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Lives of the Saints.
January 1.
jFeagt of tfje (Circumcision of our SLorti 3csus (Christ
S. Gaspar, one of the Magi.
S. Concord, P. M., at Spoletto, in Umbria, circ. a.d. iji.
SS. Elvan, B., and Mydwyn, in England, circ. a.d. 198.
S. Martina, Z. M., at Rome, a.d. 23g.
S. Paracodius, B. of Kenne, a.d. 239.
S. Severus, M., at Ravenna, a.d. 304.
S. Telemacus, M., at Rome, a.d. 397.
S. Fulgentius, B. C. of Ruspe, in N. Africa, a.d. 333.
S. Mochua, or Cuan, Ab. in Ireland, 6th Cent.
S. Mochua, or Cronan, Ab. of Balia, in Ireland, 6th Cent.
S. Eugendus, Ab. of Condate, in the Jura, a.d. 581.
S. Fanchea, or Fain, K Abss., of Rosairthir, in Ireland, 6th Cent.
S. Clare, Ab. of Kenne, circ. a.d. 660.
S. William, Ab. S. Benignus, at Dijon, a.d. 1031.
S. Odilo, Ab. Cluny, a.d. 1049.
THE CIRCUMCISION OF OUR LORD.
HIS festival is celebrated by the Church in order
to commemorate the obedience of our Lord in
fulfilling all righteousness, which is one branch
I of the meritorious cause of our redemption, and
by that means abrogating the severe injunctions of the
Mosaic law, and placing us under the grace of the Gospel.
God gave to Abraham the command to circumcise all
male children on the eighth day after birth, and this rite was
to be the seal of covenant with Him, a token that, through
shedding of the blood of One to come, remission of the
original sin inherited from Adam could alone be obtained.
VOL. I.
X
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Lives of the Saints.
[January i.
It was also to point out that the Jews were cut off, and
separate, from the other nations. By circumcision a Jew
belonged to the covenant, was consecrated to the service
of God, and undertook to believe the truths revealed by
Him to His elect people, and to hold the commandments to
which He required obedience. Thus this outward sign
admitted him to true worship of God, true knowledge of
God, and true obedience to God’s moral law. Circumcision
looked forward to Christ, who, by His blood, remits sin.
Consequently as a rite pointing to Him who was to come,
it is abolished, and its place is taken by baptism, which also
is a sign of covenant with God, admitting to true worship,
true knowledge, and true obedience. But baptism is more
than a covenant, and therefore more than was circumcision.
It is a sacrament, that is, a channel of grace. By baptism,
supernatural power, or grace, is given to the child, whereby
it obtains that which by nature it could not have. Cir
cumcision admitted to covenant, but conferred no grace.
Baptism admits to covenant and confers grace. By circum
cision a child was made a member of God’s own peculiar
people. By baptism the same is done, but God’s own
people is now not one nation, but the whole Catholic Church.
Christ underwent circumcision, not because He had inherited
the sin of Adam, but because He came to fulfil all righteous
ness, to accomplish the law, and for the letter to give the
spirit.
It was, probably, the extravagancies committed among the
heathen at the Kalends of January, upon which this day fell,
that hindered the Church for some ages from proposing it as
an universal set festival. The writings of the Fathers are full
of invectives against the idolatrous profanations of this day,
which concluded the riotous feasts in honour of Saturn, and
was dedicated to Janus and Strena, or Strenua, a goddess
supposed to preside over those presents which were sent to
�January i.J
S.
Concord.
3
and received from, one another on the first day of the year,
and which were called after her, strenae ; a name which is
still preserved in the etrennes or gifts, which it is customary
in France to make on New Year’s Day.
But, when the danger of the heathen abuses was removed
by the establishment of Christianity in the Roman Empire,
this festival began to be observed; and the mystery of our
Blessed Lord’s Circumcision is explained in several ancient
homilies of the fifth century. It was, however, spoken of in
earlier times, as the Octave of the Nativity, and the earliest
mention of it as the Circumcision is towards the end of the
eleventh century, shortly before the time of S. Bernard, who
also has a sermon upon it. In the Ambrosian Missal, used
at Milan, the services of the day contain special cautions
against idolatry. In a Gallican Lectionary, which is sup
posed to be as old as the seventh century, are special lessons
“ In Circumcisione Domini.” Ivo, of Chartres, in 1090,
speaks of the observance of this day in the French Church.
The Greek Church also has a special commemoration of the
Circumcision.
S. CONCORD, P. M.
(about 175.)
[S. Concord is mentioned in all the Latin Martyrologies. His.festival is
celebrated at Bispal, in the diocese of Gerona, in Spain, where his body
is said to be preserved, on the 2nd January. His translation is com
memorated on the 4th July. The following is an abridgment of his
genuine Acts.]
In the reign of the Emperor Marcus Antoninus, there raged
a violent persecution in the city of Rome. At that time
there dwelt in Rome a subdeacon named Concordius, whose
father was priest of S. Pastor’s, Cordianus by name. Con
cord was brought up by his father in the fear of God, and in
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Lives of the Saints.
[Januiry f.
the study of Holy Scripture, and he was consecrated sub
deacon by S. Pius, Bishop of Rome. Concord and his father
fasted and prayed, and served the Lord instantly in the per
son of His poor. When the persecution waxed sore, said
Concord to his father, “ My lord, send me away, I pray thee,
to S. Eutyches, that I may dwell with him a few days until
this tyranny be overpast.” His father answered, “ My son,
it is better to stay here that we may be crowned.” But
Concord said, “ Let me go that I may be crowned where
Christ shall bid me be crowned.” Then his father sent him
away, and Eutyches received him with great joy. With him
Concord dwelt for a season, fervent in prayer. And many
sick came to them, and were healed in the name of Jesus
Christ.
Then, hearing the fame of them, Torquatus, governor of
Umbria, residing at Spoletto, sent and had Concord brought
before him. To him he said, “ What is thy name ?” He
answered, “ I am a Christian.” Then said the Governor,
“ I asked concerning thee, and not about thy Christ.” S.
Concord replied, “ I have said that I am a Christian, and
Christ I confess.” The Governor ordered : “ Sacrifice to
the immortal gods, and I will be to thee a father, and will
obtain for thee favour at the hands of the Emperor, and he
will exalt thee to be priest of the gods.” S. Concord said,
“ Harken unto me and sacrifice to the Lord Jesus Christ, and
thou shalt escape eternal misery.” Then the Governor ordered
him to be beaten with clubs and to be cast into prison.
Then, at night, there came to him the blessed Eutyches,
with S. Anthymius, the bishop ; for Anthymius was a friend
of the Governor; and he obtained permission of Torquatus
to take Concord home with him for a few days. And
during these days he ordained him priest, and they watched
together in prayer.
And after a time, the Governor sent and brought him
�January i.J
5S.
Elvan and Mydvuyn.
5
before him once more and said to him, “What has thou
decided on, for thy salvation ?” Then Concord said,
“ Christ is my salvation, to whom daily I offer the sacrifice
of praise.” Then he was condemned to be hung upon the
little horse, and with a glad countenance he cried, “ Glory
be to Thee, Lord Jesus Christ 1”
After this torment he was cast into prison; with irons on
his hands and neck. And blessed Concord began to sing
praise to God in his dungeon, and he said, “ Glory be to
God on high, and in earth peace to men of good will.”
Then, that same night, the angel of the Lord stood by him
and said, “ Fear not to play the man, I shall be with thee.”
And when three days had passed, the Governor sent two
of his officers at night to him with a small image of Jupiter.
And they said, “ Hear what the Governor has ordered,
sacrifice to Jupiter or lose thy head.” Then the blessed
Concord spat in the face of the idol, and said, “ Glory be
to Thee, Lord Jesus Christ.” Then one of the officers
smote off his head in the prison. Afterwards two clerks and
certain religious men carried away his body and buried it not
far from the city of Spoletto, where many waters flow forth.
SS. ELVAN AND MYDWYN.
(about 198.)
[Mentioned in English Martyrologies, and by Ferrarius in his General
Catalogue of the Saints. The evidence for these Saints is purely tradi
tional ; the first written record of them was by Gildas, A.D. 560, but his
account is lost. It is referred to by Matthew of Westminster.]
Saint Elvan, of Avalon, or Glastonbury, was brought up
in that school erroneously said to have been founded by
S. Joseph of Arimathea. He vehemently preached the truth
before Lucius, a British king, and was mightily assisted by
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Lives of the Saints.
[January i.
S. Mydwyn of Wales (Meduinus), a man of great learning.
Lucius despatched Elvan and Mydwyn to Rome, on an
embassy to Pope Eleutherius, in 179, who consecrated Elvan
bishop, and appointed Mydwyn teacher. He gave them as
companions, two Roman clerks, Faganus and Deruvianus, or
according to some, Fugatius and Damianus. They retumecL
with these to King Lucius, who was obedient to the word of
God, and received baptism along with many of his princes
and nobles. Elvan became the second archbishop of
London. He and, Mydwyn were buried at Avalon. S.
Patrick is said to have found there an ancient account of the
acts of the Apostles, and of Fugatius and Damianus, written
by the hand of S. Mydwyn. Matthew of Westminster
gives the following account of the conversion of Lucius,
under the year 185 :—About the same time, Lucius, king
of the Britons, directed letters to Eleutherius, entreating him.
that he would mak.e him a Christian. And the blessed:
pontiff, having ascertained, the devotion of the King, sent tot
him some religious teachers, .namely, Faganus and Deruvi
anus, to convert the King to Christ, and wash him in the
holy font. And when that had been done, then the dif
ferent nations ran to baptism, following the example of the
King, so that in a short time there were no infidels found in
the island.”
There is a considerable amount of exaggeration in this
account of Matthew of Westminster which must not be
passed over. Lucius is known in the Welsh Triads by the
name of Lleurwg or Lleufer Mawr, which means “ The great
Luminary,” and this has been Latinized into Lucius, from
Lux, light. He was king of a portion of South Wales
only. The Welsh authorities make no mention of the
alleged mission to Rome, though, that such a mission should
have been sent is extremely probable. Some accounts say
that Medwy and Elfan were Britons, and that Dyfan and
�January i.]
•S'.
Telemachus.
7
Ffagan (Deruvianus and Faganus) were Roman priests. But
both these names are British, consequently we may conjecture
that they were of British origin, but resided then at Rome.
Four churches near Llandaf bore the names of Lleurwg
(Lucius), Dyfan, Ffagan, and Medwy, which confirms the
belief in the existence of these saints and indicates the scene
of their labours. Matthew of Westminster adds:—“ A.D. 185.
The blessed priests, Faganus and Deruvianus, returned to
Rome, and easily prevailed on the most blessed Pope that
all that they had done should be confirmed. And when it
had been, then the before-mentioned teachers returued to
Britain, with a great many more, by whose teaching the
nation of the Britons was soon founded in the faith of Christ,
and became eminent as a Christian people. And their
names and actions are found in the book that Gildas the his
torian wrote, concerning the victory of Aurelius Ambrosius.”
Geoffrey, of Monmouth, who, unsupported, is thoroughly
untrustworthy, mentions the same circumstance, on the
authority of the treatise of Gildas, now lost The embassy
to Rome shall be spoken of at length, under the title of
S. Lucius, December nth. See also Nennius, § 22 ; Bede’s
Eccles. Hist. i. 4; and the Liber Landavensis, p. 65.
S. TELEMACHUS, H. M.
(about 391.)
The following account of the martrydom of S. Telemachus
is given by Theodoret, in his Ecclesiastical History, Book v.,
chap. 26 :—“ Honorius, who had received the empire of
Europe, abolished the ancient exhibitions of gladiators
in Rome on the following occasion:—A certain man,
named Telemachus, who had embraced a monastic life,
came from the east to Rome at a time when these cruel
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Lives of the Saints.
[January i.
spectacles were being exhibited. After gazing upon the
combat from the amphitheatre, he descended into the arena,
and tried to separate the gladiators. The bloodthirsty spec
tators, possessed by the devil, who delights in the shedding
of blood, were irritated at the interruption of their savage
sports, and stoned him who had occasioned the cessation.
On being apprised of this circumstance, the admirable
Emperor numbered him with the victorious martyrs, and
abolished these iniquitous spectacles.”
For centuries the wholesale murders of the gladiatorial
shows had lasted through the Roman empire. Human
beings in the prime of youth and health, captives or slaves,
condemned malefactors, and even free-born men, who hired
themselves out to death, had been trained to destroy each
other in the amphitheatre for the amusement, not merely of
the Roman mob, but of the Roman ladies. - Thousands,
sometimes in a single day, had been
•* Butchered to make a Roman holiday.”
The training of gladiators had become a science. By their
weapons and their armour, and their modes of fighting, they
had been distinguished into regular classes, of which the
antiquaries count up full eighteen : Andabatae, who wore hel
mets without any opening for the eyes, so that they were
obliged to fight blindfold, and thus excited the mirth of the
spectators ; Hoplomachi, who fought in a complete. suit of
armour; Mirmillones, who had the image of a fish upon
their helmets, and fought in armour with a short sword,
matched usually against the Retiarii, who fought without
armour, and whose weapons were a casting-net and a
trident. These and other species of fighters, were drilled
and fed in “ families ” by lanistse, or regular trainers, who
let them out to persons wishing to exhibit a show. Women,
even high-born ladies, had been seized in former times with
�January i.J
S., Telemachus.
9
the madness of fighting, and, as shameless as cruel, had gone
down into the arena, to delight with their own wounds and
their own gore the eyes of the Roman people.
And these things were done, and done too often under
the auspices of the gods, and at their most sacred festivals.
So deliberate and organized a system of wholesale butchery
has never perhaps existed on this earth before or since, not
even in the worship of those Mexican gods whose idols
Cortez and his soldiers found fed with human hearts, and
the walls of their temples crusted with human gore. Gradu
ally the spirit of the Gospel had been triumphing over this
abomination. Ever since the time of Tertullian, in the
second century, Christian preachers and writers had lifted
up their voice in the name of humanity. Towards the end
of the third century, the.emperors themselves had so far
yielded to the voice of reason, as to forbid by edicts the
gladiatorial fights. But the public opinion of the mob in
most of the great cities had been too strong both for saints
and for emperors. S. Augustine himself tells us of the hor
rible joy which he, in his youth, had seen come over the
vast ring of flushed faces at these horrid sights. The weak
Emperor Honorius bethought himself of celebrating once
more the heathen festival of the Secular Games, and form
ally to allow therein an exhibition of gladiators. But in the
midst of that show sprang down into the arena of the Colos
seum of Rome this monk Telemachus, some said from Nitria,
some from Phrygia, and with his own hands parted the com
batants in the name of Christ and God. The mob, baulked
for a moment of their pleasure, sprang on him, and stoned
him to death. But the crime was followed by a sudden re
vulsion of feeling. By an edict of the Emperor the gladia
torial sports were forbidden for ever; and the Colosseum,
thenceforth useless, crumbled slowly away into that vast
ruin which remains unto this day, purified, as men well said,
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Lives of the Saints.
[January i.
from the blood of tens of thousands, by the blood of one
true and noble martyr.1
S. FULGENTIUS, B. C.
(B. 468 ; D. 533.)
[Mentioned in all the Latin Martyrologies. His life was written by one
of his disciples, and addressed to his successor, Felicianus. Many of his
writings are extant.J
Fulgentius belonged to an honourable senatorial family
of Carthage, which had, however, lost its position with the
invasion of the Vandals into Northern Africa. His father,
Claudius, who had been unjustly deprived of his house in
Carthage to give it to the Arian priest, -retired to an estate
belonging to him at Telepte, a city of the province of Byzacene. And here, about thirty years after the barbarians had
dismembered Africa from the Roman empire, in the year 468,
was born Fulgentius. Shortly after this his father died, and
the education of the child devolved wholly on his mother,
Mariana. It has been often observed that great men have
had great mothers. Mariana was a woman of singular intelli
gence and piety. She carefully taught her son to speak Greek
with ease and good accent, and made him learn by heart
Homer, Menander, and other famous poets of antiquity. At
the same time she did not neglect his religious education, and
the youth grew up obedient and modest. She early com
mitted to him the government of the house and servants
and estate, and his prudence in these matters made his
reputation early, and he was appointed procurator of the
province.
But it was not long before he grew weary of the world ;
and the love of God drew him on into other paths. He
1 The Hermits, by Rev. C. Kingsley, p. 1J3, 1J4,
�January i.J
»S'.
Fulgentius.
11
found great delight in religious reading, and gave more time
to prayer. He was in the habit of frequenting monasteries,
and he much wondered to see in the monks no signs of
weariness, though they were deprived of all the relaxations
and pleasufes which the world provides. Then, under the
excuse that his labours of office required that he should take
occasional repose, he retired at intervals from business, and
devoted himself to prayer and meditation, and reduced the
abundance of food with which he was served. At length,
moved by a sermon of S. Augustine on the thirty-sixth
Psalm, he resolved on embracing the religious life.
There was at that time a certain bishop, Faustus by name,
who had been driven, together with other orthodox bishops,
from their sees, by Huneric, the Arian king. Faustus had
erected a monastery in Byzacene. To him Fulgentius be
took himself, and asked to be admitted into the monastery.
But the bishop repelled him saying, “Why, my son, dost
thou seek to deceive the servants of God ? Then wilt thou
be a monk when thou hast learned to despise luxurious food
and sumptuous array. Live as a layman less delicately, and
then I shall believe in thy vocation.” But the young man
caught the hand of him who urged him to depart, and
kissing it said, “ He who gave the desire, is mighty to en
able me to fulfil it. Suffer me to tread in thy footsteps, my
father !” Then with much hesitation Faustus suffered the
youth to remain, saying, “ Perhaps my fears are unfounded.
Thou must be* proved some days.”
The news that Ftilgentius had become a monk spread far
and wide. His mother, in transports of grief, ran to the
monastery, crying out, “ Faustus ! restore to me my son,
and to the people their governor. The Church always pro
tects widows ; why then dost thou rob me, a desolate widow,
of my child?” Faustus in vain endeavoured to calm her.
She desired to see her son, but he refused to give permis
�12
Lives of the Saints.
[January i.
sion. Fulgentius, from within, could hear his mother’s-cries.
This was to him a severe temptation, for he loved her
dearly.
Shortly after, he made over his estate to his mother, to be
discretionally disposed of, by her, in favour of his brother
Claudius, when he should arrive at a proper age. He
practised severe mortification of his appetite, totally abstain
ing from oil and everything savoury, and his fasting produced
a severe illness, from which, however, he recovered, and his
constitution adapted itself to his life of abstinence.
Persecution again breaking out, Faustus was obliged to
leave his monastery, and Fulgentius, at his advice, took
refuge in another, which was governed by the Abbot Felix,
who had been his friend in the world, and who became now
his brother in religion. Felix rejoiced to see his friend once
more, and he insisted on exalting him to be abbot along
with himself. Fulgentius long refused, but in vain; and
the monks were ruled by these two abbots living in holy
charity, Felix attending to the discipline and the bodily
necessities of the brethren, Fulgentius instructing them nn
the divine love. Thus they divided the authority between
them for six years, and no contradictions took place between
them ; each being always ready to comply with the will of
the other.
In the year 499, the country being ravaged by the
Numidians, the two abbots were obliged to fly to Sicca
Veneria, a city of the proconsular province of Africa. Here
they were seized by orders of an Arian priest and com
manded to be scourged. Felix, seeing the executioners
seize first on Fulgentius, exclaimed, “ Spare my brother
who is not sufficiently strong to endure your blows, lest he
die under them, and strike me instead.” Felix having
been scourged, Fulgentius was next beaten. His pupil
says, “ Blessed Fulgentius, a man of delicate body, and
�January i.J
S.
Fulgentius.
of noble birth, was scarce able to endure the pain of
the repeated blows, and, as he afterwards told us, hoping
to soothe the violence of the priest or distract it awhile
that he might recover himself a little, he cried out, ‘ I will
say something if I am permitted?” The priest ordered
the blows to cease, expecting to hear a recantation. But
Fulgentius, with much eloquence, began a narration of his
travels ; and after the priest had listened awhile, finding this
was all he was about to hear, he commanded the execu
tioners to continue their beating of Fulgentius. After that
the two abbots, naked and bruised, were driven away.
Before being brought before the Arian priest, Felix had
thrown away a few coins he possessed, and his captors not
observing this, after they were released, he and Fulgentius
returned to the spot and recovered them all again. The
Arian bishop, whose relations were acquainted with the
family of Fulgentius, was much annoyed at this proceeding
of the priest, and severely reprimanded him. He also urged
Fulgentius to bring an action against him, but the confessor
declined, partly because a Christian should never seek
revenge, partly also because he was unwilling to plead before
a bishop who denied the divinity of the Lord Jesus Christ
Fulgentius resolving to visit the deserts of Egypt, renowned
for the sanctity of the solitaries who dwelt there, went on
board a ship for Alexandria, but the vessel touching at Sicily,
S. Eulalius, abbot at Syracuse, diverted him from his inten
tion, assuring him that “ a perfidious dissention had severed
this country from the communion of S. Peter. All these
monks, whose marvellous abstinence is noised abroad, have
not got with you the Sacrament of the Altar in common;”
meaning that Egypt was full of heretics. Fulgentius visited
Rome in the latter part of the year 500, during the entry of
Theodoric. “Oh,” said he, “how beautiful must the
Heavenly Jerusalem be, if earthly Rome be so glorious.” A
�;4
Lives of the Saints.
uanuvyi.
short time after, Fulgentius returned home, and built himself
a cell on the sea-shore, where he spent his time in prayer,
reading and writing, and in making mats and umbrellas
of palml eaves.
At this time the Vandal heretic, King Thrasimund, having
forbidden the consecration of Catholic bishops, many sees
were destitute of pastors, and the faithful were reduced to
great distress. Faustus, the bishop, had ordained Fulgentius
priest, on his return to Byzacene, and now, many places de
manded him as their bishop. Fulgentius, fearing this re
sponsibility, hid himself; but in a time of such, trial and
difficulty the Lord had need of him, and He called him to
shepherd His flock in a marvellous manner. There was a
city named Ruspe, then destitute of a bishop, for an influen
tial deacon therein, named Felix, whose brother was a friend
of the procurator, desired the office for himself. But the
people, disapproving his ambition, made choice unanimously
of Fulgentius, of whom they knew only by report; and upon
the primate Victor, bishop of Carthage, giving, his consent
that the neighbouring bishops should consecrate him, several
people of Ruspe betook themselves to the cell of Fulgentius,
and by force compelled him to consent to be ordained.
Thus he might say, in the words of the prophet, “ A people,
whom I have not known shall serve me.”
The deacon Felix, taking advantage of the illegality of the
proceeding, determined to oppose the entrance of S. Ful
gentius by force, and occupied the road by which he pre
sumed the bishop would enter Ruspe. By some means the
people went out to meet him another way, and brought him
into the Cathedral, where he was installed, whilst the deacon
Felix was still awaiting his arrival in the road. Then he
celebrated the Divine mysteries with great solemnity, and
communicated all the people. And when Felix, the deacon,
heard this, he was abashed, and refrained from further
�January i.J
.S’.
Fulgentius.
15
opposition. Fulgentius received him with great sweetness
and charity, and afterwards ordained him priest.
As bishop, S. Fulgentius lived like a monk; he fed on the
coarsest food, and dressed himself in the plainest garb, not
wearing the orarium which it was customary for bishops to
put upon them. He would not wear a cloak (casula) of gay
colour, but one very plain, and beneath it a blackish or
milk-coloured habit (pallium) girded about him. Whatever
might be the weather, in the monastery he wore this habit
alone, and when he slept, he never loosed his girdle. “In
the tunic in which he slept, in that did he sacrifice ; he may
be said, in time of sacrifice, to have changed his heart rather
than his habit.”1
His great love for a recluse life induced him to build a
monastery near his house at Ruspe, which he designed to
place under the direction of his old friend, the Abbot Felix.
But before the building could be completed, King Thrasirtiund ordered the banishment of the Catholic bishops to
Sardinia. Accordingly S. Fulgentius and other prelates,
sixty in all, were carried into exile, and during their banish
ment they were provided yearly with provisions and money
by the liberality of Symmachus, bishop of Rome. A letter
of this Pope to them is still extant, in which he encourages
them and comforts them. S. Fulgentius, during his retire
ment, composed several treatises for the confirmation of the
faith of the orthodox in Africa. King Thrasimund, desirous
of seeing him, sent for him and appointed him lodgings iri
1 This passage has been quoted by some to show that at this period specih.1 vest
ments were not in general use for the Eucharist, as an argument against their
present use. But it must be remembered that what was immaterial at a time when
the Sacrifice of the Mass and the Real Presence were Universally believed, is mate
rial at a time when both these verities are disputed. Moreover, it by no means'
appears from the passage quoted, that Fulgentius did not wear Eucharistic vest
ments. It simply says that he wore the habit he lived and slept in, then. This is
what Monks and Friars do now, they put the vestment over the habit; that this is
what is meant by the writer, I doubt not.
�16
Ik
Lives of the Saints.
[January i.
Carthage. The king drew up a set of ten objections to the
Catholic faith, and required Fulgentius to answer them.
The Saint immediately complied with his request, and his
answer had such effect, that the king, when he sent him new
objections, ordered that the answers should be read to him
self alone. He then addressed to Thrasimund a confutation
of Arianism, which we have under the title of “ Three Books
to King Thrasimund.” The prince was pleased with the
work, and granted him permission to reside at Carthage; till
upon repeated complaints from the Arian bishops of the
success of his preaching, which threatened, they said, the
total conversion of the city to the faith in the Consubstantial,
he was sent back to Sardinia, in 520. He was sent on board
one stormy night, that he might be taken away without the
knowledge of the people, but the wind being contrary, the
vessel was driven into port again in the morning, and the
news having spread that the bishop was about to be taken
from them, the people crowded to say farewell, and he was
enabled to go to a Church, celebrate, and communicate all
the faithful. Being ready to go on board when the wind
shifted, he said to a Catholic whom he saw weeping,
“Grieve not, I shall shortly return, and the true faith of
Christ will flourish again in this realm, with full liberty to
profess it; but divulge not this secret to any.”
The event confirmed the truth of the prediction. Thrasi
mund died in 523, and was succeeded by Hilderic, who gave
orders for the restoration of the orthodox bishops to their
sees, and that liberty of worship should be accorded to the
Catholics.
The ship which brought back the bishops to Cartha6e was
received with great demonstrations of joy. The pupil of
the bishop and eye-witness of the scene thus describes it:—
“ Such was the devotion of the Carthaginian citizens, desir
ing to see the blessed Fulgentius again, that all the people
�January I.]
•S'.
Fulgentius,,
*7
ardently looked for him whom they had seen wrestle so man
fully before them. The multitude which stood upon the
shore was silent in expectation as the other bishops disem
barked before him, seeking with eyes and thoughts only him
whom they had familiarly known, and eagerly expecting him
from the ship. And when his face appeared, there ¿broke
forth a huge clamour, all striving who should first salute him,
who should first bow his head to him giving the benediction,
who should deserve to touch the tips of his fingers-as he
walked, who might even catch a glimpse of him, standing
afar off. From every tongue resounded the praise of God.
Then the people going before and following after the proces
sion of the blessed confessors moved to the Church of S.
Agileus. But there was such a throng of people, especially
around Fulgentius, whO’fia they especially honoured, that a
ring had to be formed about him by the holy precaution of
the Christians, to allow him to advance upon his way.
Moreover the Lotd, desiring to prove the charity of the
faithful, marvellously poured upon them, as they moved, a
heavy shower of rain. But the heavy down-pour deterred
none of them, but seemed to be the abundant benediction
of Heaven descending on them, and it so increased their
faith, that they spread their cloaks above blessed Fulgentius,
and composed of their great love a new sort of tabernacle
over him. And the evening approaching, the company of
prelates presented themselves before Boniface, the bishop
(of Carthage) of pious memory, and all together praised and
glorified God. Then the blessed Fulgentius traversed the
streets of Carthage, visiting his friends and blessing them, he
rejoiced with them that did rejoice, and wept with them that
did weep ; and so having satisfied all their wishes, he bade
farewell to his brethren and went forth out of Carthage,
finding on all the roads people coming to meet him in the
way with lanterns, and candles, and boughs of trees, and great
2
�Lives, of the Saints.
[January I.
joy, giving praises to the ineffable God, who had wondrously
made the blessed Fulgentius well pleasing in the sight of all
men. He was received in all the Churches as if he were
their bishop, and thus the people throughout Byzacene
rejoiced as one man over his return.”
Arrived at Ruspe, S. Fulgentius diligently laboured to
correct what was evil, and restore what was fallen down,
and strengthen what was feeble in his diocese. The perse
cution had lasted seventy years, so that many abuses had
crept in, and the faith of many was feeble, and ignorance
prevailed. He carried out his reformation with such gentle
ness;. that he won, sooner or later, the hearts of the most
vicious.
In. a Council, held at Junque, in 524, a certain bishop,
name Quodvultdeus, disputed the precedency with the
bishop of Ruspe, who made no reply, but took the first
place accorded him by the council. However, S. Fulgentius
publicly desired, at the convention of another council, that
he might be allowed to yield the precedence to Quodvultdeus.
About a year before his death, the bishop retired from all
business to prepare his soul for its exit, to a little island
named Circinia. The necessities of his flock recalled him,
however, to Ruspe for a little while.
He bore the violent pains of his last illness with great
resignation, praying incessantly, “ Lord grant me patience
now, and afterwards pardon.” He called his clergy about
him, and asked them to forgive him if he had shewn too
great severity at .any. time, or had offended them in any way,
and then, committing - his soul into the hand of God as a
merciful Creator, he fell asleep in the evening of January
1st, A.D. 533, in his sixty-fifth year.
Relics, at Bourges, in France, where May 16, is observed
as the Feast of his translation, in the year 714.
�January i.J
iSL
M^OC/lUd.
19
S. MOCHUA OR CUAN.
(about 6th cent.)
[Commemorated in the ancient Irish Martyrologies on the nth April ;
probably as being the day of his translation. But he died on Jan. ist.
The life of S. Mochua, from an Irish legend in the Bollandists, is full of the
wildest fable.]
Saint Mochua was the son of a certain Cronan, of noble
race, and spent his youth in fighting. At the age of thirty,
he laid aside his arms and burnt a house with all its contents
which had been given to him by his uncle, saying that a
servant of Christ should take nothing from sinners. Then he
settled at a spot called Teach Mochua. He is said to have
healed S. Finnan, or Munnu, of leprosy, and when S. Finnan
was about to return home, and his horse broke its leg, S.
Mochua summoned a stag out of the forest to come and
draw the vehicle, in place of the horse.
In his time thé first stone Church was 'erected in Ireland
by S. Kienan, and during the building of thé • Church, there
1 fell no rain to impede the masons, for the clouds were stayed
by the prayers of S. Mochua. He is said to have founded
thirty Churches. /To assist in drawing wood from the forest to
build these Churches, Mochua called to his aid twelve stags,
which served as patiently and obediently as oxen. And
when his virtues drew to him many people and much praise,
the old man fled from place to place, for he considered that
the glory of this world would turn his heart from the glory
of the world to come. And when very aged, he escaped
,with his oratory bell into a wild and mountainous part, and
there the clapper fell to the ground, at' a place called
Dagrinnis. He was troubled in spirit, so bleak and lonely
did the place appear ; but an angel announced to him that
there he was to build a cell, and there to die ; and in this
spot he spent thirty years, and wrought many miracles, and
died in the ninety-ninth year of his age.
�20
Lives of the Saints.
[January i
It is difficult to clear the lives of many of the Irish Saints
from the fable wherewith lively imaginations have invested
them in their oral transmission through many hundreds of
years.
S. MOCHUA OR CRONAN, OF BALLA.
[The day of his death is unknown. He is here mentioned because of
the similarity of his name of that of S. Mochua, to Teach Mochua. His
life is legendary.]
Saint Mochua, or Cronan, was the third son of Began, a
man of good family. As a child he was despised by his
parents, and sent to keep sheep. But S. Congal passing by
his father’s house, called the boy to follow him, and made
him a monk. S. Mochua founded the monastery of Balia,
in Connaught. He departed to the Lord in the fifty-sixth
year of his age.
S. ODILO, AB. CLUNY.
(b. 962; d. 1049.)
[Roman Martyrology. Two lives of S. Odilo are extant, one written by
Jotsald, a monk, who had lived under his rule, and who wrote it for
Stephen, the nephew of the Saint. The other, a very inferior life, by S.
Peter Damian. Both are printed in the Bollandists, but the first is from
an imperfect MS. It was printed entire by Mabillon, Acta SS. O. S. B.J
Odilo belonged to the family of Mercoeur, one of the most
illustrious of Auvergne. Jotsald says:—“In thebeginning
of the account of his virtues I must relate what happened to
him as a boy. And lest it be thought incredible, I mention
that I heard it from those to whom he was wont to narrate
the circumstance. When he was quite a little boy in his
father’s house, before he was sent to school, he was destitute
�January I.]
•S'.
Odilo.
21
of almost all power in his limbs, so that he could not walk or
move himself without help. It happened that one day his
father’s family were moving to another place, and a nurse
was given charge of him to carry him. On her way, she put
the little boy down with her bundles before the door of a
Church dedicated to the Mother of God, as she and the
rest were obliged to go into some adjacent houses to pro
cure food. As they were some while absent, the boy find
ing himself left alone, impelled by Divine inspirations, began
to try to get to the door and enter the Church of the
Mother of God. By some means, crawling on hands and
knees, he reached it, and entered the Church, and went to
the Altar, and caught the Altar vestment with his hands;
then with all his power, stretching his hands on high, he tried
to rise, but was unable to do so, his joints having been so
long ill-united. Nevertheless, Divine power conquered,
strengthening and repairing the feeble limbs of the boy.
Thus, by the intervention of the Mother of God, he rose,
and stood upon his feet whole, and ran here and there
about the Altar. The servants returning to fetch their bun
dles, and not finding the child, were much surprised, and
looked in all directions, and not seeing him, became greatly
‘alarmed. However, by chance, entering the Church, they
saw him rambling and running about it; then they recog
nised the power of God, and joyously took the boy in their
arms, and went to their destination and gave him, com
pletely whole, to his parents, with great gladness.”
As a child, he showed singular simplicity, modesty and
piety. “ Thus passed his childish years, and as the strength
of youth began to succeed to boyhood, he silently meditated
how to desert the flesh-pots of Egypt, and to strive to
enter the Land of Promise through the trials of the world.
O good J esu ! how sweet is Thy call! how sweet the inspi
ration of Thy Spirit, which as soon as Thou strikest on the
�22
Lives of the Saints.
[January i.
lieart, turns the fire of the Babylonish furnace into love of
the celestial country. Sb ! as soon as thou strikest the heart
of the,youth, thou changest it.” Whilst he was thus medita
ting, S. Majolus passed through Auvergne, and Odilo came
to him ; then the old man looking on the graceful form and
comely face of the youth, and by the instinct of the Saints
seeing into his soul, he loved him greatly ; also the youthful
Odilo felt a great affection for the aged monk. And when
they spoke to one another, Odilo opened his heart to
Majolus, and the venerable man encouraged the youth to
persevere in his good intentions.
Shortly after, Odilo left his home “as Abraham of old
went forth out of Ur of the Chaldees, and sought admittance
into the Abbey of Cluny, as into the Promised Land. O
good Jesu ! how pleasant it was to see this sheep shorn of
its worldly fleece, , again ascend as from the baptismal font!
Then wearing our habit, you might have seen our sheep
amongst the others of His flock, first in work, last in place,
seeking the pastures of eternal verdure ; attending, to the
lamps, sweeping the floors, arid doing other common offices.
But the pearl could not remain long concealed. After four
years, S. Majolus, after many hard labours borne for Christ,
went out of the darkness of Egypt, entered Jerusalem, and
was placed in eternal peace by Christ. As death approached,
he chose Odilo to be his successor, and to him and to the
Lord he committed his flock.” But S. Odilo shrank from
the position for which his youth, as he considered, disquali
fied him; however, he was elected by the whole community,
and was therefore unable to refuse the office wherewith he
was invested by the vote of the brethren, and the desire of
the late Abbot.
His disciple, Jotsald, gives a very beautiful picture of his
master. He describes him as being of middle stature, with
a face beaming with grace, and full of authority; very ema-
�January i.J
S.
Odilo.
23
dated and pale ; his eyes bright and piercing, and often
shedding tears of compunction. Every motion of his body
was grave and dignified; his voice was manly, and modu
lated to the' greatest sweetness, his speech straightforward
and without affectation or artificiality.
His disciple says that he would recite psalms as he lay on
his bed, and falling asleep, his lips would still continue the
familiar words, so that the brethren applied to him the
words of the bride, “ I sleep but my heart waketh,” Ego
dormio et cor meum vigilat. He read diligently, and nothing
gave him greater delight than study. His consideration for
others was very marked. “He was burdensome to none, to
none importunate, desirous of no honour, he sought not to
get what belonged to others, nor to keep what was his own.”
His charity was most abundant, often the brethren feared
that it exceeded what was reasonable, but they found that
though he gave largely he did not waste the revenues of the
monastery. Once, in time of famine, he was riding along a
road, when he lit on the naked bodies of two poor boys
who had died of hunger. Odilo burst into tears, and des
cending from his horse, drew off his woollen under garment
and wrapping the bodies in it, carefully buried them. In this
famine he sold the costly vessels of the Sanctuary and des
poiled the Church of its gold and silver ornaments, that he
might feed the starving people. Amongst the objects thus
parted with was the crown of gold presented to the Abbey
by Henry, King of the Romans. He accompanied this
Prince in his journey to Rome, when he was crowned em
peror, in 1014. This was his second journey thither; he
made a third in 1017, and a fourth in 1022. Out of devo
tion to S. Benedict, he paid a visit to Monte Cassino, where
he kissed the feet of all the monks, at his own request,
which was granted him with great reluctance.
“ The convocation of the brethren was regularly held by
�24
Lives of the Saints.
[January i.
him till he was at the point of death. 0 how joyous he was
in the midst of them, as standing in the midst of the choir,
and looking to right and left he saw the ring of young
plantings, and remembered the verse of David's song, ‘ Thy
children shall be as the olive branches round about thy
table.’ Filii tui sicut novella olivarum, in circuitu mensce
tuce. And the more the number of brothers increased, the
more he exhibited his joy of heart by signs. And when
some seemed distressed thereat, he was wont to say, Grieve
not that the flock has become great, my brothers, He who
has called us in, He governs and will provide.”
Fulbert, bishop of Chartres, called him the archangel of
monks; and the name, says his disciple, became him well.
S. Odilo, out of his great compassion for the souls of the
dead expiating the penalty of their sins in purgatory, insti
tuted the Commemoration of All Souls for the morrow of All
Saints, in the Cluniac order, which was afterwards adopted by
the whole Catholic Church in the West Many incidents of
his travels, and miracles that he wrought, are related by his
pupil. As he was riding over the Jura mountains in snowy
weather, the horse carrying his luggage fell, and was preci
pitated into the valley, and all the baggage was scattered
in the snow-drifts. With much trouble the horse and much
of the baggage were recovered, but a valuable Sacramentary,
inscribed with gilt letters, and some glass vessels, with em
bossed work, were lost That evening Odilo and his monks
arrived at a cell under the jurisdiction of S. Eugendus, and
being much troubled at his loss, as much rain fell in the
night, S. Odilo sent some of the brethren early next morn
ing to search for the lost treasures. But the snow-drifts
were so deep that they could not find them, and he was
obliged to leave without them. However, as the spring
came round, a certain priest named Ermendran, was walk
ing in the glen, and he found the book uninjured, and the
�January i.J
•S’.
Odilo.
25
glass goblets unbroken. He brought them to the cell, and
on the return of Odilo to the Jura, he received his lost
treasures intact. .
Another story of a glass vessel comes on good authority.
The circumstances were related by Albert, bishop of Como,
in these jyords, “ Once our Abbot and Superior came to the
court of the Emperor Henry, and whilst there, it happened
one day that at table a goblet of glass, of Alexandrine work
manship, very precious, with coloured enamel on it, was
placed before him. He called me and Landulf, afterwards
bishop of Turin, to him, and bade us take this glass to Odilo.
We accordingly, as the Emperor had bidden, took it, and
going to the Abbot offered it to him, on the part of the Em
peror, humbly bowing. He received it with great humility,
and told us to return after a while for the goblet again. Then,
when we had gone away, the monks, fi led with natural curi
osity to see and handle a new sort of thing, passed the
vessel from hand to hand, and as they were examining it, it
slipped through their fingers to the ground, and was broken.
When the gentle man of God was told this, he was not a
little grieved, and said, ‘ My brothers you have not done well,
for by your negligence, the young clerks who have the cus
tody of these things will, maybe, lose the favour of the
Emperor, through your fault. Now, that those who are in
nocent may not suffer for your carelessness, let us all go to
Church and ask God’s mercy about this matter.’ Therefore,
they all ran together into the Church, and sang psalms and
prayed, lest some harm should befall us—Albert and Lan
dulf, each of them earnestly supplicating God for us. When
the prayer was over, the holy man ordered the broken gob
let to be brought to him. He looked at it, and felt it, and
could find no crack or breakage in it. Wherefore, he ex
claimed indignantly, ‘What are you about brothers? You
must be blind to say that the glass is broken, when there is
�26
Lives of the Saints.
[January i.
not a sign of injury done to it.’ The brethren considering
it, were amazed at the miracle, and did not dare to speak.
Then, after a while, I and my companion came back for the
vessel, and we asked it of him who was carrying'it. He
called me apart and returned it to me, bidding me tell
the Emperor to regard it as a great treasure. And when
I asked his meaning, he told me all that had happened.”
S. Odilo seems to have been fond of art, for he rebuilt the
monasteries of his order and made them very beautiful, and
the Churches he adorned with all the costly things he could
procure.' The marble pillars for Cluny were brought by his
orders in rafts down the Durance into the Rhone, and he
was wont to say of Cluny that he found it of wood and left
it of marble. He erected over the Altar of S. Peter, in the
Church, a ciborium, whose columns were covered with
silver inlaid with nigello work.
When he felt that his death approached, he made a
circuit of all the monasteries under his sway, that he might
leave them in thorough discipline, and give them his last
admonitions. On this journey he reached Souvigny, a priory
in Bourbonnais, where he celebrated the Vigil of the Nati
vity, and preached to the people, although at the time suffer
ing great pain. After that, he announced to the brethren in
chapter, that he was drawing nigh to his end, and he besought
'their prayers. As he was too weak to go to the great Church
bf S. Peter, which was attended by the monks, he kept the
festival of the Nativity with a few brethren, whom he de
tained, to be with him in the Chapel of S. Mary, joy
ously he praecented the psalms and antiphons, and gave the
benedictions, and performed all the ceremonies of that glad
festival, forgetful of his bodily infirmities, knowing that soon
he was to see God face to face, in the land of the living,
find no more in a glass darkly. Most earnest was he, lest
death should come and find him unprepared. Throughout
�January i.]
S.
Odilo.
27
the Octave he was carried in the arms of the monks to
Church, where he assisted at the choir offices, night and
day, and at the celebration of the Mass, refreshing himself
at the sacred mysteries, and looking forward to the Feast of
the Circumcision, when his friend William, Abbot of Dijon,
had fallen asleep, on which day, he foretold he also should
enter into his rest.
On that day, carried by his brethren, he was laid before
the Altar of the Virgin Mother, and the monks sang vespers.
Now and then their voices failed through over much sor
row, and then he recited the words of the psalms they in
their trouble had omitted. As night crept in at the win
dows, he grew weaker and fainter. Then the brothers laid
sack-cloth and ashes under him, and as he was lifted in the
arms of one, brother Bernard, he asked, reviving a little,
where he was. The brother answered,1 “ On sack-cloth and
ashes.” Then he sighed forth, “ God be thanked !” and he
asked that the little children and the whole body of the
brethren might be assembled. And when all were gathered
around him, he directed his eyes to the Cross, and his lips
moved in prayer, and he died thus in prayer, gazing on the
sign of his salvation.
His body was laid in the nave cf the Church of Souvigmy,
near that of S. Majolus.
He is often represented saying mass, with purgatory open
beside the Altar, and those suffering extending their hands
to him, in allusion to his having instituted the Commemora
tion of All Souls.
�28
Lives of the Saints.
[January a.
January 2.
©rta&e of S. Stqrfjen, tfje ¿First fHartgr.
SS. Frontasius, and Companions, M. M. in Gaul.
SS. Martyrs, at Lichfield, circ. a.d. 304.
S. Isidore, B. C., in Egypt, 4th Cent.
S. Macarius, Ab. at Alexandria, a.d. 394.
S. A spas 1 us, C. at Melun, France, a. d. $50.
S. Maximus, Ab. M., in France, a.d. 6x4,
S. A DAL HARDT, Ab. of Corbie, A.D. 826.
S. Silvester, Monk of Trani, in S. Italy, a.d. 1185.
THE HOLY MARTYRS OF LICHFIELD.
(A.D. 304.)
RICHFIELD derives its name from Lyke-field,
gl the field of dead bodies, because it is tradition
al ally said, that in the persecution of Diocletian,
ij many Christians suffered there for the faith.
The arms of Lichfield are a plain strewn with corpses.
Nothing certain is known of this event
S. MACARIUS OF ALEXANDRIA, AB.
(a.d. 394.)
[There were two Macarii. Both are commemorated together by the
Greeks, on Jan. 19th ; but the Latins commemorate S. Macarius of Alex
andria, on Jan. 2nd ; and S. Macarius the Egyptian, on Jan. 15th. The
history of this S. Macarius is perfectly authentic, being written by S.
Palladius (b. 368,) in the year 421; the writer knew S. Macarius personally,
having been nine years in “thecells,” of which S. Macarius was priest. Three
of these years Macarius and Palladius lived together ; so that, as the author
says, he had every opportunity of judging of his manner of life and actions. ]
Saint Macarius, the younger, was bom in Alexandria, of
poor parents, and followed the trade of confectioner. Desir»
�January a.]
3*.
Macarius.
29
ous of serving God with his whole heart, he forsook the
world in the flower of his age, and spent upwards of sixty
years in the deserts, in the exercise of fervent penance and
prayer. He first retired into the Thebaid or Upper Egypt,
about the year 335 ; then, aiming at greater disengagement,
he descended to Lower Egypt, in or about the year 373.
Here there were three deserts almost adjoining each other;
that of Scete; that of the Cells, so called because of the
multitude of cells wherewith its rocks were honey-combed ;
and a third, which reached the western bank of the Nile,
called the Nitrian desert. S. Macarius had a cell in each
of these deserts. When he was in Nitria he gave advice to
those who sought him. But his chief residence was in the
desert of the Cells. There each hermit lived separate, as
sembling only on Saturday and Sunday, in the Church, to
celebrate the Divine Mysteries, and to partake of the Holy
Communion. All the brothers were employed at some
handicraft, generally they platted baskets or mats. All in
the burning desert was still; in their cells the hermits worked,
and prayed, and cooked their scanty victuals, till the red
ball of the sun went down behind the sandy plain to the
west, then from all that region rose a hum of voices, the
rise and fall of song, as the evening psalms and hymns were
being chanted by that great multitude of solitaries in dens
and caves of the earth.
Palladius has recorded an instance of the great self-denial
observed by these hermits. A present was made to S.
Macarius of a bunch of grapes, newly gathered. The holy
man carried it to a neighbouring solitary who was sick; he
sent it to another, and each wishing that some dear brother
should enjoy the fruit rather than himself, passed it on to
another; and thus the bunch of grapes made the circuit of
the cells, and was brought back to Macarius.
The severity of life practised by these hermits was great
�30
Lives of ike Saints.
[January 1.
For seven years together S. Macarius lived on raw herbs and
pulse, and for the three following years contented himself
with four or five ounces of bread a day. His watchings
were not less surprising. He told Palladius that it had been
his great desire to fix his mind on God alone for five days
and nights continuously. And when he supposed he was in
the proper mood, he closed his cell and stood up and said,
“Now thou hast angels and archangels and all the Heavenly
host in company with thee. Be in Heaven and forget
earthly things,” And so he continued for two nights and
days, wrapped in Heavenly contemplations, but then his
hut seemed to flame about him, even the mat on which he
stood, and his mind was diverted to earth. “ But it was as
well, said he; for I might have fallen into pride.”
The reputation of the monastery of Tabenna, under S.
Pachomius, drew him to it in disguise. S. Pachomius told
him he seemed too far advanced in years to begin to prac
tise the austerities undergone by himself and his monks;
nevertheless, on his earnest entreaty he admitted him.
Then Lent drew on, and the aged Macarius saw the monks
fasting, some two whole days, others five, some standing all
night, and sitting at their work during the day. Then he,
having soaked some palm leaves, as material for his work,
went apart into a comer, and till Easter came, he neither ate
nor drank, nor sat down, nor bowed his knee, nor lay down,
and sustained life on a few raw cabbage leaves which he ate
on Sundays ; and when he went forth for any need he
returned silently to his work, and occupied his hands in
platting, and his heart in prayer. But when the others
saw this, they were astonished, and remonstrated with S.
Pachomius, saying, “ Why hast thou brought this fleshless
man here to confound us with lais austerities. Send him
away, or we will desert this place.” Then the Abbot went to
Macarius, and asked him who he was, and when he told his
�January 3.1
S.
MaCaVlUS. ■
31
name, Pachomius was glad, and cried, “ Many years have I
desired to see thee. I thank thee that thou hast humbled
my sons; but now, go thy way, sufficiently hast thou
edified us; go, and pray for us.” Macarius, on one occa
sion, to subdue his flesh, filled two great baskets with
sand, and laying them on his shoulders, walked over the
hot desert, bowed beneath them. A friend meeting him
offered to ease him of his burden, but “ No,” said the
old hermit, “ I have to torment my tormentormeaning
his body.
One day, a gnat stung him in his cell, and he killed it
Then, ashamed .that he had allowed himself to be irritated
by the petty insect, and to have lost an opportunity of
enduring mortification with equanimity, ,he went to the
marshes of Scete, and stayed there six months, suffering
greatly from the stings of the insects. When he returned,
he was so disfigured by their bites, that he was only recog
nized by his voice.
The terrible severity with which these Egyptian hermits
punished themselves is perhaps startling, but it was some
thing needed at a time when the civilized world was sunk in
luxury, profligacy and indifference. That was a time which
called for a startling and vivid contrast to lead minds
into self-inspection. “ Private profligacy among all ranks
was such as cannot be described in any modem pages.
The clergy of the cities, though not of profligate lives, and
for the most part unmarried, were able to make no stand
against the general corruption of the age, because—at least
if we are to trust such writers as Jerome and Chrysostom—
they were giving themselves up to ambition and avarice,
intrigue and party spirit. No wonder if, in such a state of
things, the minds of men were stirred by a passion akin to
despair. It would have ended often, but for Christianity, in
such an actual despair as that which had led, in past ages,
�Lives of the Saints.
[January 3.
more than one noble Roman to slay himself, when he lost
all hope for the Republic. Christianity taught those who
despaired of society, of the world—in one word, of the
Roman empire, and all that it had done for men—to hope
at last for a Kingdom of God after death. It taught those,
who, had they been heathens and brave enough, would
have slain themselves to escape out of a world which was no
place for honest men, that the body must be^kept alive, at
least, for the sake of the immortal soul, doomed, according
to its works, to endless bliss or endless torment. But that
the world—such, at least, as they saw it then—was doomed,
scripture and their own reason taught them. They did not
merely believe, but see, in the misery and confusion, the
desolation and degradation around them, that all that was
in the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, and
the pride of life, was not of the Father, but of the world;
that the world was passing away, and the lust thereof, and
that only he who did the will of God could abide for ever.
They did not merely believe, but saw, that the wrath of God
was revealed from Heaven against all unrighteousness of
men; and that the world in general was treasuring up to
themselves wrath, tribulation, and anguish, against a day of
wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God, who
would render to every man according to his works. That
they were correct in their judgment of the world about them,
contemporary history proves abundantly. That they were
correct, likewise, in believing that some fearful judgment
was about to fall on man, is proved by the fact that it did
fall; that the first half of the fifth century saw, not only the
sack of Rome, but the conquest and desolation of the
greater part of the civilized world, amid bloodshed, misery,
and misrule, which seemed to turn Europe into a chaos,
which would have turned it into, a chaos, had there not been
a few men left who still felt it possible and necessary to
�
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Victorian Blogging
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A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
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Lives of the saints
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Collation: 32 p. ; 19 cm.
Notes: From the library of Dr Moncure Conway. January 1st, January 2nd [incomplete]
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Conway Tracts
Saints
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er ms’
PAUL: THE DISOWNED APOSTLE.
A SURVEY OF THE ORIGIN OF
CHRISTIANITY.
BY
JOHN W. LAKE.
“ Paul, an apostle, not of men, neither by man, but by Jesus Christ
and God the Father.”—Gal. i. 1.
PUBLISHED BY THOMAS SCOTT,
NO. 11, THE TERRACE, FARQUHAR ROAD,
UPPER NORWOOD, LONDON, S.E.
1 8 7 6.
Price Sixpence.
�“ Not in vain, Apostle bold 1
Unto us the tale is told
Of thy day of trial,
Every age, on him who strays
From its broad and beaten ways,
Pours its seven-fold vial.
1 ‘ But happy he whose inward ear
Angel comfortings can hear
O’er the rabble’s laughter ;
And while hatred’s faggots bum,
Glimpses through their smoke discern
Of a bright hereafter. ”
J. G. Whittier.
�PREFATORY
ADDRESS.
The object of the following pages is to set forth the
important part which Paul took in the course of events
that eventuated in the establishment of the Christian
religion, to place the incidents of his career in a more
truthful light than that in which they are commonly
viewed, and to shew the real character of the doctrine
which he taught.
They contain little more than suggestive notes for
the reconsideration of the above questions, and though
they do not profess to advance any new or original
matter, yet the ordinary reader will find much of which
he was not previously cognizant, and the instructed
reader will be reminded of the importance, to a fair
estimate of the question, of much that, though wellknown to scholars, has yet been strangely overlooked
by them, and kept screened from the popular eye.
Especially is this the case with the Logos and Gnostic
theories that influenced the speculative thought of the
era in which Paul lived,—the legendary and unhistoric
character of the Book of Acts,—the wide gulf of sever
ance that existed between Paul and the immediate
apostles and followers of Jesus,—and the repudiation
by the authorities of the early church of the self-asserted
claim by Paul to be an apostle of Christ. If matters
be as herein set forth, and we fearlessly challenge re-
�4
Prefatory Address.
futation, it follows that the creeds and doctrines of our
various Christian Churches are founded on a miscon
ception alike of the teaching of Jesus and of Paul, and
of the spirit and meaning of the New Testament, and
that there is pressing need for a reformation of the
current religious beliefs of Protestant England of a far
more radical and searching nature than that effected
by Luther in the sixteenth century on the corrupted
Christianity of Pome.
�PAUL: THE DISOWNED APOSTLE,
T is now a well-known fact that, to use the words
Homo commences
Ihiswith which the author of “ Ecceessay, “”The Christian
thoughtful and interesting
Church sprang from a movement that was not begun
by Christ,” and it is equally capable of proof that the
actual establishment or construction of the Christian
Church was due to the labours of those who came on
to the scene after he had passed away, notably to the
person since known in history as the Apostle Paul.
When Jesus died no Christian Church existed, and the
religious society which his immediate followers and
personal companions founded, died out and became
extinct with themselves, or rather merged into a new
and divergent society. When the Christian Church
was in process of construction, its most bitter opponents
were the Apostles of Jesus, who regarded the teachings
of Paul as a heresy and as a corruption of their Master’s
faith.
It is true that the Churches which Paul formed, (for
it is he whom we regard as the actual and virtual
founder of the Christian Religion), were formed on the
basis of Christ’s ministry; that Paul admitted this
ministry of Jesus to be the only foundation on which
the Church of God could rest. But Paul was neither
the associate nor yet the immediate disciple of ‘Jesus,
never saw him in the flesh, and probably heard of him
for the first time on the occasion of his crucifixion.
Moreover, Paul had no written record of his teaching
�6
Paul: The Disowned Apostle.
to study, nor was he ever on that intimate footing with
the actual Apostles by which he might have been him
self instructed in the doctrines which Jesus taught.
Some knowledge he doubtless had acquired, but this
gathered from current rumour would have been of a
very vague and unsatisfactory character, and would
have been altogether insufficient to have constituted
either the inspiration or the material of his own min
istry. Paul’s slight knowledge of Jesus was necessarily
enlarged from other sources, and the ministry of Jesus
as Paul understood it, and as he so ardently preached
it, was in great measure the creation of his own thought.
Let us make this matter more clear. Paul knew
little or nothing of Jesus. But Paul had very copious
knowledge of, and very definite ideas concerning, “ the
Christ.” Paul knew what “the Christ” ought to do,
and what he ought to teach, and what should be the
object of his mission. He knew also what office “the
Christ ” should hold, what relation he should sustain
to God on the one hand and to man upon, the other.
He knew what “ the Christ ” had done in times past,
how being in the image of God he was the representa
tive of God, how the world had been made by him,
how it was still governed by him, and how it would be
eventually judged by him. In other words, Paul knew
much more about the Christ of God than did Jesus
himself, and Paul asserted for, and affixed to, Jesus, a
title that Jesus never seemed to dream of taking, till
just prior to the closing scene of his ministry, and which
even when he did assume it, he understood in a very
different and in a much lower sense to that which Paul
attached to it.
The mob hailed Jesus as the Messiah or Christ who
should deliver them from the Roman rule. Jesus
accepted and asserted for himself the office on the
strength of his being a religious reformer, disclaiming
all hope of his effecting any political conquest.
Common usage, by converting the official title into
�Paul: The Disowned Apostle.
7
the personal name, and speaking of “ Jesns Christ ”
when the proper phrase should he Jesus “ the Christ,”*
has greatly obscured the true relation in which Jesus
stands to Christianity, so that it is impossible for us
to obtain a clear and definite idea as to the nature and
origin of the Christian Religion till we have made a
severance between these appellations, and considered
the value of the official title apart from the character of
the individual to whom for eighteen centuries it has been
indelibly attached. The conception of the Christ of
God which Paul has so fully delineated in his • Epistles
as having been realised by Jesus, was not only in Paul’s
mind before he had heard of the existence of Jesus, but
was in the higher speculative thought of the age before
Jesus commenced his ministry. It was known here as
the “ Divine Logos,” and it came into Judaism through
the Alexandrian Jews. The thought-currents of which
it was the outcome are to be found fully and freely de
veloped in the later scriptures of the Jews, now known
as the Old Testament Apocrypha, their true birth-place
being the schools of Grecian philosophic thought.
We have only to read the New Testament to discern
at once that the ministry of Jesus had a precursor in
that of John the Baptist, and that a startling summons
to repentance of sin as the sole means of its remission
had sounded through the villages of Judea before Jesus
had commenced his work. A wider range of study
than that which the New Testament of itself furnishes,
shows us the relation of John the Baptist to his age,
and informs us that though he was the earnest and
forcible preacher of the doctrine which he taught, he
was by no means its originator.
To trace the origin and growth of the thought-currents
which led up to and inspired the ministry of Jesus,
suffices to dispel from our minds the popular fancy that
* The term “ Christ Jesus,” which is sometimes, though rarely,
used, is less open to exception. We say to-day “ Queen Victoria,”
but we do not customarily or ever speak of the Royal Lady, who
rules these realms by the personal appellation of Victoria Queen.
�8
Paul: The Disowned Apostle.
that religion was a special or supernatural revelation,
for it shews it to us as a link in a long chain of gradually
progressive thought, and we find that the growth, which
was in operation centuries before Jesus, continued after
him, and within a quarter of a century from the date
of his death effected a marked and striking change in
the character of his own teaching, and, through the
agency of Paul, gave to the world, in his name and on
his authority, a religion widely different from that
which he himself had taught. Jesus died in the faith
in which he had been born, viz., in that of Judaism.
The last act of his ministry and almost of his life had
been to celebrate the Jewish Feast of the Passover, the
central rite of the Jewish religion, a rite which no true
Jew could omit, and in which none but a Jew could
participate. Jesus then died as he had lived, a Jew.
What he taught was therefore something that could be
harmonised with Judaism, something that was grafted
upon Judaism, nay more, it was something that made
Judaism an essential portion of itself. It was not meet,
he himself said, “ to take the children’s bread and cast
it to the dogs.’’ The ministry of Jesus was a ministry
addressed to Jews, a ministry confined to Jews, a
ministry which contemplated the perpetuity of Judaism,
for in the new dispensation it was to inaugurate, in the
coming kingdom it was to establish, the apostles were
promised to be seated on twelve thrones judging the
twelve tribes of Israel.
*
Jesus, it is true, contemplated a reform of Judaism,
he recognised personal righteousness as a higher service
than ceremonial obedience, and placed purity of heart
above the ritual of the Temple. It is very certain, how
ever, if the narratives of the three earlier gospels are
to be trusted, that Jesus did not contemplate the des
truction or abolition of Judaism. Witness his own
* Many texts might be quoted from the Fourth Gospel in oppo
sition to this view, but the well-known unhistoric character of this
gospel saves us from the trouble of noticing these.
�Paul: Phe Disowned Apostle.
9
emphatic declaration, that he came “ not to destroy but
to fulfil,” and that “ till heaven and earth pass, one jot
or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all
be fulfilled.”—Matthew v. 17, 18.
We desire to fix the reader’s attention on the fact of
the distinctively Jewish character of the gospel which
Jesus taught. His religion was a projected reform of
Judaism, a re-awakening in the Jewish mind of a sense
of personal and direct relation to the Father in heaven.
Paul’s gospel we shall see based itself on the destruc
tion and abolition of the Jewish faith,—Paul preached
Christianity as a new and distinct religion, which,
though it .was at one with the religion of Jesus in
the summons it gave to personal righteousness, yet
differed fundamentally from it in the estimate it at
tached to Judaism, and though this difference may
appear a small matter to our thought to-day, it was
in the early years of Christianity, and among the Jew
ish or semi-Jewish communities that constituted the
early churches a question of deepest and most vital
importance, a question as great as the denial of the
Pope’s supremacy or the Church’s infallibility would
be to a Catholic of our own age.
The religion of Jesus was simply a reform of Juda
ism ; so it was understood, and so it was preached by
the Apostles, who, after the crucifixion, took up the
master’s ministry and carried on his work. But it was
not a reform that was then for the first time projected.
It simply epitomised and repeated teachings that for
centuries had permeated Jewish literature. The pro
test which Jesus raised against the formalities of
ceremonial religion being put in the place of religion’s
self, had been made by the Prophets and Psalmists
before him, and the summons to personal righteousness
which he gave is but an echo of their thought. The
prophetic delineations of the greatness and glory of
Messiah’s rule, and of the national happiness and pros
perity of those who should exist beneath it, antedated
�io
Paul: The Disowned Apostle.
by centuries the “ kingdom of God ” which Jesus
preached. • There is scarcely any distinctive teaching
attributed to Jesus in the New Testament which may
not be found more or less clearly expressed in the older
"Scriptures.
But these Hebrew Scriptures were by no means the
sole agencies that were fashioning the religious thought
of the Jewish people in the centuries immediately pre
ceding the Christian era. They had also a copious Greek
literature now known as the Old Testament Apocrypha,
which was replete with the teachings of a fresher and
later philosophy. Through this literature streams that
poured from the rich fountains of Plato’s thought
mingled themselves with the more legitimate tradi
tions of the Hebrew people. At Alexandria, colonies
of Jews had dwelt for many generations, the bulk of
these were prevented by distance from any participation
either in the national feasts or in the ordinary temple
worship, while their daily lives were passed in the
midst of a heathen population, and in an atmosphere
of thought which Plato dominated, and in which Moses
was but little known. These Jews soon forgot their
national language—so that their own Hebrew Scriptures
had to be translated into the Greek tongue before they
were able to read them, and we may add here that it
became necessary to translate them still further by
copious commentary into harmonious relation with the
prevailing philosophic thought before they could recon
cile themselves to their acceptance.
This work commenced by Aristobulus was mainly
effected by the erudite Philo, whose commentaries on
the Mosaic writings invested Jewish theology in a
Platonic garb. Neo-Platonism thus effected a lodge
ment in the Jewish schools. Colonies of Jews similar
to those of Alexandria were to be found in many of
the leading cities of the Roman Empire. These lived
necessarily in the midst of a heathen civilisation, sur
rounded by the schools of Grecian Philosophy and the
�Paul: The Disowned Apostle.
11
temples of heathen worship, and at the same time they
were prevented by distance from any participation in
the temple or ritual worship of their own faith. Hence
these outlying colonies of Greek-speaking Jews which
were termed Hellenists, were looked upon with suspicion
by their stricter brethren of Judea, as being weak in
faith, and heretic in thought.
At home in Judea religious thought was by no means
stagnant. Three great sects divided the Jewish mind,
viz., the Sadducees, the Pharisees, and the Essenes.
The former of these, the Sadducees, were the religious
conservatives of the time, they desired to maintain the
Mosaic laws in their integrity and supremacy. The
Pharisees, on the other hand, represented a kind of
Puritan element, they recognised a mass of subsequent
traditions and teachings, which materially modified the
old faith, as being of equal and even greater value than
the Mosaic institutes. Some of these traditions ex
aggerated ritual observances, and carried them to an
absurd and burdensome extreme. But others of them,
following in the fine of the prophetic teaching, incul
cated personal piety and righteousness as a religious
service of even greater value than the sacrifice and
offering of the temple-worship. While the Sadducees
denied the immortality of the soul, and contented
themselves with the belief that the prosperities of
this life were ample manifestations of the divine
favour, and sufficient rewards of virtue, the Pharisees
believed in the resurrection of the dead, and a day of
future judgment. The name “Pharisee” signifies
“ separatist,” and marks them as deviators from, if
not reformers of, the ancient Judaism. The following
passages from the Apocryphal Book of Ecclesiasticus
will serve to shew the divergence of Pharisaic teaching
from the strict ceremonial of Mosaic Judaism.
“He that keepeth the law (of conduct) bringeth
offerings enough. He that taketh heed to the com
mandment offereth a peace offering. He that requiteth
�12
Paul: The Disowned Apostle.
a good turn offereth fine flour, and he that giveth alms
sacrificeth praise. To depart from wickedness is a thing
pleasing to the Lord, and to forsake unrighteousness is
a propitiation.”—Eccles, xxxv. 1, 2, 3d
These teachings, in which the ritual of the priest
hood was made to occupy a secondary position,
are of a character closely approaching to those uttered
by Jesus, and, in truth, the Pharisees of his day
were largely in accord with himself. They were,
too, the broader party, and were much favoured of
the people. The Sadducees were the High Church
men of Judaism—haughty, exclusive, and intolerant.
They regarded the priestly order as a sacred caste, and
they repudiated all later teaching that called the
Mosaic law in question. The condemnatory terms in
which the New Testament speaks of the Pharisees as
the enemies of Jesus, betray an opposition to himself
which proceeded not from a repudiation of his teach
ing, for that they often approved, but from the un
recognised and unofficial position which Jesus held,
and from the authority which he assumed as a teacher.
Nicodemus was a Pharisee, and Gamaliel and Paul
were Pharisees. The Pharisees exhibited an interest
in Jesus, even if it took the form of questioning his
authority to teach. The Sadducees treated his ministry
with contempt.
Besides these bodies, there was a large sect or order of
Jews called Essenes. Of this remarkable sect Josephus
records many interesting particulars (“Wars,” Book 2,
ch. viii.). They were colonies of Jewish monks, who
lived ascetic lives of labour, prayer, and fasting, remote
from towns and villages. They were pledged by solemn
oaths to secrecy, to celibacy, and to poverty. No appli
cant was received into the community till he had under
gone a period of probation lasting three years. In the
first year he had to guard against all pollution, in
the second he was admitted to the paths of purification,
and at the end of the third to the common meal, of
�Paul: The Disowned Apostle.
13
which all the members partook. Before this, however,
he took a solemn oath, the only oath which the Essenes
considered permissible. By this he bound himself to
honour God, to be just towards man, to injure no man
of his own accord or by order of others; always to
hate the unrighteous, and assist the righteous ; to be
ever faithful to all, and especially to the chiefs, for no
one obtained the government without God’s will;
(“ Render unto Caesar the things that are Csesar’s”—
Jesus. “ Let every soul be subject to the higher
powers; the powers that be are ordained of God ”—
Paul). If he exercised authority himself never to
abuse his power, nor to excel his subordinates in cloth
ing or ornament; always to love truth and endeavour
to put liars to shame; to keep his hands from theft,
and his soul from unholy gain; to hide nothing from
another member of the order, nor to reveal anything
of theirs to others even though he were threatened
with death. (See Kuenen’s “ Religions of Israel,” vol.
III., page 126 et seq.). The Essenes also believed
in the immortality of the soul. Holding the name and
law of Moses in highest reverence, there were yet many
things, such as abstinence from bloody sacrifices, vows of
celibacy, and ascetic self-denial, which were not only
unsanctioned by this law, but which did violence to its
plain injunctions. Essenism was, therefore, due to
other teaching, and we can trace in its laws and customs
a copious admixture of the religious usages of the East.
*
The late Dr Inman, in the third volume of his “ Ancient
Faiths,” &c., adduces considerable evidence to show
that the Essenes of Judea and the Therapeutse
* The learned Theophilus Gale (in his “ Court of the Gentiles,”
vol. II., Book 2, ch. 16), has a lengthened dissertation aiming to
prove the identity of the Essenes with the sect of the Pythagoreans.
He assumes, however, that Pythagoras learned his philosophy from
the Jews, an assumption which no scholar who valued his reputa
tion would venture to endorse to-day. As a religious or philosophi
cal sect, Pythagoras has the undoubted priority of centuries over
the Essenes, and if the two bear a close and intimate identity, the
Essenes must have borrowed from the Pythagoreans; at all events,
�14
Paul: The Disowned Apostle.
of Egypt were virtually communities of Buddhist
monks, or of men who had largely mingled the principles
of Buddhism with their own religious views.
Be this as it may, our design is to show that the
larger portion of the “ Sermon on the Mount,” which
is the keynote of the ministry of Jesus, and the essence
of the gospel teaching, was but a reiteration of precepts
that had long been accepted by these Essenes as their
standard alike of morality and religion. John the
Baptist yas in all probability an associate of these
communities, differing from them only as the preaching
monks differ from the cloistered monks of Catholicism^
His teaching was largely in accord with the faith which
the Essenes held, and he simply proclaimed to the
multitude that which they guarded with secrecy and
isolation. Jesus, who at the outset of his ministry,
made himself John’s disciple, by undergoing baptism by
him, taught like John repentance in place of sacrifice for
the remission of sin, and reiterated Essenian doctrine
divested only of unwise restrictions and absurd extremes.
Thus Jesus opposed their ascetic isolation, their oath of
initiation, their imposed secrecy. “ Swear not at all,”
he says. Hide not your light, “ Let it shine out be
fore men.” “ What you hear in secret proclaim on
the housetops.” But apart from these divergences,
the coincidence of Essenian doctrine with the teaching
of Jesus is far too striking to be the result of accident.
Both were the natural development of religious thought,
neither have any rightful claim to the character of
supernatural revelation. The ministry of Jesus was
remarkable for the brevity of its duration, lasting pro
bably under two years. In this short interval his doc
trine underwent but slight development, and at his
as Pythagoras drew largely from the learning of the East, this
raises a strong presumption as to the Buddhist origin of both. At
the present day scholars are being increasingly impressed with the
similarity between Buddhism and Christianity, and as Christianity
was largely a reproduction of Essenian teaching, this similarity is
at once accounted for.
�Paul: The Disowned Apostle.
15
death was virtually the same as at the commencement
of his ministry. A belief that he himself was the
Messiah of national expectation constituted the only
important change his mind experienced. At the cruci
fixion of Jesus the conception of his religion was little
more than that of a Jewish Puritanism. His followers
were the ay/o/ or Holy ones. Jews who had devoted
themselves to the exercises of personal piety, and who
cherished a living trust in God as their heavenly Father.
But they were Jews, children of the promise, and to
their thought, the chosen and privileged people of God.
At the death of Jesus we learn he had twelve chosen
apostles, and a vacancy in’this number, occasioned by the
defection and death of Judas, was filled up by the
remaining apostles by the election of Matthias.
Now Paul, who fills so important a place in the his
tory of the early church was not one of these Apostles;
and never having been a companion of the living Jesus,
could not have been chosen to fill any vacancy that
might have occurred in their ranks. Moreover, he
taught a religion widely divergent in its ecclesiastical
character from the reformed Judaism which constituted
the gospel of Jesus. Paul repudiated Judaism alto
gether, and warned his followers against the folly and
even the sin of observing its rites or conforming to its
law. We ask, how did Paul obtain the Apostleship
he claims ? we find, in answer, that it was a self-asserted
title, that it was not only not conferred upon him by
the true apostles of Jesus, but that his claim to the
office was indignantly repudiated by them.
The religion which for 1800 years has been known
as Christianity is not, excepting in those moral exhorta
tions in which all reputable religions agree, at all in
agreement with the religion that was held and taught
by Jesus. The religion which is known as Christianity
deems all Jews to lie outside of its pale, does not recog
nise them as members of its household of faith on as
recipients of salvation. It classes them with Turks and
�16
Paul: The Disowned Apostle.
Infidels, and while in past ages it has sought to crush
them with the heavy hand of power, it has hypocriti
cally, at the same time, prayed for their conversion to
the true faith.
That faith, although based on the “ blood of Jesus,”
is wholly at issue with the faith that Jesus taught. The
Christian religion, as we now know it, was not taught
by Jesus at all, it was first preached by Paul, preached
by him on his own authority, or what is the same
thing, in virtue of a special revelation which he’declared
he had received. He claimed, it is true, to be a com
missioned apostle of Jesus, but then his only interview
with Jesus was through a vision or dream some years
after the latter's death ! ! The first and most persistent
opponents of Paul’s new religion were the actual apostles
of Jesus. These branded his gospel as false, denied in
oto his apostleship, and called on all the members of
the churches which he founded, if they desired to rank
as Jesus’ disciples, to make themselves first of all to be
Jews, to reverence the Mosaic law and conform to the
Mosaic ritual. The life and labours of Paul are thus
of prime importance in any inquiry we may make as to
the origin of the Christian religion.
Very soon after the death of Jesus, his little band of
followers, who had for the most part sought refuge in
flight from the dangers which menaced themselves, re
turned to Jerusalem and constituted a society of which
the apostles were the acknowledged head. Their dis
tinctive doctrine was that Jesus, who had recently suf
fered crucifixion, was in truth the divinely sent Messiah
or Christ; that he had already risen from the dead and
would shortly return in glory and power to establish
his kingdom, to exalt the Jewish nation, and overthrow
the Roman rule. Behind these views lay the ordinary
teaching of the Essenes or the stricter Pharisaical sects,
and in this matter, as fanatical or puritanical Jews, the
disciples of Jesus, zealous in their recognition of the
Jewish law, attracted but little opposition and but small
�Paul: The Disowned Apostle.
17
enmity. The rulers did not accept their view as to the
Messiahship of Jesus, hut as Jesus was not living to
advance this claim, no real danger could arise from its
being advanced by others. Those who made this claim
were therefore regarded as simple-minded fanatics, and
otherwise as one of the many sects of devout Jews, with
which the city teemed. Occasionally, when these claims
were too prominently advocated, the authorities inter
fered, and the apostles were imprisoned as disturbers of
the peace, or as suggesting a spirit of sedition. The
Acts of the Apostles gives one or two romantic stories
of Peter being thus arrested and imprisoned, but we
gather from the general record that the apostles con
tinued at Jerusalem without incurring much interference
from the authorities. And the thing that saved them
was their reverence for the Jewish law, their continnance in the Jewish faith. The new order of views
which they held, as followers of Jesus, were largely
held or sympathized with by the outlying Jews, termed
Hellenists, who had vaguely heard of similar teaching
through other channels, and who were favourably in
clined, therefore, towards the new sect of which the
apostles were the leaders. But these Hellenists differed
from the apostles'in being very lax in their regard for the
Jewish ritual. They were very indifferent Jews. So
we find that feuds arose at Jerusalem between the two
sections of this early church, and at length a young and
energetic Hellenist, named Stephen, fell a martyr in
an outburst of persecution that was raised against his
teaching. . Unhappily the only history that we possess
of these times and incidents comes to use in the Acts of
the Apostles, and this book gives us not only a very
vague and scanty but also a very untrustworthy outline
of the proceedings of this period.
*
We cannot accept
* The “ Acts of the Apostles ” probably embodies some few of the
actual incidents of the history of the apostolic age, they are coupled,
however, with very much that is legendary, and with a good deal
that was fabricated by the writer to serve a particular purpose ; that
purpose being to conceal the divisions and strife which existed
�18
Paul: The Disowned Apostle.
the speech of Stephen, which it records, as being an
exact report of his language. Yet the fact that Stephen
met his death in an outburst of Jewish fanaticism,
directed against his teaching, is doubtless historically
reliable, also, it is probable that Paul stood by, ap
proving and encouraging the deed. The speech put into
Stephen’s mouth, when on his trial, though not his actual
words, represents, probably, the line of his argument
and indicates the nature of his offence. That offence was
speaking lightly and even condemnatory of Judaism,
and betraying a desire to make the new religion alto
gether independent of it. This persecution caused
between Paul and the acknowledged apostles of Jesus, especially
Peter. Here, as also in the epistle which bears his name, Peter is
made to teach Pauline doctrine 1 and to have a vision from heaven
to teach him that the Gentiles are to be received into the church !
while Paul, who in his epistles most emphatically repudiates the
validity of the Jewish ceremonial law, is represented as com
plying with its requirements and declaring that he never called it
in question ! ! That many portions of the New Testament are un
trustworthy is easily shown. Read the last three verses of Mat
thew’s gospel. Here the risen Jesus is said to have appeared to
his disciples (the eleven apostles), and to have commanded them to
“ go into all nations, and baptize in the name of the Father, and
of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.” From the Acts and from
Galatians we learn that the apostles, in place of doing this, con
fined their ministrations to Judea, &c., and as though perfectly un
conscious of this command, baptized simply in the name of Jesus !
while Paul, who says that he received his gospel and apostleship
direct from Christ in a vision, declares that Christ did not send
him to baptize but to preach the gospel, and he thanks God that of
all his converts he only baptised three or four ! I Here, then, we
think with good reason that the Acts gives the truthful narrative,
at all events the probable one, while the gospel statement is wholly
■false. The record of the Acts as to the miracles wrought by
“ Peter’s shadow ” and “ Paul’s apron,” the opening of their prison
doors by angelic liberators, and the long speeches put into the
mouths alike of Peter and Stephen and Paul, as also very much of
the account of the apostolic councils at Jerusalem, we deem with
good reason to be largely unreliable as history. Yet, perhaps, in
the absence of any other historic record to help us, it is possible
by a careful and judicious study of this book, to gather from it
some faint outline of the actual history of the early church, and
in this we are largely helped by the aid furnished to us by Paul’s
own writings. But for the check and guidance which these fur
nish, the entire book of Acts would have to be discarded as a
religious romance.
�Paul: The Disowned Apostle.
*9
another scattering of the new sect, and yet we find that
while Panl, or Saul, as he was then called, was breath
ing threatenings and slaughter against all belonging to
it, and was asking the Sanhedrim to invest him with
powers to pursue and arrest the fugitives, especially
those who had sought refuge in Damascus, the nearest
heathen city; the apostles remained unmolested and •
apparently unendangered at Jerusalem ! An important
side-light is thrown upon their proceedings by this fact.
The outburst of fanaticism was evidently not directed
against the followers of Jesus as such, but only against
that portion of them (the Hellenists) who sought to re
pudiate the Jewish law. Hence the apostles, as zealous
Jews, were safe, and it is possible may have taken part
against Stephen, may even have incited the persecution
beneath which he fell. We know that a dispute existed
between the apostolic party and the Hellenists. We
know, too, the high hand with which the apostles ruled,
from the narrative of Ananias and Sapphira. There is
large ground, therefore, for the belief that the apostles
of Jesus were, as well as Saul of Tarsus, consenting par
ties to the death of Stephen. At all events, the fact is
recorded that he fell a martyr to a persecution which
gave the apostles themselves no cause for alarm ! Saul
of Tarsus was a born Jew ; but his bituhplace was a
heathen city. He was bred up, therefore, in close con
tact with Gentile civilisation amid a Greek-speaking
population, under circumstances in which his attach
ment to Judaism would be very greatly weakened. To
obviate this, and to confirm him in the faith of his
fathers, he was sent by his father to Jerusalem to be
educated at the school or college presided over by the
Chief Eabbis. Here Paul or Saul sat at the feet of
Gamaliel, the grandson of the renowned and liberal
Hillel, and one who in the breadth and liberality of his
own teaching proved himself a worthy descendant of his
eminent ancestor. Saul was thus bred a Pharisee of
the strictest kind ; in other words, a Jew of broad and
�20
Paul: The Disowned Apostle.
enlightened views, one who wove the later teachings of
philosophic thought into the old ceremonial law, and
who thought even more of the later than of the earlier
literature of his people. At this period, however, Paul
(for such we shall call him in future) was hot-headed,
impulsive, and blindly- zealous, holding what was vir
tually a liberal theology in a very illiberal spirit. To
his rash and fiery nature persecution seemed the fittest
argument to silence the opponents of the national faith.
Moreover his very presence in Jerusalem was to receive
an education that should inspire and strengthen his
attachment to Judaism. Hence the presence of a sect
who virtually sought to repudiate the exclusive sanctity
and authority of the Jewish law excited his fiercest in
dignation. Interpret Judaism as liberally as you please
and Paul would lend his sympathy, but repudiate its
authority and value and Paul now will persecute to the
death. As a disciple of Gamaliel and as a citizen of
Tarsus, Paul must have held views greatly in common
with the HeUenist Jews, with Jews that is who had
been converted from Heathen faiths, and who received
only partial recognition as proselytes of the gate from
the strict and born Jews at Jerusalem. As a born Jew,
Paul, however, could claim full Jewish privileges, and
this, added to the special education he had received,
made him feel a warm attachment to the Jewish
religion. On his way to Damascus a change occurs
which proves that his prejudices in this matter were
more active than deep. Paul is struck down by a
sudden illness, occasioned, the narrative would seem to
indicate, by a sunstroke. In the temporary delirium
that resulted, Paul imagined that he saw the risen
Jesus, and received a commission from him to preach
his gospel. So, reaching Damascus, he fraternises with
the very men he was commissioned to arrest. The
Acts of the Apostles tells us that he shortly returned to
Jerusalem a converted man, that he was cordially re
ceived and welcomed by the apostles, going openly in
�Paul: The Disowned Apostle.
21
and out of the city in their company, and disputing
publicly with the Hellenists. At length a conspiracy
on the part of these against Paul rendered it advisable
that he should withdraw from the scene, and retire to
his distant home at Tarsus (see Acts ix.).
Now, not only is this account in the highest degree
improbable in itself, but it is directly opposed to a
statement which Paul has given of his conversion and
subsequent procedure in the first chapter of his Epistle
to the Galatians. This was written about twenty years
after the period of his conversion, but the Acts of the
Apostles was not written till a much later period, till
the beginning of the second century, some seventy or
eighty years after the occurrences it records, when it was
compiled from traditions which were freely handled by
the compiler and when no living witnesses remained to
check the veracity of his record.
Paul himself states that after his conversion in place
of returning to Jerusalem, he went for three years into
Arabia, that then he visited Jerusalem, but apparently
in a very stealthy manner, he saw only Peter and James,
residing with the former for fifteen days, and was
not known by person to the members of the church
over which they ruled. Now, this statement has at
least the ring of probability with it. Paul could not
have returned openly to Jerusalem very shortly after
his conversion. He had been equipped by the ruling
priesthood for a very important mission, and to this
mission he had proved altogether faithless. Had he
ventured within the jurisdiction of this priesthood his
offence would have been visited with condign punish
ment. Imagine the English Government sending an
officer to Ireland to make some Eenian arrests, and the
officer becoming converted to Eenianism himself, could
we imagine him returning to London and openly flaunt
ing his conversion in the face of the authorities, and
publicly advocating Eenian principles? Yet it is as easy
to conceive of Paul doing what the Acts of the Apostles
B
•
�'1'1
Paul: The Disowned Apostle.
records of him. Unfortunately, there is nothing to
show us the exact nature of the change which Paul
underwent at his conversion other than the recog
nition of the Messiahship of Jesus, and the belief in his
resurrection and the expectation of his second coming.
These views were such as a Jew might feel him
self warranted to hold. Paul’s errand, however, had
been to persecute a sect which made light of Jewish
requirements, and his conversion implies conversion to
their views ; the acceptance of Jesus in a sense that
boded the supercession of Judaism. Hence when after
a lapse of three years Paul ventures to make a stealthy
visit to Jerusalem to see Peter, the result is farfrombeing
satisfactory to himself. Peter evidently does not sym
pathise with Paul’s new faith, its leanings are too Hel
lenistic and therefore too anti-Jewish for him. So
Peter withholds all official recognition from him ; does
not even introduce him to the brethren, but suggests
his retirement at once to Tarsus, and inactivity, and for
a period of six years, Paul went into this virtual exile,
and occupied himself probably in the secular pursuit of
tent-making.
But during this time the Hellenists largely increased,
the new faith had found a footing in several of the
great Gentile cities, and here many of the heathen
population desired to join the new community and to
profess the faith that Jesus had taught—viz., the faith
that laid more stress on personal piety than on cere
monial rite. But the requirement to make themselves
Jews as the first step of the change was a great stum
bling block in their way. So Barnabas, a Hellenist
Jew, who had joined the primitive church, went to
Tarsus and fetched Paul to join him in a ministry he was
commencing in Antioch and the neighbouring towns.
Paul responds to the invitation, and in company with
Barnabas, to whom he held at this time a subordinate
position, and to whom he was indebted for his recogni
tion by, and introduction to, the early church, commenced
�Paul: The Disowned Apostle.
23
bis ministrations at Antioch, receiving from the hands
of the elders there a special consecration to the work.
At Antioch, however, the Hellenistic element largely
prevailed, and a step was soon taken which paved the
way for the ultimate severance of the early church and
the followers of Jesus from any necessary association
with Judaism. Here at Antioch, under the minisfration of Barnabas and Paul, the disciples first took the
name of Christians I (Acts), in other words they virtually
ceased to be necessarily Jews, and a large number of
the Gentile converts were not Jews at all.
*
Such a
church differed very widely from the churches or
societies of Judea, and the apostles naturally took
alarm, especially when it was found that Gentile con
verts were exempted from circumcision. The apostles
thereupon sent teachers to Antioch to remedy the mischief, “ These taught the brethren, except ye be circum
cised after the manner of Moses, ye cannot be saved.”
—Acts xv.
Let us pause a minute here—the date is about the
year 51, that is eighteen years after the crucifixion of
* With regard to the assumption of this title Mons. Renan says,
“ Hitherto the adherents of the new sect had called themselves
‘believers,’ ‘the faithful,’ ‘saints,’ ‘brothers,’ ‘the disciples,’ but
the sect had no public or official name. It was at Antioch that
the title Christians was devised. . . . This is a most important
moment. Solemn indeed is the hour when the new creation re
ceives its name, for that is the direct symbol of its existence. It
is by its name that a being individual or collectively really becomes
itself, and is distinct from others. The formation of the word
Christian marks thus the precise date of the separation of Judaism
from the Church of Jesus. For a long time to come the two re
ligions will still be confounded : but this confusion will only take
place in those countries where the spread of Christianity is slow
and backward. The sect readily accepted the appellation which
was applied to it, and viewed it as a title of honour. Christianity
is now completely weaned from its mother’s breast, the true senti
ments of Jesus have triumphed over the indecision of his first
disciplesthe Church of Jerusalem is left behind; the Aramaic
language in which Jesus spoke is unknown to a portion of his
followers; Christianity speaks Greek, and is finally launched into
that great vortex of the Greek and Roman world whence it will
never depart.”—Ute Apostles, ch. xiii.
�24
Paul: The Disowned Apostle.
Jesus, and the religion taught in his name by his own
appointed apostles was to the effect that circumcision
was essential to salvation !!
If the Christian religion was a special and super
natural religion taught by Jesus, a man approved of
God and confirmed by signs and wonders, then it
stands on record that one of the essential requisites of
that religion was the Jewish rite of circumcision ! 1
Christians who repudiate this to-day, repudiate the
authority, and deny the teaching of the Apostolic
Church as it existed eighteen years after the cruci
fixion ! As Jesus was born a Jew, lived in the strict
observance of the Jewish law, and died in allegiance
to the Jewish faith, this must have been his teaching
also.
A great stir prevailed now at Antioch amid the
communities that constituted the early church. The
Jews opposed the new teaching of Paul with vehem
ence and bitterness, and many of those Jews who
accepted the new teaching were also bitterly opposed
to the proposed admission of Gentiles without requiring
from them a prior acceptance of Judaism. At length
Paul and Barnabas are sent from the society at Antioch
as a deputation to Jerusalem to confer with the apostles
about this matter. An account of this conference is
given in the 15th Chapter of the Acts, in which Peter
is made to be the chief spokesman, siding with Paul,
and James also too readily concedes the claims of Paul
and Barnabas to admit the Gentile converts without
requiring of them any recognition of the Mosaic law,
further than “that they should abstain from eating
meats that had been offered to idols, from things
strangled, and from immorality.” Paul, however,
gives a less favourable account of this interview, he
intimates that he imparted his ideas privately to the
seeming leaders, and that in return they had nothing
important to communicate to him; at least a sort of
agreement was reluctantly arrived at to the effect that
�Paul: The Disowned Apostle.
25
Paul and Barnabas were to continue their ministrations
in the heathen cities, and that the apostles were to con
fine theirs to the brethren in Judea. Indeed, Paul was
by this arrangement virtually forbidden to address him
self to Jews at all, having to confine his labours to the
uncircumcised heathen. It should be noticed here that
in assenting to these terms, the apostles virtually stipu
lated that Paul should not conduct his ministry where
their power or influence could reach ! Outside of Judea
their influence diminished, and their power ended, while
to preach to heathen communities Paul needed no autho
rity beside his own. The nucleus of the churches was
however, everywhere formed first of all from the Jewish
communities resident in these cities, and these in accept
ing the new faith would have doubtless regarded it as
a movement ruled and directed by the apostles of Jesus,
and would consequently have hesitated to accept the
teaching of one who had not due credentials from them,
especially when emissaries from Jerusalem should come
and call their attention to this fact. These credentials
Paul never fairly possessed,—only for a brief period while
acting in conjunction with Barnabas at Antioch were
Paul’s labours duly sanctioned, and even this sanction
was conferred by the elders of a Hellenist Society, and
not by the apostles themselves. Thus much of favour
Paul received through the friendly introduction and
patronage of Barnabas, himself a foreign or Hellenised
Jew, one, however, who had been among the earliest
converts to the new faith, and who, on his conversion
had given his patrimony for the use of the church.
Barnabas was a man of considerable power as a speaker,
and of enthusiastic temperament. Hence the name Bar
nabas, or son of Prophecy was given to him by the apostles
in place of his original name Joseph (Actsiv. 36). Pos
sessing apparently the full confidence of the apostles, he
yet seems to have chiefly laboured beyond the boundaries
of Judea; the apostles evidently desiring to keep a man
of his power and energy of character at a safe distance.
�♦
26
Paul: The Disowned Apostle.
At this era Paul and Barnabas were probably the two
most powerful and successful preachers of the early
church, and yet they do not seem ever to have been
permitted to labour within the boundaries of Judea.
Having taken one missionary journey with Barnabas,
Paul is alienated from him through a dispute as to who
should be the companion of their next journey, Paul
objecting to the presence of Barnabas’ nephew, Mark,
On this the friends separated, and Paul took his journey
through the towns of Asia Minor, accompanied by one
of the brethren who had returned with him from Je
rusalem, Silas or Silvanus, while Barnabas travelled in
quite a contrary direction, visiting the isle of Cyprus,
his own early home,—both, however, confining their
mission to the Gentile world.
In company with Silas, Paul visits the cities of Asia
Minor, and after undergoing scourging and imprisonment together at Philippi, where, in the night an earth
quake opened their prison doors, and caused the conver
sion of the gaoler, and induced the magistrates to order
their instant liberation, they came to Thessalonica where
there was a synagogue of the Jews, to which Paul went,
endeavouring to shew them from the Scriptures, that
Jesus was the Christ. An uproar directed against them
caused them to leave the city and pass on to Berea.
Here also they found a Jewish synagogue, and here
Paul’s teaching was for a time acceptable, till some of
the Jews from Thessalonica came over and stirred up
enmity against them. This necessitated Paul’s departture for Athens, whither he went leaving Silas and
Timotheus behind with orders to join him at Corinth.
We see here that the chief enmity that beset Paul
was manifested by Jews, and was directed especially
against himself, being due doubtless to the light esti
mate he set on Judaism. At Athens Paul seems to have
addressed himself to the heathen population and to have
been heard with some degree of curious interest, but to
have produced small effect by his discourse. So he pro-
*
�Paul: Phe Disowned Apostle.
osj
ceeded to Corinth where an important Jewish colonyresided. Here he was again heset with opposition from
the Jews, who expelled him from the synagogue, and
even accused him before the tribunal of the Roman
Deputy Gallio. Paul, however, met with some en
couragement, and succeeded after a protracted stay of
eighteen months in leaving a small church of those who
accepted his teaching.
Paul no longer having Silas as a companion now
goes to Ephesus, and finds here a church or society of
Jews who had not heard of Jesus, and who had been
baptized with John’s baptism; in other words, they
were Jews who had learned to esteem personal right
eousness as of higher value than ceremonial service, and
were therefore ripe to receive the special teaching of
Paul to the effect that Jesus was the Christ, the annointed of God commissioned to reform and supersede
the Mosaic dispensation. Here Paul abode for two
years. At length the craftsmen who made silver
shrines for Diana’s Temple stirred up a strong feeling
against him, which necessitated his departure. His
success here seems to have been greater than elsewhere,
owing doubtless to the absence of the more orthodox
and bigoted of the Jews, those Jews who had
accepted John’s baptism being largely prepared to
accept the teaching and messiahship of Jesus. Still
Paul feels greatly depressed in spirit and determines
to go through Macedonia to collect the alms of the
churches for the poor brethren at Jerusalem, and then
having carried these to Jerusalem, to go to Rome, having
heard of the existence of a society of Jews there, who
were already more than half converted to the new faith.
At Jerusalem, however, the Jewish opposition again
breaks out. He is denounced to the authorities, a.nd
saved from death only by his claim as a Roman
citizen to appeal to Ceesar. This appeal necessitates
his removal as a prisoner to Rome, where reliable history
loses all further trace concerning him, leaving the tra-
�28
Paul: The Disowned Apostle.
dition probable which represents him as suffering
martyrdom in a persecution directed against the Christ
ians by Nero.
What we desire to call the reader’s attention to is *
the fact that when Paul’s life was endangered at Jeru
salem, the’apostles who resided there were in no peril!
The Jews are represented as being his accusers; but
these Jews do not appear to have borne any special
enmity against Peter and James, and the leaders or
members of the Apostolic Church. If the history of
the Acts is at all reliable in its mainoutlines, Paul seems
to have had great misgivings concerning the issue of his
visit to the Jewish metropolis, and yet a church of
Jesus was actually existing there in peace and safety!
But Paul had virtually ceased to be a Jew, and hence
he dreaded the enmity of the Jews against himself, and
doubted perhaps the fidelity of the apostolic leaders.
The Book of the Acts relates, however, that at Jerusalem
Paul went into the temple and performed the ceremonies
essential to the discharge of a vow which he had made,
in other words, that he behaved himself as an orthodox
Jew, but that his true character was discovered, and he
was at once denounced to the authorities.
We shall shortly see, from an examination of Paul’s
Epistles, that there are grave reasons for doubting the
accuracy of this statement of the Acts as to Paul’s con
formity to the Mosaic law. From the moment of his
conversion, the apostolic community had regarded him
with suspicion and dislike, because in that conversion
Paul lost his former reverence for the Mosaic law, and
though on this visit he hoped to conciliate some degree
of favour from the leaders of the Apostolic Church by
being the bearer of alms to the poor members of the
church, who were then suffering the privations of famine,
there is a grave suspicion that Paul was betrayed to the
Jewish authorities by those who he had hoped would
have proved his friends, inasmuch as like himself, they
were the disciples and followers of Jesus. Be this as
�Paul: The Disowned Apostle.
29
it may, the fact stands recorded that he is the subject
of persecution by the Jewish authorities, while the
_ entire church at Jerusalem is in security and peace, and
this fact furnishes convincing evidence that a great
divergency must have existed in their teaching, and
that the Apostolic Church did not sanction Paul’s re
pudiation of the Jewish law—nay, were even disposed
to disown and to persecute him on this account. Again,
in letters addressed to the Galatian and Corinthian
Churches, Paul had claimed to be an apostle by special
and supernatural appointment (not of man, neither by
man, but by Jesus Christ and God the Father), that is,
he claimed to have received his apostleship in the vision
he declared he had had of Jesus. But the apostles at
Jerusalem resented this claim as an infringement of
their authority, and this assumption of Paul’s added to
his repudiation of Judaism, of the proud heritage they
had received from their fathers, of the faith their master
had died in, was the occasion of a deep-seated animosity
on their part towards him, and we should do them no
injustice, supposing they had no hand in Paul’s be
trayal, in believing that they would have regarded his
removal as a prisoner to Pome with unfeigned satisfac
tion. At Pome Paul disappears from view, and though
ecclesiastical tradition tells of his deliverance, of his
subsequent journey into Spain and even to Britain, of
his return to Rome, of his meeting there with Peter,
and of the martyrdom of both Paul and Peter on the
same day, yet reliable history is altogether wanting.
The Apocryphal Epistle of Clement, written professedly
about the close of the first century, but bearing indica
tions of a much later date of origin, mentions Paul as
having suffered martyrdom, but says nothing about his
liberation or his journey to Spain. The Book of the
Acts was not written till early in the second century,
and this, which gives a copious, though not altogether
reliable, biography of Paul, strangely omits to furnish
any account of his ultimate fate. Of this fate probably
�30
Paul: The Disowned Apostle.
no record or even tradition "existed at that period, the
traditions which were eventually current having grown
up after this time.
.“ With Paul’s imprisonment at Rome,” says the late
Sir R. Hanson in his ‘ Paul and the Primitive Church,’
“ ends all our knowledge of his life and labours. We
know nothing as to his fate. The legend of his martyr
dom at Rome is entitled to no weight whatever, for it
first appears at a time when numerous apocryphal
stories were current, and when no one dreamed of in
vestigating their foundation. His appeal to the Emperor
(Nero) may have heen unsuccessful, and he may have
been sentenced to exile in Sardinia, or in some other
penal settlement, or to death. If we were to draw any
inference from the silence of the author of the Acts, it
would be that he was not set free : for had he finally
triumphed over his Jewish accusers, we should expect
to find some intimation of the fact. But if he were
once liberated, there can be no adequate ground for
supposing that he would have returned to Rome. And
least of all, can we imagine with a recent writer that he
visited Alexandria and other cities, which subsequently
became centres of Christian life, and laid the foundation
of Gentile Christianity in those places. He passes ab
solutely from our sightj and all that we can venture to
say is, that during the remainder of his life—-probably
a very brief period—he preached the Gospel wherever
he had the opportunity, and that he died in the full
belief that he should almost immediately reappear on
earth with Christ at his coming.”
Dean Milman in his £ History of Christianity ’ says :
“ If we may judge from the authentic records of the
New Testament, the whole Christianity of the west
emanated from Paul alone.” But from this Christianity
of the west the Christianity of Christendom has sprung.
And Paul must therefore be claimed as its founder.
Now in surveying the life and labours of Paul, we find
that from his conversion to his death, or rather to the
�Paul: Phe Disowned Apostle.
■ 31
imprisonment with which his history ends, he was
never the intimate friend or associate of the Apostles
of Jesus, and that he knew as little of their doctrine as
he did of themselves. His earliest companion and
friend was Barnabas, a Hellenist Jew and a Hellenist
follower of Jesus. Paul did not long retain this
friendship, and for the most part he preached and
travelled through Gentile cities, far away from Jewish
territory, a lone and friendless man. Such friends as
he had were found among the converts he himself made.
The only courtesy that was extended to him by the
Apostles of Jesus was a reluctant and temporary sanc
tion of his ministry, given on condition that he should
confine his preaching to distant cities and to Gentile
peoples: an agreement which Paul did not strictly
keep, inasmuch as while he confined his ministry to
Gentile cities, he addressed himself to the Jewish com
munities, whom he found residing there, whereas his
credentials only justified him preaching to the “ uncir
cumcised.” It was on this account that the Apostolic
Church withdrew such sanction as they had previously
given, and sent their emissaries to the churches he founded
to disown his authority and repudiate his teaching.
What Paul’s teaching was we gather from his
Epistles to some of the churches which he founded,
notably those to the Galatians, Corinthians, and Romans.
In writing to the Galatians, Paul claims on his own
authority, or rather on his own assertion of a special
divine commission—the rank and office of an apostle.
And this official character is needed to give authority
to his teaching, for this teaching has been called in
question by emissaries from the Jerusalem Church.
In this Epistle Paul emphatically maintains his own
views, and denounces as accursed those who would
teach a different Gospel. Then Paul recounts the story
of his conversion, and the sparse and scanty intercourse
he had had with the actual Apostles of Jesus, whom
he found wholly unable to instruct him in any import
�32
Paul: The Disowned Apostle.
ant matter, and so on his own responsibility he preached
the gospel he had received by Divine inspiration. It
would appear that many of the converts who had em
braced Christianity direct from heathenism had been
visited by Judaising teachers, who had told them that
before becoming Christians they must make themselves
Jews, and submit to the rite of circumcision. - So Paul
writes this letter to them, telling them that Judaism,
which was useful as a schoolmaster to prepare the way
for Christ, is abolished now that Christ is come. That
■“ if they be Christ’s, then are they Abraham’s seed also,
and heirs according to the promise.” ££ Stand fast
therefore,” he says, “ in the liberty wherewith Christ
hath made us free, and be not entangled in the yoke of
bondage. Behold I Paul say unto you, that if ye be
circumcised, Christ shall profit you nothing.”
In the 3d chapter of the second letter or epistle ad
dressed to the church at Corinth, which these emis
saries had visited in Paul’s absence, for the purpose of
denouncing at once Paul’s authority and teaching, dis
playing their own credentials from the apostolic autho
rities of the Jerusalem church, we find Paul writing in
a similar strain : “ Do we begin again to commend our
selves ? Or need we, as some others, epistles of com
mendation to you, or letters of commendation from
you ? Ye are our epistle (of commendation) written in
our hearts, known and read of all men j” and then he
goes on to show that Judaism is a superseded dispensa
tion. He thanks God that he has made him ££ a minister
of the new covenant, not of the letter but of the
spirit, for the letter (or law) killeth, but the spirit (or
ministration of righteousness) giveth life.” The vail
that screened the full vision of God is done away in
Christ. But to the Jews, who still heed and reverence
the law of Moses, “ this vail remains upon their heart.”
The burden of nearly all Paul’s epistles, apart from matters
of local or personal interest, is to the effect that Judaism
is now a superseded dispensation, and in its stead the
�Paul: The Disowned Apostle.
33
precepts of devoutness towards God, and a high practi
cal morality are taught, as the end of religion and the
rule of life.
The doctrinal aspect of Paul’s teaching is most clearly
and distinctly seen in the Epistle to the Romans. This
was written from Corinth just previous to Paul’s last
and fatal visit to Jerusalem. Unlike his other letters,
it was written to a community of whom Paul had no
personal knowledge. He had heard that a church of
the new faith existed at Rome, and so he writes to this
society telling them of his desire to visit them; 11 For
I long to see you, that I may impart unto you some
spiritual gift, to the end that ye may be established,
that is, that I may be comforted together with you by
our mutual faith.”—Romans i. 11, 12.
Paul wrote this letter just before starting for Jerusa
lem on the errand we have already mentioned. The
date is about the year 58, twenty-one years subsequent
to his conversion, probably about the fourteenth year
of his active ministry.
That ministry had been
chequered with privations and persecutions, it had
achieved from time to time considerable success, but it
had ended in grievous disappointment. Paul was at
this period a solitary, disowned, and disappointed man.The Jewish element of the early church had proved
far too powerful an antagonist for him to overthrow.
He had dealt it its death-blow, but large vitality still
remained with it. We have only to remember the
tenacity with which Judaism was and still is cherished
by its votaries, to feel assured that it would need much
more than a single life-time to destroy it. A generation
was however rising up who would shake it off, and hold
Christianity without it, but the Jewish Christians of
Paul’s day were too deeply attached to the faith in
which they had been bred, and which for generations
before them their fathers had held sacred, to do this.
At this season it is new life to Paul to hear that at
Rome a society of Jews are living who hold a reformed
�34
Paul: The Disowned Apostle.
faith. This reformed faith, Paul is doubtless aware, very
closely corresponds in its ethical teaching, in the im
portance which it attaches to personal piety and personal
righteousness, to Christianity, as he understands it.
But Paul is conscious that it lacks something, and this
he desires to add to it. This something is the Messiahship of Jesus, the realisation of the Christ office by him.
About this period there were societies of Jews rising
up in the great cities of the empire in which the old
faith was reformed on the basis of the Gentile or
Platonic philosophy. A school of this character had
been formed at Alexandria by Philo, who had intro
duced the conception of the Platonic “ Logos ” into the
current of Jewish thought, and had written copious
commentaries on the Pentateuch, explaining those pas
sages which spoke of the divine appearance by the aid
of this idea. The Jews who, like Philo at Alexandria
or the colony settled in the world’s metropolis, were
surrounded by the schools of Gentile philosophy, found
it impossible to read their own scriptures in a literal
sense, so gross were the conceptions of God which
these scriptures contained.
Philo taught that besides the supreme God there was
a most ancient angel or messenger, the divine “ Logos ”
or “Word.” This being is often spoken of by Philo as
a second God-—as the maker of the world—as the first
born of all beings—as sharing the purity and eternity
of God, as being the brightness of the Father’s glory,
the express image of his person, &c., &c. “ To this
arch-angel, the most ancient Logos,” Philo says, “ the
Father Omnipotent granted the pre-eminent gift to
stand on the confines of both (natures) and separate
the created from the creator ■ he is continually a sup
pliant to the immortal God on behalf of the mortal race,
which is exposed to affliction and misery; and is also the
ambassador sent by the Ruler of all to the subject race;
being neither unbegotten as God, nor begotten as man,
but occupying a middle place between the extremes.”—
�Paul: The Disowned Apostle.
35
Quis Rerum Div. Haires, c. 42. Again Philo says, in a
fragment of a lost writing preserved by Eusebius, “ It
was not possible that anything mortal should be formed
after the image of the Most High, the Father of the
Universe; it could only be formed in the image of the
second God, who is his Logos (or Reason).” The works
of Philo, some of which were doubtless written when
Jesus was but a little child, are happily extant to-day,
and they fill in their English translation three thick
volumes of Bohn’s Classical Library. We have shown
how Paul came beneath the influence of these views
by being the pupil of Rabbi Gamaliel at Jerusa
lem. Twenty years before Paul was carried a prisoner
to Rome, and eighteen years before he addressed this
letter to the Church of God there, of whose excellence
and merits he had heard, Philo had visited Rome on an
embassy from the Jews of Alexandria to the Emperor
Caligula, and on this occasion doubtless stayed some
considerable time in the city. Here he would have
sought the society of his co-religionists, and have
doubtless left a copy of his writings with them. From
this contact with Philo may have sprung up a reformed
conception of Judaism, which, based on the Logos as
the divine Word or Reason, able to enter into the
souls of good men, and to make them to be godlike in
character, was almost identical with the religion which
Paul was teaching, based on Jesus being the Christ or
anointed messenger of God, able to dwell by his spirit
in the hearts of his disciples, and to make them godlike
in the spirit of their lives.
If the reader will run through the epistles of Paul,
especially those to the Ephesians and Colossians, he
will see that the epithets that are therein used to define
the office and nature of Christ are identical with those
which were previously used by Philo to define the
nature of the Logos, showing that Paul, who never
*
* This is shown at greater length in the pamphlet “ Plato, Philo,
and Paul,” published in this series.
�36
Paul: The Disowned Apostle.
knew or saw the man Jesus, was simply adapting his
knowledge of the Logos, which he had carried from
Philo to the pourtray al of the analagous character of the
Christ. We venture now a very reasonable suggestion.
This society of saints at Rome, to whom Paul wrote,
and whose existence has since been a source of per
plexity to ecclesiastical historians, seeing that we have
no knowledge when or by whom this church had been
founded, has been too hastily concluded to have been
an early Christian church. Paul was the great mission
ary of the Christian faith to foreign parts, but far as he
had travelled, Rome was still a great distance beyond
the extremest point he had reached, viz., Corinth.
Three hundred miles of difficult and dangerous journeyings still lay between Corinth and Rome, and yet
Paul himself, the daring pioneer who had carried
Christianity into Gentile boundaries, hears that a
Christian (?) church already exists at Rome! The pro
bable fact is that the society of Jews there who held a
reformed faith had adopted the conception of the
Philonic Logos, and knew at this time little or nothing
of Paul’s Christ. Nevertheless, in all but name, the
two reforms were identical, and the religions virtually the
same. Paul, however, has gone a step beyond Philo.
He has identified the speculative Logos with an actual
existence. As a Jew, he reasoned first that the Christ
and the Logos were one, and then that Jesus, whom his
followers believed to be the Christ, was not the mili
tary chieftain or the powerful king of ordinary expec
tation, but the divine Logos sent from God to declare
his will, and to subdue the souls of men to virtue and
piety and love. He longs, therefore, to go to this
church or society. Here he will find, he thinks, en
lightened and philosophic minds, who will understand
and receive his gospel when he shall tell them that this
“Logos” has been realised in the person of Jesus
“ the Christ,” and he feels that here at least he will be
safe from the emissaries of James and Peter, who, if
�Paul: The Disowned Apostle.
37
they should follow him, will have but small influence
with men who have almost wholly outgrown the grosser
forms of Judaism. As followers of Philo, and holding,
therefore, religious conceptions of a broad and philo
sophic character, these men were still Jews, but Jews
who had largely spiritualised their faith, and had
almost wholly ceased to attach much importance to its
ceremonial law. When Paul did reach Rome a pri
soner, the “ Book of Acts ” relates an interview which
Paul held with these Jews as follows. At Puteoli, the
port at which he landed, it tells us that Paul found
brethren, and abode with them seven days, and then
went on in custody to Rome. The narrative continues—
“ And from thence when the brethren heard of us,
they came to meet us as far as Appii Porum and the
Three Taverns ; whom, when Paul saw, he thanked
God and took courage. And when we came to Rome,
the centurion delivered the prisoners to the captain of
the guard, but Paul was suffered to dwell by himself
with a soldier that kept him. And it came to pass that
after three days Paul called the chief of the Jews to
gether, and when they were come together he said unto
them, Men and Brethren, though I have committed
nothing against the people or customs of our fathers,
yet was I delivered prisoner from Jerusalem into the
hands of the Romans, who when they had examined
me would have let me go, because there was no cause
of death in me. But when the Jews spake against it I
was constrained to appeal unto Caesar; not that I had
ought to accuse my nation of. Por this cause, there
fore, have I called for you to see you and to speak with
you, because that for the hope of Israel I am bound
with this chain. And they said unto him, We neither
received letters out of Judea concerning thee, neither
any of the brethren that came shewed or spake any
harm of thee. But we desire to hear of thee what thou
thinkest, for as concerning this sect we know that it is
everywhere spoken against. And when they had apc
�38
Paul: The Disowned Apostle.
pointed him a day, there came many to him to his
lodging, to whom he expounded and testified the king
dom of God, persuading them concerning Jesus, both
out of the law of Moses and out of the Prophets, until
the evening. And some believed the things that were
spoken and some believed not.”
Now it is difficult for any thoughtful mind to accept
this narrative as trustworthy history. It was not
penned till after the close of the first century, at the
earliest fifty years ago after the occurrences of which
it treats had happened, and the picture which it gives of
Paul is directly antagonistic to that which we should
gather from his own description of himself. We have
italicised one portion in particular, and we ask, is it
possible that Paul after his repeated repudiations of
Judaism, whose sacred rites and ceremonies he had
called “ weak and beggarly elements,” Gal. iv. 9, and
whose law he had spoken of as a weighty bondage, the
observance of which forfeited for those who gave it all
interest in the Christian dispensation — is it possible
that after a ministry the staple teaching of which had
been to denounce Judaism in these unmeasured terms,
Paul could have made such a declaration, or have stated
that he had done nothing against the law of Moses ?
Again, so far from being delivered prisoner by the Jews
into the hands of the Romans, the previous narrative
shows that the Romans had done him the generous ser
vice of rescuing him from the violence of a Jewish mob
that sought to kill him 1 The fact is we have no re
liable history of this event, what we have may be an
outline of actual fact, but the filling in and shading has
been done to suit thefancy or settled purpose of the writer.
The “ Brethren” of whom this passage speaks were
doubtless a society of Philonic Jews, and the purport of
Paul’s address to these was to show that the “ Logos”
had been incarnated in the person of Jesus the Christ,
and that all this had been foreseen and foretold in the
Jewish scriptures.
�Paul: The Disowned Apostle.
39
Now, we get no glimpse of the actual belief and doc
trinal character of the Christian Church at Eome till
about the middle of the second century, and then we
find these pourtrayed in the “ Apologies of Justin
Martyr,” to the Emperor Antoninus Pius. From these
“ Apologies” we learn that the Church of Eome of
this date identified Jesus with the Logos of the Greeks,
as weU as with the Christ of the Jews—was a Church of
the Logos as well as a Church of Christ.
In his second Apology, Justin says that “ Socrates
knew Christ, in part, for Christ is that ‘ Logos ’ (reason)
which is in all.” Again, in his first “ Apology,” he seve
ral times identifies Christ with “the Logos” thus: —
“ Jesus Christ alone is properly the son of God as being
the ‘Logos’ and first begotten and power of God, and
by his counsel was made man” (“ Apology ” I. 31).
“ The J ews, therefore, for maintaining that it was the
Father of the universe who had conference with Moses,
when it was the very son of God who had it, and who
is styled both angel and apostle, are justly accused both
by the prophetic spirit and Christ himself, for knowing
neither the Father nor the Son ; for they who affirm
the Son to be the Father are justly accused of not know
ing the Father, and likewise of being ignorant that the
Father of the universe has a son, who being the Logos
and first-begotten of God, is God” (“Apology”I. 83).
Justin even goes so far in thus identifying the Logos of
Philo (derived as that was from the Neo Platonic teach
ing) with the Christ of Paul, as to declare that Plato bor
rowed the conception from the Jews (“Apol.” I. 76).
Similar views of the identity of Jesus Christ with the
“Logos” or the Divine Word or Wisdom find expres
sion in nearly every writer of the second century—
Diognetus, Tertullian, Clement of Alexandria, and
notably the opening verses of the Gospel attributed to
*
John.
* For fuller information on this subject, consult Lamson’s
“ Church of the Three First Centuries.” Consult also Dean Mil-
�40
Paul: The Disowned Apostle.
The “ Brethren at Rome,” whose fame Paul says had
gone throughout the world, were, there is every reason
to suppose, at the time of Paul’s writing, a society of
Jews holding the religious philosophy of Philo of Alex
andria. This, with the exception of the name and per
sonality of Jesus, was as a system of ethics and as a
spiritual philosophy almost identical with the Chris
tianity that Paul was teaching, and the Church at Rome
was a Church of the “ Logos ” rather than a Church of
Christ. Paul, we may presume, for we know little of
actual fact, aimed to carry this Church a step onward,
and to substitute Jesus the Christ as the actual person
ality of the “ Logos.” But as the Acts says, some be
lieved and some did not, so a hundred years later we
find the leading spirit and apologist of this society,
Justin Martyr, holding both views and justifying
Christianity on the ground that Jesus was the Logos.
It is difficult to read the Epistles of Paul without
reaching to the conviction that the purport of religion
in his estimation was to reform the moral life of the
man’s “History of Christianity,” Book 2, chap, v., where the
Gnostic theories that so largely infected the Christianity of the
first and second centuries are treated at some length. In these
theories we have the “ Logos” idea which Plato had originally bor
rowed from the East in its primitive form, and Christ is represented
as one and chief of the "JEons,” or superior angels of the Great
Supreme. _ Both these systems ultimately led up to the formularies
of the Nicene and Athanasian creeds. In these the streams of
Eastern and Western philosophic thought met and mingled. After
a graphic delineation of these speculative fancies, the Dean says :
—“ Yet all these theorists preserved some decent show of respect
for the Christian faith, and aimed at an amicable reconciliation be
tween their own wild theories and the simpler gospel. It is .not im
probable that most of their leaders were actuated by the ambition
of uniting the higher and more intellectual votaries of the older
Paganism with the Christian community ; the one by an accommo
dation with the Egyptian, the others with the Syrian or Chaldean,
as in later times the Alexandrian school with the Grecian or
Platonic Paganism, and expected to conciliate all who would not
scruple to engraft the few tenets of Christianity which they re
served inviolate, upon their former belief. . . The Jewish char
acter of the Messiah gave way to a purely immaterial notion of a
celestial Redeemer and the painful realities of his life and death
were softened off into fantastic appearances.”
�Paul: The Disowned Apostle.
4i
world, was to promote truth and justice, soberness and
temperance, piety and holiness in the hearts and lives
of men. Exhortations to this new life—to this walk
ing in the light of a divine spirit rather than in the
lusts and passions of the flesh, occupy often the chief
portions of the Epistles which he wrote, and, as being
the most weighty counsels, they occupy the latter por
tions. The theology of Paul, however, varies with the
play of his fancy as he addresses Jew or Greek or deals
with men like the residents at Ephesus and Colosse,
who are steeped in the fanciful speculations of Eastern
philosophy. But the one common message that he
speaks to all is the summons to holiness and purity of
life.
Now, it was the mission of the “ Logos,” as Philo
delineated it, to infuse a sense of Divine purity into the
hearts of those whom it influenced. Philo says “ the
Logos ” is sinless and immortal; this is what Paul
claims for the Christ. Philo says that “ when the soul
strives after its best and noblest life, then the
‘ Logos ’ frees it from all corruption and confers upon it
the gift of immortality.” Moreover, Philo speaks of
the “Logos” as being the “ Saviour God.”
“ If, then, men have from their very souls a just con
trition and are changed and have humbled themselves
for their past errors, acknowledging and confessing their
sins, such persons shall find pardon from the Saviour
and merciful God, and receive a most choice and great
advantage of being made like the Logos of God, who
was originally the great archetype after which the soul
of man was formed.”—De Execrationibus.
Let the reader remember that twenty years before
Paul reached Rome, Philo had visited the city, and
taught his co-religionists this doctrine of the “ Logos, ’
and he will see that Paul had little of value to add
when he preached to them concerning Jesus and “ the
Christ.”
We know that the Jewish Christian Church of which
�42
Paul: The Disowned Apostle.
Peter and James were the leaders, became extinct
shortly after the downfall of Jerusalem, and but for
these wide-spread teachings of the “ Logos,” Paul’s
“ Christianity ” would doubtless have shared a similar
fate. The creeds of our modern churches, or rather
the dogmas which these creeds embody, were formu
lated at Alexandria, the home of Philo, where his
labours were given and his life spent, and where the
influence of his philosophy lingered long after he him
self had passed away.
Thus, although Paul’s ministry was everywhere
thwarted and disowned by those who were recognised
as the authorities of the early church, yet the seed of
his new gospel took root and flourished, because through
out the cities of the Roman Empire, whether in Italy,
Greece, Syria, or Egypt, there were colonies of Jews
who, by long and distant residence from Judea, were
but feebly attached to Judaism, and largely under the
influence of the Gentile philosophies ;■—these furnished
a ready soil for the reception of Paul’s gospel. The specu
lative “ Logos ” which these societies cherished readily
gave way to the more definite conception of a personal
“Christ,” and so the religion of Jesus, or the religion
rather that was founded upon his name and ministry,
while it became extinct on purely Jewish territory,
grew and flourished in Gentile countries, and furnished
the foundation on which the Christian Church that has
dominated the western world for so many centuries,
reposed.
The true worth of Christianity has been the high
morality it has breathed, but this high morality belonged
also to the holders of the “ Logos ” faith. Even Pagan
ism had philosophers, whose works, inculcating a moral
ity identical with that taught in the New Testament,
remain to this day. While Paul was a prisoner at
Rome, Seneca was a member of the Emperor’s house
hold. The imperial city held both at the same time,
�Paul: The Disowned Apostle.
43
one the favoured instructor of royalty, the other a
prisoner awaiting judgment.
Seneca who probably knew little if anything of Philo’s
writings concerning the “Logos,” and absolutely nothing
of Paul’s teaching concerning “ the Christ,” could yet
write in his well-known work on morals, “ A good man
is not only the friend of God, but the very image, the
disciple and the imitator of him, and the true child of
his heavenly Father. ”---“Epis.” 26.
Again Seneca taught, “many have pardoned their
enemies. Shall not I take them as an example, and
forgive a neglect, a little freedom of the tongue ? Nay,
the patience of but a second thought does the business.
But to sum up all in a word, the great lesson of man
kind as well in this as in all other cases is to do as we
would be done by.”
To such teaching as this, neither Paul nor Jesus
could find much to add. We cite it to shew that Paul
was in his day by no means even in the remote cities
of the Gentile world, the only preacher of the gospel of
righteousness and love. This teaching by Philo and
Gamaliel among the Jews, and by Seneca and the
philosophers among the heathen, largely prepared the
way for the teachings of Paul to develop into the forma
tion of a Christian Church.
We have now, however, to note the special and
peculiar doctrines of Paul’s gospel. These are mainly
to be found in the Epistle to the Bomans. First then,
we have the noble declaration that the Jews have no
special privilege before God ; that they have no favour
as his chosen children; that God cares for the Gentile
equally with the Jew, loves the good and punishes the
bad. This is well brought out in the following passage :
—“ Who (God) will render to every man according to
his deeds. To them, who by patient continuance in
well-doing, seek for glory, and honour, and immortality,
eternal life: But unto them that are contentious, and
do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, indig
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Paul: The Disowned Apostle.
nation and wrath.
Tribulation and anguish, upon
every soul of man that doeth evil, of the Jew first,
and also of the Gentile: but glory, honour, and peace
to every man that worketh good, to the Jew first, and
also to the Gentile. For there is no respect of persons
with God.”
To estimate how this teaching must have sounded in
the ears of the Jewish people whom Paul chiefly ad
dressed, we have only to imagine how a teacher would
fare to-day in Hindoostan who should teach that a
Sudra stood on the same spiritual level with the Brah
min, and that the twice-born had by virtue of his high
caste no superiority over the lowest Hindoo ; or how a
Catholic priest would fare at Pome who should venture
to declare that the Pope’s blessing had not an atom of
intrinsic worth, and that the church’s sacraments were
powerless to cancel the smallest sin. We can now well
understand why Paul after his conversion ventured so
seldom to Jerusalem, and the secret and stealthy nature
of such hasty visits as he did make. We can also
understand how the apostles who continued Jews must
have regarded as an enemy rather than as a coadjutor,
one who thus poured contempt upon Judaism.
Paul continues his argument against Judaism through
several chapters. Judaism was an exclusive faith, only
those born of the seed of Abraham could rightly share
its privileges. Paul had lived in too large a world to
share this narrow view. The Christ spirit he felt was
as broad as human nature, as wide as human needs.
God was the Father of all, and the good man, not the
born Jew, was his approved son.
The argument that opposed Paul was to the effect
that all men were involved in Adam’s sin, were by the
inherent vileness of human nature exiled and alienate
from God. But the Jew declared that God had made
a covenant of mercy with his forefathers, and had chosen
one race of men, and given to them a law obedience to
which cleansed them from this primal guilt, and justified
�Paul: The Disowned Apostle.
45
them in his sight. Paul argues in return that this law
is so strict that none could render it perfect obedience,
Pom. iii. v. 10-19, therefore none are justified by it, “ all
have sinned and come short of the glory of God.”
This law of works which none can render with fidelity
is therefore useless.
“ Where is the boasting then ? It is excluded. By
what law ? The law of works ? Nay ; but by the law
of faith (i.e., personal righteousness). Therefore we
conclude that a man is justified (approves himself be
fore God), by faith without the deeds (i.e., the sacrificial
ceremonies, circumcision, &c.), of the law. Is he the
God of the Jews only 1 is he not the God also of the
Gentiles ? Yes, of the Gentiles also. Seeing it is one
God which shall justify the circumcision by faith and
uncircumcision through the faith.” (Romans iii. 27-30.)
To Paul is due the credit of breaking down the
barrier of J ewish exclusiveness, and placing religion on
a universal basis. Of the greatness and value of this
work we are hardly able to be fair judges to-day. But
Paul is not rightly understood. Pew think of him to
day in connection with this noble aspect of his ministry,
The church that rightly understands Paul must teach
not only that Catholic and Protestant, but that Turk,
Jew, and Heathen are alike God’s children, and by
righteous and loving lives can approve themselves in
his sight, and be owned and blessed by him; that the
good Brahmin, the good Mahometan will share the
same heaven with the good Christian! This is the
gospel that those churches must preach who believe with
Paul that God is no respecter of persons. But where
throughout Christendom are such churches to be found
to-day ? Eighteen centuries have passed by and the
Christian Church still lags far behind the grand uni
versalism that Paul taught.
We shall perhaps be reminded here that in this and
other epistles Paul talks about the “ blood of Jesus” and
its efficacy to save souls, declares that he will know
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Paul: The Disowned Apostle.
only “ Christ and him crucified/’ He says too, “ God
commendeth his love towards us in that while we were
yet sinners Christ died for us. Much more then Being
now justified by -his blood shall we be saved from wrath
through him.” (Romans v. 8, 9.)
Of course it will be argued by the advocates of
orthodox Christianity that here we have a plain
enunciation of the doctrine of the atonement, and that
the atonement confines salvation exclusively to believers
in Christ, and thus makes Christianity an exclusive
faith—the one only religion; consequently good Ma
hometans and good Hindoos have no share in this
salvation, and are not justified, either by their religion
or their goodness, before God.
Now suppose that this were so, and that Paul did
actually teach as a cardinal doctrine of Christianity that
“ the blood of Jesus cleanseth from all sin,” and that
his crucifixion was an atonement for the sins of the
world, and that belief in this atonement, which the
blood of Christ constituted, was the one only way of
salvation. We say, suppose that Paul, instead of using
this language as a figure of fanciful rhetoric, intended
it to be accepted in a crude literal sense, and to be ex
pressive of an actual fact. Why, then our answer
would be that Paul was not reproducing the teaching
of Jesus, for Jesus taught nothing of the kind, neither
*
had this teaching the sanction of the Apostolic Church,
whose teachers contented themselves with the declara
tion that Jesus was the Messiah, and who everywhere
opposed and denounced the teaching of Paul as being
destitute alike of authority and of truth. If, therefore,
♦ Although, as a Jew Jesus took part in the great national feasts,
and had some reverence for temple worship, yet as an Essene or one
desirous of subjecting the national faith to a fundamental reform,
he had outgrown the belief in sacrifices as being useful or accept
able religious rites. The writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews
claims this much for Jesus, and quotes the previously attempted
reforms of Prophets and Psalmists as his warrant. “ Sacrifice and
offering thou didst not desire, then said I, lo I come (in the volume
of the book it is written of me), to do thy. will, 0 God ! ”
�Paul: The Disowned Apostle.
47
the doctrine of the atonement was Paul’s gospel, it
most certainly was not the gospel of Jesus or his
Apostles. Of course , all sensible men will repudiate
any reverence for authority which is claimed for the
teacher, apart from the intrinsic worth or excellence of
the teaching. But surely to those who pride themselves
on being orthodox Christians the authority of Jesus
will be reverenced before that of Paul! Speaking
individually, I regard Paul’s as being by far the grander
Gospel; both intellectually and spiritually he teaches
from a higher level, and occupies a broader platform.
But if it could really be shown that Paul taught this
doctrine of the crucifixion of Jesus constituting an
atonement for sin, my instant reply would be that he
was labouring under a great and fatal error, and that
he had mistaken the fancies of his own fertile brain for
the eternal truths of God ! But Paul taught nothing
of the kind. We have seen the greatness of the work
he took in hand, the isolation in which he stood, the
deep-seated prejudices he had to encounter. One of
the chief of these prejudices on the part of the Jewish
people was that God was so pure and man so vile, that
an impassable gulf intervened between the two, so that
of and by himself man could not venture to approach
God even in prayer, could not hold communion with
the Supreme, was altogether alienated from him, was
lost to the divine regard. Out of this vile mass of
human depravity sunk in sin before God, it was
asserted by the Jews that one favoured nation was
chosen, to whom alone of all the peoples of the earth
God would consent to be gracious. Abraham by an
act of mighty faith came to be accounted righteous
before God, and won the promise of blessing to all his
seed. Hence the Jews became a chosen people, and by
offering the ordained sacrifices of the law were able to
cleanse themselves from the innate depravity that
attached to them through Adam’s sin, and so purified,
they were permitted to worship before the Holy of
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Paul: The Disowned Apostle.
Holies in the temple, and to rank as the favoured
children of God. By this process they were “justified.”
Observe justification means admission to the offices of
public worship—cleansing from the stain of original
sin—fitness to hold divine communion; it does not
mean what is now meant by the “ Salvation of the
soul,” viz., the assurance of a blessed immortality ; it
means only the preliminary cleansing of a sinful nature
so as to fit it to serve and worship a pure and holy
God. It is the rending of the veil, which like that in
the temple, screened the Divine presence from the
profane gaze.
The gospel of Jesus was at first preached only to
Jews, or to those Gentiles who became Jewish prose
lytes, as alone concerning them. When, however, Paul
found Gentiles willing to accept its fundamental teach
ings, and to reverence Jesus as the great prophet of the
new faith, yet staggering at the idea of becoming Jews
and submitting to circumcision, Paul, whose mission
was chiefly to these outsiders, and whose hope of
spreading Christianity lay almost entirely with them,
found these requirements to be a serious stumblingblock. The uncircumcised heathen could not offer the
necessary sacrifice, nor yet participate by proxy in the
daily sacrifice offered by the priests in the Temple at
Jerusalem. How then could the favour of God include
them ? Now, although Paul had come to feel that no
sacrifice was needed, he had yet to speak to a people
who, whether Jews or heathens, could not conceive of
religious acceptance without it, the first and most deeprooted article of whose religious faith was to the effect
that “ without blood there could be no remission of sin.”*
Jesus had taught, “ Blessed are the pure in heart, for
* We may form some idea of the extreme tenacity with which
this belief was held, and of the impossibility of uprooting it by any
assertion of its fallacy, by calling to mind the approving crowds
that in this so-called enlightened age gather to listen to a Moody
or a Spurgeon, when they teach this doctrine in its crudest and
most disgusting form.
�Paul: The Disowned Apostle.
49
they shall see God.” As, however, no gospels were
written in Paul’s day, and Paul knew nothing person
ally of Jesus, it is doubtful whether he had heard of
this teaching. His knowledge of Philo’s “ Logos,” from
which he pourtrays his ideal Christ, was, however, to
the effect, “ that when the soul of man strives after its
best and noblest life, then the 1 Logos’(acting on behalf of
God) frees it from all corruption, and confers upon it the
gift of immortality.” De C. Q. Erud. Gratia. Believing
the crucified Jesus to be this very “ Logos,” Paul feels
that Jesus, by the influence of his teaching, can
“justify” the souls of those who accept it. But Paul
has this deep-seated prejudice about the efficacy of
“sacrificial blood” to contend with. So preaching
Jesus crucified, his ready imagination prompts him to
humour a prejudice he cannot hope either to enlighten
or destroy—to speak to all men in their own language,
in harmony with their own ideas—to be as a Jew
while speaking to Jews, and as a Greek while address
ing Greeks, and so he boldly uses the familiar concep
tion, and talks of the “ blood of Jesus cleansing from
all sin;” speaks of Jesus as one “whom God hath
set forth to be a propitiation, through faith in his
blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of
sins that are past, through the forbearance of God.”
Here Paul palpably betrays that by blood he means
righteousness, and he implies that the same righteousness
which approved Jesus to God will be amply sufficient
for every righteous, and trusting, and repentant soul.
*
The things at issue were the law of sacrificial ceremony
instituted by Moses and the law of personal righteous
ness proclaimed by Jesus. This latter is Paul’s gospel,
and Paul here asserts that this is able to justify those
* In the Epistle to the Corinthians, where Paul so emphatically
states that as the foundation of his teaching he will preach Christ
and him crucified, the passage is perhaps more properly rendered
“ Christ, even him crucified,” that is, he will preach Christ, not on
account o/his crucifixion, but in spite of the infamy and degradation
which this had seemed to have cast upon his reputation.
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Paul: The Disowned Apostle.
who accept it. John the Baptist preached repentance
for the remission of sin. Jesus carried on the teaching,
and Paul, under the figurative phrases of the “ blood of
Jesus” and “faith,” teaches justification and salvation,
remission, that is, of sin, by that righteousness which is
the direct fruit of all true repentance.
It will be needless, after this exposition of Paul’s use
of figurative language, to notice any other of the numer
ous passages in his writings which speak of the atoning
efficacy of the death of Jesus.
*
An acquaintance with the works of Philo suffices to
show very clearly and very convincingly that in all the
numerous passages which exalt the person, and work,
and office of Jesus as “the Christ,” to a rank scarcely
subordinate to God (for which see the Epistles to the
Ephesians, Colossians, &c.), Paul, or the unknown
writer of these epistles, if, as many suppose, they were
not the product of his authorship, was merely attaching
to Jesus, as “ the Christ,” the attributes and offices that
Philo had used to delineate the “ Logos.”! The really
* Paul virtually says, that the sacrifices of Jews or of Gentiles
are of no religious efficacy, and may altogether be dispensed with.
If, however, those whom he addresses like the sacrificial idea they
may, if they please, consider the death of Jesus as a sacrificial act.
Not by any means that it was one, but that the conception may be
useful, first to help their thought, and secondly as a means of
spiritualising the sacrificial idea preparatory to its utter abolition.
No sacrifice is really needed. Consider Jesus, he says, as having
become a sacrifice through his death, if you cannot divest your
mind of the necessity of the rite, or what is better, be yourselves
as living sacrifices to God. “ I beseech you therefore ,brethren, by
the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice,
holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.”—
(Rom. xii. 1.) And this was to be done by the transformation
and renewal of their minds.
+ The Epistles to the Colossians, Ephesians, and Philippians,
were written from Rome, but grave doubts have been of late enter
tained as to whether they are genuine epistles of Paul, or whether
they were not written at a much later date by a Pauline Christian
using Paul’s name. The Epistles to Timothy and the Hebrews are
most decidedly the products of a later age, and, therefore, though
attributed to Paul, are not the product of his pen. So it may have
been with the epistles above mentioned. In these epistles the
character of the argument is altogether changed, and they are
�Paul: The Disowned Apostle.
$i
valuable portion of Paul’s writings are the stirring calls
which he gives to a newer and higher moral life. These
constitute them teachings for all time, and veritable
utterances of divine wisdom, yet to be read with under
standing and discernment, and their spirit caught and
applied to the society, and needs, and circumstances of
to-day rather than to be interpreted in a strictly literal
sense.
There is, however, in the 8th and 9th chapters of this
letter to the Romans, a teaching which has given rise
to the most painful perplexities of thoughtj which has
made numbers of simple and devout minds miserable,
and which has gone far to furnish madhouses with
religious lunatics. It is the teaching which seems to'
assert the uncontrolled sovereignty of God, for the pur
pose of raising him above his own great laws of righte
ousness and love, through which alone we are able
justly to conceive of him, and which teaching, asserting
the doctrines of election and predestination, opposes the
existence of man’s freedom of will, and nullifies the
merit or value of a good and righteous life.
The following are the passages in question. They
constitute the foundation and authority for the Calvin*
istic system of religion, which tinges so largely a por
tion of our Protestant churches, and which finds a place
in the articles of the Church of England.
replete with speculative theories as to the relation of Christ to the
“powers” and “aeons” of the fanciful Gnostic systems of the Eastern
philosophies. As, however, we attach no special authority to Paul,
the question of actual authorship is immaterial. We read these
epistles simply as the adaptation of Christ, as the personification
of the Alexandrian Logos, to the “aeons,” and “ powers,” and
“ pleroma ” of Gnostic theories.
* We quote here Burns’ memorable description of Calvinism, as
its doctrines were taught in the Church of Scotland.
“ 0 thou who in the heavens dost dwell,
Who as it pleases best Thysel’,
Sends ane to heaven and ten to hell
All for thy glory,
And not for any gude or ill
They’ve done afore ye 1 ”
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Paul: The Disowned Apostle.
“ For whom He did foreknow, he did also predestinate to be
conformed to the image of His Son, that he might be the first
born among many brethren.
“Moreover, whom He did predestinate, them he also
called ; and whom he called, them he also justified, and whom
he justified, them he also glorified.
“ Who shall lay anything to the charge of God’s elect ? It
is God that justifieth. Who is he that condemneth ? ” chap,
viii. 29, and following verses.
Again in the following chapter, though a virtual part of the
same argument :—
“As it is written, Jacob have I loved and Esau have I
hated.
“ What shall we say then ? Is there unrighteousness with
God? God forbid.
“ For he saith to Moses, ‘ I will have mercy on whom I
will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will
have compassion.”
“ So then it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that
runneth, but of God who showeth mercy. . . . Therefore hath
he mercy on whom he will have mercy, and whom he will he
hardeneth.
“ Thou wilt say then unto me, Why doth he yet find fault ?
For who hath resisted his will ? Nay, but 0 man, who art
thou that repliest against God ? Shall the thing formed say
to him that formed it, Why hast thou made me thus ?
“Hath not the potter power over the clay, of the same
lump to make one vessel unto honour, and another to dishonour ?
“What if God, willing to show his wrath, and to make his
power known, endured with much long-suffering the vessels
of wrath fitted to destruction; and that he might make
known the riches of his glory on the vessels of mercy, which
he had afore prepared unto glory.
“ Even us, whom he hath called, not of the Jews only, but
also of the Gentiles ? ”
Nothing can well exceed the apparent plainness of this
language in enunciating doctrines that do violence to any
right or sober thought of the righteousness, or justice,
or widespread love of God. We have no hesitation in
denouncing the doctrines of the Calvinistic theology as
being at once brutal and barbarous. They break down
the throne of divine justice, and set up the grim idol
of divine caprice; they mock the divine love by the
�Paul: The Disowned Apostle.
53
declaration of a divine favouritism, and shock our sense
of a God “ who is righteous in all his ways, and holy
in all his works,” by the grim conception of a Moloch
who has created the larger portion of humanity to be
vessels of everlasting wrath. But we do sad injustice
to Paul to make him to be the sanction or authority of
such dismal and blasphemous beliefs.
We ask, were Paul writing a statement of religious
doctrine to the churches of this nineteenth century,
would he, think you, write to them in the strain of the
above quoted passages ? Or what would be thought of
this teaching, if to-day we heard it for the first time ?
In the 6th, 7th, and 8th chapters of the 2d Book
of Esdras (Old Testament Apocrypha), the reader will
find a clear and plain enunciation of the doctrine of
election or divine favouritism, and of the uncontrolled
sovereignty of God as freeing the Eternal from alle
giance to his own moral laws.
*
*The Apocryphal Books of the Bible are those Jewish scriptures
which were written subsequent to the closing of the Old Testa
ment canon, yet prior to the commencement of the Christian era.
The second Book of Esdras was one of the later of these scriptures;
dating in its original portions just previously to the Christian era,
sundry portions of it date from a later period. As these books
have now but a limited circulation, and have long ceased to appear
as a portion of Protestant Bibles, it will be useful to reproduce a
few passages illustrative of the views that were current in Jewish
thought before Paul’s day, and with which he was doubtless
familiar.
Ch. iii. 21.—“ For the first Adam (or man) bearing a wicked
heart transgressed and was overcome, and so do all they
that are born of him!” Jn ch. vi. we have the doctrine enunci
ated of Jewish election and Gentile exclusion. “ 0 Lord, thou
madest the world for our sakes. As for the other people
which also come of Adam, thou hast said that they are nothing
but be Wee unto spittle; and hast likened the abundance of
them unto a drop that falleth from a vessel. And now 0 Lord,
behold these heathen which have ever been reputed as nothing
have begun to be lords over us, and to devour us.
But we,
thy people, whom thou hast called thy first-born, thy only
begotten, and thy fervent lovers, are given into their hands. If
the world now be made for our sakes, why do we not possess
an inheritance with the world ? How long shall this endure ? ”
The supreme authority of God is shown in the 19th verse
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Paul: The Disowned Apostle.
This, if we may venture to use a term which orio-inated many hundred years subsequently, was the “ Calvinistic ” teaching of an age just prior to that of Paul.
Another of the remarkable writings of the period
just antecedent to the Christian era was the “ Book of
*
Enoch. This was evidently one of the sources whence
Paul derived his gospel of Justification by faith or
righteousness.. The doctrine of righteousness by the
grace of God, is here exemplified in the life of Enoch,
who is called “ the scribe of righteousness/’ and after
his translation, “ one son of man who is born unto
righteousness.”
“And he (Enoch) spoke with all
his children about righteousness, and said . . .
My beloved, love righteousness, and walk in the same,
and do not approach righteousness with a double
heart .... I swear unto you, ye righteous, that in
heaven the angels think of you for good before the
glory of the Great One • that your names are written
of the 7th chapter—“ And he said unto me, There is no judge
above God, and none that hath understanding above the
Highest.”
This sovereignty of God is urged mainly for the purpose of
showing that notwithstanding this predestination of the Gen
tiles to divine wrath, God, if he pleases, can include them
in his pardoning love, and will do this if they show themselves
righteous.
“ I answered then and said, I know Lord that the Most
High is called merciful in that he hath mercy upon them that
are not yet come into the world, and upon them also that
turn to his law, and that he is patient and long-suffereth those
that have sinned, . . . and that he is of great mercy, and that
he multiplieth more and more mercies to them that are
present, and that are past, and also to them which are
to come. For if he shall not multiply his mercies, the world
would not continue with them that inherit therein. And he
pardoneth ; for if he did not so of his goodness, that they
which have committed iniquities might be eased of them, the
ten-thousandth part of men should not remain living, and
being judge if he should not forgive them that are cured
with his word, there should be very few left, peradventure in
an innumerable multitude.”—Ch. viii. 62-70.
• * C0Py A
Book, which had long been lost, was discovered
in Abyssinia by the traveller Bruce, and being brought by him
to this country, was translated by Archbishop Laurence.
�Paul: The Disowned Apostle.
55
down before the glory of the Great One. Hope, for
before ye had shame and misfortune and misery, and
now ye shall shine as the lights of heaven, and ye shall
be seen, and the gate of heaven shall be opened unto
you.”—Enoch civ. 1, 2.
Mr Ernest De Bunsen, from whose interesting work
on “ The Hidden Wisdom of Christ,” the above extract
is taken, adds the following comment:—
“ Atonement by Righteousness.-—It is because of the
prayer and not of the blood of the righteous that 1 the
plant of righteousness and of right shall appear.’
Whilst nothing is said in favour of bloody sacrifices,
and whilst the sinners are blamed for eating blood, the
latter are reminded that an account of their sins is kept
in heaven, and that since they do not know any ‘ ran
som,’ they will depart and die. It is evident, therefore,
that according to Palestinian, as according to Alex
andrian Apocryphal tradition, 1 to forsake unrighteous
ness is a propitiation,’ the ‘ransom’ needed for sins
committed; but that no sacrifice atones in the sight
of God. Although the blood of the righteous has been
shed, it does not atone, but is atoned for (i.e., recom
pensed) by the Lord of Hosts in the day of judgment.
*
The writer of the Book of Enoch knows of no other
atonement for sin than that by righteousness.”
Now, in preaching this doctrine of “justification by
righteousness,” mistakenly understood, and taught by
Protestant Churches in the very opposite sense of being
salvation by “ blood ” and by “ belief,” Paul was met
on the part of the Jews by a powerful and apparently a
crushing rejoinder, “ On what authority ” they would
doubtless ask, “ do you teach this wide-spread love of
God extending to all good men whether they be Gentiles
or Jews? We have a law given by God himself to
our fathers, teaching the very reverse of this, declaring
the efficacy of sacrificial blood to atone -for sin, and
limiting the divine love and care to us alone, who are
* Enoch, chap, xlvii.
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Paul: The Disowned Apostle.
Abraham’s children. This law God himself declared
should be eternal, ‘ lasting as the sun and enduring as
the days of heaven.’ It is blasphemy to say that this
covenant is ended, that this law has ceased, that God
has broken his sacred promise, that the Unchangeable
has changed his purpose ! ” This was no light difficulty
in the way of Paul’s ministry. It appealed to the
deepest and most heartfelt convictions of every Jew,
and it taxed alike the learning and the controversial
skill of even such a master-mind as Paul’s to give it an
effectual answer. But Paul was equal to the occasion.
He virtually replies there is no change whatever in the
divine purpose. This new covenant was fore-ordained
and predestined of God. God foresaw all these myriad
peoples of the Gentile world, and in his large mercy
designed a plan to save them, a larger covenant which
should include them also. God is uncontrolled. He
is Sovereign Lord of all, he does what he wills, and
what he wills is right. He will have mercy on whom
he pleases, and no covenant he has made with you can
hinder him. As well might the clay cry out against
the potter, as man arraign the doings of God. And
this shewing forth of his mercy is no change of his will.
When God made this covenant with your fathers, he
foresaw and fore-ordained that in the fulness of time
Christ should come, and that then the Gentiles should
have his mercy extended to them. And this was God’s
everlasting purpose. He had predestined these Gentiles
to this eventual admission to his favour. What seems
to you like a broken pledge is to him a faithful, and
purposed and beneficent act. Moreover, as Jews there
is little for you to complain of in this abolition of your
law, seeing that by this law you could never be justified
because you could never fully obey it. Hitherto you
have been justified not of right, but by God’s favour.
And this favour was a free gift, and now it is extended
to all people. Do you ask “ Hath God then cast away
his people ? God forbid 1 ” In Christ the Jews are not
�Paul: The Disowned .Apostle.
57
repudiated, but Jew and Gentile are made one, and the
wall of partition is broken down. God’s mercy is large
enough to embrace alike the disobedient Jew (and all
are included in this disobedience) and the alienated
Gentile. God, says Paul, had included them all in un
belief, i.e. in unfaithfulness, that he might have mercy
upon all, 11 For all have sinned and come short of his
glory.”—Rom. iii. 23 ; see also chaps, viii. to x. And
as a climax to this declaration of the universal love,
Paul bursts out in enthusiastic admiration, “0 the
depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge
of God ! how unsearchable are his judgments, and his
ways past finding out.”—Rom. xi. 33.
It may seem a paradox, but it is nevertheless a great
fact, that Paul taught this doctrine of “ predestination
and election,” for the sole purpose of effecting its des
truction. The Jews already held it and based their
exclusive right to the divine favour upon it. They
themselves were, they asserted, the elect and predestined
favourites of heaven, and all the heathen peoples were
vessels of divine wrath. Paul replies that this is per
haps true as regards the past, only God has predestined
and elected the Gentile peoples to be his eventual
favourites also. In the eternal purposes of his wisdom,
he has chosen to have mercy upon all men, and the ful
ness of time has come for this purpose to take effect.
And what right have you, he asks, to dispute this1?
How dare you to say that God is prevented from shew
ing this mercy by some covenant he has made with you ?
God is supreme and uncontrolled, “ whom he will he
pardons, and whom he will he hardeneth.” The purpose
of Calvinism in framing these doctrines, which Paul
thus emphasizes, into a religious system was for the
purpose of limiting the pardoning mercies of God; was
to shew how few would be saved, and how many would
be lost, and the form of words which Paul used was
made to be the foundation on which this system rested,
yet the whole tenor of Paul’^rgument was to enlarge
�58
Paul: The Disowned Apostle.
the boundaries of the divine love, and to teach that God
would have all men to be saved. When the Jew says
that God had predestined his nation to be his elect ones,
Paul answers, that God bad also predestined that his
favour should eventually reach and include the Gentiles.
We see thus that, when his language is rightly and
reasonably understood, Paul neither taught “justification
by doctrinal belief,” nor “ salvation by sacrificial blood,”
nor yet the capricious choice by God of an elect few to
share his mercy and the equally capricious condemna
tion of the multitude to reprobation and endless torment.
To sum up, we recall the reader’s attention to the
fact that Paul taught a religion of his own, and that
he did not reproduce, except in its moral aspects, the
religion which Jesus had taught; that the followers
and apostles of Jesus were the bitter opponents and
persecutors of Paul; * that Paul’s estimate of “ Christ ”
was the idea of a man filled with a divine spirit of
goodness; that “justification by faith” meant with him
justification by righteousness; that redemption by the
“ blood of Jesus ” meant only redemption by the teach
ing and spirit of Jesus, in other words, by goodness and
* It is doubtless to Paul that the ■writer of the Book of Revela
tion alludes in his message to the church at Ephesus, which Paul
founded, and where he resided for two years, but from which he
was driven by persecution instigated by the Judaizing members of
the church, viz., “I know thy works, and thy labours, and thy
patience, and know thou canst not bear them that are evil, and
thou hast tried them which say they are apostles ancl are not, and
hast found them liars,” ch. ii. 2. Again, in the Acts we read, ch.
xvi. 14—“ And a certain woman named Lydia, a seller of purple
of the city of Thyatira, which worshipped God, heard us ; whose
heart the Lord opened that she attended unto the things which
were spoken of Paul. And when she was baptized and her house
hold, she besought us, saying, If ye have judged me to be faithful
to the Lord, come into my house and abide there. And she con
strained us.” There is good ground for supposing that it is to this
female friend of Paul that the writer of the Book of Revelation
makes the following coarse allusion, see chap. ii. 18-20 : “ And unto
the angel of the Church in Thyatira write * * * I know thy works
and charity and patience * * * Notwithstanding I have a few
things against thee, because thou sufferest that woman ‘ Jezebel’ (a
name of infamy from the Old Testament applied by way of re-
�Paul: The Disowned Apostle.
59
righteousness of life. We have shown also that Paul
preached no exclusive religion, hut proclaimed a universal faith, and so far from teaching any doctrine of
atonement he emphatically declares that “ God is not
mocked, but that as a man sows so shall he also reap.”
Paul however was no legitimate apostle, yet his teaching
is the basis of modern Christianity, and the teaching
and church of the actual apostles are alike extinct.
Paul is therefore the only so-called apostle from whom
any pretence of “ apostolic succession ” can be traced,
and a gulf of discordant and divergent doctrine separates
him from the society that Jesus formed. In a higher
and truer sense, however, Paul was by far the best and
bravest and most eminent apostle that Christianity can
boast. As he himself declares, “ in labours he excelled
them all,” and in learning, and devotion, and enthu
siasm, and zeal he was equally pre-eminent. He is the
true founder of the Christian religion, and though he
repudiated the Jewish limitation of Jesus’ ministry, he
was perhaps by far the truest exponent of his teachings,
the one most worthy to carry on his work. Blemishes
there doubtless were in his character—he was impetuous,
overbearing, and hasty—■ but his many excellences
amply suffice to cover these minor and incidental defects.
In the religious history alike of the world or of Christ
endom he occupies no secondary place, and there are
few, if any, names that could justly be placed before
his. We claim Paul as the first great teacher of Uni
versal Eeligion, of God’s boundless love extending to
proach, see 2 Kings, v. 30), which calleth herself a prophetess, to
teach and to seduce my servants to commit fornications (a strong
figure of speech for religious error), and to eat things sacrificed to
idols.. (Paul’s doctrine, see Corinth, x. 25, et sequent.) * * * I
will give unto every one of you according to your works * * * But
unto you I say and unto the rest in Thyatira, as many as have not
this doctrine, and which have not known the depths of Satan, as
they speak, I will put upon you none other burden.” Again, the
following passage from the Epistle of James is thought to have
direct reference to Paul, “But wilt thou know, 0 vain man, that
faith without works is dead.” Eph. ii. 20.
�60
Paul: The Disowned Apostle.
all his creatures ; we claim him as the great prophet of
Absolute Religion, of religion divested of the trammels
of church usages and church rites; we assert for him
the proud privilege of being the first actual founder of
Rational Religion, and we claim for him that in so doing,
he most truly interpreted the mind of Jesus; lastly,
we claim for Paul that he was the virtual creator and
expounder of the “ Christ idea,” that to him alone this
idea owes its continued existence in the Christian
Church ; and though for centuries this brave and gianthearted man has been understood in a false light, and
credited with opinions that he as a Christian apostle
never held, and with beliefs he would have altogether
repudiated, yet the day is dawning when his character
will be read in a truer light, his teaching more clearly
understood, and himself more highly and more truthfully
reverenced.
TURNBULL AND SPEARS, PRINTERS, EDINBURGH.
�
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Paul: the disowned Apostle. A survey of the origin of Christianity
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Lake, John W. (John William) [1823-1899]
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Oi a.00
-PLATO, PHILO, AND PAUL;
OR,
THE PAGAN CONCEPTION OF A “DIVINE LOGOS” SHEWN
TO HAVE BEEN THE BASIS OF THE CHRISTIAN
- DOGMA OF THE DEITY OF CHRIST.
BY
BEV. J. W. LAKE.
“ Christianity conquered Paganism, hut Paganism infected Christianity. The rites of the
Pantheon passed into her worship, and the subtleties of the Academy into her creed.”—
Macaulay.
“ Godly men are called God-like, for God lives, forms, ordains and works in them all His
works;, and doth, so to speak, use Himself in them.”—Tauter.
i
.
>4
'J.
PUBLISHED BY THOMAS SCOTT,
NO. 11, THE TERRACE, FARQUHAR ROAD,
UPPER NORWOOD, LONDON, S.E.
i
p,
v
•
Price One Shilling.
�“ To shew you openly my opinion, I say, that it is not absolutely
necessary for salvation to know Christ after the flesh ; but it is
altogether otherwise if we speak of the ‘ Son of God,’ that is, of
the 'Eternal Wisdom of God,’ which is manifested in all things,
and chiefly in the human soul, and most of all in Jesus Christ.
Without this wisdom, no one can come to the state of happiness,
for it is this alone which teaches what is true and what is false,
what is good and what is evil. As to what certain churches add,
that God took human nature, I expressly declare that I do not
know what they say, and to speak frankly, I confess that they
seem to me to speak a language as absurd as if one were to say
that a circle had taken the nature of a triangle.”-—Spinoza, Letter
to a Friend.
“ Behold ! behold the God whom every spirit adores,
Whom Abraham served, of whom Pythagoras dreamed,
Whom Socrates announced, with whom Plato conversed,
That God whom the universe reveals to reason,
Whom justice waits for, whom the unfortunate hopes for,
And whom at length Christ came to shew to the world ;
This is not that Deity fabricated by man,
That God ill explained by imposture,
That God disfigured by the hands of false priests,
Whom our credulous ancestors trembling worshipped,
He alone is, He is One, He is just, He is good,
The earth sees His work, and the heaven knows His name.”
[From a French poem addressed by Lamartine to the Abbe
De Le Mennais, quoted in Hunt’s Essay on Pantheism.]
�DEDICATION.
To the Bishops and Clergy of the Church of England,
to those Dissenting Ministers who hold and teach the
so-called orthodox faith, but especially to the intelligent
and thoughtful among the English Laity, this pamphlet
is dedicated.
It is a condensed, comprehensive, and connected
survey of religious history, and in discerning the simple
facts which that history records, it sees and shows that
the present fundamental dogmas of the national
religion, viz., the “ Deity of Jesus ” and the “ Atone
ment for Sin, said to be effected through the merits of
his death,” are plain and palpable delusions.
History must itself be rewritten, and all its pro
minent facts reversed, ere this position can be refuted.
The overwhelming and conclusive evidence on which it
rests, is now brought, for the first time, in simple,
clear, and connected form, before the masses of the
English people, and possibly the facts adduced, will be
new to many of the clergy also.
Refutation is fearlessly challenged, for we have but
given a mere outline of the evidence we possess, and
could easily supply volume after volume of added
proofs.
This pamphlet will he widely circulated, and the
people possessed of the knowledge it imparts, will
�4
Dedication.
increasingly come to despise and contemn, as ignorant
or untruthful men, a clergy who, in the face of the
information which is here given, shall continue to pro
pagate known and proven fallacies as the eternal Truths
of God.
The hour for a new Religious Reformation has struck,
and it rests with the clergy of the National Church to
determine whether they will rank among its honoured
leaders, or he swept away as an effete priesthood by its
waves.
�PLATO, PHILO, AND PAUL.
HE belief that Christ was God, may be said to be
the foundation doctrine of the Christian Church.
Christianity, both sacerdotal and evangelical,—both
Romish and Calvinistic, makes this belief to be a
fundamental doctrine. There are few Christians, how
ever, who would not feel it something akin to gross
irreverence, were they asked to express this belief in
other language, and to assert that Jesus of Nazareth,
the peasant teacher of Judea, whom the Jewish priests
accused of blasphemy, and got crucified by the Romans
for sedition, was the Almighty maker and framer of the
myriads of worlds that stud the vast infinity of space !!
To express the doctrine in this form, is instinctively
felt to be akin to ridicule, and we are immediately told
that we do wrong thus to confuse the two natures of
Jesus, who was both God and Man,—who, in the
former capacity, was the creator of the world, but who,
as man, was like other men, subservient to the laws of
nature, and subject to the adverse fortunes and ordinary
discipline of human life.
Again, the Church of England defines God as being
“ a Spirit,” and consequently, destitute of “body, parts,
and passions; ” how then, we ask, can Jesus, who was
a man like ourselves, and who had “ body, parts, and
passions,” be God ? The question is unanswerable, in
any way consistent with an intelligent belief in the
dogma of the Godhead of Christ; and this dogma, as
held and taught by the churches of Christendom, is a
T
�6
Plato, Philo, and Paul.
gross and idolatrous superstition. Jesus was man, and
only man, was doubtless a good, earnest, devout, and
pure-minded man, was possibly pre-eminent, in an
intense degree, in all the virtues and excellences that
ennoble our humanity ; but still he was only man. We
know but little of his actual life, many years of which
are veiled in an impenetrable darkness, which no light
of history illumines, and the account we have of the
(two or three) brief years of his public ministry, is so
loosely and dubiously recorded, that we have no means
of estimating his true and actual character ; all we really
know concerning him is, that he was a philanthropist
and religious reformer, and that living in an age, the
thought-currents of which were busy in lifting religion
from a sensual to a spiritual character, Jesus endorsed
the highest, and purest, and noblest thought of the
time, and wove it into a new religion, which constituted
the gospel he proclaimed.
The true duty of men with regard to him, is to
profit by his teachings, and to catch the pure and earnest
spirit of his life, not to believe in any special dogmas
as to the office he held, or the mystical nature he bore.
This dogma of the Deity of Christ has been the
main instrument in corrupting and debasing
Christianity. For Christianity, through the corrup
tions that have distorted it, has been often more of a
curse than a blessing to the world. It has caused
rivers of blood to flow, has again and again crushed
liberty under its foot, and, for centuries together, has
kept Europe in the mists and darkness of ignorance.
To-day, those countries are lowest in the scale of
European civilisation, where a Christian priesthood
rule in greatest power. Even in our own so-called free
and enlightened country, the Christian Church has
been the stumbling-block in the way of a true and
sound national education. We regard this dogma, then,
of the “ Deity of Christ,” as a pernicious and debasing
idolatry, and we proceed to lay bare its origin and
�Plato, Philo, and Paul.
7
history, to show it as being the corruption and travesty of
one of the grandest and noblest ideas that have lit and
elevated the human mind,—and so to make it abso
lutely impossible for men of honest and intelligent mind
to cherish this idea in its corrupt and idolatrous form.
In the early portions of the Bible, God is often
spoken of as having the form and passions of a man.
In Christ’s day, the more thoughtful and intelligent
minds had outgrown this gross and crude idea, and
Christ taught that God was a Spirit, and that he was
to be worshipped “ in spirit and in truth.” Christians,
however, have reproduced the gross ideas of an early
and ignorant age, by worshipping the teacher as God,
and by inventing a series of mystical dogmas through
which they have identified him with the Great Creator
of the universe.
Now, it is evident that the first lesson in religion
should be that which gives us a correct and worthy, if
not a complete and full conception of God. As Minucius Felix told a heathen of his day, so we also “should
know our Gods before we worshipped them.” For on
this knowledge and assurance the stability of our re
ligion depends. Unfortunately, the Bible gives us but
little help here. It asserts, but it does not explain,
much less reveal, the existence and nature of God.
Its assumed earliest words, “ In the beginning, God
made the heavens and the earth,” imply that the idea
of God is familiar to the reader’s mind. The early
chapters of the Book of Genesis belong, however, to
the later rather than to the earlier era of Jewish
history, are an adaptation of Chaldean legends, know
ledge of which was gained by the Jews, during their
captivity in Babylon, one thousand years after the death
of Moses. Almost down to the era of the captivity,
the Jews were idolaters, worshipped God under the
similitude of graven images, and practised many of the
rites of the Pagan peoples around them. As this
�8
Plato, Philo, and Paul.
assertion, however, runs so counter to the current
religious teaching, it is perhaps desirable to fortify it
by the following testimony of some of the most
learned biblical scholars of our age :—
“ For a long time after the building of Solomon’s Temple
(which event was itself five hundred years after the time of
Moses), sacrifices were offered on high places as well as at
the temple, and even by kings who were noted for their
piety and adherence to Jehovah’s laws, and for being
desirous, with all zeal, to promote the worship of Jehovah,
as Asa (1 Kings xv. 14), Jehosaphat (xxii. 44), Joash, the
pupil of the priests (2 Kings xii. 4), Amaziah (chap. xiv. 4),
Uzziah (chap. xv. 4), and Jotham (chap. xv. 35.) In the
Books of Kings and Chronicles, it is always pointed out as
blameable, that even these pious kings should have allowed
the worship in the high places to remain. But this is
merely the verdict of the author of these books which, in no
case, could have been composed before the Babylonian exile.
As the kings above named are depicted in everything else
as such zealous servants of Jehovah, we can scarcely think
that they would not have aimed at putting a stop to the
worship at high places, where sacrifices were offered to
Jehovah (?to Baal) at other altars besides that in the
Temple, if the Deuteronomic law, so expressly showing the
service to be contrary to the will of Jehovah, had been
acknowledged by them as Mosaic.”—Bleeps Introduction to
the Old Testament, Vol. I., p. 328.
Dr Samuel Davidson, the most eminent of English
biblical scholars, speaks with even greater plainness on
this matter, and shows clearly the crude ideas which
the Jews entertained concerning God, even down to
the period of the Babylonish captivity, one thousand
years after the time of Moses, from whom it is manifest
they could not have received the laws and teaching,
which the Pentateuch declares him to have given with
the authority of a special and supernatural revelation.
Dr Davidson says—
“It is remarkable that the fundamental doctrine of
Mosaism, viz., that there is but one God—the creator and
preserver of all, invisible, eternal, omnipotent, holy, and
�Plato, Philo, and Paul.
9
just,—was all along inadequately apprehended till the
captivity. A few choice spirits grasped it with sufficient
distinctness, and adhered to it, while to the mass of the
people, Jehovah was no more than a superior God beside
other deities. Polytheism had deeply penetrated the vulgar
mind, and though the nation frequently sought Jehovah
with convictions of sin and repentance, such conversions,
called forth by external circumstances, were transient in their
effects. A manifold idolatry, partly of Zabian and partly
of Egyptian orgin, had its altars in all the cities of the land,
in the streets of Jerusalem, and in the very Temple of
Jehovah, immediately before the exile, as we learn from
Jeremiah (chaps, vii., xliv.). There is no evidence to show
that the ceremonial law was observed by the Jews with any
thing like regularity or strictness. The great feasts them
selves, such as the Passover, the Feast of Tabernacles, &c.,
were allowed to fall into desuetude, as the historical books
attest. If the externals of religion were negligently attended
to, religion itself must have been sickly.”-—Introduction to
the Old Testament, Vol. I, p. 340.
Dr Kalisch, in his learned commentary on Leviticus,
shows, very convincingly, the late date of this book as
a whole.
“ It contains,” he says, “ ordinances respecting several
institutions, the existence or full development of which
cannot be proved until long after the captivity—such as the
Sin-offerings and the High priesthood, the Day of Atone
ment, and the Year of Jubilee. Now, it has been shown that
the Day of Atonement was unknown in the time of
Nehemiah, and as the Year of Jubilee was associated with the
Day of Atonement, the compilation of the Book of Leviticus
must fall later than that date, and we shall probably be
near the truth if we place the final revision of Leviticus and
the Pentateuch at about b.c. 400.” (That is 1100 years after
the time of Moses, its reputed author !)
Again, Dr Kalisch states that
“The notion of a holy God, governing a holy people, in
a holy land, was the latest product of religious thought, that
it pre-supposes an age very far in advance of that in which
the people danced round the golden image of the calf Apis,
exclaiming, ‘ These are thy gods, O Israel, who brought
thee up out of the Land of Egypt/ or of that in which
�io
Plato., Philo, and Paul.
Jepthah believed that he was presenting an acceptable
offering to God, by slaughtering his daughter as a
holocaust.”—Historical and Critical Commentary on the Old
Testament. Leviticus. Part II., pp. 637, 639.
These views, which are the established results of all
free and learned inquiry into the Hebrew scriptures,
revolutionize the popular conception with regard to
them, and show us very clearly that the grander,
though still imperfect conceptions of God, which these
scriptures contain, were only held during the later
period of Jewish history, the centuries immediately
preceding the Christian era. They prove that the idea
of God was not a matter of divine revelation, specially
given through Moses, but was a much later develop
ment of Jewish thought, and they leave it an open
question as to whether it was not an importation from
other and even higher faiths. We shall see that
while the people, whom we are mistakenly taught to
regard as being specially chosen and called of God, were
falling continually into the practice of the Syrian
idolatries, and were even participating in the gross
rites of Baal and Astarte, there were countries where a
far purer and truer worship prevailed, and there were,
in heathen lands, systems of philosophy extant, in
which infinitely higher and more worthy ideas of God
were held.
Five hundred years before Christ, the Jews were
mixing idolatrous rites with the worship of Jehovah,
were conceiving of Jehovah as a local god, superior in
power and majesty to the gods surrounding nations
worshipped. He was, to their thought, not a pervad
ing spirit, but a localised person,—a magnified man,
dwelling just above the clouds, ruling as a king, and
watching over the fortunes of the Jewish nation, giving
them the victory over their enemies. After the cap
tivity in Babylon, into which the Jews went as a nation
of idolaters, but from which they emerged as a band of
puritans, their thought of God took a much higher
�Plato, Philo, and Paul.
11
tone, and from this time, a system of Jewish philosophy
took its rise.
Of this philosophy, few traces are
discernible, till within a century or two of the
Christian era.
During this captivity they came in contact first with
the Chaldean religion, and subsequently with the
purer doctrines of the Persian faith. In the former,
they would have seen a gross idolatry from which they
probably shrank, but they would have also been
familiarised with a higher form of speculative thought
than they themselves had hitherto known. From the
Persian conquerors, however, they would have learned
a much higher faith, and have found a religion
strikingly like the best aspects of their own worship, but
with a speculative philosophy from which they had
much to learn. We find them consequently speaking
of the Persian monarch, Cyrus, as the anointed servant
of Jehovah ; and there is but little doubt that his
leniency to the Jews, in remitting their captivity, was
due largely to the similarity of their religion to his
own, to his respect for the monotheistic idea that
marked it.
From the Babylonians the Jews learned the stories,
or myths, of the creation of the world, the fall of man
and the flood. The recent finding among the ruins of
Babylon, by Mr Smith of the British Museum, of the
tablets on which the latter legend was recorded, ranks as
one of the great biblical discoveries of our day, and shews
us the source whence those legends were derived, which
Englishmen are still taught to regard as being special
revelations from God!
From the Persians, whose
religion was that taught by Zoroaster, the Jews
learned to hold far more sublime conceptions of God
than any they had hitherto known. Eusebius, quoting
in the fourth century from an old Persian record, gives
the following as the teaching of Zoroaster concerning
God:—
“ God is the first Being, incorruptible and eternal, un
�12
Plato, Philo, and Paul.
made and indivisible, altogether unlike to all his works,
the principle and author of all good, gifts cannot move bim;
He is the best of the good, and the wisest of the wise.
From Him proceed law and justice.”
This, however, was the philosophic idea of God, an
idea in close alliance, if not identical, with the Panthe
ism of the Hindoos, which makes God to he the
pervading force of nature. It is obvious that such a
God could not be worshipped by the Jews as a magni
fied man,—could not be an object of popular worship
at all,—could not be grasped by the popular mind. His
name was “ Zeruane Akerne,” signifying “ time with
out bounds,” or “ beginningless time,” or “the Eternal.”
But the Persians themselves could not worship such an
abstract being, so for practical purposes they had a
second and personal God, Ormuzd, God of light and
goodness, who has a powerful enemy, Ahriman, the
lord of evil and darkness; betwixt these there is con
tinual strife, in which the latter, like the Christian
“ devil,” of which he is the prototype, is destined to be
eventually overcome. Then there is the mediating and
reconciling God Mithras, who is sometimes worshipped
as the creating God also,—a being who is sometimes
distinct from, and sometimes identified with, Ormuzd,
who is worshipped as the reconciler between light and
darkness, and beyond Mithras, there is Honover,
the “Word” or Him who is eternal wisdom, and
whose speech is an eternal creation. “ Ormuzd is the
creation of the impersonal God, the living personal
deity, the first begotten of all things, the resplendent
image of infinitude, the being in whose existence is
imaged the fulness of eternal time and infinite space.
The sun is His symbol, yet the sun is but a spark of
the unspeakable splendour in which he dwells. What
ever the original One is, that is Ormuzd,—infinite in
light, in purity, in wisdom. But, as the first begotten
of the Eternal, his duration is limited to 12,000 years ;
as a personal deity He is finite ; He is a king, and
�Plato, Philo, and Paul.
13
has a kingdom which is not universal, for it is opposed
by the kingdom of Ahriman.” *
In the common thought the Persian religion, while
nominally monotheistic, seemed practically to recognise
the existence of two gods, a good god and an evil god ;
a god who ruled the light, and a god who ruled the
darkness ;—a beneficent god who^sent prosperity, and a
malignant god who strove to fill the world with
adversity. Such views would be likely to have special
attraction for the Jewish captives, as they would solve
for them the perplexing problem of their own present
adversity. The God on whom they had relied for the
permanence of their national prosperity, had allowed
his and their enemies to triumph, to destroy his sacred
temple, to profane the holy vessels, and to make his
chosen people captive.
This theology, therefore,
which taught that there was a bad and evil God, who
sometimes foiled the plans and marred the purposes of
the good God, offered a fair explanation of their diffi
culty. We find accordingly that the'belief in a dual
god, or rather in two opposing and distinct gods, won
considerable acceptance with them, and threatened to
undermine the monotheism that to the higher minds of
the Jewish people marked the national faith. This
is evident from the 45th chapter of Isaiah, which
seems to have been expressly written to combat this
perversion of their faith, and which, from the mention
it makes of Cyrus the Persian King, was evidently
written at the period of the return, by his permission
and direction, of a portion of the Jews from Babylon.
“ I am the Lord, and there is none else, there is no
God beside me. 1 form the light, I create darkness :
I make peace and create evil: I the Lord do all these
things."—Isaiah xlv. 5-7,
This dualism, however,
was never wholly eradicated, and from this date the
idea of an evil god entered the current of Jewish
* From an Essay on Pantheism, by Eev. J. Hunt.
�14
Plato.) Philo, and Paul.
thought, and the Persian Ahriman in due time developed
into the Devil of Christian theology.
But the higher aspects also of the religious thought
of the followers of Zoroaster, the great Persian lawgiver
or prophet, tinged from this time the subsequent
thought of Judaism.
It is singular that the Bible, as Protestants use it,
furnishes no record of the Jewish people during the
best and brightest portion of their religious history,
viz., the four or five centuries immediately preceding
the Christian era, and constituting the period of their
national life, that intervened between their return from
captivity and the ministry of Jesus. The apocryphal
books of Ecclesiasticus-—the Wisdom of Solomon—the
books of Esdras and of Maccabees, together with the
book of Enoch, not only supply the history of the
Jewish people during this period, but, what is of far
greater importance to our present enquiry, they show
us the progress and development of their religious
thought.
This progress was largely due to the
admixture of the higher and more recondite ideas
concerning deity, which marked the Persian theology,
with the cruder views of their own faith. Here they
first learned that God was not a magnified man, but
a pure and pervading spirit,—and as a step towards
His better apprehension, they imbibed the idea that the
creative and upholding providence of the world were
emanations from His essence, personifications, as it were,
of His power and wisdom. The pure, passionless spirit
could not, it was thought, come into contact with a
gross material world which was inherently depraved
and vicious, so the actual God that formed and ruled
the world, by whom men were upheld, and whom they
were bound to worship, was regarded as a Divine
personage, who acted as God’s vicegerent;—his wis
dom, his angel, or messenger, or word (Memra). The
Jews, however, learned also a more practical lesson, they
learned the ultimate triumph of righteousness as the
�Plato, Philo.) and Paul.
i5
purposed discipline of God, and they gathered from the
functions of the mediating God, Mithras, the ideas
which fashioned the expectation of their own Messiah.
Good and evil blended promiscuously in the world, so
the Persians held, because Ormuzd and Ahriman, the
good and evil Gods, were in perpetual strife, and some
times the good, and at other times the evil God was in
the ascendancy. A period, however, was looked for
at which Ahriman and his followers were to be finally
exterminated (the devil and his angels will be cast into
the bottomless pit as the Book of Revelation repro
duces the thought), when the earth, divested of all the
mountains that roughen its surface, would become the
habitation of happy men, the members of one great
community, speaking the same language, and animated
by the same vital and universal principle. Between
those powers who are perpetually at variance, Zoroaster
placed a mediatory being, Mithras, whose business it was
to overcome the powers of darkness, and to bring all
things under the control of Ormuzd, the beneficent
deity. Mithras had his symbol in the sun, which
luminary was to the Persians the symbol of the good
and beneficent God.
So Mithras is spiritual light
contending with spiritual darkness, and through his
labours the kingdom of darkness shall be lit with
heaven’s own light,—the Eternal will receive all things
back into his favour, the world will be redeemed to
God.
The impure are to be purified and the evil
made good, through the mediation of Mithras, the
reconciler of Ormuzd and Ahriman. Mithras is the
Good, his name is Love. In relation to the Eternal he
is the source of grace, in relation to man he is the life
giver and mediator.
He brings the “Word,” as
Brahma brings the Vedas, from the mouth of the
Eternal. (See Plutarch “ De Isid et Osirid,” also Dr
Hyde’s “DeReligione Vet. Pers.,” ch. 22, see also 11 Essay
on Pantheism,” by Rev. J. Hunt). It was just prior
to the return of the Jews from living among the people
�16
Plato, Philo, and Paul.
who were dominated by these ideas, that the splendid
chapter of Isaiah (xl.), or indeed the series of chapters
which form the closing portion of the book, were
written, “ Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith
your God. Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make
straight in the desert a highway for our God. Every
valley shall he exalted, and. every mountain and hill
shall he made low, and the crooked shall he made
straight, and the rough places plain.” And then
follows a magnificent description of the greatness and
supremacy of God, and this is followed by chapters
which tell of a Messiah, or conquering prince, who will
redeem the nation from its enemies, and restore them
to the light of the divine favour, and which predict a
millennium, a golden age of purified and glorified human
ity. It is thus manifest that the inspiration of these
writings came to the Jewish people from their contact
with the religious thought of the Persians, and not from
any supernatural source. From this time the Jews began
to hold worthier ideas concerning God, and to cherish
expectations of a golden age, a kingdom of heaven,
which the Messiah, who was to be the sent messenger of
God, should inaugurate. And this kingdom was to be
a kingdom of righteousness,—a day of marvellous light, a
rule under which all evil and darkness were to perish.
We trace the influence of these thoughts on the
Jewish literature of that day, and those portions of the
Old Testament which are classed as Messianic prophecies,
were doubtless written under its inspiration. While,
however, the Jews were captive in Babylon,—living
in an exile into which they went, a nation of turbulent
and lawless idolaters, Pythagoras was teaching in
Greece a philosophy based on the indivisible unity of
God, whom he named, or rather spoke of as, “ The
One.” On this conception he based a society, which
was the prototype of the subsequent schools of Grecian
philosophy. One deity he taught was the soul of all,
whence the spirits of men issued ; hence he framed his
theory of metempsychosis or transmigration of souls, in
�Plato, Philo, and Paul.
l7
order to provide a discipline by which souls, con
taminated by their contact with' the evil and im
pure bodies of men, might receive a purification fitting
them to return eventually to the pure source from
whence they sprung. Before him Thales and Anaxi
mander had lived, and while the Jews were offering
idolatrous worship within the Temple at Jerusalem,
these men were seeking, by the aid of deep and earnest
speculative thought, to find some worthy and fitting
conception of the only true God. And at the time
when the Jews, liberated from captivity, were about
settling down once more in their Fatherland, Socrates
and Plato were teaching not only moral, but religious
philosophy, to their countrymen at Athens. They were
discussing such questions as the origin of the world, the
immortality of the soul, the nature and existence of God,
the discipline of human life, the character of virtue and
the rewards that should attach to it, as well as the
penalties that the wicked would incur.
Plato, B.c. 400, was familiar with the Pantheistic
philosophy, as well as with the polytheistic worship of
India, Egypt, and his own country, Greece. His mind,
however, shared in the general revolt which all
thoughtful minds feel, alike from the vagueness of the
former as from the superstition of the latter.
“ It is difficult,” says this philosopher, “ to find out
God, and when we have found him, it is impossible to
make him to be comprehended by the multitude.” *
Plato discerned that there was one supreme God,
eternal, immaterial, immutable, omnipotent, omniscient,
the first and the last, the beginning, middle, and end
of all things. But with this admission of The One,
TO EH, Plato conjoined many subordinate natures and
intelligencies, %ow ra IIoTAa. In the supreme mind,
Osos, Nous or Hartip, Plato discerned the Thinker; in
the manifold he discerned His thoughts. The universe
was thus the expression of the thought or idea of God,
* Timaeus.
B
�18
Plato, Philo, and Paul.
was fashioned not by the su preme and impassible thinker,
bnt by his AOroS (Logos'), or active thought.
*
“ All objects of sense have relation to the ideal as
well as to the material world. Thus a house or
machine, or table, &c., are but the material expressions
of ideas that existed in the mind of those who fashioned
them. The manifold (material nature), has thus a
double existence, one in its ideals, the other in its
phenomena. The latter is the world of sense, what
men call the material, and what the vulgar suppose to
he reality. But its existence is only borrowed. It is
a shadow,—a copy, of that which is real, the realities
are the ideas,—the architypes.”—“Essay on Panthe
ism” by Rev. J. Hunt.
With Plato, however, ideas are sometimes identical
with God, the TO EN, the one self-existent Being, and
at other times he speaks as though they were distinct
from God. Thus in his system, God, the designer, is
the supreme mind, and God the Creator, Aryaioupyog,
is spoken of as a secondary or inferior being,—a con
fusion of thought that prevails also in the Christian
systems of to-day, which in fact have been largely
based on the Platonic thought, and in which Jesus is
sometimes spoken of as the “ Son of God,” “ the
maker of the worlds,” “ begotten" of the Father, but
subordinate to the Path er,” and sometimes is reverenced
and worshipped as being the actual and supreme God.
Plato spoke of the active mind or operating thought of
God, the eternal and supreme one, under the title of the
Demiurge (creator), or Logos (the word). “ This Logos,”
he says, “ divine above all other beings, fashioned the
heavenly bodies. This Being a happy man will princi
pally reverence, while he may be stimulated by the
desire of learning whatever is within the compass of
human understanding, being convinced that he will
* The Logos, which here implies the mind of God (divine inspira
tion), was personified as a distinct being by the later schools of the
Platonic philosophy.
�Platte Philo, and Paul.
i9
thus enjoy the greatest felicity in this life; and that
after death he will be translated into regions that are
•congenial to virtue.” (Plat. Epinomis). Another of
Plato’s divinities of second or inferior rank is the
tou Ko<ry,ou, or “ soul of the world,” a personification of
the living forces of nature, a conception akin to the per
vading spirit of God—the Holy Ghost of modern creeds.
The Gospel of John commences with a plain and palp
able reproduction of the Platonic thought.
“ In the beginning was the Logos or Word, and the Logos
or Word was with God, and the Logos or Word was («) God.
All things were made by him, and without him was not
any thing made that was made. In him was life, and the
life was the light or guidance of men.”
The speculative thought, and the religious teaching
of Plato, are diffused throughout his voluminous
writings, but the following is a popular summary of
them, by Madame Dacier, contained in her introduction
to what have been classed as the “ Divine Dialogues.”
“ That there is but one God, and that we ought to love
*
and serve Him, and to endeavour to resemble Him in holiness
and righteousness; that this God rewards humility and
punishes pride.
“ That the true happiness of man consists in being united
to God, and his only misery in being separated from him.
“ That the soul is mere darkness, unless it be illuminated
by God: that men are incapable even of praying well,
unless God teaches them that prayer which alone can be
useful to them.
“ That there is nothing solid and substantial but piety ;
that this is the source of all virtues, and that it is the gift
of God.
“ That it is better to die than to sin.
“ That it is better to suffer wrong than to do it.
“That the ‘Word’ (A6yos) formed the world, and
rendered it visible ; that the knowledge of the Word makes
* Plato, while acknowledging one supreme divinity, often ac
commodates his language to the prevailing polytheistic thought.
In a letter to Dionysius of Syracuse, he says, that in his serious
moods he uses the term 0EOS (God), and in his lighter moods he
uses the phrase 0EOI (Gods).
�20
Plato, Philo, and Paul.
us live very happily here below, and that thereby we obtain
felicity after death.
“ That the soul is immortal, that the dead shall rise again,
that there shall be a final judgment—both of the righteousand of the wicked, when men shall appear only with their
virtues or vices, which -shall be the occasion of their
eternal happiness or misery.”
Such were the ideas of God and of religion, that
were held and taught by Plato in Greece, about the
time that the Jews were returning from captivity,
bringing with them ideas of God and of religion, higher
than any they had before known. These they had
gathered through contact with the followers of the
Zoroastrian faith. But clearer and truer conceptions of
God and of duty were already dawning on the Grecian
mind, and these were destined eventually to mingle
with Hebrew thought, and to fashion the central dogma
of the Christian faith, the Deity or Godhead of
Jesus.
The Jews were, from this time, an enterprising
people, and colonies of their countrymen established
themselves in the leading cities of neighbouring
nations. About three centuries b.c., a large and
important colony resided in Alexandria, the chief city
of Egypt, during the rule of the Ptolemies, and the
metropolitan city of the western world. Here Grecian
learning established its chosen seat, and here thevarious schools of philosophy were represented. Here,
too, was a splendid library, the virtual commencement
of that grand collection which became the finest library
of the ancient world, and whose reputed destruction in
the seventh century, by order of the Caliph Omar, was
an irreparable loss to all subsequent time.
*
* The fact of this destruction was regarded by Gibbon with
some doubt. Alexandria had several public libraries. The first
great library was founded by the Ptolemies, and placed in the
museum ; this library was burned by the soldiers of Julius Caesar.
The second was formed around the library from Pergamus, pre
sented to Cleopatra by Mark Anthony, and was placed in the
Temple of Serapis (the Serapeum). In the reign of Julian, this
�Plato, Philo, and Paul.
'
2f
The following succinct account of Israel in Alex
andria, is given in the valuable pamphlet, “ Our First
Century,” published in Mr Scott’s Series.
“ So far back, in the history of the Jews, as B.C. 588,
they had formed a settlement in Egypt. This we know
from Jeremiah (xliii. 7), who was hostile to its formation.
The impossibility of these Jews having access to the temple
at Jerusalem, and owing to its destruction, their losing the
benefit of the daily sacrifice which used to be offered there,
were facts through which the literal observance of the
Mosaic ritual came to a violent end. The Jews in Egypt,
therefore, were compelled either to relinquish the Mosaic
law altogether, or to understand it in a new sense. They
adopted the latter course. But that law had not any second
meaning. So when a second meaning was sought for, it
could not be found. In the meantime, these Jews, at a
later period, learned the Greek language, read the books of
the Grecian philosophers, entertained certain Grecian ideas,
and so became Hellenists.
“ This Hellenising tendency found its most active develop
ment at Alexandria, founded by Alexander the Great, B.C.
832. When Ptolemy, son of Lagus, captured Jerusalem,
B.c. 320, he carried away a large number of Jewish and
Samaritan captives to Alexandria, where he gave them the
full privileges of citizenship. Many others migrated thither
of their own accord. According to Josephus, Alexander
himself assigned to the Jews a place in his new city. But,
be that as it may, it is certain that, at an extremely early
period in the history of Alexandria, the Jews became so
numerous in that city, that the north-east angle was known
as 1 the Jews’ quarter.’ The religion and philosophy in
that city produced an effect upon the Jews there, more
library amounted to seven hundred thousand volumes. _ This
library was dispersed or destroyed when the Pagan worship was
put down by Theodosius the First, and the Temple of Serapis was
sacked by the Christians. Orosius, who visited Egypt in the reign
of Theodosius Second, saw the empty book shelves. {Sharpe’s
History of Egypt.) The museum, however, was rebuilt, and with
the restoration of the city, there would, doubtless, have been a
restoration of the public library. The author of “ Time and
Faith ” supposes that when the Saracens conquered the City, a.d.
642, the public library, composed in large part of the remnants of
the earlier libraries, had become, for the most part, so decayed
and worm-eaten, that Omar caused them to be destroyed as worth
less rubbish.
�22
Plato, Philo, and Paul.
powerful than the influence of politics or commerce..
Alexander had founded a Temple of Isis side by side with a
temple of the Grecian gods. Creeds from the east and from
the west, co-existed there; and in aftertimes, the mixed
worship of Serapis was characteristic of the Greek kingdom
in Egypt. For that god, originally a native of Pontus, and
adored by the inhabitants of Sinope, was introduced into
Egypt by the first Ptolemy. At first, the priests opposed
the introduction of Serapis. But the liberality of the
Ptolemies overcame the resistance of the priests ; they sub
mitted to worship Serapis, to whom they gave the throne
and the wife of Osiris. This catholicity of worship was
further combined with the spread of learning. The same
monarch who favoured the worship of Serapis, founded and
embellished the museum and the library; and part of the
library was deposited in the Serapeum. The new faith and
the new literature led to a coalition of opinions; and the
Egyptian Jews imbibed a portion of the spirit that prevailed
around them. Its first development appeared in the Greek
version of the Old Testament, known as the Septuagint.
The day on which the Greek text of the law was introduced
into the synagogue at Alexandria, was thus marked in the
Palestine calendar: ‘ The law in Greek! Darkness! Three
days’ fast I ’ So different already had the Alexandrine Jews
become from the Jews in Palestine.”
This Alexandrian colony of Jews soon became, by
their close contact with Grecian philosophy, to a large
extent, Hellenised. By degrees, they lost the memory
of their national language, and much of their rever
ence for their national faith. Their distance from
Jerusalem prevented even their attendance at the
annual festivals, and lessened their interest in, as well
as their knowledge of, their own religion.
At length, they lost the power of reading their own
Scriptures. The generations who were born and bred
among a Greek-speaking people, would naturally cease
to have any large or general acquaintance with what
would have virtually become a foreign language. Thus,
under the rule of Ptolemy Philadelphus, b.o. 260, and
some say, by his direction, the Hebrew scriptures were
translated into the Greek tongue, and were read for the
�Plato, Philo, and Paul.
23
future in this language only, by the Alexandrian Jews.
Moreover, the greater part of the subsequent writings
of the Jews, those written after the closing of the
Hebrew or Old Testament canon, were written in the
Greek tongue, and emanated from the Alexandrian
Jews, and of those which had a Hebrew original, only
Greek translations now remain; showing the supremacy
which this language attained in connection with the
later Jewish literature, and showing also the Hellenised
character of the literature itself. In the Book of
Proverbs, compiled by the Hebrew-speaking Jews of
Palestine, at a period subsequent to the captivity, and
portions of which were, in all probability, written at a
much later date, we have the wisdom of God personi
fied, and represented as a being distinct from the
Eternal. Especially is this seen in the following
passages from the 8th chapter.
“I, wisdom, dwell with prudence, and find out know
ledge of witty inventions.
“ Counsel is mine, and sound wisdom. I am understand
ing, I have strength.
“ By me, kings reign and princes decree justice.
“ I love them that love me, and those that seek me early
shall find me.
“Jehovah possessed me in the beginning of his way,
before his works of old.
“ I was set up from everlasting, from the beginning, or
ever the earth was.
“ When he prepared the heavens, I was there; when he
set a compass upon the face of the depths, there was I by
him, as one brought up with him; and I was daily his
delight, rejoicing always before him.
“ Whoso findeth me findeth life, and shall obtain the
favour of Jehovah.”
Of the actual writer of these words we have no
knowledge at all, neither do we know at what period
they were written. The presumption is that they are
among the latest additions to the Book of Proverbs,
and that they were penned, at a time when the Hebrew
�24
Plato, Philo, and Paul.
thought was tinged with the Alexandrian theosophy,
by a Palestinian Jew familiar with the subtleties of
Grecian philosophic thought, and desirous of harmonis
ing it with Hebrew ideas.
The ideas of the divine unity expressed in the Book
of Deuteronomy, though doubtless not written till the
time of King Josiah, b.c. 632, “ Hear, 0 Israel! the
Lord our God is one God,” betray a tone of thought
wholly at variance with the personification of divine
wisdom as a separate divine personage.
*
This concep
tion of the divine unity, however, was felt, in the
presence of the speculative thought with which the
Jews of Alexandria were in such close contact, to be
confessedly imperfect. God was made by it to be
simply a magnified man, and this view in the growing
enlightenment of the world was felt to be no longer
tenable. The Eternal could not come into material
relation with his creatures, as the early Jewish scrip
tures had narrated. It was a conception too gross to
entertain, to think of the Creator as wearing a human
form, while to imagine him as a spirit or pervading
power, was to lose him altogether as a God. So the
Jews, to accommodate their views to the growing
thought of a more enlightened age, began to personify
his attributes
spoke of the divine wisdom as a
personage, as a divinely commissioned being, as the
power by which the world was created, and mankind
were purified and made godlike. This was a marked
departure from the monotheism of an earlier day, but
it was also a way of escape from the anthropomorphism
in which this had resulted.
The Jewish mind had now taken a large step towards
the recognition of a second and inferior god, and this
* It is scarcely probable that the Jewish people could have been
familiar with the declaration of the divine unity which the book of
Deuteronomy contains, or with the prohibition of idolatry and of
the worship of images found in the book of Exodus, during the
reigns of the kings when they were continually falling back into
idolatrous worship.
�Plato^ Philo, and Paul.
25
thought was largely helped by the current expecta
tion of a divinely commissioned Messiah—a Son of
man, who should make his advent in the clouds of
heaven attended by legions of angels,—who should be
•God himself coming to judge the nations.
God communed, the Jews held, with man by his
“ Memra, ” or “ Word,” by his angel or messenger, by
his Sophia, or wisdom. By wisdom he made the
worlds. By wisdom he calls to men.
The Alexandrian Jews, however, carried their views
still nearer to the form of the Platonic thought. Living
in close contact with the Stoic philosophers, who were
the later representatives of the Platonic school, the writ
ings of the Alexandrian Jews of a period dating about
two centuries before Christ show unmistakably the
influence of Grecian forms of thought. We have two
remarkable books emanating from Hebrew writers
somewhere about this date—viz., the book of “ Wis
dom,” written in Greek by an Alexandrian Jew, and
•embodying the Neo-Platonic thought, and the book of
“ Ecclesiasticus,” written in Hebrew by a Palestinian
Jew who was intimately acquainted with the Alex
andrian literature.
In this latter book we have wisdom set forth as an
inseparable attribute of God, identified so closely with
God as to preserve intact the Hebrew conception of the
divine unity, and to controvert the Neo-Platonic concep
tion which made the divine wisdom or word to be a dis
tinct divinity. It commences, “All wisdom cometh from
the Lord, and is with Him for ever. . . . The word of
God most high is the fountain of wisdom, and her ways
are everlasting commandments.” And then the writer
asks, “ To whom hath the root of wisdom been
revealed ? or who hath understood her wise counsels ?
There is one wise and greatly to be feared, the Lord
sitting upon his throne. He created her, and saw her,
and numbered her, and poured her out upon all his
works. She is with all flesh according to his gift, and
�26
Plato, Philo, and Paul.
he hath given her to them that love him. To fear the
Lord is the beginning of wisdom.”—Ecclesiasticus,
chap. i.
Here is at once a recognition and a repudiation of
the Platonic idea of a secondary god, or rather we may
speak of it as an adaptation by which it is made to
harmonise with the stern monotheism of Hebrew
thought. Wisdom is declared to be a power of God,
but not a personality distinct from God.
Very different is the tone of the Alexandrian writer
of the book of Wisdom. He was a Hellenised Jew,
one who mingled Grecian speculation with Hebrew
traditions, and thought as much of the one as of the
other. Here is his description of wisdom.
“ Eor wisdom, which is the worker of all things,
taught me ; for in her is an understanding spirit, holy,
one only, manifold, subtile, lively, clear, undefiled,
plain, not subject to hurt.
“ Loving the thing which is good, quick.
“ Kind to man, stedfast, sure, free from care, having
all power, overseeing all things, and going through all
understanding, pure and most subtile spirit.
“ For she is the breath of the power of God, and a
pure influence flowing from the glory of the Almighty.
“ She is the brightness of the everlasting light, the
unspotted mirror of the power of God, and the image
of his goodness.
££ And being but one, she can do all things ; and
remaining in herself she maketh all things new j and
in all ages entering into holy souls, she maketh them
friends of God, and prophets, for God loveth none but
him that dwelleth in wisdom.”—ch. vii., v. 22 to 28.
Here we have a definition of wisdom as a divine
power or personage, closely allied to God, yet capable
of being conceived of as distinct from God, much as we
find Christians of our own day believing God the Holy
Ghost to be a distinct deity from God the Lather, yet
in some mystical sense to be one and the same with
�Plato, Philo, and Paul.
*
27
him. The writer continues his praise of wisdom, and
asks—
“ If riches be a possession to be desired in this life,
what is richer than wisdom that worketh all things ?
And if prudence work, who of all that are, is a more
cunning workman than she ? And if a man love
righteousness, her labours are virtues : for she teacheth
temperance and prudence, justice and fortitude ; which
are such things as men can have nothing more profit
able in their life. . . .
“ Moreover, by the means of her I shall obtain
immortality, and leave behind me an everlasting
memorial to them that come after me.”
Of the Platonic character and origin of these
thoughts we shall find abundant evidence by compar
ing them with some extracts from Plato’s writings.
Take the following passage from the Pbtedon:
“ Wisdom is the only true and unalloyed coin, for which
all others must be given in exchange. With that piece of
money we purchase fortitude, temperance, justice. In a
word, that virtue is always true that accompanies wisdom,
whereas all other virtues, stripped of wisdom, are only
shadows of virtue. Temperance, justice, fortitude, and
prudence, or wisdom itself, are not exchanged for passions,
but cleanse us of them. And it is pretty evident that those
who instituted the purifications, called by us Teletes, i.e.,
perfect expiations, meant by such riddles (rites) to give us
to know, that whoever enters the other world without being
initiated and purified shall be hurl’d headlong into the vast
abyss; and that whoever arrives there after due purgation
and expiation, shall be lodged in the apartment of the gods.
For as the dispensers of those expiations say, ‘ There are
many who bear the Thyrsus, but few that are possessed by
*
the spirit of the God.’ Now, those who are thus possessed, asI take it, are the true philosophers.” ...
“ Those who have distinguished themselves by a holy life,.
* The Thyrsus was a spear wrapped, in vines or ivy, carried by
the worshippers of Bacchus on their initiation into the mysteries.
Of these, Socrates here virtually says that “ many are called but
few are chosen.”
�28
Plato, Philo, and Paul.
and those who are sufficiently purged by philosophy, are
received after death into admirable and delicious mansions.
Therefore we should labour all our lives to acquire virtue
and wisdom, since we have so great a reward proposed to
us, and so bright a prospect before us.”
The writer of the Book of Wisdom distinctly per
sonifies divine wisdom. This is what Plato does not
do. Plato speaks of wisdom as an attribute common
to God and man. It is the Logos or word that he speaks
of as a secondary or inferior deity, as a divine personage,
.able to be conceived of as separate from God though still
in mystical union with him. It is in the interest of
Hebrew tradition that the writer of this book per
sonifies wisdom as opposed to Plato’s Logos or world
making God, yet in close imitation of Plato’s idea,
escaping only the heresy of imagining a second God—
of making the Godhead composite, he says :
“ And wisdom was with thee ; which knoweth thy
works, and was present when thou madest the world,
and knew what was acceptable in thy sight, and right
in thy commandments. O send her out of thy holy
heavens, and from the throne of thy glory, that being
present she may labour with me that I may know what
is pleasing to thee. Por she knoweth and understandeth all things.”—Wisdom, ch. ix. 9-11.
So it was that the leaders of Jewish thought sought
to reconcile their conceptions of God with the views of
the prevailing Gentile philosophy. The Jews were as
a nation destitute of philosophy, but were pre
eminently devout. All the laws of nature, and all the
actions of men were, as they thought, under the imme
diate direction of God. “ The eyes of the Lord,” they
said, “ were in every place beholding the evil and the
good.” God was seated on a throne in heaven, king of
kings and lord of lords. This was the faith of an
ignorant people who possessed healthy religious in
stincts. It would not, however, bear the questionings
�Plato, Philo, and Paul.
29
of an enlightened intellect. God was, in this view,
only a great king, a magnified man.
After the residence of the Jews in Babylon and their
contact with the Persian faith, a monotheistic religion
like their own—a religion in which God was conceived
of as a pure spirit, and in which the fancies of a
speculative theology, hy setting up inferior intelli
gences, brought the power and wisdom of this pure
spirit into close contact with the human and material
world, we find a marked change and elevation of
the Jewish thought. Thus one of the Psalmists asks :
—“ Whither shall I go from thy spirit, or whither
sb all I flee from thy presence ? ” and pours out a grand
hymn expressive of the omnipresence of the Deity.
There was, however, danger here. Truth itself was too
dazzling, and God was all but lost in the glory that
surrounded the conceptions which the minds of men
were framing of his being. The nearer men ascended
towards the truth that God was a pervading power, the
more they found themselves nearing the boundaries of
a cold and desolate Pantheism; and a God who was
thus universal, ceased to be the god of the individual,
ceased to be a national god, ceased to be a being whom
they could regard as the upholding providence of their
lives, and of whom they could say in the words of one
of their favourite and familiar hymns, that “God, even
our own God, shall bless us.”
The speculative philosophy by which the surround
ing nations of Persia, Egypt, and Greece, escaped alike
the vagueness of a Pantheism in which God was
virtually lost, and the anthropomorphism which made
him but a huge man, became in course of time a matter
of absolute necessity for the Jews to adopt. So we
find that they exalted this attribute of wisdom as being,
not a distinct personage, but as being a manifested
power, by "which the thought of man could enter into
communion and harmony with the divine mind, and so
the Eternal could sustain a real and palpable relation to
�30
Plato, Philo, and Paul.
his creatures. The problem that needed solution was
to tone down the exalted conception of God which an
enlightened intellect prompted, so as to bring him
within the reach of the pious and prayerful thought,
and this without degrading or falsifying a true and
proper estimation of himself.
In our common thought to-day we regard nature as
an intermediate link between man and God. Man
lives in immediate contact with nature, and we say
that through nature he can rise to nature’s God.
Again, the laws of nature we discern as operative
powers that came from God, but that are now the
intermediate rather than the immediate agents of his
will. Thus we regard the laws of nature as being in
one sense separate and distinct from the divine mind,
acting, as it were, independently of it, through powers
that were originally derived from it, and in another
sense we regard them as being one and the same with
it. So in a spiritual sense we say that God is light,
Love, Truth, Goodness, &c., and yet we can conceive
of these things as being separate and distinct from God,
as virtues adorning a human soul. Thus we say that
these are agencies that draw men close to God, and
that make them even to be one with God.
The popular idea of Christ is that he was the expres
sion of the divine mind, the teacher of divine wisdom ;
that through this spirit of divine wisdom, which in the
current belief rested upon him without measure, he was
one with God, and by his relation to humanity he
conferred the same privilege upon it. And a natural
consequence of this belief upon the vulgar mind and
common thought has been to suggest the idea that Christ
was God incarnate—the Almighty in human form.
The late learned Dean Milman, in his History of
Christianity has very ably summarised this develop
ment of ancient speculative thought; he says—
“Even the notion of the one Supreme Deity had undergone
some modification consonant to certain prevailing opinions
�Plato, Philo, and Paul.
31
of the time (Christian era.) Wherever any approxima
tion had been made to the sublime truth of the one great
First Cause, either awful religious reverence or philosophic
abstraction had removed the primal Deity entirely beyond
the sphere of human sense, and supposed that the inter
course of the Divinity with man, the moral government, and
even the original creation had been carried on by the inter
mediate agency, either in Oriental language of an Emana
tion, or in Platonic of the wisdom, reason, or intelligence of
the one Supreme. This Being was more or less distinctly
impersonated, according to the more popular or more
philosophic, the more material or the more abstract notions
of the age or people. This was the doctrine from the
*
Ganges, or even the shores of the Yellow Sea to the Ilissus ;
it was the fundamental principle of the Indian religion and
the Indian philosophy; it was the basis of Zoroastrianism ;
it was pure Platonism; it was the Platonic Judaism of the
Alexandrian school. Many fine passages might be quoted
from Philo, on the impossibility that the first self-existing
Being should become cognisable to the sense of man ; and
even in Palestine, no doubt, John the Baptist and our Lord
himself, spoke no new doctrine, but rather the common
sentiment of the more enlightened, when they declared that
‘ no man had seen God at any time? In conformity with
this principle, the Jews, in the interpretation of the older
scriptures, instead of direct and sensible communication
from the one great Deity, had interposed either one or more
intermediate beings as the channels of communication.
According to one accredited tradition alluded to by St
Stephen, the law was delivered by the ‘ disposition of
angels; ’ according to another, this office was delegated to a
single angel, sometimes called the angel of the Law (see Gal.
iii. 19) ; at others, the Metatron. But the more ordinary
representative, as it were, of God, to the sense and mind of
man, was the Memra, or the Divine Word ; and it is remark
able that the same appellation is found in the Indian, the
* It is curious to trace the development of this idea in the older
and in the apocryphal books of the Old Testament. In the Book
of Proverbs, the wisdom is little more than the great attribute of
the deity ; in Ecclesiasticus, it is a separate being, and “ stands up
beautiful ” before the throne of God. (xxv. 1.)
[The learned Dean is in error here. “ Wisdom ” is still an attri
bute of God, a quality of character, as a perusal of the entire verse
will shew. It is the Book of Wisdom that makes it a distinct
personage.—Author’s Note.}
�^2
Plato, Philo, and Paul.
Persian, the Platonic, and the Alexandrian systems. By
the TargumistSjthe earliest Jewish commentators on the scrip
tures, this term had been already applied to the Messiah;
nor is it necessary to observe the manner in which it has
been sanctified by its introduction into the Christian scheme.
This uniformity of conception and coincidence of language,
indicates the general acquiescence of the human mind in the
necessity of some mediation between the pure spiritual
nature of the deity, and the moral and intellectual nature
of man, of which the sublimest and the simplest was the revela
tion of God in Christ.”
In this last assertion, however, Dean Mil man
ceases to be the learned and accomplished historian,
and becomes a special pleader for the dogmas of the
popular religion. The admissions of the former portion
of this passage, establish, beyond the possibility of
reasonable cavil, the fact that the idea of God in
Christ,—God as personified in Jesus, is but a version
of a speculative belief held in all the great religious
systems that were anterior to the Christian era, and is
nc)t a divine revelation that was then, for the first time,
specially and supernaturally given. The asserted deity
of Jesus is, indeed, a corruption, and perversion, and
degradation of a conception that, as held in these
ancient faiths, was but the feeble expression of a
sublime truth. In the modern dogma, however, the
sublimity is lost, and a crude superstition takes its place.
The Jews, however, as a nation, were not greatly
given to philosophic speculation, and it was not till the
year b.c. 160, that we have any indications of its
appearance in the Alexandrian colony. About this
time, Aristobulus, a philosophic Jew, endeavoured to
harmonise Jewish with Grecian literature. He wrote
an allegorical exposition of the Pentateuch, in which
he endeavoured to show that it was the source of the
Aristotelian philosophy. He did this by allegorising
its matter of fact narratives, and putting a secondary
meaning into them ; only fragments of this work, pre
served by Eusebius, now remain. The great master,
�Plato., Philo, and Pam.
however, of this art of allegorising the Old Testament,
was Philo, the contemporary, though, at the same time,
the senior of Jesus.
Philo, commonly known as Philo Judaeus, was an
eminent, and learned, and distinguished Alexandrian
Jew, while, at the same time, he was a devoted student
and follower of the Neo-Platonic philosophy. He was
brother to Alexander the Alabarch, or president, of the
Jewish colony. He was also, through his brother, an
intimate acquaintance of King Agrippa, who then
ruled in Judea, and notwithstanding that a temple had
been erected in Alexandria, the gold and silver plating
of nine of the doors of the temple at Jerusalem, were
due to the munificence of Philo’s brother. Besides
being a man of high learning and cultured thought,
Philo bore a stainless reputation, and stood so high in
the esteem of his fellow religionists, that he was
chosen, with two others, in the year a.d. 40, seven
years after the crucifixion of Christ, to go on an
embassy to the Emperor Caligula at Pome, to counter
act the calumnies of Apion against the Jews, and to
complain to Caligula of a persecution that had been
incited against them by Flaccus, the Roman President,
on account of their refusing to burn incense before
the statues of the emperor, to admit them into their
temples, or to worship them as the representative of a
God. In the voluminous works which remain to us
from Philo’s pen, we have a lengthened account of this
embassy, and of the rude and contemptuous treatment
it received from Caligula, whose extraordinary conduct,
Tunning through the various rooms of his palace, giving
directions to his workmen, and expecting the embassy
to follow him as best they could, clearly betokened his
incipient or perhaps developed insanity.
Of the date of Philo’s birth, we have no record ; he,
however, describes himself as being “ a grey-headed old
man ” at the time of this embassy, a.d. 40. This would
make him to be sixty-five or seventy years of age at
c
�34
Piato, Philo, and Paul.
that period, and consequently would place his birth
twenty-five or thirty years before the birth of Jesus.
Philo would consequently have been forty-five or fifty
years old when Jesus commenced his ministry.. This
is an important consideration, because in Philo’s writ
ings, we have an anticipation, not only of the larger part
of the moral and religious teaching of Jesus, but of those
forms of speculative thought which mark the Fourth
Gospel, the Epistles of Paul, and that to the Hebrews.
So striking is the resemblance between Philo’s writ
ings and the writings of the New Testament, that
efforts have not been wanting to claim Philo as a
disciple of Jesus, and as an apologist of Christianity.
The learned Jacob Bryant wrote a treatise in which, by
collating passages concerning “ the Logos,” from Philo’s
writings, with passages of the New Testament concern
ing the nature and offices of Christ, he thought to
establish the fact that Philo must have been a
Christian ; and in the early part of the present century,
a volume was published under the title of “ Ecclesiasti
cal Besearches,” by Dr J. Jones, the object of which
was to prove that both Philo and Josephus were
Christians.
Philo, the translation of whose literary remains fill
four volumes of Bohn’s Ecclesiastical Library, never
makes the smallest allusion to Jesus, but writes as
though he were in perfect ignorance as to his existence.
The great bulk of his writings are rambling and
allegorical commentaries on the laws of Moses, and on
the Hebrew scriptures. These he interprets in the
light of the Platonic philosophy. The intense rever
ence which Philo displays in these writings for the
lightest word of Moses, and for the priesthood, and laws,
and ritual that had his sanction, is a convincing proof
that he had never heard or heeded the reformed
Judaism which Jesus taught, much less the Christian
repudiation of the Mosaic faith which marks the
Epistles of Paul, the earliest of which was, in all pro
�Plato, Philo, and Paul.
35
bability, not penned till years after Philo’s death. One
of Philo’s treatises is a life of Moses, whom he regards
as “ king, lawgiver, high priest, and prophet.”
“ The Theology of Philo is in great measure founded on
his peculiar combination of the Jewish, the Platonic, and
the Neo-Platonic conception of God. The God of the Old
Testament, the exalted God, as he is called by the modern
Hegelian philosophy, stood in close relations to the Greek
Philosophers’ conception of God, which believed that the
Supreme Being could be accurately defined by the negative
of all that was finite. In accordance with this, Philo also
described God as the simple Entity ; he disclaimed for Him
every name, every quality, even that of the Good, the
Beautiful, the Blessed, the One. Since He is still better than
the good, higher than the U nity, He can never be known
as, but only that He is : his perfect name is only the four
mysterious letters (Jhvh), that is, pure Being.”
‘ ‘ By such means, indeed, neither a fuller theology, nor
God’s influence on the world was to be obtained. And yet
it was the problem of philosophy, as well as of religion, to
shed the light of God upon the world, and to lead it again to
God. But how could this Being which was veiled from the
world be brought to bear upon it ? By Philo, as well as by
all the philosophy of the time, the problem could only be
solved illogically. Yet, by modifying His exalted nature it
might be done. If not by His being yet by His work, He
influences the world. His powers, his angels, all in it that
is best and mightiest, the instrument, the interpreter, the
mediator and messenger of God. His pattern and His first
born, the Son of God, the Second God, even himself God,
the divine Word or Logos communicate with the world.”—Keim’s “ Jesus of Nazara," Introduction, article Philo.
This modification of the conception of deity was the
keynote of Philo’s copious commentaries. By so doing
he toned down the exalted conception of God, which
the Gentile philosophies taught, and explained away
the crude narratives of his own country’s scriptures,
in which the idea of God was degraded by representing
him in form, and thought, and action, as a man. In
the Platonic Logos Philo found the mediator between
God and man, which enabled him to reconcile the
�36
Plato, Philo, and Paul.
Jewish Scriptures with the teachings of the Gentile
Philosophy.
Allegory, however, is not science, and the scientific
or speculative views of Philo form no separate and
condensed treatise, but are disseminated throughout
his voluminous writings. Subjoined are two passages
from his treatise, “De Confusione Linguarum,” an
exposition or commentary on the confusion of languages
at the Tower of Babel.
°
“ The statement,” lie says, “ The Lord went down to see
that city and that tower,’ must be listened to altogether as
if spoken in a figurative sense, for to think that the divinity
can. go towards, or go from, or go down, or go to meet, is
an impiety. . . . Since who is there who does not know
that it is indispensable for a person who goes down, to
leave one place and to occupy another. But all places are
filled at once by God, to whom alone it is possible to be
every where and also nowhere. Nowhere, because he him
self created place and space. . . . The divine being, both
invisible and incomprehensible, is indeed everywhere, but
still, in truth, he is nowhere visible or comprehensible.”—
(Bohn's Edition, Vol. 2, p. 29).
In reference to the phrase, “ sons of men ” who are
described as having built cities, Philo says, that they
who have real knowledge of God, are properly called
“ sons of God,” and that elsewhere (Deut. xiv. 1),
Moses so entitles them, and then adds :—
“ Accordingly it is natural for those who have this dis
position of soul to look upon nothing as beautiful, except
what is good. . . . And even if there be not as yet any one
who is worthy to be called a son of God, nevertheless let
him labour earnestly to be adorned according to his first
born Word (Logos), the eldest of his angels, as the great
archangel of many names; for he is called ‘ the authority ’
and ‘ the name ’ of God, and the Word (Logos) and ‘ man
according to God’s image,’ and ‘ He who sees Israel.’ For
even if we are not yet suitable to be called the Sons of
God, still we may deserve to be called the children of
his eternal image, of his most sacred Word (Logos); for the
image of God is his most sacred Word.”—(Philo “ De
Confusione.” Bohn’s Edition, Vol. 2, p. 31).
»
�Plato, Philo, and Paul.
37
It would be easy, did space permit, to multiply
such extracts as these to a very large extent, and so to
shew that before Jesus commenced his ministry,
possibly even before Jesus was born, Philo was
familiarising the minds of his countrymen with ideas
concerning 11 a second or delegated God,” “ the first
born son of the Eternal Father,” “ the express image
of his person,” “ the word of God by whom the w’orld
was made,” &c. We have this thought largely repro
duced in the Fourth Gospel, that ascribed to John,
though not written till the early part or middle of the
second century, nearly one hundred years later than
the writings of Philo. There is, however, an important
difference between the conception of the “Word,” or
Logos, as Philo held it, and as the unknown writer of
the Fourth Gospel regarded it. Philo held the Logos
or Word to be a celestial being, “an angel or messenger
of the Supreme God, to be even as God, but never to
be man. He regarded it, however, as having sometimes
the likeness of man, and as being one with the Jewish
High Priest, as consecrating his office, when on the day
of atonement he entered into the Holy of Holies. But
Philo, while he regarded the Logos as the perfect or
ideal man, never identifies this Logos with any par
ticular man. The writer of the Fourth Gospel does,
however, do this, he identifies the Divine word with
Jesus of Nazareth, says that in him “the word was
made flesh ” (%«/ 6 Xo'yo? tiapZ, t'ytvtro, became flesh), and
dwelt among us ? This denotes a considerably later
stage or development of the Logos doctrine. A change
due in great measure to the florid language which Paul
applies to Jesus, and which is word for word, the same
with that which Philo had previously used with
regard to the Logos. Paul, we must bear in mind,
had never seen Jesus, knew him at best by the results
of his teaching.
He learned nothing from Jesus
directly, and distinctly asserts that his followers, the
apostles, were unable to give him any instruction.
�38
Plato, Philo, and Paul.
So Paul’s estimate of Jesus was largely ideal, was
drawn in great part from the thought currents of
Jewish and Gentile philosophy, and without doubt in
no small degree from the writings of Philo.
It will be worth while before shewing the similarity,
or rather the identity, of speculative thought which
existed between the writings of Philo and the Epistles
of Paul, to trace the connecting lines which mark the
channel through which the ideas passed from one to
the other.
When Philo was writing, the elder Hillel, one of
*
the most celebrated of the Jewish Kabbis, whom Renan
declares to have been the virtual teacher of Jesus, and
who certainly, as a religious reformer, anticipated no
small portion of Christian teaching, was chief of the
Jerusalem school, and must have become immediately
conversant with the writings of his eminent country
man, the Alexandrian Philo. Hillel was celebrated as
the successor of Ezra, who brought the law anew out
of Babylon. His wisdom was esteemed manifold as
Solomon’s, while his piety and gentleness became
proverbial. He founded what may be called a Broad
Church School of Judaism, and put a permanent
impress upon Jewish thought. He put moral duty
far before ceremonial piety, and taught as the very
kernel of the law “The duty we owe to our neighbour.”
Such a wise and large-hearted teacher must have
given a warm welcome to the writings of so able and
distinguished a man as Philo. And it is fair to infer
that these became, to a large extent, the authorised and
familiar text-book of the Jerusalem School.
* Hillel was originally a day labourer, and he devoted one-half
of the small pittance that he earned to the support of his family,
and with the other he paid his fees to study the law, under the
celebrated teacher Schemajah. Once, on the eve of the Sabbath,
when for want of work he was unable to pay the school fee, he
climbed to the window of the house on a dark winter’s evening in
order to be able to see and hear, and in the morning he was found
by the teacher stiffened with cold and snow, who in releasing him
said, “It is truly worth while to break the Sabbath on his
account.”
�Plato, Philo, and Paul.
39
When St Paul was, as a young man, studying at
Jerusalem, the post of chief teacher, which had been
filled so ably by Hillel, was now held by his equally
celebrated grandson, Gamaliel, “ the glory of the law,”
of whom it is recorded that out of his thousand
disciples he instructed five hundred in the Jewish
law, and five hundred in the wisdom of the Greeks;
and Paul himself tells us that it was at the feet of this
Gamaliel he sat to receive his education. Here, then,
he would have made acquaintance with the Philonic
literature.
For these writings moulded the whole
future of Jewish thought; and Dr Keim, in his
“Jesus of Hazara,” tells us
“ that the teachings of both Hillel and Gamaliel were tinged
with Philonism ; and that, from this time forward, every
material image of God in the Old Testament—such as the
mention of His countenance, His mouth, His eye, His hand,
&c.—were carefully converted into conceptions of the divine
glory, of the indwelling presence of the Logos or Word of
God.”
And, he adds,
‘‘ The Apostle Paul, a disciple of Gamaliel in Jerusalem, was
essentially imbued with Alexandrine ideas, which he has
evidently transferred to the heart of Christianity in his
teaching concerning Christ.” (Vol. I. pp. 292, 293, English
translation.)
While, however, Philo and the Alexandrian school
were incorporating the Grecian conception of “ the
Logos,” or Divine Word, with the Hebrew thought,
the Hebrew teaching proper contented itself with a
personification of Divine Wisdom. There was, how
ever, another current of thought, viz., the expectation
of a Messiah. This was held in various forms. At
first it simply expressed the national hope of restored
fortunes through the conquering arm of some great
leader, destined by God to restore the throne and the
supremacy of the Davidic era. This was still the
popular expectation in the time of Jesus. But the
�40
Plato, Philo, and Paul.
more spiritually minded Jews, the Essenes and other
devout communities, had hopes, not of a restoration of
David’s throne, hut of the time spoken of by Malachi
when “the Lord himself should come to declare judg
ment, to inhabit his temple, to establish his covenant
and his kingdom;” while the scholastic and speculative
thought of the Philonic school identified the Messianic
expectation with the Logos idea. The two former
conceptions mark the three earlier Gospels ; the latter
conception finds plain and emphatic expression in the
introduction to the fourth Gospel, and is the pervading
idea throughout.
The fourth Gospel and the Epistles of Paul represent
the speculative thought of their age ; and the following
quotations will show how closely they at the same time
reproduce the Philonic thought. The passages here
selected from Philo’s writings are taken from the
treatise by Jacob Bryant before alluded to, the Greek
original being omitted, and simply the English transla
tion given.
Identity of the Christ of the New Testament with the
Logos of Philo.
The New Testament, speak
Philo, describing the
ing of Jesus, says
Logos, says:—
“ This is the Son of
“ The Logos is the Son
of God the Bather.”—De God.”—John i. 34.
Profugis.
“And when he again
“The first begotten of
bringeth his first-born into
God.”—De Somniis.
the world.”—Heb. i. 6.
“That he is the first
“And the most ancient
of all beings.”—De Conf. born of every creature.”—
Col. i. 15.
Ling.
“ Christ, the image of
“The Logos is the image
and likeness of God.”—De the invisible God.”-—Col.
i. 15.
Monarch.
�Plato, Philo, and Paul.
“ The Logos is superior
to the angels.”—De Profugis.
“ The Logos is superior
to all beings in the world.”
—De Leg. Allegor.
“ The Logos is the in
strument by whom the
world was made.”—-De
Leg. Allegor.
“The divine word by
whom all things were
ordered and disposed.”—
De Mundi Opificio.
“The Logos is the light
of the world, and the in
tellectual sun.”—De Somniis.
“ The Logos only can
see God.”—De Confus.
Ling.
“ He is the most ancient
4i
“ The brightness of his
(God’s) glory, and-the ex
press image of his person.”
—Heb. i. 3.
“ Being made so much
better than the angels.
Let all the angels of God
worship him.”—Heb. i. 4,
6.
“ Thou hast put all
things in subjection under
his feet.”—Heb. ii. 8.
“ All things were made
by him (the Word or
Logos), and without him
w’as not anything made
that was made.”—Johni. 3.
“Jesus Christ, by whom
are all things.”—1 Cor.
viii. 6.
“By whom also he made
the worlds.”—Heb. i. 2.
“The Word (Logos) was
the true light.”—John i. 9.
“ The life and the light
of men.”-—John i. 4.
“ I am the light of the
world.”—John viii. 12.
“ He that is of God, he
hath seen the Pather.”—
John vi. 46.
“No man hath seen God
at any time. The only be
gotten Son which is in the
bosom of the Pather, he
hath declared him.”—John
i. 18.
“Now, O Pather, glorify
�42
Plato, Philo, and Paul.
of God’s works.”—De Confus. Ling.
“ And was before all
.things.”—De Leg. Allegor.
“ The Logos is esteemed
the same as God.”—De
Somniis.
“The Logos was eternal.”
—De Plant Noe.
“ The Logos supports
the world, is the connect
ing power by which all
things are united.”—De
Profugis.
“ The Logos is nearest
to God, without any separ
ation ; being, as it were,
fixed upon the only true
existing Deity, nothing
coming between to dis
turb that unity.” — De
Profugis.
“ The Logos is free from
all taint of sin, either
voluntary or involuntary.”
—De Profugis.
thou me with thine own
self with the glory which I
had with thee before the
world was.”—John xvii. 5.
“ He was in the begin
ning with God.”—Johni. 2.
“Before all worlds.”—
2 Tim. i. 9.
“ Christ, who is over all,
God blessed for evermore.”
—Rom. ix. 5.
“ Who, being in the
form of God, thought it
no robbery to be equal
with God.”—Phil. ii. 6.
“ Christ abideth for ever. ”
—John xii. 34.
“ But to the Son he
saith, Thy throne, 0 God,
is for ever and ever.”—
Heb. i. 8.
“ Upholding all things
by the word of his power.”
—Heb. i. 3.
“ By him all things con
sist.”—Col. i. 17.
“ I and my Father are
one.”—John x. 30.
“ That they may be one
as we are.”—John xvii. 11.
“The only begotten Son,
who is in the bosom of
the Father.”—John i. 18.
“ The blood of Christ,
who offered himseif with
out spot to God.”—Heb.
ix. 14.
�Plato, Philo, and Paul.
43
“ Who did no sin, neither
was guile found in his
mouth.”—1 Pet. ii. 22.
“ Whosoever shall drink
“ The Logos the fountain
of the water that I shall
of life.
“It is of the greatest give him, shall never thirst,
consequence to every per but the water that I shall
son to strive without re give him shall be in him a
mission to approach to the well of water springing up
divine Logos, the Word of into everlasting life.”—
God above, who is the John iv. 14.
fountain of all wisdom;
that by drinking largely
of that sacred spring, in
stead of death, he may be
rewarded with everlasting
life.”—De Profugis.
“ The great shepherd of
“ The Logos is the shep
the flock . . . our Lord
herd of God’s flock.
“ The Deity, like a shep Jesus.”—‘Heb. xiii. 20.
“ I am the good shep
herd, and at the same time
like a monarch, acts with herd, and know my sheep,
the most consummate order and am known of mine.”
and rectitude, and has ap —John x. 14.
“ Christ . . . the shep
pointed his First-born, the
upright Logos, like the herd and guardian of your
substitute of a mighty souls.”—1 Pet. ii. 25.
prince, to take care of his
sacred flock.”—De Agri
cult.
“For Christ must reign
The Logos, Philo says,
is “The great governor of till he hath put all his
the world; he is the crea enemies under his feet.”
tive and princely power, —1 Cor. xv. 25.
“ Christ, above all prin
and through these the
heavens and the whole cipality and might and
world were produced.”— dominion, and every name
that is named, not only in
De Profugis.
�44
Plato, Philo, and Paul.
this world, but in the
world to come . . . and
God hath put all things
under his feet.”—Eph. i.
21, 22.
“ The Logos is the phys
“ The spirit of the Lord
ician that heals all evil.”— is upon me, because he
De Leg. Allegor.
hath anointed me to heal
the broken - hearted.” —■
Luke iv. 18.
The Logos the Seal of God.
“The Logos, hy whom
the world was framed, is
the seal, after the impres
sion of which everything
is made, and is. rendered
the similitude and image
of the perfect Word of
God.”—De Profugis.
“The soul of man is an
impression of a seal, of
which the prototype and
original characteristic is the
everlasting Logos.”—De
Plantatione Noe.
Christ the Seal of God.
“ In whom also, after
that ye believed, ye were
sealed with that holy seal
of promise.”-—Eph. i. 13.
“Jesus, the son of man
. . . him hath God the
Father sealed.”—John vi.
27.
“ Christ, the brightness
of his (God’s) glory, and
the express image of his
person.”—Heb. i. 3.
The Logos the source of
immortal life.
Christ the source of
eternal life.
Philo says, “ that when
“The dead (in Christ)
the soul strives after its shall be raised incorrup
best and noblest life, then tible.”—! Cor. xv. 52.
the Logos frees it from all
“ Because the creature
corruption, and confers up itself also shall be de
on it the gift of immortal livered from the bondage
ity.”—De C. Q. Erud. of corruption into the glori
Gratia.
ous liberty of the children
of God.”—Rom. viii. 21.
�Plato, Philo, and Paul.
Philo speaks of the
Logos, not only as the
Son of God and his first
begotten, but also styles
him “ his beloved Son.”—
De Leg. Allegor.
Philo says “that good
men are admitted to the
assembly of the saints
above.”
“Those who relinquish
human doctrines, and be
come the well-disposed dis
ciples of God, will be one
day translated to an incor
ruptible and perfect order
of beings.”—De Sacrificiis.
Philo says “that the just
man, when he dies, is
translated to another state
by the Logos, by whom
the world was created.
For God by his said Word
(Logos), by which he made
all things, will raise the
perfect man from the dregs
of this world, and exalt
him near himself. He will
place him near his own
person.”—De Sacrificiis.
Philo says that the Logos
45
The New Testament calls
Christ the Beloved Son :—
“ This is my beloved Son,
in whom I am well pleased.”
—Matt. iii. 17; Luke ix.
35 ; 2 Pet. i. 17.
“ The Son of his love.”
—Col. i. 13.
“ But ye are come unto
mount Zion, and to the
city of the living God, and
to an innumerable company
of angels, and to the spirits
of just men made perfect.”
—Heb. xii. 22, 23.
“ Giving thanks unto
the Father which hath
made us meet to be the
partakers of the inheritance
of the saints in light.”—
Col. i. 12.
The New Testament
makes Jesus to say—
“No man can come to
me, except the Father
which hath sent me draw
him ; and I will raise him
up at the last day.”—John
vi. 44.
“No man cometh to the
Father but by me.”—John
xiv. 6.
“ Where I am, there
also shall my servant be
. . . him will my Father
honour.”—John xii. 26.
The New Testament
�46
Plato, Philo, and Paul.
is the true High Priest,
who is without sin and
anointed by God—“It is the world, in
which the Logos, God’s
Pirst-born, that great High
Priest, resides.
And I
assert that this High Priest
is no man, but the Holy
Word of God; who is not
capable of either voluntary
or involuntary sin, and
hence his head is anointed
with oil.”—De Profugis.
Philo mentions the Logos
as the great High Priest
and Mediator for the sins
of the world. Speaking
of the rebellion of Norah,
he introduces the Logos as
saying—
“ It was I who stood in
the middle between the
Lord and you.”
“ The
sacred Logos
pressed with zeal and
without remission that he
might stand between the
dead and the living.”—
Quis Eerum Div Hseres.
The Logos, the Saviour
God, who brings salvation
as the reward of repentance
and righteousness—“ If then men have from
their very souls a just con
trition, and are changed,
and have humbled them-
speaks of Jesus as the
High Priest—
“Seeing then that we
have a great High Priest
that is passed into the
heavens, Jesus, the Son of
God, let us hold fast our
profession.”—Heb. iv. 14.
“For such an High
Priest became us, who is
holy, harmless, undefiled,
separate from sinners.”—
Heb. vii. 26.
The New Testament says
of Christ—
“We have such an High
Priest, who is set on the
right hand of the throne
of the majesty in the
heavens, a mediator of a
better covenant.” — Heb.
viii. 1-6.
“ But Christ being come
an High Priest . . . en
tered at once into the holy
place, having obtained
eternal redemption for us.”
—Heb. ix. 11, 12.
The New Testament
says of John, the forerun
ner of Jesus, that he
preached “ the baptism of
repentance for the remis
sion of sins.”—Mark i. 4.
Jesus says—
“Ye will not come to
�Plato, Philo, and Paul.
47
selves for their past er me, that ye might have
rors, acknowledging and life.”—John v. 40.
confessing their sins, such
“Beloved, we be now
persons shall find pardon the sons of God; and it
from the Saviour and mer doth not yet appear what
ciful God, and receive a we shall be ; but we know
most choice and great ad that when he doth appear
vantage of being made like we shall be like him.”—the Logos of God, who was 1 John iii. 2.
originally the great arche
“As we have borne the
type after which the soul image of the earthy, we
of man was formed.”—De shall also bear the image
Execrationibus.
of the heavenly.”-—1 Cor.
xv. 49.
“For if we have been
planted together in the
likeness, of his death, we
shall be also in the likeness
of his resurrection.”—Rom.
vi. 5.
These extracts, which might be very largely multiplied,
show how much of the estimate and office of Jesus as
“ the Christ,” which the New Testament contains, does
but reproduce- the thought and teaching of Philo with
regard to the “Logos.” This “Logos” Philo brings
into very close association with the Jewish High Priest.
As a good man may be said to be filled with the Spirit
of God—as our clergy profess to have the Holy Ghost
imparted to them at their ordination—so this Logos,
or Word of God, Philo says, is associated with the high
priest while he is performing his official duties.
In his treatise “ On Monarchy,” speaking of the law
which requires that the priest’s body should be without
blemish, he says,—
“ For if it was necessary to examine the mortal body of
the priest, that it might not be imperfect through any mis
fortune, much more was it necessary to look into his immor-
�48
Plato, PhilO) and Paul.
tai soul, which they say is fashioned in the form of the
living God. Now the form or image of God is ‘the Word’
(Logos), by which all the world was made.”
Again, in another part of the same treatise, speaking
of the Levitical law which forbids the High Priest
either to rend his clothes, or take from his head the
ensign of the priesthood, or to show any sign of
mourning, even on the death of his very nearest rela
tion, Philo says,—
“ The law designs that he should be the partaker of a
nature superior to that of man ; inasmuch as he approaches
more nearly to that of the deity ; being, if one must say
the plain truth, on the borders between the two, in order
that men may propitiate God by some mediator, and that
God may have some subordinate by whom he may offer and
give his mercies and kindnesses to man.”
It has been a common argument with the Christian
clergy, that at the period of the Christian era the
world was sunk in the thick darkness of spiritual igno
rance. Adam’s sin had, they say, so alienated the
human race from God, that a great gulf of separation
intervened between God and man, and no possible way
of approach was open whereby sinful man might reach
the throne of offended justice to plead for mercy and
forgiveness ; that then God conceived a way of escape,
which human thought could never have devised. He
became incarnate, laid by His proper glory, and clothed
Himself with a human form ; consented to he horn as
a man—was thus a God-man ; a being for the time
inferior to deity, yet far superior to humanity. In a
word, just such a being as Philo above describes, as
being on the borders between the two natures. Yet
Philo wrote long before Christ commenced his ministry,
and not the slightest evidence exists to warrant the sup
position that Philo ever knew of the existence of Jesus.
Moreover, Philo only reproduces the thought that Gre
cian philosophy had known and cherished for centuries !
In addition to this, we have the most positive and con
�Plato, Philo, and Paul.
49
vincing evidence that, for at least two centuries before
the birth of Jesus, the world in general, and the Jew
ish nation in particular, had possessed the essentials of
a high spiritual faith. It is difficult now to show that
Christianity contains either a moral or spiritual teach
ing that may not be found in the Dialogues of Plato,
or in the Apocryphal scriptures of the Jews. There
had been a bright blaze of spiritual light glowing in
the world for centuries before Christ was born in Beth
lehem.
Philo, writing in all probability about the time that
Jesus was a youth, describes the existence of religious
communities, who were living a monastic or secluded
life in Egypt, under the name of “ Therapeutee,” or
healers, and in Palestine under the title of Essenes, or
holy ones ; a society probably allied to the society of
Assideans, mentioned in the 1st book of Maccabees ii.
42, or those who had voluntarily devoted themselves
to the study and observance of the law. The Essenes,
who in Palestine numbered above 4000, are thus de
scribed by Philo:—
“ Their name ‘ Essene,’ corresponds to the Greek (otrtoi),
‘ righteous, pious.’ For they have attained the highest
righteousness in the worship of God, and that not by sacri
ficing animals, but by cultivating purity of heart. They
live principally in villages, and avoid the towns. Some
cultivate the ground, and others pursue the arts of peace,
and such employments as are beneficial to themselves with
out injury to their neighbours. They seek neither to hoard
silver or gold, nor to inherit ample estates, in order to
gratify prodigality and avarice, but are content with the
mere necessaries of life. . . . They deem riches to consist
not in amplitude of possessions, but in frugality and con
tentment. Among them can be found no one who manu
factures any weapon of war, nor even such instruments as
are easily perverted to evil purposes in times of peace ; they
decline trade, have no slaves, but all in turn minister to
others. They discard all learning, save that which relates
to the existence of God and the creation of the universe,
but they devoutly study the moral law. In their public
D
�5°
Plato, Philo, and Paul.
assemblies on the Sabbath they interpret the Scriptures,
and mutually instruct each other in piety, holiness, right
eousness, domestic and political economy, the knowledge
of things good, bad, and indifferent, and what objects
should be pursued and what avoided. ... Of their love to
God they give innumerable proofs, by leading a life of con
tinued purity, unstained by oaths and falsehoods ; by re
garding Him as the author of every good and as the cause
of no evil. Their love to man is evinced by their benignity,
their equity, and their liberality, of which I proceed to
give a short account, though no language can adequately de
scribe it.
“ In the first place, there exists among them no house,
however private, which is not open to the reception of all
the rest, and not only the members of the same society
assemble under the same domestic roof, but even strangers
of the same persuasion have free permission to join them.
There is but one treasure, whence all derive substance. . . .
The daily labourer keeps not for his own use the produce of
his toil, but imparts it to the common stock, and thus fur
nishes each member with a right to use for himself the pro
fits earned by others. The sick are not despised or neglected
because they are no longer capable of useful labour, but
they live in ease and affluence, receiving from the treasury
whatever their disorder or their exigencies require. The
aged, too, among them are loved, reverenced, and attended
as parents by affectionate children, and a thousand hands
and hearts prop their tottering years with comforts of
every kind.”—{From the Treatise showing that the Virtuous
are also Free.} See Bohn’s translation of Philo, vol. iii.
p. 525.
Josephus gives a very similar account of this com
munity, and among other things he says,—
“The Essenes refer all things to God; they teach the
immortality of the soul, and hold forth the reward of virtue
to be most glorious. They send gifts to the temple, but
they differ from the other Jews in their ideas of purificacation. From this reason they are excluded from the holy
place, and do not offer sacrifice ; themselves being the only
acceptable sacrifice which they offer to God.”—Antiquities,
xviii. 1, 5.
We have here distinct evidence of the'gradual spiri
�Plato, Philo, and Paul.
51
tual growth, of the Jewish people ; of the development
of a devotional piety, and of a practical conception of
religious duty.
After reading Philo’s account of the Essenes, the
conviction flashes upon us that John the Baptist must
have belonged to one of these communities, and that
Jesus himself must have been largely imbued with
their spirit. The Sermon on the Mount is, in fact, a
simple reiteration of their teaching. There is, however,
one distinctive difference, the Essenes separated them
selves from the world, and maintained a degree of
secrecy with regard to their views, admitting members
only after a lengthened probation. Jesus endorsing
nearly all their specific teaching, preached it as “ the
kingdom of God ” to the mixed multitude of the people,
disclaimed all seclusion and secrecy with regard to it,
and made membership open to all who were disposed
to enter. But for this public ministry Jesus would
have been simply one of the Jewish Essenes, i.e., a
spiritually minded religious recluse ; living in associa
tion with a sort of monastic fraternity. His desire,
however, to outstep the limitations of this society, and
to make the fraternity one of world-wide comprehen
siveness, to establish, as it were, a system of univer
sal brotherhood, gave to his life the special character
that marked it, and enabled him to put an impress on
all succeeding time.
It is time now for us to review the religious
thought currents that were flowing through the Jewish
mind at the time when Jesus was preaching through
the towns and villages of Judea.
First., There was the Mosaic law with its ordinances
and ritual, forming the traditional substratum of the
national religion. This was also the established or
orthodox worship.
Secondly, There was the Messianic expectation
assuming two very diverse forms. In the one which
prevailed among the multitude the expectation was
�52
Plato, Philo, and Paul.
that a mighty man, a great conqueror, should be raised
up from their midst, who, coming of the lineage of
David, should restore the brilliancy and prosperity of
David’s reign ; should overthrow the Roman rule, and
make Judea chief among the nations. In the other,
Messiah was looked for not as a great warrior who
should lead the people through revolt to victory and
freedom and supremacy, but as a great prophet who
should lead the people through righteousness back to
the loving favour of God ; God, it was thought, would
then descend in person upon the earth, and call the
nations to judgment. Those who held this latter view
cultivated personal piety, and, regarding religion as a
spiritual influence, outgrew their reverence for the
ceremonial law and the Temple service. The Essenes
were among those who held this spiritual estimate of
religion, and they looked for the coming of a new age,
a millenium—a kingdom of God on earth—and in
harmony with this expectation they so lived as to be
in readiness to enter when this kingdom should appear.
Thirdly, There were the lines of speculative thought
which the more educated and cultured of the Jews
had imbibed from the religious systems and philosophies
of the Gentile world. Every class of the Jewish people
was outgrowing its adhesion to the crude letter of the
law, and to the literal interpretation of the scripture.
To adapt these scriptures to the advancing thought of
the age, it became necessary to make them speak in
harmony with the philosophic systems that were domi
nating the world at large. This was accomplished by
commentaries which declared the cruder narratives of
Scripture to be allegories typical of higher truths.
Philo was the great master of this art, and the copious
commentaries and philosophical essays which he wrote
must have revolutionised the Jewish thought of his
age. Philo was born about the year B.c. 25, he must
therefore have been above fifty when Jesus commenced
his ministry. The speculative thought of Philo, how
�Plato, Philo, and Paul.
53
ever, does not seem to have reached or influenced the
mind of Jesus. It makes its first appearance in the
New Testament in the epistles of Paul. Paul had
learned in the Jewish schools the subtleties of the
Philonic thought; how by the Logos, or divine wisdom,
or Spirit, or Word, God came near to the world of
man; how this divine Logos rested upon the High
Priest and made him to be more than human, to be a
divine being while he was engaged in performing the
sacred rites of his office. Paul, however, was born at
Tarsus, a city of Asia Minor, the rival of Athens as a
seat of Grecian philosophy and learning. In early life
Paul must have therefore been largely influenced by
the forms of Gentile thought -which were prevalent in
his native city, and till his residence in Jerusalem for
instruction in the Jewish law, was doubtless a very
indifferent Jew. Here, while studying at the feet of
the learned and liberal chief Eabbi Gamaliel, he would
have made a close and intimate acquaintance with the
theories and commentaries of Philo, who sought to
reconcile Judaism with the philosophy of the Grecian
schools, and to assert for it the place of honour as
being the primal light. Plato was thus represented as
a plagiarist of Moses. This Jewish education seems to
have suddenly fired the youthful zeal of Paul, or Saul,
as he was then named, and to have made him a Jewish
zealot. But this was only the effervescence of a fiery
and impulsive nature, and Paul soon outgrew his
sudden attachment to the Jewish law and became a
convert to the Christian reform
*
Paul did not, however, part with his philosophy on
his conversion, and that system of an intermediate
divinity, which was common now to the Grecian and
* This reform as a Christian movement was then in its infancy.
It was, however, in large harmony with the teachings of the
Essenian communities, and these were well established as Jewish
sects, as a sort of Jewish Puritanism. The Essenian communities
in all probability merged into the early Christian church.
�54
Plato, Philo, and Paul.
the Jewish thought, Paul applied to his new faith, the
great founder and teacher of which he never knew or
saw in the flesh.
Jesus was, consequently an ideal conception to the
mind of Paul. Paul knew him simply as the teacher
of a sublime spiritual faith, as one who had taken up a
prophet’s work in a prophet’s spirit, who had done
works of W’onder, and who had perished by a martyr’s
death. Nay, more, the general rumour amongst his
followers was, that God had raised him from the dead,
and that he had been seen ascending into heaven.
*
This was enough for Paul. Not the Jewish High
Priest, as Philo had taught, who was after all but a very
ordinary man, but this great and pure-minded and highsouled prophet was in his estimation the true Logos, the
accredited messenger of God, was “ the brightness of
the Father’s glory and the express image of his person.”
Paul never saw Jesus, and never learned his doc
trine, either from his disciples or his apostles ; these, he
says, could teach him nothing that he did not before
hand know.f The great principles of spiritual religion
he felt as inspirations of his own quickened heart, but
he recognised Jesus as the great prophet who had
spoken these with a prophet’s power, who had given
his life as their witness, and who had suffered a
martyr’s death in their behalf. So he preached Christ;
for he recognised Jesus as the Messiah, not in the
popular but in the spiritual sense, i.e., as the power
and the wisdom of God. But the power and the
wisdom of God were the attributes of the Gentile
Logos; the “Divine Word,” by whom the worlds were
made, the second God, the mediator between God and
man. So Jesus, considered as the Christ, Paul felt
must be each and all of these, and thus in his epistle
to the Colossians, Paul calls upon them to thank God,
* For the value of the Gospel testimony to this event, see
“ English Life of Jesus,” by Thomas Scott.
+ Gal. ch. i. 2.
�Plato, Philo, and Paul.
55
“ Who hath delivered us from the powers of darkness,
and hath translated us into the kingdom of the Son of his
love .... who is the image of the invisible God, the first
born of every creature. For by him were all things created,
that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and
invisible, whether they be thrones or dominions, or princi
palities or powers, all things were created by him and for
him, and he is before all things, and by him all things con
sist.”*—CW. i. 13-17.
This is but a specimen of the numerous passages to
be found in the writings of Paul, exalting the nature
of Jesus, and attributing to him those attributes of
divinity which Philo had attempted to affix to the
Jewish High Priest, and which both Philo and Plato
had ascribed to the Logos or Divine Word, which, in
short, had for centuries been the basis of the philo
sophic thought of the then known world.
The unknown writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews,
writing from a Jewish stand-point, claims, in like
* It has lately been a question in dispute among biblical scholars,
as to whether Paul really wrote this Epistle to the Colossians, and
some others, which bear his name. The only epistles of which his
authorship is undisputed, being those to the Romans, Galatians,
and Corinthians. Certainly, in the Epistles to the Colossians and
Ephesians, Paul, if he wrote them, speaks of Jesus in far more
exalted terms than those he uses in the above-named letters.
This, however, may be due to the fact that both at Ephesus and
Colosse, Gnosticism was the prevalent philosophy. This seems to
have been a mixture of Grecian philosophy and Oriental ideas.
According to this system, the Pleroma, or fulness of the Godhead,
was made up of the Divine Essence, and an endless series of
“ JEons ” which emanated from it. Some of these were very nearly
allied to the Supreme, and others were removed by generations or
descent from him, till at last they became bad or evil influences,—
the enemies of the good God. By these JEons, the Supreme wa3
thought to have made the world, and to rule mankind. This
Gnosticism tainted Judaism, and early in the second century, it
largely corrupted Christianity. Simon Magus claimed to be one
of these /Eons—“ gave himself out to be some great one to whom
the people all gave heed, saying, this man is the great Power of
God.”—Acts viii. 10. Paul, addressing a people, imbued with these
ideas, claims, for Jesus, that he was first and chief of these JEons,
or emanations or powers of God,—the Son or JEon of his love, who
made the world, and rules over all things.
�56
Plato, Philo, and Paul.
manner, that Jesus was the Logos in his character of
High Priest, and in this sense, invests him with a divine
*
nature.
But to both Paul and this writer, the Logos
is a spiritual being, and the human Jesus is, to a large
extent, lost sight of by them; their Christ is largely
ideal, and of Jesus, they have but the vague knowledge
of general repute. Paul distinctly refused to know
Jesus after the flesh. It marked, therefore, a further
stage of development when early in, or possibly towards
the middle of, the second century, the Fourth Gospel,
that attributed to the Apostle John, appeared. This
Gospel was written with an express purpose, that of
proving that Jesus was the Christ or Logos. The
people among whom Paul chiefly laboured, accepted
his teaching that Christ was the wisdom and the power
of God, the best beloved of the JEons or emanations from
the divine essence; but many of those versed in the
current philosophy, denied that Christ or the Logos
* Ernest De Bunsen, in his interesting work, “The Hidden
Wisdom of Christ,” ascribes the authorship of the Epistle to the
Hebrews to Apollos, the companion of Paul, and says “ that
Apollos has here applied to Christ the pre-Christian Alexandrian
doctrine about the first-born Wisdom, Spirit, or Word of God is
evident. For, as we have pointed out, in the book of Wisdom, the
same is called ‘ the brightness of the everlasting light, the un
spotted mirror of the power of God, and the image of His good
ness.’ Now we have seen that in the Apocrypha, God is not
revealed as a person, but merely as a spirit or glory......... But
Apollos conceived, and with him, as we may assume, all those who
believed in Christ, that since the mark of humanity’s high-calling had
been reached by and in Jesus,—since the perfect incarnation of
God’s holy spirit had been accomplished, the real pattern of man
kind has ceased to be a divine idea, has been manifested in the
flesh, has become a person.” ....
“ It is possible that by thus connecting an historical individual
with a pre-historical idea, Apollos did either consciously or un
consciously lay the foundation to that ‘ docetism ’ which denied
the humanity of Christ.” ....
“The Divine Spirit or Word thus personified, has taken the
place by the throne of God, which was, up to this time of reforma
tion, occupied by a merely ideal image of humanity’s high-calling.
Divine Wisdom, which, from the beginning, is by the throne of
God, henceforth is represented by the first-born of deified humanity.
The spiritual messiah has become personal.”—-Vol. I., p. 311, 323.
�Plato, Philo, and Paul.
57
was a man. Jesus, they said, was simply a human
being on whom this Logos descended, with whom
Jesus as the Christ was mystically united, as a soul is
united with a body. The Fourth Gospel is written to
refute this teaching, and to assert that Jesus was him
self the Logos—Christ, “that the Word or Logos was
made flesh, and dwelt among us, so that men beheld
his glory as the only begotten of the Father.” (John i.
14.) Throughout this gospel, Jesus is spoken of as a
superhuman being, as wearing the human form, but
claiming a mysterious and intimate relationship with
God, as asserting, for himself, an equality with God,
and as claiming to have existed before the world was
made. This gospel, however, records but the fanciful,
though deep and philosophical, speculations of a
devout and spiritually-minded Christian, who lived
quite one hundred years after the crucifixion of Jesus.
It is an endeavour to identify the Platonic Logos with
the personality of Jesus, whom his Jewish followers
had accepted as a spiritual Messiah or Christ, and
whom his Gentile followers were anxious to exalt, by
asserting his identity with the “ Logos” or Divine Word.
The three earlier Gospels contain the real history of
Jesus, or rather, they record the traditions that were
current among his followers concerning him, some
thirty years after his death. These followers were, for
the most part, Jews, some of whom had been his
actual companions. They are a mixture of history and
legend,—nevertheless, all our knowledge of the actual
Jesus must be gathered from these sources. The so-called
Gospel of John is the record of the speculative fancy of
some Gentile Christian, who never had seen either
Jesus or his diciples, or conversed even with those of
the second generation from these ; who, moreover, knew
but little either of Judea or the Jewish religion ; who,
however, is thoroughly conversant with the Logos as a
personified power of God, and who is desirous of
identifying Jesus with this being.
�Plato, Philo, and Paul.
In the three earlier Gospels, Jesus never claims to he
the Christ whom the Jews were expecting, till just at
the close of his ministry, when he bids his disciples to
keep his assumption of the office a profound secret till
after his resurrection. (Mark ix. 9.) In the fourth
Gospel, however, Jesus is represented as openly claim
ing this title from the very commencement of his
ministry, and as continually upbraiding the Jews for
refusing to recognise it. In this Gospel, it is the sum
and substance of his teaching. The same writer who
wrote the Gospel ascribed to John, is generally believed
to have written also the Epistles which claim the same
authorship. In these, we very clearly discern the
speculative controversy that occasioned their appear
ance, viz., the denial on the part of many Asiatic
Christians that the Logos, whom they now called
Christ, had ever possessed a personal and material
existence, had ever “come in the flesh.” So this
epistle commences—
“ That which was from the beginning (the pre-existent
Logos or Christ), which we have heard, which we have
seen with our eyes, and our hands have handled of the Word
(Logos) of Life.
*
“ (For the Life was manifested, and we have seen it, and
bear witness and show unto you that eternal life which was
with the Father, and was manifested unto us) ;
“ That which we have seen and heard, declare we unto
you, that ye also may have fellowship with us; and truly,
our fellowship is with the Father, and with his Son Jesus
Christ.”
Again the writer says—
“ Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits
* The period of the appearance of the Gnostic heresy renders it
possible for those who took part in the controversies it occasioned to
have seen the living Jesus ; the writer of this epistle, however, to
add weight and authority to his arguments, writes in the name of
an apostle, who was the companion of Jesus, and thus antedates
his -work by upwards of half a century. Dr Davidson places the
epistle before the gospel, and dates the former about a.d. 130.
�Plato, Philo, and Paul.
59
whether they are of God: because many false prophets are
gone out into the world.
“ Hereby know ye the Spirit of God, every spirit that
confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God.
“And every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ
is come in the flesh, is not of God : and this is that spirit
of Anti-Christ whereof ye have heard that it should come ;
and even now, already is it in the world.”
During the larger portion of the second century, the
representatives of Hebrew Christianity, i.e., of the first
church of the apostles, which had its centre at
Jerusalem, were almost wholly extinct, and Christianity
was altogether in the hands of its Gentile converts.
Its severance from Judaism was complete, and the
churches that now existed, took their tone very largely
from the teachings of Paul.
The chief and almost the only Christian literature of
the second century, consists in the copious Apologies
made to the Roman Emperors on behalf of Christianity,
viz., that made by Justin Martyr to the Emperor
Marcus Aurelius, a.d. 160, and that made by Tertullian
about a.d. 200,—and in the celebrated dialogue or
controversy of the former, with the Jew Trypho.
Justin was a native of Palestine, but a Grecian by
birth and education, a student and teacher of the Gentile
philosophies. Plato was his great master till his con
version to Christianity. After this event, however,
he still continued to wear the philosopher’s mantle, and
endeavoured to reconcile much that he had learned from
Plato’s writings with the spirit he had imbibed from
his new faith. His conception of Jesus was necessarily
largely ideal, and Justin claimed, on his behalf, that he
was the pre-existing Logos of whom Plato had taught.
Commenting in his “ Apology ” on the passage from
Matthew’s gospel, “No man knoweth the Son but
the Father, neither knoweth any man the Father but
the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal
him.” Justin says—
�6o
Plato, Philo, and Paul.
“ The Jews therefore for maintaining that it was the
Father of the Universe who had the conference with Moses,
when it was tbe very Son of God who had it, and who is
styled both Angel and Apostle, are justly accused by the
prophetic spirit, and Christ himself, for knowing neither the
Father nor the Son. For they who assert the Son to be the
Father, are guilty of not knowing the Father, and likewise
of being ignorant that the Father of the Universe has a
Son, who being the Logos, and first-begotten of God, is
God. And he it is who heretofore appeared to Moses and
the rest of the Prophets, sometimes in fire, and sometimes
in the form of angels. But now, under your empire, as I
mentioned, was born of a virgin, according to the will of
his Father, to save such as should believe in him, and was
content to be made of no reputation, and to suffer, that by
his death and resurrection, he might conquer death.”
Justin here asserts Jesus to be God, but God in such
a subordinate sense as not to interfere with the unity
and supremacy of the Father. A confused thought
that literally implies the recognition of two deities. In
the old philosophy, the Logos was the spirit, or active
power, or wisdom of God. But this idea, when
identified with Jesus, suggests two distinct persons in
the Godhead, and takes a large step towards the Trini
tarian dogma.
In his “ Dialogue with Trypho,”
Justin speaks yet more clearly—
“I will produce another proof from the scriptures to
*
show that God did, before all creation, beget of Himself a
beginning, a certain rational power, which, by the Holy
Ghost, is called also the glory of the Lord, and sometimes
the Son, sometimes wisdom, sometimes an angel, sometimes
the Lord, and the Logos or Word. Just like what we see
done in ourselves, for when we speak any word, we beget
that word: but not by separating it from us, so as to
diminish the word that is in us by our speaking it. Just as
we see, also, that one fire is lighted from another, without
diminishing that from which it is lighted from, that still
continuing to be the same.”
* The proof consists in quotations from the Book of Proverbs,
describing the personification of wisdom.
�Plato, Philo, and Paul.
6'i
Here, again, we have, in this attempted definition of
the Logos, a confusion of thought, seeing that it may
imply a soul lit by the spirit of God, as well as a
separate and subordinate divinity. This confusion of
ideas and perplexity of thought is well seen in the
following passage from the ££ Apology ” of Tertullian, who
was born at Carthage, of heathen parents, about the
year 160, who as a youth, was instructed in the whole
round of philosophic study ; but becoming a convert to
Christianity, wrote, about the year 200, a powerful
Apology, for the purpose of showing its superiority to
the heathen religions, yet who eventually lapsed into
the Montanist heresy, which looked for another Christ
or Paraclete yet to come. In the chapter concerning
the God of the Christians, Tertullian says—
“ The God we worship is one God, that Almighty Being
who fetched this whole mass of matter, with all the ele
ments, bodies, and spirits which compose the universe,
purely out of nothing by the word of his power, which
spoke them into being, and by that wisdom which ranged
them into this admirable order for a becoming image and
glorious expression of his Divine Majesty, which world the
Greeks call by a word implying beauty (/coa/zos). This same
God is invisible, though we discern his infinite majesty in
all his works, and whom we cannot touch though represented
to us by divine revelation, and united to us by his spirit;
and incomprehensible, though we come to some imperfect
ideas of him by the help of our senses.”
Later on, in a chapter concerning the birth and
crucifixion of Christ, who, he says, was born of a pure
virgin, he adds :—
“ I have already said, that God reared this fabric of the
world out of nothing, by his word, wisdom, or power ; and
it is evident that your sages of old were of the. same
opinion, that the “ Logos,” that is, the word or the wisdom,
was the maker of the universe, for Zeno determines the
Logos to be the creator and adjuster of every thing in
nature. The same Logos he affirms to be called by the
name of Fate, God, mind of Jove, and necessity of all
�6i
Plato, Philo, and Paul.
things. Cleanthes will have the author of the world to be
a spirit that pervades every part of it. And we Christians
also do affirm a spirit to be the proper substance of the
“ Logos,” by whom all things were made, in which he
subsisted before he was spoken out, and was the wisdom
that assisted at the creation, and the power that presided
over the whole work. The Logos or Word issuing forth
from that spiritual substance at the creation of the world,
and generated by that issuing or progression, is for this
reason called the Son of God, and the God, from his unity
of substance with God the father, for God is a Spirit. An
imperfect image of this you have in the derivation of a ray
from the body of the sun ; for his ray is a part without any
diminution of the whole, but the sun is always in the ray,
because the ray is always from the sun; nor is the substance
separated, but only extended.
“ Thus is it in some measure in the eternal generation of
“ The Logos,” he is a spirit of a spirit, a God of God, as
one light is generated by another, the original parent light
remaining entire and undiminished, notwithstanding the
communication of itself to many other lights. Thus it is
that the Logos which came forth from God, is both God
and the Son of God, and those two are one. Hence it is
that a spirit of a spirit, or a God of God, makes another in
mode of subsistence, but not in number; in order of nature,
but not in numericalness or identity of essence ; and so the
Son is subordinate to the Father as he comes from him as the
principle, but is never separated.”—(Tertullian’s Apology—
Reeves’ Translation).
Such were the confused ideas as to the nature
and person of Jesus considered as the Christ,
that prevailed at the close of the second century.
We have got, it will be seen, half way towards
a Trinity.
We have a” Father who is God, and a
Son who is of the same substance with him, being
begotten by him, who is, however, at this era, not
the equal, but the subordinate, of the Father. We are,
it is evident, approaching the era of the Nicene creed,
are already far in advance of the Apostle’s symbol, but
are yet some centuries removed from the Athanasian
dogma.
�Plato, Philo, and Paul.
63
From this date to the early part of the third century,
fierce controversies raged in the Christian church, as
to the proper relation which the Son bore to the
Father. Moreover, another personage was introduced
serving to increase the perplexity, viz., the Holy
Spirit or Ghost.
Early in the third century Noetus, a native of
Smyrna, maintained
‘‘ that God himself, whom he denominated the Father, and
held to be absolutely one and indivisible, united himself
with the man Christ, whom he called the Son, and in him
was born and suffered. From this dogma of Noetus his
adherents were called Patripassians, be., persons who held
that the great parent of the universe himself, and not
merely some one person of the Godhead, had made expia
tion for the sins of men.”—Mosheim’s Ecclesiastical History.
Later on in this century lived Sabellius, an African
Presbyter or Bishop.
He was the founder of the
famous Sabellian heresy, which asserted in opposition
to the followers of Noetus, that only a power from
God, and not the Father himself, was united with the
Son, or the man Christ; the Holy Spirit he considered
as another power or portion of the Eternal Father.
The controversies that prevailed about this period, as
to the true nature of Christ and his relation to the
Supreme God, were innumerable.
The religion of
Jesus as a moral force was consequently all hut lost
sight of in the clouds of metaphysical subtleties that
veiled the pure, bright light of God. These specula
tive fancies were cobwebs spun by the heated imagina
tions of fierce and fiery disputants, and had no
foundation whatever on the rock of Eternal truth.
Yet these grotesque and fantastic speculations were
laying the foundation of the creeds and dogmas that
■were to dominate the Christian church for succeeding
centuries ; that were to fill it with bitter strifes, to
fetter its freedom, and effectually to stop its growth.
By the close of the third century, it came to be
�64
Plato, Philo, and Paul.
generally recognised that the Godhead was to be con
ceived of in three aspects, or understood as comprising
three persons. The former was a heretic opinion, the
latter the orthodox faith.
But this orthodox faith
was by no means clearly defined, and endless disputes
prevailed as to the relation which the persons of the
Trinity bore to each other. Early in the fourth
century, Alexander, who was bishop of Alexandria in
Egypt, the metropolitan city alike of philosophy and
religion, and now the chief seat of Christianity, the
workshop where its chief doctrines were moulded,
maintained, among other things, that the Son possesses
not only the same dignity, but the same essence as the
Father. Arius, one of the presbyters, and who was
ultimately the great opponent of Athanasius, the
successor of Alexander in the Alexandrian Bishopric,
condemned these views as allied to Sabellianism, and
maintained
“ that the Son is totally and essentially distinct from the
Father; that he was only the first and noblest of those
created beings whom God the Father formed out of nothing,
and the instrument which the father used in creating this
material universe, and therefore that he was inferior to the
father both in nature and dignity. He defended his heresy
by showing that if the Father begat a Son, he who was
begotten had a beginning of existence, and therefore once
had no existence.”
Alexander accused Arius of blasphemy, and excom
municated him. But Arius had numerous followers ;
and the church at large was rent by a wide-spread
schism on this account. The Emperor Constantine,
who had recently been converted to Christianity, and
who had little taste for this theological hair-splitting,
deeming it remote from the true use of religion, tried
in vain to quiet the controversy, and at last as a means
of effectually settling it, and putting an end to the
disgraceful strifes that were raging with regard to it,
he summoned, in the year a.d. 325, the famous council
�Plato, Philo, and Paul.
65
of the entire church, which met at Nice in Bythinia, at
which three hundred and eighteen bishops assembled to
decide the question as to whether the Son was of the
same essence with the Father, or a distinct being from
him, and an inferior being to him.
The good Bishops, who sat in great state with the
Emperor as their president, had a somewhat warm dis
cussion, during which blows as well as words were
interchanged. The conncil lasted for two months, and
the result was, that a majority declared that “ Christ
was of the same essence as the Father.” Arius, who
had asserted the contrary, was sent into exile in
Illyricum, and his followers were compelled to sub
scribe their belief in the following confession of faith,
composed by the council.
The reader will detect in
the strange theological jargon which it contains, the
natural sequence of the forms of thought we have been
considering.
“We believe in one God the Father Almighty, the maker
of all things visible and invisible; and in one Lord Jesus
Christ, the Son of God, begotten of the Father, only
begotten, of the substance of the Father. God of
from
or out of) God, light of light, very God of very God;
begotten, not made; of the same substance with the
Father, by whom all things are made that are in heaven
and that are in earth ; who for us men and for our salvation
descended and was incarnate, and became man, suffered
and rose again the third day, ascended into the heavens,
and will come to judge the living and the dead ; and in the
Holy Spirit. But those who say that there was a time
when he was not, and that he was not before he was
begotten, or affirm that he is of any other substance or
essence, or that the Son of God is created and mutable or
changeable, the Catholic Church doth pronounce accursed.”
The Nicene creed, as it appears in the Church of
England prayer-book, and as it has been generally
used by the Christian Church, is a modification of the
above, which was made by the council of Constanti
nople in the year 381. Its chief difference consists in
E
�66
Plato, Philo, and Paul.
the removal of the appended excommunication, and
in the addition of the following clauses in reference to
the Holy Ghost.
“ I believe in the Holy Ghost, the Lord and Giver of life,
who proceeded from the Father (and the Son) who with
*
the Father and the Son together is worshipped and glorified,
who spake by the Prophets.”
The Eastern Church severed itself from the Western
Church on the clause which makes the Holy Ghost to
proceed from the Son in conjunction with the Father,
instead of (as it held) from the Father alone. In this
later creed we have a near approach to the Triune
Godhead, which forms the fundamental dogma of
modern Christianity; and from this time—the latter
half of the fourth century—speculations about the
Christian Trinity were more thought of than considera
tions concerning Christian duty, while a correct belief
in this matter was regarded by many of the clergy as
being of infinitely higher importance than a virtuous
life. Historians of this date inform us that while the
morals of the people -were degenerating, so that a great
preacher (Gregory Nazianzen) described the people as
being composed of “ the bad who wore a mask, and the
bad who appeared without one ; ” yet the interest even
of the poorer classes of the people in the theological
speculations of the period was as intense as that shown
in the present day by the English public in the result
of some popular horse or boat race. At Constantinople,
which was now the capital city of the empire, it is
recorded that
‘‘knots of people stood at the street corners, discussing
incomprehensibilities; in the markets, clothes-sellers, money
changers, provision dealers, were similarly employed. When
a man was asked, How many oboli a thing cost? he started
a discussion upon generated and ungenerated existence.
* The word “Filioque” was appended by the Latin Church
early in the fifth century.
�Plato, Plilo, and Paul.
&7
Inquiries as to the price of bread were answered by the
assertion that the Father is greater than the Son. When
one wanted a bath, the reply was that the Son of God was
created from nothing.”
Such is the picture of the condition of the public
mind as drawn by Gregory of Nyssa, a preacher of this
period. This deep popular interest, which existed
towards the close of the fourth century, concerning the
subordination of the Son to the Father, and the status
of the different personages of the Godhead, affords con
vincing evidence that the Council of Nicsea had by no
means furnished a satisfactory settlement of the ques
tion, and that a fierce and virulent controversy was
raging with regard to it. This was conducted with
arguments of a very questionable nature. Athanasius,
who was then Archdeacon of Alexandria, as secretary
of the Nicsean Council, drew up the formularies of the
Nicene creed, which is much more truly his creed than,
the one which has been made to bear his name, and
which was not in existence till centuries after his death.
This creed was opposed at first by seventeen bishops;
'these, however, were ultimately reduced to two, who,
with Arius, were sent into exile as soon as the decision
was made. Considering the penalties that were conse
quent on voting in the minority, it is surprising that
even two were found prepared to suffer banishment and
loss of high office on account of the faith they held.
On the death of Alexander, Bishop of Alexandria,
Athanasius was promoted to the office, and Athanasian
dogma ruled in the ascendant, yet not without consider
able opposition; and Athanasius had to use very rough
and violent measures to silence this. History tells,
possibly with some exaggerations, for the charges are
brought by his opponents, of his flogging several
bishops, interrupting divine service, burning the sacred
books, breaking the chalices, overthrowing the com
munion table, and causing the building to be razed to
the ground. Still the views of Arius progressed in
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Plato Philo, and Paul.
spite of this high-handed persecution; they even in
fected the court, and the emperor’s sister espoused them.
Possibly through her influence, Arius is recalled, and
the bishops who were exiled with him, Eusebius of
Nicomedia and Theognis of Nice, are restored to their
sees. Athanasius, however, is now Bishop of Alex
andria, and Arius, on his return, is neither allowed
to teach, nor to be received into communion in any
of the churches. The Church, as represented by
Athanasius, sets the State, as represented by the
emperor, at defiance; yet a synod of the clergy assem
bled at Jerusalem recognised the status of Arius in the
Church. The tide, however, is about to turn. Com
plaints against the overbearing tyranny of Athanasius
are heard on every side, and he is summoned to answer
them before a council of bishops at Caesarea; but he
declines to appear, and, as a consequence, is eventually
deposed and exiled. Arius now drew7 up a Confession
of Faith, without the controversial points relating to
the consuljstantiality of the Father and Son, and pre
sented it to Constantine, with a memorial praying that
this confession might be deemed a sufficient test of
Catholic orthodoxy. To this Constantine assented,
and was so well satisfied with the faith of Arms, that
he sent for Alexander, the Bishop of Constantinople,
and enjoined him to admit Arius to communion on the
following Sunday. The terrified bishop, over-awed by
the authority of the emperor, retired to the church of
Irene, and there prayed “ that God would call himself
from the world, or let that Arius die.” On the follow
ing Sunday, as Arius, accompanied by Eusebius of
Nicomedia and others of his adherents, was proceeding
to make a sort of triumphal entry into the church 01
Constantinople, he was seized with a sudden colic, and
expired in dreadful torments. Thus the bishop’s prayer
was answered, but suspicion was rife that poison had
lent a helping-hand towards the accomplishment of its
uncharitable request.
�Plato, Philo, and Paul.
Cg
During the remainder of the reign of Constantine,
and till the death of his son and successor, Constantius,
- that is, for about forty years—Arian views were in
the ascendant; and a compromise was effected between
these views and the Nicene dogma, which declared
the Son to be of the same substance with the Father,
by substituting the word o^oiougioi; (like essence) for
o^oovcioq
(the same essence). Under Julian and
Theodosius, however, the tide again turned, the latter
emperor, towards the close of the century, depriving
the Arians of all their churches, and enacting severe
laws against them, persecuted Arianism to its virtual
extinction ; and the doctrine of the complete Godhead
of Christ was henceforth the ruling dogma of Chris
tendom.
This result was largely helped by the powerful
advocacy of the great preacher of this period, Gregory
Nazianzen, whose public discourses were chiefly directed
to prove the existence in one Godhead of three self
depending hypostases or persons—Father, Son, and
Holy Ghost—each of whom was distinguished by
peculiar qualities or attributes. During this period a
fierce and protracted theological strife prevailed through
out the empire, and discussions concerning the Trinity
engrossed the public thought. Eventually the Nicene
dogma of a Godhead composed of three equal and dis
tinct persons, of which Athanasius had been the dis
tinguished advocate, became the settled faith of Chris
tendom. It was doubtless to make assurance doubly
sure, and to prevent all further controversy on the
matter, that the Athanasian creed was in course of
time constructed, or was for this purpose accepted, if, as
rumour states, it owed its origin to the polished satire
of an opponent of the dogma it professes to uphold.
This creed, which was wholly unknown till at least two
centuries after the death of its professed author, Athan
asius, sets forth the Catholic faith on this knotty
question; and, after making the subject, by way of
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Plato, Philo, and Paul.
explanation, infinitely more dark and perplexing and
contradictory than it was before, it declares that
“ except every one do keep this faith whole and unde
filed, without doubt he shall perish everlastingly ! ”
Shall be consigned by a merciful Father and a loving
God to the eternal torments of a cruel and pitiless
Hell!
Apart from the frightful blasphemy of such a
declaration, this creed is a mass of absurdity and
*
nonsense.
It reminds us of theological speculation
gone mad. It professes to reason concerning subjects
far beyond the grasp of the highest and largest thought.
It declares “the Father to be God, the Son to be God,
and the Holy Ghost to be God
asserts that each of
these Gods has a separate and distinct personality ;
that each is uncreated, incomprehensible, eternal, and
almighty, and yet while compelling us by the “ Chris
tian verity,” to acknowledge every person by himself
to be God and Lord, it forbids us by the Catholic
religion to say “there be three Gods or three Lords !”
and it declares that if we “ confound the persons or
divide the substance,” the flames of an eternal hell will
be our portion ! This theological monstrosity, which
some assert was penned in satire by a drunken monk
* Yet last year densely crowded meetings, composed largely of
the higher church clergy, and the nobility, and influential laity,
were held in St James and Exeter Halls, for the purpose of main
taining this creed as the foundation dogma of the national religion.
If we are asked to account for such a sad spectacle, we say the
following facts explain it. It is the party cry rather than the real
belief of the church and people. “The kingdoms of the world
and the glory of them,” the high honours of society, and the
wealth and prestige of the National Church, are to be had by
professing a belief here, or rather this profession is one of the
essential conditions to their possession, while till a century or two
ago, it was death to openly express a disbelief in the Athanasian
dogmas, and till the early part of the present century it involved
outlawry. Even now penury and neglect, and the starving
inquisition of modern times, wait to punish by various forms of
social persecution, those who are earnest enough to think for
themselves, and to avow their disbelief in orthodox creeds.
�Plato, Philo, and Paul.
71
of the middle ages; which makes philosophy ridiculous
aud religion an absurdity and a lie, every clergy
man of the Church of England is bound to subscribe
as a believer, and, thirteen times a year, to read in the
services of his church. It asserts the co-equality of
the Son with the Father, the identity of Jesus, as
Christ, with God.
Here, then, with this precious document we termi
nate our enquiry. The sun itself is not more plainly
visible in the bright blue sky of a summer’s day, than
is the fact evidenced to us by the religious history of
the past two thousand years, that the dogma of “ the
Deity of Christ ” is the product of the speculations of
ancient heathen philosophy carried to insane and sense
less lengths, and is not, as our clergy represent it to be,
and as the English people are taught to regard it as
being, a special revelation from God.
We put it as an alternative to our readers, either
this dogma, which makes Jesus to be an incarnate God,
is a revealed truth, or it is a blasphemous idolatry. If
it be a revealed truth, we assert that God W'ould have
given sufficient and satisfactory evidences with a
revelation so startling and so strange.
We ask in
vain for these evidences and the churches of whom we
ask them, and in whose keeping they should be, if
they were in existence at all, only threaten us with
eternal damnation for our non-belief, and bid us
believe in order to escape this terrible fate. This
absence of real evidence should convince all reasonable
minds, that this strange dogma was a figment of
human fancy, if not the product of human fraud,
should assure them that it was no truth of the eternal
God. Moreover, we have evidence, clear, conclusive,
irrefutable evidence, as to what this doctrine really
is. We can trace its birth-place in the philosophic
speculations of the ancient world, we can note its
gradual development and growth,—we can see it in its
early youth passing, through Philo and others, from
�72
Plato, Philo, and Paul
Grecian philosophy into the current of Jewish thought;
then after resting awhile in the Judaism of the period
of the Christian era, we see it slightly changing its
character, as it passes through Gamaliel, Paul,—the
writers of the Fourth Gospel, and of the Epistle to
the Hebrews,—through Justin Martyr and Tertullian,
into the stream of early Christian thought, and now from
a sublime philosophical speculation it becomes dwarfed
and corrupted into a church dogma, and finally gets
hardened as a frozen mass of absurdity, stupidity, and
blasphemy, in the Nicene and Athanasian creeds. The
dogma of the Godhead of Jesus, or the Deity of Christ,
we now know to be a falsity and a fraud.
*
The clergy
who teach it might and ought to know this as well as
ourselves. And being false this dogma is a tremendous
blasphemy. It is the shame and degradation of our
enlightened age, that this the worship of a man in
the place of God, is sanctioned and supported by law,
and that the wealth of the English Church is devoted
to its maintenance and dissemination. But for the
wealth and prestige which attach to those who hold it,
and the social persecution and hatred that attend its
repudiation, this dogma would long since hav6 died
out.
At heart, however, the nation, who bow in
reverence before it, give only a lip service to it. But
this is worse than all, for an earnest and heartfelt
idolatrous worship is infinitely better than a hollow
and formal hypocrisy.
AVe have shewn the doctrine to be false. The
church that rests upon it, rests therefore on the
sandy foundation of a known and proven lie, and the
people who cherish it, in blind and senseless indif
ference, they nourish a canker at the heart of their
religious life.
A new reformation is evidently near
at hand.
“ The times are ripe and rotten ripe for
change.” Religion is the life’s-blood of all true and
' * With the proven fallacy of the dogma of the Deity of Christ,
the doctrine of the Atonement collapses also.
�Plato, Philo, and Paul.
7
noble peoples, but a religion that is not true is no
religion at all, and an idolatrous dogma seated on the
throne which truth, and truth alone, should fill, is as
poison in the waters of the well of life.
God is not a strange compound of co-equal person
ages, one of whom is a stern tyrant, and the other a
loving friend j God is not a Jewish peasant who,
centuries ago, under the name of Jesus, led a beautiful
life filled with love and service, and the spirit of just
and generous reform. God is the beneficent framer
and upholder of the universe; the Father and the
friend of man ; is, as the recorded words of Jesus
declare, an invisible and pervading Spirit, and they
who would worship him aright, must worship him
“ in spirit and in truth.” As a consequence of the
false and fictitious character of the dogma of the
Deity of Jesus, of the asserted identity of the
Creator of ten-thousand worlds with a Jewish peasant,
who lived in the time of Tiberius Csesar, religion
is in this nineteenth century divorced from the
intelligence and reason of educated and thoughtful
men, and is consequently ceasing to be a real power in
the world.
Still, underlying all these speculations,
whose crystallisation into church dogmas, that are at
once incredible and absurd, has done religion such
grievous injury, there exists a grand and glorious truth.
The “ Christ idea,” is the noblest thought that has
stirred the human mind. It is the idea of a godlike
humanity ; of man sharing a divine nature and thinking
the pure thought of God. It this ennobled humanity
that is the “ first begotten of the Father,” the true
“ Son of God.” Humanity in its perfectness is the
real Christ, and this is the great truth that the soul of
Jesus discerned, and that the life of Jesus emphasized.
To call Jesus God, is to do infinite injury to his
memory. As God, his faith was a fiction, his example
worthless, and his martyrdom a sham. It is only in
his absolute humanity, that the worth and excellence
of his life are seen. That life realised to the earnest
�74
‘Plato, Philo, and Paul.
and devout thought of its age, the Christ ideal with
which the ininds of men were at that time filled, and
the fault and folly of succeeding generations has been,
that men have determined to discern in Jesus alone,,
those godlike attributes in which humanity at large are
able and privileged to share.
The Sabellian heresy of the third century, which
recognised a trinity of
rather than of persons
in the Godhead, made a very near approach towards a
truthful expression of the close rela^on with each other,
which the human and the divine natures are able to
sustain. This view imagined that one and the same
Deity was manifested as Father, Son, and Spirit; as
Father in the overruling Providence, as Son in the
excellences of human character and conduct, as Spirit
ip. the pervading influence of the divine thought. A
system which finds clear and beautiful expression in
the following lines of the American Poet, Whittier,
and which we have no hesitation in offering to our
readers, as a charming and admirable substitute for the
perplexing dogmas and tremendous fallacies of the
_ Athanasian creed.
TRINITAS.
At morn I prayed, I fain would see
How three are One, and One is Three—
Read the dark riddle unto me.
I wandered forth ; the sun and air
I saw bestowed with equal care
On good and evil, foul and fair.
*
No partial favour dropped the rain ;—
Alike the righteous and profane
Rejoiced above their heading grain.
And my heart murmured, “ Is it meet
That blindfold nature thus should treat
With equal hand the tares and wheat?”
�Plato, Philo, and Paul. *
A presence melted through my mood,
A warmth, a light, a sense of good,
Like sunshine through a winter wood.
I saw that presence, mailed complete
In her white innocence, stoop to greet
A fallen sister of the street.
Upon her bosom, snowy pure,
The lost one clung as if secure
From inward guilt or outward lure.
“ Beware! ” 1‘said ; “ in this I see
No gain to her, but loss to thee ;
Who touches pitch defiled must be.
I passed the haunts of shame and sin,
And a voice whispered, “ Who therein
Shall these lost souls to Heaven’s peace win ?
“ Who there shall hope and health dispense,
And lift the ladder up from thence
Whose rounds are prayers of penitence ? ”
I said, “ No higher life they know ;
These earth worms love to have it so.;
Who stoops to raise them sinks as low.”
That night with painful care I read
What Hippo’s saint and Calvin said—•
The living seeking to the dead!
In vain I turned, in weary quest,
Old pages, where (God give them rest!)
The poor creed-mongers dreamed and guessed.
And still I prayed, “ Lord, let me see
How three are one, and one is three ;
Read the ctark riddle unto me.”
Then something whispered “ Dost thou pray
For what thou hast ? This very day
The Holy Three have crossed thv way.
“ Did not the gifts of sun and air
To good and ill alike declare
The all-compassionate Father’s care?
75
�Plato, Philo, and Paul.
“ In the white soul that stooped to raise
The lost one from her evil ways,
Thou saw’st the Christ whom angels praise!
“ A bodiless Divinity !
The still small voice that spake to thee
Was the Holy Spirit’s mystery !
“ Oh, blind of sight, of faith how small,
Father, and Son, and Holy Call;—
This day thou hast denied them all.
“ Revealed in love and sacrifice
The Holiest passed before thine eyes,
One and the same, in threefold guise !
“ The equal Father in rain and sun,
His Christ in the good to evil done,
His voice in thy soul;—and the Three are One.”
I shut my grave Aquinas fast;
The monkish gloss of ages past;
The schoolman’s creed aside I cast,
And my heart answered, “ Lord, I see
How Three are One, and One is Three,
Thy riddle hath been read to me.”
TURNBULL AND SPEARS, PRINTERS, EDINBURGH.
�
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A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
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2018
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Plato, Philo, and Paul; the pagan conception of a "divine logos" shewn to have been the basis of the Christian dogma of the deity of Christ
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Lake, John William
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Place of publication: London
Collation: 76 p. ; 18 cm.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references. Ink stains on the title page. Pages 40-47 printed in double columns. From the library of Dr Moncure Conway and part of the NSS pamphlet collection. Printed by Turnbull and Spears, Edinburgh.
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[187?]
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Text
THE
s
ADVERSARIES OF ST. PAUL
IN 2nd CORINTHIANS.
BY
R. W. MACKAY.
PUBLISHED BY THOMAS SCOTT,
NO. 11, THE TERRACE, FARQUHAR ROAD,
UPPER NORWOOD, LONDON, S.E.
Price Sixpence.
��THE ADVERSARIES OF ST. PAUL IN
2nd CORINTHIANS.
OST of the difficulties in this Epistle will disappear
if we can succeed in coining to a clear under
standing as to the main subject of difference between
Paul and his adversaries.
These adversaries are here denounced in the strongest
terms as mountebanks and impostors (chap. xi. 13);
and the controversy assumes a tone of greater exas
peration than in Galatians, where personal authority
was less directly at issue, or, at least, was made subor
dinate to the difference as to circumcision and other
Jewish practices.
The first clear reference to the adversaries is in
chap. ii. 17, where they are described as “huckster
ing the word of God,” i.e., treating the cause of
Christianity in a mercenary mechanical way.
It
may be remarked in passing that the same word—
xd'T?jXoc and
—is often applied by Plato to the
Sophists; and, perhaps, a distinct idea of the censure
intended in one case may assist the comprehension of
the other. The quarrel of the Socratic school with
the Sophists arose out of the disparity between mere
instruction and true mental education •— between
scepticism concealed under a mask of showy accom
plishment, and the profounder subjectivity cherishing
belief in truth and the mind’s capacity to reach it.
The initial manifestations of sophistry were not the
M
�4
The Adversaries of St. Paid
captious and palpably immoral inferences which event
ually resulted from it, but only those first fruits of
theoretic scepticism—the conventional and catechetical
teaching which either disregarded truth altogether, or
else confounded relative truth with absolute. The
sins against education and morals with which the
Sophists were charged, may not furnish an exact
parallel to the delinquencies of the adversaries of Paul,
yet there are resemblances traceable to an analogous
cause—namely, absence of true principle, and, as we
shall presently see, an appeal to estimates merely
external.
The censure implied in the word xa^Z.05 has been
supposed to include corruption of doctrine, a fault in
the matter as well as manner, which from the sequel
must be presumed to have consisted in Judaising
practices and tenets; this is to some extent confirmed
by the strongly marked contrast of spirit and letter,—
of New and Old Testaments in the third chapter, and
also by the charge of veiling and sophisticating the
word—“
Xoyov ”—(chap. iii. 14 and iv. 2),
compared with the “ plainness ” and “ simplicity ” pro
fessed by Paul (chap. i. 12; iii. 12; xi. 3). But these
indications, though not to be overlooked, leave un
solved the main question,—whence these incidental
perversities, and what are we to consider the chief
object for which Paul is here contending?
This, there can be little doubt, was the question as
to apostolic authority, and the protest of internal prin
ciple against one merely external. The older apostles
would not recognise Paul’s official status as equal to
theirs, and their emissaries, who could not expect a
directly favourable reception for Jewish doctrines in a
Gentile community, found it convenient to lay the
main stress of their attack on the admitted absence in
Paul’s case of personal connection with Christ. The
recommendatory letters mentioned in chap. iii. must
have emanated from persons in authority; and these
�in 2nd Corinthians.
5
could only have been those “ very chiefest apostles, ’
the “ highly exalted ” according to “ outward appear
ance,” to whom allusion is made in the 10th and 11th
chapters. In the same spirit of independence which
he manifests in Galatians, Paul scornfully disclaims any
such help, adding that his doctrine already possessed
the best seal of a true mission in the response of the
hearts of the converts. The climax of the controversy
is reached in the 7th verse of chap. x.—“Ye look to
[the person or the] outward appearance; but if any
one trusts to himself that he is of Christ, let him
of himself consider this again, that as he is Christ’s,
even so are we Christ’s.” But the “ belonging to
Christ ” contemplated by Paul was quite different from
theirs ; it was a spiritual connection or “ son ship ”
independent of external vouchers,—an internal light
comparable, as he says, to the divine irradiation of
primeval darkness, and owing nothing to human inter
mediation (chap. iv. 6 ; comp. Gal. iv. 6, Rom. viii. 14,
15); its manifestations implied in many respects a
reversal of men’s usual estimates—its wisdom appear
ing to worldly wisdom foolishness;—its evidence was
the “ demonstration of the Spirit and of power ” men
tioned in the first epistle (chap. ii. 4); in other words,
intuitive conviction. There has often occurred a crisis
in theological annals, when it became necessary to
appeal from the scholasticism of arguments and “ evi
dences ” to the internal testimony of reason and con
science, as the sole source of a satisfactory conviction
not merely as to the external supports of religion, but
also as to its matter and substance.
*
But such appeals
find an echo only in a congenial state of feeling, and
the apostle had many disadvantages to contend with
in maintaining his ground against those relying on
the more obvious claims of ordinary legitimacy and
personal transmission.
* See Dodwell’s “Christianity not founded on Argument;”
and Lessing’s Works, vol. x. pp. 39, 40, 53, &c.
�6
The Adversaries of St. Patil
The position of these is tersely summed up in the
12th verse of the fifth chapter—as that of men “ glory
ing in conventional seeming and not in heart”_
zai ov -/.aobia ; the latter word
denoting, in the apostle’s usual language, the centre of
his religious consciousness, as in chap. iii. 3 ; ix. 7 ;
Gal. iv. 6; the former meaning not “appearance”
or*yS but, as in chap. x. 7, comp. Gal. ii. 6, any pre
b
tensions founded on external and personal considera
tions^ and here to be understood as the boast of those
claiming to be the only legitimate apostles as actual
followers of Jesus. It is, in short, the same contrast
as that before indicated between internal and external
religion, or Voluntaryism and Establishment; though,
properly speaking, the latter being destitute of true
principle, and irrespective of intrinsic worth, is not so
much religion as party spirit.
The cause of the religion of intuitive conviction or
pure idealism advocated by Paul is invariably by him
associated with the idea of Christ, considered as a
spirit present in the heart (comp. Gal. iv. 6) ; and,
undoubtedly, there is in the human mind and the
exercise of reason something mysterious—a com
bination of finite and infinite—which nominalistic
logic vainly tries to explain away.
*
But this idea
of Christ formed a strong contrast to that of the adver
saries, who, holding the Jewish notion of the Mes
siah, accordingly required the external attestation of
those who had attended him in life. The counterpart
to Paul s appeal to Christ as an internal pi’inciple is
the reliance on personal vouchers—in other words, the
principle of apostolical succession on the part of the
Mill’s “Logic,” Bookii., chap. 5.—“Allowing that, with our
present means, we are unable to explain the antinomy as to the
principle of morals being transcendent in regard to man considered
as a finite being, while immanent in him as a rational one, still we
are not justified in pronouncing an ultimate explanation impos
sible.’ Pliilosophische Monatshefte, by Bergmann and others,
vol. vm., p. 176.
�in 2nd Corinthians.
7
adversaries ; the antithesis being that between human
*
intermediation and immediate spiritual contact or affi
liation with God (comp. Gal. i. 12; 1 Cor. iii. 23).
The difficult sixteenth verse of the fifth chapter is also
thus explained. The expression here used, disclaiming
“ knowledge of Christ after the flesh, cannot refer to
personal acquaintance with Jesus, not merely because
it were superfluous so to speak of one dead, but also
because this interpretation would be inapplicable to
the first clause of the sentence, and also because any
personal contact of Paul with Jesus before his conver
sion could onlv have been of a hostile character, and,
consequently, no way comparable to the sentiments of
those whom he is here controverting. The meaning,
thus limited, can only be—“ if we have ever thought
of Christ as the Jewish Messiah;” this thought, as
well as the every-day view of man in general, the
apostle here declares himself to have abandoned, look
ing exclusively to the regenerate or spiritual man; he is so thoroughly an idealist that he admits himself
to be blind, foolish, and even insane in the world’s
estimate (chap. v. 13), like the philosophically blinded
in Plato (Repub. 7, 517); but he retorts the charge of
blindness on the spiritually blind (chap. iii. 1.4 ; iv. 4).
And corresponding to a different view of Christ’s
nature and office was the divergency between the two
doctrines as to the significancy of his death. To
those looking on Christ as the J ewish Messiah, his
death was an anomaly and a “ stumbling-block ”—an
incongruous interpolation between the two important
Messianic epochs, the earthly career and the coming
in glory; whereas for St. Paul it formed the very
essence of his teaching (1 Cor. i. 18, 23, &c.), being by
him treated not so much as an historical event as a
* See chap. x. 12, taken in connection with the preceding
verses. Personal homage or following is similarly contrasted with
spiritual or moral allegiance in Lessing’s “ Nathan,” 2nd Act,
Scene 1: “Ye would be Christians, forsooth, not men,” &c.
�8
The Adversaries of St. Paul
symbol of mental regeneration or a new spiritual life ;
and that not merely in individuals, but the race (chan"
iii. 18; v. 14, 15).
X
The import of the veil of Moses in the third chapter
seems plain enough—it means the ambiguous character
of the old covenant with its connected ordinances, as
contrasted with Paul’s conception of the full, unim
peded light of the new—that hesitation between life
and death, concession and retractation, at which the
apostle glances contemptuously in the first chapter,
and which, it may be added, was inseparable from a
system of mere legality (Gal. iii. 12). By virtue of
the ministry of the spirit as contrasted with that of
the letter, Paul often exercises the right of breaking
through this veil, and claims the same right for others;
though it must be admitted that his arbitrary style
of proceeding in the way of allegorical interpretation,
though strikingly illustrative of his own position and
the nature of spirituality as then understood, is not an
altogether unexceptionable one.
*
It was impossible
for any one under the circumstances to abandon en
tirely the Old Testament revelation; on the other
hand, new ideas and circumstances called for readjust
ment in the mode of dealing with it: hence Paul’s
appeal to the promise as paramount to the law, and
his fanciful allegorising, not very unlike the quibbling
mystifications of scripture which he complained of in
the adversaries (chap. iv. 2).
But how are we to understand the singular phrase,
ra KgV'-ra
aifffvr^—the hidden things of dis
honesty, which in chapter iv. 2 he professes to have
renounced ? The words, it need scarcely be remarked,
are not to be understood of secret vices, but rather of
subtle machinations calculated to support a peculiar
theological theory.! It has been observed that
* See 1 Cor. ix. 9, 10; x. 2, 4, 11; Gal. iv. 25; and still more
reckless is the use of allegory in the Epistle of Barnabas.
+ Klopper’s Commentary, p. 222.
�in 2nd Corinthians.
9
KPvvrat and zaXuTrroi are correlated ; and thus renun
ciation of the z^uTrra would seem to be the natural
result or equivalent of Paul’s a-TrXonj;, siXi/teivt'ia,
and va,p^7)ffia (chap. i. 12; iii. 12; xi. 3)—or of the
“ unveiled face ” claimed at the end of chapter iii. for
all true Christians. Paul often declares that his gos
pel was not one to be ashamed of. This leaves open
*
the assumption that there was a gospel which could
not well bear the light of day or that of general criti
cism ; and such, we must infer, was the character of
the rival gospel (chap. xi. 4)—namely, that of those
hesitating followers of Moses who clung to the veil, in
the sense of those “ beggarly elements ” and observ
ances of which, however, they were already half
ashamed. Those who are but half-convinced of the
truth of their own principles are apt to vacillate be
tween old and new -—- dallying between inconsistent
creeds, and uniting with their novel profession the
incongruous practices of another. Thus, in Philippians iii. 7, Paul is made to say that the work-right
eousness, formerly counted by him as gain, he now
found to be loss; the source of his former pride was
now his shame, the object of his contempt. The
“ crypts of shame ” may, therefore, refer to trivial
mystifications of ritual and subtleties of rabbinical
interpretation ; and the “ walking in craftiness ” may
be understood of various crafty insinuations by which
the adversaries tried to ruin Paul’s personal credit,
such as those of lightness and vacillation (i. 17), vain
gloriousness (v. 12), sheer insanity (v. 13), self-suffi
ciency (iii. 5), a craving for lucre (viii. 20; xii. 15, 20),
mysticism (iv. 3).
After having in various ways insisted on the superi
ority of the spiritual or ideal view of things to the
common-place or carnal, exposing at the same time
the subterfuges and superstitions of his opponents, the
* Rom. i. 16; 2 Cor. vii. 11; x. 8.
�io
The Adversaries of St. Paul
apostle proceeds in chap. vi. to recapitulate the
essential characteristics of that view in a series of
striking antitheses,—of the same kind as those which
first occurring in the so-called “ beatitudes ” of the
gospel, and repeated in the Epistle to Diognetus, con
stitute what Bacon terms “ the Christian paradox,”
and form the subject of Schiller’s noble poem on the
contrast of the actual life and the ideal. Then, after
adverting to certain practical matters less immediately
connected with the subject before us, he continues the
*
vindication of his personal efficiency in comparison
with his rivals; and having before referred to the'
ready welcome with which he was received, and the tes
timony to his usefulness recorded in the hearts and con
sciences of the Corinthians, now points to the evidences
of a genuine apostleship afforded by his revelations,
his signs and wonders, and above all by his labours
and infirmities, since there could not be a more strik
ing exemplification of the truth of his principles than
the heroic resolve defying bodily disadvantages, and
*
even succeeding in spite of them. Some obscure
allusions in the first and second chapters will now
become more clearly intelligible in their connection
with the general argument. The apostle here de
scribes himself as accompanying the triumph of the
Almighty, in men’s hearts (chap. ii. 14), and as the
herald of a uniformly consistent doctrine summing up
all prior religious developments (chap. i. 18, 19).
Some change of plan in regard to going to Corinth
seems to have occasioned ill-natured remarks as to his
consistency. In repudiating these he points to the
general spirit of his teaching as affording the best
evidence as to his character and dealings, saying in
effect: “ the change of plan was not preconcerted, but
a consequence of your own altered demeanour. You
* Such is indeed the essence of all heroism and of genuine
tragedy, as at large explained by Schiller in his “ Essay on the
Tragic Art.”
�in 2nd Corinthians.
11
should judge my conduct from my general principles.
The vacillation imputed to me would have been incon
sistent with the entire character of a doctrine which,
unlike the ill-assorted affirmations and negations of
Jewish law, in which life and death, blessing and
cursing, incongruously intermingle (comp. Gal. iii.),
is simply and clearly affirmative —an affirmative
character, it may be added, which is in accordance
with the essential nature of idealism."'
The tone of exasperation becomes fiercer towards the
close, where, in chap. x. and xi., the main subject, the
question of personal authority, is more distinctly brought
forward. Against the boasters of their own better claims
the apostle declares himself compelled to boast in return,
asserting his equality as an Israelite, and insisting on
a “ belonging to Christ ” not a whit inferior to theirs,
or even that of the very chiefest pretenders to that
dignity; bitterly rallying the Corinthians (chap. xi. 4)
for their ready servility to the pretensions of foolish
vain-glorious men, which no one really understanding
the doctrine impugned would have tolerated. Yet he
ironically avails himself of this tolerant humour in
those he addresses to answer folly with folly, though
varying the ground of self-laudation; adding to the
rest of his vindication the boast of his more abundant
labours, and especially his infirmities, because it was
the great aim of the preacher of “ Christ crucified ” to
be like him in suffering as in triumph.
With this latter idea is probably connected the
peculiar aspect under which “the adversary” is here
represented. In the first epistle (1 Cor. xv. 32 ; xvi.
9) “ beast ” is the name not unreasonably given to
men acting with brutal malignity and ferocity ; for the
notion of a literal fighting with beasts is given up
* Comp. Aristotle’s “ Metaphysics,” 8, 9, and 11,10, where it is
said that there is no absolute evil—no antagonism to the first
Cause ;—and the scene in Faust’s study, where “ the denier” is the
devil.
�12
The Adversaries of St. Paul
by the commentators {see Neander’s “ Auslegung,”
p. 255), and is excluded by the subsequent recapitula
tion of the apostle’s labours and sufferings, in which
no such struggle is named; whereas a desperate
struggle of another kind is pointedly here alluded to
(chap. i. 8, 9), and may be sufficiently explained by
what we read in Eusebius (E. Hist. iii. 23) as to
John’s succeeding Paul as head of the Church of
Ephesus. The animus of the party of John is abun
dantly manifested by the denunciations of the second
and third chapters of the Apocalypse, where the
Asiatic churches are congratulated seriatim on having
detected and exposed certain lying pretensions to
apostleship, put forth on the part of persons pretending
to be Jews, but not really so, and rather belonging to
the “Synagogue of Satan;”—pretenders comparable
to Balaam, the well-known type of false and adverse
prophecy, who sought to cast a stumbling-block before
the Israelites, and to persuade them to eat meats
offered to idols. In a similar style of invective St.
Paul here (chap. xi. 13, 15) denounces the “ false
apostles transforming themselves into apostles of
Christadding that since Satan himself sometimes
assumes the aspect of an angel of light, there need be
no wonder if his ministers are similarly transformed.
The language here used, and that of the first epistle,
will be better understood if we bear in mind that Satan
was in Jewish phraseology often termed
Srjo, a
“ dragon ” or “ roaring lion,” and that Jesus was him
self traditionally said to have contended with those
“ doleful creatures of the wilderness, in whom the
notions of beast and demon intermingled. {See Mark
i. 13, comp, with Isaiah xiii. 21, and Winer’s Dic
tionary, art. Gespenster.)
Does the language here and elsewhere (see Gal. i.
8, 9) used by the apostle seem too intemperately
violent? According to the well-known saying of
Aristotle, the corruptions of the best things are the
�in 2nd Corinthians.
*3
worst; and religion is of so peculiarly delicate a nature
that the very means employed to promote its interests
are apt to turn into the means of its debasement. “You
want a form,” says Lessing; “ but it so happens that the
form does not simply subsist alongside of the essential,
it invariably tends to weaken and supersede the essen
tial.” It is a common characteristic of all established
religions, as well as of the rival “ gospel,” alluded to
in 2nd Corinthians (chap. xi. 4), to treat these acces
sory forms as entitled to the same deference and
permanent authority as the truth, often of a very
evanescent and subtle kind, which they seem to accom
pany ; so that by an easy process of misconstruction
the outside is mistaken for the inside, and the human
obtains exclusive possession of the homage due only to
the divine. Considering the actual wants of human
nature, Kant and Fichte admit the utility of such
forms in relation to the mental condition of those who
resort to them, and the Papacy and the Levitical
priesthood have been defended in the same sense; for
there has been, and, unfortunately, still continues a
state of things in which these and the like institutions
may be said to be beneficial. But then how deplorably
low must human nature have sunk to need such ex
pedients, and how questionable even the advantage
immediately accruing from them when it is recollected
how they tend to perpetuate the degradation which
alone authorises their use ! Formalities of observance
and other “ bfeggarly elements ” are commonly treated
as “ possessions for ever,” instead of imperfect rudi
ments (aesthetic culture being their true philosophical
equivalent) from which it is desirable as soon as may
be to escape.
It has been said that Paul was driven out of Ephesus
by riots raised against him by the Pagans : a presump
tion based on the account given in Acts of the riot of
Demetrius. But if the book giving this account is
elsewhere found deliberately misrepresenting Paul’s
�14
The Adversaries of St. Paul
character and proceedings as conveyed by himself, and
in particular describing him as contending not with
the adversaries now tolerably familiar to us, but with
Jews and Pagans, we shall be prepared to expect that in
this instance also a simitar spirit of misrepresentation
has been at work, and that the only reliable inference
to be drawn from the narrative, in some respects not
even plausibly adjusted to existing data (comp. Acts
xix. 30 with 2 Cor. i. 8) is, that the apostle’s success
ful career at Ephesus ended in riotous disturbances.
But these must be construed according to the writer’s
genera] mode of treatment; and if one of his most pro
minent characteristics be a studied determination to
ignore differences among Christians, and, in particular,
to throw a veil over the true nature of the antagonism
by which Paul’s career was obstructed—for, with the
exception of the quarrel about Mark, and a vague pre
diction in Paul’s parting address at Miletus, we discover
no trace of them—we must infer that his object was
not properly historical, especially when considering
that the suggestion as to Pagan hostility is rendered
improbable by the fact recorded in Eusebius as to
John’s succeeding Paul at Ephesus, and—with the
exception of the exile to Patmos, an event which the
fanatically seditious spirit of the Apocalypse may
readily account for—continuing there undisturbed to
the time of Trajan. No where is it more necessary
than when consulting Acts to look to general pro
bability, and, if possible, to compare the particulars
questioned with independent authority. Fortunately
the Pauline Epistles afford the best means of doing
so; and the information given by them, differing
as it does so materially from Acts, leaves no option
but to infer that the aim of the latter being irenic
and not historical, it purposely sacrifices accuracy of
fact to the more immediately pressing object of Chris
tian union, endeavouring to conceal by a decent veil
of retrospective unanimity the elements of dissension
�in 2nd Corinthians.
15
at their source. But the strong language of this
epistle—especially that of the 11th chapter—leaves no
doubt as to the true character of the dissentient
parties. If the simple arrangement between Paul
and the other apostles, as recorded in Galatians, be
came—as Professor Zeller has shown to be the inevi
table inference—the Apostolic Council of Acts xv.—
if the gift of “ speaking with tongues,” as described
in Corinthians in connection with the theory of the
“ distribution ” of the various gifts of the one spirit
"—expanded into the elaborate details of the descent of
the Holy Ghost on the day of Pentecost—with all its
various carefully adjusted analogies to the giving of
the law on Sinai, —-we need not be surprised if the
*
bare intimation of Acts ix. 29, as to Paul disputing
with the Grecians—who answered by endeavouring to
kill him—became in the sequel expanded into a formal
outbreak of heathen vengeance against him in the
metropolis of Asiatic heathenism • a narrative cer
tainly life-like, yet not more so than the humours of
the Roman rabble in Julius C'cesar, or any wellexecuted imaginative exercise in a Jesuit Retreat. A
careful comparison of Acts with the genuine Pauline
Epistlest is, indeed, the first step in the critical study
of the New Testament.
* The day of Pentecost was that on which, in Jewish tradition,
the “fiery law ” was given on Mount Sinai; and to account for its
universal obligation, it was said that though pronounced once
only, it was heard by every nation in its own language. “ When
the voice went out from Sinai,” says the Talmud, “it was parted
into seven voices, and from seven voices into seventy tongues.
Just as from a glowing piece of metal, when struck on the anvil
with a hammer, many sparks issue from one blow, so from the one
voice of God proceeded a great multitude of voices.” See Wettstein’s Note to Acts ii., p. 463.
f Only Galatians, the two Corinthians, and Romans, are here
understood to be Paul’s.
TURNBULL AND SPEARS, PRINTERS, EDINBURGH.
�
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Victorian Blogging
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A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
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The adversaries of St. Paul in 2nd Corinthians
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Mackay, Robert William
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Place of publication: London
Collation: 15 p. ; 18 cm.
Notes: From the library of Dr Moncure Conway. Includes bibliographical references. Printed by Turnbull and Spears, Edinburgh. Date of publication from KVK.
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Thomas Scott
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[1876]
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G5514
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Bible
Saints
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Bible
Bible-N.T.-2 Corinthians
Conway Tracts
Saint Paul