177. Occupation in Prison.—This was far from the condition which such an active spirit would have coveted. He would have liked to be moving from synagogue to synagogue in the immense city, preaching in its streets and squares, and founding congregation after congregation among the masses of its population. Another man, thus arrested in a career of ceaseless movement and immured within prison walls, might have allowed his mind to stagnate in sloth and despair. But Paul behaved very differently. Availing himself of every possibility of the situation, he converted his one room into a center of far-reaching activity and beneficence. On the few square feet of space allowed him he erected a fulcrum with which he moved the world, establishing within the walls of Nero's capital a sovereignty more extensive than his own.
178. Even the most irksome circumstance of his lot was turned to good account. This was the soldier by whom he was watched. To a man of Paul's eager temperament and restlessness of mood this must often have been an intolerable annoyance; and, indeed, in the letters written during this imprisonment he is constantly referring to his chain, as if it were never out of his mind. But he did not suffer this irritation to blind him to the opportunity of doing good presented by the situation. Of course his attendant was changed every few hours, as one soldier relieved another upon guard. In this way there might be six or eight with him every four-and-twenty hours. They belonged to the imperial guard, the flower of the Roman army.
Paul could not sit for hours beside another man without speaking of the subject which lay nearest his heart. He spoke to these soldiers about their immortal souls and the faith of Christ. To men accustomed to the horrors of Roman warfare and the manners of Roman barracks nothing could be more striking than a life and character like his; and the result of these conversations was that many of them became changed men, and a revival spread through the barracks and penetrated into the imperial household itself. His room was sometimes crowded with these stern, bronzed faces, glad to see him at other times than those when duty required them to be there. He sympathized with them and entered into the spirit of their occupation; indeed, he was full of the spirit of the warrior himself.
We have an imperishable relic of these visits in an outburst of inspired eloquence which he dictated at this period: "Put on the whole armor of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil; for we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places. Wherefore take unto you the whole armor of God, that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day and, having done all, to stand. Stand therefore, having your loins girt about with truth, and having on the breastplate of righteousness, and your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace; above all, taking the shield of faith, wherewith ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked. And take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God." That picture was drawn from the life, from the armor of the soldiers in his room; and perhaps these ringing sentences were first poured into the ears of his warlike auditors before they were transferred to the Epistle in which they have been preserved.
179. Visitors.—But he had other visitors. All who took an interest in Christianity in Rome, both Jews and Gentiles, gathered to him. Perhaps there was not a day of the two years of his imprisonment but he had such visitors. The Roman Christians learned to go to that room as to an oracle or shrine. Many a Christian teacher got his sword sharpened there; and new energy began to diffuse itself through the Christian circles of the city. Many an anxious father brought his son, many a friend his friend, hoping that a word from the apostle's lips might waken the sleeping conscience. Many a wanderer, stumbling in there by chance, came out a new man. Such an one was Onesimus, a slave from Colossae, who arrived in Rome as a runaway, but was sent back to his Christian master, Philemon, no longer as a slave, but as a brother beloved.
180. Still more interesting visitors came. At all periods of his life he exercised a strong fascination over young men. They were attracted by the manly soul within him, in which they found sympathy with their aspirations and inspiration for the noblest work. These youthful friends, who were scattered over the world in the work of Christ, flocked to him at Rome. Timothy and Luke, Mark and Aristarchus, Tychicus and Epaphras, and many more came, to drink afresh at the well of his ever-springing wisdom and earnestness. And he sent them forth again, to carry messages to his churches or bring him news of their condition.
181. Of his spiritual children in the distance he never ceased to think. Daily he was wandering in imagination among the glens of Galatia and along the shores of Asia and Greece; every night he was praying for the Christians of Antioch and Ephesus, of Philippi and Thessalonica and Corinth. Nor were gratifying proofs awanting that they were remembering him. Now and then there would appear in his lodging a deputy from some distant church, bringing the greetings of his converts or, perhaps, a contribution to meet his temporal wants, or craving his decision on some point of doctrine or practice about which difficulty had arisen. These messengers were not sent empty away: they carried warm-hearted messages of golden words of counsel from their apostolic friend.
Some of them carried far more. When Epaphroditus, a deputy from the church at Philippi, which had sent to their dear father in Christ an offering of love, was returning home, Paul sent with him, in acknowledgment of their kindness, the Epistle to the Philippians, the most beautiful of all his letters, in which he lays bare his very heart and every sentence glows with love more tender than a woman's. When the slave Onesimus was sent back to Colossae, he received, as the branch of peace to offer to his master, the exquisite little Epistle to Philemon, a priceless monument of Christian courtesy. He carried, too, a letter addressed to the church of the town in which his master lived, the Epistle to the Colossians.
The composition of these Epistles was by far the most important part of Paul's varied prison activity; and he crowned this labor with the writing of the Epistle to the Ephesians, which is perhaps the profoundest and sublimest book in the world. The Church of Christ has derived many benefits from the imprisonment of the servants of God; the greatest book of uninspired religious genius, the Pilgrim's Progress, was written in a jail; but never did there come to the Church a greater mercy in the disguise of misfortune than when the arrest of Paul's bodily activities at Caesarea and Rome supplied him with the leisure needed to reach the depths of truth sounded in the Epistle to the Ephesians.
182. His Writings.—It may have seemed a dark dispensation of providence to Paul himself that the course of life he had pursued so long was so completely changed; but God's thoughts are higher than man's thoughts and His ways than man's ways; and He gave Paul grace to overcome the temptations of his situation and do far more in his enforced inactivity for the welfare of the world and the permanence of his own influence than he could have done by twenty years of wandering missionary work. Sitting in his room, he gathered within the sounding cavity of his sympathetic heart the sighs and cries of thousands far away, and diffused courage and help in every direction from his own inexhaustible resources. He sank his mind deeper and deeper in solitary thought, till, smiting the rock in the dim depth to which he had descended, he caused streams to gush forth which are still gladdening the city of God.
183. Release from Prison.—The book of Acts suddenly breaks off with a brief summary of Paul's two years' imprisonment at Rome. Is this because there was no more to tell? When his trial came on, did it issue in his condemnation and death? Or did he get out of prison and resume his old occupations? Where Luke's lucid narrative so suddenly deserts us, tradition comes in proffering its doubtful aid. It tells us that he was acquitted on his trial and let out of prison; that he resumed his travels, visiting Spain among other places; but that before long he was arrested again and sent back to Rome, where he died a martyr's death at the cruel hands of Nero.
184. New Journeys.—Happily, however, we are not altogether dependent on the precarious aid of tradition. We have writings of Paul's own undoubtedly subsequent to the two years of his first imprisonment. These are what are called the Pastoral Epistles—the Epistles to Timothy and Titus. In these we see that he regained his liberty and resumed his employment of revisiting his old churches and founding new ones. His footsteps cannot, indeed, be any longer traced with certainty. We find him back at Ephesus and Troas; we find him in Crete, an island at which he touched on his voyage to Rome and in which he may then have become interested; we find him exploring new territory in the northern parts of Greece. We see him once more, like the commander of an army who sends his aides-de-camp all over the field of battle, sending out his young assistants to organize and watch over the churches.
185. But this was not to last long. An event had happened immediately after his release from prison which could not but influence his fate. This was the burning of Rome—an appalling disaster, the glare of which even at this distance makes the heart shudder. It was probably a mad freak of the malicious monster who then wore the imperial purple. But Nero saw fit to attribute it to the Christians, and instantly the most atrocious persecution broke out against them. Of course the fame of this soon spread over the Roman world; and it was not likely that the foremost apostle of Christianity could long escape. Every Roman governor knew that he could not do the emperor a more pleasing service than by sending to him Paul in chains.
186. Second Imprisonment.—It was not long, accordingly, before Paul was lying once more in prison at Rome; and it was no mild imprisonment this time, but the worst known to the law. No troops of friends now filled his room; for the Christians of Rome had been massacred or scattered, and it was dangerous for any one to avow himself a Christian. We have a letter written from his dungeon, the last he ever wrote, the Second Epistle to Timothy, which affords us a glimpse of unspeakable pathos into the circumstances of the prisoner. He tells us that one part of his trial is already over. Not a friend stood by him as he faced the bloodthirsty tyrant who sat on the judgment-seat. But the Lord stood by him and enabled him to make the emperor and the spectators in the crowded basilica hear the sound of the gospel. The charge against him had broken down. But he had no hope of escape. Other stages of the trial had yet to come, and he knew that evidence to condemn him would either be discovered or manufactured.
The letter betrays the miseries of his dungeon. He prays Timothy to bring a cloak he had left at Troas, to defend him from the damp of the cell and the cold of the winter. He asks for his books and parchments, that he may relieve the tedium of his solitary hours with the studies he had always loved. But, above all, he beseeches Timothy to come himself; for he was longing to feel the touch of a friendly hand and see the face of a friend yet once again before he died.
Was the brave heart then conquered at last? Read the Epistle and see. How does it begin? "I also suffer these things; nevertheless I am not ashamed; for I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that He is able to keep that which I have committed unto Him against that day." How does it end? "I am now ready to be offered, and the time of my departure is at hand. I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith. Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, shall give me at that day; and not to me only, but unto all them that love His appearing." That is not the strain of the vanquished.
187. Trial.—There can be little doubt that he appeared again at Nero's bar, and this time the charge did not break down. In all history there is not a more startling illustration of the irony of human life than this scene of Paul at the bar of Nero. On the judgment-seat, clad in the imperial purple, sat a man who in a bad world had attained the eminence of being the very worst and meanest being in it—a man stained with every crime, the murderer of his own mother, of his wives and of his best benefactors; a man whose whole being was so steeped in every namable and unnamable vice that body and soul of him were, as some one said at the time, nothing but a compound of mud and blood; and in the prisoner's dock stood the best man the world contained, his hair whitened with labors for the good of men and the glory of God. Such was the occupant of the seat of justice, and such the man who stood in the place of the criminal.
188. Death.—The trial ended, Paul was condemned and delivered over to the executioner. He was led out of the city with a crowd of the lowest rabble at his heels. The fatal spot was reached; he knelt beside the block; the headsman's axe gleamed in the sun and fell; and the head of the apostle of the world rolled down in the dust.
189. So sin did its uttermost and its worst. Yet how poor and empty was its triumph! The blow of the axe only smote off the lock of the prison and let the spirit go forth to its home and to its crown. The city falsely called eternal dismissed him with execration from her gates; but ten thousand times ten thousand welcomed him in the same hour at the gates of the city which is really eternal. Even on earth Paul could not die. He lives among us to-day with a life a hundredfold more influential than that which throbbed in his brain whilst the earthly form which made him visible still lingered on the earth. Wherever the feet of them who publish the glad tidings go forth beautiful upon the mountains, he walks by their side as an inspirer and a guide; in ten thousand churches every Sabbath and on a thousand thousand hearths every day his eloquent lips still teach that gospel of which he was never ashamed; and, wherever there are human souls searching for the white flower of holiness or climbing the difficult heights of self-denial, there he whose life was so pure, whose devotion to Christ was so entire, and whose pursuit of a single purpose was so unceasing, is welcomed as the best of friends.
HINTS TO TEACHERS AND QUESTIONS FOR PUPILS
Teacher's Apparatus.—English theology has no juster cause for pride than the books it has produced on the Life of Paul. Perhaps there is no other subject in which it has so outdistanced all rivals. Conybeare and Howson's Life and Epistles of St. Paul will probably always keep the foremost place; in many respects it is nearly perfect; and a teacher who has mastered it will be sufficiently equipped for his work and require no other help. The works of Lewin and Farrar are written on the same lines; the former is rich in maps of countries and plans of towns; and the strong point of the latter is the analysis of Paul's writings—the exposition of the mind of Paul. Sir William Ramsay has made the whole subject peculiarly his own by the enthusiasm and labors of a lifetime. The German books are not nearly so valuable. Hausrath's The Apostle Paul is a brilliant performance, but it is as weak in handling the deeper things as it is strong in coloring up the external and picturesque features of the subject. Baur's work is an amazingly clever tour de force, but it is not so much a well-proportioned picture of the apostle as a prolonged paradox thrown down as a challenge to the learned. The latest large German work, Clemen's Paulus, proceeds on the principle that the miracle is untrue, and the effect may be sufficiently seen in the account it gives of the first visit to Philippi. In Weinal's Paulus, pp. 312, 313, there appears a forbidding picture of the effects produced by the teaching of the subject in the author's country; in our country, on the contrary, it has long been among the most attractive subjects for both teachers and students. Adolphe Monod's Saint Paul, a series of five discourses, is an inquiry into the secret of the apostle's life, written with deep sympathy and glowing eloquence; and Renan's work, with the same title, gives, with unrivaled brilliance, a picture of the world in which the apostle lived, if not of the apostle himself. There are books on the subject which do honor to American scholarship from the pens of Cone, Gilbert, Bacon and A. T. Robertson, the last mentioned with a valuable bibliography. But the best help is to be found in the original sources themselves—the cameolike pictures of Luke and the self-revelations of Paul's Epistles. The latter especially, read in the fresh translation of Conybeare, will show the apostle to any one who has eyes to see. Johnstone's wall-map of Paul's journey is indispensable in the class-room.
CHAPTER I
Paragraph 2. Subject of class essay—Paul and the other Apostles: Points of Connection and Contrast.
5. Subject of class essay—Relation of Christianity to Learning and Intellectual Gifts: its Use of them and its Independence of them.
9. Quote passages of Scripture in which Paul's destination to be the missionary of the Gentiles is expressed.
CHAPTER II
On the external features of the period embraced in this chapter compare the corresponding pages of Hausrath; on the internal features see Principal Rainy's lecture on Paul in The Evangelical Succession Lectures, vol. i.
14. On the chronology of Paul's life see the notes at the end of Conybeare and Howson, and Farrar, ii. 623.
The principal dates may be given at this stage from Conybeare and Howson, for reference throughout:
36. Conversion.
38. Flight to Tarsus.
44. Brought to Antioch by Barnabas.
48. First Missionary Journey.
50. Council at Jerusalem.
51-54. Second Missionary Journey. 1 and 2 Thessalonians written at Corinth.
54-58. Third Missionary Journey.
57. 1 Corinthians written at Ephesus; 2 Corinthians, in Macedonia;
Galatians, at Corinth.
58. Romans written at Corinth. Arrest at Jerusalem.
59. In prison at Caesarea.
60. Voyage to Rome.
62. Philemon, Colossians, Ephesians, Philippians, written at Rome.
63. Release from prison.
67. 1 Timothy and Titus written.
68. In prison again at Rome. 2 Timothy. Death.
With these may be compared some of Ramsay's dates—the conversion, 33; First Missionary Journey, 47-49; Second, 50-53; Third, 53-57; Voyage to Rome, 59, 60; Trial and Acquittal, 61; Second Trial, 67.
Whereas Conybeare and Howson consider Galatians to have been written, in close conjunction with Romans, at Corinth during the Fourth Missionary Journey, Ramsay believes it to have been written at Antioch before this journey commenced; and, whereas the older authorities suppose it to be addressed to Galatians evangelized by Paul during the Second Missionary Journey, though no details of such a conquest are found in Acts, Ramsay holds the recipients of the Epistle to have been the churches in the interior of Asia Minor evangelized during the First Missionary Journey, the regions of Phrygia and Lycaonia in which these were situated forming at that time part of the Province of Galatia, the boundaries of which had been extended. This is the South Galatian theory, the fullest statement and defence of which will be found in Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible, vol. v.
15. The goat's-hair cloth was called "cilicium," from the name of the province.
16. Dean Howson's Metaphors of St. Paul. Also Hausrath, p. 15.
18. Compare the long lists of sins frequent in the Epistle.
23. Subject for class essay: Paul's First Sight of Jerusalem.
27. A startling picture of the state of society in Jerusalem might be constructed from the materials supplied in Matt. xxiii.
28. Detailed comparison of the experience of Paul with that of Luther: their early religious ideas; the state of religion around them; their failure to find peace and their sufferings of conscience; their discovery of the righteousness of God.
On the religious associations of Paul's early life see the first 100 pages of Reuss' Christian Theology in the Apostolic Age.
31. On the history of Christianity between the death of Christ and the conversion of St. Paul see Dykes' From Jerusalem to Antioch.
34. The question whether Paul was married. His views on the place of woman.
35. Perhaps Acts xxvi. 11 may not imply that any of the Christians yielded to his endeavors to make them blaspheme.
15. What was the Latin name for a town enjoying the political privileges possessed by Tarsus?
16. What are Paul's principal metaphors?
17. Where does he make this boast?
19. What was the Latin name for the Roman citizenship, and what privileges did it include? On what occasions is Paul recorded to have used it? On what occasions might he have been expected to use it, when he omitted to do so? What reasons may be given for the omission?
20. Name friends of Paul who were engaged in the same trade as he.
21. Give Paul's quotations from the Greek poets. Do you know the authors he quoted from? Explain Septuagint and Diaspora.
22. Where does Paul refer to the sophists and rhetoricians?
26. Make a collection of Paul's quotations from the Old Testament, showing whence each of them was taken.
28. What does Paul mean by the Law?
32. Trace out the points of contact between the language and views of
Stephen's speech and those of Paul. Explain—
"Si Stephanus non orasset,
Ecclesia Paulum non haberet."
34. Where is it said that Paul voted in the Sanhedrim?
45. Collect Paul's references to the persecution and bring out how severe it was.
CHAPTER III
On Paul's mental processes before and at the time of his conversion see Principal Rainy's lecture, already quoted.
The conversion of Paul is one of the strong apologetic positions of Christianity. See this worked out in Lyttelton's Conversion of St. Paul. But it might be worked out afresh on more modern lines.
40. Principal Rainy, in the lecture above referred to, says that he sees no evidence of such a conflict as this in Paul's mind; but what, then, is the meaning of "It is hard for thee to kick against the pricks"?
41. The general tenor of the earliest Christian apologetic, as it is to be found in the speeches of the Acts of the Apostles.
44. Nothing could be more alien to the spirit of the New Testament than to turn this round the other way, and, assuming that what Paul saw was only a vision, argue that the other appearances of Christ, because they are put on the same level, may have been only visions too. This is a mere stroke of dialectical cleverness, which shows no regard to the obvious intention of the writers.
There are three accounts of the conversion of Paul in the Acts. What is the significance of this reduplication in so small a book? Enumerate the differences between these accounts, and explain them.
38. Prove that the first Christians called Christianity THE WAY, and explain the signification of this name.
CHAPTER IV
On the subject of this chapter see the works on Pauline Theology by Pfleiderer, Bruce, Du Bose, Titius and Stevens, also the relevant portions of any of the Handbooks of New Testament Theology—Weiss, Reuss, Schmid, van Oosterzee, Beyschlag, Holtzmann, and Stevens. Weiss' exposition is among the most solid and trustworthy. He divides Paulinism into four sections:—
I. THE EARLIEST GOSPEL OF PAUL DURING THE HEATHEN MISSION (gathered from Thessalonians). One chapter—the Gospel as the Way of Deliverance from Judgment.
II. THE DOCTRINAL SYSTEM OF THE FOUR GREAT DOCTRINAL AND CONTROVERSIAL EPISTLES (Corinthians, Romans, Galatians). Ch. i. Universal Sinfulness of Man; ch. ii. Heathenism and Judaism; ch. iii. Prophecy and Fulfilment; ch. iv. Christology; ch. v. Redemption and Justification; ch. vi. The New Life; ch. vii. The Doctrine of Predestination; ch. viii. The Doctrine of the Church; ch. ix. The Last Things.
III. THE DEVELOPMENT OP THE DOCTRINE IN THE EPISTLES WRITTEN IN PRISON (Colossians, Ephesians, Philippians, Philemon). Ch. i. The Pauline Foundations; ch. ii. Further Development of Doctrine.
IV. THE TEACHING OF THE PASTORAL EPISTLES. One chapter—Christianity as Doctrine.
51. Subject for class essay. The Sources of St. Paul's Theology.
52. Luther in the Wartburg.
54-65. As these paragraphs are nothing but a paraphrase of Rom. i.-viii., pupils ought to be asked to compare with them the corresponding paragraphs of the Epistle.
56. Compare Tholuck, The Moral Character of Heathendom.
65. On Paul's Psychology see the monograph of Simon and the Handbooks of Biblical Psychology by Delitzsch and Beck: also Heard, The Tripartite Nature of Man, Laidlaw, The Bible Doctrine of Man, and Dickson, St. Paul's Use of the Terms Flesh and Spirit.
67. Compare Somerville, St. Paul's Conception of Christ, and Knowling, The Testimony of St. Paul to Christ.
51. Where does Paul mention his journey to Arabia?
56. What is the connection between moral and intellectual degeneracy?
62. Where does Paul speak of the Gospel as a "mystery," and what does he mean by this word?
65. Does Paul divide human nature into two or into three sections? Do you know the theological names for these alternatives? Does Paul regard the unregenerate man as possessing the part of human nature which he calls "spirit"?
67. Enumerate the incidents of Christ's earthly life referred to by Paul.
CHAPTER V
On this subject see the first two chapters of Conybeare and Howson; New Testament Times of Hausrath or Schürer; Fairweather, From the Exile to the Advent, Moss, From Malachi to Matthew.
72. Subject of class essay: The Origin and Significance of the name "Christian."
72. By what other names were the Christians called in New Testament times, among themselves or among their enemies?
78. What did the Greeks, the Romans, and the Jews severally contribute to Christianity?
CHAPTER VI
The aim of this Handbook, as of The Life of Jesus Christ in the same series, being to show at a single glance the general course of the life and the principal objects it touched, a good many details have been omitted. This is especially the case in this chapter and in chapter x. The omissions cause those great features to stand out more prominently which details are apt to obscure. In this chapter an endeavor has been made to show in this way what were the different regions into which the apostle traveled, and what the peculiarities and the extent of the work he did in each. But in an extended Bible Class course the lessons will naturally go more into detail, and perhaps the incidents which took place in each town may generally form a lesson. Here, therefore, and at the beginning of chap. x., a few hints may be given of the viewpoints for the lessons, in so far as these are not already supplied in the text.
" " 14-52. Antioch. Paul's Missionary Method.
" xiv. 1-6. Iconium. Among the Jews.
" " 6-20. Lystra. Among the Heathens.
" " 21-28. Paul as a Pastor.
" xv. Paul as an Ecclesiastic.
Acts xvi. 1-6. The New Companion.
" " 6-10. Opening up Virgin Soil.
" " 12-40. Philippi. Transfiguration and Disfiguration of Humanity.
" xvii. 1-9. Thessalonica. An Honorable Reproach.
" " 10-14. Beroea. Rare Freedom from Prejudice.
" " 15-34. Athens. The Gospel and Intellectual Curiosity.
" xviii. 1-3. Corinth. Paul's earthly Home.
" " 4-17. The Missionary's Discouragements and Encouragements.
" " 23-28. A polished Shaft in God's Quiver.
" xix. Ephesus. See the text. Also, Conflict of Christianity with Vested
Interests and Mob Violence.
79. Howson's Companions of St. Paul.
81. A minute inspection of Acts xiii. 9 will confirm the view here given of the change of name, though it is difficult to get rid of the idea that the conversion of the governor, who bore the same name, had something to do with it.
84. On the worship of the synagogue see Farrar's Life of Christ, i. 220.
89. On the Council of Jerusalem, which took place between the first and second journeys, see ch. ix.
93. What is here said of the plan of the Acts explains still more strikingly the meagerness of the record of the third journey.
97. Beroea was to the south of the Via Egnatia.
99. Subject of class essay: The Influence of Christianity on the Lot of Woman.
103. Subject of class essay: Paul at Athens.
104. Subject of class essay: Paul and Socrates.
113. A strong argument against the mythical theory of the miracles of our Lord may be constructed from the paucity of the miracles attributed to Paul. If that age naturally wove miraculous legends round great names, why did it not encircle Paul with a continuous web of miracle? and why does the New Testament admit that the Baptist worked no miracle?
114. See Ramsay, Letters to the Seven Churches.
79. Give a list of Paul's companions and friends mentioned in the New Testament.
84. What were the charges generally brought against him before the authorities?
91. Where in his writings does he mention Barnabas and Mark?
93. Give the places in Acts where the items of this catalogue are recorded.
94. Mention other classical associations of this region.
98. What two kings of Macedonia are famous in history?
102. Expand these allusions to Greek history.
103. Give a number of the names associated with the golden age of Athens and mention what they were famous for.
108. Find out all the visions mentioned in Paul's life, and prove that they were given him at the crises of his history.
110. Distinguish our Asia and Asia Minor from the Asia of the New Testament.
CHAPTER VII
In the chronological table, p. 138, the dates of the Epistles have already been given and the points of the history indicated where they come in. It is a pity the Epistles are not arranged in chronological order in our Bibles. Their characteristics may be mentioned:
1 Corinthians. Picture of an apostolic church.
2 Corinthians. Paul's portrait of himself.
Galatians. Vehement polemic against Judaizers.
Romans. Paul's gospel.
Philemon. Example of Christian courtesy.
Colossians and Ephesians. Paul's later gospel.
Philippians. Picture of Roman imprisonment.
1 Timothy and Titus. Form of the church.
2 Timothy. The last scenes.
Ramsay places Galatians before 1 and 2 Corinthians; compare p. 139 above.
116. Compare Shaw, The Pauline Epistles.
118. On Paul's style see Farrar's Excursus at the close of vol. i. The comparison of it to that of Thucydides is more dignified than that of the text, but less true.
119. Inspiration did not interfere with natural characteristics of style. It made the writer not less but more himself, while of course it imparted to the products of his pen a divine value and authority.
120-127. Howson's Character of St. Paul; Speer, The Man Paul; Hausrath, 45-57; Baur's remarks (ii. 294 ff.) on his intellectual character are very good. But the principal sources are 2 Corinthians and Acts xx.
122. Farrar's treatment of Paul's bodily infirmities is a serious blot on his book; for these are obtruded with a frequency and exaggeration which produce an impression quite different from that made by the references to them in Scripture. This is still truer of Baring-Gould's Study of St. Paul. For a treatment of the same subject, realistic, but full of sympathy and delicacy, see Monod. Ramsay is of opinion that the "thorn in the flesh" was chronic malarial fever.
122 ff. Illustrate these paragraphs fully from Scripture.
128. Compare Paul with Livingstone and other missionaries.
CHAPTER VIII
On this subject compare Neander's Planting of Christianity, Book ii., ch. 7, and Schaff's Church History; also Bannerman's Church of Christ. This chapter is only a piecing together of the information scattered through 1 Corinthians. It would be well to get pupils to seek out the passages of the Epistle which correspond to the different paragraphs. A picture of a Pauline church of a later date might be compiled in the same way from the Pastoral Epistles.
136. The doctrine of the Holy Spirit was revealed "at sundry times and in divers manners," and the complete doctrine is to be obtained by uniting the representations of the various writers of Scripture. In the New Testament there are four phases—1. In the Synoptical Gospels the Holy Spirit is set forth in His influence on the human nature of Christ; 2. in the Acts and Paul, as the power for founding the Church and converting the world; 3. in Paul as the principle of the new life of Christians; 4. in John as the Comforter.
138. Compare the irregularities of other periods of vast change, e.g., the Reformation.
144. On the extent to which an authoritative ecclesiastical system is given in the New Testament compare Jus Divinum Presbyterii and Hooker's Ecclesiastical Polity.
130. Give the names of the principal games of ancient times, derived from the places where they were held.
131. Where are churches mentioned as meeting in the houses of individuals?
132. Explain the words "barbarian," "Scythian," in Col. iii. 11.
135. What modern divine endeavored to revive these phenomena, and what is the name of the church he founded? What is the meaning of the word "charism"? Were the tongues of Pentecost the same as those of 1 Corinthians? Give instances in which New Testament prophets did predict future events.
CHAPTER IX
The criticism which seeks to disintegrate the New Testament writings and set the apostles against one another is founded on a revival of the claim of the Judaizers that their propaganda had the sanction of Peter and the other original apostles. In a Handbook like this it is impossible to discuss at any length the Tübingen Theory. But some of its points are silently met in the text; and the whole theory is answered by an attempt to give a view of the course of the controversy which covers all the facts. The distinction drawn in paragraphs 159 ff. between the central question in dispute and a subordinate aspect of the controversy will be found to clear up many intricacies. Compare Sorley's Jewish Christians and Judaism.
This chapter is full of references to passages in Acts and Galatians, which pupils ought to be asked to produce.
CHAPTER X
Viewpoints for lessons on details omitted or only lightly referred to in the text:
Unwearied Preacher (Troas).
" " 17-38. The Man of Heart (Miletus).
" xxii. Final Effort to save his Country.
" xxiii. 1-10. In the Dock where he had placed others.
" xxiii. 22-27. The Preacher of Righteousness.
" xxvi. The Inspired Student.
" xxvii. Paul as a Ruler of Men.
" xxviii. The benevolence of Nature and that of Grace (Malta).
171. See notes on ch. iv., p. 141.
The authenticity of Ephesians and Colossians can only be denied by ignoring the impression of majesty and profundity which they have made on the greatest minds. (See the Introductions in Meyer and Alford.) What other mind of those ages except Paul's could have erected a structure so magnificent on the very foundations of the Epistle to the Romans? or in what other mind was there such a union of the doctrinal and the ethical?
In John's writings the relation of believers to Christ is illustrated by a far higher comparison: it is compared to the union of Father and Son in the Deity.
172. See Ernesti: The Ethic of Paul; also Juncker.
174. See Smith's Voyage of St. Paul; also Sir William Ramsay's article on Roads and Travel in Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible, vol. v.
176. Burrus, the Praetorian Prefect. So Conybeare and Howson; but Ramsay, following Mommsen, holds the officer to have been the princeps peregrinorum, whose quarters lay on the Coelian Hill.
On the various kinds of imprisonment in Roman law see Ramsay's Roman Antiquities, ch. ix.
177-182. The materials for this account of Paul's prison life at Rome are chiefly gathered from the Epistle to the Philippians.
184. On the genuineness of the Pastoral Epistles see essay by Findley in Sabatier's The Apostle Paul. The comparative lack of doctrinal matter in them is accounted for by the fact that they were written to ministers well acquainted with his doctrinal system.
188. At Tre Fontane, to the south of Rome, the traditional scene of the execution is still pointed out; and not far off stands St. Paul's-outside-the-Walls, one of the most gorgeous churches in the world.
164. Trace out the different collections which Paul is recorded to have been engaged with.
166. What were the courts of the temple; and what was the name of the Roman fortress which overlooked them?
171. How often does the phrase "in Christ" (or "in" with pronouns referring to Christ) occur in Ephesians?
172. Give examples from Paul's writings of the application of great principles to small duties.
175. Give the names and localities of other great Roman roads. Describe a Roman triumph.
179. Narrate the story of Onesimus, gathering it from the Epistle to Philemon.
184. Explain the name of the Pastoral Epistles.