and of which the assurance could be derived
from their testimony. And the aim of the announce
ment is to establish a fellowship between the witnesses

FELLOWSHIP WITH GOD. 405
and those who received their witness ; for indeed this
fellowship is, in reality, a fellowship with God and with
Christ. If it be asked how it could be St. John's object
to establish a fellowship which they possessed already,
the simple answer is one which applies to all the writings
of the Apostles. They wrote to Christians, who were
indeed, as Christians, ideally perfect, but in whom the
ideal was as yet very far from having become the real.
Ideally they were saints and perfect ; in reality they
were struggling with daily imperfections, and had not
by any means attained the measure of the fulness of the
stature of Christ. They were, therefore, far from that
fulness of joy which was their proper heritage.1 The
Eternal Life which they possessed was as yet but in the
germ. "And this is the message2 which we have heard from Him, and
are announcing to you, that God is Light, and there is not in Him
any darkness of any kind. If we say that we have fellowship with
Him, and are walking in the darkness, we lie, and do not the truth.
But if we walk in the Light, as He is in the Light,3 'we have fellow
ship with one another,4 and the blood of Jesus, His Son, cleanseth us
from all sin"6 (i. 5—7).
1 Comp. John xv. 11 ; xvii. 3 ; Phil. ii. 2. " Quorum gaudium tu ipse
es. Et ipsa est beata vita gaudere ad te, de te, propter te " (Aug. Conf.
x. 22). " The peace of reconciliation, the blessed consciousness of son-
ship, the happy growth in holiness, the bright prospect of future comple
tion and glory, all these are but details of that which is embraced by one
word, Eternal Life " (Diisterdieck).
2 'Ayye\ia (not «r.), A, B, K, L, &C
3 One of the many passages in which there is close affinity between the
thoughts of St. John and St. Paul (see Eph. iv. 25 ; v. 8, 9, 11—14). We
can only walk in the light (Isa. ii. 5), coming into it out of darkness ; but
the essence and element of God's Being is in the Light (<pas o'ikwv
dirpSo-nov). 4 per dw-q\aiv («, B, &c), and not per' avrov (A), is the better
reading. " Christian fellowship is then only real when it is in fellowship
with God " (De Wette). " Nisi in bonis amicitia esse non potest " (Cic).
5 Col. i. 20 ; Eph. i. 7 ; Heb. ix. 14. Christ's Blood, applied by Faith,

406 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY.
Into those words, God is Light, St. John compresses
the substance of his message, and utters one of those
great final truths, which, since they cannot be tran
scended, mark the close of revelation. It is not intro
duced abruptly or disconnectedly, but it requires a
knowledge of the Gospel to see its force. There, too,
and in the same order, we have — First, the Word (i. 1),
then Life (i. 4), then Light (i. 5) ; and there we see
that the Light is the highest manifestation of the Life
in relation to men ; so that the epitome of the Gospel
and the epitome of the Life of Christ, as regards the
world, is this — that the Light shineth in darkness, and
the darkness comprehended it not. But, when man
receives the Life as Light, he also reflects it, and so
becomes a child of Light.1 In these words, therefore,
as in " God is Love," St. John sums up all the meaning
of his Gospel, although in the Gospel itself neither of
the two expressions occurs. Yet Christ is there called
Light, because He is one with the Father, and because
He manifested the Father as Light. " I," He said, " am
the Light of the world."2
But what is the meaning of this final revelation that
God is Light ? The only answer which we can give
is that, of all existing things, not one is so pure, so
abstract, so glorious, so beneficent, so incapable of stain
or admixture, as earthly light ; and earthly light is but
becomes our Justification, and is also the purifying medium of our sancti
fication. The verse, as Bp. Wordsworth points out, refutes many heresies
— e.g., that of Cerinthus, that Jesus was not the Christ (reading Xpio-roS) ;
that of the Ebionites, that He was not the Son of God; that of the
Docetse, that the Christ did not really die ; that of the Novatians, who
denied pardon to deadly sin after baptism ; that of the Antinomians, who
denied the necessity of" moral obedience.
1 John viii. 12.
2 John i. 4 ; iii. 19 ; viii. 12.

GOD IS LIGHT." 407
an analogue of the Light which is immaterial and
Divine. " Hail, Holy Light ! offspring of heaven firstborn,
Or of the Eternal co-eternal beam.
May I express thee unblamed ? since God is Light,
And never but in unapproached Light
Dwelt from eternity : dwelt then in thee,
Bright effluence of bright essence uncreate ;
Or, hear'st thou rather, pure ethereal stream,
Whose fountain who shall tell 1 Before the sun,
Before the heavens, thou wast."
St. John, as is usual with him, follows the positive
statement by a negative one, which strengthens and
adds to it — " in Him is no darkness whatever." The
words furnished an answer, if such were needed, to
Manichean dreams ; and they introduce the truth that
it must be the duty of the Christian to walk in Light,
which is the same thing as to live in God. We are sur
rounded with elements of darkness ; but we are not to
love it, nor to love the world, which is the sphere of its
extension ; we are to pass from it, by heart-repentance;,
into the region of Light, which is the kingdom of God.
If we have not done so, and yet profess fellowship with
God, our life is a lie. In that case " we lie ; " and to
this positive he adds the negative, " and we do not the
truth." The clause illustrates his manner. It is not a
mere antithesis of positive and negative, but the addi
tion of a stronger and partially new clause, after the
fashion of Hebrew parallelism. For the word "truth "
means something much more than that purely relative
conception which we ordinarily attach to the word. We
must seek the meaning of it in such expressions as St.
Paul's " obeying the truth,"1 and the words of Jesus, " I
1 Rom. ii. 8; 2 Thess. i. 8.

408 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY.
am the Truth."1 It means absolute reality. The
Gnostic dreamer — the professing Christian who talks
about union with God and yet is walking in darkness,
who wilfully deceives himself, 'who shrinks in hatred
from the revealing light — not only says that which is
false, but leads a life which is entirely false, and hollow,
and unreal — a life of semblance and of death. But if we
walk in the light, then our fellowship in light is per
fected, and we are cleansed from all sin. In other
words, we are sanctified by the blood of Jesus. His
blood has won our justification — the forgiveness of our
actual sins ; His blood — that is, " His power of hfe
working its effects and ruling within us " — is our sancti
fication from all sin. And to be forgiven, and cleansed,
is to have fellowship with one another and with God.
" If we say that we have no sin, we mislead ourselves, and the
Truth is not in us.2 If we confess our sins,3 faithful4 is He and
Righteous, that He should forgive us our sins, and cleanse us from
all unrighteousness.6 If we say that we have not sinned, we make
Him a liar, and His Word is not in us " (i. 8 — 10).
The denial of sin, the assertion of our independence
and perfection, is a radical abandonment of honesty.
There can be no reality, and, therefore, nothing akin to
1 John xiv. 6.
8 The connexion is that we all need to be thus cleansed by the Blood
of Christ (Iren. c. Haer. i, vi. 20). It is at least doubtful whether there
is any special allusion to Gnostic Antinomian Perfectionists.
8 Of course St. John means confession springing from true contrition
(James v. 16).
4 True to His Nature and Promise (1 Cor. i. 9 ; x. 13 ; 1 Thess. v.
24, &c).
6 " In the background lie all the details of the Redemption " (Alford).
"All sin, original and actual" (Bengel). "Si te confessus fueris pecca-
torem est in te Veritas, nam ipsa Veritas lux est. Nondum perfecte
splenduit vita tua, quia insunt peccata : sed tamen jam illuminari caepisti
quia inest confessio " (Aug.).

CONSCIOUSNESS OF SIN. 409
the Divine,1 in the man who makes such an assertion,
whether it be dictated by haughty self-sufficiency as to
our own virtues, or by Antinomian denial that sin is
exceeding sinful. But with consciousness of sin begins
the hope and possibility of amendment. When sin is
confessed with real contrition to God, and, if needful,
to men, then — because God is God, and is, therefore,
faithful to His own nature, and because, as a Righteous
Judge, He judges uprightly — it is the very object of His
righteousness that He should remit our past sins,2 and
renew our whole nature. A denial on our part of past
sin gives the lie to all His revelation, and proves that
His Word is not in us.
Having thus illustrated the truth that to have
fellowship with God is to walk in the Light, and that
this involves our deliverance, alike from the principle of
sin by redemption, and from the guilt of sin by forgive
ness, he sums up in these words : —
" My little children, s these things I write to you that ye may not
sin : and if any one have sinned,4 we have an Advocate6 to the
1 In the tract Sanhedrin (f. 64, a), there is a story that for three days
the Israelites wrestled with the Evil Impulse (Jetser-hard), and said that
God had permitted this Evil Impulse, that men might gain a reward by
overcoming it. Thereupon a letter dropped from heaven, on which was
the word " Truth." Rabbi Chanina said, " From this we may see that
the Seal of the Holy One is Truth."
2 'Iva iupjj k.t.k. "In this one particle (Iva) lies the most comprehen
sive and the highest witness of God's love that it is possible to conceive "
^aupt, p. 50).
3 Tradition has also preserved this expression as a favourite one of
St. John in his old age.
4 idv ns apapri). Si quis peccaverit (Yulg.).
6 The word is used in this sense in the letter of the Churches of Lyons
and Vienne (Euseb. H. E. v. 1), where a young Christian — Vettius Epa-
gathus — after begging to be heard in defence of the martyrs, himself
received the martyr's crown — wapaKK-qros Xpio-navdv xpv^rto-as, exo>v Se
rbv X\api.K\i\rov iv eavrip — " being called the Advocate of the Christians,

410 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY.
Father, Jesus Christ, as Righteous. And He is a propitiation for
our sins, but not for ours alone, but also for the whole world"1 (ii.
1,2). The personal address, "my little children," shows
the warmth and earnestness of this recapitulation. The
aim of all that he has said is that the Christian should
not sin ; but if that deliverance be impossible in its
ideal fulness, if we do fall into sins of infirmity, still,
even then — if only we are on our guard that such sins
never so master and possess our lives that we walk in
darkness — we need not despair.2 The best of all is not
to sin ; but if we cannot attain to this, there is a pro
pitiation for sin, by which — an Advocate for us to the
Father, by whom — we may gain the blessedness of the
unrighteousness forgiven, of the sin covered. That
but having the Advocate in himself." On this word Canon Westcott
(on St. John xiv. 16) has one of those exhaustive notes which are so
valuable as tending to a final settlement of uncertain questions. The
word is only found in the New Testament here, and in John xiv. 16, 26 :
xv. 26 : xvi. 7, where it is rendered Comforter. The double rendering
dates from Wiclif, followed by Tyndale and other versions, except that
the Rhemish, following the Vulgate, uses Paraclete in the Gospel (Luther
has in the Gospel " Troster," and here " Fursprecher "). The Latin Fathers
use the words Paracletus, Advocatus, Consolator ; and Tertullian (once),
Exorator. The English word means not " Comforter " in the modern
sense, but " Strengthener." (" Comfort is that by which in the midst of
all our sorrows we are comfortati — i.e., strengthened," Bp. Andrewes.)
The form of the word is passive ; in Classical Greek it means Advocate.
It is used in this sense by Philo and the Rabbis and early Christian
\vrij.ers. The meaning in this passage is clear, and the use of the word in
the sense " Consoler," by the Greek Fathers seems only to be a secondary
application (Westcott, I. c). It was necessary for St. John to dwell on
the truth that Christ was our only Advocate in churches given to Angel
worship (Col. ii. 18 ; 1 Tim. ii. 5).
1 "Thou, too, art a part of the whole world: so that thine heart
cannot deceive itself, and think the Lord died for Peter and Paul, but
not for me " (Luther).
2 " Sed forte surrepit de vita humana peccatum. Quid ergo fiet ?
Jam desperatio erit ? Audi : — si quis, inquit peccaverit," &c. (Aug.).

"A PROPITIATION. 411
Advocate1 is righteous in His nature and a propitiation
by His office, so that, in and through Him, we can be
acceptable to God.2 The word " a propitiation " (hilas-
mos) is peculiar to St. John, occurring only here and at
iv. 10. It is therefore in the Septuagint that we must
look for its meaning, and there it is used as the trans
lation of Kippurim, " the Day of Atonement,"3 just as
the corresponding verb to "propitiate," or "make a
propitiation for,"4 is the standing version of kipper. It
is therefore a sacrificial metaphor, and points to the
same series of thoughts which we have alreadjr examined
in the Epistle to the Hebrews. The word itself stands
in close relation to the word hilasterion,5 or mercy-seat,
which — sprinkled with the blood of atonement, and
dimly seen in the darkness through the clouds of
incense — was a type of the means whereby man may
stand redeemed and accepted in the presence of God.
The emblem and the expression belonged to the Jewish
ritual; but, as St. John here adds, Christ's atonement
was not only for Jews, not only for believers, but for
the whole world. " Wide as was the sin, so wide was
the propitiation."
With the third verse of the second chapter, begins
1 Advocate (as we have seen) not Comforter, is perhaps always the
right rendering of TlapixK-nros. The word has been adopted by the
Talmudists by simple transliteration (EMpB), and only in this sense. This
is the only passage in which the title is directly given to the Son ; but it
is indirectly given to Him in John xiv. 16, " I will send you another
Comforter." Further, St. John generally regards and speaks of the
Paraclete as the Spirit of Christ.
2 " The righteousness of Christ stands on our side, for God's righteous
ness is in Jesus Christ, ours " (Luther).
3 ones. .\-
4 iXda-Keo-Bai.
6 Rom. iii. 25 (see Life and Work of St. Paul, ii. 209), and see supra
on Heb. ix. 5.

412 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY.
a second section in illustration of the fundamental
theme — the manner, namely, whereby "walking in the
light," as a proof that we have eternal life, is evi
denced. It is evidenced, as we have hitherto seen, by
sinlessness — that is, by forgiveness from the past guilt
of sin (i. 8 — 10), and deliverance from its present
power (i. 5 — 7). But this is a proof that we are
walking in the light with reference to God. The
Apostle now proceeds to illustrate how such a walk
is evidenced toivards men, and this occupies the section
ii. 3 — 14. In the first paragraph of this section he tells
us that it is thus evidenced by keeping God's command
ments (3 — 5) ; in the second, he proceeds to define all
God's commandments as being summed up essentially
in one, namely in walking as Christ walked, which (as
the whole accompanying Gospel would have already made
clear to his readers) was to walk in love, since love is
the epitome of this life.1 This section, then, is an
illustration of our "fellowship with one another," as
the last was of our " fellowship with the Father, and
the Son Jesus Christ ; " and thus the two together are
meant, directly and consecutively, to promote the object
which he has already placed in the forefront of his
Epistle " — union with one another and with God.2
And since critics have ventured to talk so superfici
ally and irreverently of St. John's tautology and senility,
and the loose, inconsequential structure of his Epistle,
as though it were (as Caligula said of the style of
Seneca)3 a mere "rope of sand," it maybe well to set
1 John xiii. 31, 35. 1 John iii. 1.
2 See i. 3.
3 The shrewd, though more than half-insane Emperor, said that
Seneca's style was " commissiones meras," " mere display " and " arena
sine calce " — " sand without lime."

SYMMETRY OF STYLE.

413

visibly before the reader a proof of the extreme coherence
and symmetry which mark its structure. It may serve
to show that when these rude critics fancied that they
" understood his ignorance," they were, as critics so
often are, merely "ignorant of his understanding." If
the reader will open his Bible and refer to the para
graphs i. 5 — 10 and ii. 3 — 11, he will find that they
present the close and symmetrical parallelism which is
indicated below.

Chapter i. 5.
Subsection o —
General statement.
Ver. 6—
Negative supposition, and two
condemnatory conclusions.
Ver. 7—
Positive supposition, and two
declarations.
Subsection p —
Three opposed sentences, ver. 8,
9, 10.

Chapter ii. 3.
Su-bsection o —
General statement.
Ver. 4—
Negative supposition, and two
condemnatory conclusions.
Ver. 5—
Positive supposition, and two
declarations.
General statement, ver. 6 — 8.
Three opposed sentences, ver. 9,
10, 11.

The symmetry is not slavishly artificial, but it is a
very marked characteristic of a careful and meditative
style. " And in this we recognise that we have learnt to know Him, if
we keep His commandments. He that saith I have learnt to know
Him, and keepeth not His commandments is a liar, and in him the
Truth is not. But whosoever keepeth His Word, of very truth in
him the love of God has been perfected. By this we learn to know
that we are in Him " (ii. 3 — 5).
" To know God " is not merely to know that He is.
In St. John's sense it is to have full knowledge of Him.1
1 The word Myvmo-is, however, so common in St. Paul and in 2
Peter, is not used by St. John.

414 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY.
that is, to receive Him into the heart. And thus to
know Him is to walk in the light, which we cannot be
doing if we are not keeping His commandments. Here,
then, is a test for us as to whether we know Him or not,
a test as to our Fellowship with Him. St. John has
already told us (i. 6) that
If we say that we have fellowship with Him,
And walk in darkness,
(a) We lie, and
(13) Do not the truth :
and here, in closest parallel, but in stronger form, he
tells us
He that saith I have learnt to know Him,
And keepeth not His commandments,
(a) He is a liar, and
(/3) The truth is not in him.
But he who keepeth God's word — the words of Him
who was the Word and whose words are spirit and life
— is truly Christ's disciple. That word, whether as the
personal Logos or as His announcement, is essentially
" Love ; " and, therefore, in him who keeps God's word
the " love of God " has been perfected.. Such a man
has in himself, as the pervading influence of his life,
the love which is in God, — for " God is love."2 The
thought is exactly the same as that expressed by
St. Paul, in the Ephesians, where, in the only passage in
which he bids us be imitators of God,8 he tells us to
" walk in love, even as Christ loved us." But though
the fundamental thought is the same, it is set forth by
St. John in a more developed, a more penetrative, and
a more final manner. The words, " herein we learn to
1 John viii. 31. 2 1 John iv. 16. 3 Eph. v. 1, 2.

BROTHERLY LOVE. 415
know that we are in Him," are a recapitulation, but
one which adds to the emphasis with which a truth so
important is announced, and serves to perfect the sym
metry between this section and the corresponding one
in the last chapter.
In the next paragraph St. John gives the central
thought, to which he has been drawing nearer and
nearer, namely, that the ideal unity of God's command
ments is found in brotherly love ; and that this, there
fore, is the true manifestation of " walking in the
light," as expressed towards our brethren in the world.
" He that saith that he abideth in Him, ought himself also to
walk even as He walked. Beloved, I write not a new commandment
to you, but an old commandment which ye had from the beginning.
That old commandment is the word which ye heard. Again a new
commandment I write to you ;x a thing which is, a living reality in
Him and in you ; because the darkness is passing away, and the real
Light is already shining. He that saith that he is in the Light, and
hateth his brother,2 is in the darkness even still. He that loveth
his brother abideth in the Light, and there is no stumbling-block in
him.3 But he who hateth his brother is in the darkness, and in the
1 The whole passage is explained in the accompanying comment. It
will be seen that I reject the explanation of the commandment as new,
(1) because continually renewed (Calv.) ; or (2) " given as though it were
new " (Neander) ; or (3) as unknown before Christ came. The command
ment is "old" as dating from the beginning of Christianity; new if we
look back to all previous ages. See Diisterdieck and Haupt.
2 By " brothers " St. John means in the first instance " Christians,"
but obviously he means to include those wider senses which Christ gave to
the word "neighbour." In his method of regarding all conceptions in
their ideal and absolute nature, he only contemplates " love " and " hatred,"
and nothing intermediate. " Ubi non est amor, odium est : cor enim non
est vacuum" (Bengel).
3 " He," says Bengel, " who hates his brother is a stumbling-block to
himself, and runs against himself and against everything within and
without: he who loves has a smooth journey." See John xi. 9, 10. "If
any man walk in the night he stumbleth, because the light is not in him."
The man who walks in the light does not " set up the stumbling-block of
his iniquity before his own face " (Ezek. xiv. 3).

416 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY.
darkness he walketh, and knoweth not where he goeth,1 because
darkness blinded his eyes" (ii. 6 — 11).
The verb used in the first verse of the clause ex
presses yet another stage of fellowship with God — not
only knowing Him (verse 3), or being in Him (verse 5),
but abiding in Him. But the stronger word is only
used to express a development in the conception of
obedience — the walking as Christ walked. To do this
is a moral obligation following necessarily from the pro
fession of constant union with God. The earnest
address, " Beloved," prepares us for some emphatic
announcement. St. John has to explain the identity
of " walking as Christ walked " with a commandment
which is at once old and new. The new and the old
commandments are not two different commandments, but
one and the same, namely the commandment which
they received from the beginning of their Christian
life. It is an old commandment, not only (though
that is true) because it is found even in the Old
Testament — for the letter is addressed to the Gentiles ;
but because it is as old as the whole message of the
Gospel to them — "the entire word about the personal
Word " which they received in the Apostolic preaching.
But if Love was thus, even to these Gentile Christians,
an old commandment, seeing that they had heard it
all along, in what sense was it new? We might be
left — as St. John's readers would have been — merely
to conjecture the answer, if the Epistle had not de
pended upon a knowledge of the Gospel. But turning
to the Gospel we find the new commandment there,
1 "It nescius in Gehennam, ignarus et caecus praecipitatur in poenam
(iCyprian).

"A NEW COMMANDMENT." 417
and also the occasion on which our Lord delivered it.
In that sweet and solemn discourse which He uttered
after He had washed His disciples' feet, and which was
intended to explain that act of sovereign condescension,
He said, "A new commandment I am giving to you,
that ye love one another ; as I loved you that ye also
love one another. In this shall all recognise that ye
are my disciples, if ye have love for one another."1
All readers of the Epistle in reading the phrase, " a
new commandment," would be at once reminded of
the passage which, in all probability, they had just
read in the Gospel, and would see the analogy between
" walking as Christ walked," and " loving as Christ
loved." Again and again, both in parables and in
direct exhortation, Christ had bidden them love one
another, and yet the commandment became a new
commandment with reference to the time and the
manner in which it was then delivered. For, on the
one hand, He had never before bidden them to love
as He loved, and, on the other, His act in washing
their feet had set brotherly love in a light entirely
new. It was an act of love, altogether exceptional
and transcendent, as St. John in the Gospel had
emphatically pointed out.2 For the Lord Himself
had called attention to its import in the question,
" Do ye recognise the meaning of what I have done
to you ? I gave you an example, that as / did to you,
so ye also should ever do."3 It was an act of love in
its supremest energy — an instantia elucescens of love
which could not be surpassed. All His previous acts
of love had been the loving acts of One infinitely above
them — of one whom they- called, and who was, their
1 John xiii. 31, 35. 2 xiii. 1. 3 xiii. 12, 15.
b b

418 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY.
Teacher and Lord. This was an act done as though
He were their minister and slave. All other acts had
been acts which, as it were, He must have done in
accordance with His nature ; which, if He had not done,
He would not have reflected the perfectness of His
own nature. But this was not an act which could
have been expected ; it was an act supremely astonish
ing; it arose, not as it were from the law of any
moral obligation, but from love acting as an immeasur
able impulse. This, then, is the love which furnishes
the essence of the new commandment : not that love
only which must ever be the first rule of Christian
exhortation, but the love which ever advances to per
fect! onment,1 and so works out the perfect joy into
which it was one of the Apostle's objects to lead his
readers. When he proceeds to say that this new command
ment is — is already — a " true thing," as being alive
in them, as it was in Christ, we might perhaps be
once more driven to ask, " What, then, is the necessity for
impressing it upon thein?"2 The answer, as before,
is one which applies to every one of the Epistles. It
is a question which meets us at every turn in the
Epistles of St. Paul, where there is often so glaring a
contrast between what Christians ought to be, and are
asserted ideally to be, and what they really are.
Christians can only be addressed as Christians, as
having entered into the hopes of Christians, as en
joying the privileges of Christians, as being Christians
not only in name but in deed and in truth. If then
they were Christians they were " in Christ " ; and if
they were in Christ they were walking as He walked,
1 Heb. vi. 1. 2 See supra, p. 405.

LOVE, AS A TEST. 419
and therefore walking in love. The love which was
a real thing in Him, was necessarily also a real thing
in them. St. John could not address them as though
they were not that which, as the very meaning of their
whole lives, they were professing to be. And, indeed,
this is the reason which he gives. The Love, he says,
which is the new commandment, is a verity in Him
and in you, because ye are children of the Light, and
therefore the darkness is passing away. For all who
were truly in Christ, that darkness must soon have passed
away altogether ; for not only was " the night far
spent, and the day at hand,"1 but the night was
actually over, and the day had dawned. The very
Light; — Christ who is the Light — was shining already ;
shining not only in them but in the world. For the
world is the universal realm of darkness, but in Him the
Light is concentrated in its very essence and fulness.2
And then very plainly the Apostle furnishes them
with a test of their professions. Love, he tells them, is
the sign whether or not the Truth is in them, whether
or not they are in the Light, whether or not they are
walking as Christ walked. And the energetic severity
of his moral nature appears here also in his stern anti
thesis of love to hatred, as though there were no
possible intermediate between them. When we consider
all that is involved in the word " brother," the idea of
mere indifference in such a relationship becomes im
possible. If there be not the essence of love, there can
only be the essence of hatred. He, therefore, that pro
fesses to be in the light and yet hates his brother is in
the darkness — belongs to the world and not to the
Kingdom of Heaven — however long he may have called
1 Rom. xiii 12. 2 John i. 4—9.
b b 2

420 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY.
himself a Christian. But he who loves will never
cause another to stumble, can never therefore incur that
grievous sentence which Christ pronounced on those who
wilfully lead others into sin.1 The man who hates his
brother has the permanent sphere of his life in the
darkness. The light of the body is the eye ; and since
the eye of such a man is evil, his whole body is full of
darkness. He stumbles through life along a road of
which he does not know the goal.
These two illustrative paragraphs are closed, as is
the case in the first section of the Epistle (ii. 1, 2), by
a hortatory conclusion,2 which falls into the rhythm so
natural to St. John —
" I write to you, my little children,3 because4 your sins have been
forgiven you for His name's sake :
" I write to you, fathers, because ye have learnt to know Him
who is from the beginning : 6
" I write to you, young men, because ye have conquered the evil
one :
" I wrote6 to you, little children,7 because ye have learnt to know
the Father :
1 Matt, xviii. 6. 2 See analysis, supra, p. 396.
3 reKvia, addressed to all Christians, as in ver. 1 ; iii. 18 ; iv. 4 ; v. 21
John xiii. 33. It is only found in St. John.
4 That <Sri here means " because," and not " that," is proved by ver. 21.
6 " Alii juvenes corpore, vos fide " (Bengel).
6 Hypoxia («, A, B, C, L, Syriac, Coptic, .ZEthiopic, Arabic), not ypdtym,
seems to be the true reading in this verse. It is very difficult to say why
the tense is altered; possibly only for emphasis, like the formula," we
decree and have decreed." The attempt to refer it only to the part of
the Epistle already written, while ypdtya points to what follows, is un
tenable and against usage. Both words refer to the whole Epistle. It
is, however, curious that up to this point ypd<pw has occurred seven times,
whereas eypa\j/a is used six times in the rest of the letter.
7 itaiSia seems to differ in no sense from rtKvia. See ver. 18 ; John
xxi. 5. Perhaps the change is merely for the sake of literary form and
variety. TeKvta may be a little more personal and affectionate, and so be
represented, as Bishop Wordsworth says, by " my little children."

A SIXFOLD APPEAL. 421
" I wrote to you, fathers, because ye have learnt to know Him
who is from the beginninsr :
" I wrote to you, young men, because ye are strong,1 and the
Word of God abideth in you, and ye have conquered the wicked
one "2 (ii. 12—14).
In these words we have a six-fold appeal, of which
the first three clauses are introduced by the- present, "I
write," and the last three by the aorist, " I wrote."
This aorist might be .rendered in English by the perfect,
" I have written," since it was the tense used by epis
tolary idiom to represent a letter regarded as a whole.
The first question to be settled is whether the Apostle
has in view three different ages of life. If so, it is
certainly strange that he should place " fathers " be
tween " little children" and "young men." From his
use of "little children" in other parts of the Epistle,3
to express the whole body of Christians, there can be
little doubt that this is his meaning here. If so, in the
first of each three clauses he is exhorting Christians as
a body, and in the latter two he is specially speaking to
the two classes into which Christians of that day might
most generally be divided, namely, " fathers " and
" young men." Indeed, to address " little children " 3
as such would have been alien to the habits of
that age, nor would little children have understood
the language here addressed to them. He says to the
Christians generally that their sins have been forgiven
them, because, as we have had repeated occasion to see,
every address to Christians " must presuppose Chris
tianity in the hearers, and yet teach it." Hence he
1 "Fitque valens juvenis neque enim robustior aetas Ulla " (Ov. Met.
xv. 208). la-xvpol (Luke xi. 21 ; Heb. xi. 34).
2 In all these appeals the strongest warning is involved in the loftiness
of the assumed ideal. 3 ii. 1, 28.

422 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY.
addresses the fathers of the Churches, whether in a
literal or an ideal sense, as having attained to the true
knowledge of the Eternal Father ; and the young men
as having won a secure and tranquil mastery over
temptation. After due time the young man's conquest
will lead to the father's knowledge. The general
identity in meaning of the second three with the first
three clauses makes it somewhat difficult to account for
the change of tense. Both phrases, " I write " and " I
wrote," refer to this letter ; the first as expressing the
writer's present purpose, the other mentally glancing at
it as a completed whole. The two together give a
greater emphasis to his exhortations,1 and are, perhaps,
meant by way of introduction to the following section
of the Epistle : —
" Love not the world,2 nor yet the things in the world.3 If any
man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him ;4 because
everything that is in the world, the desire of the flesh, and the desire
of the eyes,5 and the braggart vaunt of life,6 is not from the Father,
1 " A scribo transit ad scripsi .- non temere ; scilicet verbo scribendi ex
praesenti in praeteritum transposito immisit commonitionem formossimani ''
(Bengel). 2 " God loved the world " (John iii. 16) with Divine compassion, as its
Creator ; we are not to love it with base desire. We are not to set our
affections either on its material seductions, or on those human corruptions
which mark its ruined condition.
3 All kinds of sinful living, thinking, and demeanour (Ebrard).
" Vulgata consuetudo hominum, res corporeas unice appetentium "
(Semler). 4 " Contraria non sunt simul " (Bengel).
5 " Desire " (iinBvpla) is coupled (always subjectively, i.e., the desire of,
not for) with "the heart" (Rom. i. 24), "the body" (Rom. vi. 12), and
" mankind " (1 Pet. iv. 2, &c). Desires are called " worldly " (Tit. ii. 12)
and " fleshly " (1 Pet. ii. 11). By the " desire of the flesh " is meant every
form of wrong or excessive lust. By the "desire of the eyes "is meant
the sphere of selfishness, envy, covetousness, hatred, and revenge (Ebrard).
Thus in the Testament of the Twelve Patriarchs, one of the seven " spirits
of deceit," is the " spirit of seeing, with which desire is produced."
6 Similarly, while speaking of luxurious extravagance, Polybius (vi 5,

WALKING IN THE LIGHT. 423
but is from the world. And the world is passing away, and the
desire of it. But he who doeth the will of God abideth for ever.
Little children, it is the last hour,1 and as ye heard that Antichrist 2
is coming, even now antichrists in numbers have come into being,
whence we recognise that it is the last hour.3 From us they went
forth, but they were not of us, for had they been of us they would
have abode with us ; but (they went out) in order that they may be
manifested that all are not of us "4 (ii. 15, 19).
With this clause begins the third section of St.
John's illustrations as to the nature and meaning of
" walking in the light." As the very name of the Light
reminds us of the darkness, which is its opposite ; and
as God's kingdom is the sphere of Light, so the world
is the realm of darkness. He, then, who would walk
in the Light must enter into the meaning of this sever
ance. He must not love the world, nor the things
which enter into the ideas of the world. Those things
are defined under their ethical aspect. They are the
objects of sensual desire in all its forms. They are the
things which tend to the gratification of the flesh — -that
is, of our whole lower and animal nature — everything
7) says — q irepl robs fiiovs d\aCoveia Kal iro\vre\eia. Chrysostom calls it
" the inflation (rvipos) and outward splendour (<pavrao-ia) of worldly life."
"Libido sentiendi, sciendi, dominandi" (Pascal).
1 All Christians felt that the fall of Jerusalem was the close of an aeon.
It was a coming of Christ. They all felt that after that He might finally
come to judgment at any time. " Ultimum tempus, in quo sic complentur
omnia ut nihil supersit praeter ultimam Christi revelationem" (Calvin;
1 Cor. xv. 22 ; 2 Cor. v. 1, sq. ; 1 Thess. iv. 15, sq.).
2 " Antichrist " is a word peculiar to St. John in the N. T. (ii. 18, 22 ;
iv. 3 ; 2 John 7). These are the only passages in which the word occurs.
Strange to say, it is not once used in the Apocalypse.
3 2 Tim. iii. 1, sq.
4 The ov rrdvres might mean " none," as oh itaaa aap\ means " no flesh "
in Rom. iii. 20, but it is simpler to explain the passage as a mixture of two
constructions, "that they may be manifested as not belonging to us," and
" that it may be manifested that all {i.e., all who nominally belong to us)
are not of us."

424 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY.
which tends to foster and stimulate the sins of gluttony,
drunkenness, and impurity in all their many forms and
gradations. They are the things which gratify the
desire of the eyes — all that tends to the sins of intel
lectual selfishness and slothful sestheticism.1 They are
the braggart vaunt of outward life — all that tends to
the sins of vulgar ostentation, egotistic pride, intel
lectual contempt, which spring from regarding life, not
in its divine and spiritual {&r))t but in its earthly and
external aspect (fiios) .'2 In St. John's language, therefore,
the world (/cosmos) does not mean the physical universe,
which does indeed deserve the name of " order," by
which it is described,3 but the world regarded in its
ethical sense, that is, a world disordered by the unre
strained prevalence of sinful forces, the world fettered
in the bondage of corruption.4 He bids us not to love
this world — -to have no esteem and affection for it — for
two reasons. First, because such love cannot proceed
from God, but from that evil principle which is the
source of all vain and vile desires ; and next, because the
world is but a fleeting show, and the desires which it
inflames can have but an instant's gratification. On
the other hand, he who makes the will of God the
law of all his actions, abides for ever. And it is the
property of love to bind us closely to that which we
love ; if we love the earth we are earthly ; the love of
God makes us divine.5
1 Matt. vi. 22.
2 filos, mere " living " — the psychic, animal, sensuous life, as in iii. 17.
iv oapKl fiiaxrai, 1 Pet. iv. 2.
3 " Quem K6apov Graeci nomine ornamenti appellaverunt " (Plin. H. N.
ii. 3). 4 Rom. viii. 19, 20.
5 " Amor habet vim uniendi ; si terram amas terrenus es, si Deum
divinus" (Gerson).

ANTICHRISTS. 425
Then from the general warning against the world he
descends to its special manifestation in the form of anti-
Christian error, which he introduces with the address of
fatherly tenderness, " Little children, it is the last hour."
The world and its desire is passing away now, it has
not long to last. The final dispensation has begun.
There will not be, there cannot be, any new dispensa
tion. How long this aeon is to last neither St. John
knew nor any man, not even the angels in heaven.
With reference to all previous aeons this is the final
aeon. At its close there will be the new heaven and
the new earth. And potentially this aeon is already
complete. With the manifestation of the Word in
flesh its whole development was condensed into its first
moment. It may linger on for a thousand years, for
a thousand years is with the Lord as one day ; but "it has
already advanced to the top of its development, and
therefore hastens to its end." And one sign of that
ever-approaching end — ever approaching however long
delayed — is the existence already of many Antichrists.
Whether the many were yet to be concentrated into
one monstrous development of intense personal wicked
ness, St. John does not say. The word Antichrist,
which St. John alone uses, may mean either " rivals
of Christ" — i.e., pseudo-Christs (Matt. xxiv. 5, 11), or
"enemies of Christ;"1 — either those who try to pass
themselves off as Christs, or those who set themselves in
open array against him. An Antichrist may take the
semblance of a Nero or of a Simon Magus, of a Priest or
1 The preposition hvrl is used in both senses in compounds — either (1)
"instead of" or (2) "opposed to." Thus we have (1) avrt$aci\evs, "a
viceroy ; " avriBeos, " a demi-god ; " avBimaras, " a proconsul," &c. ; and (2)
avri<pt\6(ro<pos, " an enemy to philosophers ; " dvripaxvriis, " an opponent ; "

426 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY.
of a Voltaire. St. John enters into no details because
his readers had already heard that Antichrist cometh.
This must refer to his own oral teachings, or those
of other Apostles, for he tells us afterwards that by
" Antichrists " he means those who deny the Incarna
tion (iv. 3), or who deny the Father and the Son
(ii. 22). This form of Antichrist is not described
either by Daniel, or by St. Paul in his Man of Sin.
If, in 2 Thess. ii. 3, 4, the expression of St. Paul may
admit of some sort of analogous interpretation, it
certainly could not have been assumed by St. John that
the brief letter to a Macedonian Church would already
have pervaded the whole of Asia.1
Nevertheless, the prevalence of these Antichrists,
of whom St. John had orally spoken, was the direct
fulfilment of the weeping prophesy of St. Paul, in his
farewell to the Ephesian Elders, " that after his depar
ture grievous wolves would enter among them, not
sparing the flock, and that from among their own selves
men would arise, speaking perverted things to drag away
disciples after them." The very danger to the Church
lay in the fact that this anti- Christian teaching arose
out of her own bosom. The Antichrists did not openly
apostatise from the Christian body ; they corrupted
it from within. They still called themselves Christians ;
had they really been so, they would have continued to be
so. But their present apostasy was a manifestation of
dvriKdrav, a book " against Cato." Had St. John meant " a rival of
Christ," he would have used pseudochristos, as he uses pseudo-prophetes.
The Fathers, both Greek and Latin, understood the word normally to
mean " contrarius Christo " (Aug.), " Christi rebelles " (Tert.). See Trench,
Synonyms of the New Testament, p. 145. See Hurd's Sermons on Pro
phecies respecting Antichrist, and Prejudices against the Doctrine.
1 Acts xxi. 29, 30.

THE SPIRIT'S UNCTION. 427
the fact that they never had been true Christians, and
that not all who called themselves Christians are such
in reality. But if there be these dangers from within — if
the Christianity of the lips is consistent with anti-
Christianity of life — if walking in the light is never
theless wholly incompatible with any fellowship with
the world, as manifested in this or any other form
of anti-Christianity — how is the Christian to be
secured ? That is the question which, in the next
section, St. John proceeds to answer.
" But ye have an unction from the Holy One, and ye know all
things.1 He that confesseth the Son hath also the Father. I have
not written unto ye because ye know not the truth, but because ye
know it, and because no lie is of the truth. Who is the liar but he
that denieth Jesus is the Christ 1 This is the Antichrist ; even he
that denieth the Father and the Son; whosoever denieth the Son
the same hath not the Father ; he that confesseth the Son hath the
Father also. Ye — what ye heard from the beginning, let it abide
in you. If that abide in you which ye heard from the beginning,
ye also shall abide in the Son and in the Father. And this is the
promise which he promises to us — Eternal Life.
" These things wrote I to you concerning those who mislead you.
And ye — the unction2 which ye received from Him, abideth in you,
and ye have not need that any man teach you, but as the unction
itself teacheth you concerning all things,3 and is a true thing and
not a lie; and even as it taught you, abide in it" (ii. 20 — 27).
Here then is the Christian's security — an unction
from the Holy Spirit, an outpouring of the Holy Spirit
1 " Si Christum bene scis, satis est si caetera nescis ;
Si Christum nescis, nihil est, si caetera discis."
Motto of Johann Bugenhagen.
2 The word chrisma, not used in the Gospel, may be suggested by the
word antichristos. All Christians are christoi, " anointed of God."
Comp. Acts x. 38, " God anointed Him with the Holy Spirit."
3 That is all things essential ; all that we need.

428 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY.
by which we are anointed to be Kings, and Priests, and
Prophets,1 even as Prophets,2 Priests, and Kings were
anointed of old. We are anointed by the same chrism
as was Christ himself, and therefore can discern between
Christ and Antichrist. This was the Lord's promise
that His Holy Spirit should lead us into all truth, and
therefore separate us, by His consecration, from the re
gion of darkness, from the world, its errors and its lusts.
And this is why St. John need not dwell on a multi
tude of particulars, or track the various ramifications
of deceit. For he is not writing to Jews or to Gentiles,
but to Christian men, whom he needs only to remind
that they belong to the sphere, not of lying semblances
but of the Eternal and the Real. They are already
" in the light ; " he does but need to remind them
to abide therein. Now, for a Christian to deny that
Jesus is the Christ, stamps him as radically untrue.
He must have ceased to be " in Christ " by that denial ;
he must have left the kingdom of heaven for the world,
the light for the darkness, the Real for the illusory.
And to deny the Son is to deny the Father, since only
by the Son has the Father been made known. These
stern, disconnected sentences, falling like hammer
strokes on the heart of the listener, mark that holy and
uncompromising severity of St. John's ideal, which
resulted from his living in the atmosphere of contempla
tion, and regarding all things in their inmost nature
and essence. Yet we should judge, from the affectionate
title of " little children " by which they are introduced,
and we know from the precious traditions of the
1 Is. lxi. 1. Kings and priests, Rev. i. 6 ; "a royal priesthood, a holy
nation," 1 Pet. ii. 9 ; prophets, Joel ii. 28 ; Acts ii. 17, 18.
2 1 Kings xix. 16 only.

ETERNAL LIFE. 429
Apostle's later days, that this stern theological in
flexibility cannot be perverted, as it so often has been,
into an excuse for theological hatred and party spirit,
since it was combined with the tenderest charity towards
erring souls.
But to save them from all this terrible defection,
they had but to abide in the truth which they heard
from the first, and to suffer it to abide in them. The
exhortation resembles that of our Lord in the Gospel,
" Abide in Me and I in you.1 If ye abide in Me, and
My words abide in you, ye shall ask for yourselves what
ever ye will and it shall be granted to you." Their
active endeavours after constancy would be followed
by a passive growth in grace. The abiding is secured
by the constancy. The constancy is secured by the
abiding. "It is a permanent and continuous recipro
cation ; the abiding of Christ in men furthers their
abiding in Him ; this again facilitates the former ; and
so it goes on."
This abiding is what He promised to us, and it is
Eternal Life. For Eternal Life is fellowship with the
Father and the Son. " This is Life Eternal, that they
should learn to know Thee the Only the Very God, and
Him whom Thou sendest, Jesus Christ."2
Then, in the last two verses (26, 27), comes the reca
pitulation and closing exhortation, before he passes to a
new topic. " You have heard your danger. You are
aware of that Unction which will secure you against
it. I have told you what is the meaning of the Eternal
Life, and of the fellowship on which I touched at the
beginning of my letter. Abide in the Unction. It is a
1 John xv. 4, 5, 7.
2 John xvii. 2, 3.

430 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY.
thing absolutely real, incommunicably dissevered from
all that is false. Thus it is a source of all true teaching
to you. That is the one command which is needful for
you." SECTION II.
THE CONFIDENCE OF SONSHIP.
Having thus shown at length that fellowship with
God involves a walk in the Light, and a confession
of sin, and that our fellowship with the brethren con
sists in general obedience to the commands of God,
and special imitation of Christ in His love for all ; and
having shown that this common fellowship with God
and with our brethren necessitates an absolute severance
from the world in general, and from all antichristian
teaching in particular, he enters on another topic —
namely, on the confidence inspired by Sonship as a sign of
our possession of Eternal Life.
" And now little children abide in Him, that if He be manifested
we may have confidence, and may not be shamed away from Him in
His appearing.1 If ye know that He is righteous, ye recognise that
every one also who doeth righteousness has been born of Him.
" See what love the Father hath given to us2 that we should be
called children of God.3 [And such we are.4] For this cause the
world recogniseth not us, because it did not recognise Him. Beloved,
1 "Ne pudefiamus ab ejus praesentia," (Calvin). Matt. xxv. 41.
iropeveffBe air ipov.
2 Tiplv, " indignis, inimicis, peccatoribus" (Corn, a Lapide).
3 The missionary Ziegebalg tells an interesting story that in trans
lating this passage with the aid of a Hindoo youth, the youth rendered it,
" that we should be allowed to kiss His feet." When asked why he thus
diverged from the text, he replied, " A Child ! that is too much — too
high!" (Braune, ad loc).
4 These words are found in «, A, B, C, Theophylact (yeveo-Bai re /cal
Koyio-B'qvai), Augustine, &c. They are omitted in K, L, and by CEcumenius.
They may be genuine, but read like an awkward gloss. The Yulg. renders
it wrongly " et simus."

THE MANIFESTATION OF CHRIST. 431
now we are children of God, and not yet is it manifested what we
shall be. We know that if He be manifested we shall be like Him, be
cause we shall see Him even as He is. And every one who hath this
hope in Him, purifieth himself even as He is pure " 1 (ii. 28 — iii. 3).
The " and now," and the address, " little children,"
of ii. 28, together with the introduction of the four new
thoughts — of Christ's " manifestation," of our having
" confidence," of " doing righteousness," and of having
been " born of God " — all indicate the beginning of a
new section. And every one of these new thoughts is
referred to and developed in the next great division of
the Epistle.2
i. As regards the "manifestation" of Christ, that term,
as expressive of His return to judgment, is peculiar to
St. John, and marks his invariable point of view that all
things in the Divine economy advance, not by sudden
catastrophes, but by germinant developments in accord
ance with eternal laws. Christ is present now; His
return will be but a manifestation of His Presence ; and
it is, perhaps, the consciousness that Christ is always
present which has prevented St. John from elsewhere
using the word Parousia for His second return, though
that term is so common in the other sacred writers.
Only by abiding in God can we meet that manifested
1 Comp. 2 Cor. vii. 1. The Apostles do not deem it necessary at
every turn to introduce all the qualifications which would express the
whole truth as to the Divine and human elements in the work of salva
tion; but of course the " purifieth himself " must be understood side by
side with John xv. 5, "without Me ye can do nothing." " Castificas te,
non de te, sed de illo qui venit ut inhabitet te" (Aug.). There seems to
be no fundamental distinction between the uses of ayvi£u and KaBapifa.
The adjectives ayvbs, saBapbs are used indifferently for "rino in the LXX.
both of material (Num. viii. 21, &c.) and spiritual things (Ps. xi. 7, &c).
2 " Manifestation of Christ " (iii. 3—8) ; " Confidence " (iii. 21 ; iv. 17 ;
v. 14) ; "Doing righteousness" (iii. 1 — 10); being "born of God" (iii.
24, seq.).

432 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY.
Presence without shame, and answer with confidence at
His judgment seat. Now, as St. John has already said
that " every one who abideth in Him sinneth not," so
now he expresses the same thought in a more developed
form, by saying that the doing righteousness — as He
is righteous — is the test of having been born of Him.
He who does not sin has fellowship with God. He
whose innocence is manifested in righteousness may know
with confidence that he has been born of God. Here
the Evangelist's point of view nearly resembles that of
St. Paul, when he says that "the foundation of God
standeth sure, having this seal, — ' The Lord knoweth
them that are His,' and ' Let every one that nameth
the name of Christ depart from iniquity.' " 1
The righteous man, then, is the son of God ; and
what love has the Father given us with this very object —
that we may be called His children ! St. John does not
call us "sons" of God, as St. Paul does,2 but "children,"
because he regards the sonship less as adoptive and
more as natural. If the world does not recognise the
sonship we are not to be surprised, since neither did it
recognise the Sonship of Him from whom our sonship
is derived. But there is another reason why St. John
calls us " children " rather than "sons." It is because
the word " childhood " involves in it the necessary idea
of future growth, and this is true of our relation to God.
Children we are, and something more than this we shall
1 2 Tim. ii. 19.
2 " According to St. Paul we receive for Christ's sake the rights of
children. According to St. John we receive through Christ the children's
nature. According to St. Paul the old nature of man is transformed into
a new. According to St. John an altogether new principle of nature
takes the place of the former. It is most evident that the two views are
substantially one, and true, but they depend on the respective general
systems of the two Apostles " (Haupt, p. 156).

TEST OF SONSHIP. 433
be hereafter, because we shall see God, and, therefore,
become more and more like Him, though that new, and
as yet unknown, relationship to Him will be but the
full evolution of the old. And it is the constant aim of
every one who really holds this hope to begin that ever-
increasing resemblance, by even now purifying himself
even as Christ is pure.
Our sonship of God is, therefore, tested at the Last
Day by our lives ; and to us it can only become a
matter of present assurance by doing righteousness. He
proceeds to illustrate this truth in four sentences, of which
each consists of two clauses. First, he shows that sin is
opposed to God and opposed to Christ (vs. 4, 5) ; then
that to abide in Him is to be sinless, and that to be
sinful is never to have seen Him (v. 6) ; nay more,
he shows that to do righteousness is to be of God,
and to do sin is to be of the devil (vs. 7, 8); then, in
the last two verses of the clause (9, 10), he recapitulates
the proof, and states the final result.
The section then is as follows :—
" Every one that committeth sin committeth also lawlessness, and
sin is lawlessness. And ye know that He was manifested that He
may take away sins,1 and sin is not in Him" (iii. 4, 5).
" Every one who abideth in Him sinneth not. Every one who
sinneth hath not seen Him nor even known Him"2 (ver. 6).
" Little children, let no one mislead you. He that doeth right-
1 " Tollit peccata et dimittendo quae facta sunt, et adjuvando ne fiant,
et perducendo ad vitam ubi fieri omnino non possunt " (Bede).
2 " In ipso peccati momento talis fit, ac si Eum nullo viderit modo "
(Bengel). This verse, as Theophylact tells us, was regarded by Anti
nomian Gnostics as proving the indefectibility of grace, and so was turned
into an excuse for lasciviousness. But that certain practical modifications
must be admitted is clear, from previous passages in the Epistle itself.
The older expositors generally adopted the method of toning down the
Apostle's language. Modern expositors accept the language as meaning
C C

434 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY.
eousness is righteous, as He is righteous. He that doeth sin is of the
devil,1 because the devil sinneth from the beginning.2 For this pur-
what it says, but regard it as applying only to the ideal. The two methods
come to much the same thing in the end. Thus, in verse 9 some explain
" he cannot sin," by —
He cannot commit mortal sin (Romanists).
He cannot sin deliberately and intentionally (Ebrard).
He cannot sin in the way of hating his brother (Augustine, Bede).
It is alien from his nature to sin (Grotius).
His nature and habit resist sin (Paulus).
He does not wish to sin, or ought not to sin (various Commentators).
He cannot be a sinner (apaprdveiv) (Wordsworth, and so Didymus).
He does not sin, he only suffers sin (Besser ; comp. Rom. vii. 17).
So far as he remains true to himself, he does not sin (Augnstine).
So long as he is a child of God he cannot sin (others).
The only possible escape from some such modification, is by asserting the
possibility of sinlessness in this life (which contradicts i. 8), or else by
asserting that none of us have seen God, and none of us are children of
God (which contradicts the whole Epistle). Hopkins says, " The inter
pretation which I judge to be most natural and unforced is this : He that
is born of God doth not commit sin — that is, he doth not sin in that
malignant manner in which the children of the devil do ; he doth not
make a trade of sin, nor live in the constant and allowed practice of it. . . .
There is a great difference between regenerate and unregenerate persons
in the very sins that they commit. ' Their spot is not the spot of his
children ' (Deut. xxxii. 5). And as they differ in the committing of sin,
so much more in the opposing of it." And if the Stoic was allowed to
set before himself his ideal, why may not the Christian do the same ?
Seneca said that the wise man was not only able to do right, but even
could not do otherwise. " Vir bonus non potest non facere quod facit ;
in omni actu par sibi, jam non consilio bonus, sed more eo perductus ; ut
non tantum recte facere possit, sed nisi recte facere non possit." And
Velleius Paterculus said of the younger Cato, " Homo virtnti simillimns,
et per omnia ingenio Diis quam hominibus propior, qui nunquam recte
fecit ut facere videretur, sed quia aliter facere non poterat " (Hist. ii. 34)
and he spoke of him as " exempt from all human vices." And Tacitus
said that when Nero wished to kill Paetus Thrasea, it was as if he wished
" to kill virtue herself." The Christian ideal is infinitely higher than
the Stoic, and that is why the Christian knows that not even a saint can
be absolutely sinless; yet he hates sin, and more and more wins the
victory over it.
1 He does not say, " born of the devil." " Neminem fecit diabolus,
neminem genuit neminem creavit" (Aug.). His work is "corruptio non
generatio " (Bengel).
2 Not "ex quo diabolus est diabolus" (Bengel), bnt since sin began :
" ab initio rov peccare."

SINFULNESS OF SIN. 435
pose was the Son of God manifested that He may destroy the works
of the devil " (ver. 7, 8).
" Every one that hath been born of God doth not commit sin,
because His seed abideth in him ; and he cannot sin, because He
has been born of God " (ver. 9).
" In this are manifest the children of God and the children of the
devil" (ver. 10a).
To careless and superficial readers many of these
clauses might look like mere mysticism clothed in
antithetic tautologies. To one who has tried to study
the mind and manner of St. John, they are full of
the deepest meaning. Take the very first clause.
*How deep and awful a conception of sin ought we to
derive from the fact that all sin, however slight it may
seem to us, is not a matter of indifference, but a trans
gression of the divine law ! How does such a concep
tion tend to silence our petty excuses, or our weak
talk about pardonable human imperfections ! How
different will be our tone — how little shall we be in
clined " to say before the angel ' It was an error ' " —
when once we have realised this "universal and ex
ceptionless fact ! " And still more when we remember
that not only is every sin, in God's sight, the violation
of the eternal law, but also a violation of the whole
purpose of Christ's manifestation which was expressly
meant to take all sins away. And when St. John
proceeds to say that he who sinneth hath never seen
or known God, however much we may be inclined to
introduce limitations into this language, both by the
daily facts of Christian experience, and the recognition
in this very Epistle that even the most advanced be
liever does not here attain to absolute sinlessness
(i. 8 — 10), yet the awfulness of the stern, unbending
language tends to convince us, more than anything
c c2

436 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY.
else could, of the exceeding sinfulness of sin, seeing
that every act of it is a proof, as far as it goes, of
alienation from God ; of affiliation, in some sense, to
him from whom all sin began. It is a nullifying of all
that Christ died to achieve. The summing up, then,
of what he has said, is that in every one who has been
born of God there is a principle of divine life which
renders sin impossible. Sin, on the other hand, shows,
by ethical likeness, its Satanic parentage. St. John
divides all men simply into children of God and children
of the devil, and recognises no intermediate classes.
We do not see it to be so in the ordinary mixture and'
confusion of human life, but in the abstract and in the
essence of things, so it is. To God, though not to
men, it is possible to write the epitaph of each life
in the brief words, "He did that which was good,"
or "he did that which was evil " in the sight of the
Lord. On the dread severity of this language, on the
only possible explanation and alleviation of it, I have
already dwelt.1 The ideal truth must ever, so to speak,
float above its actual realisation. But the warning
force of St. John's high words lies, in this: — We are
children of God by birth and by gift, but unless we
also approve ourselves as His children by act and life,
we sink out of that sonship into Satanic depths. Every
sin we commit is a proof that we are not yet children
of light, children of God ; but that darkness still has
power over us. For each such defection we must find
forgiveness, and against each such defection we must
strive more and more. A child of God, as Luther
says, may receive daily wounds in the conflict, but he
1 See supra, pp. 387—390.

DEMONSTRATION OF SONSHIP. 437
never throws away his arms. If once we have fully
and freely dedicated ourselves to God, sin may some
times invade us, but it can never have dominion over
us. Of the two seals on the one foundation — " God's
knowledge of us as His own," and "Departure from
iniquity " — where the one is found, the other will
be never wanting.
The demonstration of sonship, then, in relation to
God, is " to do righteousness " ; and in relation to man
this righteousness is manifested by loving our brethren,
which he illustrates first negatively (10b — 15) and
then positively (16 — 18).
" Every one who doeth not righteousness is not from God, nor he
who loveth not his brother. Because this is the message (dyyekia,
A, B, &c.,) which ye heard from the beginning, in order that (iVa)
we should love one another : not as Cain was from the wicked one,1
and brutally slew his brother. And why did he brutally slay him 1
Because his deeds were evil, but those of his brother righteous.
Wonder not, brethren, if the world hates you. We know that we
have passed from death unto life, because we love the brethren.2 He
who loveth not abideth in death. Every one who hateth his brother
is a murderer,3 and ye know that no murderer hath eternal life
abiding in him" (iii 106 — 15).
Our duty to man follows as an immediate corol
lary from our duty to God, just as the second table of
the Decalogue follows naturally as an inference from
the first. No doubt in thus exhorting to brotherly
love, St. John is thinking in the first place of the
Churches which he is addressing, and therefore by
1 I.e., " Let us not be of the wieked one as Cain was, who," &c. The
construction is condensed, as in 1 Cor. x. 8. Some of the Rabbis said that
" Cain was a son of Eve and the Serpent " (Zohar).
2 " Bona opera non praecedunt justiticandum sed sequuntur justifi-
catum " (Aug.).
3 Comp. Seneca's " Latro es antequam inquines manum."

438 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY.
"brother" he primarily means Christian. But to
confine his meaning to Christian brethren would be
to wrong the majesty of his teaching. It would
also dwarf all that our Lord taught on the same
subject — as, for instance, in the parable of the Good
Samaritan; and the force of Christ's own example
who loved us and died for us while we were yet
sinners. And to miss the truth that love is the very
central command of Christianity — though that truth
has been missed for centuries- — though Church parties
in their narrow and envenomed controversies daily
prove how utterly they have missed it — though all
kinds of glozing self-deceptions are practised to persuade
the conscience that violations of it are not violations of
it, but are "uncompromising faithfulness" and "burning
zeal " — yet to miss that truth is inexcusable, for it was
delivered from the first, and is repeated continually.
It was, as the Apostle tells us, at once the matter (" this
is the message ") and the purpose (" in order that ye
may love one another ") of the Christian revelation.
In his usual manner of illustrating by opposites, St.
John impresses the duty by showing the frightfulness
of hatred, of which he selects Cain as an example,
because it is the earliest and one of the worst. The
word which he uses for the murder — (eo-cpagev, " he
butchered ") — perhaps refers to some Jewish legend
as to the manner in which the murder had been ac
complished. The instance was peculiarly apposite,
because the murder was but the ripened fruit of a
secret envy caused by God's approval of good works
in another. It was, therefore, well adapted to show
the nature of the world's hatred to the Church, and to
illustrate the fact that hatred belongs to the world —

HATRED IS DEATH. 439
that is, to the realm of Satan and of darkness — and
should therefore be utterly excluded from the King
dom of Light and of Christ. Let not the Church
be as Cain-like as the world. For hatred means death,
and we have passed from death into life, as our love
to the brethren shows.1 On the other hand, if — though
we call ourselves Christians — we still hate, we are
still in death. For all hatred is potential murder;
it is murder in the undeveloped germ ; and it is im
possible to conceive a murderer as having in him that
divine, that spiritual life which alone corresponds to
St. John's use of the word "eternal.".
Passing from the negative to the positive illustra
tion, he continues : —
" Hereby we have learnt to know what love is — because He, on
our behalf, pledged His life ; and we ought to pledge our lives for
the brethren. But whoever hath this world's sustenance, and con
templates (Beapij) his brother suffering want, and locks up from him
his pity,2 how doth the love of God abide in him ? Let us not love
with word nor yet with tongue,3 but in deed and in truth " 4 (iii.
16—18). Cain has furnished the most awful warning against
hatred. There can be but one example, which is the
most emphatic exhortation to love — namely, He who
loved even His enemies, and proved His love for them
by His death. Cain slew his brother because he hated
him for his goodness; Christ died for sinners because
1 Here again we have the double fact of a warning accompanied by the
assertion that (ideally) it is quite needless.
2 o-rrhdyxva rachamim, Prov. xii. 10 (tender mercies).
3 " Sermone otioso, lingua simulante " (Bengel).
4 Mil pot dviip y\tbo-ori ei-q (/>t\os aAA(k Kal ipytp Xepalv re aveiSoi xpfouo-l "¦'
&p<t>6repa (Theognis) ; "Ye knot of mouth-Mends " (Shaksp., Timon of
Athens, act iii.).

440 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY.
He loved them in their iniquity. The phrase rendered
in the English version, " He laid down His life," is
found in St. John only, but it is one of which he is
specially fond.1 He borrows it from the discourses of
our Lord, and it is therefore coloured in all probability
by Hebrew analogies. If the reference be to Isaiah
liii. 10, it involves the conception of laying down life
as a pledge, a stake, a compensation. We ought to
do the same according to the measure of need. But
how can any man do this who grudges, or coldly
ignores, the simplest, most initial, most instinctive
acts of kindness to his suffering brethren ? — who, like
the fastidious Priest and the icy-hearted Levite of the
parable, can coldly stare at his brother's need, and
bolt against him the treasure-house of natural pity?
How can the man who thus shows that he has no love
in him, love God who is all love ? Thus we see that
with St. John, as with St. Paul, the loftiest principles
lead to the humblest duties, and even as it takes the
whole law of gravitation to mould a tear no less than to
shape a planet, so the element or obligation of kindness
to the suffering is made to rest on the infinite basis that
God is Love. The man who is capable of such unnatural
hardness as St. John describes, is quite capable of the
hypocrisy of profession. Like the vain talker in St.
James (ii. 16), he will doubtless tell the sufferer how
much he pities him ; he will say to him, with a fervour
of compassion, " Be warmed," " Be clothed," but he
has ten thousand cogent and ready excuses to show
why he cannot personally render him any assistance.
For such lip-charity, such mere pleasantly-emotional
pity, such eloquent babble of hard-heartedness, wear-
1 John x. 11, 15, 17, 18 ; xiii. 37, 38 ; xv. 13.

RECAPITULATION. 441
ing the cloak of compassion, he warns them to sub
stitute the activity and reality of love.
The recapitulation which follows is extremely
difficult, and all the more so because the punctuation
is uncertain, the construction unusual, the readings
unsettled. I give the rendering which, on the whole,
approves itself to my mind, but I am far from certain
that it is correct. Other versions and other inter
pretations are almost equally tenable, and I incline to
the view that there is either some corruption in the
text, or that some confusion may have arisen in the
dictation of the Epistle. The difficulty in interpreting
the words of St. John is almost always the difficulty
of fathoming the true depth of his phrases — the
difficulty of understanding the full spiritual meaning
of his words. His style is, for the most part, incom
parable in its lucidity, and there must be some dis
turbing element which renders it impossible in the
next two verses to be at all sure that we have ascer
tained what he meant, or even what he said.
" And hereby shall we recognise that we are of the truth, and we
shall in His sight assure our hearts : x because if our heart condemn
us, [because] God is greater than our heart, and recogniseth all
things "2 (iii 19, 20).
1 rreiaopev seems to mean we shall still the questionings of our hearts ;
persuade them that the view which they take of our frailties is too
despairing. Haupt's rendering, " we shall soothe," only lies in the con
text, not in the word (comp. Acts xii. 20, neiaavres BKdo-rov, E. V., " having
made Blastus their friend ; " Gal i. 10).
2 I cannot at all accept the version of Hanpt, or his explanation of
this extremely difficult passage. He takes it to mean, " In this love rests
our consciousness that we are of the truth, and by it may we soothe our
hearts, in all cases in which ('6ri idv) our heart condemns us, for God is
greater than our hearts and knoweth all things." The difiiculty lies
partly in the repeated Hn. If the first '6n means " because," the second
must also mean " because," and this gives a very awkward clause, and

442 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY.
" Beloved, if our heart condemn us not we have confidence towards
God ; and whatsoever we ask we receive from Him, because we are
keeping His commandments, and are doing the things which are
acceptable before Him. And this is His commandment, that we
should believe in the name of His Son, Jesus Christ, and love one
another even as He gave us commandment. And he who keepeth
His commandments abideth in Him, and He in him" (iii 21 — 2,4a).
Assuming that the reading which I have followed
in the first two verses of this passage is correct, and
the grammatical construction admissible, the meaning
will be simple. It is that Brotherly Love is a proof
that we belong to the kingdom of Eternal Reality,
and that by this assurance we shall ever be able to
still the misgivings of our hearts. For even if the
individual heart of each one of us knoweth its own
bitterness and condemns itself, still, since we are
sincere, and have given proof of our sincerity by love
to the brethren, we may fall back on the love and
mercy of One who is greater, and therefore more tender,
than our self-condemning hearts. He will "count the
long Yes of life " against its one No, or its guilty
moment. Because He recogniseth all things — because,
makes no good sense. I therefore take the view of the old scholiast,
who says "the second 8ti is superfluous" (rb Seirepov 'in irape\Kei). We
find a similar instance of '6n repeated in Eph. ii. 11, 12, and in classic
writers (Xen. Anab. v. 16, § 19, " They say that if not . . . that he will
run a risk"). If it be thought an insuperable objection that in these
instances Sti always means " that " and not "because," I can only suppose
that the second on is really a confusion due to dictation. I take the
consolatory, not the dark view of the passage. I think that St. John
meant us to regard it as a subject of hope, not of despair, that God is
greater than our hearts. This certainly is most in accordance with John
xxi. 17 — " Lord, Thou knowest all things : Thou knowest that I love
Thee." It would be useless to repeat the tediously voluminous varieties
of exposition which have been applied to the passage. [The Revised
Version renders it, " and shall assure our heart before Him, whereinsoever
our heart condemn us."]

BELIEF AND LOVE. 443
knowing all things, He recognises that we do love
Him1 — because, where sin abounded there grace much
more abounded2 — because, as Luther said, the con
science is but a waterdrop, whereas God is a deep sea
of compassion — therefore He will look upon us
"With larger other eyes than ours,
To make allowance for us all."
But. if our heart condemn us not of wilful failure
in general obedience or in brotherly love — if we can,
by God's grace, say with St. Paul, " I am not conscious
of any wrong-doing " — then, when faith has triumphed
over a self-condemning despair — we have that confi
dence towards God of which St. John spoke at the
beginning of this section (ii. 28), and are also sure that
God will grant our prayers, both personal — that we may
ever more and more do the thing that is right — and in
tercessory — that His love may be poured forth on our
brethren also. And thus shall we fulfil the command
ments to believe and to love. These two command
ments form the summary of all God's commandments ;
for the one is the inward spirit of obedience, the other
its outward form. He who thus keeps God's com
mandments, abides in God and God in him.
The thoughts of the writer in these verses are
evidently filled with the last discourses of the Lord,
which he has just recorded in the Gospel, and which
lie may assume to be fresh in the minds of his readers.
In these verses he dwells on the same topics — faith,
love, prayer, union with God, the Holy Spirit. In
this clause he concludes the section, which has been
1 John xxi. 17, Kvpie aii wdvra olSas, o-b yiyvdaKeis 'in (j>i\a ire.
2 Rom. v. 20.

444 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY.
devoted to the proof that Doing Righteousness and
Love of the brethren are the practical signs that we
are sons of God. In the second clause of verse 24 —
which would better have been placed at the head of
the next chapter — he passes to two new thoughts,
which form the basis of his proof that the source of
our sonship is the reception of the Holy Spirit of God,
and therefore that our confidence towards God (irapprjcria,
ii. 28 ; iii. 21 ; iv. 17, 18) may be absolute, even to
the end. SECTION III.
THE SOURCE OF SONSHIP.
" And hereby we recognise that He abideth in us, from the Spirit
which He gave us. Beloved, believe not every spirit, but test the
spirits whether they are from God, because many false prophets have
gone forth into the world. Hereby ye recognise the Spirit of God ;
every spirit which confesseth Jesus as Christ come in the flesh is
from God, and every spirit which severeth Jesus is not from
God, and this is the spirit of Antichrist of which ye have heard
that it cometh, and now is it in the world already. Ye are from
God, little children ; and ye have overcome them because greater is
He who is in you than he who is in the world. They are from the
world ; for this cause they speak from the world, and the world
heareth them. We are from God ; he who learns to know God
heareth us ; he who is not from God heareth not us.1 From this we
recognise the spirit of truth and the spirit of error " (iii. 2-lb — iv. 6).
The change of phrase from "abide in Him " (ii. 28)
to " He abideth in us," and the introduction of the new
thought involved in the mention of the Spirit, mark
the beginning of a new clause. The subject of this
clause is at once stated in the words " we recognise that
He abideth in us." We are passing from the tests of
1 " For this have I been born, and for this have I come into the world,
that I should testify to the Truth. Every one who is of the Truth heareth
my voice " (John xviii. 37). 3

THE SOURCE OF SONSHIP. 445
sonship to the source of sonship. Following the same
method of division which we have already found in the
previous sections of the Epistle, the Apostle treats
of this subject first in relation to God in Christ
(iv. 1 — 6), and then in relation to our brother- man
(7 — 12). He who rightly confesses God in Christ, and
who proves the sincerity of that faith by love to the
brethren, does so by the sole aid of the Holy Spirit
of God, and it is thus proved that he is born of
God. This possession of the Holy Spirit, this abiding
of God in us, is first illustrated by its opposite. The
denial of Christ is a sign that we are under the sway of
spirits which are not from God, even the spirits of false
prophecy and of Antichrist. The characteristic of
the men whom these spirits deceive is to deny the Lord
that bought them,1 and to apostatise from the worship
of Christ to the worship of the Beast.2 That such
spirits were at work even thus early we have already
seen in the warnings of St. Paul, St. Peter, and St.
Jude. And the peril which they caused was enhanced
by this ; they were at work in the bosom of the Church
itself. When St. John says that they have gone forth
into the world, he does not mean that they are severed
from the Church, for if this had been the case there
would have been no need to test them, or to be on guard
against them, since, as regards the Christian community,
they would have stood self-condemned. But while still
nominally belonging to the visible Church, the nature
of their teaching stamped them as belonging really
to the world. Every Christian, therefore, had need to
"test the spirits;" he was required to exercise that
i 2 Pet. ii. 1. 2 Rev. xiii. 8

446 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY.
grace of " the discernment of spirits " to which St. Paul
had called the attention of his Corinthian converts.1
In Corinth the terrible abuses of glossolaly had led
to outbreaks which entirely ruined and degraded the
order of worship. Amid the hubbub of fanatical
utterances voices had even been heard to exclaim
"Anathema is Jesus." Those hideous blasphemies, due
to secret hatred and heresy, had sheltered themselves
under the plea of uncontrollable spiritual impulse, and
St. Paul had laid down as distinctly as St. John, and
almost in the same terms, that the confession of Jesus
as Lord could only come from the workings of the Holy
Spirit of God, and that any one who spoke against
Jesus, however proud his claims, could not be speaking
by the Spirit of God. It is interesting to find the two
Apostles so exactly in accord with one another. It
is even difficult to imagine that St. John could have
written this passage without having in mind what
St. Paul had said to the Corinthians.2 But even if not,
we have another proof how absurd is the theory which
places the two Apostles in deadly antagonism, whereas
again and again there is a close resemblance between
them, not only in the expressions which they use,
but also in the entire systems which they maintain.
Here, then, was to be the test which each Christian
could apply. Every spirit was of God who confessed
" Jesus Christ come in the flesh." There were even in
those early days professing Christians who said that
Jesus was indeed the Christ, but that the Christ had
not come in the flesh. They maintained that during
the public ministry of Jesus, the spirit of the Divine
Christ had been with Him, but only till the crucifixion;
1 1 Cor. xii. 10. 2 1 Cor. xii. 3.

"SEVERING JESUS." 447
so that the Incarnation of the Divine in the human
nature was nothing but a semblance. These were the
forerunners of the sect of Docetists. There were others,
again, who regarded the life of Jesus as homogeneous
throughout, but denied that he was the Christ in any
other sense than that He was the Jewish Messiah;
denied that he was Christ in the sense of being the
Son of God. These were the early Ebionites. Against
them both St. John had erected his eternal barrier
of sacred testimony when he wrote " The Word became
flesh," a testimony which he here repeats, and which
he expresses no less plainly in verse 14, when he says,
" We have seen and do testify that the Father has
sent His Son as Saviour of the World." Every spirit
was from God which, speaking in the mouths of
Christian prophets, confessed that Jesus who was a
man. was also the Incarnate Son of God.
The next verse (3) begins in the Authorised Ver
sion, " And every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus
Christ is come in the flesh is not of God." The first
correction which must be made to bring back this verse
to the true reading is to omit the words " Christ is come
in the flesh!' Not only are they omitted by the Sinaitic,
Alexandrian, and Vatican MSS., and absent from the
Vulgate, Coptic, and iEthiopic versions, but also it is
more accordant with St. John's manner to vary the form
of his antithetic clauses. The meaning, however,
remains the same, for by " confessing Jesus " nothing
can be meant but confessing that He is the Incarnate
Son of God. But in my version I have ventured to
follow the other reading, " Every spirit which severs
Jesus " (d Xvei). It is a reading of deep interest and
one which, if it be genuine, proves very decidedly the

448 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY.
working of those Gnostic speculations — at least in their
germs — which is also presupposed in the later Epistles
of St. Paul. The authenticity of those Epistles has
often been denied, on the ground that they are devoted
to the refutation of heresies which, it is asserted, had
no existence till at least the second century. I have
already endeavoured to show that there is no weight in
this argument j1 but if the reading " which severs
Jesus " be indeed the original one, it furnishes the
clearest indication of the direction taken from the first
by Gnostic error.2 The Docetae and Ebionites had
already begun to " sever Jesus " — to say that He
was a man to whom for a time only the Spirit of God
had been united, or that He was a man only and not
the Son of God at all.
It need, however, be hardly said that the interesting
character of a reading furnishes no ground for accepting
it. But we are under no temptation to introduce it on
dogmatic grounds, seeing that even without it we
have sufficient indication of the existence of these
sects.. At first sight it might seem to be fatal to the reading
that it is not found in any existing manuscript. This
fact must perhaps suffice to exclude it from any accepted
text of the Greek Testament, yet this seems to me to be
exactly one of those cases in which the reading of the
existing MSS. is outweighed by other authorities and
other considerations.3 In the first place, the reading
is found in the Vulgate. Then, Socrates, the ecclesias
tical historian, tells us that Nestorius " was ignorant
1 See my Life of St. Paul, ii. 620. 2 See supra, p. 349.
3 To express the same thing technically, the diplomatic is outweighed
by the paradiplomatic evidence.

" SEVERING JESUS." 449
that in the ancient manuscripts of the Catholic Epistle of
John it had ' been written that, ' Every spirit which
severs Jesus is not from God.' ": He adds, that those
who wished to sever the Divinity of Jesus from His
Humanity, " took away this sense {ravTtrv rr)p Sidvotav e'/c
tcov irakauov dvruypdcbcov TrepieiXov) from the ancient manu
scripts." How Diisterdieck and others can here
maintain that Socrates does not mean to assert that
the reading " severs Jesus " was actually found in these
old manuscripts, is more than I can understand. There
is no other reason for mentioning the manuscripts at
all. Socrates clearly means to charge the Nestorians
with the falsification of the text. Irenaeus also, in
denying all claim of Christian orthodoxy to those who,
under pretence of gnosis, drew distinctions between
Jesus and Christ, between the Only Begotten and the
Saviour, refers to this passage and quotes it, "Et
omnis spiritus qui solvit Jesum non est ex Deo."2
Origen, again, on Matt. xxv. 14, quotes the verse in the
same way, and adds " we thus reserve for each substance
its own proper attributes."3 Again, Tertullian, in
referring to the first, second, and third verses of
this chapter, sums them up in the words " Joannes
Apostolus .... antichristos dicit processisse in
mundum (verse 1) . . . . negantes Christum in came
venisse (verse 2), et solventes Jesum " (verse 3).4
1 ijyvirio-ev 'in iv ry koBoXik^ 'Iicdvvov iyeypaitro iv ro"is iraKatois avriypd-
<pois 'in rtav irvevpa 'i Kiel rbv 'Vqaovv K-r.\. (Socrates, H. E. vii. 32).
2 Iren. c. Haer. iii. 8.
3 "Haec autem dicentes non solvimtts suscepti corporis hominem,
cum sit scriptum apud Joannem, ' Omnis Spiritus qui solvit Jesum non
est ex Deo,' sed unicuique substantiae proprietatem servamus " (Origen,
I.e.). * Tert. adv. Marc. v. 16, and adv. Psych., "quod Jesum Christum
solmant."
d d

450 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY.
Once more, St: Augustine has the expression, " He
severs Jesus, and denies that He has come in the
flesh." Against these testimonies — unmistakable
as they are — it is usual to urge the supposed silence
of Polycarp, who, in his letter to the Philippians,
says, " but every one who does not confess that Jesus
Christ is come in the flesh is Antichrist." Clearly,
however, this may be a general reference to the second
verse, and furnishes no proof that the reading " severs "
may not have occurred in this third verse even in
Polycarp's time. That he should not quote it is
sufficiently accounted for by its difficulty. There is
a compression in it which requires explanation. It
involved a profound and prescient allusion to heresies
which as yet were vague and undeveloped. It needed
for its full understanding the light which was to be
thrown upon it by subsequent history, when heresy
after heresy was occupied in " severing " the One Person,
or isolating one or other of the Two Natures. When
we consider the proofs that the reading did really exist
in early texts ; that there was every temptation to add
explanatory glosses to explain its difficulty ; that it was
easy for such an explanatory gloss as " does not confess "
to creep in from the previous text ; that the explanatory
gloss " Christ come in the flesh " has actually so crept in;
that the later addition is easily accounted for by the
need of explaining the words " who does not confess
Jesus," words which by themselves gave no adequate
meaning ; that, lastly, it is St. John's almost invariable
manner — a manner founded on the laws of the Hebrew
parallelism in which he had been trained — to introduce
into the second clause of his antitheses some weighty ad
ditional element of thought ; — when we remember, lastly,

KNOWING GOD. 451
what force there is in this old reading— what a flash of in
sight it involves — then we may be reasonably confident
that it represents what St. John really wrote. Nothing
but its difficulty led to its early obliteration from the
common texts. We have, then, this result ; — that the
disintegration of the divine and the human in the nature
of Jesus was the distinguishing characteristic of the
spirit of Antichrist. It is, he adds, the spirit which
speaks out of worldly inspiration, and meets with
worldly approval; but they who are of God have
prevailed over the Antichrists by holding fast — un
shaken, unseduced, unterrified — their good confession.
The power to make this good confession comes from
the Spirit of God ; and so also does the power to love our
brethren. " Beloved, let us love one another. For Love is from God, and
every one that loveth hath been born of God, and recogniseth God.
He that loveth not never recognised God, because God is love.1
Herein was the love of God manifested in us, that God hath sent His
Son, His only begotten, into the world, that we may live by Him.
Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us, and
sent His Son as a propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if thus God
loved us, we also ought to love one another. God no one has ever
seen. If we love one another God abideth in us, and His love has
been perfected in us " (iv. 7 — 12).
In the deep language of St. John, the recognition
of God — the learning to know Him (yiyvcoo-iceiv) — is a
much greater attainment than merely knowing about
Him, and having heard of Him. " The knowledge of
the Divine involves a spiritual likeness to the Divine,
and rests upon a possession of the Divine." And this
1 See Aug. de Trinitate, ix. 2. " God is Love," a sentence which is
the summary and most simple expression of what the Scripture — the
whole Scripture — teaches us throughout " (Hofmann).
d d 2

452 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY.
possession of the Divine emanates in love ; love must of
necessity radiate from its central light. The hatred
which wells from a fountain of inward darkness proves
at once that the knowledge and love of God does not
exist in the heart of him who hates. His hatred is the
more, not the less, guilty if it tries to hide itself under
a cloak of religiousness. For God is Love. If Light
be His metaphysical essence, Love is His ethical nature.
The unfathomable and inconceivable fulness of life
which is named Light is, from eternity to eter
nity, existent only under the form of Love. If,
then, God is Love, everything which He does must
have love for its sole aim, and must, therefore, be
a communication of Himself. Every one who knows
Him is born of Him, for " Him truly to know is life
eternal ; " and every one who is born of Him is a child
of Light, and reflects His Light in the form of love.
For He has sent His Son into the world to give us hfe ;
and this life manifests itself in us as love, which is thus
of its very nature Divine. The love we are enabled to
show is not earthly, not human, not animal — it is
Divine. It is an effluence of the Love of God poured
into our hearts, and streaming forth from them upon
others. St. John is not here speaking of the mere
slightly expanded egotism of family affections, or per
sonal likings ; he is speaking of Christian love, of the
love of man as man. That love is a flame from the
Divine flame. Christ rendered it possible when He died
as a propitiation for us ; it becomes actual when He is
Christ in us. When we possess the Light it will cer
tainly shine before men. No one has ever seen God ;
our fellowship with Him is not visible. But it is much
nearer, for it is spiritual. He is not only with us, He is

CONFIDENCE. 453
in us ; and, therefore, His Love, in all its perfection,
dwells within us, proving its existence by continuous
love to all our brethren, whether in the Church or in the
world. Then follows the summary of the last two sections : —
" Hereby we recognise that we abide in Him, and He in us,
because He hath given to us of His Spirit. And we have beheld,
and bear witness that the Father hath sent the Son as a Saviour of
the world. He who has confessed that Jesus is the Son of God, God
abideth in him, and he in God. And we have learnt to know and
have believed the love which God hath in us. God is Love, and he
who abideth in love abideth in God, and God in him" (iv. 13 — 16).
These verses state the conclusion to which the
Apostle has led us — namely, that neither confession of
Christ nor love to the brethren are possible without the
aid of the Holy Spirit of God. If, then, we have so
confessed Christ, and if we love the brethren, we have
received the Spirit of God, and, therefore, have fellow
ship with God, and are His sons. We abide in Him,
and He in us. It only remains to show that this gives
us the confidence (irapprjcria) of which he had spoken in
ii. 28, at the very beginning of the entire section.
"By this " (i.e. by all that I have now urged1) "love hath been
perfected with us,2 in order that we may have confidence in the day
of judgment, because as He (Christ) is, we also are in this world.
There is no fear in love, but perfect love casteth out fear, because
fear hath punishment, but he that feareth hath not been perfected in
love"3 (iv. 17, 18).
1 iv roirif, as in ii. 5, refers to what precedes, as in John iv. 37, xvi.
30. 2 " With us " — i.e., in the midst of the Church. " God magnified His
mercy with her (per' avrrjs) " (Luke i. 58).
3 « -^g received not the spirit of slavery again to fear, but ye received
the spirit of adoption " (Rom. viii. 15). There is, of course, a righteous

454 THE EARLY -DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY.
The best comment on the first of these verses will
be found in the discourses of our Lord in John xvii. 14 —
26. If we have the fellowship with God of which he
has spoken, then, though the Church is still in the world,
we have become like Christ, and may answer with bold
ness on the Judgment Day. For, just as we are con
demned already if, by not believing, we have rejected
the Light for the darkness — so, if we have believed, we
anticipate the sentence of acquittal. Fear is inseparable
from the self-condemnation which results from being
separated from God ; it is an anticipated punishment ;
it cannot co- exist with love ; where it exists, there the
love is not real love, for it is still imperfect and impure.

Thus, then, St. John has completed one great part of
his announced design. He has written in order that
Christians may have fellowship with God, and fellowship
with one another, and that so their joy may be full. It
will and must be full if they have perfect confidence ; if,
being at one with God — they in Him, and He in them —
they look forward with perfect confidence even to that
hour when they shall stand at the judgment-seat of God.
Here he might have closed this part of his subject ; but
in one last retrospect (iv. 19; v. 5) he shows that,
though hitherto he has treated of our relation to God
and our relation to our brethren in separate sections, the
two relations are, in reality, indissolubly one. And for
this purpose he gathers together all the leading concep
tions on which he has been dwelling — namely, " be-
fear (Ps. xix.), but it has in it no alarm or terror. The highest state of
all is to be without fear, and with love ; the lowest to be "' with fear, but
without love;" or, without either fear or love (see Bengel, ad loc).
" Timor est custos et paedagogus lcgis, donee veniat caritas " (Aug.).

EXHORTATION TO LOVE. 455
lieving on Christ " (v. 5) as the principle (positively) of
" keeping God's commandments" (v. 2), and (negatively)
of "conquering the world" (v. 4, 5), and shows that
they find their unity in " loving our brother." From
love (iv. 19 — 21), and from faith (v. 1 — 5), spring alike
our duty to God our Father, and our duty to our brother
man.
" Let us love, because He first loved us. If any one say I love
God, and hate his brother, he is a liar : for any one who loveth not
his brother whom he hath seen, in what way can he love God whom
he hath not seen 1 And this command we have from Him, that he
who loveth God, love also his brother" (iv. 19 — 21).
" Every one who believeth that Jesus is the Christ,1 has been
born of God, and every one who loveth Him. that begat loveth also
Him who hath been begotten of Him. Hereby we recognise that we
love the children of God, when we love God and do His command
ments. For this is the love of God, that we keep His command
ments. And His commandments are not heavy,2 because everything
that has been born of God conquers the world. And this is the
victory which conquered the world — our faith.3 WTio is he who con-
quereth the world, except he who believeth that Jesus is the Son of
God?" (v. 1—5).
In the first of these two sections he exhorts to
universal love, and shows that, since God is Invisible,
1 " In this part of his treatment," says Bengel, " the Apostle skilfully
so arranges his mention of Love, that Faith may be observed at the close,
as the prow and stern of the whole treatment."
2 " My yoke is easy, and my burden light " (Matt. xi. 30). " Da quod
jubes, et jube quod vis" (Aug.). " His commandments are not grievous
because love makes them light ; they are not grievous, because Christ
gives strength to bear them. Wings are no weight to the bird which
they lift up in the air until it is lost in the sky above us, and we see it no
more, and hear only its note of thanks. God's commands are no weight
to the soul, which, through His Spirit, He upbears to Himself ; nay, rather
the soul through them the more soars aloft, and loses itself in the Son of
God" (Pusey, "Parochial Sermons," vol. ii. 346).
3 Because by faith in Christ we become one with Him, and share in
His conquest over the world. " Be of good cheer, I have overcome the
world" (John xvi. 23).

456 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY.
there are no possible means by which we can manifest
our love to Him except by love to man, in whom God is
made visible for us. If we neglect these means, our
self-asserted love to God, since it fails to meet the test
of action, can be nothing but a lie. For though God is
Unseen, yet His Presence is represented to us by man ;
and, again, though God is Unseen, He has revealed to
us His will. And the will which He has revealed, the
obedience which He requires, is, that we love one
another. Not to do so is to violate His commandment,
and to insult His image ; and he who acts thus cannot
love Him.1
In the second clause his summary consists in telling
us that faith in Jesus as the Christ is a proof of our son-
ship, and, therefore, can only issue in love to all God's
other children. If we are loving God, and obeying
Him, we cannot fail to recognise in this very love and
obedience that they are being manifested by the spirit
of Christian brotherhood. It is faith which won the
victory over the world ; and faith is manifested in
love. Thus all the elements of thought are gathered
into one. Sonship, Faith, Obedience, conquest of the
world are all essentially blended into an organic unity ;
and Love is at once the result of their existence and the
proof that they exist.
SECTION IV.
ASSURANCE.
At this point, then, the Apostle concludes that great
main section of his Epistle, which consisted in setting
forth the Word as the Word of Life, in order that we
1 John xiv. 15, " If ye love me, keep my commandments " ; xiii. 34,
"A new commandment I give you, that ye love one another."

THE THREE WITNESSES. 457
may have fellowship with one another, and with the
Father and the Son, and that our joy may be full. But
this resulted from the historic revelation of which the
Apostles were appointed witnesses. Life springs from
the Word ; but the Church could only be taught respect
ing that Word — the Logos who became flesh — by the
testimony of the Apostles to His life on earth. Of that
testimony in general his readers were well aware. It
only remained to say something as to its cogency and
its results. This he does in v. 6 — 9 and 10 — 12.
The witnesses are these : —
"This is He who came by means of water and blood, Jesus
Christ;1 not by the water only, but by the water and the blood.
And the Spirit is that which witnesseth because the Spirit is the
truth. Because there are three who bear witness, the Spirit, and
the water, and the blood, and the three tend to the one thing (viz.,
the possession of Eternal Life in Jesus Christ) " 2 (v. 6 — 8).
I have, of course, omitted the words " on earth "
and the verse about the three heavenly witnesses.3 The
1 This (see infra, p. 463) can only refer primarily to historic facts in
the Life of Christ. " He came by Water — which is our laver (Xoirpov) —
and by Blood — which is our ransom (xirpov)."
2 Comp. John xvii. 23. "I in them, and Thou in me," 'Iva S>o-i rereKeiu-
pevoi eis ev (consummated into one) ; " brought to a final unity, in which
they attain their completeness " (Westcott) ; see xi. 52. But the meaning
here is not so certain. I have supposed the words eialv eis ev to mean,
"are for" — i.e., make for "one thing," viz., the truth in question, "in
unum consentiunt." But the " one thing " may be " that Jesus is the
Christ." Wordsworth renders it, " are joined into one substance," which
suits John xvii. 23, but hardly this passage. Reuss's " Ces trois sont
d 'accord," is a mere untenable paraphrase.
3 They were first translated in the Zurich Bible, 1529, and in Luther's
edition of 1534. First they were printed in smaller type, or in brackets,
but after 1596 without any distinction. In Greek they were first printed
in the Complutensian edition of 1514, and the 3rd edition of Erasmus.
In his editions of 1516 and 1518 he omitted them, but having pledged
himself to introduce them if found in a single Greek manuscript, he did

458 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY.
spuriousness of that verse is as absolutely demonstrable
as any critical conclusion can be. It is omitted in all
Greek manuscripts before the sixteenth century ; it was
unknown to any one of the Greek Fathers before the
thirteenth century ; it is not found (except by later inter
polation) in a single ancient version ; it does not occur
in any one of some fifty lectionaries which contain the
rest of the passage ; in the East it was never once used
in the Arian controversy. The only traces of it are in
some of the Latin Fathers, and even then in a manner
which seems to show that, though the verse may have
been a marginal annotation, it did not occur in the actual
text.1 Had it ever been in the original, its disappear
ance is simply inconceivable, for it contains a clearer
statement of the doctrine of the Trinity in Unity than
any other in the whole Bible. This, perhaps, is the
reason why it has been so vigorously defended. But
not to dwell on the gross immorality of defending a pas
sage manifestly spurious because of its doctrinal useful
ness, the passage is not in the least needed as a proof of
the doctrine of the Trinity, which, even without it, is
in this \erj paragraph distinctly indicated (vss. 6, 9).
The demonstrable spuriousness of the verse renders it,
so, though believing the MS. to be corrupt — " Ne cui sit ansa calum-
niandi." On their appearance in a lectionary in 1549, Bergenhagen said,
" Obsecro chalcographos et erudites viros ut illam additionem omittant
et restituant Graeca suae priori integritati et puritati propter veri-
tatem." 1 The first distinct quotation of the words is by Vigilius Thapsensis,
at the end of the fifth century. " If the fourth century knew that text,
let it come in, in God's name ; but if that age did not know it, then
Arianism in its height was beat down without the aid of that verse ; and
let the fact prove as it will, the doctrine is unshaken " (Bentley). It is
not impossible that some transcribers may have taken them from St.
Cyprian, and written them as a gloss on the margin of his MS. (Words
worth refers to Valcknaer, de Glossis in N. T.)

"BY WATER AND BLOOD." 459
then, unnecessary to show that it breaks and disfigures
the reasoning of the passage, because it belongs to a
totally different order of ideas. There can be little doubt
that it will disappear, as it ought to disappear, from
the text of any revised version of the English Bible.1
But, omitting the spurious words, what does the
passage mean ? It has a very deep and true meaning,
for which, if Renan had sought more patiently and more
reverently, he would not have called it an " Elchasaite
fantasticality." 2
He says that Jesus Christ came by means of water
and blood, and that the water and the blood are, with
the Spirit, three witnesses, which give one converging
testimony. As to what they testify, he himself tells us
— it is, that God gave us Eternal Life, and that this
life is in His Son. And such being the high truth to
which they bear witness, it is most important for us to
understand in what way their testimony is valid — nay,
in what sense it can be called a testimony at all. In
what sense, then, did Jesus, as Christ — that is, Jesus as
Son of God — come by water and blood ? And how do
this water and blood constitute two separate witnesses ?
It would be simply impossible for any one to answer
this question who had not the Gospel before him. The
notion of " Witness " is one that plays a very prominent
part in the writings of St. John. To him Christianity
is emphatically " the Truth," i.e. the eternal, all-com
prehensive Reality, which must pervade alike the
thoughts and the actions of men.3 But the Truth, so
1 This anticipation was written before the Revised Version was
published in June, 1881.
2 In Contemporary Review, Sept. 1877.
3 John i. 14. 17; viii. 3'Z, 40; xiv. 17; xv. 26; xvi. 13; xvii. 11, 17;
xviii. 37.

460 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY.
far as it rests on outward facts, must be brought home
to men's hearts by " witness." This, of course, was
necessary from the first ; but it was more than ever
necessary in the days when but few could bear the testi
mony first-hand, and when many had begun to cavil and
to doubt. Now, in the Gospel, St. John has adduced and
elaborated a sevenfold witness ; 1 1, that of the Father
(v. 31—37 ; viii. 18) ; 2, that of Christ Himself (viii. 14 ;
xviii. 37) ; 3, that of His works (v. 36 ; x. 25) ; 4, that
of Scripture (i. 45 ; v. 39, 40, 45) ; 5, that of John the
Baptist (i. 7 ; v. 33) ; 6, that of the Disciples (xv. 27 ;
xix. 35; xxi. 24); and, 7, that of the Spirit (xv: 26;
xvi. 14). These seven include every possible form of wit
ness. The first two are inward and Divine ; the next
two are outward and historical ; the fifth and sixth are
personal and experiential, depending on the capacity and
truthfulness of righteous men ; the last is continuous
and irrefragable.
Again, in this Epistle, though St. John alludes to
the witness of God (v. 9), and of Christ (v. 6), and to the
witness of the Apostles (i. 2 ; iv. 14), and to the witness
of the Spirit (v. 6), he does not allude to the four other
forms of witness, though he adds to them the witness of
absolute inward assurance (v. 10) to which they give
rise. And he lays special stress on the water and the
blood as the two separate and powerful testimonies of
the Christ to His own Divinity. Now, in what way did
He manifest Himself to be the Divine Saviour by water
and by blood ?
Clearly not by the Baptism of John, where the water
played a most subordinate part, seeing that it was not
1 See Westcott's St. John, pp. xiv. — xlvii.

"BY WATER AND BLOOD." 461
by the water, but by the Spirit descending as a dove,
that He was consecrated to His work.
Nor, again, by the Sacrament of Baptism, because in
no conceivable sense of the words could it be said that
" Christ came " by means of Christian baptism ; nor is
the institution of Baptism mentioned, though the sym
bolic significance of water — which, in that Sacrament,
reaches its highest point — is indeed alluded to. Water,
in the Gospel, is the symbol of new and saving life,1 as
it also is in Is. xii. 3. More generally and simply, it is
the symbol of purification. When our Lord speaks of
" being born of water, and of the Spirit," the two things
symbolised are seen in their unity — the water is the
sacramental instrument of spiritual regeneration into a
holy life.
Yet, since even thus the expression that Christ came
" by the medium of water " would be strange, and by no
means easy of interpretation, we must wait to see what
light may be thrown upon it by the following expression,
that Christ also came " by means of blood."
Here, again, it is obvious that the primary allusion
cannot be to the Lord's Supper. The word " came "
has, in St. John, a special and emphatic meaning. It
implies the manifestation of Christ as the Redeemer. It
cannot, then, be said, on any ordinary principle of inter
pretation, that Christ " came " by instituting the Lord's
Supper. And that St. John, at least, would not have
used a term so vague is clear, because there would be no
explanation of it in the Gospel. There he has not so
much as mentioned the institution of the Lord's Supper,
though — in a manner which we have already seen to be
characteristic of him — he has indicated its deepest
1 John iii. 5 ; iv. 10 ; vii. 38.

462 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY.
meaning. Further than this, in all direct allusions to
the Lord's Supper, the wine is never severed from the
bread, the blood from the flesh. Indeed, for the inter
pretation of what St. John means by " blood," we need
go no further than this Epistle,1 where he mentions the
blood of Christ as that which cleanses us from all sin.2
So far, then, we have seen that by " water " and
" blood " St. John means the symbols respectively of
purification and of redemption — of regeneration and of
atonement ; 3 and so far it may also be truly said that
there may be an indirect and secondary allusion to the
Sacraments, just as there is in the third and sixth chap
ters of the Gospel, because in the Sacraments the sym
bolism of the water and the blood finds its culminating
application. But even yet we have not seen how it can be said
that " Christ came by means of water and blood," as
the means through which, and " in the water and the
blood " as the element in which He came. And it is no
small corroboration of the suggestion that the Epistle
was meant to accompany the Gospel as a kind of prac
tical commentary upon it, that it would be impossible
to find any simple or adequate explanation unless we
had the Gospel in our hands. We find it there in a
fact recorded by St. John alone, but placed by him in
such marked prominence, and corroborated by such
solemn testimony, that the allusion in this passage to
1 John vi. This discourse, interpreted by the known rules of Hebrew
symbolism, is a most important protection against the superstitions with
which literalism, and materialism, and ecclesiasticism, have surrounded
the subject of the Lord's Supper. It shows, as plainly as language can
show, that by "eating His flesh, and drinking His blood," our Lord
meant the living appropriation of Himself by Faith.
2 i. 7. 3 ii. 2; iv. 10.

"BY WATER AND BLOOD." 463
the fact so emphasized cannot be mistaken. For in these
two passages alone, of all Scripture, are blood and water
placed together, and, as if to show yet farther the con
nexion between them, they are in both places prominently
associated with the notion of witness. The fact is,
that the soldier, coming to break the legs of the cru
cified, in order that their bodies might be removed
before the sabbath, finding that Christ was dead, did
not break His legs, " but one of the soldiers, with a
lancehead, gashed His side, and forthwith came there
out blood and water."1 Now if this were simply a
physical fact, arising from the death of Jesus by rupture
of the heart, and the natural separation of the blood
into placenta and serum, both of which flowed forth
when the pericardium was pierced,2 even then (though
in this case there can only have been, at most, a drop
or two of water, visible, perhaps, to St. John3 only, as he
stood close by the cross), the symbols would not lose
their divine significance. This circumstance in the
death of Christ — which, if natural, is still to the last
degree abnormal and unusual— would, even in that case,
most powerfully suggest the symbolism which St. John
attaches to it. It would have suggested to St. John
the thought that Christ came — that-is, manifested Him
self as the Divine Redeemer — by virtue of the regene
rating and atoning power of which the water and the
blood were symbolic.4 But it is doubtful whether the
1 John xix. 34.
2 See Dr. Stroud, The Physical Cause of the Death of Christ, and my
Life of Christ, ii. 424. In my view of this passage I entirely follow
Haupt. 3 It is natural to suppose that, after conducting the Yirgin to his
home, St. John returned.
4 "Why water? why blood? Water to cleanse, blood to redeem " —
Ambr. (De Sacr. v. 1).

464 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY.
alleged fact ever naturally occurs ; nor is it probable that
St. John had enough scientific knowledge to be aware
that if it occurs it must be a sign of death ; nor is it
his object to show that the death was real, since at
that early period — and, indeed, till long afterwards —
the reality of the death was never for a moment ques
tioned.1 In the Gospel, as here, the fact is appealed
to " that we may believe ;" it is adduced as a witness
that Jesus is the Son of God. Consequently, there as
well as here, we must suppose that in St. John's view
there was something supernatural in the circumstance ;
and that there was an obvious mystery — that is, the
obvious revelation of a truth previously unknown — in
that which it signified. The water and the blood are
witnesses, because, in the culminating incident of
Christ's redemptive work, their flowing from His side
set the seal to His manifestation as a Saviour, and be
cause they are the symbols of a living continuance of
that work in the world. The Spirit, and the Water,
and the Blood are three witnesses ; but it is more espe
cially and emphatically the Spirit that beareth witness,
because it is through the Spirit that the witness of the
Water and the Blood — that is, of Christ's regenerative
and atoning power — is brought home to the human
heart. Thus "the trinity of witnesses furnish one
testimony." Their threefold testimony is, as he proceeds
to tell us, the testimony of God —
" If we accept the witness of men, the witness of God is greater :
for this is the witness of God, because2 He hath witnessed concerning
His Son. He who believeth on the Son of God hath the witness in
1 It will be seen that subsequent study has a little modified the view
which I took of this circumstance in the Life of Christ, ii. 424.
2 8t< (A, B, Yulg., Copt., Armenian, &c), not r)v, is the true reading.

THE WITNESS. 465
Himself : any one who believeth not on God hath made Him a liar,
because he hath not believed in the witness which God hath witnessed
about His Son. And this is the witness that God gave to us Eternal
Life, and this life is in His Son. He who hath the Son hath the life ;
any one who hath not the Son of God hath not the life " (vs. 9 — 12).
In these verses the witness is further analysed. It
is not mere human witness. It is human in so far as
the facts alluded to are established by Apostolic -testi
mony ; but it is infinitely more. It is divine testimony,
and it is divine testimony echoed and confirmed by
inward witness. If it be objected that the Purifica
tion, and the Redemption, and the quickening Spirit,
are only in any case witnesses to the believer — that
they are subjective, not objective, the answer is two
fold. First that St. John is writing to believers, and
thinking of believers only; and, secondly, that both
the perfected witness of God (fiefiaprvpr/Ke) — perfected
in the death of Christ and the results which sprang
therefrom ; and the continuous witness of the Spirit —
continuous in every conversion and every sacrament —
are indeed primarily witnesses to believers, but, through
believers, they are witnesses to all the world. Believers
alone possessed Eternal Life, and it was their unanimous
witness that they received it solely through Jesus Christ
the Son of God. The echo of the divine witnesses in
the lives of Christians reverberated the divine testimony
in thousands of echoes through all the world. The
"Nos soli innocentes" of Tertullian,1 — We alone, amid
The repeated in is no doubt harsh and slightly ambiguous, for the second
in might mean " that." For these reasons, or perhaps by a mere slip, it
was altered into the easier %v. But the meaning is, " we ought to believe
(1) because this is God's witness ; and (2) because He has borne witness
concerning His Son."
1 Tert. Apol. 45.
e e

466 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY.
the deep and gross and universal corruption of a Pagan
world, live innocent and holy lives — was the one argu
ment which the heathen found it most impossible to
resist or overthrow. It was the threefold witness of the
Spirit, the Water, and the Blood, multiplied in the life
of every Christian, and it became ultimately strong
enough for the regeneration of the world. Thus was it
that the Word manifested Himself to be that which
St. John called Him— "the Word of Eternal Life."
SECTION V.
CONCLUSION.
The remaining verses of the Epistle have an interest
more speciaL St. John has developed his main thesis ; he
has spoken of the witness by which the truths on which
it rested were established. The rest is mainly recapitu
latory. It touches again on faith in Christ, on Eternal
Life, and on Confidence : and it applies that confidence
to the special topic of trust in the efficacy of prayer
(vs. 13 — 17). Then, with three repetitions of the words
" we know," he once more alludes to Sonship and Inno
cence, and severance from the world, and union with
God and with Christ, and Eternal Life. And he con
cludes with a most weighty and pregnant injunction.
But so rich was the mind of the Evangelist that, as we
shall see, he cannot even recapitulate without the intro
duction of new and most important thoughts.
" These things have I written to you that ye may know that ye
have Eternal Life — to you who believe on the name of the Son of
God. " And this is the confidence which we have towards Him, that, if
we ask anything according to His will, He heareth us. And if we
know that He heareth us, whatsoever we ask, we know that we have

INTERCESSORY PRAYER. 467
the petitions which we have asked from Him. If any man see his
brother sinning a sin which is not unto death, he shall ask and shall
give him life x — to those who are sinning a sin not unto death.
There is a sin unto death. For that I do not say that he should
make request. All unrighteousness is sin, and there is a sin nc
unto death" (vs. 13—17).
The first verse of this passage sums up once more
the aim of the Epistle — to give assurance to all true
believers that they have eternal life. Such a belief
makes us bold towards God in filial confidence,2 and
like beloved sons we can ask for what we need from our
Heavenly Father. But if our minds are filled, if our
lives are actuated by Brotherly love, — if our fellowship
with God be of necessity fellowship with one another
— our prayers will constantly be occupied with our
brethren; they will to a large extent be intercessory
prayers : —
<f For what are men better than sheep or goats,
That nourish a blind life within the brain,
If, knowing God, they lift not hands of prayer
Both for themselves and those that call them friend ;
For so the whole round world is every way
Bound by gold chains about the feet of God."
The importance attached to such prayers by the early
Christians, who, in passages like these, are not even
thinking of personal prayers for any earthly blessing,
1 He, the petitioner, shall give life to his brother. St. James exactly
in the same sense says that he who converts a brother, " shall save a soul
from death " (James v. 20). Nor does this in the least contradict the
truth that no man can save his brother, and make atonement unto God
for him. Man is but the instrument of this deliverance ; the real
Deliverer is God. (Comp. Jude 23, " And others save, pulling them out
of the fire.")
2 The ira^no-la here does not refer to the Day of Judgment, as in iv.
17, but to trustful prayer, as in iii. 21, 22 ; and as in Eph. iii. 12 ; Heb.
iv. 16. e e2

468 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY.
may be shown by the fact that there is an allusion to
exactly the same kind of intercessory prayer at the very
close of the Epistle of St. James. Many a prayer for
earthly blessings may be by no means in accordance
with the will of God ; and St. John finds it here neces
sary to touch on a prayer which is concerning spiritual
things, and which yet he cannot bid a Christian offer.
But as regards prayer in general, when a Christian
prays he knows that God listens,1 and he therefore has
what he asks for. He has it even if the prayer be
denied, for his prayer is not absolutely that something
which is contingent may happen, but that God will
give him the true and the best answer by making
the will of the petitioner to be one with His.2 Now
St. John assumes that the Christian will pray for
the salvation of his brethren, but he tells us that there
is one instance in which such a prayer will be unavail
ing. It is when we see our brethren sinning a sin
which is unto death. In other cases the Christian by
prayer shall give his brother life ; in the case of a sin
which is unto death St. John cannot bid any Christian
to offer up his filial, his familiar prayer.3
What, then, is this sin unto death ? Is it a single
act ? is it a settled condition ? Does it give any
countenance to the distinction between mortal and
venial sins? Is it the same thing as the blasphemy
against the Holy Ghost ? To enter fully into all these
1 aKoiei (John ix. 31 ; xi. 41, 42).
2 " We, ignorant of ourselves,
Beg often our own harms, which the wise Powers
Deny us for our good. So gain we profit
By losing of our prayers." — (Shakspere).
3 ipcorqo-ri. It is remarkable that this word should be used (see infra,
p. 471)

THE "SIN UNTO DEATH." 469
questions here would be to break the continuity of our
endeavour to understand the general scope of the
Epistle. I will therefore treat of them as briefly as
possible. 1. St. John cannot be thinking of any one definite
act of sin (as is indeed sufficiently proved by his use of
the present and not the aorist participle), because it
would be simply impossible for any man, apart from
inspired supernatural insight, to declare that any par
ticular sin was a sin unto death. Saul, under strong
temptation, broke a ceremonial commandment of the
Prophet Samuel ; David committed adultery and murder
under conditions which made those crimes peculiarly
heinous. Who would not have said a priori that the
sin of David was infinitely the more deadly of the
two ? Yet " the Spirit of the Lord departed from
Saul," whereas David was still able to pray that God
would give him a new heart and create a right spirit
within him — and his prayer was heard. Again, the
Pharisees attributed Christ's miracles to Beelzebub, and
in so doing we are told that they came perilously near,
if they did not actually commit, the sin against the
Holy Ghost. The Sadducees and the Romans, on the
other hand, crucified Him. Who would not have said
that the Sadducees were the worse offenders ? Yet
Christ prayed unconditionally for His murderers,
" Father, forgive them ; " and if He gave the uncon
ditional promise to His disciples that " whatsoever they
asked in His name, believing, they should receive,"
must we not regard it as certain that His own prayer
was heard ? Clearly, then, a sin becomes a sin unto
death not by its external characteristics, but by its
interior quality, and that interior quality is for the

470 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY.
most part undiscernible by the eye of man. The nature
of the consummating act, the nature of the continuous
state which constitutes the sin unto death, may be
completely disguised, while the offender still walks
among men in the odour of sanctity.
" So spake the false dissembler unperceived ;
For neither man nor angel can discern
Hypocrisy, the only evil that walks
Invisible, except to God alone,
By His permissive will, through Heaven and earth ;
And oft, though wisdom wake, suspicion sleeps
At wisdom's gate, and to simplicity
Resigns her charge, while goodness thinks no ill
Where no ill seems : which now for once beguiled
Uriel, though regent of the sun, and held
The sharpest sighted spirit of all in Heaven;
Who, to the fraudulent impostor foul,
In his uprightness, answer thus returned."
(Paradise Lost, iii. 681 — 694).
2. There is such a thing — as we have already seen
in the Epistle to the Hebrews — as absolute and desperate
apostasy, wherein a man cuts himself utterly loose from
all the means of grace, and effectually closes their
influence upon him. There is such a thing not only as
wilful, but even as willing sin. There can be such a
thing as a deliberate putting of evil for good and good
for evil, of bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter ; such a
thing as a man selling himself to do evil, and trampling
under foot the Spirit of God. This, in the view of the
Apostles, is connected with Antichrist ; the man who
does it is a "man of sin"; it is a deliberate abandon
ment of Christ for Satan, of light for darkness, of life for
death. When such a blaspheming apostasy occurred in
the very bosom of the Church, he who was aware that it

THE "SIN UNTO DEATH." 471
had occurred, could only feel that, so far as mere human
foresight, or human prayers on his behalf could go, such
a man would die in his sin.1
3. For such a man a Christian could hardly offer the
prayer which is inspired with the divine conviction that
it is heard ; for it is impossible, humanly speaking, to
renew such a man unto repentance.2 St. John feels
that he must refrain from exhorting Christians to offer
the highest kind of prayer3 — such prayers as Christ
offered, and which are scarcely ever predicated of any
other — for the most consummate form of sin.4
4.' Yet it does not seem that he forbids even such
prayers.5 He could not do so, for he gives no criterion
by which his readers could discern what was, and
what was not, a sin unto death. He only says, " when
you see your brother sinning a sin which you know
may be forgiven " — and they would learn from the
entire history of the Old Testament, as well as from
the Gospels, that this might be any sin however appa
rently heinous, were it even such a sin as that which
had stained the Church of Corinth, and against which
the very heathen had exclaimed — " you may pray
for it with the conviction that God will hear your
1 John viii. 21^24.
2 Heb. vi. 4 — 6, and <on that passage see Riehm, Lehrbegr. d. Hebraer-
briefs,ii.76S,fg. 3 ipwr4\<r$. The word airii (peto), is used of the petition of an inferior ;
ipara (rogo), of the more familiar entreaties of a friend. Hence our
Lord never uses ot™ of His own prayers ; and never uses ipur.H of the
prayers of the Disciples (John xiv. 16 ; xvi. 26 ; xvii. 9, 15, 20 ; which
show that St. John felt and observed the distinction). We may humbly
alreiv the foigiveness of sins not unto death ; we may not even ipmrav
those of sins unto death.
4 By a " sin unto death," St. John meant absolute and wilful apostasy
from, and abnegation of, Christ, ibo.th theoretically and practically.
6 " Ora si velis, sed sub dubio impetrandi " (Cakin).

472 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY.
prayer. But," he adds, " you must not expect that,
in every possible case, every prayer you offer for
the sin of a brother will be heard. For there is a
sin unto death. Not respecting that sin am I saying
that a Christian should make filial request." His
prayers must in such cases take a humbler form (alreiv) ;
they must inevitably be offered up with a less implicit
confidence that they will be heard ; they must rather
consist of a committal of the sinner to God's mercy than
an assured petition that that mercy will be extended in
the form which we desire.
5. We may perhaps derive some insight into the
meaning of the sin unto death from the language of
the Old Testament, with the meanings which the Jews
inferred from it, and from those passages in the New
Testament which seem to offer the nearest parallel.
a. As regards the Old Testament, we find the phrase
" a sin unto death " (LXX. hamartia thanatephoros) in
Num. xviii. 22,1 Lev. xxii. 9,2 but this does not greatly
help us, because there the reference merely is to sins
which were punished with death, whereas St. John is,
of course, referring to spiritual death, as in iii. 14.
$• Nor, again, is much light thrown on the passage
by the crimes to which excision — " cutting off from the
— people " is assigned as a penalty under the Mosaic
1 "Sin with high hand," Numb. xv. 30; Matt. xii. 31 (Schottgen,
ad loc). 2 renb nipn. The references are to the approach of non-Levitical
persons to the sanctuary, and neglect of Levitical purifications. The
Rabbis divided sins into Nivn1) nuion and nrvob xb nNBn, " a sin unto death,"
and " not unto death." In the Talmud we find " Five have no forgiveness
of sins — (1) He who keeps on sinning and repenting alternately; (2) he
who sins in a sinless age; (3) he who sins on purpose to repent; (4) he
who causeth the name of God to be blasphemed." The fifth is left
unexpressed (Avoth d' Rab. Nathan, 39).

"DELIVERING TO SATAN." 473
law. Whatever interpretation be attached to those
words — whether death by divine interposition, as the
Rabbis thought, or by the hand of the civil power, as
others think, or exile, or excommunication1 — it is quite
clear that the sins upon which this excision (careth) is
denounced are not unpardonable, not beyond the reach
of repentance and forgiveness.
7- Again, in no less than three places, Jeremiah is
forbidden to pray for the Jews (Jer. vii. 16; xi. 14;
xiv. 11); yet we certainly may not infer that the case
of all these Jews was eternally hopeless, or that though
they were put beyond the range of the prayers of men,
they were therefore for ever excluded from the tender
mercies of God.
S. In the New Testament we find St. Paul twice
using the expression " delivering to Satan." The
offenders to whom he applies it are the Corinthian
sensualist (1 Cor. v. 5), and Hymenaeus, and Alexander
(1 Tim. i. 20). Again, for Alexander the Copper
smith, in 2 Tim. iv. 14, St. Paul offers no prayer but
this, " The Lord will reward him according to his
works." Now it is a reasonable inference that while
a man was under the sentence of the Church's excom
munication — while he was thus dehberately cut off
by their act from the means of grace — he would
not have been included in their prayers ; not, at any
rate, in such prayers as they were wont to offer up
for one another. We see the character of the sins
of these men. The sins of Hymenaeus and Alexander
consisted in deliberately rejecting (d-Kcoo-dp^voi, "pushing
away from themselves,") faith and a good conscience,
and, in consequence, making shipwreck of their faith.
1 See Gesen. Thes. s. v. rro, p. 719.

474 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY.
St. Paul delivered them to Satan. Why? In order
that they might perish everlastingly? Far from it;
but for a merciful and hopeful purpose — "that they
may be trained not to blaspheme." A worse case
cannot be imagined than that of the Corinthian
offender. He was a Church-member, admitted into
full fellowship, even supported by public sanction,
and yet he was living in the open practice of a sin so
shameful that, as St. Paul says, " it is not so much
as named among the heathen." No conduct could
be more infamous, not only in itself, but also because
it caused the name of Christ to be blasphemed in
that vile heathen world. With intense and burning
indignation, St. Paul imagines himself present in
spirit in the assembly of the Christian Church, and
there solemnly, in the name of Christ, he " hands over
the offender to Satan." If any sin could be regarded
as a sin unto death, must not this have been such
a sin, seeing that it was shameless, continuous, against
light and knowledge, the sin of a Christian which
was not even tolerated by heathens? It was natural
that the victorious prayer of triumphant confidence
should be suspended in the case of such a man. Yet
what is St. Paul's object in handing him to Satan?
Not by any means his everlasting damnation, but
"the destruction of his carnal impulses, in order that
his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus."1
The man was handed to Satan by the now-aroused
conscience of the startled community. And what
was the result? In his next letter, a few months
afterwards, St. Paul is once more urging them to show
mercy towards this very offender. The " handing to
1 1 Cor. v. 5.

THE "SIN UNTO DEATH." 475
Satan " has done its work. The fleshly temptation has
been annihilated. The man has repented. St. Paul is
now afraid lest he should be injured by over severity.
He bids them restore and ratify their love towards
the now penitent transgressor, " lest by any means he
should be swallowed up by his superabundant sorrow."1
Similarly, in the case of Alexander, St. Paul's avoid
ance of a prayer for him is practically a prayer for him.
It is not equivalent — as is sometimes supposed — to a
sort of curse, " May God do him evil as he has done
to me ; " for such a prayer — though a David or a
Hebrew exile may have offered it in ignorance, in
days before the new commandment had been uttered —
in days when it had been said to them of old time,
"Thou shalt hate thine enemy" — could not have been
offered without sin by a Christian Apostle. St. Paul's
ejaculation is only another way of saying " It is not for
me to judge him ; I leave him in the hands of God."
From this examination then we may infer that St.
John's limitation belongs, like so many of his thoughts,
to the region of the ideal, the theoretical, the absolute ;
that it is only introduced as a passing, but very solemn,
reminder of the truth that there is a sin which is past
the possibility of being benefited by the Christian's
prayer ; a sin which can be only left to God, because
it is discernible by Him alone. Practically it is most
unlikely that we shall ever become cognisant of any sin
in a brother so heinous, so desperate, so darkly deliberate
in the apostate condition of heart which it implies, so
obviously beyond the possibility of repentance, that we
dare not pray for it. On the analogy of the language
used, both in the Old and New Testaments, we must
1 2 Cor. ii. 6—8.

476 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY.
infer that even though there be a sin unto death, it is
not beyond the mercy of Him who died " that He
might destroy him who hath the power of death, that
is the devil." To God we may leave it, if we find
that we are unable to offer up on its behalf the prayer
of faith. How little we are ever likely to realise the exis
tence of such a sin we may infer from this — that there
are only two or three in all the long generations of
Christian history about whose salvation the Church
has ever ventured to express an open doubt.
We are told in the Talmud that Beruriah, the wife
of the great Rabbi Meier, once heard him ardently
praying to God against some ignorant people — am
haratsim— who annoyed him. She came to him and
said, " Do you do this because it is written (in Ps.
civ. 3 5) ' Let the sinners be consumed ' ? But there it
is not written chotaim, ' sinners,' but chittaim, ' sins.'
Besides, the Psalm adds, ' And let the wicked be no
more,' that is to say, ' Let sins cease, and the wicked
will cease too.' Pray, therefore, on their behalf, that
they may be led to repentance, and these wicked will
be no more." This he therefore did, and they repented,
and ceased to vex him.1
The whole tenor of Scripture shows that, as a rule, we
must herein follow the example of the brilliant Rabbi.
But the New Testament teaches the lesson far more fully
than the Old. The Church herself teaches us to pray —
" That it may please Thee to have mercy upon all men,
We beseech Thee to hear us, Good Lord."
And accordingly St. John instantly leaves the subject of
the sin unto death to which he has made this unique and
1 Avodah Zarah, f. 18, 6.

CONCLUSION. 477
passing allusion, and adds " All unrighteousness is sin,
and there is a sin not unto death." Therefore you will
ever have the amplest scope for your intercessory sup
plications. Practically, that scope is the whole range
of unrighteousness, the whole range of human sin. If
the sin for which we are interceding is a sin which God
knows, and which we may fear to be unto death, St.
John does not forbid such prayers ; for he says, " I do
not say that you should " (ov \eya> Iva), not " I say that
you should not" (\eyco iva prj). Clearly it can never be
in our power to decide what sins are unto death. If
we unwittingly pray for such a sin, the Apostle can
give us no promise that the intercession is of any avail.
But if there be any sin for which we feel the genuine
impulse to pray, we may rest assured that that impulse
is an inspiration, and therefore that the prayer may be
offered, and will be heard.
Then the Epistle concludes with these words : —
" We know that every one who has been born of God sinneth
not ; but he who is born of God keepeth himself,1 and the wicked one
graspeth him not.2
" We know that we are of God, and the whole world lieth in the
wicked one.
" But we know that the Son of God is come, and hath given us
understanding, that we recognise Him who is true, and we are in
1 It is astonishing that Alford, following the Vulgate, should render
this " but he that hath been born of God, it (i.e. his divine birth) keepeth
him" ("sed generatio Dei conservat eum"). There is not the smallest
theological difiiculty involved in saying that "he keepeth himself" (see
on iii. 3). It means that effort is always necessary even for the saint —
oil (piffei eis dvapapr-qaiav irpoflalvei ((Ecumen.).
2 " The Evil one approaches him, as a fly approaches a lamp, but does
not injure, does not even touch him" , (Bengel). But Hwropai with a
genitive properly means "to lay hold of." Thus p-q pov 'dirrov is not
Noli me tangere, but " Cling not to me " (see my Life of Christ, ii.
434).

478 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY.
Him who is true, in His Son, Jesus Christ. This J is the true God,
and Life Eternal.2
"Little children, keep yourselves from idols" (ver. 18 — 21).
Here, as before, St. John is beholding all things in
their idea. Here, and now, neither are we absolutely
sinless, nor is the whole world absolutely absorbed in
sin. But in idea, in the ultimate truth of things, it
is so, and, in the final severance of things, it will be so.
Our knowledge that it is and will be so rests deep
among the bases of all Christian faith. We know it
because Christ has come, and has given us discern
ment to recognise Him who is the only Reality. We
are in Him, and in His Son ; He, God the Father, is
the Very God, and Eternal Life.3 For St. John has
already said in his Gospel (xvii. 3)," This is the Life
Eternal, that they should learn to know Thee, the
only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom Thou didst
send." The last verse is a most pregnant warning, intro
duced by the Apostle's most affectionate title of address
— Little children ! — " keep yourselves from idols." He
is not, of course, thinking of the gods of the heathen.
He is writing to Christians who had long abandoned
these, who had not the smallest temptation to aposta
tise to their worship. He is speaking of "subjective
idolism." He is putting them on their guard against
seductive notions of false prophets ; subtle suggestions
1 Namely, the Father, as seen in His Son.
2 Thus the Epistle ends as it began, with Eternal Life (Bengel).
Comp. John xvii. 3.
3 That the Father is referred to seems to be decided by John xvii. 3.
There is nothing abnormal in the change of subject. The Father is the
principal subject of the whole clause, though the Son is last named. For
a similar change of subject see verse 16, and ii. 22, and 2 John 7.

WHAT ARE "IDOLS"? 479
of Antichrists. He is warning them not against gross
idols of gold and jewels, representing deities of lust and
blood, but against false, fleeting, dangerous images —
idols of the forum, of the theatre, of the cave ; syste-
matising inferences of scholastic theology; theories of
self- vaunting orthodoxy; semblances under which we
represent God which in no wise resemble Him; ever-
widening deductions from Scripture grossly misinter
preted ; earthly passions and earthly desires which we
put in the place of Him ; ideas of Him which loom
upon us through the lurid mists of earthly fear and
earthly hatred; notions of Him which we make for
ourselves, which are not He ; conceptions of Him which
we have derived only from our party-organ or our
personal conceit. It is the most pregnant of all warn
ings against every form of unfaithfulness to God ;
against violations whether of the First or of the Second
Commandment ; against devotion to anything which is
not eternally and absolutely true; against perversions
due to religionism quite as much as against open rejec
tion of God ; against the tyrannous shibboleths . of
aggressive systems no less than against the worship ot
Belial and of Mammon. These are the idols which in
these days also are more perilous to faith and holiness
than any which the heathen worshipped. They are
dominant in sects and Churches and schools of thought.
They are the work, not of men's hands, but of their
imaginations. They have mouths, but do not utter
words of truth; they have eyes, but not such as can
gaze on the true light ; they have hands, but they do
not the deeds of righteousness ; feet have they, but only
such as hurry them into error. " They that make them
are like unto them ; and so are all such as put their

480 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY.
trust in them." Little children — all who love the Lord
Jesus Christ in sincerity and truth — all who know that
hatred is of the devil — all who have recognised that
" Love is the fulfilling of the law " — little children,
keep yourselves from idols !

CHAPTER XXXVI.
THE SECOND EPISTLE OF ST. JOHN.
"Amor non modo verus amor est, sed veritate evangelica, nititur."
Bengel.
Apart from the truths inculcated in such private
Epistles as the Second and Third of St. John and that
of St. Paul to Philemon, it is a happy Providence
which, in spite of their brevity, has preserved them for
us during so many hundred years. They show us what
grace and geniality reigned in Christian intercourse,
and how much there was in this sweet communion of
saints which compensated, even on earthly grounds, for
the loss of the world's selfish friendships and seductive
approbation. The love of the brethren more than counter
balanced the hatred of the enemies of Christ.
That these little letters are genuine there is good
reason to believe. They may be treated together, be
cause there can be no question that if either of them is
genuine both of them are, since they may well be
described as " twin-sisters."1 Their close resemblance
in style, phraseology, and tone of thought, shows that
they were written about the same time, and by the
same person. Further than this, they agree so closely
with the First Epistle that if they were written by
another the resemblance could only be accounted for by
dehberate imitation. But what possible ground could
1 Jer. Ep. 85.
//

482 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY.
there be for "forging" letters so slight as these, — letters
which, though full of value, do not add a single essential
thought to those which are already fully expressed and
elaborated in the other writings of St. John? Their
very unimportance for any doctrinal purpose, apart from
the Gospel, the Apocalypse, and the First Epistle, is one
of the proofs that no falsarius would have thought it
worth his while to palm them off upon the Church.
Containing no conception which is not found elsewhere,
they have little independent dogmatic value ; their chief
interest lies in the glimpse which they give us of
Christian epistolary intercourse in the earliest days.
The external evidence in their favour is even
stronger than we could have expected in the case of
compositions so short, so casual, and so unmarked by
special features. There is but one passage (vss. 10,
11) in the Second Epistle which can be quoted as
distinctive, and for that very reason it is the one to
which most frequent reference is made ; nor is there
anything which specifically characterises the Third
except the allusions to Diotrephes and Demetrius.
There is scarcely a single expression in either of
these letters with which previous writings have not
already made us familiar. Indeed, no less than eight
out of thirteen verses in the Second Epistle are also
to be found in the First. It is not, therefore, sur
prising that they only became known gradually to the
Church, and that they were regarded as comparatively
unimportant, being written " out of feelings of private
affection, though to the honour of the Catholic Church."1
1 The Muratorian Canon says of the Epistle to Philemon and the two
to Timothy, that they were written "pro affectu et dilectione in honorem
tamen ecclesiae catholicae."

EXTERNAL EVIDENCE. 483
Yet the first of them is twice quoted by Irenaaus,1 and
twice referred to by Clemens of Alexandria.2 Cyprian
mentions that the Epistle to the Elect Lady (of course
the passage about "heretics"), was quoted by one of
the bishops at the Council of Carthage. The testimony
of the Muratorian Canon is ambiguous, owing to the
corruption of the text, but it seems to tell in favour of
the Epistles.3 The Syrian Church, according to Cosmas
Indicopleustes, did not acknowledge these Epistles;
but, on the other hand, the Second Epistle is quoted by
Ephraem the Syrian. Eusebius and Origen seem to
have regarded the Epistles as genuine, though they rank
them among the disputed books of the canon — the anti-
legomena ; as also does Dionysius of Alexandria, the
pseudo-Chrysostom, and Theodore of Mopsuestia.4 St.
Jerome says that there were many who assigned them
to the authorship of " John the Presbyter ; " but he
seems himself to have accepted them.5 The notion
1 Iren. Haer. iii. 16, 8 ; i. 16, 3.
2 Strom ii. 15, and Fragm. p. 1011, ed. Potter (but comp. Euseb.
H. E. vi. 14) ; Tert. De Praescr. Haer. 33.
3 See Wieseler, Studien und Kritiken, 1847, p. 846, The true reading
and punctuation of the passage seems to be " Epistolae sane Judae et
superscript! Johannes duae (or duas=Suas, "a pair") in Catholica habentur."
The words which follow, " ut Sapientia ab amicis Salomonis in honorem
ipsius scripta," must then be referred to the Apocalypse, as though it was
written by friends of John, as Wisdom by friends of Solomon.
4 ov irdvres (paal yvqaias elvai ravras (Orig. ap. Euseb. H. E. vi. 25 ;
Dem. Evang. iii. 5) ; eXre rov EvayyeXiarov rvyxdvouffai, ctre Kal erepov
bpuvipov iKeivip (Euseb. iii. 25) ; <f>epopivas 'ladwou (Dionys. Alex. ap. Euseb.
vii. 25); avriXeyovrai Se al Konral Sio (Euseb. iii. 24). The pseudo-Chrysos-
tom exaggerates when he says (Hom. in Matt. xxi. 23), " the Fathers reject
the Second and Third Epistles from the Canon."
6 " Opinio quam a plerisque retulimus traditam " (Jer. De Virr.
Hlustr. 9; but BeeEp. 85). Cosmas Indicopleustes rejects all the Catholic
Epistles, but his remarks about them (De Mundo, vii. p. 292) are so full
of errors as to deserve no notice. Gregory of Nazianzus, in his Iambics,
says — " Of the Catholic Epistles, some say that we ought to receive
//*

484 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY.
that they were written by "John the Presbyter" was
revived by Erasmus and Grotius, and has since been
maintained by some modern scholars.1 But, as I have
shown in the Excursus, there never was such a person
as John the Presbyter in contradistinction from John
the Apostle. The two were one.2
We see, then, that, taken in connexion with the
internal evidence, there is sufficient ground for accepting
these little Epistles. There is no difficulty in the fact
that St. John should call himself " the Elder " and not
"the Apostle." The dispute as to who was and who
was not to be regarded as an Apostle had long since
died away. St. Paul himself does not always care to use
the title. He drops it, for instance, in addressing those
who, like the Philippians and Philemon, had never dis
puted his apostolic authority. The other Apostles were
all dead. The whole Church knew that St. John was the
last survivor of the Twelve. He may have called himself
" the Elder " out of humility ; just as Peter, in address
ing the elders, calls himself their " fellow-elder."3 Or he
may have used the designation because he belonged to
that class of aged Christians to whom, at this time, the
younger generation which was springing up around them
often appealed under the name of " the Elders.4 Or,
seven, and some only three — one of James, one of Peter, and one of
John — but some say the three (of John)."
1 Dodwell, Beck, Fritzsche, Ebrard, &c. The latter says (1) that all
resemblances to the. First Epistle vanish if 2 John 5 — 6, 7, and 3 John
11 are regarded as quotations ; and (2) that it is inconceivable that the
authority of an Apostle should have been disputed in such a way as is
described in 3 John 9.
2 See Excursus XIV., " John the Apostle and John the Pres
byter." 3 1 Pet. V. 1, o-vpirpeo-pvrepos ; Pllilem. 9, 6 wpeo-f}vT7)S.
" Euseb. H. E. iii. 39. The word occurs in Irenpeus and other
Johannine writers in quotations from the Fathers of that earlier age.

JOHN THE ELDER. 485
again, he may have called himself " the Elder " because
he desired to claim no higher authority than that which
accrued to him from his great age and long experience.1
And it must be observed that he calls himself " the
Elder," not " an Elder." There were hundreds of elders,
and, therefore, by calling himself "the Elder" in a
pre-eminent and peculiar sense, he at once marks his age
and authority. The phraseology, the style, the tone of
thought, the method of treatment in every sentence,
points directly to the authorship of the Apostle. The
few trivial deviations from his ordinary expressions only
show that we are not dealing with the work of an
elaborate imitator.2
1. There has always been great doubt as to the des
tination of the Second Epistle of St. John. Even yet
the question whether it was addressed to a lady or to a
Church cannot be regarded as settled. It begins with
the words, "the Elder unto the Elect Lady and her
children, whom I love in the truth ; and not only I, but
also all who have learnt to know the truth." 3 Certainly
J It is in exact accordance with his modest self -withdrawal. In the
Gospel he entirely suppresses his own name, as in the First Epistle. In
the Apocalypse he only calls himself " John." So far, therefore, the
absence of any lofty title, such as a forger might have given him, is a
mark of genuineness. There is nothing to support Ewald's notion that it
was due to the dangers of the time.
2 Such are ei t« for idv ns (2 John 10), SiSax^v tpepeiv, irepmareiv Kard,
Kotvuveiv, pei&r&pav, as pointed out by De Wette. To dwell on the
occurrence of a few phrases which he had no occasion to use elsewhere
(such as vyiaiveiv, <pi\07rpair,evaiv, (pKvapeTv, irpoirepireiv afciais rov ®eov), IS idle.
3 2 John 1 ; 'O irpeafivrepos iKXeKrrj Kvpia Kal rots reKvois avrris, oSs iyi>
ayaira iv aXijBeia, K.r.\. The possible renderings are (in order of their
possibility) — 1. To an elect lady.
2. To the elect lady.
3. To the elect Kyria.
4. To the lady Electa.

486 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY.
the prima facie impression created by the words would
be that they refer to a lady. In that case the omission
of the article seems to show that her name is not men
tioned. For if either Electa or Kyria had been her
name, then, just as we have " To Gaius, the beloved,"
in the address of the Third Epistle, we should naturally
have expected here, " To Electa, the lady," or " To
Kyria, the elect." Nor is this objection adequately
answered by saying that if Kyria was the lady's name,
the article might have been omitted by an unconscious
analogy of the use of the word Kurios, " the Lord,"
without an article.
a. That her name was Electa1 is asserted in the
Latin translation of the fragments of Clemens of Alex
andria, where he says, " The Second Epistle of John,
which was written to virgins, is very simple ; it was,
however, written to a Babylonian lady, by name Electa."
It may, however, be regarded as certain that this is a
mistake. For although Electa may have been a proper
name in the Christian Church, yet in that case the
meaning of verse 13 must be, " The children of thy
sister Electa greet thee ; " and it is highly improbable
that both sisters bore this very unusual name.
/?. But may it be addressed to a lady named Kyria ? 2
Kyria was a female name, for it is found in one of the
inscriptions recorded in Gruter ; 3 and from an expression
of Athanasius, "he is writing to Kyria and her chil
dren," it has been inferred that this was his view.
It is a possible view in itself; and since Kyria may
1 This is the view of Lyra, Grotius, Wetstein.
2 This is the view of Bengel, Heumann, Liicke, De Wette, and
Diisterdieck. 3 Gruter, Inscript. p. 1127, " Phenippus and his wife Kyria."

"THE ELECT LADY." 487
be the Greek equivalent of the Hebrew name Martha,
the lady may have been a Jewess. This view also gets
over the difficulty of a title so lofty as Kyria, which, ac
cording to Bengel, was rarely used even to Queens.1
But the objection still remains that we should then
have expected, not " To elect Kyria," but " To Kyria
the elect; " just as in the next Epistle we do not find
" To beloved Gaius," but " To Gaius, the beloved."
7- But if we must render the words, " To an elect
Lady," are we to understand by them a person or a
Church ?
In either case, the person or the Church is left un
named. The modern view seems to incline in favour of
a Church.2 All sorts of conjectures have been made
as to the Church intended, and the most far-fetched and
arbitrary reasons have been assigned for supposing that
it was addressed to the Church of Corinth,3 or of Phila
delphia,4 or of Jerusalem, 6 or of Patmos, or of Ephesus,
or of Babylon.6
2. The latter is the view of Bishop Wordsworth.
Starting from the ambiguous expression of 1 Pet.
v. 13, " the co-elect (r) o-we/eXevT^) with you that is at
Babylon saluteth you," and interpreting it to mean
1 See, however, the following note.
2 So Hofmann, Hilgenfeld, Huther, Ewald, Wordsworth. On the
other hand, Bengel, Fritzsche, De Wette, Lange, Heumann, Alford,
Diisterdieck, understand a person to be addressed. Epictetus says that
" women from the age of fourteen are called ' ladies ' (Kvpiai) by men."
3 Serrarius. 4 Whiston.
6 Whitby and Augusti.
6 The notion of St. Jerome (Ep. xi. ad Ageruchiam) that it was
addressed to the Church in general (though adopted by Hilgenfeld), may
be at once dismissed. Quoting Cant. vi. 9 as referring to the Church, he
adds, " to which John writes his Epistle, ' St. John to an Elect Lady.' "
The opinion that the Lady is a Church is mentioned by CEcumenius,
Theophylact, and Cassiodorus, as well as by an ancient scholion.

488 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY.
the Church in Babylon, he says that it is a greeting of
the Babylonian Church sent through St. Peter to the
Churches of Asia ; and he supposes that the verse, " the
children of thy sister, the elect one, greet thee," is a
return salutation of the Churches of Asia, through St.
John, to the Church of Babylon. He thinks that this is
rendered more probable by the close relations between
St. Peter and St. John ; and he finds a confirmation of
it in the remark of Clemens of Alexandria, that the letter
is addressed " to a Babylonian lady," and in the curious
incidental expression in the title of St. Augustine's trac
tate on the Epistle, " Tractatus in Epistolam Johannis
ad Parihos." At this time, he says, Babylon was under
the rule of the Parthians, and, therefore, a letter to
the Babylonian Church might have been called " a letter
to the Parthians." Further, when Clemens says that
the letter was written " to Virgins," he thinks that the
Greek word "parthenous" was only a corruption of
" Parthous." Lastly, he adds that "there would be a
peculiar interest and beauty in such an address as this
from St. John to a Church at Babylon, which, in the
days of her heathen pride, had been called ' the Lady of
Kingdoms,' and had said, ' I shall be a Lady for ever.' " 1
Babylon had fallen; but St. Peter had preached to
Parthians, among others, on the Day of Pentecost,2 and
so Babylon had arisen again in Christ, and become an
elect Lady in Him, and could be addressed as such by
the Apostolic brother of St. Peter, the beloved disciple
St. John. (i.) I must confess that to me the whole theory looks
like an inverted pyramid of inference tottering about
1 Is. xlvii. 5, 7 ; rraa gevereth, rendered Kvpla by the LXX., as in Gen.
xvi. 4, &c. 2 Acts ii. 9.

"TO THE PARTHIANS." 489
upon its extremely narrow apex. The phrase of St.
Peter is of most uncertain interpretation. It is not
certain that by "the Co-elect" he means a Church.
It is still more uncertain that by Babylon he means
Babylon and not Rome. We may say of the very basis
on which the theory rests, —
"Nil agit exemplum quod litem lite resolvit."
(ii.) Then the theory seems to imply the supposi
tion that St. John had at some time left Asia and
travelled as far as Babylon — a journey intrinsically
improbable, and which has left no trace in any tradi
tion of the Apostle. In ecclesiastical legends it is St.
Thomas and not St. John who is said to have been the
Apostle of the Parthians.
(iii.) Next, the vague tradition that the Epistle
was addressed to the Parthians is devoid of even the
slightest value, for it is more than doubtful whether the
words " ad Parthos " ever stood in the original editions
of St. Augustine's Tractates ,- and when Bede says that
it was the opinion of St. Athanasius that the First
Epistle was addressed " to the Parthians,"1 he is almost
certainly mistaken. No such statement is found in
any Greek Father. It is only found, according to
Griesbach, in some late and unimportant Latin Fathers,
and in the passage of St. Augustine.2 Now nothing
can be more improbable than that the First Epistle
was addressed to the Parthians,3 and we should require
1 Bede, Prol. ad Ep. Cathol. (Cave, Hist. Litt. i. 289).
2 Aug. Quaest. Evang. ii. 39. " Secundum sententiam hanc etiam
illud est quod dictum est a Joanne (1 John iii. 2) in epistola ad Parthos,"
He is followed by the Spaniard, Idacius Clarus. Upbs ndpBovs is found in
superscriptions of the Second Epistle in some late cursive manuscripts.
3 Grotius, Hammond, and others accepted this view; and Paulus
pressed it into his theories about the Epistle.

490 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY.
much stronger evidence than this isolated allusion of
St. Augustine to establish the fact. We are driven
to suppose that " ad Parthos " must be a misreading.
Serrarius conjectures that it should be " ad Pathmios,"
to the people of Patmos, but these and many other
conjectural emendations have nothing to support them.1
On the other hand, the word Parthos may have arisen
from some confusion with Parthenous,2 and not, as
Bishop Wordsworth supposes, the latter from the
former. The sweet and lofty simplicity of the First
Epistle may have led someone to suggest that it was
written to Virgins — using the word in the sense in
which it occurs in the Rev. xiv. 4 — namely, to youthful
and uncorrupted Christians. And this suggestion may
have derived fresh force from the ancient belief that
St. John himself was in this sense " a Virgin " (par-
thenos),3 a title which is actually given to him in some
superscriptions of the Apocalypse, and elsewhere.4
3. But if Bishop Wordsworth's suggestion comes to
nothing, what are we to say of the theories of German
critics ? The remarks of Baur respecting this Epistle
exhibit, almost in their culmination, the arbitrary
1 Semler guesses " adapertius ; " Paulus "ad Pantas;" and Weg-
scheider irpbs robs Sieovappevovs, ad Sparsos ! (see Tholuck, Introd. p.
32, et seq.).
2 So Whiston conjectures. For Clemens Alexandrinus, in Ms Adum-
brationes, says (in a very confused passage) that the Second Epistle was
written " to Virgins," which is manifestly erroneous. His words are —
" Secunda Joannis epistola quae ad Virgines scripta est, simplicissima est ; "
then after saying that it is written to » certain Babylonian lady named
Electa, he adds, " it signifies, however, the election of the Holy Church."
3 Gieseler, Kirchengesch. i. p. 139.
4 Tert. de Monogam. c. 17; Ps.-Ignat. ad Philad. 4; Clem. Alex.
Orat. de Maria. Virg. p. 380. In a cursive manuscript of the twelfth
century (30) the superscription of the Apocalypse runs thus — " Of the
holy, most glorious apostle and evangelist, the Virgin, the beloved, the
bosoni Apostle (imar-qBiov) John, the Theologian."

YAGUE THEORIES. 491
recklessness of conjecture which has defaced the
usefulness and obliterated the existence of the school
of Tubingen. His combinations are briefly these : —
Electa is a Church ; she is called a Babylonian by
St. Clemens to indicate the Church of Rome ; the
Epistle expresses the views of the Montanists ; Diotre-
phes, the leader of tbe anti-Montanist section of the
Church, had refused to hold communion with them;
by Diotrephes is meant, not "Victor," as Schwegler
(by a demonstrable anachronism1) supposed, but perhaps
Anicetus, Soter, or Eleutheros, The 'writer is so strong
a partisan as to describe the faction of Diotrephes as
" heathens "2 (3 John, 7) !
4. Not much more reasonable is the notion of Hil
genfeld that the Second Epistle was sent to a Church
as a letter of excommunication against Gnostic teachers,
and the Third as a letter of commendation (i-rricrToXr)
owraTMw)) to Gaius, issued to vindicate against Judaising
Christians the right of St. John as well as of
St. James to furnish such authorisations to travelling
missionaries. 5. Nor less arbitrary is the suggestion of Ewald that
both the Second and Third Epistles were addressed
to one Church ; that it must have been an important
Church, because three of its Elders — Diotrephes,
Demetrius, and Gaius — are mentioned; that the name
of the Church is omitted because it would have been
dangerous to mention it ; and that the Third Epistle
was addressed to Gaius from a misgiving that Diotre
phes might suppress the first letter, and prevent it from
being publicly read in the Church.
1 For this Epistle is quoted long before Victor's day by Irenasus and
Clemens of Alexandria. 2 Baur, Montanismus.

492 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY.
Such theories are not worth refuting. They might
be constructed in any numbers. They are mere ropes
of sand, which fall to pieces at a touch. It can only be
regarded as a misfortune that such multitudes of them
should cumber, with their useless accumulations, the
whole field of exegesis. They do but block up the way
to any real advance in our knowledge of the history
of the early Church. I would say of them what Baur
says of certain theories of apologists : " It is not worth
while to discuss vague hypotheses which have no support
in history and no cohesion in themselves."1
While I do not deny that the Elect Lady addressed
may have been a Church, it does not seem to me pro
bable. To say that the Church is symbolised as a
woman and a bride in the Apocalypse, is to adduce
an argument which bears very little on the matter.2
The question is not whether a Church might not be
allegorically called " a Lady," which every one admits,
but whether it is natural that, in a short and simple
letter, St. John should, from first to last, keep up, in
this one particular, an elaborate allegory, and, unlike the
other Apostles, address a Church as if he were writing
to a lady. If the letter were playful or mystic, such
a supposition might be tolerable. As it is, unless
there be some unknown factors in the history of
the circumstances which called forth the letter, it
would seem to savour of a euphuism unworthy of the
great Apostle, and alien from Apostolic simplicity. So
far as I am aware, there is not another instance in

1 Baur, Ch. Hist. i. 131.
2 Rev. xii. 1 — 17 ; xxi. 9. To say that 'EK\e/cri) means " a Church " in
Cant. vi. 8, rls airi\ iKheKr^i iis 6 5)Xioj, is to pass off exegetical fancies as
settled truths.

CHRISTIAN WOMEN. 493
Christian literature, whether Greek or Latin, whether
in apostolic or post-apostolic times, in which a Church
is called Kyria, or addressed throughout as a lady.
6. I take the letter, then, in its natural sense, as
having been addressed to a Christian lady and her
children. Some of those children the Apostle
seems to have met in one of his visits of supervision
to the Churches of Asia. They may have been on
a visit to some of their cousins in a neighbouring
city, and St. John — always attracted by sympathy
towards the young— finding that they were living
as faithful Christian lives, writes news of them to their
mother, whom he held in high esteem ; and in writing
seizes the opportunity to add some words of Christian
teaching. That St. John should write to a Christian
lady has in it nothing extraordinary. Women like
Priscilla, Lydia, and Phoebe played no small part in
the early spread of Christian truth. They represented
that ennoblement of Christian womanhood which
was one of the great results of Christian preaching;
and they inspired the Apostles with a warm senti
ment of affection and esteem.1 That the lady should
be left unnamed is in accordance with the feelings
of the day. It was against the common feelings
both of Jews and Greeks that virtuous matrons should
be thrust into needless prominence. St. Paul indeed
names them when occasion demands. In writing to
the Philippians, among whom women occupied a more
recognised position than among other Roman com
munities, he makes a personal appeal to the two ladies
Euodias and Syntyche;2 and he sends salutations to
1 See Acts xvi. 14 ; xviii. 2, &c. ; and St. Paul's salutation to nine
Christian women, in Rom. xvi. 2 Phil. iv. 2.

494 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY.
and from women among others. Yet he never wrote
a letter, so far as we know, even to Lydia or to
Priscilla, to whom he was so much indebted ; and if
he had written such a letter — intended (as this letter
of St. John's may well have been) for perusal by all
the members of the Church, and even meant to be
read aloud to them in their congregation — it is pro
bable that he would have left the name unmentioned.
Much more would this have been the natural feeling
of St. John, who had lived most of his life in
Jerusalem. He would have been less inclined to
infringe on the seclusion which was the ordinary
position of Eastern womanhood, because his experiences
had been less cosmopolitan than those of his brother
Apostles. Who the Elect Lady was we do not know,
and never shall know. To suggest, as some have
done, that she may have been Martha the sister of
Lazarus,1 or the Mother of our Lord,2 is to be guilty
of the idle and reprehensible practice of suggesting
theories which rest on the air, and are not even
worth the trouble of a serious refutation.
Nor is there anything to indicate where these letters
were written. They may have been sent from either
Patmos or Ephesus. Eusebius says that they were
written at Ephesus before a tour of pastoral visitation.
The analysis of the letter is extremely simple.
After a kindly greeting (1 — 3), he tell this Christian
matron of his joy in finding that some of her children
(whom he had chanced to encounter) were walking
in the truth (4). He enforces on her the commandment
1 Carpzov. Martha=Kupfe.
2 Knauer, Stud. u. Krit. 1833.
3 Euseb. H. E. iii. 23.

THE SECOND EPISTLE. 495
of Christian love, which is both new and old (5, 6) ;
warns her against dangerous antichristian teachers
(7 — 9), to whose errors she is not to lend the sanction
of her hospitality or countenance (10, 11), and
concludes with the expression of a hope that he
may soon visit her and her family, and with a greeting
from the children of her Christian sister (12, 13).
The keynotes of the Epistle, as indicated by its most
prominent words, are Truth and Love. Truth occurs
five times and Love four times in these few verses.
" The Elder to the elect Lady 1 and her children whom I love in
Truth,2 and not I alone, but also all who have learnt to know the
Truth,3 because of the Truth which abideth in us, and shall be with
us for ever.4 Grace, mercy, peace,5 shall be with us6 from God our
Father, and from Jesus Christ the Son of the Father, in Truth and
Love. " I rejoice7 greatly because I have found some of thy children8
walking in Truth, even as we received commandment from the
Father. 1 Comp. eK\eKro7s TrapeiriS-qpois, 1 Pet. 1. 1.
2 Truth is here used in the Johannine sense — the realm of eternal
reality. "Whom I love in the truth of the Gospel."
3 It has been thought that this expression is too wide to apply to a
single person, but it merely means that all Christians who know the
character of the lady and her children love her.
4 Comp. John xiv. 16, 17.
6 " Yotum cum affirmatione " (Bengel). A wish, with the assurance
that it will be fulfilled.
6 For the full meaning of this triple greeting see my Life and Work of
St. Paul, ii. 516. " Grace " refers to man's sin ; " mercy " to his misery ;
" peace " is the total result to both ; and all three work in the region of
truth and love. " Gratia tollit culpam misericordia miseriam, pax dicit
permansionem in gratia ex misericordia " (Bengel).
7 Lit. " I rejoiced," but it is the epistolary aorist. " Avete, filii et
filiae, in nomine Domini nostri Christi in pace ; supra modum exhilaror
beatis et praeclaris spiritibus vestris " (Ps.-Barnab. Ep. i).
8 \iav, 3 John 3. This does not of course necessarily imply that
some were not so walking. Probably St. John had only met some of
them.

496 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY.
" And now1 I entreat thee, Lady, not as writing to thee a new
commandment, but that which we had from the beginning,2 that we
love one another. And this is love, that we should walk according to
His commandments.3 This is the commandment, even as ye heard
from the beginning, that ye should walk in it. Because many
deceivers went forth4 into the world, such as confess not Jesus
Christ coming in the flesh.6 This is the deceiver and the Antichrist.
Take heed to yourselves that ye lose not what we have wrought,8 but
that ye receive a full reward. Every one who goeth forward7 and
abideth not in the teaching of the Christ, hath not God. He who
abideth in the teaching, he hath both the Father and the Son. If
any one cometh to you,8 and bringeth not this doctrine, receive him
not into your house, and bid him not ' good speed.' For he who
biddeth him ' good speed ' partakes in his evil deeds.9
" Having many things to write to you, I prefer10 not to do so by
1 The words mark a transition, as in 1 John ii. 28, ipwra. See on 1
John v. 16. " Blandior quaedam admonendi ratio " (Schlichting).
2 See on 1 John ii. 7, 8 ; iii. 11.
3 The same identification of love with obedience which we have found
in 1 John ii. 6 — 10, &c. Praxis, not gnosis, is the true test of faithful
discipleship. 4 itfxBov, n, A, B, Syriac, Vulgate, Irenseus. Not " came in," the
reading adopted by our E. Y. Comp. 1 John ii. 18, 22 ; iv. 1 — 3.
5 The present participle is used to make the expression as general as
possible. They denied the possibility of the Incarnation. See 1 John ii
18, 22 ; iv. 2 ; v. 6. They seem to have been Docetic Gnostics.
6 The readings vary greatly between the first and second persons.
Matt. ix. 37 ; 2 Tim. ii. 15 ; John vi. 29. The loss which takes off
from the full reward is explained, in the next verse, to be separation
from God.
7 The true reading is not " who transgresseth " (vapaPaivav), but
¦n-podyav, n, A, B, Yulg. Not, as some commentators here hint, as though
all progress in Christian thought was a crime, and incapacity to
advance beyond stereotyped prejudice a virtue, but referring either (1)
to advance in wrong directions, or (2) to Christian teachers who go before
their flocks (John x. 4 ; Mark x. 32).
8 The indicative following et, implies that such will come. He is not
of course thinking of heathens, but of Christian false prophets.
9 See below. The meaning of course is that we are not to give to
fundamental heresy an appearance of approval by pronouncing the deeper
fraternal greeting. In some versions are here interpolated the words,
" Ecce praedixi vobis ne in diem domini condemnemini."
10 Epistolary aorist.

THE SECOND EPISTLE. 497
paper and ink,1 but I hope to come to you, 2 and to speak mouth to
mouthy that your joy may be fulfilled.4 The children of thy elect
sister greet thee."6
It will be seen, then, at a glance, that Truth and
Love are keynotes of the Epistle, and that the con
ceptions which prevail throughout it are those with
which we have been made familiar by the previous
Epistle. And yet one passage of the Epistle has again
and again been belauded, and is again and again adduced
as a stronghold of intolerance, an excuse for pitiless
hostility against all who differ from ourselves.6 There
is something distressing in the swift instinct with which
an unchristian egotism has first assumed its own infalli
bility on subjects which are often no part of Christian
faith, and then has sped as on vulture's wings to
this passage as a consecration of the feelings with
which the odium theologicum disgraces and ruins the
Divinest interests of the cause of Christ. It must be
said — though I say it with the deepest sorrow— that
1 If the letter was written at Patmos, these materials might not readily
be procurable. The word x^PTvs, means Egyptian papyrus. For the
manner in which it was prepared, see Pliny, H. N. xiii. 21. The ink was
made of soot and water, mixed with gum.
2 yeveo-Bai irpbs ipas. The same Greek construction as in John vi. 25.
3 A Hebraism, nB-fy nB (Jer. xxxii. 4 ; 3 John 14).
4 1 John i. 4.
6 " Suavissima communitas ! comitas Apostoli minorum verbis salutem
nunciantis " (Bengel). It is impossible to say why the sister herself
sends no greetings. We can hardly suppose that she was dead, because
she is called " thy elect sister." But we may suggest a score of hypotheses
which would suffice to explain the circumstance. Bengel says, "Hos
liberos (ver. 4) in domo materterae eorum invenerat."
6 Thus on the strength of this text John a Lasco, having been expelled
from England during the reign of Mary in 1553, was, with his congrega
tion, refused admission into Denmark (Salig. Hist. Conf. Aug. ii. 1090 ;
quoted by Braune ad loc. in Lange's Bibelwerk). Thus by the manipula
tion of a few phrases Hate is made to wear the guise of Love, and Fury
to pose as Christian meekness.
9 9

498 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY.
the cold exclusiveness of the Pharisee, the bitter
ignorance of the self-styled theologian, the usurped in
fallibility of the half-educated religionist, have ever
been the curse of Christianity. They have imposed
" the senses of men upon the words of God, the special
senses of men on the general words of God," and have
tried to enforce them on all men's consciences with all
kinds of burnings and anathemas, under equal threats
of death and damnation.1 And thus they have in
curred the terrible responsibility of presenting religion
to mankind in a false and repellent guise. Is theo
logical hatred still to be a proverb for the world's just
contempt? Is such hatred — hatred in its bitterest
and most ruthless form — to be regarded as the legiti
mate and normal outcome of the religion of love ? Is
the spirit of peace never to be brought to bear on
religious opinions ? Are such questions always to
excite the most intense animosities and the most terrible
divisions ? Is the Diotrephes of each little religious
clique to be the ideal of a Christian character? Is it
in religious discussions alone that impartiality is to be
set down as weakness, and courtesy as treason ? Is it
among those only who pride themselves on being " or
thodox " that there is to be the completest absence of
humility and of justice ? Is the world to be for ever
confirmed in its opinion that theological partisans are
less truthful, less candid, less high-minded, less honour
able even than the partisans of political and social
causes who make no profession as to the duty of love ?
Are the so-called " religious " champions to be for ever,
as they now are, in many instances, the most unscrupu
lously bitter and the most conspicuously unfair ? Alas !
1 Chillingworth.

RELIGIOUS HATRED. 499
they might be so with far less danger to the cause of
religion if they would forego the luxury of " quoting
Scripture for their purpose." The harm which has thus
been done is incredible : —
" Crime was ne'er so black
As ghostly cheer and pious thanks to lack.
Satan is modest. At Heaven's door he lays
His evil offspring, and in Scriptural phrase
' And saintly posture gives to God the praise
And honour of his monstrous progeny."
If this passage of St. John had indeed authorised
such errors and excesses — if it had indeed been a proof,
as has been said, of " the deplorable growth of dogmatic
intolerance " x — it would have been hard to separate it
from the old spirit of rigorism and passion which led
the Apostle, in his most undeveloped days, to incur his
Lord's rebuke, by proclaiming his jealousy of those who
worked on different lines from his own, and by wishing
to call down fire to consume the rude villagers of Samaria.
It would have required some ingenuity not to see in it
the same sort of impatient and unworthy intolerance
which once marked his impetuous outbursts, but which
is (I trust falsely) attributed to him in the silly story of
Cerinthus and the bath. In that case also the spirit of
his advice would have been widely different from the
spirit which actuated the merciful tolerance of the Lord
to Heathens, to Samaritans, to Sadducees, and even to
Pharisees. It would have been in direct antagonism
to our Lord's command to the Twelve to salute with
their blessing every house to which they came, because
1 So Renan, in his article on the Fourth Gospel in the Contemp. Bev.,
Sept. 1877.
99*

500 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY.
if it were not worthy their peace would return to them
again.1 It would have been alien from many of the
noblest lessons of the New Testament. It would
practically have excluded from the bosom of Chris
tianity, and of Christianity alone, the highest workings
of the universal law of love. It would have been in
glaring disaccord with the gentleness and moderation
which is now shown, even towards absolute unbelievers,
by the wisest, gentlest, and most Christlike of God's
saints. If it really bore the sense which has been
assigned to it, it would be a grave reason for sharing
the ancient doubts respecting the genuineness of the
little letter in which it occurs, and for coming to the
conclusion that, while its general sentiments were bor
rowed from the authentic works of St. John, they had
only been thrown together for the purpose of intro
ducing, under the sanction of his name, a precept of
unchristian harshness and religious intolerance.
But there is too much reason to fear that to the
end of time the conceit of orthodoxism will claim in-
1 It is said that Polycarp was once accosted by Marcion, and asked by
him, " Dost thou not know me ? " " Yes," he answered, " I know thee,
the firstborn of Satan" (Iren. c. Haer. iii. 3; Euseb. H. E. iv. 14). "So
cautious," adds IrenBeus, " were the Apostles and their followers to have no
communication — no, not so much as in discourse — with those who adulte
rated the truth." The story, as might have been expected, is told by
other ecclesiastical writers with intense gusto, down to modern days.
But even if it be true, it by no means follows that the example was
estimable. St. Polycarp was just as liable to sin and error as other
saints have been. We have no right to treat any man with rude dis
courtesy. If to be a Christian is to act as Christ acted, then Polycarp's
discourtesy was unchristian. Pharisees openly rejected our Lord, yet He
even accepted their invitations, and told His Disciples to show them
honour. Is a heretic so much worse than a heathen, that a Christian
wife might live with a heathen husband (1 Cor. vii. 12, 13), while yet
a Christian might not even speak without the grossest rudeness to a
Gnostic teacher ?

RELIGIOUS HATRED. 501
spired authority for its own conclusions, even when they
are most antichristian, and will build up systems of ex
clusive hatred out of inferences purely unwarrantable.
It is certain, too, that each sect is always tempted
to be proudest of its most sectarian peculiarities ;
that each form of dissent, whether in or out of the
body of the Established Churches, most idolises its
own dissidence. The aim of religious opinionativeness
always has been, and always will be, to regard its
narrowest conclusions as matters of faith, and to exclude
or excommunicate all those who reject or modify them.
The sort of syllogisms used by these enemies of the
love of Christ are much as follows : —
"My opinions are founded on interpretations of
Scripture. Scripture is infallible. My views of its
meaning are infallible too. Your opinions and infer
ences differ from mine, therefore you must be in the
wrong. All wrong opinions are capable of so many
ramifications that any one who differs from me in minor
points must be unsound in vital matters also. There
fore, all who differ from me and my clique are ' heretics.'
All heresy is wicked. All heretics are necessarily
wicked men. It is my religious duty to hate, calum
niate, and abuse you."
Those who have gone thus far in elevating Hatred
into a Christian virtue ought logically to go a little
farther. They generally do so when they have the power.
They do not openly say, " Let us venerate the examples
of Arnold of Citeaux, and of Torquemada. Let us
glorify the Crusaders at Beziers. Let us revive the
racks and thumbscrews of the Inquisition. Let us, with
the Pope, strike medals in honour of the massacre of
St. Bartholmew. Let us re-establish the Star Chamber,

502 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY.
and entrust those ecclesiastics who hold our opinions
with powers of torture." But, since they are robbed of
these means of securing unanimity — since they can no
longer even imprison " dissenting tinkers" like Bunyan
and " regicide Arians " like Milton — they are too apt to
indulge in the party spirit which can employ slander
though it is robbed of the thumbscrew, and revel in
depreciation though it may no longer avail itself of the
fagot and the rack.
The tender mercies of contending religionists are
exceptionally cruel. The men who, in the Corinthian
party-sense, boast " I am of Christ," do not often, in
these days, formulate the defence of their lack of charity
so clearly as this. But they continually act and write
in this spirit. Long experience has made mankind
familiar with the base ingenuity which frames charges
of constructive heresy out of the most innocent opinions ;
which insinuates that variations from the vulgar exegesis
furnish a sufficient excuse for banding anathemas, under
the plea that they are an implicit denial of Christ !
Had there been in Scripture any sanction for this
execrable spirit of heresy-hunting Pharisaism, Chris
tian theology would only become another name for the
collisions of wrangling sects, all cordially hating each
other, and only kept together by common repulsion
against external enmity. But, to me at least, it seems
that the world has never developed a more unchristian
and antichristian phenomenon than the conduct of
those who encourage the bitterest excesses of hatred
under the profession of Christian love.1 I know nothing
so profoundly irreligious as the narrow intolerance of
an ignorant dogmatism. Had there been anything
1 1 John iii. 10, 11.

RELIGIOUS HATRED. 503
in this passage which sanctioned so odious a spirit, I
could not have believed that it emanated from St. John.
A good tree does not bring forth corrupt fruit. The
sweet fountain of Christianity cannot send forth the salt
and bitter water of fierceness and hate. The Apostle of
love would have belied all that is best in his own
teaching if he had consciously given an absolution,
nay, an incentive, to furious intolerance. The last words
of Christian revelation could never have meant what
these words have been interpreted to mean — namely,
" Hate, exclude, anathematise, persecute, treat as enemies
and opponents to be crushed and insulted, those who
differ from you in religious opinions." Those who have
pretended a Scriptural sanction for such Cain-like reli
gionism have generally put their theories into practice
against men who have been infinitely more in the right,
and transcendently nearer God, than those who, in
killing or injuring them, ignorantly thought that they
were doing God service.
Meanwhile this incidental expression of St. John's
brief letter will not lend itself to these gross perver
sions. What St. John really says, and really means, is
something wholly different. False teachers were rife,
who, professing to be Christians, robbed the nature of
Christ of all which gave its efficacy to the Atonement,
and its significance to the Incarnation. These teachers,
like other Christian missionaries, travelled from city to
city, and, in the absence of public inns, were received
into the houses of Christian converts. The Christian
lady to whom St. John writes is warned that, if she
offers her hospitality to these dangerous emissaries who
were subverting the central truth of Christianity, she is
expressing a public sanction of them ; and, by doing

504 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY.
this and offering them her best wishes, she is taking
a direct share in the harm they do. This is common
sense; nor is there anything uncharitable in it. No
one is bound to help forward the dissemination of
teaching what he regards as erroneous respecting the
most essential doctrines of his own faith. Still less
would it have been right to do this in the days when
Christian communities were so small and weak. But
to interpret this as it has in all ages been practi
cally interpreted — to pervert it into a sort of command
to exaggerate the minor variations between religious
opinions, and to persecute those whose views differ from
our own — to make our own opinion the exclusive test
of heresy, and to say, with Cornelius a Lapide, that
this verse reprobates "all conversation, all intercourse,
all dealings with heretics " — is to interpret Scripture by
the glare of partisanship and spiritual self-satisfaction,
not to read it under the light of holy love.
Alas ! churchmen and theologians have found it a
far more easy and agreeable matter to obey their dis
tortion of this supposed command, and even to push its
stringency to the very farthest limits, than to obey the
command that we should love one another ! From the
Tree of delusive knowledge they pluck the poisonous
and inflating fruits of pride and hatred, while they suffer
the fruits of love and meekness to fall neglected from
the Tree of Life. The popularity which these verses
still enjoy, and the exaggerated misinterpretations still
attached to them, are due to the fact that they are
so acceptable to the arrogance and selfishness, the dis
honesty and tyranny, the sloth and obstinacy, of that
bitter spirit of religious discord which has been the
disgrace of the Church and the scandal of the world.

CHAPTER XXXVII.
THE THIRD EPISTLE OF ST. JOHN.
" Ex operibus cognoscitur valetudo animae, et hanc prosequuntur vota
Sanctorum." — Bengel.
Nothing can be ascertained respecting the Gaius to
whom this letter is addressed, beyond what the letter
itself implies — that he was a faithful and kind-hearted
Christian. I have already explained that, from the
circumstances of the time, hospitality to Christian
teachers was a necessary duty, without which the
preaching of Christianity could hardly have been
carried on.1 Gaius. like his namesake at Corinth,2 and
like Philemon,3 distinguished himself by the cheerful- •
ness with which he performed this duty. It could not
always have been an easy or an agreeable duty, for
some of the Christian emissaries, and especially those
from Jerusalem, seem, according to the testimony of
St. Paul, to have behaved with an insolence and rapacity
truly outrageous.4 But those to whom Gaius opened
his hospitable house were not of this character. They
were men who had followed the noble initiative of
St. Paul, and who refused to receive anything from the
Gentiles to whom they preached.
Some, from the identity of name and character, have
1 Hence the importance attached to it (Rom. xii. 13 ; 1 Tim. iii. 2 ;
Tit. i. 8; Heb. xiii. 2 ; 1 Pet. iv. 9).
2 Rom. xvi. 23 ; 1 Cor. i. 14.
3 Philem. 7. 4 2 Cor. xi. 20.

506 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY.
assumed that the Gaius here addressed must have
been the Gaius of Corinth. Such an inference is most
precarious. Gaius was, perhaps, the commonest of all
names current throughout the Roman Empire. So
common was it that it was selected in the Roman law
books to serve the familiar purpose of John Doe and
Richard Roe in our own legal formularies. It no more
serves to identify the bearer of the name than if it had
been addressed " To the well-beloved — — ," for Gaius
was colloquially used for " so-and-so."1 There are at
least three Gaiuses in the New Testament — Gaius of
Macedonia (Acts xix. 29), Gaius of Corinth (Rom. xvi.
23), and Gaius of Derbe (Acts xx. 4). A Gaius is
mentioned in the Apostolic Constitutions (vii. 40), as
Bishop of Pergamum, and it is not impossible that this
may be the person here addressed.
The main object of the letter was to encourage him
in his course of Christian faithfulness, and to contrast
his conduct with that of the domineering Diotrephes.
Diotrephes, in his ambition, his arbitrariness, his arro
gance, his tendency to the idle babble of controversy,
and his fondness for excommunicating his opponents,
furnishes us with a very ancient specimen of a character
extremely familiar in the annals of ecclesiasticism.2
There is something astonishing in the notion that the
prominent Christian Presbyter of an Asiatic Church
should not only repudiate the authority of St. John, and
not only refuse to receive his travelling missionary, and
to prevent others from doing so, but should even excom
municate or try to excommunicate those who did so !
1 Renan, in Contemp. Rev. Sept. 1877.
2 Hymenaeus, Alexander (1 Tim. i. 20), Philetus (2 Tim. ii. 17),
Hermogenes, and Phygellus (2 Tim. i. 18) are similarly mentioned as
opponents of St. Paul.

THE THIRD EPISTLE. 507
But we must leave the difficulty where it is, since we
are unable to throw any light upon it. The condition
of the Church of Corinth, as St. Paul described it,
leaves us prepared for the existence of almost any
irregularities. The history of the Church of Christ,
from the earliest down to the latest days, teems with
subjects for perplexity and surprise.
" The Elder to Gaius the beloved, whom I love in Truth.1
" Beloved, I pray that in all respects2 thou mayest prosper,3 and
be in health,4 even as thy soul prospereth. For I rejoice exceedingly
at the arrival of brethren who bear witness to thy Truth, even as
thou walkest in Truth. I have no greater5 joy than this, that I hear
of my children walking in the Truth.8
" Beloved, thou playest a faithful part in all thy work towards
the brethren, and even to strangers,7 who bear witness to thy love
before the Church, whom by forwarding on their journey8 worthily of
God9 thou wilt do well. For on the Name's behalf10 they went forth,
1 1 John iii. 18 ; 2 John i. To love " in Truth," is the same as to
love " in the Lord."
2 Not " above all things," as in E. V. That meaning of irepl wdvraiv is
only found in classical poetry.
3 evoSovo-Bai (Rom. i. 10 ; 1 Cor. xii. 2); literally, to be "guided on a
journey." Philo uses the word as here, both of body and soul, Quis Ber.
Div. Haer. § 58.
4 ir/iaiveiv was not among Christians as it was among Stoics, a common
form of address. Hence we must assume that Gaius suffered from ill-
health. 6 The doubled comparative pei(orepav may be intentionally emphatic
like iXaxio-rirepos, in Eph. iii. 8, " Est ad intendendam signifioationem
comparativus e comparativo f actus " (Grotius).
6 'Iva. St. John's use of 'Iva is far wider than that of classical writers.
It often loses its telic sense ( " in order that " ), and becomes simply ekbatic,
or explanatory, as in Luke i. 43, John xv. 13.
7 xal rovro, », A, B, C. The hospitality of Gaius was not only (pi\aSe\tpla,
but (pi\o£evla.
8 Ttpoirep-tyas. Tit. iii. 13.
9 alias rov ®eov. That is, giving them the maximum of help, as their
sacred cause deserves. (Comp. 1 Thess. ii. 12; Col. i. 10.)
10 Acts v. 41 ; ix. 16, &c. ; Phil. ii. 9. " I have been bound in the
Name " (Ignat. ad Ephes. 3). " Some are wont with evil guile to carry

508 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY.
accepting nothing from the Gentiles.1 We then ought to support such,
that we may become fellow- workers with the Truth.2
"I wrote somewhat to the Church,3 but their domineering Dio
trephes receiveth us not.4 On this account, if I come, I will bring to
mind5 his deeds which he doeth, with wicked words battling against
us ; 6 and not content with that, he neither himself receives the
brethren, and he hinders those who wish to do so, and expels them
from the Church.7
" Beloved, do not imitate the evil but the good.8 He that doeth
good is from God : he that doeth evil hath not seen God.9 Witness
about the Name, while they are doing deeds unworthy of God" (id. ib. 7).
Similarly Christians, among themselves, spoke of Christianity as "the
way " (Acts ix. 2 ; xix. 9).
1 St. Paul's rule (1 Thess. ii. 9; 1 Cor. ix. 18; 2 Cor. xi. 7; xii. 16).
Gentiles must of course mean, "Gentile converts." They could not
expect the heathens to support them. This is perhaps implied by the
adjective iBviKwv, n, A, B, C.
2 Comp. 1 Thess. iii. 2 ; Col. iv. 11.
3 Evidently a brief letter, from the expression n, «, A, B, C (Luke
vii. 40; Acts xxiii. 18). It is now lost, like many other of these minor
communications (1 Cor. v. 9). Diotiephes seems to have suppressed this
letter, whatever it was. If he could behave so outiageously as he is said
to do in the next clause, he would have thought but little of making away
with a brief letter.
4 That is, " rejects my authority." Perhaps it means that this turbu
lent intriguer refused to acknowledge St. John's " commendatory letter."
6 John xiv. 26. St. John means that he will draw the attention of the
Church to the proceedings of Diotrephes.
6 (pXvapol (1 Tim. v. 13); (pxvape'iv, the French deblaierer. "Apposite,
calumnias Diotrephis vocat garritum" (Corn, a Lapide).
7 These proceedings seem so very high-handed, that we might take the
words to mean merely that he excluded them from the congregation which
possibly met at his house; or we might suppose the meanings of the
presents to be " tries to hinder them, and wants to excommunicate them."
Certainly the present often implies the unsuccessful conatus rei perfi-
ciendae (see my Brief Greek Syntax, § 136) ; but we know too little of
Diotrephes, and of the Church in which he had so much influence, to be
able to say that he might not have actually excommunicated (as unau
thorised interlopers into his paiish — schismatic intruders on his own
authority) those who gave hospitality to Evangelists or who brought
" letters of commendation " from St. John. If he was capable of prating
against St. John, he might have been capable of this also.
8 Heb. xiii. 7 ; 1 Pet. iii. 13. rb Kaxbv in Diotrephe ; rb ayaBbv in
Demetrio " (Bengel). 9 1 John iii. 6—10; iv. 8.

THE THIRD EPISTLE. 509
has been borne to Demetrius by all,1 and by the Truth itself ; aye, and
we too2 bear witness, and thou knowest that our witness is true.3
" I had many things to write to thee, but I do not wish by ink
and reed4 to write to thee, but I hope immediately to see thee, and
we will speak mouth to mouth. Peace to thee.5 The friends salute
thee. Salute the friends by name."6
" Salute the friends by name." Salute each of our
Christian friends as warmly and as individually as
though I had here written down their names. So fitly
ends the last of the writings of St. John. The close of
his messages to the Church of God is as calm and gentle
as the close of his life. God cares for individuals, and
therefore the Church of God cares for them also. They
may be obscure, humble, faulty ; but if they be true
disciples they need fear nothing which the world can
threaten, and desire nothing which it can offer, for
" their names are written in the Book of Life." The
aged Apostle speaks of them as " friends." The name,
as applied to Christians, is peculiar to him, for Chris
tians regarded each other as " brethren," and therefore
as bound together by a tie even closer than that of
friendship. But if he uses this word as well as
"brethren" and "beloved," it doubtless is from the
remembrance of what he alone among the Evangelists
has recorded, that the Lord Jesus had called Lazarus
" His friend," and that He had said, " Ye are my
1 "Demetrius was possibly the bearer of the letter" (Liicke).
2 Kal Tipeis Se (1 John iii. 6).
3 John v. 32 ; xxi. 24.
4 The Kd\apos is a split reed. St. John seems to have disliked the
physical toil of writing, to which it is quite possible that he had not been
accustomed. He probably dictated his longer and more important works.
6 John xix. 28. " The inward peace of conscience, the fraternal peace
of friendship, the heavenly peace of glory " (Lyra).
6 The allusion is to personal private friends, not the brethren in
general.

510 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY.
friends, if ye do the things which I command you. No
longer do I call you servants, for the servant knoweth
not what his Lord doeth ; but I have called you friends,
for all things that I have heard from my Father I have
made known unto you."
He ends, therefore, fitly with this kind message to
individual friends. And after this we know nothing
more with certainty respecting him. He was not taken
to Heaven in the fiery chariot of glory or of martyrdom,
but in all probability he died at Ephesus, in a peaceful
and honoured age, among many friends who deeply
loved and greatly honoured him. And the last murmur
of tradition which reaches us respecting him is that
which tells us of his last exhortation. When he was no
longer a " Son of Thunder," no longer even an " Eagle
of Christ " — when he was a weak and worn old man,
with scarcely anything left him but a feeble voice and
trembling hands, he still uplifted those trembling hands
to bless, and still strove to sum up all that he had
taught, in words easy to utter, but of which, after so
many centuries, we have yet so imperfectly learnt the
meaning —
"Filioli, diligite alterutrum."
" Little children, love one another."
And this he did, as he himself explained, " because such
was the Lord's command ; and if this only be done, it is
enough."

APPENDIX. EXCURSUS I.
THE ASSERTED PRIMACY OF ST. PETER.
That St. Peter was a leading Apostle — in some
respects the leading Apostle — none will dispute ; but
that he never exercised the supremacy which is assigned
to him by Roman Catholic writers is demonstrable even
from the New Testament. Anyone who will examine the
list of twenty-eight Petrine prerogatives detailed by
Baronius1 will see in their extreme futility the best
disproof of the claims of Roman primacy. St. Peter
had, as Cave says, a primacy of order, but not a supre
macy of power. Such a supremacy our Lord emphati
cally discountenanced.2 In his Epistle St. Peter does
not assume the title of Apostle, but only calls him
self a fellow- presbyter, and rebukes all attempts "to
play the lord over the heritage of God." The other
Apostles send him to Samaria. The Church at Jeru
salem indignantly calls him to account for the bold step
which he had taken in the case of Cornelius. Paul, at
Antioch, withstands him to the face, and claims to be
no whit inferior to the very chiefest Apostle, assuming
the Apostolate of the Uncircumcision — that is, of the
1 De Bom. Pontif, i. 17, seqq.
2 Mat:, xx. 25—27; Luke xxii. 24—26.

512 APPENDIX.
whole Gentile world — as predominantly his own. St.
Peter was not specially "the disciple whom Jesus loved ; "
and though he received from his Lord some of the highest
eulogiums, he also incurred the severest rebukes. Even
when we turn to the Fathers, we find St. Cyprian saying
that "the rest of the Apostles were that which Peter
was ; endowed with equal participation both of honour
and of power." 1 The Presbyter Hesychius calls, not St.
Peter, but St. James, ' the prince of priests, the leader of
the Apostles, the crown among the heads, the brightest
among the stars." 2 He calls St. Andrew "the Peter
before Peter." St. Cyril says that Peter and John had
equivalent honour. The Promise of the Keys was given
to all the Apostles alike ; 3 and in the Apocalypse no
distinction is made between Kephas and the rest of the
Twelve.4 Origen says that all who make Peter's con
fession with Peter's faithfulness shall have Peter's
blessing.6 He was eminent among the Apostles; —
supreme he never was.6

EXCURSUS II.
PATRISTIC EVIDENCE ON ST. PETER'S VISIT TO ROME.
St. Clemens of Rome (f 101) says that "he bore
witness," using the term which implies his martyrdom ;7
1 De Unitat. Eccles. p. 180.
2 Ap. Phot. Cod. 275. Tlerpos S-qpyjyopet a\\' 'laKufios vopoBere?.
3 Matt, xviii. 17, 18 ; John xx. 21—23.
4 Rev. xxi. 14.
5 In Matt. xvi.
8 See the question examined in Shepherd's Hist, of the Ch. of Rome,
pp. 494, ff.
7 Ep. ad Cor. v.

ST. PETER AT ROME. 513
but he does not say that this took place at Rome.
Ignatius (f 114),1 and Papias2 (referred to by Eusebius,
f 340), use language which may be inferentially pressed
into the implication that he had been at Rome. St.
Clemens of Alexandria (f 220), who tells the story about
St. Peter's wife, does not mention Rome.3 St. Diony
sius of Corinth (f 165), says that St. Peter and St. Paul
both taught in Italy ;4 but the weight of even this slight
allusion is neutralised by its being found in the same
sentence with the erroneous suggestion that Peter had a
share in the founding (cpvTeiav) of the Church of Corinth.
St. Irenseus (t 202) makes the dubious statement, that
both Apostles took part in the appointment of Linus
to be Bishop of Rome.5 Gaius (t 200), as quoted by
Eusebius, says that the " trophies" of the Apostles were
shown at Rome in his days.6 Tertullian (f 218) makes
a similar remark in a passage where he also accepts
the legend of St. John's escape from death wheu he was
plunged into a caldron of boiling oil at the Latin gate.7
Lastly, Origen (f 254) is the first who says that Peter
was " crucified head downwards ; " 8 and St. Ambrose — or
a pseudo-Ambrose — tells the story of the Vision on the
Appian road. Later allusions to the Apostle's connexion
with Rome, which grow more definite as time advances,
1 Ignat. Ep. ad Bom. iv ; olx &s Tlerpos Kal Uav\os Siarafftrouai vpiv.
2 Papias ap. Euseb. H. E. iii. ad fin. But the inference is of the
remotest kind. It supposes that St. Peter needed Mark as his " interpreter "
in Latin. 3 Clem. Alex. ap. Euseb. H. E. vi.
4 Dion. ap. Euseb. H. E. ii. 25.
5 Den. c. Haer. iii. 1 and 3, and ap. Euseb. H. E. v. 6.
5 Gaius, ap. Euseb. H. E. ii. 25.
7 Tert. de Praesc. Haer. 32, 36. See too Scorpiace, 15.
8 Orig. ap. Euseb. H. E. iii. 1 ; aveaKoXotciaB-q Kara KeipaXrjs ottras avr'os
a^ido-as iraBeiv.
h h

514 APPENDIX.
are found in Arnobius,1 in Lactantius,2 in the Apostolical
Constitutions,2, and in the pseudo-Clementine Homilies!
St. Peter's visit to Rome is of course testified by
multitudes of later writers ; but their assertions have
no independent or evidential value.5

EXCURSUS III.
USE OF THE NAME BABYLON FOR ROME IN 1 PET. V. 13.
It has been asserted that St. Peter could not
be writing from the real Babylon, because that
city was at this period ruined and deserted. Strabo
and Pausanias say that it was a mere ruin ; Phny
calls it a solitude.6 But, although we learn from
1 Arnob. c. Gent. ii. 12. 2 Lactant. de Mort. Persec. ii.
3 Const. Apost. vii. 45. " Ps.-Clem. Hom. Ep. ad Jac. 1.
6 The denial, that St. Peter was ever at Rome, by the Waldenses,
Marsilius of Padua, Salmasius, &c, was elaborately supported by Fr. Spann-
heim (De ficta profectione, etc., 1679). De Wette, Baur, Winer, Holtz-
mann, and Schwegler are led to a similar view by their belief in the
virulent jealousies between Jewish and Gentile Christians, and Neander
was shaken by the arguments of Baur. But the mass of learned Pro
testants, Scaliger, Casaubon, Grotius, Usher, Bramhall, Pearson, Cave,
Schrockh, Gieseler, Bleek, Olshausen, Wieseler, Hilgenfeld, etc., to a
greater or less degree, admit his martyrdom or residence at Rome. To
enter into a discussion of the Papal claims is here wholly beyond my
scope. If the reader has any doubt on the subject, he may read with
advantage the articles on the "Petrine Claims," in the Church Quar
terly Review for April, 1878, April, 1879, and January, 1880, and he will
find some brief hints on the subject in Dr. Littledale's Plain Reasons.
He will find all that can be urged on the other side in Mr. Allnatt's
Cathedra Petri and Father Ryder's Catholic Controversy.
6 See Is. xiii.; xiv. 4, 12; xlvi, etc. That the Babylon alluded to is
the obscure Egyptian fort of that name (Strabo, xvii. 1, p. 807) — a place
utterly unknown to Christian history and tradition — is a conjecture which
may be set aside without further notice. No human being in the Asiatic
Clim-cbes to which St. Peter was writing could ever have heard of such
a place.

"BABYLON." 515
Josephus that the Jews in the city had terribly suffered,
first by a persecution in the reign of Caligula, and
then by a plague,1 we have no reason to believe that
many of them may not have returned during the
twenty years which had subsequently elapsed. Again,
it is not proved that St. Peter may not have used
the word " Babylon " to describe the country or
district, as is done by Philo,2 so that he may have
actually written from Seleucia or Ctesiphon, in which
cities the Jews were numerous; 3 or even from Nehardea
or Nisibis, in which they had taken refuge.* Parthians,
Medes, Elamites, and dwellers in Mesopotamia, had been
among his hearers on the day of Pentecost, and there
is nothing intrinsically improbable in the notion of his
having gone to visit these crowded communities of the
Dispersion. They were so numerous and so important,
that Josephus originally wrote his History of the
Jewish War for their benefit, and wrote it in Aramaic,
without any doubt that it would find countless readers.
It has been argued that the geographical order
observable in the names " Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia,
Asia, and Bithynia " — the Churches to which his
Epistle is addressed — is more natural to one writing
from Babylon than to one who was writing from
Rome ; but this is an argument which will not stand a
moment's consideration.
On the other hand, against the literal acceptance
of the word " Babylon " there are four powerful argu
ments. (1). There is not the faintest tradition in those
regions of any visit from St. Peter. (2). If St. Peter was
in Babylon at the time when his Epistle was written,
1 Jos. Antt. xviii. 9, § 8. 2 Philo, Leg. ad Gaium, 36.
3 Jos. Antt. xv. 3, 1. 4 Jos. Antt. xviii. 9, § 9.
h h 2

516 APPENDIX.
there is great difficulty in accounting for his familiarity
with the Epistle to the Ephesians, which was not written
till a.d. 63. (3). It becomes difficult to imagine cir
cumstances which could have brought him from the far
East into the very crisis of the ISTeronian persecution in
the Babylon of the West. (4). If "Marcus" be the
Evangelist, he was with St. Paul between a.d. 61 — 63,1
and probably rejoined him just before his martyrdom in
a.d. 68. 2 We should not, therefore, expect to find him
so far away as Babylon in a.d. 67.
I strongly incline to the belief that by Babylon the
Apostle intended to indicate Rome,3 and we find this
interpretation current in the Church in very early days.*
The Apocalypse was written about the same time as —
or not long after — the First Epistle of St. Peter ; and
in the Apocalypse5 and in the Sibylline Verses6 we see
that a Western, and even an Asiatic, Christian, when he
heard the name " Babylon " in a religious writing,
would be likely at once to think of Rome. Throughout
the Talmud we find the same practice of applying
symbolic names. There Rome figures under the
designations of Nineveh, Edom, and Babylon, and
almost every allusion to Christ, even in the un-
expurgated passages of the Amsterdam edition, is
veiled under the names of "Absalom," "That man,"
" So-and-so," and " The Hung." The reference to
1 Col. iv. 10 ; Philem. 24
2 2 Tim. iv. 11.
3 So the Fathers unanimously ; and Grotius, Lardner, Cave, Sender,
Hitzig, and the Tubingen school; as against De Wette and Wieseler.
See too Lipsius, Chron. der Rom. Bisch. (1869) ; Hilgenfeld, Petrus in
Rom. (Zeitschr.f. woss. Theol. 1872); Zeller, Zur Petrusfrage (ib. 1876).
4 Papias, ap. Euseb. H. E. ii. 15, iii. 25 ; Iren. c. Haer. iii. 1, &c.
6 Rev. xiv. 8 ; xvi. 19 ; xvii. 9, 18 ; xviii. 2, etc.
6 Sibyll. v. 143, 159.

"BABYLON." 517
Rome as Babylon may have originated in a mystic
application of the Old Testament prophecies, but it had
its advantage afterwards as a secret symbol. It is
therefore a mistake to suppose that the use of Babylon
for Rome would be the sudden obtrusion of " allegory "
into matter-of-fact, or that by using it the Apostle
would be " going out of his way to make an enigma for
all future readers." There is, in fact, a marked
accordance between such an expression and the con
ception which St. Peter indicates throughout his letter,
that all Christians are exiles scattered from the heavenly
Jerusalem, living, some of them, in the earthly Babylon.1
An early Christian would have seen nothing either
allegorical or enigmatical in the matter. He would at
once have understood the meaning, and have known
the reasons, alike mystic and political, for avoiding the
name of Rome.

EXCURSUS IV.
THE BOOK OF ENOCH.

The quotation from the Book of Enoch by St. Jude,
and the traces which it contains of the reciprocal in
fluences of Jewish and Christian speculation, have always
attracted the attention of the Church to that singular
Apocalypse. From the end of the 16th century till recent times
nothing was known of it except by the quotations in
the Fathers and the Greek fragments preserved in the
Chronographia of Georgius Syncellus, and the Testa-
1 1 Pet. i. 1, wapemSiipois ; v. 13, iv KafrvXavi. See Godet's New
Testament Studies.

518 APPENDIX.
ment of the Twelve Patriarchs. In the 17th century it
became known that the entire book existed in an
Ethiopic translation. Three manuscripts of this trans
lation were brought to England by Bruce, the Abys
sinian explorer, in 1773. It was first translated into
English by Archbishop Lawrence in 1821, and retrans
lated into German by Hofmann in 1833, and into Latin
by A. F. Gfrorer in 1840.
It consists of an Introduction, i. — vi. 12, containing
a Prophecy of Judgment.
vii. — x. Legends about the two hundred fallen
angels who went astray with the daughters of men,
and taught mankind the Arts, the Sciences, and many
forms of luxury.
xi. — xvi. Enoch is sent on a mission to these fallen
angels. xvii. — xxxv. Visions, sometimes (as in the Apoca
lypse) in Heaven and sometimes on earth, in which
Enoch is taught the origin of the elements and the
general elements of Natural Science, and is shown the
prison of the fallen angels, and the dwelling of the
good, where the voice of the murdered Abel sounds.
xxxvii. — Ixx.1 A second " Vision of Wisdom," which
(as in the Apocalypse) repeats — though with many
variations — all the essential elements contained in
i. — xxxv., which are treated as one vision. This
section falls into three Parables or Maschals; these
are xxxviii. — xliv., chiefly dwelling on the future abode
and condition of sinners ; xiv. — lv., on those who deny
Heaven and God, and the Messianic Judgment which
they incur ; lvi. — Ixx., chiefly on the blessings of the
elect.
1 Chapter xxxvi. is missing.

THE BOOK OF ENOCH. 519
The section lxxi. — lxxxi. is entitled the Book of
the Lights of Heaven. Enoch, orally and in writing,
teaches his son Methuselah about the sun, moon, and
stars. The section lxxxii. — Ixxxix. contains two dreams.
In the first Enoch sees the vision of the Flood, and
prays God not to destroy all mankind ; in the second
he sees an apocalyptic foreshadowing of future history
down to the time of Herod the Great (?) with a picture
of the days of the Messiah.
Chapters xc, xci. contain Enoch's words of con
solation and exhortation to his children.
Chapter xcii. to v. 18 is a sketch of history in ten
weeks or periods, of which the first is signalised by the
birth of Enoch ; the second by the Flood ; the third
by the life of Noah ; the fourth by Moses ; the fifth
by the building of Solomon's Temple ; the sixth by
Ezra ; the seventh by the encroachments of heathenism ;
the eighth by rewards, punishments, and the building
of a new Temple ; the ninth by the Messianic kingdom ;
the tenth by the judgment of men and angels, and the
renovation of the world.
From xcii. 19 — civ. the book is mainly didactic,
being full of promises and threatenings. In the last
chapter (cv.) Enoch relates the birth of Noah, and
prophesies that he shall be the founder of a new race.
The Ethiopic text is undoubtedly translated from
the Greek, of which we find fragments in St. Jude,
in Justin Martyr, and other Fathers, and in the Testa
ment of the Twelve Patriarchs.1 Whether the Greek
is itself a translation from an original Hebrew book
is uncertain. Origen seems to imply tha,t this was the
1 Orig. Horn. 28 ; in Num. xxxiv.

520 APPENDIX.
case, for he says that the Books (libelli) were not
regarded as authoritative " among the Hebrews." That
the book in its present form is not by one author,
and that the Noachian parts of it are by another hand,
is clear. From internal evidence it appears that part
at least of the book (chapters i. — xxxv., lxxi. — cv.) was
written in the days of the Maccabees ; and that
chapters xxxvii. — Ixx. are not earlier than the days of
Herod the Great, and are full of still more recent
interpolations. Volkmar has endeavoured to prove
that, as a whole, it is not earlier than the reign of
Hadrian, and that it expresses the views of R. Akhiva.1
One reason for the slighting estimate of the book
by the Jews may be that the writer shows no in
terest in the ritual and Ceremonial Law, and makes
no special mention either of circumcision or of the
Sabbath.

EXCURSUS V.
RABBINIC ALLUSIONS IN ST. JUDE.
The direct citation of St. Jude (verses 14, 15) from
the Book of Enoch is taken from the second chapter, but
it is by no means the only trace of a similar^ between
the two writers.
i. Jude 6 dwells on the fall of the angels which
"kept not their own dominion," but "left their own
habitation, and are reserved in everlasting bonds
1 For further information, see Abp. Lawrence's Prelim. Dissert, and
Translation (1821) ; Hofmann, Das Buch Henoch (1833) ; and in Ersch
and Griiber, Encycl. s. v. ; Liicke, Einleit. in d. Offenb. i. 89 — 144 ; Gfrorer,
Jahrh. d. Heils, i. 93 fg. ; and especially A. Dillmann, Das Buch Henoch
(1853).

RABBINIC ALLUSIONS. 521
under darkness unto the judgment of the Great
Day " (comp. 2 Pet. ii. 4, 5). This, as we have seen,
is a topic which occupies a large part of the Book
of Enoch. In vii. 2 we are told of two hundred
angels who descended on Ardis, the top of Mount
Armon. In xii. 5 — 7, we are told that they " have
deserted the lofty sky and their holy everlasting
habitation, . . . and have been greatly corrupted
on the earth," and in xiv. 4, that they are " to be
bound on earth as long as the world endures," and
(xvi. 5) that they are "never to obtain peace." Their
prison-house, where they are to be "kept for ever"
(xxi. 6), is " a terrific place," and they are " confined
in a network of iron and brass " (liv. 6), which never
theless consists of "fetters of iron without weight."
The last expression is an antiphrasis like the " clank-
less chains " of Shelley, and the " fetters, yet not of
brass," of iEschylus. The author of the Second
Epistle of Peter, with lyric boldness, speaks of these
fetters as "chains of darkness," and the author of the
Book of Wisdom (xvii. 2, 16, 17) evidently had a
similar picture in his mind when he speaks of the
Egyptians as "fettered with the bonds of a long
night," " shut up in a prison without iron bars," and
"bound with one chain of darkness." These fallen
angels are shut up in a " burning valley," and yet
its fires give no light, or only " teach light to
counterfeit a gloom," for they are " covered with
darkness," and they "see no light" (Enoch x. 1 — 9).
ii. Again, in v. 13 St. Jude compares the corrupted
Antinomians whom he is denouncing to " wandering
stars to whom is reserved the blackness of darkness
for ever." We might have supposed that the metaphor

522 APPENDIX.
was derived from meteors disappearing into the night,
or comets rushing off into the illimitable void. But
from the Book of Enoch (xviii. 14, 16) we are led to infer
that, by.the " wandering stars " are meant quite literally
planets (dcrrlpes TfXavfjTai), not, as Bengel supposed,
because they are opaque, but because they are regarded
(with the sun and moon) as " seven stars ....
which transgressed the commandment of God . . .
for they came not in their proper season." What was the
exact conception in the writer's mind is impossible
to say, but he may have identified the planets with
evil spirits because they were objects of idolatrous
worship, and were named after heathen deities.1
iii. Once more, in v. 7 St. Jude seems distinctly to
imply that the sin of the Fallen Angels was analogous
to that of the cities of the Plain, in that they, by unions
with mortal women, went after strange flesh. This is
exactly the view of the pseudo-Enoch. He makes
Enoch reproach them (xv. 1 — 7), because being by
nature spiritual, they " have done as those who are flesh
and blood do" and have thereby transgressed the very
law of their nature.
iv. Nor are these the only references to Rabbinic and
other legends by St. Jude. In verse 5 it is said that
" Jesus " led the people out of Egypt, and in the second
instance destroyed them. The use of the name " Jesus "
for " Christ " shows perhaps the somewhat late date
of the Epistle. When St. Paul alludes to the legendary
wanderings of the Rock in the desert (1 Cor. x. 4), he
adds the allegory " and that Rock was Christ." In
saying that " Jesus " saved the people out of the land
1 For two remarkable parallels between the Book of Enoch and the
Apocalypse, see the Notes on Rev. vi. 10, 11, and xiv. 20.

RABBINIC ALLUSIONS. 523
°f Egypt, ^t. Jude seems to be identifying Him with
the Pillar of Fire, which is one of the many divine
manifestations to which Philo compares the Logos.1
v. The strange reference to a dispute between
Michael and Satan about the body of Moses has not
yet been traced to any source whatever. Origen says
that it was taken from an Apocryphal book called
The Assumption of Moses ; and CEcumenius says that
Satan claimed the body of Moses because he had killed
the Egyptian. The words " The Lord rebuke thee,"
are addressed to Satan by the Lord (who is perhaps
meant to be the same as the Angel of the Lord in
the previous verse), in Zech. iii. 2. The nearest
approach to this legend is in the Targum of Jonathan
on Deut. xxxiv. 6, where we are told, with obvious
reference to some similar story, that the grave of
Moses was entrusted to the charge of Michael.
vi. Again, when it is said that these false and
polluted Christians " went in the way of Cain," the
reference cannot be to anything recorded in the book of
Genesis. There the only crime laid to the charge of
Cain is murder. The reference here seems to be mainly
to presumption and blasphemy, and to that insolent
atheism with which Cain is charged in the Jerusalem
Targum on Gen. iv. 7, where he is made to deny that
there is such a thing as a Judge or a judgment.
The allusion cannot be to the blaspheming Gnostics
who called themselves Cainites, for we do not hear
of them till much later.2 It is, however, remarkable
that they chose Cain, the Sodomites, and Korah (who
are all here mentioned), as their heroes, and as the
1 Quis Rer. Div. Haer., and De Vit. Mos. 2.
2 Iren. c. Haer. i. 31 ; Epiphan. Haer. 38.

APPENDIX.

representatives of the stronger and better spiritual
powers, who were opposed to the Demiurge of the
Mosaic Dispensation and the material world.

EXCURSUS VI.
SPECIMENS OF PHILONIAN ALLEGORY.
1. Commenting on Gen. xvii. 16, " I will give thee a
son from her," and explaining it of the joy of heart
which God promises to the virtuous, Philo adds that
some explain "from her " to mean " apart from her,"
because Virtue does not spring from the soul, but from
without, even from God. Others explain the Greek words
as though they were a single word (exautes), meaning
" immediately," because all divine gifts are speedy and
spontaneous. Others, again, make " from her " mean
"from Virtue?' which is the mother of all good.1 The
simultaneous existence of three such strange devices of
exegesis at least shows that Philo might take his
premises for granted among the readers whom alone he
wished to address.
2. On Gen. xv. 15 he says that in " Thou shalt go
to thy fathers" some understood by "fathers," not "thy
Chaldsean forefathers," but " the sun, moon, and stars ;"
others explained " father " to mean " archetypal ideas,
and the things unseen;" others, the four elements and
powers of which the universe is composed — earth, air,
fire, and water ! 2
3. Each of the Patriarchs represents a condition of
1 De nomin. mutat. § xxv. (Mangey, i. 599).
2 Quis rer. div. haer. (Mang. i. 513). De Migr. Abraham, ad init.

PHILONIAN ALLEGORY. 525
the soul. Abraham represents acquired virtue ; Isaac,
natural virtue ; Jacob, virtue acquired by training ;
Joseph, political virtue. Sarah represents generic virtue,
virtue in the abstract ; Rebecca represents endurance ;.
Leah is persecuted virtue; Pharaoh is the mind set against
God ; Moses is the prophetic word. Everything and
every person stands for something else. Egypt repre
sents the body ; Canaan symbolises piety. A kingdom
is an emblem of Divine wisdom ; a pigeon, of human
wisdom ; a sheep, of the pure soul.
4. Writing on Gen. xviii. 6, he idealises the
appearance of the three angels into the fact that the
seeking soul recognises God, His love, and His might.
The three measures of meal indicate that the soul must
embrace and treasure up this threefold manifestation of
God. The word for cakes (enkruphias) means that the
Sacred word about God and His power must be con
cealed in the initiated soul.1
5. On Gen. xxxii. 10, " With my staff I passed over
this Jordan," he says it would be a poor thing (ranrewov)
to understand it literally. Jordan means all that is
base, the staff means discipline : Jacob intended to
imply that by discipline he had risen above base
ness. Only by such means could Philo get rid of the
representation of God as having human parts and
human passions. But with this method he can boldly
set aside, as literally false and only allegorically true,
whatever offends his philosophic convictions. Thus, on
Gen. ii. 21, after saying that the letter of the narrative
is mythical, he argues that otherwise it would be absurd.
1 iyxpvcpias means " cakes, baked by being hidden in ashes " (De Sacr.
Abel et Cain, Mang. i. 173).

526 APPENDIX.
By " ribs " are meant merely the powers of Hfe,1 and the
notion that Eve was formed out of a material rib
seems to him degrading.
6. He often accepts the general fact, but alle
gorises all the details. The tree of Paradise, the
serpent, and the expulsion, are merely symbols ; and he
confidently addresses his explanation of them to " the
initiated." The heart of his system is seen in his
comments on " Let us make man in our image." The
plural shows, he says, that the angels as well as God
had a share in the making of man, and since man is of
mixed nature, we must suppose that the good side of
his nature came from God, the weak side from the
angels. But he goes on to explain that the verse
applies to the creation of man in the idea, not in the
concrete.

EXCURSUS VII.
ADDITIONAL ILLUSTRATIONS OF PHILO 's VIEWS ABOUT
THE LOGOS.
In God, no less than in man, Philo distinguishes
between the speech and the reason. The Divine reason
embraces the whole intelligible world, the world of
ideas, what he sometimes calls "the idea of ideas."
The Divine speech includes the whole world of active
agents and Divine forces.
(i.) Hence it is that, in a phrase borrowed by Apollos
(Heb. iv. 12), he calls the Word "the cutter of all
things." The phrase is founded on an allegorical
explanation of Gen. xv. 9. Philo says that in the
1 Leg. allegg. i. 18 (Mang. i. 70).

THE LOGOS. 527
sacrifice there described the she-goat symbolises the
sense, the calf the soul, the dove Divine wisdom, the
pigeon human wisdom. The wise man sees all these
as gifts from above. The text says that " he " divided
these sacrifices, and since the name of Abraham is not
repeated, " he " must mean the Logos, and the truth
indicated is that the Logos, " whetted to sharpest
edge," divides all perceptible things to their inmost
depths — the soul into the reasonable and the unreason
able ; speech into true and false ; the world of sense into
distinct and indistinct phenomena. These divided parts
are, by way of contrast, placed opposite to each other.
The doves alone are not divided, because Divine wisdom
is simple, and cannot be cleft into opposing contrarieties.1
Thus God, whetting His Word, which cutteth all things,
divides the formless and abstract essence of all things,
and the four elements of the universe, and the animals
and plants compounded from them. Hence the phrase,
" the cutter Word," seems to be based on the distinction
between the Logos as the primeval Idea, and the Logos
as a creative Force.
(ii.) The world of Idea's, to which the existing world
corresponds as a copy to its archetype, lies in the
Divine Logos. Philo illustrates this by saying that, when
God bade Moses to lift up a serpent in the wilderness,
He did not say of what metal it was to be made,
because the ideas of God are abstract and immaterial ;
Moses, in carrying out the concrete realisation, is
obliged to use some substance, and therefore makes the
serpent of brass.2 Similarly he holds that God is not
1 Quis rer. dm. haer. § xlviii. (Mang. i. 491) ; see Gfrorer, Philo, i.
184—187. 2 Leg. allegg. ii. § 20 (Mang. i. 80).

528 APPENDIX.
to be grasped by human knowledge, but that the Word
is. Hence, writing on Gen. xxii. 16, he says, "God is
the God of wise and perfect beings, but the Logos is the
God of us who are imperfect."
(iii.) Philo uses so many analogies to express his
notion of the Logos that he falls into contradictions, and
leaves his readers in confusion. The Logos, in various
passages of his voluminous writings, is the creator of
species, although He is Himself the Idea of Ideas ; He
is the seal of God ; He is the Divine force which dwells
in the universe ; He is the chain or band which keeps
the world together ; He is the law and ordinance of all
things ; He is the giver of wisdom, the warden of virtue ;
He is the manna which nourishes the soul ; He is the
fatherland of wise souls, the pilot of the wise; He is
their controlling conscience, their Paraclete ; He is the
Divine wisdom which is the daughter of God.1

EXCURSUS VIII.
PATRISTIC EVIDENCE AS TO THE AUTHORSHIP OF THE
EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS.
The canonicity of the Epistle to the Hebrews, its
right to be accepted as a part of Holy Scripture, the
perfect truthfulness of the contemporary character which
it assumes, its greatness, importance, and authority, and
the fact that it was written before the fall of Jerusalem,
are not in question. These points have never been
seriously disputed. Some have seen allusions to the
Epistle in St. James and the Second of St. Peter.2
1 See various passages quoted in Gfrorer, Philo, i. 176 — 243.
2 2 Pet iii. 15, 16; Ja. ii. 24, 25.

EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS. 529
Setting these aside as improbable, it was certainly known
to St. Clemens of Rome, and largely used by him in his
letter to the Corinthians ; 1 and it is possible — though
no more — that it was the source of some of the parallels
adduced from the writings of Ignatius, Polycarp, Justin
Martyr, and the Pseudo-Barnabas. But in the Western
Church no single writer of the first, second, or even third
century quoted it as St. Paul's. Not only did Basilides
(cir. a.d. 125) exclude it, though he acknowledged the
other Pauline Epistles,2 but we are expressly told that
St. Hippolytus (f 235?) denied that it was written by St.
Paul. The authority for this fact is late and heretical,3
yet there seems no reason to reject so positive a state
ment. And this remark of St. Hippolytus, together
with the place assigned to the Epistle in the Peshito,
indicates the opinion of the Syrian Church in the first
half of the third century, if, as seems probable, the
learned and eloquent Bishop of Portus came originally
from Antioch.4 We have the same assurance about St.
Irenseus (f a.d. 202). We find from Eusebius that in a
work attributed to Irenasus (but which Eusebius had

1 'Ev p rrjs irpbs "Efipalovs iroXXa. vo-qpara irapaBels %Sn Se koI avroXe^ei
ji-qrois naiv e| abrT\s xp-f^dpevos o-a<pearara iraplarr\aiv on pi) vebv virapxei rb
avyypappa (Euseb. H. E. iii. 37). " Omnino grandis in utraque similitudo
est " (Jer. De Virr. illust.). " Der Hebraerbrief ist ganz und gar in sein
Denken iibergegangen " (Tholuck, Einleit. 2). Yet, strange to say,
Clemens never mentions it by name. This alone seems almost fatal to the
Pauline authorship.
2 Jer. Procem. in Ep. ad Tit. Basilides was a Gnostic, but he seems
to have adopted the ordinary Canon of his day ; this, therefore, would seem
to show that at that time the Alexandrians did not recognise the Epistle
as St. Paul's.
3 Steph. Gobar, ap. Phot. Bibl. Cod. iii. 291 (Migne) ; and also
Photius himself (Wieseler, Untersuch. i. 12).
4 Gieseler, i. § 341. On Hippolytus see Kurtz, K. G. i. 106. Momm-
sen, Abhandl. d. Sachs. Gesellsch. i. 595.
i i

530 APPENDIX.
never seen)1 he quoted from the Epistle to the Hebrews,
and from the Wisdom of Solomon. But no such quotation
was to be found in any of his best-known works, and in
any case he did not assign the Epistle to St. Paul.2
Indeed, the mention of the Epistle with the Wisdom of
Solomon seems to imply that he regarded the two works
as standing on the same footing. The Presbyter Gaius
only recognised thirteen Epistles of St. Paul, and did
not number this Epistle among them.3 The Canon of
Muratori (cir. a.d. 170) either does not allude to it, or
only under the damaging description of a letter to the
Alexandrians, current under the name of Paul, but
forged in the interests of Marcion's heresy (" ad haeresim
Marcionis ").4 It is remarkable that Marcion, in the
middle of the second century, rejected it, though many
passages might have been used to support his views.
1 The Bi&xiov SiaXe£ea>v Siaipipoiv.
2 The fragment in which he is supposed to quote Heb. xiii. 14 (Stieren's
Irenaeus, i. 854, seq. ; ii. 361, seq.) is of very doubtful genuineness, and
even if genuine proves nothing.
3 Gaius, ap. Euseb. H E. vi. 20. As he makes this remark in imme
diate connexion with severe animadversions on the precipitance (irpowereiav)
and audacity of those who admitted the authenticity of spurious writings,
it would appear that he even regarded the Pauline hypothesis with some
indignation ; and as he was a Xoyidraros dv^p, his opinion is important.
Nothing, however, is known of Gaius, and Bp. Lightfoot (Journ. of
Philology, i. 98) has conjectured that he is none other than Hippolytus
using his own prsenomen as an interlocutor in the dialogue against
Montanism. 4 If " Gaius " was, as Muratori thought, the author of the celebrated
Canon, the next remark, " f el enim cum melle misceri non congruit," would
harmonise with the severe sentiments alluded to in the previous note, and
there would be an additional sting in this if we accept the suggested
allusion to Heb. xii. 15, and the reading, iv xoxfi for ivixXri. The writer of
the Canon says that St. Paul only wrote (like St. John) to seven Churches.
Delitzsch and Liinemann say that the Epistle to the Hebrews cannot he
meant by the " Epistle to the Alexandrians," because it is anonymous ; but
the writer of the Canon does not say that it was " inscribed " with the
name of Paul. (See Wieseler, i. 27, and Hesse, Das Murat. Frag. p. 201/.)

EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS. 531
Novatian, useful as it would have been to him, and fre
quently as he quotes Scripture, never even alludes to it.
Tertullian (f a.d. 240) ascribes it to St. Barnabas,1 and
did not regard it as a work of St. Paul, for he taunts
Marcion with falsifying the number of St. Paul's Epistles
by omitting (only) the Pastoral Epistles. St. Cyprian
(f a.d. 258), in his voluminous treatises, neither quotes
nor mentions it. Victorinus (f a.d. 303) ignores it. It
is separated or omitted in some of the oldest MSS. of the
Vetus Itala.2 The first writer of the Western Church
who ascribes it to St. Paul (and probably because he
found it so ascribed in Greek writers) is Hilary of
Poictiers, who died a.d. 368.3 It was not till quite the
close of the fourth century that in the Western Church
1 Tert. c. Marc. v. 20.
2 No name is attached to it in the Peshito, and the fact that in that
version it is placed after all the thirteen Epistles of St. Paul, in spite of its
size and importance, seems to show decisively that the Syriac translators
did not regard it as the work of the Apostle (Wieseler, Eine Untersuchung
iiber d. Hebraerbrief (1861), i. 9). It is only in later Syriac versions that
it is called " The Epistle of St. Paul to the Hebrews."
3 In the fourth century neither Phoebadius, nor Zeno, nor Hilary the
Deacon, nor Optatus once quote it, though they frequently quote St. Paul ;
nor, in the fifth century, Siricius, Caelestine I., Leo the Great, Orosius,
Evagrius, or Sedulius. St. Ambrose (f 397), a student of Greek writers,
quotes it as St. Paul's, and so does his friend Philastrius ; but the latter
tells that it was not read to the people in church, or only " sometimes," and
(in another passage) that it had been ordained by the Apostles and their
successors that only thirteen Epistles of St. Paul (and therefore not the
Epistle to the Hebrews) should be read in the Catholic Church. Latin
writers misunderstood, and therefore found it difficult to accept, the phrase
" To Him that made Him," nf iroiio-avn airbv (" quia et factum Christum
dixit "), in iii. 2 ; and they looked with suspicion on the rhetorical style
("quia rhetorice scripsit sermone plausibili'"), and disliked the use made
by the Novatian schismatics of vi. 4 — 8, which St. Ambrose finds it hard
to reconcile with St. Paul's conduct to the Corinthian offender (De
Poenitent. ii. 2). The intrinsic greatness of the Epistle overcame these
hesitations, and, when once accepted, it was accepted as St. Paul's
on the supposed authority and undoubted custom of the Alexandrian
writers. i i 2

532 APPENDIX.
it began to be popularly accepted as St. Paul's. As this
popular acceptance at that late epoch does not possess
any critical importance, it is needless to enumerate the
names of writers who merely run in the ordinary groove.
Among those writers who really thought about the
matter doubts as to the Pauline authorship were ex
pressed — as, for instance, by Isidore of Seville — as late
as the seventh century.1 Now, even if this fact stood
alone — that the Western Church for nearly four cen
turies refused to admit the Pauline authorship — we
should regard it as fatal to that hypothesis. And for
this reason. If it had been written by St. Paul, it is
inconceivable that St. Clemens of Rome, his contemporary
and friend, should not have known that it was so. St.
Paul was not thus in the habit of concealing an identity
which, on the contrary, he habitually placed in the fore
ground. But if St. Clemens had been aware that it was
really a work of St. Paul, nothing can be more certain
than that he would have mentioned so precious a truth
to the Church of which he was bishop. If he said any
thing at all about the authorship, it must have been
that whoever wrote it Paul did not. Thus, and thus
only, can we account for the conviction of the Roman
Church for nearly four centuries, that the opinion about
it in the Eastern Church was erroneous. To say that
St. Clemens, " in his love for the author, would not do
what the author himself has not done ; he would not
betray the secret, &c," is to overlook plain facts in the
desire to support current traditions. Anyone may see
for himself that the author, though he does not mention
his own name, has no wish to conceal his identity from
those to whom he wrote, and, indeed, assumes that they
1 f a-d- 636.

GENERAL CITATION. 533
were perfectly aware who it was who was thus addressing
them. The Apostolic letters, it must be remembered,
were always conveyed to their destination by responsible
and accredited messengers. No Apostolic Church would
have paid attention to an unauthenticated epistle.
How very little weight can be attached to the
quotation of the Epistle in a loose and popular way as
St. Paul's may be seen in the case of two great men, St.
Jerome (f a.d. 420) and St. Augustine (f a.d. 430).
By their time — in the fifth century — the current of
irresponsible opinion ran strongly in favour of the
Pauline authorship, and to throw any doubt upon it
was to brave the charge of being arrogant or unorthodox.
It is not, therefore, surprising that both these remark
able men in an ordinary way speak of the Epistle as St.
Paul's in passages where they merely wish to make an
allusion without exciting a controversy. They were
justified in doing this, because they saw that even though
it could not have been written by St. Paul, yet it was
Pauline in its main doctrines. In ordinary treatises "it
was not desirable to be constantly correcting the multi
tude. But when they are writing carefully and accu
rately they are too independent not to indicate their real
opinion. St. Jerome over and over again quotes it as St.
Paul's, yet often with the addition of some doubting or
deprecatory phrase. When he deals directly with the
question, he treats it as unimportant, but admits that
the Epistle was accepted with some hesitancy,1 and that
many considered it to be the work of Barnabas or
Clemens.2 St. Augustine often quotes it as St. Paul's,
1 Even Rufinus, though he supposed it to be by St. Paul, adds, " Si quis
tamen earn receperit." (Invect. in Hieron.)
2 His opinion seems to have wavered more than once (see Bleek,

534 APPENDIX.
and his authority had probably no small share in in
fluencing the Synods, which declared it to be authentic.1
Yet in his later writings he so constantly quotes it
merely as " the Epistle to the Hebrews," that Lardner
says, " One would think that he studiously declines to
call it Paul's."2 The "accommodation" to which these
eminent writers condescended in popularly referring to
it as being (in a sense) a work of the Apostle, led to the
rigidity of the ordinary acceptance ; yet even at the
close of the sixth century " no Latin commentary on it
was known to Cassiodorus."3
Introd.), but he never felt at all sure that St. Paul wrote it. " Quicunque
est ille, qui ad Hebraeos scripsit epistolam" (Comm. in Amos, 8). "Si
quis vult recipere earn epistolam quae sub nomine Pauli ad Hebraeos
scripta est" (Comment, in Tit.). " Relege ad Hebraeos epistolam Pauli,
sive cujuscunque alterius earn esse putas, quia jam inter ecclesiasticas est
recepta" (id.). "Et Paulus apostolus loquitur, si quis tamen ad
Hebraeos epistolam suscipit " (in Ezek. xxviii.). " Omnes Graeci recipiunt
et nonnulli Lalinorum " (Comm. in Matt. c. 26). " Licet de ea multi
Latinorum dubitent" (Catal. 59). " Apud Romanos usque hodie quasi
apostoli Pauli non habetur " (in Is. viii. 18). " Pauli quoque idcirco ad
Hebraeos epistolae contradicitur, quod ad Hebraeos scribens utatur testi-
moniis quae in Hebraeis voluminibus non habentur " (in Is. vi. 9). "Et
nihil interesse cujus sit, cum ecclesiastici viri sit, et quotidie ecclesianmi
lectione celebretur " (Ep. 129, ad Dard.), etc.
1 Hippo, a.d. 393; Third Council of Carthage, a.d. 398; Fifth Council
of Carthage, a.d. 419. But the two former Councils only say " Thirteen
Epistles of St. Paul, and one of his to the Hebrews."
2 The force of truth compels him to insert an occasional caution, such
as " Quamquam nonnullis incerta sit ; " " quoquo modo se habeat ista
quaestio; " " quam plures apostoli Pauli esse dicunt, quidam vero negant,"
etc. See the many passages referred to in the exhaustive catalogue of
Bleek, from whom all succeeding commentators have freely borrowed.
Nothing can show more forcibly the manner in which writer after writer
will snatch at the most futile explanation of something which tells against
a current notion than that we find Augustine repeating the absurdity,
which has lasted down to our own day, that St. Paul concealed his name
in order not to offend the Jews ! (" Principium salutatorium de industria
dicitur omisisse, ne Judaei nomine ejus offensi vel inimico animo legerent,
vel omnino non legerent," etc. (Expos. Ep. ad Rom. § 11).
3 Davidson, ii. 227. That the old hesitation continued maybe seen from

THE EASTERN CHURCH. 535
The opinion of the Eastern Church originated in
Alexandria. To the Alexandrian School, though they
did not discover the secret of the authorship, the Epistle
was extremely precious, because it exactly expressed their
own views, and was founded on premises with which
they were familiar. It was, therefore, natural that they
should desire to give it as high an authority as possible ;
and in the Epistle itself they found a general support
for the notion that it was written by St. Paul.
(a.) But this assertion cannot be traced farther
back than to the unsupported guess of the venerable
Pantsenus. " The blessed Presbyter," as Clemens of
Alexandria (f a.d. 220) calls him in a passage of his
last work, the Hypotyposes1 assigned two reasons why
St. Paul had not mentioned his own name in the
salutation, as he does in every other Epistle. It was,
he said, because the Lord Himself had been sent to
the Hebrews as an Apostle of the Almighty,2 so that
St. Paul suppressed his own name out of modesty ; and
it also was because St. Paul was a herald and Apostle
of the Gentiles, so that a letter from him to the
Hebrews was, so to speak, a work of supererogation.3
the fact that it formed originally no part of D (Codex Claromontanus), is
omitted in G (Cod. Boernerianus), and is only found in Latin in F (Cod.
Augiensis). The two latter MSS. are of the ninth century. In the
Vulgate it is placed after Philemon.
1 Ap. Euseb. H. E. vi. 1 3. It is clear that if Eusebius had found any
traces of an earlier tradition he would have mentioned them, for he
brings together all the reasons he can in favour of the Pauline authorship.
His statement, therefore, tends to prove that even in the Eastern Churcl
the Epistle, in spite of its obvious phenomena, had not been assigned to
St. Paul by any writer or by any tradition of importance in the first two
centuries. (Wieseler, i. 15.)
2 The expression was taken by Clemens from Heb. iii. 1.
3 Aick perpiirnra . . . Sia re r)]v irpbs rbv Kvpiov npiqv Sia re rb iK irepiovalas Kal
rots 'EPpalois iviareXXeiv. (Hypotyposes; ap. Euseb. H. E. vi. 14.)

536 APPENDIX.
Both these attempts to explain a fact so damaging to the
Pauline authorship of the letter are untenable. If St.
Peter in writing to Jews calls himself an Apostle, there
was no reason why St. Paul should have scrupled to
give himself the same title ; nor was the division of office
between him and the other Apostles so rigid as to
prevent his addressing Jews. The "Apostolic compact"
did not prevent St. Peter from addressing Gentiles. If it
was thus rigid, it tells against St. Paul's having written
this Epistle at all, but not against his authenticating it
with his name. He constantly addressed Jews, and con
stantly maintained against them his independent right
to the highest order of the Apostolate. In writing to
them he would have been least inclined to waive the
dignity which he had received directly from his Lord.
No authority can therefore be allowed to the opinion of
Pantsenus. It was a conjecture derived from the refer
ences at the close of the letter, and possibly even from
the false reading "my chains" (toZ? Sea-fiols p,ov) instead
of " prisoners " (8e<r/*io«) in x. 34.1 The conjectural
suggestions by which he tried to support his opinion are
so weak that they actually tell against it, and show that
the eminence of Pantsenus by no means consisted in a
power of critical discernment.
(b.) If the great St. Clemens of Alexandria accepted
the Pauline authorship, he did so mainly in deference
to the opinion of Pantsenus, and only in a modified form.
1 Euthalius (cir. 460) especially refers to rots Sea-pots pov as one of the
arguments for the Pauline authorship. (Migne, Pair. Gtraec. lxxxv. 776,
ap. Bleek ; Alford, iv. 1, p. 15.) Tots Seapiois is the reading of A, D, the
Vulg., Peshito, &c. But even if the received text be right (with n, E,
H, K, &c), there is no proof that the writer is St. Paul, but only that
the writer had been in prison — a common case with Christians of the first
century.

ST. CLEMENS OF ALEXANDRIA. 537
For although he often quotes the Epistle as St. Paul's,
he was aware of the difficulties of such an opinion. He
supposed that the letter was originally written in
Hebrew, and was translated into Greek by St. Luke.
This notion may have originated in the resemblance of
style between it and the Acts. With this suggestion
we shall deal later on. But meanwhile St. Clemens,
not content with the explanation offered by Pantsenus
of the anonymity of the letter, relies on another, which
is still more groundless. St. Paul suppressed his name,
he says, because he did not wish to divert the attention
of the Jews from his arguments, being well aware that
they had taken a prejudice against him and looked on
him with suspicion.1 Thus even St. Clemens contents
himself with a reason which will not stand a single
moment's consideration. The tone of the letter through
out, as well as the closing salutations, prove that the
writer is known to his readers;2 and the supposition
that he wanted to entrap their attention before revealing
his identity is too singular for serious refutation.3
(<?.) There is no ancient writer whose opinion on the
subject would carry more weight than that of Origen,
whose splendid originality was not crushed by his
immense erudition. Now it is quite true that Origen
frequently quotes the Epistle as St. Paul's,4 but it is no
less evident that he only does so in accordance with
1 Clem. Alex. Hypotyp., ap. Euseb. H. E. vi. 14. Adumbratt. in 1
Petr., p. 1007. Clemens was, it must be admitted, somewhat credulous.
2 xiii. 18, 23.
3 See Bp. Wordsworth's surprising remarks on this subject. The unions
of great learning with want of subtle discernment even in the Alexandrian
School may be seen in their acceptance of the Epistle of Barnabas as au
thentic in spite of its extravagant allegorising and incipient Gnosticism.
4 Not unfrequently, however, he uses the phrase Kara rbv diriaroXov.
See the passages in Bleek's Introduction.

538 APPENDIX.
common custom, and that by such casual expressions he
as little intends to prejudge the question of authorship
as the authors of the Revised Version, who still retain
the name of St. Paul in the title. A modern writer who
should casually happen to quote " the Second Epistle
of St. Peter," or popularly to refer to Ecclesiastes as a
work of King Solomon, would have a right to feel him
self aggrieved if such a general reference was interpreted
as the deliverance of a final and critical opinion. Origen,
like Jerome and Augustine, whenever he wishes to be
accurate, introduces some phrase of caution which indi
cates his own opinion. We know what he thought on
the subject, for he wrote Homilies on this Epistle, which
are now unfortunately lost, but of which one or two
fragments have been preserved by Eusebius. In these
we have the deliberate conclusion of the greatest of the
Fathers. " That the character of the style of the
Epistle to the Hebrews," he says, " does not show the
unlearnedness (rb ISicon/cov)1 of the Apostle who confessed
that he was unlearned in word (that is to say, in lan
guage), but that the Epistle is more Hellenic in the
structure of its style, everyone would admit who is
capable of judging the differences of language ;2 but, on
the other hand, that the thoughts of the Epistle are
wonderful, and not inferior to the acknowledged apos
tolic writings, that too is a truth which every one would
acknowledge who attends to the reading of the apostolic
works." He subsequently attributes the thoughts to the
Apostle, and the composition to some one who made
1 On the exact import of this word see my Life and Work of St.
Paul, i. 106.
2 'Oti . . . iarlvri 'EiriaroX^ avvBeaei rrjs Xe^eus 'EXXrjviKairepa, irus o iwiard-
pevos Kpiveiv tppdaeaiv Sta<popds opoXoyqoai dv. (Ap. Euseb. H. E. vi. 25 )

ORIGEN. 539
notes of what the Apostle said.1 " If, then," he con
cludes, " any Church holds this Epistle to be the work
of St. Paul, let it be congratulated (evSo/apeirco) even for
this, since it was not without some grounds that ancient
authorities have handed it down as Paul's. But who
actually wrote it God only knows. The historical tradi
tion that has come down to us is divergent : for some
say that Clemens, who became Bishop of the Romans,
wrote the Epistle, and some that it was Luke, who also
wrote the Gospel and the Acts."2
The passage is expressed somewhat obscurely, because
(as we are sorry to admit) Origen, with all his courage,
accepted the expediency of concession, in certain cases,
to popular ignorance and current prejudice. It is clear
that he did not accept the Pauline authorship in
the ordinary sense of the word. He was too good a
scholar, too profound a student, too familiar with
the niceties of Greek expression, and too unbiassed
a critic not to perceive that the " style " of the
Epistle to the Hebrews is far more correct than that
of St. Paul. He therefore held that Clemens of Rome
may have written it, or that it might be attributed to
St. Luke. But he also saw that it came from the
School of Paul ; that it expresses his sentiments, and is,
1 fi Si typdais Kal fi aivBeais hropviipovevaavris rivos ra airoaroXiKa Kal iiairepel
o-XpXioypafy-qaavros rd eipyqpeva virb rov SiSaaKaXov. (Ap, Euseb. H. E. vi. 25.)
2 This limited and hesitating expression implies that the Churches
generally rejected this opinion, and perhaps that it prevailed in the
Alexandrian Church alone. Now the natural tendency would so absolutely
be to ascribe the letter to St. Paul, and the grounds for doing so, if taken
apart from the objections, are so reasonable (ovk eiirij) that the fact that
until this view became stereotyped there were many who rejected it, is of
itseM a proof how strong were the reasons which compelled them to run
counter to the popular inference. The general laropia was against the
Pauline authorship : the local irapdSoais was for it ; and even this was pro
bably reducible to the loose opinion of Pantonus.

540 APPENDIX.
so to speak, quite worthy of him. This is why he does
not care to disturb the opinion of any Church which
accepted it, and says that " the ancient authorities "
— under which term he vaguely refers to Pantsenus and
Clemens1 — had not been guided by arbitrary conjecture
in handing down a tradition of its Pauline origin.
(d.) The opinion of Eusebius of Gesarea is no less
hesitating and wavering. In common parlance he quotes
the Epistle as St. Paul's, but he too was well aware
that it did not belong to the homologoumena. He
was induced by the style to conjecture that it was
a translation by St. Clemens of Rome from a Hebrew
original.2 He does indeed say in one place that there
were fourteen Epistles of St. Paul, and this Epistle to
the Hebrews had its place as Pauline in the fifty
manuscripts of the Canonical books of the New
Testament which he caused to be written out for the
Emperor Constantine, who wished to place them in the
churches of his new capital. The example of Eusebius
is therefore very instructive. Passage after passage
might be adduced from his writings to show that he
accepted the Epistle as genuine; and yet when he is
writing definitely and accurately he says, " The thirteen
Epistles of St. Paul are manifest and clear. It would
not, however, be fair to ignore that some have regarded
the Epistle to the Hebrews as spurious (r)derqicao-b), saying
that it is opposed (avriXeyeo-Oai) by the Church of Rome
as not being by St. Paul." Popular reference is one
thing, and accurate statement is another. In disputed
questions a current allusion possesses no critical impor-
1 Hug (Einleit. ii. 317), Delitzsch (Hebr. § xvii.), and Bleek all
exaggerate the meaning of these expressions. (See Wieseler, i. 17.)
2 Euseb. H. E. iii. 3, 37 ; vi. 13.

THE HEBREWS AND PHILO. 541
tance. And this statement of Eusebius is remarkable as
showing that, in spite of the general truth of St. Jerome's
remark that " all the Greeks accept," there were some
even in the Greek Church who were in doubt about it.1
Can any honest man read this review of the early
patristic evidence without feeling that it is on the
whole unfavourable to the theory of the Pauline author
ship?

EXCURSUS IX.
MINOR RESEMBLANCES BETWEEN THE EPISTLE TO THE
HEBREWS AND THE WORKS OF PHILO.
A few separate instances may here be thrown to
gether of minor points of contact between the language
of the Epistle to the Hebrews and that of Philo : —
(a.) In iii. 7 — 15 the writer lays great stress on the
word " to-day." Philo defines " to-day " as " the infi
nite and interminable aeon," and says " Till to-day ; that
is for ever." 2
(b.) In ii. 6 he quotes from a Psalm by saying that
" one, somewhere, testified" (irov rt?) . He was of course
aware that the Psalm is assigned to David; but the
same vague form of quotation is found frequently in
Philo. (c.) In iii. 3 we find the remark, " He that builded the
house hath more honour than the house." Philo uses the
same argument.3
1 We learn this also from the Iambics of Amphilochius, who says that
rives rejected it : rives Se (paal ri\v irpbs 'Efipalovs viBov oiiK ed Xeyovres.
2 Leg. allegg. iii. 8; Deprofug. § 11. (Mangey, i. 92, 554.)
3 De plant. Noe, § 16 : tiacp & Kr-qadpevos ruv Krfjparos apeivwv Kal rb
weToiiqKbs rov yeyoviros.

542 APPENDIX.
(d.) In iv. 1 5 he says that Clirist shared in all our
infirmities, " except sin." Philo says that " the High
Priest is not man, but the Divine Word, free from all
share not only in willing but even in involuntary
wrongdoing," 1 and speaks also of the mercy and gentle
ness of His nature.2
(e.) The word fierpioTradelv — literally " to suffer mode
rately" — in v. 2 is found also in Philo, though it does
not occur in the Septuagint or elsewhere in the New
Testament. [f.) In vi. 5 he speaks of " tasting the utterance of
God." Philo speaks of the utterance (rhema) as well as
the Word (Logos) of God, and speaks of its nourishing
the soul like manna.3
(g.) In vi. 13 we have the distinctions between God's
word and His oath, and the impossibility of His swearing
by any but Himself. We find in Philo the same
thought and the same expressions.4
(h.) In vii. 27 the High Priest is said (without rigid
accuracy) to offer sacrifices daily. Philo uses the same
expression.5 (i.) In ix. 16, 17 he avails himself of the two senses
of diatheke, a " covenant " and a " will." Philo does
the same.6
(j.) In x. 3 he speaks of sacrifices involving " a re
membrance of sin." Philo says that the sacrifices of the
godless do not work a remission, but a remembrance of
1 De profug. § 20. (Mang. i. 563.)
2 id. § 18. (Mang. i. 559, 561.)
3 De profug. § 25 ; Leg. allegg. iii. 60. (Mang. i. 564, 120.)
4 Leg. allegg. iii. 72; De Abraham. § 46. (Mang. i. 128; cf. 181,
ii. 39.) 5 De spec. leg. § 23. evxds Kal Bvalas reXSiv KaB' exdarriv fipepav.
6 De nom. mutat. § 6. (Mang. i. 586.) Cf . De Sacr. Abel. (Mang. i. 172.

" SALEM." 543
sin, and that they force us to recall our ignorances and
transgressions.1 (k.) In xiii. 5 he uses the quotation, "/ will never
leave thee nor forsake thee." In that form the words
are not exactly found in Scripture, but Philo quotes
from Scripture in the same words.2

EXCURSUS X.

SALEM " AND JERUSALEM.

One passage alone is adduced from Scripture in
proof that Salem may be used as a shortened poetical
form for Jerusalem, namely, Ps. lxxvi. 2, "In Salem
also is his tabernacle and his dwelling-place in Zion."
But not to dwell on the fact that this can only be a
poetic licence, and that we should not expect to find
an isolated recurrence of it in a plain historic narrative,
the meaning of that verse cannot be regarded as indis
putable. The Psalmist may be referring to the Salem of
Melchizedek as a different place from Jerusalem. Again,
the word may mean " peace ; " and both the LXX. and the
Vulgate render it, " His place has been made in peace."3
Besides this, in the days of Abraham, and for centuries
afterwards, Jerusalem was only known by the name
Jebus.* But though the Targums render Salem by
Jerusalem in this passage of Genesis,5 it was an old tra
dition that the Salem intended is the city near Shechem
1 -De plant. Noe, § 25 ; Devit. Mos. iii. § 10. (Mang. i. 345, ii. 246.)
2 De conf. ling. § 33. oi pij ae dva> oiiS' ov pi ae iyKaraXiira. (Mang. i. 430.)
3 LXX. iyevffi-q iv eipf)vr) 6 riiros avrov. Yulg., " Et factus est in pace
locus ejus."
4 Judg. xix. 10, 11, &c. ; 2 Sam. v. 6.
5 So, too, Jos. Antt. i. 10, § 2.

544 APPENDIX.
which is mentioned in Gen. xxxiii. 18 and John iii. 23.1
There was a town of this name near to iEnon,2 and
its site has been traditionally preserved. The former
passage is again doubtful. The verse is rendered by the
Targums, by Josephus, and by many eminent scholars,3
not " Jacob came to Shalem, a city of Shechem" but
" Jacob came in safety to the city of Shechem." The
Samaritans always maintained that it was at Gerizim
that Melchizedek had met Abraham; and St. Jerome
tells us that the most learned Jews of his days
regarded this town as the Salem of Melchizedek, and
the ruins of a large palace were shown there which
was called the Palace of Melchizedek.4 It is there
fore doubtful whether Jerusalem is intended, espe
cially since the writer touches so very slightly on
the name. The word Salem5 means rather "peace
ful" than "peace;" and hence some again have sup
posed that " peaceful king " was a title of Mel
chizedek,6 and one which marked him out still more
specially as a type of the Messiah ; 7 but this is a late
and improbable conjecture. It may, however, be justly
maintained that the typical character of Melchizedek
1 It is mentioned also in Judith iv. 4.
2 Jerome says, " Salem civitas Sicimorum quae est Sichem." It would
be more accurate to say that it was near Shechem. He places it eight
miles south of Bethshean (Onom. s. v. Ep. ad Evang. 1). The ruined
well there is now called Sheikh Salim (Robinson, Bibl. Res. iii. 333).
3 E.g., Knobel, Tuch, Delitzsch, and Kalisch on Gen. xxxiii. 18.
4 Jer. ad Evagr. See, too, the tradition preserved by Eupolemos (ap.
Euseb. Praep. Evang. ix. 17), that Abram was entertained at Gerizim
(Ewald Gesch. iii. 239 ; Stanley, Sin. and Pal., p. 237).
6 CS.>) _
6 In Bereshith Rabba it is said that Melchi Shalem means " perfect
king," and that he was so called because he was circumcised — referring to
Gen. xvii. 1 (vide Schbttgen, ad Joe). Philo calls him "king of peace (for
that is the meaning of Salem) " (Leg. allegg. iii. 25).
7 Is. ix. 5 ; Col. i. 20, etc.

THE ALTAR OF INCENSE. 545
would rather be impaired than enhanced by his being
a king of Jerusalem. For Jerusalem was the holy
town of the Aaronic priesthood, and it might seem
more fit that the Royal Priest should have been
connected with some other sanctuary as a type of Him
in Whose day "neither in this mountain nor yet in
Jerusalem should men worship the Father," but should
worship Him in all places acceptably, if they worshipped
in spirit and in truth.

EXCURSUS XI.
THE ALTAR OF INCENSE AND THE HOLIEST PLACE.
The altar of incense (like the altar of burnt-offering)
was called Holy of Holies (Ex. xxx. 10), and in
Ex. xxx. 6 ; xl. 5, it is expressly said to be placed
" before the mercy-seat," and " before the ark of the
testimony." From its very close connexion with the
ceremony of the Day of Atonement, on which it was
(as well as the mercy-seat) sprinkled with the blood of
the sin-offering (Lev. xvi. 18), it is called in 1 Kings
vi. 22, "the altar that is by the oracle," or, rather,
" which belongs to the oracle." It is clear, then, (1)
that a peculiar sanctity appertained to the altar beyond
the sanctity of the other things which were in the
Holy Place ; a and (2) that its position was close to
the veil, and in immediate relation to the position
of the Ark, of which it seems to have been regarded
as an appurtenance. Even on these grounds the
Holiest might be generally said " to have " or contain
1 Incense was supposed to have an atoning power (Yoma, f . 44, a ;
Num. xvi. 47).
J J

546 APPENDIX.
the incense-altar. But then (3) it must be borne in
mind that the writer is thinking specially of the Day
of Atonement, and on that day the inner veil was lifted
by the high priest, so that the Holiest and the Holy
Place might (on that day) be regarded as a single
sanctuary,1 which would give still minuter accuracy to
the term used. Nor is this a mere conjecture. In
the vision of Isaiah (vi. 1 — 8) the prophet is supposed
to be standing in the Holy Place, and he sees the Lord
uplifted on His throne above the six-winged Seraphim,
just as the Shechinah was supposed to rest between
the out-stretched wings of the Cherubim above the
mercy-seat. Then one of the Seraphs flies from the
throne with a live coal in his hand, which he had taken
"from off the altar!' Similarly, in the vision of the Apoca
lypse (viii. 1 — 5) the seer sees an angel with a golden
censer, to whom is given much incense, that he may
offer it upon " the golden altar which is before the throne!'
In these considerations, then, we may fairly see the
solution of the difficulty. The writer is not speaking
with pedantic minuteness, but his expression is justi
fiable, and even accurate if we place ourselves in his
point of view, and imagine that we are looking at the
Holy and the Holiest as they appeared on the greatest
day of the Jewish year. But though he has made no
mis-statement, he comes very near it, and it is clear
that St. Paul would have written with more familiar
accuracy about these ritual details.
1 See a Paper by Prof. Milligan, in the Bible Educator, iii. 230.

DAY OF ATONEMENT. 547
EXCURSUS XII.
CEREMONIES OF THE DAY OE ATONEMENT.
At earliest dawn the High Priest chose a young
bullock for a sin-offering and a lamb for a burnt-
offering for himself and his house. After the or
dinary1 morning service, he bathed himself, and put
on his holy linen garments of purest white and of
great value.2 Then he laid his hands on the head
of the young bullock, and confessed the sins of him
self and his house. He next took two kids for a sin-
offering and a ram for a burnt-offering for the sins
of Israel,3 and cast lots upon them at the entrance of
the Tabernacle. The lots were drawn from a golden
urn called calpi, which stood in the Court of the
Priests, but close to the worshippers. One lot was
"for Jehovah," the other "for Azazel." The goat
on which the lot for Jehovah fell was sacrificed
for a sin-offering. He sacrificed the bullock as an
atonement for himself and his house, and the
priesthood in general. The blood of the bullock
was stirred by an attendant lest it should coagulate.
Then came the most awful moment of all. Filling
a censer with burning coals from the altar, and
his hands with sweet incense beaten small, he slowly
approached the sanctuary, and in his white robes
entered into the presence of God through the veil of
1 All these bathings were done in a special golden laver in a little
chamber called " Happarveh," above the room where they salted the hides
of the victims (Middoth v. 2 ; Surenhusius, Mishnah, v. 376 (quoted by
McCaul, p. 155).
2 On these see Yoma, iii. 7, and Edersheim, The Temple, p. 266.
3 Altogether he offered fifteen animals, according to Maimonides (see
Lev. xvi ; Num. xxix.).
jj 2

548 APPENDIX.
the Holiest Place. When he did so he was accom
panied, the Rabbis say, by three acolytes, of whom
one held him by each hand and the other by the jewels
of his robe. Entering the Holiest, he threw the
incense on the burning coals of the censer, that the
thick and fragrant smoke might rise in a cloud
between him and the mercy-seat.1 Through the
smoke, he sprinkled the blood of the bullock seven
times against the front of the mercy-seat and in front
of it.2 Then, going out and sacrificing the goat for the
sins of Israel, he sprinkled its blood in the same manner
on the mercy-seat, thus making an atonement for the
Holy Place because of the uncleanness of the children of
Israel. Going forth with the blood of the bullock
and the kid, he made a similar atonement for the great
brazen altar of burnt-offering, the horns of which he
sprinkled with the blood seven times. Altogether
there were forty-three sprinklings of the blood, and the
remainder was poured away at the base of the great altar.
When the whole priesthood and sanctuary were thus
cleansed he brought the live goat to the door of the
Tabernacle, and, laying both his hands upon its head,
confessed over it all the iniquities, transgressions, and
sins of the people, and sent the goat to carry those
sins away into the wilderness, into a land not inhabited,
and thus to free the consciences of the worshippers
from the sense of unforgiven guilt. Divesting himself
of the holy linen garments, which he left in the Holy
1 This somewhat mysterious proceeding arose from the dispute between
the Sadducees and Pharisees, in which the former maintained that the
incense should be kindled before the High-Priest actually entered the Holy
Place, whereas the Halachah required that it should be done after he
entered. 2 See Knobel on Lev. xvi. 14.

DAY OF ATONEMENT. 549
Place, and which were never to be worn again, he once
more bathed, probably in the Court of the Tabernacle,1
and, putting on his glorious apparel of purple and
gold and fine linen, with its bells and pomegranates
and rich embroidery, he came forth and offered the
burnt-offerings for himself and the people, and burnt
the fat of the sin-offering.2

EXCURSUS XIII.

IMPRESSIONS LEFT ON THE MINDS OF THE JEWS BY THE
CEREMONIES OF THE DAY OP ATONEMENT.
We can trace in Jewish literature how powerful was
the impression which this day and its ritual had made
upon the Jewish imagination.
Thus, in the Book of Ecclesiasticus, after more
briefly mentioning the other worthies and heroes of
Jewish history, the writer lingers longest and most
lovingly on the glorious figure of the High Priest Simon,
the son of Onias, as he appeared on the great Day of
Atonement —
" How was he honoured in the midst of the people in his coming
out of the sanctuary ! He was as the morning star in the midst of
a cloud, and as the moon at the full ; as the sun shining upon the
Temple of the Most High, and as the rainbow giving light in the
bright clouds. . . . As fire and incense in the censer, and as a
vessel of beaten gold set with all manner of precious stones.
When he put on the robe of honour, and was clothed with the
perfection of glory, when he went up to the holy altar, he made the
1 Lev. xvi. 24, which should be rendered " in a " (not the) Holy Place,
as in vi 16.
2 I have omitted some of the less certain minutiae. These may be
found in Dr. Edersheim's Temple and its Services, chap. xvi.

550 APPENDIX.
garment of holiness honourable. When he took the portions out
of the priests' hands he himself stood by the hearth of the altar
compassed with his brethren round about, as a young cedar in
Lebanon, and as palm-trees compassed they him round about. . So
were all the sons of Aaron in their glory, and the oblations of the
Lord in their hands, before all the congregations of Israel. And
finishing the service at the altar, that he might adorn the offering of
the Most High Almighty, he stretched out his hand to the cup, and
poured of the blood of the grape, he poured out at the foot of the
altar a sweet-smelling savour unto the Most High King of all.
Then shouted the sons of Aaron, and sounded the silver trumpets,
and made a great noise to be heard for a remembrance before the
Most High."1
Five chapters earlier he has dwelt with similar
enthusiasm on the person of Aaron —
" He exalted Aaron, a holy man like unto him (Moses), even
his brother of the tribe of Levi. An everlasting covenant he made
with him, and gave him the priesthood among the people ; he beauti
fied him with comely ornaments, and clothed him with a robe of
glory. He put upon him perfect glory, and strengthened him with
rich garments, with hosen, with a long robe, and the ephod. And he
compassed him with pomegranates, and with many golden bells round
about, that as he went there might be a sound, and a noise made
that might be heard in the Temple, for a memorial to the children
of his people ; with a holy garment and gold, with blue silk and
purple, the work of the embroiderer, with a breastplate of judgment,
and with Urim and Thummim, with twisted scarlet, the work of the
cunning workman, with precious stones graven like seals, and set in
gold. . . . He set a crown of gold upon the mitre, wherein was
engraved Holiness, an ornament of honour, a costly work, the desires
of the eyes, goodly and beautiful. Before him there were none such,
neither did any stranger put them on, but only his children, and his
children's children perpetually. Their sacrifices shall be wholly
consumed every day, twice continually. Moses consecrated him,
and anointed him with holy oil : this was appointed unto him by an
everlasting covenant, and to his seed so long as the heavens should
remain. . . . He chose him out of all men living to offer sac
rifices to the Lord, incense, and a sweet savour, for a memorial, to
1 Ecclus. 1. 5—16.

DAY OF ATONEMENT. 551
make reconciliation for his people. He gave unto him his com
mandments, and authority in the statutes of his judgments, that he
should teach Jacob the testimonies, and inform Israel in his laws."1
Nor did these intense feelings of admiration grow less
keen as time advanced. To the Jew of the days of our
Lord, the High Priest — degraded as was his office by the
vice and violence and unspiritual greed of its Sadducean
representatives2 — was still the most memorable figure of
all his nation ; and even their princes — a Herod of
Chalcis, and a Herod Agrippa — thought it no small
enhancement of their dignities if they received from the
Romans the special prerogative of keeping the " golden
robes " of the great Day of Atonement. Nothing more
nearly precipitated the civil war which ultimately ruined
the fortunes of Judaism than the attempt of the Romans
to hold the Jews under entire subjection by keeping
these robes under their own control, and so having the
power to hinder, if they chose, the one ceremony on
which the national well-being was believed most imme
diately to depend.
Even long centuries after the observances of Judaism
had become impossible, Maimonides, in his Yad Ha-
chazakah, carefully preserves for us all the traditional
1 Ecclus. xiv. 6—22.
2 The high-priestly duties were not only severe, but would be most
trying, and even revolting, to any one who was not animated by deep
religious feelings. When the tract Pesachim (f. 1 13, a), lays down the
rule, " flay a carcase, and take thy fee, but say not it is humiliating,
because I am a priest, I am a great man ;" this is doubtless a reminiscence
of the days when families like the Boethusim were only anxious to have
had the dignity, and so, like modern aldermen, to " pass the chair." The
Rabbis long remembered with scorn and indignation the High-priest
Issachar Kephar Barkai, who had silk gloves made for himself, that he
should not soil his hands with the sacrifices ! (Kerithoth, f. 28 6) and
Elazar Ben Charsom, who wore a coat worth 20,000 minas, so thin that
his brother-priests forbade its use (Yoma, f. 35 6).

552 APPENDIX.
precepts of the Day of Atonement — the fifteen sacrificial
victims, the fumigation and cleaning of the lamps by
the High Priest, the seven days' seclusion, the sprink
ling of his person on the third and seventh day with the
ashes of a heifer; the daily rehearsal of all the rites
which he had to perform, the disputes between the Sad
ducees and the Pharisees about the minutiae of the day ;
the five baths and ten washings of consecration on the
day itself; the utterance ten times of the full name of
God ; the reason why the name was pronounced in
an almost inaudible recitative : the sprinkhng of the
blood once above and seven times below the mercy-seat,
which was traditionally developed into forty -three sprink
lings; the watch-towers and signals by which it was
indicated that the goat " for Azazel " had reached the
wilderness ; the reading and reciting by memory as he
sat in the Court of the Women in his priestly robes ;
the tying of the scarlet cloth round the goat's horns ; 1
the washing of hands and feet in golden bowls; and
the multitude of the details to which the nation clung
with fond devotion as representing the culminating
splendour of the ritual with which they connected all
their hopes of forgiveness.
It may be said that even now the impression of this
high-priestly splendour on the great day (Yoma) is not
exhausted. In the festival prayers still read for that
day we read —
" Even as the expanded canopy of heaven was the countenance
of the Priest."
" As the splendour which proceedeth from the effulgence of
Angels was the countenance of the Priest."
He is compared to " the appearance of the bow in the
•Yoma,! 66 6.

JOHN THE PRESBYTER. 553
midst of the clouds ; " to "a rose in the midst of a
garden ; " to "a garden of roses in the midst of
thorns;" to "a star;" to "the golden bells in the
skirts of the mantle ; " to " the sunrise ; " to " the
congregation covered with blue and purple;" and to
" the likeness of Orion and the Pleiades." J

EXCURSUS XIV.
THE IDENTITY OF " JOHN THE PRESBYTER "
THE APOSTLE."
The majority of those who have questioned the
authenticity of the Apocalypse have assigned it to a
supposed younger contemporary of the Apostle, who,
they say, was known in the early Church as " John the
Presbyter." If it can be shown that the very existence
of " John the Presbyter "is in the highest degree prob
lematical, great additional force will be given to the
already strong proofs that the Apocalypse, the Gospel,
and the Epistles are indeed the work of the Evangelist
St. John. In recent times the supposed existence of
this " nebulous Presbyter " has been made an excuse
for denying altogether the work and the residence of
St. John in Asia.2
1 See Hershon, Treasures of the Talmud, p. 200.
2 Yogel, Der Evang. Johannes, 1800. Liitzelberger, Die kirchl. Tradi
tion uber d. Ap. Johannes, 1840. Keim, Gesch. Jesu von Nazara, vol. i.,
p. 160, ff. Scholten, Der Ap. Johan. in Klein- Azie, 1871. Holtzmann,
Eph. und Kolosser-briefe, 1872. On the other side see W. Grimm, Johannes,
in Ersch and Griiber. Baur, Gesch. d. christi. Kirche, vol. i, pp. 82 — 147,
etc. Krenkel, Der Apost. Johannes, pp. 133 — 178. Strauss, Schwegler,
Zeller, Hilgenfeld, even Volkmar all reject the new theory. .Renan
(L'Antechrist, pp. 557 — 589) only thinks that Scholten has succeeded in
relegating the facts to a sort of penumbra.

554 APPENDIX.
I have long doubted whether there ever was such a
person as this " John the Presbyter," and I had
arrived at this conclusion, and arranged my reasons for
holding it, before I saw the paper of Prof. Milligan
in the Journal of Sacred Literature for October, 1868.1
The papers of Riggenbach (Jahrb. filr deutsche T/ieologie,
vol. xiii. p. 319), and of Zahn in the Studien und Kritiken
for 1866, I have not yet seen, nor Zahn's Acta Johannis
(1880).2 I have purposely abstained from consulting
them in order that I might state my argument in
my own way and as it occurred to myself. It will have
been useful if it helps in ever so small a degree to get
rid of " a shadow which has been mistaken for a
reality," " a sort of Sosia of the Apostle, who troubles
like a spectre the whole history of the Church of
Ephesus."3 The question of the separate existence of a " John
the Presbyter " turns mainly upon the meaning of a
passage of Papias, quoted by Eusebius, and upon the
criticism of that passage by Eusebius himself.
Let us first see the passage of Papias.
In his Exposition of Oracles of the Lord (Aojlcov
Kvpiaicwv e^jrjo-is;) Papias had assigned to himseK the
task of preserving with his best diligence and accuracy,
and of interweaving in his five books, the apostolic
traditions which were still attainable.
" I shall not scruple," he says, " to place side by side
with my interpretations all the things that I ever rightly
learned from the Elders and rightly remembered, solemnly
1 I differ from Prof. Milligan in his interpretation of the meaning of
Papias. 2 Subsequently to writing this paper I have read Zahn.
3 Renan, L'Antechrist, p. xxiii.

JOHN THE PRESBYTER. 555
affirming their truthfulness." Then, after telling us that,
unlike most men, he was indifferent to idle gossip and
secondhand information, and sought for direct evidence
as to the words of Christ, he adds : " but if at any time
any one came who had been acquainted with the Elders, I
used to enquire about the discourses of the Elders — what
Andrew or what Peter said (efarev), or what Thomas or
James, or what John or Matthew, or any one of the dis
ciples of the Lord ; and what Aristion and John the Elder,
the disciples of the Lord, say (xiyovat). For I thought that
the information derived from books would not be so pro
fitable to me, as that derived from a living and abiding
utterance."1 The general meaning of this passage is clear. The
good Bishop of Hierapolis tells us that he wished, in
setting forth his "interpretations," to derive all the
information he could from the fountain head. We learn
from St. Luke himself that, before he wrote his Gospel,
many had already attempted to perform a similar task,
and the Evangelist evidently implies that he was dis
satisfied with the majority of these efforts. It is a fair
inference from the expressions which he uses that some
of these narratives were founded on insufficient know
ledge, and were lacking in carefulness. It is possible
that these tentative sketches of the Gospel narrative —
all of which have now perished — admitted apocryphal
1 As the question turns on the meaning of this passage, I append the
Greek, ovk 0Kvf\aw Se aoi Kal 'iaa irore irapd raiv irpeafivrepwv KaXais epaBov Kal
KaXus ipvqp&vevaa avyKard\ai rats epp-qveiais SiafiePaiovpevos iirep airaiv aX-qBeiav.
Ei Se irov Kal irapaKoXovB-qicds ris rots irpeaflvrepots %XBoi robs raiv irpeapvrepwv
avexpivov Xiyoos' ri 'AvSpeas f) ri Tlerpos elirev % ri QiXnnros fl ri 'Iwdvv-qs ff
MarBatos, i) ris rwv Kvpiov paB-qrwv, are 'Apiartwv Kal 6 irpeafivrepos 'Iwdvv-qs oi
rov Kvpiov paB-qral Xeyovaiv. Ov yap rb 4k rwv f}if)x'iwv riaovriv pe aipeXetv
inreXapffavov, 'iaov rb. irapb (days <pwvfjs Kal pevoia-qs. — Papias, ap. Euseb.
H. E. iii. 39.

556 APPENDIX.
particulars or narrated true circumstances with erroneous
details. Such documents would be sure to contain some
contradictions, and would create much uncertainty in
the minds of Christians. The Four Gospels were written
in fulfilment of an imperative need. Now if imperfect
or unauthorised works, such as the sketches to which
St. Luke alludes, had come under the notice of Papias,
he would naturally regard them with suspicion, and
would feel that their uncertainties discredited their
authority. He was indeed acquainted with the Gospels
of St. Matthew and St. Mark, and perhaps, though I do
not think that this can be regarded as certain, with the
Gospel of St. John.1 But stories were floating about,
such, for instance, as that respecting the death of Judas
Iscariot, and that about " a woman accused before our
Lord of many sins," which diverged more or less from
the accounts in the Gospels. Papias felt that he would
be rendering a service to the Church if he collected from
eye-witnesses all the authentic information which could
still be gathered as to facts. It was even more impor
tant to him and to the Church to learn the accurate
truth about asserted doctrines. If " the books " to which
he refers included, as Bishop Lightfoot has conjectured,2
some of the mystic heresies and absurdities of the
early Gnostics, they fully deserved the tone of deprecia
tion in which he speaks of them. He was acting wisely
in endeavouring to bring to a focus the last glimmerings
of direct Apostolic tradition.
1 Eusebius does not quote any allusion of Papias to the Gospel of St.
John, but in an argument prefixed to a Vatican MS. of the ninth century,
we are told that he testified to its genuineness ; and a quotation from " the
Elders," in Irenseus, may be derived from Papias. Westcott, On the Canon,
p. 77. It must be admitted that this evidence is somewhat shadowy.
2 Contemporary Review, August, 1867, and August, 1875.

PAPIAS. 557
It seems then that he had long been in the habit —
perhaps ever since his early youth — of gleaning from
every available source the testimony of the Twelve
Apostles. His book was probably written after the last
Apostle was dead, and he considered that it owed much
of its importance to the old traditions which he had
gathered while it was yet possible to do so. In the
passage which I have quoted he is not speaking of
present times, but is referring to what he used to do in
the days of his youth and early manhood.
Now certainly if Papias had been a careful modern
writer we should have inferred from this passage that
the John mentioned in the first clause was a different
person from the John mentioned in the second. In the
first, he says, that it had been his habit to enquire from
any who had known " the Elders " — of whom he
especially mentions seven Apostles — what these "Elders"
said ; and also " what Aristion and John the Elder, the
disciples of the Lord, say."
But although this would be the natural inference,
it is by no means the certain inference. The antithesis
may be between the past and present tense (" said "
aud "say"), and not between two sources of original
information. There is nothing to forbid the explana
tion that when Papias met any one who had known
the immediate Apostles and disciples of the Lord —
St. John among them — he made notes of what (accord
ing to his informant) these Elders said ; but in writing
this clause he remembers that, at the time when he was
making his notes, two of the immediate disciples of the
Lord were not dead but Kving ; namely, Aristion — to
whom, since he was not an Apostle, he does not give the
direct title of " Elder " — and John, whom he identifies

558 APPENDIX.
with those whom he has mentioned in the first clause
by calling him, as he had called them, " the Elder."
Certainly such a way of expressing himself would
show that Papias was a man who wrote in a very simple
and loose style ; but this is exactly what we know to
have been the case. It is true that, in one place, if the
clause be genuine, Eusebius calls him " a man in all
respects of the greatest erudition and well acquainted
with Scripture." 1 But the genuineness of this eulo
gistic clause is very uncertain, since it is omitted in
several manuscripts, as weK as by Rufinus, and (which
is important) in an ancient Syriac Version. Three
chapters further on Eusebius tells us that Papias was " a
man of exceedingly small intelligence, as one may infer
from his own writings."2 Such a man might easily
write in a confused style. One at least of the passages
which Eusebius quotes from the Exposition bears out
his unfavourable opinion of the ancient bishop's ability.
Nor are we left to form our judgment of his style solely
on the opinion of Eusebius. Another of the passages
which the historian quotes from Papias (and to which I
have referred further on) is equaKy wanting in precision,
and is therefore susceptible of more than one interpre
tation. I. Now, first of all, no difficulty can arise as to the
title given to St. John. Papias calls all the other
Apostles " the Elders," and it is only natural to assume
that he gives the same title to St. John in the same
sense. The word " Elder," like the word " Apostle,"
had two different senses. In its ordinary sense it was
1 dv^ip rb irdvra Sri pdXiara Xoyidraros. Euseb. H. E. iii. 36.
2 a<piSpa apiKpbs wv rbv vovv ws av e/c rwv avrov Xiywv reKpypdpevov eliretv.
Id. iii. 39.

" ELDER." 559
applicable to many hundreds of persons, for it meant any
Christian who was member of a Presbytery. But it had
a special sense, in which it meant one who belonged to
the earliest generation of Christians. In this sense it is
constantly used by Irenseus, and is applied to Papias
himself, though he was not a Presbyter but a Bishop of
Hierapolis, and though by the time of Irenseus the dis
tinction between " Bishop " and " Presbyter," which is
not found in the writings of the New Testament, had
been gradually introduced. If the Second and Third
Epistles of St. John be, as the Church has generally
inferred, by the same author as the First, the case is
strengthened for identifying " John the Elder " with
" John the Apostle," for in both those Epistles St. John
gives himself this very title. That it was in no sense
inappropriate may be seen from the fact that St. Peter,
in addressing Elders, calls himself their " fellow Elder." J
Besides this, when used with the definite article, it
would be a title of great significance, and yet would
accord with the modesty and reticence which were
habitual with St. John. There was no need for the last
survivor of the Apostles to give himself the title of
" Apostle," to which, in its loftiest sense, all men knew
that he had an undisputed claim. He did not wish to
assert his own immense authority. But in calling him
self "the Elder" he used a term doubly impressive.
He implies that he was an Elder in a peculiar sense, both
because he was entitled from his great age to respect
and reverence, and also because he was raised above the
rest of Elders by the dignity of his position as the last
of the Twelve, and the last of those who could say " I
have seen the Lord." So far, then, we see that, whether
1 1 Pet. v. 1.

560 APPENDIX.
they were the same person or not, the John in the first
clause and the John in the second are each characterised
by two identical titles. Each is called an " Elder," and
each is caKed " a disciple of the Lord." Surely if Papias
had wished to describe two different persons he would
have given some separate and distinctive title to the
second and inferior John. It is a reasonable inference
that Papias is only mentioning the same person twice
over in an intelligible, though loose and inartistic way,
to distinguish between reports of his sayings which were
brought to him when St. John was yet living and after
he was dead.
But, besides this, I am far from sure that the sen
tence is not loosely constructed in another sense. By
the figure of speech called zeugma, or rather, syllepsis,
the same word, even in the most classical writers and in
all languages, is often made to serve two purposes in the
same sentence. A verb is often used with two clauses
which is only appropriate to one of them, as in Pope's
line — " See Pan with flocks, with fruits Pomona crowned,"
where from the participle " crowned " we must under
stand the word " surrounded " to suit the first haK of
the line. In other instances we are compelled by the
sense to borrow from one verb another which may be
even opposite in meaning, as in St. Paul's —
KwXvivrwv yapetv, airexeaBai fipwpdrwv.1
" Forbidding to marry, [commanding] to abstain from
meats," where from kcokvovtcov (forbidding) we must under-
1 1 Tim. iv. 3, comp. ydXa vpas iirinaa ov $pwp.a, 1 Cor. iii. 2.

PAPIAS. 561
stand Ke\ev6vrcov (commanding) to suit the second clause.1
It is then perfectly legitimate to understand Papias to
mean that he used to enquire what Peter, John, etc. said,
and when opportunity occurred used to make personal notes
of what Aristion and John say} What he derived from
St. John would, if such were his meaning, have been of
two descriptions, namely, (1) Reports of his conversations
from others, and (2) Actual notes of his living testi
mony taken down in intercourse with the Apostle him
self when Papias was young. And that Eusebius is not
guilty of mere carelessness in interpreting him to mean
that he actually heard " John the Elder " is, I think,
shown by the words which foUow, in which Papias,
thinking mainly of his last clause, speaks of the impor
tance of the " living and abiding voice." Indeed, he says
in his opening sentence that some of his notes were
derived from immediate intercourse with some of these
" Elders " as well as (el Se Kal k.t.X.) from trustworthy
reports of what they had said to others.
There are, then, two strong arguments for construing
the sentences of Papias as I have here proposed. They
are all the stronger because they are both derived from
Eusebius himself, though he may be called the original
inventor of the theory about " John the Presbyter." 3
(1.) One of these arguments is that Eusebius so con
strued the sentence. He indeed makes " John the
Elder " of the first clause a different person from the
"John the Elder" of the second clause; but he para-
1 This is called zeugma ; in syllepsis the same word is taken in two
different senses.
2 'AvaKpiva means " I examine," " sift," or " question."
3 Dionysius of Alexandria had given a timid hint that there might
have been such a person, but Eusebius, by a bold criticism, assumes that
there was. k h

562 APPENDIX.
phrases the sentence thus : " Papias testifies that he had
received the sayings of the Apostles from those who had
been acquainted with them, but says that he had been
himself a hearer of Aristion and of John the Elder!' He
has been accused of error and carelessness in thus under
standing the sentence, but I think that I have shown his
construction of it to be, so far, perfectly justifiable.
(2.) The other argument is that Eusebius, in an
earlier book, the Chronicon, says without any hesitation,
that Papias was a hearer of St. John the Apostle.1 Now,
that this was the truer and more unbiassed conclusion,
seems clear on other grounds. I shaU show later on
that " the Elder " is quoted for statements which could
hardly have come from any but an Apostle. And
besides the ancient and frequent testimony that Papias
had seen and conversed with St. John the Apostle, it
would be inconceivable a priori that one who was
searching for first hand and authentic testimony should
never have taken the trouble to go from Hierapolis to
Ephesus to consult an Apostle of the highest authority,
who was then living at Ephesus as the acknowledged
head of the Asiatic Church.
The argument, therefore, that Eusebius was more
likely than we are to have known whether there was or
was not a " John the Presbyter," and whether Papias
was his hearer or the hearer of St. John the Apostle,
because Eusebius possessed all the writings of Papias,
and we do not, falls signally to the ground. Indeed, it
tells the other way. In his History he reasons himself
into the belief that Papias was only the pupil of " the
1 So, too, Iren. c. Haer. V. 33. '\wdvvov pev axovar-qs, TloXvKdpirov Se eratpos
yeyovds. It is monstrous to suppose that Irenseus would use the simple
word " John" if he only meant the Presbyter.

JOHN IN EPHESUS. 563
Presbyter ; " but he had all the writings of Papias in
his hand when he wrote the Chronicon, and there he
says, without any hesitation, that Papias was a pupil of
the Apostle. " John the Presbyter " is the creature of
Eusebius's later criticism. If he could have quoted from
Papias a single other passage which in any way coun
tenanced his existence, there would have been no need
to base his existence upon a mere conjecture.
On the other hand, the belief that Papias really had
seen and heard the Apostle St. John, rests not upon
conjecture, but upon the distinct testimony of Irenseus,
who says that Papias was " a hearer of John, and an
associate (kralpoi) of Polycarp."1 Justin Martyr lays
the scene of his dialogue with Trypho in Ephesus ; and
he quotes the Apocalypse as the work of the Apostle.2
That the John intended is the Apostle — the only John
of whom Irenseus knew anything — is sufficiently clear,
because Irenseus, in his letters to Victor and to Florinus,
distinctly says so.3 Apollonius, Bishop of Ephesus,
says that the Apostle Kved at Ephesus, and wrote the
Apocalypse.4 Melito, Bishop of Sardis, must have held
the same opinion, as is clear from the silence of Eusebius.5
Apollinarius, who succeeded Papias as Bishop of Hiera-
polis, a.d. 170, and was therefore specially likely to be
weU informed, must have known that both Polycarp and
Papias were hearers of the Apostle.6 Jerome, in his

1 Iren. c. Haer. v. 33. So too CEcumenius, on Acts ii. ; Nicephorus,
H. E. iii. 20; and Anastasius Sinaita (Hexaem. vii.), who calls him a
pupil of the "bosom- disciple" (o imarfiBios). See Routh, Rel. Sacr. i. 15.
2 Just. M. Dial. 81.
3 Iren. c. Haer. iii. 1, § 1, and ap. Euseb. H. E. v. 20 — 24.
* Ap. Euseb. H. E. v. 18.
6 See Jer. De Virr. Illustr. 24.
6 Ap. Euseb. H. E. iv. 27 ; v. 19. Jer. De Virr. Hlustr. 26.
h U2

564 APPENDIX.
De Viris lllustribus, says the same.1 Till very recent
times no one ever breathed a doubt that Polycarp had
been a hearer of the Apostle, and had by him been
appointed Bishop of Smyrna.2 If, then, Polycarp was a
hearer of the Apostle, there can be no difficulty in
accepting the testimony that Papias, who was a friend
and contemporary of Polycarp, had enjoyed the same
peculiar privilege.
II. But now let us examine more closely the criti
cism of Eusebius3 upon the passage of Papias. He
says " that Papias mentions the name of John twice,
and in the first clause places him with Peter and the rest
of the Apostles, clearly indicating the Evangelist ; but
that in the second clause he ranks him with others who
were not Apostles, placing Aristion before him, and he
distinctly caUs him ' an Elder;' so that even in this way
he indicates the truth of the statements of those who
have said that there were two who had the same name
in Asia, and that there were two tombs in Ephesus, and
that each is still called ' a tomb of John.' We ought
to attend to these facts, for it is probable that it was the
second John who saw the Apocalypse which passes under
the name of John, unless any one wishes to believe that it
was the first."
It should be most carefully observed that Eusebius
does not here profess to know anything whatever about
this " John 'the Elder," and that he is not quite fair in
saying that Papias calls him " an Elder." Papias did
not call him " an Elder," but " the Elder," which may
be a very different thing. Eusebius also fails to notice
that the " John " of the second clause is described by
1 Jer. 1. c. c. xviii.
2 Tert. De Praescr. Haer. v. 30. 3 H. E. iii. 39.

EUSEBIUS. 565
exactly the same two designations as the John of the
first clause, namely, as one of the " Elders," and as a
" disciple of the Lord." Eusebius is only led to infer
that there was a John who was not the Apostle, (1)
by his criticisms of this single passage ; (2) by the
fact that " some " had said so ; and (3) because these
persons stated that there were still two tombs at
Ephesus which were known by the name of John.
And yet, after all, Eusebius is so little convinced by
his own reasoning — he is so anxious " to steer between
the Scylla and Charybdis of yes and no " — he sees that
the evidence for the Apostolic authorship of the Apoca
lypse is so strong — that he is stiU obliged to leave the
authorship of the book a matter of individual opinion.
Whatever may be thought as to the ingenuity of
his reasoning, Eusebius furnishes the most complete
refutation of his own theory by the inability to produce
a single grain of testimony or even of tradition in
favour of the view that this separate " Presbyter " had
ever existed.
Two questions then arise : —
a. Why was Eusebius so anxious to believe in the
existence of this "John the Presbyter"?
jS. Who were the " some " on whose testimony he
relies ?
a. The answers to both questions are very easy.
Eusebius disliked the Apocalypse. He seldom quotes
it. In one passage he refers to it as possibly (et ye cpaveirf)
spurious, and in another as possibly (et ye cpavekj)
genuine, leaving the decision very much to the reader
himseK. He was extremely opposed to the fanatical
and sensuous Chiliasm, which derived its sole support
from this book; and on this very ground he was

566 APPENDIX.
inclined to look down upon the old Bishop of Hiera-
polis, with his credulous stories and Judaic sympathies.
If the millennial traditions which Papias had collected
in his Expositions could be dissociated from the
authority of the Apostle, and made to rest on that of
an unknown and sub-apostolic personage, it would be
more easy to set them aside.
/3. As to the "some" to whom Eusebius alludes,
they probably reduce themselves to Dionysius of Alex
andria, just as the " some " to whom Dionysius himself
aUudes as disparaging the Apocalypse probably reduce
themselves to the Alogi. At any rate, the only trace
of any conjecture as to the existence of " John the
Presbyter " previous to Eusebius, is in the famous
criticism on the Apocalypse by Dionysius. In that
criticism, preserved for us only by Eusebius,1 the
learned Patriarch of Alexandria says that it is clear
from the testimony of the book itseK that a " John "
wrote the Apocalypse, but that instead of calling
himself " the disciple beloved by the Lord " (as in
the Gospel), or, " the brother of James," or " one
who has actually seen and heard the Lord," which
would have clearly indicated his individuality, he only
caKs himself "your brother and fellow in affliction,"
and " a witness of Jesus," and " blessed because he saw
and heard these revelations." " Now I think," continues
Dionysius, " that there have been many who bore the
same name as John the Apostle, who loved that desig
nation out of their love and admiration and emulation
for him, and because they wished to be loved of the
Lord as he was ; just as many children are named
after Paul and Peter. Nay, there is even another
1 H. E. vii. 25.

DIONYSIUS OP ALEXANDRIA. 567
John in the Acts of the Apostles, who bore the sur
name of Mark. I cannot say whether this be the
John who wrote the Apocalypse, for it is not recorded
that he went with them (Barnabas and Paul) into Asia ;
but I think that it was some other John of those who were
in Asia, since some even say that there are two tombs in
Ephesus, each of which is called ' the tomb of John.' "
If the " some " to whom Eusebius appeals, include
any one except Dionysius of Alexandria and those who
had given him his information, we have at any rate no
clue as to who they were. Had they been persons of
special authority, or with special opportunities of know
ing the facts, Eusebius would have told us something
about them. And what does the evidence furnished
by Dionysius amount to ? Not (be it observed) to the
statement that there were two Johns, but only that John
was a common name, and that there were two tombs in
Ephesus, each of which was pointed out by the local
ciceroni as a tomb of John ! He does not even pretend
to imply that they were the tombs of two Johns. On
the contrary, each was asserted to be the tomb of the
Apostle. III. Could any reader of modern German criticisms
believe that beyond this we know absolutely nothing
about John the Presbyter, as distinct from John the
Apostle ? J And how utterly baseless a foundation is
this for such a superstructure ! Dionysius wrote about
the middle of the third century,2 when John had been
laid in his grave for at least a century and a half.
1 No importance can be attached by any one to the guess or invention
of the Apostolical Constitutions (vii. 46), that the Presbyter succeeded the
Apostle as Bishop of Ephesus.
2 He succeeded to the Presidency of the Catechetical School at Alex
andria in A.D. 231.

568 APPENDIX.
There is no tradition worth the name as to the place
and manner of the Apostle's death, and in the absence
of authentic information, it was beheved or assumed that
he died at Ephesus. Since this was the common belief,
it was quite natural that the Christians who visited
Ephesus should ask to be shown the grave of John.1
Now the duplicate sites of many other " holy places "
in Palestine and elsewhere show that K, in a case where
there was no certainty, one supposed grave was pointed
out, it was a very likely result that there would be two.
The two graves were merely rival sites for a spot
which, if either of them were genuine, would be full
of interest. Yet, on grounds so slight as these, Diony
sius — who, though he speaks reverently of the Apoca
lypse, could not persuade himseK that it was the work
of the Apostle — first infers that there were two Johns ;
and, secondly, that one of them may have been suf
ficiently famous to be the author of the Revelation.
That Dionysius is merely clutching at a theory is
proved by his haK suggestion that the author may have
been John Mark the Evangelist ; a suggestion in which,
so far as I am aware, he has had scarcely a single fol
lower for 1,500 years.2
But, further than this, his suggestion proves a great
deal more than he intended by it. This second John,
if he existed at all, must have been an exile in Patmos,
and a person of such immense and acknowledged in-
1 Similarly the "trophies" of Peter and Paul were pointed out at
Rome as early as the days of the Presbyter Gaius (a.d. 213).
2 The only exceptions are Beza and Hitzig. Beza, Prolegom. in
Apoc. p. 744. " Quod si quid aliud liceret ex stylo conjicere, nemini
certe potius quam Marco tribuerim, qui et ipse Joannes dictns est"
(Liicke, Einleit. in d. Offenbar. p. 780). Hitzig, JJeber Joh. Markus,
1843.

ST. JOHN IN EPHESUS. 569
fluence as to be able to address the Seven Churches of
Asia with almost more than Apostolic authority. But,
as we can now prove, the Apocalypse was written about
a.d. 68 ; and if John the Presbyter at that time exer
cised so powerful a sway over Asia, then there is little
or no room left for the work of John the Apostle.
Polycrates, Bishop of Ephesus (a.d. 196), spoke of
John the Apostle and Philip1 as the two great lights
of Asia;2 but if John the Presbyter is the exile of
Patmos and the author of the Second and Third
Epistles, he must have been, on the evidence of these
writings, a " light of Asia " whose splendour was much
more powerful than that of Philip, and so bright as to
make the name even of the Apostle grow somewhat pale.
If the Presbyter wrote the Apocalypse, a large part
of the evidence for the Asiatic residence of St. John
falls to the ground. This is the actual result arrived
at by Scholten, Lipsius, Keim, and other Dutch and
German theologians, who faU back on an unauthorized
and dubious quotation from Papias by Georgius
Hamartolos, to the effect that John the Apostle was
martyred by the Jews. Dionysius shows no trace of such
wild conclusions, though they would naturally spring
from his own conjecture; and, as for Georgius Hamartolos,
we have the less scruple in setting aside his supposed
quotation, because none of his predecessors for eight
centuries know anything about it, and because in the
very same sentence he has flagrantly mis-stated the
known opinion of Origen.3
1 The Apostle, not the Deacon (Euseb. H. E. iii. 39).
2 Polycr. ap. Euseb. H. E. iii. 31; v. 24. See Routh, Rel. Sacr.
p. 369. 3 Georgius Hamartolos not only quotes Papias for the assertion that

570 APPENDIX.
IV. Keim dwells much on the fact that little or no
mention is made of the Asiatic work of St. John till
the close of the second century. It is not mentioned,
he says, in the Acts of the Apostles, nor in the Ignatian
Epistles, nor in Polycarp's letter to the Philippians,
nor in the letter of the Churches of Lyons and Vienne.
The answer to this difficulty, if it be one, is twofold.
It is that, in the first place, there was no special reason
why it should have been mentioned in any one of these
documents ; and that, in the second place, the " argu
ment from silence " is always a most untrustworthy
way of attempting to throw doubts on facts for which
there is positive evidence. Are we to doubt the exis
tence of Milton or of Jeremy Taylor — of Bacon or of
Shakspeare — because these contemporaries make no
allusion to each other in their voluminous writings?
Humboldt points out that in the archives of Barcelona
there is no trace of an event so important as the tri
umphal entry of Columbus ; in Marco Polo's travels no
mention of the wall of China; in the archives of
Portugal no allusion to the travels of Amerigo Vespucci.1
Michelet, in his History of France, states that the
two chief historians of the Sicilian Vespers make no
mention whatever of Procida, though he was un
doubtedly the chief mover in that terrible event.2
The argumentum ex silentio may be set aside as
wholly unimportant. Moreover, in this instance it is
singularly inappropriate, since it tells with redoubled
force against the very existence of any separate " John
St. John had been martyred by the Jews, but says that Origen thought
60 too, which is the reverse of the fact (Orig. in Matt.).
1 Gesch. d. Geogr., vol. iv. p. 160.
2 Yarnhagen von Ense, Tagebucher, vol. i. p. 123. These two instances
are quoted by Krenkel, Der Ap. Johan. p. 139.

ST. JOHN IN EPHESUS. 571
the Presbyter," who is passed over in still profounder
silence by all sources of information alike.
It is quite certain that such an hypothesis as the
denial of John's work in Asia would have appeared
absurd to Dionysius. He was probably in possession
of a stronger and more detailed tradition on the subject
than we are. At any rate, he would not have listened
for a moment to the supposition on which this recent
theory depends. It requires us to believe that Irenseus
(a.d. 180) actually confounded John the Apostle with John
the Presbyter I Such a supposition is — I fear it must
be said — utterly absurd. Irenseus repeatedly refers to
" John," and " John the Lord's disciple," and for
tunately it cannot be asserted that he is referring to
this second John, because in one passage he expressly
caKs him " John the disciple of the Lord who leaned
upon his breast, and himseK published the Gospel
while Kving in Ephesus of Asia."1 There is in Irenseus
no trace of any other John ; nor was there any such
trace in the writings of Polycrates, Bishop of Ephesus,
or Apollinarius, Bishop of Hierapolis — two persons
who were eminently likely to be well informed about
the history of the Christian Church in those two cities.
Irenseus teUs us that Polycarp had been the disciple
of St. John, and had always referred to him about
disputed questions, and had felt for him an unbounded
reverence. Now Irenseus too was of Asiatic origin, and
knew the traditions of Ephesus. He had himself been
a hearer of Polycarp, and has left a most graphic de
scription of the manner in which the old man used to
demean himself. And yet we are asked to believe that
i See Iren. c. Haer. ii. 22, § 5; iii. 1, § 1; iii. 3, § 4; v. 30, § 1; 33,
§§ 3, 4 ; and ap. Euseb. H. E. v. 24.

572 APPENDIX.
when he calls Polycarp " a hearer of John " he mistook
John the Apostle for John the Presbyter, though of
this John the Presbyter there is not so much as a
tradition, however faint, until we come to the middle
of the third century ; and no trace even then except a
vague report that there were at Ephesus two graves
known as graves of John ! But St. Jerome furnishes
us with conclusive evidence of the extremely valueless
character of this grain of supposed fact in the ever-
widening ocean of theory. He says (De Viris Hlustr!)
that " another tomb is shown at Ephesus as the tomb
of John the Presbyter, although some think that they
ARE BOTH TOMBS OF JOHN THE EVANGELIST " ! Had it
not been for dogmatic reasons, it is probable that no
one would have thought anything else.
There is overwhelming evidence that John the
Apostle spent many of his last years in Asia. It is
one of the most unanimous and best supported of
Church traditions, and it can be traced in a continuous
sequence of evidence from the days of those who were
his contemporaries, and had enjoyed his personal inter
course. That there was any John the Presbyter distinct
from the Apostle, there is no evidence whatever. For
to say that a second-hand report about two graves in
Ephesus is any evidence, is idle. We should never
have heard a word about these two graves, or at any
rate, this is not the inference which would have been
drawn from them, if Dionysius had not disliked to
attribute the Apocalypse to St. John, and K Eusebius,
in common with many others, had not felt a scarcely
concealed desire to get rid of the book altogether. But
if this imaginary " Presbyter " wrote the Apocalypse
he must, on the showing of the book itself, have been

JOHN THE ELDER. 573
a very great man indeed, and one whose position en
abled him to adopt a tone more authoritative than was
adopted even by St. Paul. Is it conceivable that of
such a man there would not be so much as a single
other trace except the report of a dubious grave con-
jecturally assigned to him a century and a half after
he was dead ?
The ancient Fathers, both Greek and Latin, were
not to be misled either by the specious suggestion of
Dionysius, or by the bold assertion of Eusebius more
than seventy years afterwards. Neither of these great
writers found any one to foUow them in their theoretic
inferences from the loose clause of Papias. The Fathers
had the works of Papias in their hands, and knew that
he had nowhere disintegrated the individuality of the
one and only " John," whom the Church would under
stand to be referred to when that name was mentioned.
They also had in their hands the Acts of Leucius,
which are probably the chief source of Johannine tra
ditions ; and it is clear from the silence of Eusebius
and Dionysius that there the Presbyter had no exis
tence. Accordingly, Apolhnarius, Anastasius Sinaita,
Maximus, and many others, go on repeating that
Papias was a hearer of John the Apostle, without so
much as noticing that there was anything doubtful in
the passage out of which Eusebius has conjured his
shadowy Presbyter.
V. But some will say, have we not two Epistles
which profess to emanate from " John the Presbyter " ?
Undoubtedly we have, and this is one of the strongest
evidences that "John the Presbyter" was no other
than "John the Apostle," for as St. John nowhere
claims his Apostolic authority, he would least of all be

574 APPENDIX.
likely to do so in two private notes to otherwise un
known individuals ; notes which do not contain a single
item of importance except where they exactly coincide
with the thoughts, and indeed the actual words, of the
First Epistle; notes which no separate " John the
Presbyter " could possibly have written unless his
mind were an echo of the Apostle's as well as his
name. The Apostle caKs himself " the Presbyter "
in these little private letters, because the title suf
ficiently indicated his personality as the aged Head
of the Asiatic Churches, and as one who belonged to
a past epoch.1 No other designation would have been
so simple, so dignified, and so suitable. And most
certainly Papias was not influenced by this circum
stance ; for while he was acquainted with the First
Epistle of St. John, he does not seem to have known
of the existence of the Second or Third.
VI. But the use of this designation, "the Elder,"
is further iKustrated by Papias himseK. He prefaces
one of his oral traditions with the words, " These
things the Elder used to say." We have seen that he
used the word " Elders " in its narrower sense as
synonymous with " Apostles." He meant by the
term those who were the oldest and most venerated
sources of tradition. He certainly would not have
given this specific title to any one who belonged only
to the second generation, and who would therefore have
been a contemporary of his own. By " the Elder "
he has been always and rightly understood to mean
John, who, as the last survivor of the Apostolic band,
1 I do not refer to the parallel case of St. Paul calling himseK " the
aged " in Philemon 9, because the word wpeafivr^s may there mean " an
ambassador."

"THE ELDER." 575
was " the Elder " Kar i%oxnv. He does not give this
title even to Aristion, though he too was a living witness
of facts connected with the life and ministry of Christ.
Again, the remarks ascribed to this intensely vene
rated " Elder " are such as we can hardly imagine that
any one short of an Apostle, and such an Apostle as
St. John, would have had authority to make. For
instance, the Gospel of St. Mark is universally be
lieved to have been written under the guidance of St.
Peter. The numerous graphic and vivid touches in
which it abounds, as weU as many other circumstances,
lend probability to this tradition. Now who is the
original authority for this belief ? None other than
" the Elder " himself. He informs Papias that " Mark
having become the interpreter of Peter, wrote accurately
all that he (Peter) related."1 But, such being the case,
what ordinary disciple, even of the first generation,
would have ventured to criticise ex cathedra — to criticise
as though from the standpoint of wider and more in
timate knowledge — a Gospel which rested on the
authority of the Chief of the Apostles ? Surely there
was no Kving man who would have ventured to do this,
unless he were one whose opportunities of information
were greater even than those of St. Peter ? Yet " the
Elder " does so. He informed Papias that though St.
Mark wrote truthfully, to the best of his remembrance,
he did not write the events of Christ's life and teaching
in "chronological order" (ov puevTot Tafjei). Now this we
should have thought, apart from the Fourth Gospel,
1 Euseb. H. E. iii. 39. MapKOs pev epprivevr^s Xierpov yevipevos Saa
ipnipivevaev aKpt&ws iypai/ev. The words may mean, " Wrote accurately
all that he (Mark) remembered;" or, "all that he (Peter) related"
(Westcott, On the Canon, p. 74). Here, again, wo notice the ambiguity of
the style of Papias.

576 APPENDIX.
is exactly what St. Mark does. But yet "the Elder"
is right, because the Elder is none other than the
Apostle and the Evangelist. He can speak even of
St. Mark in a tone of superiority, as of one who
"neither heard the Lord nor foKowed Him." He
knew, as perhaps no other man knew, that the Synoptic
Evangelists were but imperfectly informed as to the
events and discourses of that ministry in Judcea, as
apart from Galilee, which it was his own special
privilege to make known to the world. Hence he can
even venture to say of St. Peter himseK, that " he used
to frame his teachings with reference to the present
needs of his hearers, and not as making a connected
narrative of the Lord's discourses." What mere
secondary Presbyter would have spoken in terms of
such familiarity and even equality of " the Pilot of the
Galilean Lake " ? In such criticisms do we not hear
unmistakably the accents of an Apostle ?
VII. There is, so far as I can see, but one slight
objection to the arguments which I have here stated.
It is that, K our conclusion be correct, Papias mentions
Aristion in the same breath with St. John the Apostle,
and even puts Aristion's name first.
I fuKy admit that this mention of Aristion is per
plexing. Of this Aristion we know absolutely nothing.1
It is startling, and it is a little painful, to find Papias
referring to him as an eminent contemporary witness
to the truth of the Gospel narrative, when we can give
no information whatever respecting him. He is a
nominis umbra, and nothing more.
1 There is no authority for the assertion of the Apostolical Consti
tutions (vii. 46), which speaks of his martyrdom, and connects him with
the Church of Smyrna.

ARISTION. 577
So strongly has this been felt that some — and among
them Renan — suppose that, instead of "the disciples
of the Lord " in the second clause of the passage of
Papias, we ought to read " the disciples of disciples
(jj,a6r)Tal paOriTcov) of the Lord," and that the word
p,aBrrrcov — which would relegate Aristion and " John the
Presbyter " to the second generation of disciples — has
dropped out by the clerical error known as homwoteleuton.
Another suggestion is, that the name of John in the
first clause is simply interpolated. But since neither
Eusebius nor any one else knew or dreamt of such read
ings, the conjectures merely rest on foregone conclusions.
If we may thus tamper with ancient authors, we may
make them say anything that we please. Moreover, a
person who belonged to the second generation of dis
ciples would not have furnished the sort of authority
which Papias required. To that second generation he
himseK may be said to have belonged, for he was a con
temporary of the daughters of Philip, and (as we have
seen reason to beKeve) had talked in his youth with
John the Apostle. What he wanted for 'the purposes
of his Expositions, was oral testimony derived at first
hand from the original sources.
I have sometimes thought, and still think, that
Aristion is a name which conceals some well-known
person.1 The Jewish Apostles commonly bore two
names : one among their own countrymen, and one for
use among the Gentiles. There is nothing to forbid
1 When I wrote this I was entirely unaware that Krenkel, in his Der
Apostel Johannes, p. 117, had been led to make exactly the same con
jecture. Pereant qui ante nos nostra dixerunt I Polycrates tells us that
John and Philip were at this time the " two great lights of Asia." If
" Philip " were not a Greek name, one might have suspected that Aristion
was a local name borne by Philip.
/ I

578 APPENDIX.
the supposition that the otherwise unknown designation
may in reality refer to some Apostle or Apostolic
man who, like St. John and St. Philip, had taken
refuge in Asia from the storm of persecution and
calamity which had burst over Judsea, and who was
known at Hierapolis by the Greek name Aristion. If
this very reasonable and moderate supposition be
allowed, all difficulty vanishes. What Papias then
means to say is, that long before he wrote his book
it had been his habit to gather aK he could about the
statements of the Apostles, whom he caKs " Elders " —
and among them about the statements of John — from
those who had seen them ; and that he also took notes
of the living " oracles " furnished to him directly by
Aristion (who was evidently well known to Papias's
readers) and even — which is the reason why he keeps
the name to the last as being the fact which he most
wished to emphasize — by "John the Elder;" — the same
John — o irdw — the only John of whom any one knew
anything — who so long survived his brother. Apostles,
and to whose indirect testimony Papias has just referred.
VIII. We have then sifted to the bottom the whole
of the so-called evidence for the existence of a " John
the Presbyter " who was not John the Apostle.
It is—
1. A passage of Papias, capable of quite a different
interpretation, and which seems to have received a
quite different interpretation, not only for a full century
after he was dead, but also (in spite of Eusebius) in
subsequent times.
2. A hesitating and tentative guess of Dionysius,
rising solely from his avowed inability to regard the
Apostle as the author of the Apocalypse.

THE EVIDENCE. 579
3. Some dubious gossip (cpao-lv) about two tombs at
Ephesus, which, if trustworthy at all, was believed by
some to be due to an attempt to reconcile the inventions
of rival guides.
4. Eagerness on the part of Eusebius to support
this inverted pyramid of conjectures, out of positive
dislike ,to the Apocalypse caused by the abuses of
MiKenarians.1 " Only this, and nothing more " ! And these are
the grounds on which we are now asked to set aside
the direct or indirect testimony of Papias,2 of Justin
Martyr,3 of Polycarp,4 of Polycrates,6 of Irenseus,6 of
ApoKonius,7 of Clemens of Alexandria, of Origen, of
MeKto,8 of Andreas, of Arethas, and, in fact, of unbroken
Church tradition, and to assign the works of the last
and one of the greatest Apostles to an obscure and
dubious Presbyter ! It is on this evidence — so late and
so tottering — evidence based on an awkwardly expressed
but perfectly explicable passage of Papias, a simple
writer who had no pretence to subtlety of intellect or
grace of style — and on a professed quotation from
Papias in the ninth century by Georgius Hamartolos,
who, in the very same sentence, attributes to Origen
an opinion which his own writings show to be false —
1 Speaking of the "certain strange parables and teachings of the
Saviour, and certain other somewhat mystical things," which Papias
recorded, " from unwritten tradition," Eusebius specially mentions (H. E.
iii. 39) " some millennium of years after the resurrection from the dead,
during which the kingdom of Christ shall be established bodily upon this
earth." 2 Ap. Ajiastas. Sinaita, Hexaem. i. (Routh, i. 15).
3 Dial. c. Tryph. 81.
4 Ap. Iren., &c, and Euseb. Chron. ad Olymp. 220.
6 See Jer. de Virr. Illustr. xiv. ; Euseb. H. E. v. 26 (Routh, i. 372).
6 Ap. Euseb. v. 20, &c.
7 Euseb. H. E. v. 18. 8 Euseb. H. E. iv. 26.
/ / 2

580 APPENDIX.
that some critics have ventured to rewrite the history
of the first century ; to assert, in spite of overwhelming
evidence, that the Apostle St. John never was in Asia
at all ; that Polycarp never saw him ; that the John
for whom Polycarp expressed so profound a reverence
was only a " Presbyter " who, Kke himself, belonged to
the second generation of Christians ; that Irenseus was
mistaken in supposing that Polycarp meant the Apostle
when he only meant the Presbyter; that, if this be
thought impossible, the letter of Irenseus to Florinus
must be regarded as a forgery -,1 that this "Presbyter,"
whose very existence was only conjectured a century
later, is quoted as an oracle by Papias ; that Polycrates,
himself Bishop of Ephesus less than a century after
John's death, made the same preposterous mistake
which is attributed to Irenseus ; 2 and that nebulous as
he is, unknown as he is to early writers, utterly as
every fact about him has perished, the ."Presbyter"
was still the author either of the Gospel and Epistle,
or of the Apocalypse, or of the Second and Third
Epistles, or of all these writings alike. Credat Judceus
Apella — non ego !
But the impugners of St. John's Asiatic work raise
one or two chronological difficulties. They say that if

1 This entirely baseless suggestion of Scholten does not at all help his
cause, for, apart from the letter to Florinus, the testimony of Irenseus, in
his great work, Contra Haereses, is quite distinct.
2 Scholten sets aside the testimony of Polycrates, because he calls
John " a. priest wearing the petalon " But (1) It is by no means impos
sible that St. John, who, at one period, was so fond of symbols, may have
adopted this symbol to express the truth which he so prominently states
(Rev. i. 6 ; v. 10). (2) It is not clear that Polycrates, in this highly
rhetorical passage, meant his words to be taken literally. (3) Even if he
did, he may have been misled by giving a literal meaning to some metaphor
of St. John.

THE CONCLUSION. 581
Irenseus knew Polycarp, who knew St. John, all three
must have attained to extraordinary longevity. The
longevity need not have been very unusual. Tradition
has always supposed that St. John reached extreme
old age. Supposing that he died as early as a.d. 90,
and that Irenseus wrote about a.d. 180, then, as M.
Renan remarks, the difference which separated the two
would be the same as that which separates us from the
last years of Voltaire. Yet, without any miracle of
longevity, M. de Remusat had often conversed about
Voltaire with l'Abbe Morellet, who had actually known
him. If the martyrdom of Polycarp took place, as
Mr. Waddington seems to have proved, about a.d. 155,1
Polycarp was then 86 years old. Consequently he
must have been born in a.d. 69, and would have been
at least 21 years old when St. John died, and there is
no difficulty in the supposition that Irenseus, as a boy,
had seen and known a man who had conversed with
the Apostle who had laid his head on Jesus' breast.
A credulous spirit of innovation is welcome to be
lieve and to proclaim that any or aK of St. John's
writings were written by " John the Presbyter." They
were : but " John the Presbyter " is none other than
John the Apostle.2
1 Mem. de I'Institut, xxvi. 235.
2 This argument has already been printed in the Expositor, because I
wished to subject it to the test of criticism. Some of my arguments about
the "Beast" and the " False Prophet " have, for the same reason, appeared
in the same admirable journal. I am allowed, by the kindness of Messrs.
Hodder and Stoughton, to use the same material here.

INDEX.

Aaron — the first High Priest, as de
scribed by the Son of Sirach, ii.
550 et seq.
Abel — an example of faith, i. 460 ; hia
subject of dispute with Cain, 467 ;
murdered by his brother, ii. 437 ;
referred to in Book of Enoch, 518.
Abgar — King of Edessa, i. 83.
Abarbanel and others respecting the
Tables in the Ark, i. 419.
Abraham — the trial of his faith, ii. 38
et seq. ; known throughout the East
as "the friend of God," 54; hia
example as adduced by Paul and by
Jamea, 55.
Absalom — a scurrilous epithet of the
Talmud, i. 390.
Acesius — hia viewa on mortal sin, i.
355.
Adam — a Kabbalistic inference drawn
from the name, i. 356.
Adelptiotheos, i. 547 ; ii. 33.
Advent — The Second, vagaries respect
ing the, ii. 229.
iElia Capitolina and the abrogation of
Judaism, i. 541 ; ii. 331.
Aeiparthenia denned and discussed, i.
500.
Agapse, or Love-feasts, i. 199.
Agrapha dogmata, or unrecorded say
ings of Christ, ii. 166.
Agrippa I. — his antipathy to the Chris
tians, i. 532 ; ii. 8 ; the patron of
Ishmael ben Phabi, ii. 70.
Agrippina — daughter of Germanicus,
i. 23 ; born at Cologne, 24 ; married
(1) to Gn. Dom. Ahenobarbus, by
whom she became mother of Nero,
ibid. ; banished to Pontia, and
their property confiacated, 25 ;
afterwards married to Crispus
Passienus, 26; and afterwards to
her uncle the Emperor Claudius,
27 ; she procures the adoption of

Nero, her own son, to the preju
dice of the heir-apparent, 29; she
poisons her husband, 33 ; procures
the Imperial purple for Nero, 34;
and is by him dignified as "the
best of mothera," ibid. ; but even
tually assassinated by his orders, 47.
Akhiva — his martyrdom by the Ro
mans, ii. 54, 83.
Alexander the Great — his patronage of
the Jews, i. 253.
Alexandria — its natural advantages, i.
252 ; its synagogue, 253 ; its Sanhe
drin, 254 ; its artificers and the
Temple at Jerusalem, 254; its
epoch-making literature, 255 et seq. ;
the Septuagint, 256—261 ; the
writings of Aristobulus, 262 et seq. ;
the Book of Wisdom, 263; its
Philonic literature, 264 ; its part
in paving the way for Christianity,
278 ; catechetical school at, 279 ;
its Anti-Gnostic aims, 280 ; theo-
aophy, 281 et seq.;. its views on
inspiration, 287; its influence on
the Pauline Epistles, 288; other
contributions to Christianity, 306;
its indebtedness to Plato, 315 ; Bar
nabas regarded as the founder of
the Church of, 333 ; Apollos a na
tive of, 337 ; certain Jews of,
burned alive, an event possibly
alluded to in Heb. xi. 37, 461.
Alexandrianism — indications of, in the
writings of John and Paul, i. 91.
Aliturus, the court-jester of Nero, a
Jewish proselyte, i. 62 ; ii. 307.
Allegory and its developments, i. 282
et seq.
Alphaeus identified with James in the
Church of England Scripture
lessons, i. 492 ; but contra-dis
tinguished by the Greek Church,
ibid.

584

INDEX.

Altar of Incense and the Holiest Place,
ii. 545 et seq.
Amalthea'a Horn — mentioned in the
Septuagint, i. 259.
Amhaaretz — its definition, use, etc., ii.
108.
Anagram of malediction upon the
name Jesus, i. 390.
Andreas (Bp.) — his comment on Reve
lation referred to, ii. 290.
Andrew — hia travels, mission, and
martyrdom, i. 85.
Aneling — a practice of the early Church
provided for in the first Prayer-
book of Edward VI., ii. 74.
Angel of Death and R. bar Nachman,
ii. 340.
Angela — the fallen, Enoch's mission to
them, i. 234 ; their sin as tradi
tionally recorded, 239, ii. 522 ;
ministering, their service at Sinai,
i. 468 ; the angelic heptarchy, i.
238, ii. 258 ; angel of death, i. 232,
361, ii. 66, 340.
Annas the younger and the martyrdom
of Jamea, i. 549 ; himself cruelly
murdered by his own co-religionists,
557, ii. 211; and his remains dis
honoured, 211, 276.
Antichrist — The rise of, i. 17; identi
fied with Nero, 18, ii. 192, etc. ; the
Antichrist of Old Testament Apo
calypse, i. 57, ii. 192; a term
peculiar to John, 425 et seq.
Antilegomena, or disputed Books of
Scripture, i. 220, ii. 483. (See also
Homologoumena.)
Antinomianism — a travesty of Pauline
doctrine, i. 90.
Antioch and the origination of the
term Christian, i. 147.
Antiochus Epiphanes — the Antichrist
of Daniel, i. 57, ii. 192.
Apocalypse of John the Divine, not
the latest book of the New Testa
ment Scriptures, ii, 179 ; dates next
in order to the Synoptic Gospels,
183 et seq. ; its originating circum
stances, 189 ; Nero depicted, 190 ;
persecution of the Christians, 191
et seq. ; outbreak of Jewish War,
192 etseq. ; siege of Jerusalem, 193 ;
other historical surroundings, 195
¦ — 221 ; reception of the work, 223
et seq; the various schools of
interpretation, 227 ; discussed in
detail, 228—238; letters to the
seven churches, 239 — 242 ; the
Apostolic twelve, 243 ; its animad

versions, 244 — 247 ; the seals, 248 ;
the first seal, 249 ; the second, 250 ;
the third, 251 et seq. ; the fourth,
253 et seq.; the fifth, 254; the
sixth, 255 ; the sealing, 257 ; the
seven trumpets, 258 — 260 ; detailed
with historic illustrations, 260 —
270 ; an interlude, 270 ; the seven
thunders, 271 ; the witnesses, 273
— 275 ; forecast of the doom of
Jerusalem, 276 et seq. ; the wild
beast of the sea, 278—288 ; identi
fied with Nero, 289 et seq. ; the
mystic number 666, 291—300; the
false prophet, 301 et seq. ; illustra
tions from Roman history, 309 —
316 ; the vials, 317 et seq.; fall of
Jerusalem, 325 et seq. ; the end of
the dispensation, 329 ; and abroga
tion of Judaism, 331 et seq.
Apocalyptic literature — Apocalypse of
Baruch, ii. 166, 222 ; of Esdras, ii.
174; of Peter, i. 178.
Apocryphal Gospels — the Protevan-
gelion, i. 507 ; Gospel of Joseph,
ibid.; of Thomas, 508 ; to Hebrews,
529 ; apocryphal works attributed
to John, ii. 180. Books — the
Ascension of Moses, i. 200, 232,
238, 241 ; of Isaiah, ii. 269, 290,
312 ; of James, i. 541 ; the Assump
tion of Moses, ii. 523. (See also
s.v. Barnabas, and other distinctive
names.)
Apollos — the probable author of He
brews, i. 91 ; acquainted with
Philonian philosophy, 279, 304;
his method of interpretation, 305 ;
compares favourably with that of
Philo, 306—310; contrasted with
that of Paul, 311—329 ; ten quali
fications for writing such an
epistle, 330 et seq. ; all exemplified
in Apollos, 336 ; sketch of Ins cha
racter, ibid. ; notices of him and his
work in New Testament, 336 et
seq.; his native place and early
home, 337 ; no hint that he ever
visited Borne, 344 ; last Scriptural
mention of his name, 345. (See
s.v. Hebrews.)
Apostasy — as regarded by the com
piler of the Mishnah, i. 432.
Apotheosis of Claudius CsBsar, i. 36;
of Caligula and Nero, ii. 288; of
the Roman Emperors generally,
311.
Aquila and Priscilla — their departure
from Rome, i. 19.

INDEX.

585

Aquila — hia Greek version of the Old
Testament, i. 213 ; accredited with
the authorship of Hebrews, 332.
Archangels— Jude and John the only
New Testament writers who men
tion them, i. 238 ; the seven accord
ing to Apocryphal books and the
Talmud, ibid, (note) ; the hierarchy,
according to fourth Esdras, 351.
Aretas, King of Arabia — his adven
ture with the high priest Ishmael,
i. 410.
Aristeas and the origin of the Septua-
gint, i. 256.
Aristion, as mentioned in the writings
of Papias, ii. 555 et seq.
Ark and Tables of the Covenant, i. 416
et seq.
Arminian perversions of Scripture, i.
385.
Arthur and King John — parallel from
Roman history, i. 39.
Asinarii — a satirical term applied to
early Christians, i. 66, 148 ; the
Jews similarly slandered, 66, 417.
Atonement, Day of — as regarded by
Barnabas, i. 105 ; its paramount
place in Judaism, 326 ; Rabbinic
ceremonies, ii. 547 et seq.; im
pressions on Jewish minds, 549 ; its
connexion with the overthrow of
Judaism, 550 ; traditional reminis
cences, 551 et seq.
Augurs and Auguries — their preva
lence, ii. 305.
Augustus — his aversion to deification,
ii. 288 ; his edicts against sorcerers,
etc., 304.
Aulus Plautius and Christianity in
Britain, i. 58..
Aureum Quinquennium of Rome, i. 37.
Autos da Ee and Te Deums, ii.
58.
Avodath Hakkodesh — a Kabbalistic
work quoted, i. 399.
Azazel and the scape-goat of Jewry, i.
434, ii. 547, 552.

B.
Babylon — covertly referred to by
Jeremiah, ii. 297 ; figuratively
applied in 1 Peter, 514, 517.
Balaam — Legend of, alluded to in the
Septuagint and the Targum, i.
114; his apostasy, 183; compared
with the impious and false, 197 ;

with evil-doers generally, 200 ; how
slain by Phinehas, 260.
Bamidbar Rabba — a Rabbinic com
mentary on Numbers, i. 374.
Barachias, Son of — probably an erro
neous gloss, ii. 211.
Barcochba, a false Messiah of the
Jews — his aversion to Christians, i.
64 ; shares in their persecution and
massacre, ii. 331.
Barnabaa — his Epistle, its drift and
tone, i. 95 ; publicly read in the
Church, 101; its marked inferiority
to the canonical Scriptures, 104 ;
Alexandrian proclivities, 104 et
seq. ; its Kabbalistic vagaries and
heretical tendencies, 105 ; quoted
or referred to, i. 104 et seq., 156,
340.
Bartholomew — his mission-work and
martyrdom, i. 85.
Basilical Synagogue at Alexandria, i.
253 et seq. ; said to have been the
grandest in the world, the glory of
Israel, 254.
Bath Kol, or voice from Heaven, i.
537.
Berenice (Queen) — her intercession
for the Jews, ii. 203.
Bereshith Rabba — a Babbinic com
mentary on Genesis quoted or
referred'to, i. 258, 394, 396, 401, ii.
327, 371, 544.
Beruriah, the wife of Rabbi Meier — her
praiseworthy advice, ii. 476.
Blood — no remission without, parallel
from the Talmud, i. 428.
Brethren of the Lord, i. 223.
Burning of Rome — possible reminis
cences in St. Peter's Epistle, i.
65.
Burrus (Afranius) — a partisan of
Agrippina, i. 31 ; by her made
Praetorian Prsefect and guardian
of the youthful Nero, 33; his
influence for good over his ward,
37 ; hia reprehensible laxity in
certain matters, 38 ; his compro- ¦
mise, 45 ; eventually poisoned by
order of the Emperor, who was so
much indebted to him, 49.

C.

Caesar (see distinctive names).
Caesarian race — its premature mor
tality, i. 18) 22.

586

INDEX.

Cain — his parentage according to the
Rabbis, ii. 437.
Calvin's perversions of Holy Writ, i.
384.
" Camel and needle's eye " explained,
i. 386.
Carthage— Councils of, i. 179, ii. 2, 534.
Catacombs at Rome, i. 15, 148, 166.
Catholic — definition of the term, i. 92.
Catholic Epistles — Gregory of Nazian-
zus upon, ii. 483.
Cato the younger — his character de
scribed, ii. 434.
Centre of the earth from a Rabbinic
point of view, i. 418, 543.
Cerinthus — a Judaao-Christian heresi-
arch, i. 205 ; the immorality of his
system, 243 ; taught in Asia, ii.
153 ; accredited by Dionysius of
Alexandria with the writing of the
Apocalypse, 154 ; he was the
earliest of the Christian Gnostics,
162; the story of his death at
Ephesus, 164 ; his heretical views
and legendary associations, ii. 347
—350.
Charlemagne and the pirate Norse
men, i. 208.
Chiliasta or Millenariana, i. 90.
x£r, the mystic symbol for 666, ii. 295.
Chrestos and Christos, an interesting
paronomasia, i. 158.
Chrestus— a perverted form of Christus,
i. 1 9 ; the notion that Chrestus was a
seditioua Roman Jew, 20; Chrestian,
a parody upon the term Christian,
171 ; possibly alluded to by Peter,
ibid.
Christ — name ironically turned to
Chrestus, i. 19; styled Christus
by Tacitus, 60 ; Hia life and work
objectively treated in the synoptic
Gospels, 87 ; but subjectively by
John, 88; though scarcely alluded
to by James, 132 ; His example,
sufferings, death, resurrection, and
ascension are dwelt upon by Peter,
ibid. ; His mission to the spirits in
prison, 139—142, 168—170; the
Desposyni, descendants of the
family at Nazareth, 222—225 ; the
redemption scheme, 322 — 324; the
atonement, 325 ; superior to angels,
351 — 354; pre-eminent to Moses,
362 ; High Priesthood of, 368—370 ;
above that of the Levites, 371 ; and
Melchizedek, 408 ; various points
of supremacy, 437 — 440 ; His aton
ing blood, 441 ; His perfect obedi

ence, 442 et seq. ; recapitulation of
the phases of superiority, 444 et
seq.; the Second Advent, ii. 328;
end of the Mosaic dispensation,
329 ; abrogation of Judaism, 331 ;
a denier of Jesus ia Antichrist, 352 ;
knowledge of Christ is life eternal,
367; the doctrme of the Logos
(the Divine Word) considered, 369.
Christ — disguised references to, in the
Talmud and Rabbinic writings, ii
516.
Christendom and Heathendom con
trasted, i. 107.
Christians — until Nero's time, never
brought into collision with the
Imperial government, i. 19 ; Ne
ronian persecution, 57 et seq. ;
suffered through jealousy, 63;
Jewish malice the primary cause
of their persecution, 64 ; regarded
by the world as a debased Jewish
sect, 147; the name "Christian"
originated at Antioch, ibid. ; "every-
wherespokenagainst," 148; taunted
as renegades and apostates, 347 ;
took refuge at Pella in prospect of
the fall of Jerusalem, ii. 148, 193,
280 ; persecuted by Barcochba, ii.
331.
Christianity — a religio illicita at Borne,
i. 121 ; as regarded by Pliny and
Tacitus, 148 ; its relations to Juda
ism, 303 ; its superiority to Philo-
nian philosophy, 307 ; more ancient
than Judaism, 312 ; referred to
Abraham by Paul, and to Mel
chizedek by Apollos, 313 ; a rever
sion to Judaism the worst kind of
apostasy, 3 14 ; in what its pre
eminence consists, 317, 322; Judaic
Christianity predisposed to Phari
saism, 551 ; the Sadducees its most
extreme opponents, ibid.
Christology of Paul, i. 321 et seq.; of
Apollos and of John, 322.
Chrysostom, his noble resolution in
prospect of exile and martyrdom,
i. 166.
Cities of the plain — their overthrow,
i. 200, 231, 237.
Claudius — his edict for the expulsion
of the Jews from Borne, i. 19.
Cleanthes, the Stoic philosopher, his
death by suicide, i. 14.
Clemens of Alexandria — his account of
Peter's family, i. 112; in favour of
1 st Epistle of Peter, 1 22 ; his literary
labours referred to, 143, 167, 178,

INDEX.

587

180, 217, 243, 279; on the Pauline
authorship of Hebrews, 290; un
acquainted With Epistle of James,
ii. 1 ; his story of John and the
robber, 169—172; the martyrdom
of the apostles, 177.
Clemens of Rome — his epistle publicly
read in the church, i. 101 ; syn
cretism of the -writer, 102; his
catholicity, theology, and his mis
taken notions, 103; the evidential
value of his writing, 104 ; Bishop
of Rome, 116 ; speaks more of Paul
than of Peter, 117 ; though said to
have been ordained by the latter,
118; his definition of faith, 136;
makes no reference to 2nd Epistle
of Peter, 178 ; his variouB writings
i mentioned, 212, 217; the Book of
Wisdom and Hebrews known to
him, 322 ; accredited by some with
the authorship of the latter, 334 ;
made use of Epistle of James, ii. 2 ;
quotation made from his writings,
65 ; hia record of Peter's martyr
dom, 512.
Clementine Homilies and Recogni
tions — the product of Ebionites, i.
96 ; their disfavour of visions, 212 ;
their polemic character, ii. 28;
their animus against Paul, 80 ;
alluaiona to Peter's connection with
Rome, 514.
Cleopas an abbreviation of Cleopater,
i. 491.
Cleopatra, the wife of the Procurator
Florus, a friend of the Empress
Poppsea, ii. 201.
Clopas, Chalpai or Alphaeus, i. 491.
Coincidences (undesigned) between the
account in Acts and the writings of
James, ii. 35.
Comforter — true meaning of word so
rendered, ii. 410 et seq.; Talmudic
adoption of the original word, 411.
Commandments, the Ten — Philo's idea
that they were uttered by God, and
the rest of the Law by angels, i.
352 ; Talmudic notion that the first
Commandment only was spoken by
God, and the others were uttered
by the angels, 358.
Compassion deprecated by the Romans,
i. 14.
Confession in sickness a Jewish as
well as a Christian ordinance, ii.
74 et seq.
Cornelius a Lapide — his summary deal
ings with heretics, ii. 504.

Cremation — the Empreas Poppsea' a ob
jection to, i. 63.
Crispus Passienus, the father-in-law of
Nero, i. 26.
Cromwell and final perseverance, i. 384.
Crusades referred to, ii. 121.
Cryptographs — Jewish and Christian,
i. 83, 390, ii. 291, 516.
Custom — its force in Rabbinic Judaism,
i. 290.

D.

Daniel — Book of, known to Peter, i.
154 ; his predictions of the fate of
Rome, how treated in Josephus, ii
236.
Days, the Ten Penitential, of modern
Judaism, i. 432.
Debarim Rabba, a Rabbinic commen
tary on Deuteronomy, ii. 66.
Deification of Poppaea, the murdered
wife of Nero, i. 15.
Descent into Hades, i. 167 — 169.
Desposyni, The, or relations of the
Holy Family, i. 221 et seq., 506.
Diaspora — the Hellenistic designation
of the Dispersed Jews, i. 152, ii.
34. (See also Galootha.)
Diatheke — classical sense of the word,
its use in a twofold sense in the
Hebrews, i. 424, 425 ; Rabbinic
adoption and use of the word, 426.
Dikaisune in judicial and in Scrip
tural nomenclature, i. 320.
Dionysius of Alexandria, ii. 566 — 568.
Divorce — the first on record in the
annals of Rome, i. 7.
Domine, quo vadis ? i. 114.
Domitia, aunt and guardian of Nero,
i. 25 ; her neglect of her charge,
ibid. ; incurs the jealousy of Agrip
pina, 31 ; accused of sorcery and
doomed to death, 32.
Domitian — his adventure with the
Desposyni, the grandsons of Jude,
i. 221 et seq.; his banishment of
John to Patmos, ii. 184 et seq.
Domitius Ahenobarbua, father of Nero
— his character, his ominous saying
at Nero's birth, his banishment for
treason, and the confiscation of his
property, i. 25.

E.
Ebionites — an early heretical sect, i.
90 ; claimed the authority of James,

588

INDEX.

94 ; attempt to calumniate Paul,
115 ; their views and practices, ii.
343 et seq.
Emperors of Rome — their autocratic
position, i. 6 ; their moral charac
teristics, 14 ; premature death, ii.
264 ; their deification, 288.
Encaenia, the feast of Dedication, i.
428.
Enoch, Book of — referred to by Peter
and Jude, i. 201. (See also Excur
sus IV. and Index to Enoch. )
Ephesian Robber, a legend of the early
Church, ii. 175.
Ephesians, Epistle to — its style, i. 186 ;
its influence upon I. Peter, 188.
Epictetus the philosopher, saying
quoted, i. 450.
Epimenides, Aratus, and Menander,
Paul's quotation of, i, 241.
Epiphany at Sinai — how represented
in the Septuagint, i. 261.
Epistles, the Catholic, i. 92. {See also
under respective names.)
Epistles, the TJncanonical — the Epistle
of Barnabas, i. 104—106, 156, 340 ;
Epistle of Clemens, i. 102—104;
Epistle of Ignatius, i. 392, ii. 344,
402, 507; Epistle of Polycarp, ii.
242, 399.
Ethnic inspiration — exemplified in
Socrates, Plato, &c, i. 286 et seq. ;
in heathen literature generally,
315.
Euripides — Nero's significant comment
upon a verse of, i. 52.
Eusebius' quotation of a non-extant
passage of Josephus, i. 553 et seq.
Eutropius concerning the burning of
Rome, i. 52.
Exodus — a term used for death in Jose
phus, in the Book of Wisdom, and
in Peter, i. 204.

F.
Faith— as defined by Peter, i. 136;
by Clemens, ibid.; by Paul, 318;
by Philo Judaeus, 319 ; by the
author of Hebrews, ibid. ; of Abra
ham, as recorded in Rabbinic story,
ii. 93.
Famine — at Rome, temp. Claudius, ii.
251 ; another in time of Otho, 252 ;
at Jerusalem during the final siege,
ibid.
Fast — the consummate, of the Jewish

calendar, i. 431 ; the bi-weekly fast
of New Testament times, ibid.
Felix, Roman Procurator of Judaea, i.
27.
Festus the Procurator defends Paul,
i. 20 ; his official character rela
tively considered, 549.
Filioli, diligite alterutrum, the favourite
words of John, ii. 175, 510.
Final perseverance, i. 384, 451.
Forbidden books of Jewry, i. 517.
Foundation stone of the world, i. 417
et seq.

G.

Gaius (Caligula) — his animosity to the
Jews, i. 19.
Gaius of Corinth and others of the
same name discriminated, ii. 506.
Galatians, Epistle to — its style rela
tively considered, i. 186; its date,
ii. 8.
Gallio, the Proconsul — his refusal to
convict Paul, i. 20.
G-alootha, The — the Aramaic designa
tion of the dispersed Jews, i.
152.
Gamaliel I. — counteracts the avarice
of the priests, ii. 14 ; interferes on
behalf of the Apostles, 139.
Gamaliel II. — his characteristic com
promise at the baths of Ptolemais,
ii. 163.
Ghetto or Jewry — of Ancient Rome, i.
19 ; of Alexandria, 253.
Gematria — the term explained, ii. 291 ;
various exemplifications, i. 105,
432, ii. 222, 291—299, 319.
Gerizim — its place in the Samaritan
cult, i. 332.
Germanicus, grandfather of Nero, i.
22 ; his tragic end, ibid.
Gladiatorial shows at Rome, i 9 ; of
Nero's time, with Christian vic
tims, 68 et seq.
Gospels, the Synoptic — mainly present
the historical a8pect of Christ's life,
i. 87; their fragmentary nature,
88 ; John's Gospel presents subjec
tive aspect mainly, ibid.; James
never mentions the Gospel, 94 ; the
Gospel preached to the dead, 138 —
143.
Gospels, the TJncanonical, see Apocry
phal Gospels.
Graffiti or caricatures at Pompeii, i.
148.

INDEX.

589

Greek proverb addressed from Heaven
to Paul, i. 287.
Greek Versions of the Old Testament,
see Aquila, and Septuagint.
Greek wisdom and the Palestinian
Rabbis, i. 257; how regarded by
the Babylonian Jews, 258 ; its
effect on Judaism generally, 315.
Gregory of Nazianzus — alone among
Christian writers after St. John
worthily styled " The Divine," ii.
239 ; his views as to the Catholic
Epistles, 483.

H.
Habakkuk — his summary of the pre
cepts, i. 450.
Hades — Christ's descent into, i. 167 —
169.
Hagadah and Halacbah — their occur
rence in the Septuagint, i. 259 ;
alike familiar to the writer of
Hebrews, 430 ; compiled by R
Judah, forming the Mishnah, 511 ;
how regarded by the Babbis, 537.
Hagadistic traces — in Jude, i. 93, 232
et seq., 238—241, 516, ii. 520—524;
in Paul, i. 288 ; in Hebrews, i. 310 ;
not any to be found in James, i.
517
Sapax legomena — in 1 Peter, i. 132 ; in
2 Peter, 184 et seq.; in Jude, 236;
in Hebrews, 350 ; in James ii. 23.
Haphtarah and Parashah, interesting
identifications respecting the, i.
256.
Heathendom — its salient features, i.
14; contrasted with Christianity,
107.
Heavenly witnesses, the three, ii.
457.
Hebrew unknown to Philo Judaeus,
i. 264.
Hebrews, Epistle to — the work of
Apolloa, i. 91 ; an expreaaion of
Alexandrian Christianity, ibid. ; a
link binding us to the Church of
the Jewish Fathers, 285 ; not
written by Paul, 288—294 ; attri
buted to him in the superscription
in the English Bible, ibid. ; and
twice in the Prayer Book, ibid.;
ita resemblances to Pauline writing
considered, 295 ; its dissimilarity
thereto, 297 — 300 ; its theological
scope, 301 ; its dealing with the
relations of Christianity and Juda

ism, 303 ; its marked Alexandrian-
ism, 304 — 306 ; coincidences with
Philonian literature, 307—310 ;
topical detail, 311 — 329; account
of the author, 336 et seq.; to
whom addressed, 342 — 344 ; where
written, 344 et seq. ; outline, 346 —
348 ; analysis, with literal version
and commentary, 349 — 480; sub
jects embraced: Christ's suprem
acy, 351 — 358; man's position, 359
et seq.; mission of Christ, 361 et
seq. ; Christ above Moses, etc., 363
et seq. ; exhortation to prompt
acceptance, 365 — 367 ; priesthood
of Christ and Melchizedek com
pared and contrasted, 368 — 408 ;
the Levitical priesthood and its
service superseded, 409 — 413 ; the
new Covenant, 414 ; the Taber
nacle and its symbolic furniture,
415—421; Christ their Antitype,
422 — 424 ; the Day of Atonement,
431—435; Christ the true High
Priest, 436 — 440; summing up,
440 — 445 ; danger of apostasy,
448 — 450 : faith defined ana exem
plified, 451 — 461 ; final admoni
tions, 461—480.
Herculaneum and its relics, i. 2, 5.
Heresy defined, misconceptions con
sidered, ii. 336 et seq.
Hennas, a post-Apostolic writer — his
works, " The Pastor," etc., referred
to, i. 155, 178; quoted, ii. 37, 57,
65, 167, 267.
Herod Agrippa I. and the murder of
James, i. 532, ii.- 140.
Hesiod's story of the imprisoned
Titans, i. 231.
Hexameter verse in the New Testa
ment, i. 464, ii. 39.
High Priests under the first and
second Temples compared, i. 326
et seq. ; degradation of the office,
374 ; mere nominees of the rulers,
ibid. (See also Ishmael ben Phabi,
Joshua ben Gamala, Simon son of
Onias, etc.)
Hillel and Shammai, the leaders of
Jewish thought in the time of our
Lord, i. 512, 514, 525.
Hippo, ecclesiastical council of, i.
179.
Holy of Holies — Caligula's attempt to
profane, i. 19 ; Pompey's surprise
to find it empty, 416 ; how often
entered by High Priest on Day of
Atonement, 422.

590

INDEX.

Homologoumena, or admitted books of
Holy Writ, i. 400, and see Antile-

Hymn, early Christian — quoted, i. 81.

I.

Icarus — his fatal attempt to fly, i. 70,
116.
Idolatry — the closing words (chrono
logically) of the New Testament a
warning against, ii. 182.
IHT in Judaeo-Ghristian symbolism,
i. 105, ii. 292.
Incarnation, the, as restricted by
Apollos, i. 303.
Infanticide — its prevalence in Imperial
Rome, i. 1 1 ; contrary to Christian
usages, 107.
Insula of Ancient Rome, i. 4.
Irenseus — his strange assertion as to
the age of our Lord, ii. 168.
Isaac and his substitute — a Rabbinic
legend, i. 238.
Isaiah — his martyrdom under Manas-
seh, i. 461.
Ishmael, the High Priest — his decade
of office, ii. 13 ; stigmatised as
taking after Phinehas (son of Eli),
14 ; raised to the pontificate by
Agrippa, 70 ; his adventure on the
Day of Atonement, 410.
Isidore (Bp. of Seville) — respecting
the Epistle to Hebrews, i. 293 ;
anecdote of the poisoned chalice, ii.
150 ; his statement as to the age of
John the Divine, 176.
Isopsephia, or equinumeral interpreta
tion, ii. 291. (See also Gematria
and Kabbalah.)

Jacob's blessing, circumstances of,
strangely perverted in the Vulgate,
&c, i. 459.
Jaddua, the last historic personage of
the Old Testament narrative, i. 253.
James — his relationship, i. 483 — 509 ;
the home at Nazareth, 510 et seq.;
his training, 513 — 516; his ac
quaintance with the Scriptures, 516;
with uncanonical literature, 617 ;
his religious status, 519, 521 ; his
early opinions of Jesua and His .

mission, 523 — 526 ; his conversion
to Christianity, 529 ; as Bishop of
JeniBalem, 533 ; presides at the
Synod, 535 et seq. ; his part in the
Gentile controversy, 537 ; decision
respecting proselytes, 539; his mar
tyrdom, 549, 554 ; Babbinic
legends, 555 et seq. ; and traditional
details from Apocryphal Gospels,
ibid. , note.
James, Epistle of — "The Gospel"
never mentioned, i. 94 ; his in
debtedness to Sermon on Mount,
516 ; and to post-biblical literature,
517 ; authenticity of the Epistle,
ii. 1 et seq. ; - date, 7 — 9 ; historic
surroundings, 10 — 14; genius, 15
et seq. ; style, 23 et seq. ; topical
analysis, 24 — 26 ; aim, 27 et seq. ;
character, 29, 30; the valedictory
expression of Hebrew prophecy, 30,
31 ; literal version, with explanatory
notes, 32 — 78 ; faith and works,
79, 89 — 92; Abraham's example,
93 et seq. ; comparison with other
Apostolic writings, 97 — 100.
Jeremiah — his death by stoning, re
ferred to, i. 461.
Jerusalem — " the centre of the earth,"
a Rabbinic conceit, i. 543 ; fall of,
ii. 323—330; MMa, Capitolina built
upon its ruins, 331 ; its fall an
epoch in history, ii. 423 ; Jerusalem
and Salem, 543 — 545.
Jerusalem, the New, ii. 321 ; legendary
detail, ibid., note.
JesuB Christ (see Christ).
Jesus son of A nanus, his warning cry
and tragic fate, i. 556.
Jesus son of Gamala, same as Joshua
ben Gamala, q.v.
Jesus son of Pandera, a disguised re
ference to Jesus Christ in the Tal
mud, i. 554.
Jesus son of Sirach — author of Eccle-
siasticus, a work well known to
James, i. 517 ; the book prohibited
by the Rabbis, ibid.
Jews— detested by Gaius (Caligula), i.
19; Claudius orders their expul
sion from Rome, ibid. ; futility of
the edict, 59 ; not involved in the
Neronian persecutions and mas
sacres, 61 ; sworn enemies of the
Christians, 62; proselytes in the
Imperial Palace, 63 ; promise Nero
the Idngdom of Jerusalem, ibid. ;
their religion privileged at Rome,
64 ; their malice, the secret of the

INDEX.

591

first Christian persecution, ibid. ;
patronized by Alexander the Great,
253 ; befriended by the Ptolemies,
254 ; certain, of Alexandria, burned
alive, 461 ; revolt in Judea, ii. 198
et seq. ; its spread throughout
Palestine, 204 ; epidemic of mas
sacre, 205 et seq.; Josephus's
opinion that his people were ripe
for destruction, 217, 267; fall of
Jerusalem, 323, 328 ; iElia Capito
lina built upon its ruins, 331 ; Jews
denied admission, ibid. ; their re
ligion abrogated, ibid'.
Jochanan ben Napuchah and his com
promise, i. 258.
Jochanan ben Zaccai foretells the de
struction of the Temple, i. 435.
John — one of the three Pillar- Apostles,
ii. 104 ; his religious majority syn
chronous with the insurrection in
Galilee, 1 1 0 ; a key to his impetuous
spirit, ibid. ; and patriotic bias,
111; a diaciple of John the Baptist,
112; his call by Jesus, 115; his
characteristics, 117 ; ambitious re
quest of his mother, 124 — 127 ; his
intimacy with Jesus, 128; at the
cross, 130; entrusted with the care
of the mother of Jesus, 131 ; at the
sepulchre, 134; with "the eleven,"
ibid.; revisits Galilee, 135 ; in the
Temple at Jerusalem, 137 ; before
the Sanhedrin, 138 ; saved by the
interference of Gamaliel, i. 139 ;
scourged, yet persisting in preach
ing the Word, ibid.; mentioned once
only in the Pauline Epistles, 141 ;
his Judaic sympathies, 142 et seq. ;
absence of further mention in Scrip
ture till at Patmos, 145 ; his exile,
146 et seq.; his work, ibid, and 155 ;
the Apocalypse (q.v.) of prior date
to his Gospel and Epistles (q.v.),
ibid. ; legendary anecdotes, 161 —
178 ; death of John, 510 ; his ex
treme old age, 581.
John, Epistles of, the last utterance of
Divine revelation, i. 96.
John, Eirst Epistle — its object and out
line, ii. 392; contents, 396—398;
structural peculiarities, 399; authen
ticity, 400 et seq. ; topical analysis,
literal version and comments, 400
—478.
John, Second Epistle— its authenticity
discussed, ii. 482 et seq. ; Kyria, to
whom addressed, whether an ap
pellative or a proper name, 485 —

488, 492 — 494; topical analysis,
literal translation and notes, 495 —
504.
John, Third Epistle — Gaius, to whom
addressed, ii. 505 ; object and aim,
506 ; literal translation and notes,
507 — 509 ; salutation, 509 et seq.
Joaephus — inimical to the Christians, i.
63; a renegade Pharisee, 64; his
eulogy of the abandoned Poppaea,
65; date of his writings, 190;
verbal resemblances to Peter's
Second Epistle, 191 ; his use of
Rabbinic Hagadoth, 192 ; re-writes
"Jewish History" for Roman
readers, 264; his "Jewish War"
originally in Aramaic, 341 ; the
untrustworthiness of his writings,
557 ; his impeachment of the priest
hood, ii. 70 ; acts as Governor of
Gamala, 207 ; his military services,
208 ; his character, 210 ; his treat
ment of Daniel's prophecy affecting
Rome, 236.
Joshua ben Gamala acquires the High
Priesthood by purchase, i. 551 — ii.
14; massacred by his co-religionists,
ii. 211, 276.
Judah the Holy — the compiler of the
Mishnah, i. 51 1 ; biographical anec
dotes from the Talmud, 215, ii.
173.
Judaism — a religio licita at Rome, i.
61 ; friends at court, 62 ; inimical
to Christianity, 63; as understood
by Philo Judseas, 305 ; its spirit
re-animated by secular inspiration,
315; its quasi deification of the
priesthood, 326 et seq. ; abrogated,
ii. 331 ; its developments, 340 et seq.
Judas of Galilee— his insurrection, ii.
110.
Jude, Epistle of — work of a non-
apostolic writer, i. 93, 222 ; freely
utilises Jewish Hagadoth, and Apo
cryphal literature, ibid.; compared
with Second Epistle of Peter, 196 —
200 ; its evident priority thereto,
201 — 220 ; story of the Desposyni,
his grandsons, 221 ; their adven
ture with Domitian, 222 ; family
connexions of Jude, 223 — 226 ;
compared with Paul, 229 et seq. ;
literal version and commentary,
230—235; style considered, 236;
structural peculiarity, 237 ; allu
sions to secular literature, 238 —
241 ; its aim and object, 242 et seq.
Justin Martyr — his mistake concerning

592

INDEX

Simon Magus, i. 115, ii. 346; his
charge against the Jews for tam
pering with the LXX., i. 257 ; his
statement as to current Jewish
belief, ii. 83, and respecting Anti
christ, 230.

K.
Kabbalah — a species of Rabbinic exe
gesis, i. 281, ii. 220, 347. (See also
Gematria and Isopsephia.)
Kapparah — the substitutionary sacri
fice of modern Jews, i. 435 et seq.
Kedar— tents of, and the scattered
nation, i. 153.
Kenites — their part in the Temple ser
vices, i. 521, 553.
ifopto-party at Corinth, i. 88. (See
also s.v. Peter.)
Keren Happuk, represented by Amal-
thea's Horn in the LXX., i. 259.
King-— a provincial title of the Em
perors of Rome, i. 163 ; repugnant
to the Romans, ii. 226.
Kitzur Sh'lh — a Kabbalistic epitome,
quoted, i. 311, 362, ii. 162.
Knowledge and Wisdom compared
and contrasted, ii. 58.
Koheleth (Midrash) and the story of
Moses' terror at Sinai, i. 466.
Korah — the way of, i. 237 ; reproached
by Moses, 374.
Kyria in Second Epistle of John,
whether an appellative or a proper
name, considered, ii. 485 — 487, 492
—494.

L.
Laodicea, ecclesiastical council, i.
179, ii. 179.
La Scala, the traditional retreat of
John at Patmos, ii. 158.
Last words (chronologically) of the
New Testament, ii. 182.
Latest historic name of the Old Testa
ment Scriptures, i. 253.
Law of Moses — as regarded by Peter
and by James, i. 94 ; its delivery at
Sinai, 466 ; Rabbinic legends al
luded to in Hebrews and Acts,
ibid. ; further detail from the Tal
mud, 468 ; its supersession, 469 et
seq.
Legendary traces in the Septuagint
Version, i. 259.

Lex Papia Poppasa and its connexion
with Roman morals, i. 7.
Liturgy — Scriptural use of the word,
i. 414; its classic meaning, ibid.
Locusta the poisoner a paid agent of
Nero, i. 23 ; her part in the murder
of Claudius, 33.
Luther — on the authenticity of the
Epistles, i. 99 ; as to authorship of
Hebrews, 291, 338; endorses the
Jewish opinion concerning Mel
chizedek, 399 ; upon James, ii. 4 et
seq. ; on Justification by Works, 90
et seq. ; misquotes Romans (iii. 28),
99 ; on the Apocalypse, 224.
Lysias, his timely interference on be
half of Paul, i. 20.

M.
Maccabees, Books of, referred to in
Hebrews, ii. 64.
Maimonides — his Moreh Nevochim,
quoted, i. 535 ; the Tad Hacha-
zakah, ii. 551.
Maranatha explained, ii. 222.
Marcion the Gnostic and Polycarp, ii.
164, 500.
Marcionism a perversion of Paul's
teaching, i. 90.
Marcus, the first Gentile Bishop of
Jerusalem, i. 541.
Marcus Aurelius — his view of Chris
tianity, i. 160 ; his writings re
ferred to, ii. 16.
Maria del Popolo, the church of, its
superstitious connexion with Nero,
i. 71.
Maries, the three, at the Cross, ii. 131.
Mark, the Evangelist — referred to by
Peter, i. 112; his indebtedness to
Peter, 127 ; intimate with Paul,
131 ; interpreter to Peter at Rome,
ii. 21 ; accredited with authorship
of Apocalypse, 152, and with the
founding of the School at Alexan
dria, i. 279.
Marriage — regarded with disfavour at
Rome, i. 7 ; extreme views, 11 ;
honoured and consecrated by Chris
tianity, 107, 295 ; disparaged by
the Essenes (a Jewish sect), 470 ;
the Apostles married, ii. 114, 175.
Martineau's "Hours of Thought,"
quoted, i. 16.
Martyrdom, era of, marked by the
Apocalypse, ii. 190.

INDEX.

593

Mary, the hostess of the Apostles at
Jerusalem, i. 532.
Matthew — his mission and martyrdom,
i. 85.
Melancthon concerning Hebrews and
Paul, i. 294.
Melchizedek — his priesthood, i. 370 et
seq. ; historical account confined to
two verses of Genesis, 393 ; tra
ditional details from the Midrash,
396 ; as regarded by Philo Judaeus,
397 ; of unknown parentage, ibid. ;
attempted identifications, 398 et
seq.; regarded as a type, 399 et
seq. ; his humanity, 403 ; his rela
tive greatness, 404 ; his priesthood
superior to that of the Levites,
407, but inferior to that of Christ,
408.
Messalina, wife of Claudius, i. 23 ;
mother of Britannicus and Octavia,
26 ; her attempts upon Nero's life,
27 ; her wretched end, ibid.
Messiah greater than the Patriarchs,
etc., i. 347.
Messiahs, the false, ii. 198, 331.
Metatron — a Rabbinic anticipation of
Messiah, i. 398, 400, 555.
Michael and the body of Moses, i. 199,
214, 232, 238 et seq.
Midrash Koheleth — a comment on Ec-
clesiastes, i. 466, 555.
Milton's " Paradise Lost "—quoted, ii.
470.
Minim — the appellative of Christians
in the Talmud and Rabbinic
writings, i. 554.
Ministering Angels — their offiee at
Sinai, i. 468.
Montanists and post-baptismal sins, i.
466.
Montanus, the nominal founder of an
early Christian sect, i. 287. (See
Montanists.)
Moreh Nevochim — a work of Mai-
monides, i. 535.
Moses — legend of his death, i. 232 ;
an apocryphal work entitled the
"Ascension of Moses," quoted by
Jude, 238 ; as the good shepherd,
an anecdote from the Midrash, ii.
173.
Motto of the Alexandrian School, i.
280. N.
Nazarenes — a Judaeo-Christian sect, ii.
342.
m m

Nero - son of Agrippina and Aheno-
barbus, i. 23 ; his parents banished,
25 ; and he consigned to care of his
aunt Domitia, ibid. ; his bad train
ing, 26; his life unsuccessfully
attempted by the Empress Mes
salina, ibid.; who shortly afterwards
is assassinated, 27 ; his mother then
marries the Emperor her uncle, ibid.;
whose daughter is betrothed to
Nero, 28 ; the ambitious intrigues
of his mother, 31 ; she poisons her
husband, 33 ; and placea Nero upon
the throne, 34 ; under the tutelage
of Burrua and Seneca the earlier
part of hia reign is favourable, 37 ;
their reprehenaible laxity permits
a liaison of the youthful Nero with
Acte, a Grecian odalisque, 38 ;
he quarrels with Agrippina, 39 ;
poisons his brother-in-law, the
rightful heir to the throne, 41 ;
contracts a mesalliance with Poppaea
Sabina, the wife of a boon com
panion, 42 ; who prompted his
worst crimes, including the murder
of his mother, 43, 47 ; and eventu
ally met her own death from a kick
by Nero, 49 ; suspected of the
burning of Rome, 51 ; but he
charges the incendiarism upon the
Christians, 58, 59 ; and mercilessly
persecutes them, 67 et seq. ; with
cruel aestheticism, 69 ; making
them to act as the tableaux vivants
of his realistic plays, 70 ; justly
regarded as the Antichrist, 71 ;
saluted as " the Saviour op the
world," 72; the Romans revolt,
73, 74 ; he ignominiously flees the
city, 75 ; and commits suicide,
77.
Neropolis — its connexion with the re
building of Rome, i. 52.
New Year's Day among Jews, and its
solemnities, i. 431 et seq.
Nicene Creed — misread in the churches,
i. 351.
Nicodemus, Gospel of — quoted or al
luded to, i. 139, ii. 274.
Nicolas the deacon, ii. 167.
Nicolaitans— incur the indignation of
John, i. 242 ; their origin and
development, 243 ; the error of
Irenaeus as to their founder, ii.
167, 244.
Nishmath Chajim— quoted for a re
markable MesBianic inference, i.
356.

594

INDEX.

0.
Octavia — daughter of Claudius, i. 26 ;
married to Nero, 29 ; present when
Nero poisoned her brother, 41 ;
banished to Pandataria, 49 ; assas
sinated by order of her husband,
ibid.
Onias' Temple at Leontopolis — thought
by some to he the "Temple"
referred to in Hebrews, i. 332, 409.
Origen — the greatest of the Christian
Fathers, i. 280; his peculiar exe
gesis, 282 et seq. ; his opinion con
cerning Hebrews, 289 ; Epistle of
James, ii. 1 ; his account of the
banishment of John, 186, and
Peter's crucifixion, 513.

P.
Paetus Thrasea, a noble Stoic, i. 14 ;
put to death by order of Nero, 49 ;
his character sketched by Tacitus,
ii. 434.
Paganism — its decadence, i. 13.
Pantheon at Rome, i. 19.
Papyrus — the paper of John's Epistle,
ii. 497.
Paraclete — its occurrence in Rabbinic
writings, ii. 52 ; its classic sense
and Patristic use, 410.
Paradise — its symbolic application by
the Rabbis, i. 281 et seq.
Parashah and Haphtarah, as read in
Apostolic times, identified, i. 256.
Parousia, the, of early Christian antici
pation, i. 193.
Pascal — noteworthy saying of, quoted,
ii. 44.
Patmos — the exile home of John, ii.
159 et seq.
Patristic views as to authorship of
Hebrews, ii. 528—541.
Paul — humanely treated by the polit-
archs of Thessalonica, i. 20 ; pro
tected from the Jews at Corinth by
Gallio, brother of Seneca, ibid. ;
delivered from the plots of the
Sanhedrin at Jerusalem by Lysias
and Festus, ibid. ; his appeal to
Caesar, his residence in Rome, 21 ;
indications of Alexandrianiam in
his Epistles, 91.
Pella — the refuge of the early Chris
tians, ii. 148 ; its geographical
position, 193 ; massacre of Jews at,
204 ; its present identification, 280.

Penates, or household gods, i. 28.
Peregrinus, death of — a tract by
Lucian illustrative of the Neronian
persecutions, i. 469 et seq.
Peter — short sketch of his history, i.
109 — 111 ; autobiographic touches
in his Epistles, 111 et seq. ; his
daughter Petronilla, 112 ; his wife's
martyrdom, 114 ; further details
from tradition, 114 — 116 ; his con
nexion with Rome, 117, iL 512
— 514; his crucifixion, i. 118, 119;
his primacy considered, ii. 511 et
seq.
Peter, First Epistle of — approximate
date, i. 121; characteristic features,
122 et seq. ; Gospel reminiscences,
125 — 128 ; influence of Paul and
James, 129 — 132 ; originality of the
author, 132; subject-matter, 133 —
138; Gospel to the dead, 139— 143; .
conciliatory tone of the Epistle,
143 — 146 ; historical circumstances,
147 et seq. ; key-note of its teach
ing, 149 ; to whom addressed, 151
et seq. ; acquaintance with Book of
Daniel, 154 ; topical analysis, 156
— 170 ; acquaintance with Book of
Proverbs, 171 ; closing admoni
tions, 172; salutation, 173.
Peter, Second Epistle of — its dis
tinguishing peculiarities, 174 ; can
onicity, 175 et seq. ; external evi
dence as to authenticity, 177 etseq. ;
Patristic testimony, 179, 180 ; out
line of contents, 183 ; singularities
of style and expression, 184 — 190 ;
points of similarity to Josephus,
190—192; contrasts, 193 et seq.;
coincidences with Jude, 197 — 202;
authenticity discussed, 203 etseq.;
internal evidence, 204 ; date, 205 ;
superiority to other contemporary
writings, 206 ; summing up of
evidence, 207 et seq. ; new transla
tion, with running comment, 210 —
218.
Petronilla, a daughter of Peter, i. 112.
Philemon, probable date of Epistle to,
i. 11.
Philo Judaeus — the most celebrated of
the Alexandrian writers, i. 264;
his ignorance of the Hebrew Scrip
tures, ibid. ; his views and opinions,
265 ; his priestly origin and family
connexions, 266 ; his wife and her
noteworthy saying, 267 ; his visit
to Jerusalem, and his political ser
vices, ibid. ; not a Christian as tra-

INDEX.

595

ditionally reported, 268, but helped
to pave the way for Christianity by
his literary labours, ibid. ; his pecu
liar exegesis of Holy Writ, 269 ;
his influence on Apostolic writings,
273 — 276 ; his philosophy embodied
in the Alexandrian School (see s.v.
Alexandria), 277 ; its part in the
development of Revelation, 278 et
seq. ; his influence on the writer of
Hebrews, 307 — 310; specimens of
Philonian allegory, ii. 524 — 526 ;
Philo's views about the Logos,
526 — 528 ; coincidences between
the works of Philo and the Epistle
to the Hebrews, 541 — 543.
Phinehas, the seventh from Jacob, i.
234.
Phinehas, the son of Eli — referred to,
ii. 14.
Phoenix accredited by Tacitus, the
Roman historian, i. 103, and used
illustratively by Clemens, ibid.
Phylacteries — their exalted sanction,
ii. 341.
Pilate — the story of a letter to Tibe
rius concerning "the Crucifixion,"
i. 19.
Pilgrimage feasts of Judaism — Hillel's
decision respecting, i. 514; taken
occasion of for revisiting Jerusa
lem, 533.
Pirke Rabbi Eliezer on the death of
Isaac, i. 458.
Plato — a notable example of ethnic
inspiration, i. 286 : his influence on
Philo Judaeus, 287, and indirectly
on Christianity, ibid. ; his works
quoted or alluded to, i. 187, 315;
ii. 60.
Plautus' "Epedicus" — quoted, ii. 53.
Pliny — letter to Trajan, i. 121, 153;
his views of Christianity, 160.
Pompeii — its relics, i. 2 ; its sarcastic
graffiti, 148.
Pomponia Grascina — her possible con
nexion with Christianity, i. 58.
Pompey's desecration of the Temple at
Jerusalem, i. 416.
Poppaea Sabina, wife of Marcus Otho
— transferred to Nero, i. 43 ; her
baneful influence, 49 ; a proselyte
to Judaism, 63 ; possibly connected
with the persecution of the Chris
tians, 64 ; eulogised by Josephus,
though Tacitus and Suetonius are
unable to praise her, 65 ; premature
death from a kick by her husband,
49.
m m 2

Post-baptismal sins, i. 383.
Prayer— efficacy of, ii. 75.
Prayer-Book — its acknowledgment of
Paul as the writer of Hebrews, i.
294 et seq.
Primacy of Peter considered, ii. 511
et seq.
Prodigality of Imperial Rome, i. 5,
165.
Proselytes at the Court of Nero, i. 62 ;
inimical to Christianity, 64 ; inju
rious to Israel, ii. 199.
Proverbs, Book of — familiar to Peter,
i. 165, 171.
Ptolemy Philadelphus and the Septua
gint, i. 254 et seq.
Pudens, a senator of Rome, i. 113.
Punishment — its disciplinary aim, i.
170.
Pythagorean mysteries, i. 272.

Q.
Quadratus and his reminiscences of
John the Divine, ii. 175.
Quartodecimans — observers of the 14th
Nisan as Easter, ii. 155.
Quirinus (Cyrenius) and the insurrec
tion in Galilee, ii. 110.
Quotations from Greek poets in the
New Testament, i. 241 ; from Rab
binical writings {see s.v. Talmud,
Midrashim, &c.'h

R.
Rabbinic account of the pattern of the
Tabernacle, i. 316 et seq.
Rabbinism defined and estimated, ii.
109.
Saca — its interpretation and use, ii.
54, 81.
Ransom — mistaken notion of the early
Church, i. 325, 423.
Rechabites in the Temple service, i.
521, 553.
Redemption — the views of Peter and
Paul compared, i. 132—136.
Renan — on the burning of Rome, i.
52 ; on the authenticity of I. Peter,
i. 122 ; II. Peter, 174.
Repentance — thejirst and earliest lesson
of the Gospel, i. 376 ; its import
ance, ii. 77.
Sesh Galutha, "Head of the Cap
tivity," ii. 10, 11.

596

INDEX.

Righteousness — defined by Paul, i.
321 ; by Apollos, ibid.
Robespierre's housekeeper — a Nero
nian parallel to, i. 77.
Rich and poor providentially tested,
ii. 43.
Romans, Epistle to — its date, &c,
ii. 8.
Rome — its abnormal depravity, i. 1 et
seq. ; its wealth, prodigality, &c,
2 ; preponderance of its slave popu
lation, 3 ; its family life, 7 ; litera
ture and art, 8 ; public amusements,
9 ; its Senate, &c, 10 et seq. ; its
moribund religion, 12 et seq.; its
contact with Christianity, 19 ; its
golden quinquennium, 37 ; the burn
ing of, 51 — 57 ; St. Peter's con
nexion with, 117 etseq.; forecasts of
its downfall, ii. 220; famine at, 252 ;
pestilence, 254 ; Rabbinic legend
of the founding of, 282 ; burning of
the temple of Jupiter, 320 ; its
overthrow as regarded by Esdras,
ibid. ; Patristic evidence respecting
Peter's visit, 512 — 514.
Bubellius Plautus — his assassination
by Nero, i. 22.

S.

Sabbath of Sabbatism, i. 431.
Sakya Mouni (Buddha) — his mission,
i. 287.
Salem and Jerusalem, ii. 543 — 545.
Salome — her ambitious request, ii. 124
et seq.
Sammael, the Angel of Death, i. 361.
Sanhedrin of Jerusalem — its conspiracy
against Paul, i. 20 ; its libel of the
Christians, 62.
Satan — once regarded as the recipient
of the world's ransom, i. 325, 423 ;
Rabbinic conceit as to the abeyance
of his prerogative on the Day of
Atonement, 432.
Saturnalia of Rome, i. 39.
Sectarianism and its developments, ii.
119 et seq.
Seneca — made co-tutor with Burma of
the youthful Nero, i. 29 ; his be
nign influence over his pupil, 37 ;
his untimely end, 49 ; his opinions
quoted, ii. 434.
Sepher Ha Chayim — a Rabbinical
treatise on eBcbatology, quoted, ii.
74.
Septuagint version of Old Testament —

undertaken at instance of Ptolemy
Philadelphus, i. 254 ; its bearing
upon the Gentile world, 255 ; upon
Jews and Judaism, 256 ; the anni
versary of its publication kept as a
festival by the Alexandrians, 256 ;
as a fast by Palestinian Jews, 257 ;
Justin Martyr's complaint respect
ing, ibid. ; its mistranslation, 259
etseq.; its local bias, 261 ; regarded
by some as an inspired translation,
ii. 167.
Sermon on the Mount — compared with
James's Epistle, i. 517, ii. 19, 41.
Shabbath Shabbathon — an appellative
of the Day of Atonement, i. 431.
Shakespeare — Timon of Athens (iii. 6)
quoted, ii. 439 ; Ant. and Cleop.
(ii. 1) quoted, 468.
Shechinah — the sole prerogative of
Israel, i. 362 ; a Jewish name for
the Messiah, ii. 50.
Shema Israel — the keynote of Judaism,
ii. 54, 83.
Shemoth Rabba — ¦ a Jewish com
mentary, quoted, ii. 43.
Sheshach — a Scriptural pseudonym for
Babel, ii. 297.
Sibylline Oracles — their use at Rome,
i. 61 ; their forecast of the down
fall of Rome, ii. 219 et seq.; their
illustration of the Apocalypse, 269,
516.
Silas or Silvanus — his claims as a New
Testament author, i. 333.
Silanian law, i. 11.
Simeon of Mizpeh — one of the earliest
writers of the Talmud, i. 433.
Simon Magus — the legend of his con
test with Peter, i. 115.
Simon son of Giora — a renowned
leader in the Jewish war, ii. 205,
211, 214 et seq.
Simon son of Onias, the model High
Priest, ii. 549 et seq.
Simony of the priesthood, ii. 14.
Simon Zelotes — his death by cruci
fixion, i. 86.
Sirach, the son of — his literary in
fluence on the Epistle of James, ii.
20.
Slavery — its prevalence at Rome, i. 3 ;
Jews rarely enslaved, and why, 163.
Socrates, the Athenian philosopher —
his inspiration, i. 287.
Socrates the historian — his charge
against the Nestorian sect, ii. 449
et seq.
Solfatara — its suggestive connexion

INDEX.

597

with " the land for burning " of
Hebrews vi. 8, i. 389, ii. 266.
Solomon, the wisdom of, i. 263.
Stoicism— its prevalence in Apostolic
times, i. 14 ; its premium on suicide,
ibid.; its decadence, 16 ; compared
with Christianity, ibid. (See also
Cato, Cleanthes, Seneca, and Zeno.)
Stoning of Jeremiah, i. 461.
Suetonius — his idea of Christianity, i.
160, ii. 200.
Suicide, the panacea of Stoicism, i. 14 ;
its frequency, ibid. ; its varied
nomenclature, 15.

T.
Tabernacle — its Divine original, i. 316 ;
reference thereto (and not to the
Temple) by the author of Hebrews,
418.
Tableaux vivants of Roman plays, i. 70.
Tables of the Law — their traditional
size and weight, i. 418.
Tacitus — his account of the Roman
senate, i. 10; of Nero, 48; his
view of Christianity, 147 et seq.,
160 ; his description of the Jews
of his time, ii. 199.
Talmud of Babylon — a compend of the
traditions of the elders (Matt. xv.
2), its subject-matter, i. 511 et seq. ;
its compiler, ibid. (See Index of
Quotations, etc.)
Tanchuma, Midrash — a Jewish com
ment, quoted, i. 366— ii. 37, 327.
Targums or Chaldee Paraphrases of
the Old Testament Scriptures, cited
or alluded to, i. 114, 232, 262, 353,
358, 374, 378, 394, 399, 417, 418,
449, 460, 465; ii. 257, 258, 523,
543, 544.
Tartarus — a classic term made use of
by Peter, i. 185,214.
Te Deuma strangely associated with
autos dafe, ii. 58.
Temple of Onias at Leontopolis, a fac
simile of the Judsean temple, i. 331
et seq., 409.
Ten Tribes of Israel never to be re
stored to Palestine, ii. 34.
Tertullian — concerning Nero and the
persecution of the Christians, i. 67,
121, 147; his mention of Jude the
earliest on record, 220; accredits
Barnabas with writing " Hebrews,''
333 ; his pronounced views on celi
bacy, ii. 114.

Testament of the Twelve Patriarchs,
quoted or referred to, i. 322, ii. 39,
64, 155, 343, 422, 518, 519.
Tetragrammaton, the ineffable name
Jehovah, i. 436.
Theodore of Mopsuestia — his rejection
of the Petrine Epistles, i. 122, 179 ;
ignores the Apocalypse, ii. 180;
unfavourable to John's Epistles,
483.
Thomas the Apostle of India, i. 86.
Tiberius Caesar — his character sketched
by Suetonius, i. 19 ; the tragic end
of his family, 22.
Tiberius Procurator of Palestine — his
relation to Philo, i. 63 : made
Prsefect of Alexandria, ii. 205 ; an
apostate Jew, ibid.
Tillin, Midrash, a Babbinic commen
tary on Psalms, i. 357, 361.
Titus — his acquaintance with Nero, i.
41 ; the conqueror of Judaea, ii. 310 ;
his grant of land to Josephus the
historian, 323; blockades Jeru
salem, 325 ; anxious to preserve
the Temple, 326 ; his purpose to
destroy Christianity with Judaism,
ibid.; the destruction of the city,
327 ; Josephus eulogises him, but
the Talmudists brand his name
with infamy, ibid., note.

U.
Unity of God — its pre-eminence in
Judaism, ii. 54, 83 ; not uniformity,
i. 249.
Unpardonable sins from a Rabbinic
point of view, ii. 472.
Unstrung bow, a forcible metaphor, ii.
172.
Uxoriousness of the Roman Emperors,
i. 22.

Vehmgericht, the, referred to, ii. 198.
Veil of the Temple— its material,
dimensions, &c, i. 415.
Vespasian — his miracles, ii. 311 ; his
history elucidative of revelation,
312—315.
Victorinus of Pettau — his interpreta
tion of the Apocalypse, ii. 259.
Vine, the — an early ecclesiastical
legend, ii. 165.
Virgin Mary — her tomb at Ephesus,
ii. 133.

598

INDEX.

Visitation of the sick (Church Service),
referred to, i. 294, ii. 75.
Vulgate version, i. 459.
W.
Wills unknown to the Jews, borrowed
from Roman usage, i. 426.
Wisdom, Book of — its Alexandrian
origin, i. 263 ; coincidences with
the Pauline Epistles, 288 et seq. ;
references, &c, tabulated (see Index
of Quotations).
World — condition of, in Apostolic
times, i. 1 et seq. ; compared with
the Church, 106 et seq.; state when
Jerusalem was destroyed, ii. 216
et seq. X.
Xenophon, the physician of Claudius,
i. 33.
Xenophon' s Memorabilia, ii. 39.
Y.
Yad Hachazakah, a digest of the Tal
mud, quoted, ii. 551.

Yalkut Chadash, a Rabbinic miscel
lany, quoted, i. 347, 439.
Yalkut Shimoni, a Rabbinic miscel
lany, quoted, i. 347, ii. 74, 321.

Zabdia or Zebedee — his social status,
ii. 107 et seq. ; his death, 114.
Zachariah the son of Baruch — his
massacre, ii. 211.
Zealots, a political faction, the " Home-
Eulers " of Jewry, ii. 62, 71, 203,
253.
Zechariah, the son of Berachiah— the
reference in Matthew to, probably
an erroneous gloss, ii 22 ; his
murder, ii. 274.
Zeno, the Stoic philosopher, referred
to, i. 14.
Zerubbabel, Temple of, i. 416.
Zohar, a noted Kabbalistic work, re
ferred to, i. 466, ii. 114, 437.
Zuk — the destination of the scapegoat,
i. 435.

PASSAGES OF SCRIPTURE
QUOTED OR REFERRED TO.

Genesis.

i. l.Vol.26
14
ii. 17
21 „
iii. 5 „
18
iv. 4 „
7 „
8-10 „
10
v. 24 ','
vi. 2
3
3-5 „
689
vii. 11
24 „
xiv. 18,19 „
xv. 6 „

9 „
9, 10 „
15 4 17
16 „
6 »
12 „
3 „
21 12 „
16 „
17 „
4 „
9 „
23-30 „
24
35 „

xvi.
xvii

xviu. xix.
xxii.

xxm, xxv.

xxvi.
xxvii.

xxvm. 8 „
13 „
xxxi. 42 ,,
xxxii. 10 „
24,&c ','
xxxiii 18 „
xxxiv. 49 „
xxxvii. 9 „

I., p. 276455217
n. 39
1.376
II. 525
1.216 388
260, 456
11.523 1.456 456, 467
II. 67,255
1.456 200, 214
II. 6564
1.261 163
45 li
217
IL 268
1.393 453
II. 54,93
526
1.425
11.524 488
544
1.458
11.524 525
1.165
II. 38
1.234
II. 93
528
1.378 458
II. 54
1.415 458 464
458464458375
1.459
11.525 1.276
11.544 49
265

Genesis (continued).

Exodus (continued).

xl. 8, Vol.

I., p. 213

xxii. 22-24, Vol. II.,p. 41

xii. 12

213

xxiii. 7

92

15, 16 „

213

20 ,

1.231

xlvii. 9 „

146,458

S3

428

31

459

xxiv. 3-7 ,

4-28

xlviii. 2 „

459

5

430

14, 17-20 „ 459

6-8 ,

154

xlix. 1 ,,

157

7

430

10 „

259

8

154,476

19

458

9-11 ,

261

1.24 „

160

10

261

26

459

xxv. 8 ,

261

16-21 ,

417

EXODUS.

31-37 „
40

414411

ii. 1, Vol.

I. p. 259

xxvi. 6 ,

442

14

460

31-35 ,

379, 415

iii. 1 „

261

36, 37 ,

415

5 „

212

xxviii. 1 „

374

6 „

466

36

II. 155

14 „

II. 47

xxix. 4 ,,

1.423

iv. 6 „

1.259

9 „

409

22 „

466

16

' 428'

24 „

261

21

447

v. 2 „

274

36

350

vi. 12, 15 „

259

38-42 „

408

vii. 3 „

365

xxx. 6 ,,

n. 545

ix. 22

II. 261

10

545

x. 21 „

1.466

20

I. 447 '

xii. ,,

423

xxxi. 8 „

419

22

430

xxxiii. 13 „

429

36 „

157

xxxiv. 7 „

422

xiii. 18 „

260

xl. 5 „

II. 545

19

459

9, 10 „

1.430

xiv. 19 „

231

xvi. 16, 32 „
33
417
417
Leviti
CU9.
33,34,,
418
iv. 3 Vol.
L, p. 374
xvii. 1-7 „
365
12 „
472
16 „
261
v. 3 „
II. 41
xix. 1-6 „
466
11-13 ,.
1.428
3 „
261
vi. 13-16, 2(
)„ 408
4 „
11.280
16
11.549
5
I. 128
19-22 „
1.408
5,6 „
145
30 „
472
6 „
128,159
vii. 12
472, 474
10 „
428
viii. 6 „
446
10, 11 „
423
30 „
481,446
16
466
ix. 7
374
18
466,467
x. 9 „
423
xx. 5 „
159
10
4(18
12 „
466
XL „
423
22 „
428
xiv. 4-6 „
430
xxi. 6 „
442
4,5 „
II. 202
600

PASSAGES OP SCRIPTURE

Leviticus (continued.)
xv. 5, Vol. I.

16,17 .

2,13,
4 6,11 ,
8-10 ,
12-16 ,
14 ,
17
18 1924
26,28 ,
27 „
3031
. 5
1111,12 „
7, 13, 14
10
17

, p. 428423 200
423
11.547 1.436 447,520
422 435422154436
11.545 1.154
11.549 1.428 472432431423

xxii. 2

xxiii. 10
xxiv. 5, 9
xxvi. 29

409
447 401
409408408423
428
H. 472 48
1.415
II. 67

3
. 21

vi. Vol. I., p. 423
423
II. 431 64
118
L365 261261365
II. 472
1.374

xu.
xiv.

XV.
xvi.xvi.

xvii
xviii.

1428-30 „
30
-xviii. ,,
2247 „
.10 12 7 „
2222,23,26

xix. XX.

1-13 .
13

XXIX.
xxxi.

22-24 „
.12

11.545 1.418 409421
II. 422
, I. 403
430 423365233
11.547 1.114 428

Deuteronomy.
i. 13, Vol. II., p. 58

iv. 12
24
v. 9
vi. 4
ix. 19
x. 2 2,5
12 16
xi. 14

II.

1.466 467 64
54,83
1.466 418 417
II. 42
1.365
II. 68

Deuteronomy (continued).
.I.,p. 352
442448 365 '
428

xiv. 1, Vol.
xv. 17
xvii. 2-7 „
xviii. 15 „
xx. 5 ,,
xxi. 16 „
22,23 „
•23 „
xxiii. 14 „
19
xxiv. 14,15 ,,
xxv. 4 „
26
xxvi. 2 „
5
17 „
xxviii. 10 „
35 „
36
vviv 18 „
23
xxxi. 6, 8 ,,
21
xxxii. 5 ,,
8
10,11 „
1135 „
4043
xxxiii. „
1,3 „
2
36

472 164
259555 67
163
424 48
484 375134
1.418 464

471413
11.434 1.260,360
n. 6465.280
, (330,344,
L- | 449
450352
II. 257
1.466 359 449
II. 523

v. 15
x. 3
20
xiii. 2223
xxi. 45
xxiv. 30 32

Joshua.
5, Vol. I., p. 471258

212394 392
114, 260
146460 •J, in
459

Judges.

v. 4 Vol. I., p. 467
II. 319
1.461 407

19
vi. 2
ix. 4
xiii. 8
xiv. 6
xviii. 6
xix. 10, 11

460
II. 53
543

I. Samuel.
ii. 8 Vol. II., p.

xu. 6
xv. 12 22
xviii. 11 ,
xix. 10, 12 ,
xx. 30 ,
xxviii. 6 ,

I. 365 259441,442
II. 42
1.460 460 260

II. Samuel.
v. 6 Vol. II., p. 543
vii. 14 „ 1.352,354

II. Samuel (contmued).
viii. 2, Vol. II.,p.274
xii. 14 „ 51
xiii. 23 „ 1. 394
xvii. 34 „ 460
xxiii. 20 „ 460

I. Kings.

iii. 11.
vi. 22
vii. 49
viii. 9
63
xiii. 7
22
xvii. 1
22,

4,
2142
xix. 8,
1016
xx. 11
xxiii. 26

12V.IL, p. 37
„ 545
„ 1. 414417
„ 428461
II. 273 76
1.460
II. 74

23.,13"

I.
II.

461 3776
1.461 461
11.428 1.259 461

IX, Kings.
i. 9,14Vl.II.,p.l20

10
iii. 22 ,
iv. 14 35-37 ,
ix.20 x. 15, 23 ,
xi. 7 ,
2 ,
9
xvi. 15
xvii. 14 ,
xxi 12,13,
xxiii. 29 ,

xii.

273250
1.460 460
II. 39
L521 138382
n. 53
1.428 365
11.274 319

L Chronicles.
ii. 55 Vol. I., p. 521
II. 257
1.449 408 471
H. 257
1.459 353

iv.
xxi. 13
xxiii. 13
xxviii. 20
22
xxix. 15
23

II. Chronicles.
iv. 8,19Vl.I.,p.415
17 „ 388
v. 10
xxiv. 20-22
xxvi. 16-21
19
xxix. 22
xxxv. 3

417 461
374419

418
Ezra.
ii. 61,62 Vl.I.,p.401
Nehemiah.
iv. 5 Vol. EL, p. 77
vii. 63,64 „ I. 401
x. 38 „ 403
xi. 22 „ 253
Esther.
ix 19,22Vol.lI.,p.273

QUOTED OR REFERRED TO.

601

Job.
i. 6 Vol. I., p. S52

Psalms (cc
lxxxvii. 1. Vol

nlinued). I., p. 457

C ANTIC
iv. 5, Vol.

LES. I. p. 185

iv. 18 ,

429

Ixxxviii. 8 ,

, II. 126

vi. 8 „

II. 492

, II. 47

lTrra'-Y- 50,51 ,,

1.458

9

487

vii. 7 ,

66

xc. 4 ,

217

viii. 6 ,,

64

xiv. 2 ,

38

xcv. 6 ,

365

xv. 30

38

10 „

366

xvi.
255
xcvi. 10 „
257
Isaiah.
xix. 26, 27 ,
255
1.261
xcvii. 7 „
cii 3 „
852,354
II. 66
i. 6 Vol. II. , p. 74
10 ,, 9-73
xxviii. 12 ,
, II. 58
15 „
38
10-17 ,
I. 428
xxix. 18 ,
66
25
I. 353, 354
11-17 „
441
25 ,
1.261
civ. 1 ,,
357
18 „
434
xxxi. 10 ,
259
4
353
21 „
394
xxxv. 14 ,
261
35
II. 476
II 215
xxxviii. 28 ,
3i
n. 3939
ex. „
T f354,395,
'"I 409
22 ',',
ii. 2 „
67
321
xiii. 14 ,
1.259
1 ..
353, 444
5
405
4
f 370, 374,
I 392
12
37
Psalms.
12-19 „
255
cxiv. 7 „
467
iii. 4 ,,
1.235
ii. Vol.
I., p. 409
cxvi 17 „
472
9 „
II. 273
7
(352,370,
cxviii. 22 „
159
10
1.553
t 379
cxix. ,,
514
17
259
vii. 13
11.249
,,
II. 3
v. 1-30 „
IL 29
viii 6 ,
1.352
20
64
23 „
92
x. 6
H. 66
cxx. 3, 4 „
57
vi. 1-8 „
546
27 ,
13
5
1.152
vii. 6 „
296
xi. 7
431
exxii. 3 „
II. 321
9
1.280
xii. 2 ,
37
exxxvi. 6 „
1.217
viii. ,,
359
xv. 1-5 ,
1.451
7 „
II. 39
14
159
xvi. 10 ,
408
cxxxviiil9 „
1.365
18
361
xvii. 15 ,
262
cxxxix.ll „
II. 40
21
387
xix.
11.454
16
1.443
ix. 5 ,,
11.544
8-11 ,
41
cxl. 13
II. 57
6
1.262,394 212
xxi 3 ,
38
cxlvi. 2 „
34
8 „
6
L357
X. 3 „
160
17
II. 42
xii. 3 „
II. 461
xxii. ,,
I. 359, 361
Proverbs.
xiii. „
514
xxiv. 2 „
xxix. 1 ,
217
352
iii. 5, 6, Vol. II, p. 20
11 ., 9ft
6
9,10,17
67
265
xxxii. 1,2 ,
6
xxxiii 12-16 ,
xxxiv. 8 ,,
II. 77
L455 166
158
11, 12 „
2125
34 „
I. 463
358165172
10
xiii. i
xxiii. ?¦ „
xxiv. I
255
320
10 >,
464
II. 20,60
1.464
n. 39
,1. 276
396 171
xiv. 4J.2 „
514
xxxviii. 7 „
xxxix. 12 ,,
1314 „
xl 6,7 „
366 458
152
146
441
iv. 26 ',',
vii. 16-23 „
viii. 22 „
ix. 5 „
31 „
12
18
31
xv. 3 „
xvii. 5 „
264273 67
67
317
7
II. 42
x. 12 „
170
xxiv. 22 „
1.454
12 ,,
xiii. 3
I. 441261
xii. 10 „
II. 20,77
439
xxv. 7-9 „
xxvi 11 „
429448
4 ,,
xliv. 23
216472
xiii. 3 „
xvi. 27 „
xvii. 9 ,,
15 „
4020
21
xxvii. 13 „
11.255 1.195
xiv. ,,
6
354
11.249
1.170
II. 92
4764
xxix. 13-21 „
xxx. 4 „
473432
6,7 „
1.353
xix. 3
xxxi. 9 ,,
II. 323
xlvi. 5 ,,
457
xxi. 10 „
xxxii. 1 ,,
1.394
1. 5
16-20 „
425
II. 58
xxiii 27 „
34
xxv. 14 ,,
xxvi. 11 „
27 „
xxvii. 21 ,,
1.259
II. 20
1.233 216
II. 57
1. 171
16
xxxiii. ,,
218
II. 67
Iii. 2-5 „
ivii. 5 „
lix. 15
57
1.368
II. 73
15
xxxiv. 3, 4 „
4
1.451
II. 255
1.218
Ixviii. 17 ,,
1.358,466
11
11. 274
28 ,,
Ixix. 2
432453
xxviii. 21 „
xxx. 12
465
II. 20
xxxvii. 3 ,,
xxxviii. 11 „
196
1.252
lxxi. ,,
520
13 ,',
39
xl. 6
II. 45
lxxii. 13 ,,
II 69
6,7 „
38
ixxiv. 19 „
254
xii. 8
54
lxxvi 2 „
lxxviii. 2 ,,
543
1.282
Ecclesiastes.
19
xliii. 20 „
257
1. 159
lxxix. 5 „
448
v. 2, Vol. II. p 20,40
xliv. 4 „
405
lxxxiii. 5 „
407
x. 8
I. 543, 555
xlvi. „
IL 511
lxxxv. 2 „
II. 77
xii-. 6 ..
II. 57
xlvil. 5, 7 „
438
602

PASSAGES OP SCRIPTURE

Isaiah (continued).
xlviii 8, Vol. I., p. 442 159

22
xlix. 2
1.

Iii.
liii.

liv.

lvi.

3
5 ,
5 7 ,
9
11
11,12,12i? :
12 1

II.

II. I.
II. I.
II.

35
256255442 164 68
164 92
164
164,429 60

Ivii. 5
lvi. 10
Ivii. 19 2021
lix. 16
lx. 1

21
bd. 1
lxii. 4
lxiii. 1

11 17 ,
bdv. 10 ,
10, 11 ,
Ixv. 25
lxvi. 7,8 ,

321
1.451 199232
473
LI. 37,234
35
1.408 405463
II. 84
428
1.412
II. 317317 255
1.467 476365
II. 257328
1.218
II. 279

Jeremiah.
ii. 12 Vol. II., p.
17

14 „ I.
iv. 3
23 „ II.
23-26 „
v. 14 „
24 „
vi. 20 „ I.
vii. 4 „ II.
1621-23 „ I.
viii. 2, 7-12 „
xi. 14 „ LL
xiv. 9 „
11 „
xv. 16 „
xvi., xxv. „
xvii. 26 „ I.
xviii. 7-10 „ II.
xxii. 13 „
TTTlil. 5 ,, I.
14 „ II.
26 „ I,
xxv. 29 „
xxvi. 23 „ I.
xxxi. 22 „
31-34 „
33,34,,
xxxii. 4 „ II
23 „ I
xxxv. „

6046 68
266412 390 39,265
255273 68
442 83
473 412
423 473 51
473 271320472 6767
405 273213 171 461
412 412,424440497461521

Jeremiah (continued).
xxxviii. 33, 34,Vol. I.,p. 444
xl. „ IL 478
li 1 „ 296
27 „ 270
41 „ 296
Lamentations.
ii. 7. 8, Vol. H., p. 274
iv. 7 „ L 510,521
Ezekiel,
ii. 9,Vol.II.,p.271
iii. 3 „ 271
viii. 11 „ 1. 419
ix. 4, 6 „ LL 257
xiv. 3 „ 415
21 „ 253
xvi. 32 „ 60
48, 49 „ 273
xvii. 6 „ 1. 405
II. 38
xviii. 23 „ L 217
xix. 1-9 „ LL :

XXII.
Trviiixxvi,
xxxii
xxxiii

xxxvii.
xxxviii. xL
xliii.xliv.

1023 1-9 ,
122631
25 xxvii. ,
7,8 ,
11211-10 ,
2
11 5
25 25, 27 ,
27 ,
10 !

1.327
II. 318 64
320255,265
I. 217
473
II. 68
1.233 164448 447412
n. 64,6567
273
„ 321272256
1.500 520

Daniel.
iii. Vol. I., p.
2531
iv. 1
14
vi. 2325
vii. 8, 20 „ LI.
9
10 „ I.
¦ ¦ H.
13
vii 24 „
25 „
viii. 10 „
1317 „ I.
26 „ II.
ix. 24,25,, I.
27 „ LL.
*. 5
6,11,12,, 13 „ I.
„ II-
lS, 20, 21 „ I.
20, 21 „ II.

352154 154
138
460 154287256466 249
256 283
272 20, 279
272349 271
429
216, 272
256 256 232258 360241

Daniel (continued).

xi. 31, Vol. II., p. 216

36 „ 312

xii 1 „ 1. 232

„ 11.241,270

4-9 „ 271

7,11 „ 272

11 „ 216

13 „ 1. 349

HOSEA.

ii. 16, Vol. I., p. 412

23 ,. 159

iv. 17

, LI. 68

vi. 6

, 1.428,442

, II. 42

viii 1

265

x. 7

, I. 77

8

, H. 255

xii 6

42

xiii. 14

196

15

38

xiv. 4

78

Joel.

ii. 3, Vol. n., p. 261

10,31 „ 255

23 „ 68

28 428

iii 4,15 „ 255

iv. 2, 11-14 „ 317

Amos.

ii 6, Vol. IL, p. 69

7 ,. 1. 515

11,12

549

iv. 1

235

v. 4

451

12

515

, LT. 72

21,24

, 1.442

vi 5-7

„ II. 320

vii. 6,9

274

ix. 1

, 1.262

12

515

„ n. 51

Jonah.

iii 10, Vol. II., p. 67

iv. 8 „ 38

MlCAH.

i. 4, Vol. I., p. 218

iv. 9 „ n. 196

13 „ 317

v. 2 „ 196

vi. 6-8 „ 1.442

6,9 „ LI. 42

8 „ 1. 451

vii. 8 „ 361

Nahum.

i. 6,Vol.IL.,p.255

iii. 5 „ 1. 259

Habaekuc.

ii. 3, Vol. I., p. 217

3,4 „ 250

4 „ , 321

.. H. 54

iii. 12

317

Zephaniah.
iii. 8, Vol. IL, p. 318

QUOTED OR REFERRED TO.

603

Hagsai.
ii. 6,7,Vol.I.,p.467
7-9 „ 416
Zechariah.
iii. l,2,Vol.I.,p.2151-3

3,4
iv. 2 3,114,5
1014
vi. 11-131213
ix. 9
11
xi. 1
xii. 11
xiii. 1
9
xiv. 11

n. 523 50
272256
272257258
1.374 447374
392, 395
394
476435
II. 319
I. 424
11.259 321

Malachi.
ii. 17, Vol. I., p. 216

Ui. 1
2
56
16
. 2

467
II. 255 6747
1.471 394,405

II. Esdras.
v. 3, Vol. LL, p. 258
xi. 1 „ 282
1,36 „ 284
30 „ 310

35

45
xii. 42
xiii. 39-47 .
xv. 8

310320518
1.189
II. 34
255

TOBIT.
i. 16, 17, Vol. n., p. 49
17 „ 273
viii. 3

xii. 15

1.360
II. 258
1.349

Judith.
iv. 4 Vol. II., p. 544
v. 18 „ 1. 152
ix. 20 „ II. 49
Wisdom or Solomon,
ii. 1-24, Vol. LL, p. 20

6-20 8
121724
. 27

72
20,38

1.471 361204160

Wisdom of Solomon [cent.).
.361 20

iv. 11, Vol. I., p,
v. 8 „ II.
9-14 „
16
vi. 1-4 „ I.
12
12,23 „ II.
vii. 17-19 „
17-20 „
25,26 „ I.
26 „ II.
ix. 15 „ I.
x. 5 „ II.
7 „ I.
xi. 6,7 „ II.
15, 16 „
17 „ I.
xii. 10 „
„ II.
16
xiii. 1 „ I.
xvi. 1,9 „ II.
xvii. 2 ,,
2, 16, 17 „
17 „ I.
xviii. 15, 16 „
22 „

38
2 19
155 644J20
286, 322
349 40
263, 288
20,45

318263
465 49
20
288,457 318 318
521 214368322

EOCLESIASTICUS.
i. 1-11, Vol. IL, p. 59
28 „ 20, 37
ii. 13 „ 73
18 „ 1. 450
iii. 3 „ 362

iv. 4
v. 11 14
vii. 10
xii. 1112
xiv. 1923
xv. 9
1111-17 ,
xx. 7
1528
xxii. 24
xxviii. 10, 19
15,26 .
xxix. 15 ,
xxxiv. 2
1922
xxxv. 2
1422
xii. 22
xliv. 14, 15
xiv. 6-22 :
11
xlviii. 1
1. 5-16 .

II.

I. J
II.

64 20,40
573720,67
40 6720,405720462020,37

5720
56
1.407
II. 67
1.362
II. 67
4240
1.217
II. 20,37
178
551
1.408
II. 273
550

Baruch.
iv. 35, Vol. II., p. 320
I. Maccabees.
i. 21, Vol. I., p. 414
ii. 28, 29 „ 461
38 „ 461

I. Maccabees (continued).
iii. 45, 51, Vol. II.p. 272
49 „ 1. 549
iv. 49 „ 414
60 „ II. 270
ix. 26 „ 1. 461
xii. 12 „ 461
II. Maccabees.
i. 27, Vol. I., p. 152

ii. 7
iii. 39
iv. 48
v. 26 27
vi. 11 18-30
vii. 7-109-36
28
ix. 19
x. 6
xiii. 14

412 212
232
461 461461461
461 461461455
II. 35
1.461 344

ILL Maccabees.
Extra Apocryphal Book-
ii. 5,Vol.I.,p.231

St. Matthew.

i. 5, Vol. I., p. 460

II. 83

19

1.514

ii. 11-15 „

11.279

12,22 „

1.411

23 „

II. 65

iii. 8-12 „

1.488

9

II. 83,94

iv. 1-11 „

65

21

1.484

v. 3 „

TT c-20, 44,
u- X 51

4

20

9

59

10-12 „

1.472

11 ,.

171

12 „

155

22 „

II. 20,54

23 „

17

24 „

20

25 „

1.126,172

33-37 „

II. 20

35,36 „

73

44 „

1.515

48 „

II. 20,36

vi. 14 „

20

15

20

19 „

20

22

424

24 „

20,37

25

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30 „

II. 45

vii. 1 „

52,73

1-5 .,

20

7-12 „

20

16,17 „

57

21-23 „

20

riii. 29

54

ix. 34

1.349

37

II. 496

x. 3

484,491

23

II. 328

xi. 19

42

604

PASSAGES OP SCRIPTURE

St. Matthew (contvimed).

xi. 36, Vol. II.,p

XIV. XV,

.28 31 ;
31,32 .
37 39
43-45 ,
45 \
46 49, 50 .
50
¦17 232639,40,49,55 5731 1
1-!
16 -• 46-12 :

18 2328

II.

II

„I.{

9-13 „
2124-27 „
. 6 6,8,9,,
17, 18 „
22
.12 21

. 2
12

2425-27 ;

xxii.
xxiii,

. 1321 22
23 44

II

II

8,10 „
1216-22, 25 ,
25-37 „
3536

3
4,7 ;
5,11 6,8 :

13 14

.455 424 472377
. 56,92
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377
268 216501526224461 49
45
429
484, 497
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266 60
117
124, L25,
158
125, 159
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.328 274204274
515 125420245512 125
114 36
386 125 35
2.50 38
126127
511
423 61
216 37,5137
323396 6750 56
45
.512 461456 211
.366 448472 429250425
252
250,252 196 36
317

St. Matthew (continued).

xxiv. 15, Vol
16

29-3431343751
xxv. 5
14 21
3535-46
xxvi. 64 69
xxvii. 3246 5156
xxviii. 2
19 20

II.

p.216 280 232
1.217
11.264 256
257, 258
1.366
II. 328
I. 125
461 214
H. 449

15.5
470 53
554519472 361447
275484

11.275 74
1.429

St. Mark.

i. 15, Vol.
19
20
iii. 14
171831
iv. 34
vi. 3 4
13
ii. 1-15 5-13
20-23
ix. 2
20,263338
43-47
x. 27 32
42
xi. 21
xiii. 7 7,889
142932
xiv. 70
xv. 7
40
xvi. 18

[.,p.376 484
II. 107
1.365
II. 110
1.484 501213
r 484, 507,
t 523
523
II. 74
1.423 512
II. 41

164
II. 54
117 117
245
I. 386
II. 124, 496
127
1.501
II. 20,250
253 196 21
216 2020
519 61
484376 150

I
II I
II.

St. Luke.
i. 6, Vol. I., p. 514

1136
435052,535868

419497
II. 507
1.501
II. 69
453
1.160

St. Luke (continued).

ii. 26 Vol
2944
iii. 11
iv. 5,6
24 2535
v. 10 39
vi. 1516 in
2222,2332
3536
.40 4250
viii. 19
2431

VII.

ix

253135
49 5454,55
i. 183034
55
xi. 1320 21
26

40
xii. 25
35545558
xiv. 11 12
xvi. 31
xvii. 9,10
xviii. 3 7,8
12
1427
xix. 3
44
xx. 17, 18
21
xxi. 9
19202124 2525,262628
xxii. 2024 24-26

I., p. 411231 497488459523
n. 74
1.129 484
158,483
II. Ill
1.222,223
H. 51,69
1.472
IL.

163158 73
508212 53
501 37

53
1.450 471 212
II. 117, 118
1.488
II. 122
266,280
1.466
II. 3674
122 37
1.424 421387
224,502 4041
1.156 129
405
H. 38
1.126
II. 45
1.497
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n. 92
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11.254

II

514335 45

1.375,485 160 159554
II. 38
1.450
II. 149, 193
280 ¦J72259
318
1.467 423 428
n. 117
511

QUOTED OR REFERRED TO.

605

St. Luke (continued),
xxii. 28, Vol. IL, p. 36

313243
34

46
. 1218
212527 3139
41 51

I. 126151375
554
II. 131
256
I.- 164129
II. 40
1.491 423
II. 117
1.443
II. 135
402
1.375 164

St. John.
i. 1, Vol. II. p.
23 „ I.
3-10 „
4 „ II. 402,
4-9 „
5
79 „ I.
„ II.
111213 14 „ I.
„ II.
14-17 „
1845
ii. 2
4 „ I.
13 , II.
19 „ I.
iii. 3,7,31 „ H.
5
16
1936
iv. 6 „
1014, 36 „
22
35-38 „
3744 „ I.
.. 24 „ II.,
31-37 „
32

.403,406 367 268
349
403,406419 406460,462411
403 365403 48,403
423
335,403459403 461462
224,501 335423 39
461422406368128, 335
461,462 368365 140453523

35 „
3639,40,45 „
6, 61, 64 „
25 2729
40,47,54 „
4551-56 „ I
1-10 „
4 „
57 „ „ II

460509460 39
460 460
462 116
497

109
472
503, 526
527
494, 527
224 41

St. John (continued).
vii. 33, 42, Vol. II.,p.65
35 „ 34
38 „ 461
viii. 12 „ 406
14 „ 460
18 „ 460
21-24 „ 471
31 „ 414
32 „ 41
32, 40 „ 459

3444515658 5
31

I. 216361
II. 335

I.
II.

458

x. 4 „ 496
7-9 „ I. 552
„ II. 73
11,15,17,18 „ 440
16 „ I. 164
22 „ 428
25 „ II. 460
36 „ I. 364
xi. 9, 10 „ II. 415
33 „ 116
41, 42 „ 468
48-50 „ 210
52 ,/ I. 152
54 „ II. 123
55 „ I. 158
xii. 16 „ II. 117
25 „ 368
30 „ I. 212
31 „ II. 280
xii.-xvii. „ 375
xiii. 1 „ 417
1-6 „ I. 126
1,3,11,2111.116
12-15 „ 417
14 „ 75
18 „ 109
22 „ 128
23 „ 116
25 „ 128
33 „ 420

34,
37,
xiv. 6
1015

27
xvi. 7
121314

35 „ 412, 417
38 „ 440
I. 447
", II.' 335, 408
„ I. 423
„ II. 456
(-410.411,
» 1 471
17 „ 495
26 „ 410
„ 459 508
5.7 „ 429 431
405
440, 507
f410,459,
" 1 460
460410335
459460455471 453

St. John (contvnued).

xvii. 2, 3,Vol.II.,pp.367,429

3 „

( 405, 478,
1 479

5

50

9.15,20 „ 471

11

I. 230

11, 17 „

II. 459

14-26 „

454

15

41

17

48

23

457

xviii. 4 ,,

II. 116

14

210

15

129

26

I. 497

28

II. 41

37 „

( 444, 459,
t 460

xix. 11 „

I. 161

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25

T (484,491,
L 1 492

26

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27

f 113, 148,
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28

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133, 463

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133, 460

xx. 2 „

116

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I. 156

II. 40

6

134

12

335

14

135

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512

29

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30

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xxi. 4 ,,

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135

15

136

16

I. 172

II. 136
17 „
rT f 136, 442,
U>1 443
17, 18 „
I. 211
19
119
21
II. 136
24
460,508
Acts.
i. 8 Vol.
II., p. 274
13
I. 223
II. 137
14
I. 502,528
16
159
17
210
ii. 2
204,212
9
I. 153
,
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10
15
I. 204
16,20,40 II. 328
17
I. 156
17, 18 „
II. 428
20
I. 196
22
157
27
408
31
156
32 „
128
32-36 „
128
606

PASSAGES OP SCRIPTURE

Acts (continued) .

Acts (continued).

Acts (continued).

. 36, Vol. L, p. 364

xii

14, Vol. I., p. 375

xxvi.

7, Vol. IL, p. 35

38

II. 74

17 „

533

10

, II. 71

40

I. 129

20

II. 441

11
, I. 461
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444
25
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19
364
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28
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xiii.
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xxvii
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xxviii.
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28
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13
164, 477
43
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31
403
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(-128,335,
1361,462
xiv.
44 15
428
II. 74
BOMANS.
16
II. 36,74
XV.
245
i
1 Vo
. II., p. 32, 33
17 „
I. 157
2 „
I. 230, 536
4
, I. 352
18 „
128
5
II. 337
10
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19-21 „
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7
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16
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19-26 „
I. 128
9
158
, LL 40
19-31 „
161
10
423, 513
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, I. 321,450
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,
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18
157
iv. 1
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11
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51
13
485,539
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539
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470, 477
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53,92,97
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23
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17
38
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Y. 17 „
n. 51,337
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xvi
14
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65
30 „
128
n. 493
24
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31
(335, 361,
t 462
xvii
377
29
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6
I. 161
iii
8
218,229
32
128
12
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20
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40-42 „
161
13
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, I. 101
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29
210
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25
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xviii
2
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, n. 411
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79,99
vii. 2 „
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14
140
20-27 „
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16
, n. 39
17
376
28
145, 159
20
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29
235, 471
, II. 443
ix. 2
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xxi
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vi
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135,136
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xxii
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550
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3 ,.
I. 352
xxvi
5 ,.
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21
„ I. 216
QUOTED OR REFERRED TO.

607

Romans (continued).

I. Corinthians

(continued) .

I. Corinthians (continued).

viii. 24, Vol.

I., p. 317

iii. 13, Vol. I., p. 448

xv. 52, Vol.

II.,p. 258

24-25 „

453

i9

II. 98

xvi. ,

96

34 „

129

16

1.365

1 ,

1.378

ix. 2

1.218

19

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12

338

5

216

23

51

15

II. 48

15

326

iv. 4 „

1.476

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328

16

365

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450

19

LI. 46,53

19

II. 67

II. Corinthians.

25 „
25-32 „

I. 159129

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5 „

1.227 170

i. 1, Vol. I., p. 342

2932 „
32,33 ,
S3
x. 7 ,
9

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n. 90

9 ',',
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vi. 1
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11.473,474 508
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1.342 470

ii. 6-8 ,'
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231

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129,157
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viii. 13 „

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a

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508

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20

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xv. 14 ,

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,

, LL 337

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25
378
23
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33 ,
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xvi. ,
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11
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17 ,
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Galatians.
2023 ,
476 332
89
, 3776
i. 1, Vol. I., p. 359
II. 505
10
, 1. 212
, II. 104
, 11.446
1-12
, I. 291, 331
I. Corinthians.
xiii. ,
5,6 ,
, 59
, I. 170
59
„ 477
„ 229
i. 7,Vol.II.,p.328
9 T 447
9
12 ,
349440
10
i.ll— ii.21
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, 103
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ii. 6
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3
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7
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10
158
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27
, 1. 360
„ II. 82, 103
'. 1. 338 218
3235
, II 66, 283
53
10
12
„ I. 378
„ 230, 451
608

PASSAGES OF SCRIPTURE

Galatians (continued).'

ii. 14, Vol
16
19,20
20

m.

17
11
13161919,20
26

10,24
1924
. 1 6
10 16
2024
. 7
12 12,1313
13-26
15

I., p. 471
453 134
319
LT. 4
1.403 165
450164,323
326314, 358
412
453
II. 48
1.376
II. 52
1.165 94
II. 4199
1.476
II. 4
1.213
II. 337
1.134 377 2-1
471216,227218
II. 99

Ephesians.

Vol

4-778
13141517
20
ii. 2

10
11,1213 18
20
. 22,3 4-8

16
iv. 14
2225
32
v. 1,23
3-5578
8,9,11- 14
14 ,

., p. 316129,154 129
11.405

58

48

I

159

319

488
129
231
157
129
IT
79,89
I
154, 362
II
442
I
344
134, 369
159
294
331
302
II
507
I
369, 447
II
467
I
165
233, 471
II.
37
I.
462
II.
405
73
96
414
I.
227
470
II.
40
162
I.
157
¦11.405
I.
237
Ephesians
(contmued).
v. 14, Vol. IL, p. 65
21
„ I. 129
22
129, 429
26
447
vi.
„ II. 96
5
„ I. 129
10
350
12
„ 231, 361
„ II. 190
14
„ I. 156
23
230
Philippians.
i. 7, Vol. I., p. 450
8
„ II. 60
21
90
25
„ I. 476
¦11
157
28
148
30
148
ii. 5-11
300
6
380
7
443
8
344
9
', 142, 361
, II. 507
10
249
11
, I. 142
13
476
15
, II. 39
24
, I. 476
iii. 2
64
, II. 377
5
, I. 341
7
, II. 90
7-11
, I. 459
12
, II. 56
19
44,58
20
, I. 146
, II. 328
iv.
96
2
493
3
, I. 466
5
, II. 328
7 ,
, I. 155
8
192
9
476
22
59
COLOS
IANS.
i. Vol
I., p. 135
4
319, 447
5
349
9
, II. 58
10
, I. 211
, II. 96,507
15 '
, I. 321
17 ,
350
20
, II. 405,544
24
I. 459
ii. ,
231
3
, II. 37
4 ,
40
9
I. 423
10-15 ,
168
14, 15 ,
325
16
II. 49
16-23 ,
I. 471
18
232
IT. 41,410
18-23 ]
I. 504
iii. ,
II. 96
5
I. 470
9 ,
462
Colossians
(contmued).
iii. 12, Vol. I., pp. 172,321
23
163
iv.
„ II. 96
3
„ I. 476
10
497
11
„ II. 508
11-15
„ I. 336
18
450
I. Thessalonians.
i. 3 Vol
I., p. 295,378,
447
4
152
10
461
14-16
, II. 377
ii. 1
, I. 447
9
, II. 508
12
507
14
36
14-16
, I. 64
15
148
, II. 377
18
, I. 476
iii. 2
, II. 508
4
, I. 148
iv. 3
443
6
227,470
9
469
13-17
! II. 328
iv. 13-v. Ii I. 218
15
216
, LT. 423
16
, I. 232 430
v. 1-16
, II. 328
9
, I. 159
20
2L2
23
476
24
447
, II. 408
25 ',
, I. 476
26
, II. 75
28
36
II. Thessalonians.
i. 4 Vol. I., p. 147
7-10 ,
, II. 328
8
, I. 65,430
, II. 407
ii. 3 ',
I. 71
II. 426
3-12 \
236
10 ,
I. 215
17
II. 96
iii. 2
I. 147
I. TlMOTHT.
i. 4 Vol.
I., p. 212
6
464
17
349
18
212
20 ,
TT (-241,473,
"¦¦l 506
ii. 4 ,
I. 217
5
412,423
II. 410
9
I. 165
10
II. 96
iii. 2
I. 469
II. 505
3
59
6
36
15
I. 365
16
167
iv. 1
1S9
QUOTED OR REFERRED TO.

609

I. Timothy

continued).

Hebrews (continued).

Hebrews (continued).

iv. 1, Vol.

II., pp. 58,328

ii. 1, Vol. I., p. 377

v. 1-3, Vol. I.,

pp. 370, 373,

s

T (470,471,

1.4 „

358,359

374 ¦

¦ 1-\ 504

1-5 „

363,364

1-10 „

445

, II. 560

2 „

313

2 „

299,448

7

, I. 212

3

291,294,

11.542
16
386
313,331,
2,3 „
I. 422
v. 10
, LT. 96
343,465
3
302, 440
13 ,
508
3,4 „
376
4-10 „
370, 374,
15
, I. 464
5
316
375
17 ,
, II. 69
5-8 „
299
5 „
297
22
41
5-18 „
359-362
6
II. 366
vi. 3
, I. 369
6
326
8
I. 299, 321
14
, II. 41
11.541
9
325
18
, I. 473
6-16 ",
I. 363,364
10
391
, II. 96
7 „
297
H
311
8
299
II. 40
II. Tu
IOTHY.
9
324
11-14 „
1.312,370,
i. 7 Vol
18
ii. 1516
17 19
24
iii. 1
8
17
iv. 4 2
I., p. 157
, II. 506 48, 496
, I. 462
, II. 241,506 432 68
328, 423
, I. 241
, II. 96
, I. 464
, II. 169
, I. 340
, II. 473
282
, I. 332,338
9, 10 „
10 11 „
13 „
325
295,324,
835, 375,
409, 504
320, 323,
444
352
v. 11— vi. 20
v. 12
14
vi. 1
375,
„ 445 129299
311, 319,
341, 424
II. 418
16
156,297, 303
1-3 „
1-8 „
1.370 376, 377
17 „
302,324,
364, 369,
370, 373
24
323,337, 476
294,304,
9-21
1417 19
17, 18 „
18
iii. „
363, 384
445
369,445
4,5 „
4-6 „
450
317,318
II. 471
1-6 „
363,364, 365
4-8 „
I. 308, 328,
335, 370,
Tu
us.
2
327
11.531,541
448, 465
n. 531
i. 8 Vol
I., p. 469
3 ',',
1.412,456
5 "
I. 316,359
, II. 505
3,4 „
341
t>
II. 542
ii. 7-14
93
6
337
6
1.392
12
422
¦7
313,326,
8
378
13
, I. 210
365
9, 10 „
370
14
423
7-15 „
297
9-12 „
450
iii. 1
, I. 58
11.541
9-20 „
377-379
5
154
7-19 „
I. 363,364,
10
295,342,
8
, II. 96
366
469
9
, I. 462
9
313
11
378
, II. 61
10
366
11-18 „
370
10
, I. 213
12
365,377,
11, 18, 19
„ 447
13
338,345
450
13
447
, II. 507
14
452,453
,,
11.542
15
, I. 447 ,
15
366
14
1.297
16
297
15
461
Phili
]MON.
17 „
231
17 „
862,414
7 Vol
9
22
II., p. 505
484, 574
, I. 476
iv. 1 1-10 „
1-13 „
3,4 „
313304363,364297
19 19, 20 „
20
318370
324, 326,
447
Hebe
EWS.
45
367 352
vii. 1-3 „
1-17 „
370, 392
304
i. Vol
I., p. 323
7 „
460
1-28 „
445
1
299, 313
8
367
2, 10 „
324
1-4
322,349,
9
302,411
3
384
350
11
428
3, 10, 25
„ 297
2
, II. 328
11-13 „
367, 368
4, 10 „
371,403,
3
, I. 297, 299,
12
158,313,
404
300,452,
322, 455
5,6,9
„ 409
453,488
ft
II. 526
5, 11, 27
„ 302
4
412
12,13 „
1.308,322
6-8 „
414
5
352,445
14
341,447
11
413,440
5,6
297
14-16 „
364,338,
11, 12 „
371
5-14
352,353,
389
11-19 „
407
363,364
15
324,429
11-25 „
444
8,9
297
11.542
12
314, 406
13
444
16
1.445
13, 14 „
I. 371
', 323
„
11.467
14, 21 „
297
n n
610

PASSAGES OF SCRIPTURE

Hebrews (continued),
vii. 15, Vol. I., p. 326

15-19 „

371

17 „

H. 542

18

I. 412

18, 19 „

472

19, 22 „

299, 314

20, 21 „

407

20, 22 „

371

22

412

22, 25 „

408

23, 24 „

299

23, 25 „

371

25 „

369, 407

26

324,429,

444

26-28 „

408,409

27 „

291,422,

44l 444

39 „

299'

1

297,300,

341,407,

444
1-6 „
371
1-7 „
411,412
1-ix. 28
„ 445
2
316
5
316,428,
440
5,8 „
297
6
314,413
7,8 „
299
7-13 „
371
8-12 „
440
8-13 „
413
9
361
10
302
10-12 „
444
10, 12 „
II. 273
1
I. 316,414
1-5 „
414, 415
1-10 „
304
1-14 „
372
3
447,467
3,4 „
291
4
408
5
488
II. 411
6-10 „
I. 421,423
7
460
7, 19 „
302
8
299, 414
8, 12 „
411,447
9
316
10
376,471
11
314,440
11, 12 „
298
11-14 „
423,424
12
447
12-28 „
474
13
129,154,
467
13, 14 „
323
14
314, 376,
411, 429,
447
II. 405
15 ',',
I. 299,324,
326,423,
425,457,
461
15-17 „
407
15-18 „
476
15, 22 „
324, 372
16, 17 „
425
. „
II. 542
Hebrews (continued).
18-28, Vol. I., pp.154,
428, 429
20
425
22
I. 324
23
314, 316
23-28 „
372
24 „
316,411,
429
25
408
25-28 „
475
26 „
349,429
28 „
164,299,
429
1-3 „
408
1-10 „
304,372,
440
1-18 „
440,444,
446
1, 22 „
369
2 „
340
2, 22 „
323
3
II. 542
5-7, 30 ,
, I. 297
9
460
10-14 „
323
10, 14, 29
„ 320
11
291
11, 12 „
411
11-14 „
440,444
11-18 „
372
12
300
14
32.5
15
326
15-18 „
444
16
444
18
410
19
134, 341,
411
19-25 „
446,448
19-31 „
447,449
20
326, 344
21 „
I. 316
22
411, 467
22, 29 „
320
23
70
25 „
469
II. 40
25, 37 „
328
26
I. 294,335,
382,386
26-29 „
308
26, 29 „
377
26-31 „
328,377,
446,465
27
65,430
27,28,30
„ 469
28
460
29
299, 307,
814, 471
29, 34, )
38,39 i
„ 299
30
295, 302,
330,344
32
343
82, S3 „
469
32, 39 „
450,451
34 „
319, 332
LT. 45,536
35 "
I. 337
35-39 „
319
37 „
217
37, 38 „
297
38
321
39
450
1
136, 319
Hebrews (contmued).
l-3,Vol.I„p.316
1,2,4
319
3 ,
349,455
4
467
4,5 ,
320
6
369
7 ,
320
8 ,
457
9
299,440
10 ,
316,319,
457
11
447
13 ,
146,152,
460
14
316
16
II. 51
17
I. 460
II. 54
21
I. 297
25 „
302
31
II. 55
32, 33 „
36
33
I. 320, 461
II. 282
33h«) „
I. 461
34
II. 421
35
I. 323,423,
476
37, 38 „
II. 64
39
I. 480
40
319
1
299, 319,
443
II. 90
1-7 „
I. 462,463
1-xiii.
L9 446
2
300,324,
335
6-11 „
325
9
297
13
294,464
14
464
n. 39
14-17 „
I. 464,465
15
464
n. 530
15-17 ',',
I. 377
15-28 „
471
16
464
16, 17 „
308, 328
17 „
294
EL 40
18 ',',
I. 316,466
18-21 „
313
18-22 „
369
18, 27 „
316
18-29 „
467
19
313
22
316,457
22, 28 „
319
24
154,320,
423,447,
456
25
465
26 „
447
27
316,335
28
316,317,
318
29
448
1,2 „
298
1-6 „
344,449
2
299
II. 505
3 ',',
I. 450
QUOTED OR REFERRED TO.

611

Hebrews (continued).
xiii. 5, Vol. I., p. 297
, II.

8
8-16 9
1011
121314
1518-23 18-24
20 20-252324

543
I. 344
II. 508
I. 466
471-473
I. 344164
411
302,320, 467
459
299,457, 476
159
II. 537
I. 298
295,319, 344
476,477 332,340
344464

James.
i. lVol.LL.p. 15,32,

1-4 „

24

2

36

2-4 „

I.

129

II.

36,42

2-15 „

26
2-18 „
2326, 36 '
95
3, 25 „
26
4
26,36
4, 22 „
26
5
I.
15
"
II.
20, 26,
36, 37,
42,91
5-8 „
I.
516
II.
24
6 ,;
I.
235
II.
10, 20,
36,96
6-8 „
'37,43
8-12 „
20,40
9
43
9-11 „
24,38
10
I.
129
II.
20,45
11 ",
20
12 „
20,26,
38
12-15 „
24,47
IS
20
13-15 „
38,39
14
I.
160,188, 215
16-18 „
II.
24,39,40,49
17
I.
471
II.
20,36
18 „
I.
138,154
II.
15,98
19 „
19,20
19-21 „
24
19-25 „
40,41
19-27 „
23
20
2122 „
20
20,26 1,4
James (continued).
.James (continued).
i. 22, 27, Vol. I., p. 488
iv. 11, 12, Vol. IL, p. 23, 25
23
II. 20
IS
10, 19,
25 „
I. 94,156
23,38
,,
II. 20,36,
13,14
26
91
13-17
25,66
26, 27 ..
I. 513
iv. 13-v. 11
24
II. 24, 41
iv. 14
20
ii. 1
15, 32,
16
66
96
17
26
1-4 „
26
20
20
1-7 „
26
v. 1
4
1-13 „
23, 24,
1-6
, 1.488
52
II. 12,20,
2
17,26
24,26,
5
1.539
67,68
f
II. 96
S
, 1.349
5, 13 „
19
3-6
, II. 23
6,7 „
12
3,8,9
328
7
I. 60
4
, 1. 515
II. 7,15
n. 26
8 „
41
5
4
10 „
1.211
6
15
10-26 „
II. 26
7
15, 26
12
I. 94
7,8
7,68
if
II. 91,98
7-11
24
14
79,92
8
26
14-18 „
52,53
10
26
14-26 „
23,25,
11
26
26
12
17, 19,
15,16,1
19,20 J
„ 1.488
13-15
24,41
25
17 „
II. 79
13-18
, 1. 515
17, 26 „
98
, II. 24,26,
19
17,24
74
19-26 „
54,55
14
, 1. 520
21
1.164
, II. 15,17
n. 20,79
15
37, 91
' 21-26 "
7
16
25,408
22-26 „
96
16-20
25
23
93,95
17
272
24 „
79,89,
19,20
24,76
99
20
, 1.129,170
24, 25 „
528
iii. 1-12 „
25,57
I. Peter.
1-18 „
24,26
2
1.211
i. i— a. 10, vol. i., p 149
f
II. 36
i. 1
129, 146,
2,3 „
41
149
3
1.154
, II. 34,495,
4 „
II. 10
517
s
20
1,2
, 1.154
6 „
20
2
128,129,
13 „
4
149, 320,
13-17 „
1.516
447
II. 26
3
128, 129,
13-18 „
25
182, 136,
15
24
156,184
15-17 „
37
, II. 48
16
38
3-5
, 1.154
17 „
24
3-12
149
iv. „
1.518
4
131,172
1 „
II. 60
II. 38
l-« >.
59,60
5
, 1.125,128,
1-10 „
25,26
136, 155,
1-12 „
24
349
2,3,8,,
1.515
6
129, 131,
II. 26
132
4
4
6-9
154, 156
( 4, 5 „
26
65, 129,
6 „
1.129
1S2, 136,
II. 20
147,188
7 '„
1.129
, II. 36
8 „
158
8
, 1.127,128,
II. 37
132, 136
10 „
1.129
155
612

PASSAGES OF SCRIPTURE

I. Peter (continued).

I. Peter (continued).

. 9,Vol

I.,pp.l36, 184

ii. 16, Vol.1

, p. 144, 216,

iv. 7, Vol. I., p. 131

10

128

227

7-10 ,

160

10, 11 ,

161

17 „

188

7-19 ,

1.1

10-12 ,

154, 156,

18

129

8

125, 129

213

18-20 „

149

II. 77

H

156,212

18-25 „

164

8,9

I. 469

12

128,129,

19

129, 146

8,18,

188

131,133,
20
127, 137
10
129
139
21
135, 139
11
132
, II. 40
21-25 „
149
11-16 ,
150
13 \
, 1.129,131,
22
129, 189
12
65,147
132,136,
22-25 „
131
12-17 ,
171
212
,,
II. 73
12-19 ,
58
13-16 ,
132
23
I. 127
13
132,135,
13-17 ,
149
24
127, 128,
155
13-21 ,
157
134,156
14
60, 132,
14
129,146
25
127, 148,
147
15
146
205
15 ,
127,132,
,
, II. 4
iu. 1 „
129, 130,
147, 171
15, 18 ,
, I. 184
131, 201,
,
II. 55
16
146
203 '
16
I. 147
17 ,
128,137
1,2 „
235
17
65, 156
18
134,146,
1-6 „
149
17-19 ,
150
423
1-7 „
165
18
146
18-20 ,
128
2
184
19
137,147
18-21 ,
149
6
137, 145,
v. 1
I. 128,129,
19
131, 134,
146
130, 131,
184,189,
7 „
189, 211
155,205
408,424
„
II. 61
,
II. 484, 559
20
157
8
I. 189
1-4 ,
I. 150
21
128, 136
„
II. 73
1-11 ,
173
22
132,138,
8-12 „
I. 149
2
127
211,469
8-17 „
167
4
125,131,
22-25
149,158
8-22 „
168
139, 155,
23 ,
138
iii. 8-iv. IS
„ 149
184
, II. 48
9
129, 147
5
126, 129,
23-25 ,
, 1. 146
9-12 „
131
146
24
129
10
146, 147
n. 60
, II. 38,45
11
137,464
5-7 !
I. 150
25
, I. 133
13
132, 137,
6
131
ii. 1
132,158
166, 171
8
126
1-10 ,
149, 159
,,
II. 508
9
129, 136,
2
127, 129,
13-17 „
1. 58
146
132
13-18 „
150
9-10 ,
150
, II. 445
14
147
10
131
3
, I. 158
15
132,136,
10, 11 ,
150
4-8
124
166, 167,
11
131
5
145,474
210
12
127, 133,
6
146
16
137, 147
145,150,
6-10
129
17 „
131, 137,
173, 211,
7
, 128, 159
147
477
, II. 328
18
131, 134
13
, II. 236,487,
8
, I. 125
19
139
514,517
9
128, 129,
19-22 „
150
13, 14 ,
, I. 150
145, 146,
20
126, 139,
14 ,
, II. 76
192, 211,
167
466
21
126, 128,
II. Peier.
, II. 428
129, 132,
10
, I. 128, 146
138, 184,
i. lVol.I.,1' 1S4.2HK
11
128, 132,
42a, 447
230
149, 152
22
132
, II. 32, 33
, II. 422
iv. 1
I. 129,135,
1-11
, I. 210,211
11,12
, I. 160
184
2
188, 231
ii. 11-v.
14 „ 149
1-* ..
131, 136
3
184
12
„ 132, 147,
1-6 „
150
3,5
192
149
2
II. 422,424
4
191, 192
13
58, 129
3 „
I. 146, 169,
5
184, 185,
13-16
125
184
190
13, 14-17 II. 247
4
127,146,
9
185, 190
13-17
, I. 149,163
169
11
185
13-25
„ 131
7 I. 149
5
128
12
185, 192,
ii. 13-iii.
5,7 „
155
211
14
137
6
126, 131,
12-21
2U-213
15
129, 137,
140, 143,
IS
192
147
171
14
, 184
I. Peter (continued).
QUOTED OR REFERRED TO.

613

Peter -(continued).

I. John (continued).

I. John (continued).

14, Vol.

IL, p. 60

i. 7, Vol.

I.,p 129

iii. 12, Vol. L, p. 456

15

I. 192,471

f

II. 413

14 „ IL 373,472

16

184, 191

8

56,434

16 „ 391

17

192

8-10 ,

387,408,

16-18,, 437,439

17, 21 „

204

412, 413,

17 „ 424

19 „

190,192,

435

18 „ 420,507

212,405

9

388

19, 20 „ 441

20 „

192

ii. 1

388

19-24 „ 391

231
1.2 ,
409,410,
21 „ 431,444
1 ',
II. 337
420
21, 22 „ 467
1-3 ,
I. 190,197
1,28,
421
21-24 „ 442
1-13 ,
204
2
362
24 „ 431,444
, 1-22 ,
213,216
3
413,416
iii. 24-iv. 6 „ 444
3
185, 190
3-5 ,
412,413
iv. 1 „ II. 391,419
4
167
3-11 ,
413
1-3 „ 496
4,5 ,
241
3-14 ,
412
1-6 „ 379,445
,
II. 521
4
353,413
2 „ 391, 403,
5,8 ,
I. 192
5 ,
355 413,
449,496
6
190
416
2,3 „ 352
7 ,
184, 185
5,18,
391
8 „ 423,426,
10
184, 185,
6
453
449
192, 197
, 6-8 ,
413
3, 15 „ 352
10,12,)
6-10 ,
496
4 „ 420
13, 15,
• „ 190
6-11 ,
416
6, 13 „ 391
17 j
7,8 ,
496
7-12 „ 445, 451
12
184,197,
8
385,403
8 „ 353,508
201,203,
9-11 ,
386, 413
9 „ I. 101
207,233
10, 11 ,
163
10 „ II. 388,411
IS
184, 185
12
388
11 „ I. 101
14
157, 185
12-14 ,
383,420,
12 „ II. 403
14, 15 ,
197
421
13-16 „ 453
14, 18 ,
II. 39
13, 14 ,
391
14 „ 460
16
I. 205
15-17 ,
26
16 „ 391,414
17 ,
185
15-19 ,
422,423
17 „ 431,467
18
197
16
66
17,18,, 444,453
• 20
178,387
18
, I. 349,364
18 „ I. 137,157
22
210
,
, II. 328,420
19 „ II. 454
• 1
184
18, 22 ,
352, 423,
19-21 „ 455
1-13 ,
194
496
v. 1 „ 403
1-18 ,
216-218
20
, 335,373,
1-5 „ 455
2
189
391
1, 10 „ 352
3
190, 192,
20-26 ,
379
2 „ 391,455
197
20-27 ,
427
4, 5 ,, 455
3,16,
L7 „ 210
20, 27 ,
384,388
5 „ 454,455
5
190
21
420
6 ,, 460,496
5-7 ,
216
22
426,478
6-8 „ 457
7 ,
185
26, 27 ,
429
6-9 „ 457
8-10 ,
216
27
391
7 „ I. 295
9
190
28
, 431,443,
9 „ II. 460
10
185, 196
444,496
9-12 „ 464,465
10-12 ,
65
a. 28-ia.
3 „ 430,431
10 „ 460
11
184
29
363,391
10-12 „ 457
12
II. 328
iu. 1 ,
, II. 363, 387,
13 „ 384,392
14 ,
I. 184
403,412
13, 14 „ 368
15 ,
188,229,
1-10 ,
431
13-17 „ 466,467
486
2
114, 489
14 „ 431
15, 16 ,
194
2-5 ,
, 363
15 „ 373
II. 528
2,14,
391
15, 18, 1 „91
19, 20 1 " dai
16 ',
I. 209
3
, I. 129,158
17 ,
184, 185
j
, II. 477
16 „ 1.377,387
3-8 ,
431
„ II. 374,478,
I. Jo**""-
4,5 ,
433
496
4-10 ,
387
18-21 „ 477,478
. 1 Vol
II., p. 420
5,15,
391
20 „ 335,362,
1.2 ,
403
6
433, 509
403,467
1,4 ,
402
6-10 ,
508
21 „ 379,420
2
460
7,8 ,
433,435
3
412
7-10 ,
, I. 231
II. John.
4
497
8
, II. 280
5 ,
40,413
9
, 434,435
i. Vol.11., p. 495-497
5-7 ,
405,412
9-10 ,
483
1 „ 507
5-10 ,
418
10
435
1,2 „ 420
6 ,
98,335,
10, 11 ,
501
1,3 „ 494
385,413,
10-15 ,
437
4 „ 494
414
11
4,496
5,6 „ 495
614

PASSAGES OF SCRIPTURE.

II. John (c

ontmued).

Eevelation (continued).

Eevelation (

continued).

i. 5,6,7, Vol. II., p.484

ii.

10, Vol. I., p. 148

xui.

10,Vol.II.,p.288

7 ,

352, 423,

,,

II. 38

11-17 „

302

478

13
1.147
18 „
291
7-9 ,
495
v
14
215
xiv
• 4 „
48,174,
8
485
344
490
10
485
15
11.344
8
516
10,11 ,
36, 495
20
1.215
14
114
12, 13 ,
495
24 „
48
19, 20 „
212
13
486
11.245
20 „
261,317,
iii
4
1.235
522
III. John.
5
466
xv., xvi. ,,
239
Vol. II. . p. 507-509
7 „
II. 335
XV
1
241
2
I. 230
8, 16 „
335
xvi
5
1.147
3
II. 495
11
229
13
71
7
491
14
332
„
11.266,304
9
484
17 „
69
16 „
296
11
484
18
335
19
516
14
497
19
1.463
21
261
iv.-vu
)»
H. 239
xvu.-xx. ,,
239
St. Jude.
iv
3
270
xvu., xviii. ,,
320
1-25, Vol
1
I., p. 230-236
237,485
II. 33
V
5
1013
241 580
249,332
xvu
6 „
8 „
247
254
I. 71
2
L237 237211
vi
4
214
8,10,11
,11.284
4 ;
5
9 „
I. 148
9
291
,,
n. 254
9, 10 „
241,282
II. 522
10
1.231,344
9, 18 „
516
5-7 ',
6
L237 167,241
II. 520
1.185
II. 522
I. 197,237200
197, 201
197, 237
II. 521
10, 11 „
11
II. 522
1.148
II. 271
10, 11 „
11 12
194
I. 71,77
n. 285
7 ',
vu.
12 "
1 ..
231
241, 256
12, 13, )
16, 17 1
„ 314
8 ',
8,23,
10 1113
viii.-xi
5-8 „
9
13
35
I. 67
EL 332 254239
xviu
14 „
15 „
18 2 "
332 282
285 67
266,516
14 '
I. 238
viii
1-5 "
546
4
162
II. 64
2
241
8
I. 65
14, 15 '
L 241
13
232,265
9, 18 „
171
II 520
ix
4 „
256
13
443
16 ',
17, 18
I.' 197, 237
222
1118
296259
24 „
148
H. 335
1819
155237
X
xi
32
241287
xix
1 ,"
6
I. 6767
20
237
3
74,270,
11
II. 249,335
22,23 ,
23 ,
237
II. 467
7 „
274
I. 71
13 16
332332
25 ,
I. 237
8
II. 216
20
303,304
13
272
XX
2 „
295
Beve lation.
14
xii.-xiv. ,,
229239
4
1.148
LT. 187,254
i. 1-8, Vol. n., p. 239
xa. 1-17 „
492
6 "
1.474
4
241,296
3
I. 17
9
EL 261
5,6 ,
1.447
11.241
10
304
6
129, 159,
6
259,287
15
1.466
474
7
1.232
xxi.-xxii. 7 ..
11.239
,
II. 248, 580
9
II. 295
3,4 „
1.461
9
1.148
10
[.361
5
EL 321
i. 9-iii. 22 ,
11.239
14
11.193,287
9
492
12-17 ,
256
viii
,,
247
10
1.457
15
270
1
I. 71
14
11.512
16 ,
1.368
3 „
77
16
321
ii. 2
11.335
,,
II. 194
xxu
7,9 „
335
3
335
5 „
287
8-21 „
240
5,16,
229
6 „
I. 71
11 „
50
6
344
8
466
15
335
?
1.148
„
11.445
18, 19 „
1.218
,
II. 69
9, 10 „
288
20 „
11.229
PASSAGES PROM THE TALMUD
QUOTED OR REFERRED TO.

Berachots.

TOMA

Megillah.
fol.
5,0, Vol. EL, p. 81
fol.
2, a,
Vol.1
, p. 408, 434
fol.
6, o, Vol.IL, p.201
6, o „ 341
5, b
428
9, o „ I. 261
7, a „ I. 362
9,o
327
14 b ., II. 94
„ II. 341
EL 13
23, o „ I. 432
8, a „ I. 447
9, b
323
8, b „ 418
14, b
,
I. 433
Teyamoth.
13, b „ LT. 83
18, a,
b
434
20, b 50
19, a
327
fol.
16, b, Vol.IL, p. 34
29, a „ E. 326
19, b
t
434
49, b „ I. 363,461
32, a „ 378
20,o
t
433
62, 63 „ 504
63, b „ 469
20, b
23, a
•
435
II. 85
63, b „ 517
86, b „ 403
Peah (Mishnah).
28, b
29, b
'
94
I. 435
Kethuboth.
ch
a. 6, Vol. L, p. 433
Shabbath.
35, b
38,a44, a
¦
II. 551
I. 254409
II. 545
fol.
103, b, Vol. I., p. 432
104, a „ 418
fol.
21, a. Vol. I., p. 327
32, a „ II. 74
55, b „ I. 363
56, b „ II. 282
57, a 84
86, a „ 85
88, b „ I. 466
89, a „ 311
52, b
66,o 66, b
85, b
86,ffl86, h
87, a
>
I. 418435
II. 552
I. 432
432
II. 7877
fol.
KlDDUSHIN.
29, b, Vol. I., p. 504
70, b „ 327
„ II. 13
82, a „ 84, 94
Gittin.
Yoma (Mishnah).
fol.
7, o „ I. 327
Pesachim.
Oil
ai. 7,
Vol. 11
.,p.547
57, a „ II. 213
fol.
54, a, Vol. I., p. 311
57 a „ 409
iv. 4
.. 7
I. 420
437
Nedarim.
„ II. 11, 13,
v. 2
419,422
fol.
31, b, Vol. IL, p. 84
14
vu. 2
422
32, b „ I. 399
113, a ";, 551
via. 9
441
38, o „ 418
113, b „ I. 504
40,o „ II. 74
„ II. 199
TOMA (T0SAF0TH).
64, b „ I. 504
Chaqigah (Mishnah).
ch
i. Vol. I.
p. 551
Sotah.
oh
a. 4, Vol. I., p. 409
fol.
47, b, Vol. n., p. 85
Succah.
Bava Kama.
fol.
Moed Eaton.
26,o, Vol.IL, p. 328
fol.
29,6, 51, b
Vol. IL, p. 68
„ t254on
fol.
113, b, Vol.IL, p.199
55, b
..
439
Bava Metzia.
Bosh Hashanah.
fol,
16, a, Vol. I., p. 432
16, b „ 432
21, b „ 363
fol
Taanith.
3, b, Vol.11., p. 84
fol.
59, b, Vol. I., p. 537
85, a „ 215
„ II. 173
86, a „ 341
23,0 „ 11.199,257
5, o
,
321
616

fol.

fol.

J PASSAGES

Bava Bathra.

14, o, Vol. I., p. 418

25, o „ II. 321

75, a

I. 363

75, b

, II. 321

116, o

I. 504

121,0

432

Avodah-Zarah.

3, a, Vol. I., p. 311

18, b, „ II. 476

27, b „ I. 508

44, b „ II. 163

Sanhedrin.

37,o, Vol. II., p. 77

59, a „ 199

64, o

409

81, b

I. 327,431

89, b

, II. 93

90, b

81

99, a

I. 366

100, b

517

103, b

460

110, b

, II. 31

PROM THE BOOK OP ENOCH.

Shevuoth.
fol. 13, o, Vol. I., p. 432
Maccoth.
fol. 23, b,-)-. T ._,
24;o;}Vol-L'I'-4sl
Avoth (Mishnah).
ch. i. 10, Vol. IL, p. 56
17 „ 54
iv. 15 „ 52
v. 21 „ I. 511
Avoth be E. Nathan.
oh. xxxix., Vol. IL, p. 472
Sophrim.
oh. xv., Vol. IL, p. 199
Gerim.
ch. i., Vol. LL, p. 84

Menachoth.
fol. 29, a, Vol. I., p. 317
99, b „ 258

Menachoth (Tosefta).
Vol. IL, p. 11
Bechoroth.
fol. 4, a, Vol. I., p. 401
Chullin.
fol. 90, b, Vol. I., p. 415
Kerithoth.
fol. 7, a, Vol. I., p. 432
28, a „ II. 14
28, b „ 551
Middoth.
ch. v. 2, Vol. EL, p. 547

PASSAGES FROM THE BOOK OF ENOCH
QUOTED OR REFERRED TO.

Vol. I.,

p. 231 ef

seq.

'xiv. 4 Vol. II.

p. 521

xii. 1,

Vol. I.

p. 232

240 et

seq.

5

,. I.

231

xlv.-lv.

„ II.

518

Vo

..II.

V

258

XV. 1-7

„ II-

522

xiv. 2

232

i.-xxxv.

, 518,520

3

., I.

231

lui. 8

„ I-

241

l.-vi. 12

(

518

xvi. 5

„ 11.

521

liv. 6

„ IL

521

i. 6

, I.

217
xvii.-xxxv.
,,
518
Ivi.-lxx.
518
i. 8
232
xviii. 13
'266
lxxi.-cv.
520
vi. 4
232
14. 16
,, I.
241
lxxi.-lxxxi.
519
va.-x.
, II.
518
„ II.
522
Ixxxii.-lxxxix.
>}
519
vii. 2
521
xxi. 3
„ L
241
xc, XCI.
519
x. 1-9
,
521
„ II.
266
xcii. 1-18
)t
519
xi.-xvi.
(
518
6
521
xcii. 19-civ.
519
xii. -xvi.
, L
234
10
„ I.
231
xcviii. 3
(
317
xu. 4
,
231
xxxvii.-lxx.
„ 11.518,520
civ. 1-3
tt
255
5-7
241
xxxviii.-xliv.
„
518
cv.
511!
, IL
521
xl. 8
., I-
232
Cassell, Petter, Galpjn & Co., Belle Sauvage -\Yolxs, Lonhon, E.C.