in the Epistle to Philemon, Aristarchus is mentioned without any addition, and the title of fellow-prisoner is given to Epaphras *. And let it also be observed, that notwithstanding the close and circumstantial agreement between the two epistles, this is not the case of an opening left in a genuine writing, which an impostor is induced to fill up; nor of a reference to some writing not extant, which sets a sophist at work to supply the loss, in like manner as, because St. Paul was supposed (Colos. chap. iv. 16), to allude to an epistle written by him to the Laodiceans, some person has from thence taken the hint of uttering a forgery under that title. The present, I say, is not that case; for Philemon's name is not mentioned in the Epistle to the Colossians; Onenesimus' servile condition is no where hinted at, any more than his crime, his flight, or the place or time of his conversion. The story therefore of the epistle, if it be a fiction, is a fiction to which the author could not have been guided, by any thing he had read in St. Paul's genuine writings. 66 No. III.-Ver. 4, 5. "I thank my God, making mention of thee always in my prayers, hearing of thy love and faith, which thou hast towards the Lord Jesus, and towards all saints." Hearing of my love and faith." This is the form of speech which St. Paul was wont to use towards those churches which he had not seen, or then visited: see Rom. chap. i. 8; Ephes. chap. i. 15; Col. chap. i. 3, 4. Towards those churches and persons with whom he was previously acquainted, he employed a different phrase; as, "I thank my God always on your behalf," (1 Cor. chap. i. 4; 2 Thess. chap. i. 3;) or, upon every remembrance of you," (Phil. chap. i. 3; 1 Thess. chap. i. 2, 3; 2 Tim. chap. i. 3;) and never speaks of hearing them. Yet, I think it must be concluded from the nineteenth verse of this epistle, that Philemon had been converted by St. Paul himself: "Albeit, I do not say to thee how thou owest unto me even thine own self besides." Here then is a peculiarity. Let us inquire whether the epistle supplies any circumstance which will account for it. We have seen that it may be made out, not from the epistle itself, but from a comparison of the epistle with that to the Colossians, that Philemon was an inhabitant of Colosse: and it farther appears, from the Epistle to the Colossians, that St. Paul had never been in that city: "I would that ye knew what great conflict I have for you and for them at Laodicea, and for as many as have not seen my face in the flesh." Col. ch. ii. 1. Although, therefore, St. Paul had formerly met with Philemon at some other place, and had been the immediate instrument of his conversion, yet Philemon's faith and conduct afterward, inasmuch as he lived in a city which St. Paul had never visited, could only be known to him by fame and reputation. No. IV. The tenderness and delicacy of this epistle have long been admired: "Though I might be much bold in Christ to enjoin thee that which is convenient, yet for love's sake I rather beseech thee, being such a one as Paul the aged, and now also a prisoner of Jesus Christ; I beseech thee for my son Onesimus, whom I have begotten in my bonds." There is something certainly very melting and persuasive in this, and every part of the epistle. Yet, in my opinion, the character of St. Paul prevails in it throughout. The warm, affectionate, authoritative teacher is interceding with an absent friend for a beloved convert. He urges his suit with an earnestness, befitting perhaps not so much the occasion, as the ardour and sensibility of his own mind. Here also, as every where, he shews himself conscious of the weight and dignity of his mission; nor does he suffer Philemon for a moment to forget it: "I might be much bold in Christ to enjoin thee that which is convenient." He is careful also to recall, though obliquely, to Philemon's memory, the sacred obligation under which he had laid him, by bringing to him the knowledge of Jesus Christ: "I do not say to thee how thou owest to me even thine own self besides." Without laying aside, therefore, the apostolic character, our author softens the imperative style of his address, by mixing with it every sentiment and consideration that could move the heart of his correspondent. Aged and in prison, he is content to • Dr. Benson observes, and perhaps truly, that the appellation of fellow-prisoner, as applied by St. Paul to Epaphras, did not imply that they were imprisoned together at the time; any more than your calling a person your fellow-traveller imports that you are then upon your travels. If he had, upon any former occasion, travelled with you, you might afterward speak of him under that title. It is just so with the term fellow-prisoner. supplicate and entreat. Onesimus was rendered dear to him by his conversion and his services the child of his affliction, and "ministering unto him in the bonds of the gospel." This ought to recommend him, whatever had been his fault, to Philemon's forgiveness: "Receive him as myself, as my own bowels." Every thing, however, should be voluntary. St. Paul was determined that Philemon's compliance should flow from his own bounty: "Without thy mind would I do nothing, that thy benefit should not be as it were of necessity, but willingly;" trusting nevertheless to his gratitude and attachment for the performance of all that he requested, and for more: "Having confidence in thy obedience, I wrote unto thee, knowing that thou wilt also do more than I say." St. Paul's discourse at Miletus; his speech before Agrippa; his Epistle to the Romans, as hath been remarked (No. VIII.); that to the Galatians, chap. iv. 11-20; to the Philippians, chap. i. 29. chap. ii. 2; the Second to the Corinthians, chap. vi. 1—13; and indeed some part or other of almost every epistle, exhibit examples of a similar application to the feelings and affections of the persons whom he addresses. And it is observable that these pathetic effusions, drawn for the most part from his own sufferings and situation, usually precede a command, soften a rebuke, or mitigate the harshness of some disagreeable truth. CHAPTER XV. THE SUBSCRIPTIONS OF THE EPISTLES. Six of these subscriptions are false or improbable; that is, they are either absolutely contradicted by the contents of the epistle, or are difficult to be reconciled with them. I. The subscription of the First Epistle to the Corinthians states that it was written from Philippi, notwithstanding that, in the sixteenth chapter and the eighth verse of the epistle, St. Paul informs the Corinthians that he will "tarry at Ephesus until Pentecost ;" and notwithstanding that he begins the salutations in the epistle by telling them "the churches of Asia salute you;" a pretty evident indication that he himself was in Asia at this time. II. The Epistle to the Galatians is by the subscription dated from Rome; yet, in the epistle itself, St. Paul expresses his surprise "that they were so soon removing from him that called them;" whereas his journey to Rome was ten years posterior to the conversion of the Galatians. And what, I think, is more conclusive, the author, though speaking of himself in this more than any other epistle, does not once mention his bonds, or call himself a prisoner; which he had not failed to do in every one of the four epistles written from that city, and during that imprisonment. III. The First Epistle to the Thessalonians was written, the subscription tells us, from Athens; yet the epistle refers expressly to the coming of Timotheus from Thessalonica (ch. iii. 6): and the history informs us, Acts, xviii. 5, that Timothy came out of Macedonia to St. Paul at Corinth. IV. The Second Epistle to the Thessalonians is dated, and without any discoverable reason, from Athens also. If it be truly the second; if it refer, as it appears to do (ch. ii. 2), to the first, and the first was written from Corinth, the place must be erroneously assigned, for the history does not allow us to suppose that St. Paul, after he had reached Corinth, went back to Athens. V. The first Epistle to Timothy the subscription asserts to have been sent from Laodicea; yet, when St. Paul writes, "I besought thee to abide still at Ephesus, Tорevóμevos èis Maxedovíav (when I set out for Macedonia)," the reader is naturally led to conclude, that he wrote the letter upon his arrival in that country. VI. The Epistle to Titus is dated from Nicopolis in Macedonia, whilst no city of that name is known to have existed in that province. The use, and the only use, which I make of these observations, is to shew how easily 66 errors and contradictions steal in where the writer is not guided by original knowledge. There are only eleven distinct assignments of date to St. Paul's Epistles (for the four written from Rome may be considered as plainly contemporary; and of these, six seem to be erroneous. I do not attribute any authority to these subscriptions. I believe them to have been conjectures founded sometimes upon loose traditions, but more generally upon a consideration of some particular text, without sufficiently comparing it with other parts of the epistle, with different epistles, or with the history. Suppose then that the subscriptions had come down to us as authentic parts of the epistles, there would have been more contrarieties and difficulties arising out of these final verses, than from all the rest of the volume. Yet, if the epistles had been forged, the whole must have been made up of the same elements as those of which the subscriptions are composed, viz. tradition, conjecture, and inference: and it would have remained to be accounted for, how, whilst so many errors were crowded into the concluding clauses of the letters, so much consistency should be preserved in other parts. The same reflection arises from observing the oversights and mistakes which learned men have committed, when arguing upon allusions which relate to time and place, or when endeavouring to digest scattered circumstances into a continued story. It is indeed the same case; for these subscriptions must be regarded as ancient scholia, and as nothing more. Of this liability to error I can present the reader with a notable instance; and which I bring forward for no other purpose than that to which I apply the erroneous subscriptions. Ludovicus Capellus, in that part of his Historia Apostolica Illustrata, which is entitled De Ordine Epist. Paul., writing upon the Second Epistle to the Corinthians, triumphs unmercifully over the want of sagacity in Baronius, who, it seems, makes St. Paul write his Epistle to Titus from Macedonia upon his second visit into that province; whereas it appears from the history, that Titus, instead of being at Crete, where the epistle places him, was at that time sent by the apostle from Macedonia to Corinth. "Animadvertere est," says Capellus, magnam hominis illius aßλevíar, qui vult Titum a Paulo in Cretam abductum, illicque relictum, cum inde Nicopolim navigaret, quem tamen agnoscit a Paulo ex Macedoniâ missum esse Corinthum." This probably will be thought a detection of inconsistency in Baronius. But what is the most remarkable, is, that in the same chapter in which he thus indulges his contempt of Baronius's judgment, Capellus himself falls into an error of the same kind, and more gross and palpable than that which he reproves. For he begins the chapter by stating the Second Epistle to the Corinthians and the First Epistle to Timothy to be nearly contemporary; to have been both written during the apostle's second visit into Macedonia; and that a doubt subsisted concerning the immediate priority of their dates: "Posterior ad eosdem Corinthios Epistola, et Prior ad Timotheum certant de prioritate, et sub judice lis est; utraque autem scripta est paulo postquam Paulus Epheso discessisset, adeoque dum Macedoniam peragraret, sed utra tempore præcedat, non liquet." Now, in the first place, it is highly improbable that the two epistles should have been written either nearly together, or during the same journey through Macedonia; for, in the Epistle to the Corinthians, Timothy appears to have been with St. Paul; in the epistle addressed to him, to have been left behind at Ephesus, and not only left behind, but directed to continue there, till St. Paul should return to that city. In the second place it is inconceivable, that a question should be proposed concerning the priority of date of the two epistles; for, when St. Paul, in his Epistle to Timothy, opens his address to him by saying, "as I besought thee to abide still at Ephesus when I went into Macedonia," no reader can doubt but that he here refers to the last interview which had passed between them; that he had not seen him since; whereas if the epistle be posterior to that to the Corinthians, yet written upon the same visit into Macedonia, this could not be true; for as Timothy was along with St. Paul when he wrote to the Corinthians, he must, upon this supposition, have passed over to St. Paul in Macedonia after he had been left by him at Ephesus, and must have returned to Ephesus again before the epistle was written. What misled Ludovicus Capellus was simply this,that he had entirely overlooked Timothy's name in the superscription of the Second Epistle to the Corinthians. Which oversight appears not only in the quotation which we have given, but from his telling us, as he does, that Timothy came from Ephesus to St. Paul at Corinth, whereas his superscription proves that Timothy was already with St. Paul when he wrote to the Corinthians from Macedonia. CHAPTER XVI. THE CONCLUSION. IN the outset of this inquiry, the reader was directed to consider the Acts of the Apostles and the thirteen Epistles of St. Paul as certain ancient manuscripts lately discovered in the closet of some celebrated library. We have adhered to this view of the subject. External evidence of every kind has been removed out of sight; and our endeavours have been employed to collect the indications of truth and authenticity, which appeared to exist in the writings themselves, and to result from a comparison of their different parts. It is not however necessary to continue this supposition longer. The testimony which other remains of contemporary, or the monuments of adjoining ages, afford to the reception, notoriety, and public estimation, of a book, form, no doubt, the first proof of its genuineness. And in no books whatever is this proof more complete, than in those at present under our consideration. The inquiries of learned men, and above all, of the excellent Lardner, who never overstates a point of evidence, and whose fidelity in citing his authorities has in no one instance been impeached, have established, concerning these writings, the following propositions : I. That in the age immediately posterior to that in which St. Paul lived, his letters were publicly read and acknowledged. Some of them are quoted alluded to by almost every Christian writer that followed, by Clement of Rome, by Hermas, by Ignatius, by Polycarp, disciples or contemporaries of the apostles; by Justin Martyr, by the churches of Gaul, by Irenæus, by Athenagoras, by Theophilus, by Clement of Alexandria, by Hermias, by Tertullian, who occupied the succeeding age. Now when we find a book quoted or referred to by an ancient author, we are entitled to conclude, that it was read and received in the age and country in which that author lived. And this conclusion does not, in any degree, rest upon the judgment or character of the author making such reference. Proceeding by this rule, we have, concerning the First Epistle to the Corinthians in particular, within forty years after the epistle was written, evidence, not only of its being extant at Corinth, but of its being known and read at Rome. Clement, bishop of that city, writing to the church of Corinth, uses these words: "Take into your hand the Epistle of the blessed Paul the apostle. What did he at first write you in the beginning of the gospel? Verily he did by the Spirit admonish you concerning himself, and Cephas, and Apollos, because that even then you did form parties *. This was written at a time when probably some must have been living at Corinth, who remembered St. Paul's ministry there, and the receipt of the epistle. The testimony is still more valuable, as it shews that the epistles were preserved in the churches to which they were sent, and that they were spread and propagated from them to the rest of the Christian community. Agreeably to which natural mode and order of their publication, Tertullian, a century afterward, for proof of the integrity and genuineness of the apostolic writings, bids any one, who is willing to exercise his curiosity profitably in the business of their salvation, to visit the apostolical churches, in which their very authentic letters are recited, ipsæ authenticæ literæ eorum recitantur." Then he goes on: "Is Achaia near you? You have Corinth. If you are not far from Macedonia, you have Philippi, you have Thessalonica. If you can go to Asia, you have Ephesus; but if you are near to Italy, you have Rome t." I adduce this passage to shew, that the distinct churches or Christian societies, to which St. Paul's epistles were sent, subsisted for some ages afterward; that his several epistles were all along respectively read in those churches; that Christians at large received them from those churches, and appealed to those churches for their origniality and authenticity. Arguing in like manner from citations and allusions, we have, within the space of a hun+ Lardner, vol. ii. p. 598. * See Lardner, vol. xii. p. 22. dred and fifty years from the time that the first of St. Paul's epistles was written, proofs of almost all of them being read, in Palestine, Syria, the countries of Asia Minor, in Egypt, in that part of Africa which used the Latin tongue, in Greece, Italy, and Gaul *. I do not mean simply to assert, that within the space of a hundred and fifty years, St. Paul's epistles were read in those countries, for I believe that they were read and circulated from the beginning; but that proofs of their being so read occur within that period. And when it is considered how few of the primitive Christians wrote, and of what was written how much is lost, we are to account it extraordinary, or rather as a sure proof of the extensiveness of the reputation of these writings, and of the general respect in which they are held, that so many testimonies, and of such antiquity, are still extant. "In the remaining works of Irenæus, Clement of Alexandria, and Tertullian, there are perhaps more and larger quotations of the small volume of the New Testament, than of all the works of Cicero, in the writings of all characters for several ages †." We must add, that the epistles of Paul come in for their full share of this observation; and that all the thirteen epistles, except that to Philemon, which is not quoted by Irenæus or Clement, and which probably escaped notice merely by its brevity, are severally cited, and expressly recognised as St. Paul's by each of these Christian writers. The Ebionites, an early though inconsiderable Christian sect, rejected St. Paul and his epistles ‡; that is, they rejected these epistles, not because they were not, but because they were, St. Paul's; and because, adhering to the obligation of the Jewish law, they chose to dispute his doctrine and authority. Their suffrage as to the genuineness of the epistles does not contradict that of other Christians. Marcion, an heretical writer in the former part of the second century, is said by Tertullian to have rejected three of the epistles which we now receive, viz. the two Epistles to Timothy and the Epistle to Titus. It appears to me not improbable, that Marcion might make some such distinction as this, that no apostolic epistle was to be admitted which was not read or attested by the church to which it was sent; for it is remarkable that, together with these epistles to private persons, he rejected also the catholic epistles. Now the catholic epistles and the epistles to private persons agree in the circumstance of wanting this particular species of attestation. Marcion, it seems, acknowledged the Epistle to Philemon, and is upbraided for his inconsistency in doing so by Tertullian §, who asks "why, when he received a letter written to a single person, he should refuse two to Timothy and one to Titus composed upon the affairs of the church ?” This passage so far favours our account of Marcion's objection, as it shews that the objection was supposed by Tertullian to have been founded in something which belonged to the nature of a private letter. Nothing of the works of Marcion remains. Probably he was, after all, a rash, arbitrary, licentious critic (if he deserved indeed the name of critic), and who offered no reason for his determination. What St. Jerome says of him intimates this, and is besides founded in good sense speaking of him, and Basilides, "If they had assigned any reasons," says he, "why they did not reckon these epistles," viz. the First and Second to Timothy and the Epistle to Titus, "to be the apostle's, we would have endeavoured to have answered them, and perhaps they might have satisfied the reader: but when they take upon them, by their own authority, to pronounce one epistle to be Paul's and another not, they can only be replied to in the same manner ||." Let it be remembered, however, that Marcion received ten of these epistles. His authority, therefore, even if his credit had been better than it is, forms a very small exception to the uniformity of the evidence. Of Basilides we know still less than we do of Marcion. The same observation, however, belongs to him, viz. that his objection, as far as appears from this passage of St. Jerome, was confined to the three private epistles. Yet is this the only opinion which can be said to disturb the consent of the first two centuries of the Christian era: for as to Tatian, who is reported by Jerome alone to have rejected some of St. Paul's epistles, the extravagant or rather delirious notions into which he fell, take away all weight and credit from his judgment.—If, indeed, Jerome's account of this circumstance be correct; for it appears from much older writers than Jerome, that Tatian owned and used many of these epistles ¶. • See Lardner's Recapitulation, vol. xii. p. 53. § Ib. vol. xiv. p. 455. + Ibid. Lardner, vol. ii. p. 808. |