With such an impression of Jesus, and with his earnest character and fiery temper, Saul could not but be a persecutor. To extinguish *Such too was the view of Chrysostom : zαdán the hated name to prevent the obnoxious λατρὸς ἄριστος, ἀκμάζοντος ἔτι τοῦ πυρετοῦ, τὸ sect from spreading in or out of Jerusalem βοήθημα αὐτῷ ἐπήγαγεν ὁ Χριστός. C. & H. i. p. would be an exertion worthy of all his ener-108.

198-223. On one point only we entirely [rious words the nature of some of these. differ from him. He spends some pages in We should therefore he much more disposed tracing during this period the inner experi- to agree with Baumgarten, when he says (vol. ence detailed by the Apostle, Rom. vii. 7-i. 223):—

Earth.

25. We believe the greater part of that weighty passage to belong to an earlier and of Saul in Arabia who regard it as a still reThose will take the right view of this sojourn totally different portion of his life; and it tirement, in which he lived in communion in seems to us strange that a writer who has the spirit with the Lord in Heaven, as the origitaken so just a psychological view of his sub-nal Apostles had conversed with the Lord on ject should have adopted a theory which tends completely to confuse it, and destroy its unity. This is not the place to discuss and appropriate that description; it may suffice to say that, while we distinctly recognize its autobiographical character, we see in it a reference to a process much more frequent in the human mind, and better calculated to be a general pattern for us all, than that by which the zeal of the persecutor became transformed into the zeal of the apostle.

Some degree of mystery has always rested on the visit to Arabia;* but almost all writers are agreed in connecting it with an immediate reception of the Gospel from Christ himself. Mr. Howson indeed gives the alternative, that perhaps he went to preach "in the synagogues of that singular capital which was built amidst the exiles of Edom, whence 'Arabians' came to the festivals at Jerusalem (Acts ii. 11);" but we must own the other alternative seems to us more probable; and that, whether the rationalistic or the supernatural view be taken. The former is given by Schrader (ii. p. 147):

He cared not, previously to the public opening of his ministry, to obtain information from other men in a matter which was accessible to him by his own reason (?), but preferred shortly after his baptism to retire apart from all human society to the solitude of the Arabian wilderness; with this view beyond doubt, undistractedly to prepare himself for the work of the promulgation of Christianity, to molitate on his present circumstances, to think of that which lay before him, to make powerful resolutions, or rather to confirm himself in the resolution already made, and to take counsel of God and of himself, or of that which was become a divine or living principle within him. In this he acted as other men of great and independent character have done, and even as Jesus himself, who also immediately after His baptism withdrew Himself for a similar purpose into the same wilderness.

But sensible as this view is as far as it goes, none can fail to see how entirely inadequate it is to satisfy the requisitions of the historical facts resulting, or the assertions of the Apostle himself. In a passage (2 Cor. xii. 1, ff) where he is undoubtedly describing his own experience, and referring to a period not far removed from this, he speaks of "abundance of " visions and "revelations" being granted to him, and recounts in myste

* Gal. i. 17.

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:

Another difficulty belongs to this period, which has been very variously dealt with. The facts are simply these. Some physical weakness, of a conspicuous and distressing kind, resulted from the exaltation of the spirit at the expense of the body. Perhaps "when I could not see for his own words the glory of that light,' -may furnish some clue to its origin. Feebleness of sight, connected probably with some nervous infirmity, may have constituted the thorn in the flesh, concerning which he prayed thrice that it might depart from him which made his bodily presence weak, and his speech contemptible;" and of which he could say to the Galatians, "My temptation which was in my flesh ye despised not, nor rejected. bear you record, that if it had been possible, ye would have plucked out your own eyes, and have given them to me." But even this, whatever it was, served him as an argument for the divine character of his mission. It precluded any imputation that he had won his converts by the charms of graceful rhetoric; he was among them "in weakness, and fear, and much trembling." So does every circumstance in the life of this remarkable man fit into its place, and bear its part in the work prepared for him.

Five years at least elapsed after his conversion before we find him actively engaged in ministerial labor. He certainly was not idle, but his proper vocation had not begun. There had apparently been nothing more than fragmentary testimonies in the synagogues. At Damascus and at Jerusalem he had been exposed to the fury of those Jews, whom he had now through life for his implacable enemies. At both places he was rescued by the brethren; who yet, not knowing in what department to employ the zeal of the new convert, sent him back to his native town, to wait a special call of Providence.

A great question soon began to be agitated in the Church. Was Christianity to be preached to the Gentiles? That they were eventually to share in its blessings, no believing Jew doubted; but how this was to be brought about, was yet unknown. The first step towards a solution seems to have been taken at Antioch, by certain Cyprian and African Hellenists, who had fled on the perse† Gal. iv. 14, 15.

#2 Cor. x. 10.

and Augustine believed, took the name from his convert, we may with safety deny. Such a piece of secular conceit was wholly alien from his character, and could only pass current when that character was, as a whole. very imperfectly studied. It is far more probable that the change marks the transition from his earlier memoirs, when from the still Jewish character of the Church his Hebrew name prevailed, to those recording his preaching among Gentiles. The bearing of two names, the original Oriental appellation, and the same Græcized or Romanized, in sound or meaning, was very common."

cution which arose about Stephen, having | Paul. The coincidence is at least remarkaspoken to Gentiles in that city. This new ble, and may not have been altogether forstep aroused the attention of the mother- tuitous. But that the Apostle, as Jerome church at Jerusalem. Barnabas, himself a Cyprian, was sent to report on the movement, or perhaps to restrain what was deemed an excess of zeal. By what he saw, he was convinced, and sympathized. But joy was not his only feeling at seeing the Gentile converts. The time for action was obviously come. There was one in retirement, to whom it had been said, "I will send thee far hence unto the Gentiles." He went to Tarsus to seek Saul. For a year they taught at Antioch, which became the second historical capital of Christendom, the great centre of activity during the transition-state from Judaism, and most appropriately the birthplace of that name, by which those who were neither Jew nor Greek, barbarian nor Scythian, were in future to be called. After a journey to Jerusalem for a special eleemosynary purpose, the two friends depart, by Divine command, on their first great missionary journey.

During this journey we have striking instances of the fitness of the Great Apostle for becoming all things to all men, that he might by all means win some. At Antioch, in Pisidia, we have his first recorded discourse. It was delivered to Jews, and besides its historical detail, so suitable to his hearers, contains, as Mr. Howson justly observes, the kernel of that great argument which he afterwards unfolded in the Epistle to the Romans. At Lystra we find him dissuading the heathen multitude from sacrificing to his companion and himself, in words of singular skill and beauty, founded on an argument from natural theology, far too expansive for any mere Pharisee to have propounded.

The whole process of this, as of the other journeys, is admirably narrated, discussed, and illustrated by Conybeare and Howson. We have every accessory which could be desired. Recent surveys and soundings have furnished accurate maps of almost every country and coast; while Mr. Bartlett's beautiful drawings give reality to the scenery of the most remarkable spots. There can hardly be more pleasant reading for the On the commencement of the next journey lover of travel and adventure, than the pages a personal dispute separated from him the of this work which trace the Apostle through former companion of his toils and dangers. Cyprus, or Asia Minor, or Greece, or after- He is henceforth either alone, or accompanied wards on his perilous voyage by Malta to by a group of which he is unquestionably the Rome. And it is no small merit of the centre; thus bringing his apostolic agency work that, while it extracts information from more plainly into relief, and removing all every source, an admirable spirit of Chris- possibility of actual rivalry, or, which was tian faith, accompanied by a manly love of inore to be apprehended, the setting up of truth and soundness of judgment, character- one against another in the minds of converts. ize it throughout. While its hand is in every It is on this journey that the most reGerman treatise, its heart is thoroughly En-markable instances of that which we are glish; and its effect will everywhere be, to illustrating are presented to us. It originconfirm those great central truths, round ated in that affectionate yearning after which it has grouped the accessory and sub-converts once gained, which we see so often ordinate matter.

The first eminent fruit of this journey was the conversion of the proconsul of Cyprus, Sergius Paulus. From this time Saul becomes known by the Hellenistic name of

* The reading Έλληνας for the 'Ελληνιςτάς of the received text, is now almost universally adopted. The received reading would stultify the whole narra

tive. There was and could be no difficulty about preaching to Hellenists.

We do not in the text forget, nor depreciate the importance of the special mission of Peter to Cornelius; but regard this incident as necessarily prior in point of time, and that, as intended more to give solemn sanction in the sight of those who would be most difficult to persuade, than to precede all efforts of the kind.

expressed in his Epistles. This directed his way to Derbe, Lystra, and Iconium. His course lay through his native province and city; and Mr. Howson is justified in raising on the well known character of the Apostle the following supposition:

One other city must certainly have been visited. Cilicia, there must have been one at Tarsus. If there were churches anywhere in It was the metropolis of the province; Paul had resided there, perhaps for some years, since the time of his conversion; and if he loved his native place well enough to speak of it with something

*See Grotius' note in loc.; and Conybeare and Howson, vol. i. p. 164.

like pride to the Roman officer at Jerusalem, he | But before he had been many weeks in could not be indifferent to its religious welfare. Macedonia, the enmity of the resident Jews Among the "Gentiles of Cilicia," to whom the had been thoroughly aroused, and they were letter which he carried was addressed, the Gen-acting in concert against him. They drove tiles of Tarsus had no mean place in his affec-him first from Thessalonica, then from Bercea. tions. And his heart must have overflowed with It became necessary to take measures for his thankfulness, if, as he passed through the streets

which had been familiar to him since his child-safety. As at Damascus, the brethren sent hood, he knew that many households were around him away by night. His destination was a him where the gospel had come, "not in word distant part of Greece, where the enmity of only but in power," and the relations between the Thessalonian Jews might for a time be husband and wife, parent and child, master and baffled. He went by sea to Athens. slave, had been purified and sanctified by Christian love. No doubt the city still retained all the aspect of the cities of that day, where art and amusement were consecrated to a false religion. The symbols of idolatry remained in the public places-statues, temples, and altars -and the various "objects of devotion," which in all Greek towns, as well as in Athens (Acts xvii. 23), were conspicuous on every side. But the upper. the silent revolution was begun. Some families had already turned "from idols to serve the living and true God." The "dumb idols" to

which, as Gentiles, they had been "carried away even as they were led," had been recognized as "nothing in the world," and been "cast to the moles and to the bats." The homes which had once been decorated with the emblems of a vain mythology, were now bright with the better ornaments of faith, hope, and love.

We leave in the able hands of our authors the description of the journey itself, and select one or two points for our especial purpose.

And here we have everything present, which can kindle enthusiasm in the breast of the Christian scholar. For those who have tasted deeply the sweets of art, poetry, or philosophy, there is an indescribable charm in all that is connected with Athens. It is the metropolis of the human intellect; the holy city of the nether world, as Jerusalem is of

And when, as in this case, the

two are linked together when we see the man prepared by Jewish birth and training, united with Grecian culture, standing on the Areopagus and preaching God's revelation, we feel, if ever we do, the unity and harmony in the divine counsels of all that is holy and beautiful and great in man; that ours is not a nature of bright fragments, disjointed and helpless, but that there is a power able to unite and hallow all that is good, or seeking after good, amongst us. His άνδρες 1 θηναίοι comes on us with its familiar sound, as we have heard it from Pericles and Demosthenes and the illustrious masters of persuasion, like At Neapolis, the port of Philippi, the a well-known strain grafted into some loftier missionary band, now augmented by the harmony. In the stately periods of this secyouthful Timotheus, and Luke" the beloved ond and nobler Areopagitica, we read an inphysician," first set foot in Europe. From dubitable proof that the speaker had drunk the high grounds above that town, they gazed no shallow draughts at the fountains of Greon the plains where the world was lost and cian learning. Perhaps there does not exist won; arrived at the walls of the now flourish- a more perfect specimen than this speech ing colony, they entered a miniature of that affords us of cautious prudence and consumgreat capital in which the Apostle had mate skill. It might well be so, when such already resolved to hear witness to Christ. a man had been so prepared; when a mind Here, amidst the insignia of Roman power, of the highest order was enlightened and in a Greek city, they sought out the few Jews directed by the special suggestions of superwho assembled by the river brink outside the human wisdom. The authors at the head of gate for the purpose of prayer. The com- our article have vied with one another in its bination is singular, and more remarkable, praise. An able analysis is besides given in as we reflect how many ages had been spent Hemsen, Der Apostel Paulus, pp. 148, 149. in bringing it about, how many and jarring influences had converged. Here we have the first record of the Roman citizenship having procured for the Apostle and his companion an honorable dismissal, and doubtless for the cause which he preached respect and protection, after illegal treatment during a tumultuary outbreak.

We cannot withhold our praise from the minute and very satisfactory manner in which the contemporary geography of Asia Minor is discussed and illustrated in this chapter. Certainly the Baored chronicle has never before had such diligent and loving labor bestowed on it.

But Athens was not destined to be noted in the annals of the Apostolic Church. We know nothing of any permanent fruit of the Apostle's residence there. It was not from the stronghold of the human intellect that the Gospel was to win its most numerous or brightest trophies.

It is a serious and instructive fact, that the mercantile population of Thessalonica and Corinth received the message of God with greater readiness than the highly educated and polished Athenians. Two letters to the Thessalonians, and two to the Corinthians, remain to attest the flourishing state of those churches. But we pos

The next visit was to the capital of the province, the rich and dissolute Corinth.

sess no letter written by St. Paul to the Atheni-writings, they would long ago have been ans, and we do not read that he was ever in ranked as the most wonderful of uninspired. Athens again. (Vol. i., p. 409.) It is not to be supposed, that we now pos sess all or nearly all the letters written by the Apostle. If we take into account his fervid and affectionate spirit, and the frequency of communication between the principal cities of the Roman world and along the great roads, we may safely say, that many Epistles of guidance, warning, and encouragement were addressed by him to the numerous churches. Of these he mentions* one to Laodicea, now not extant; and it is necessary, unless we do almost more than commentators' violence to the natural construction of words, to suppose a lost Epistle to have been sent to Corinth. The interesting letter to Philemon was doubtless one of a large class addressed to individuals.

The reasons which determined St. Paul to come to Corinth (over and above the discouragement he seems to have met with in Athens) were, probably, twofold. In the first place, it was a farge mercantile city, in immediate connection with Rome and the West of the Mediterranean, with Thessalonica and Ephesus in the gean, and with Antioch and Alexandria in the East. The Gospel once established in Corinth, would rapidly spread everywhere. And, again, from the very nature of the city, the Jews established there were numerous. Communities of scattered Israelites were found in various parts of the province of Achaia- in Athens, as we have And not only have Epistles been lost, but recently seen — -in Argos, as we learn from voyages and visits to churches remain unrePhilo-in Boeotia and Euboea. But their chief corded. The phenomena of the Epistles to settlement must necessarily have been in that the Corinthians are not satisfied by the history city, which not only gave opportunities of trade in the Acts. If there be plain meaning in by land along the Isthmus between the Morea plain words, the visit which he was about to and the continent, but received in its two har- pay them when he sent the Second Epistle, bors the ships of the Eastern and Western seas. would be the third. But the History informs A religion which was first to be planted in the us of only one previously paid. It becomes synagogue, and was thence intended to scatter its seeds over all parts of the earth, could no-inth during the "three years'" stay at Ephenecessary then to interpolate a voyage to Corwhere find a more favorable soil than among the Hebrew families at Corinth. (Ib., p. 410.)

sus of Acts xix.; for this is the only admissible time. And this has accordingly been done by almost all modern critics. Mr. Howson devotes some space to an able description of the probability and nature of this visit. We cannot, however, agree with Wieseler in uniting with it the sojourn to Crete implied in the Epistle to Titus, nor in placing that letter itself, or any of the so-called Pastoral Epistles, at this period; seeming to us as they do to bear unquestionable evidence of a much later date.

Into the many points of interest which now gather round us, we must forbear to enter at any length. At Corinth, St. Paul wrote his first extant Epistle to his Thessalonian converts. There commenced that invaluable series of letters in which, while every matter relating to the faith is determined once for all with demonstration of the spirit and power, and every circumstance requiring counsel at the time, so handled as to furnish precepts for all time, the whole heart of this We pass on to the return from the third wonderful man is poured out and laid open. visit to Corinth. For many years now had Sometimes he pleads, and reminds, and con- the hostility of his own countrymen pursued jures in the most earnest strain of fatherly the Apostle. Bitter and unrelenting, it met love; sometimes playfully rallies his converts him at every station of his apostolic work. on their vanities and infirmities; sometimes, As an omen of this journey, a conspiracy with deep and bitter irony, concedes that he awaits him as he is about to set sail for Syria. may refute, and praises where he means to But it is defeated by a change of plan. blame. The course of the mountain torrent old route is retraced. The Egnation Way is is not more majestic nor varied. We have once more traversed to Philippi. His heart the deep, still pool, the often returning ed-at this time seems to have been unusually full dies, the intervals of calm and steady advance, his words more than ever impassioned and the plunging and foaming rapids, and the earnest. What outpourings of affection would thunder of the headlong cataract. By turns there be to the Thessalonians, "his glory and fervid and calm, argumentative and impassioned, he wields familiarly and irresistibly the varied weapons of which Providence had We are well aware of the ingenuity which the taught him the use. With the Jew heroitor kruipos y A9 of ch. xii. 14, and the reasons by Scripture citation, with the Gen-itor TOUTO in you of ch. xiii. 1, have been tile by natural analogies; with both, by the testimony of conscience to the justice and holiness of God. Were not the Epistles of Paul among the most eminent of inspired

Col. iv. 16.

The

twisted different ways by commentators to escape this third visit. But we hope an age of biblical exegesis is dawning, when we shall inquire no longer what words may mean, but what they do mean.