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But, again, the epistle supposes that certain designing ad­herents of the Jewish law had crept into the churches of Galatia, and had been endeavouring, and but too successfully, to persuade the Galatic converts that they had been taught the new religion imperfectly and at second hand; that the founder of their church himself possessed only an inferior and deputed commission, the seat of truth and authority being in the apostles and elders of Jerusalem; moreover, that whatever he might profess amongst them, he had himself, at other times and in other places, given way to the doctrine of circumcision. The epistle is unintelligible without supposing all this. Re­ferring therefore to this, as to what had actually passed, we find St. Paul treating so unjust an attempt to undermine his credit, and to introduce among his converts a doctrine which he had uniformly reprobated, in terms of great asperity and indignation. And in order to refute the suspicions which had been raised concerning the fidelity of his teaching, as well as to assert the independency and Divine original of his mission, we find him appealing to the history of his conversion, to his conduct under it, to the manner in which he had conferred with the apostles when he met with them at Jerusalem: alleging, that so far was his doctrine from being derived from them, or they from exercising any superiority over him, that they had simply assented to what he had already preached among the Gentiles, and which preaching was communicated not by them to him, but by himself to them; that he had maintained the liberty of the Gentile church, by opposing, upon one occasion, an apostle to the face, when the timidity of his behaviour seemed to endanger it; that from the first, that all along, that to that hour, he had constantly resisted the claims of Judaism; and that the persecutions which he daily underwent, at the hands or by the instigation of the Jews, and of which he bore in his person the marks and scars, might have been avoided by him, if he had consented to em­ploy his labours in bringing, through the medium of Chris­tianity, converts over to the Jewish institution, for then “would the offence of the cross have ceased.” Now an impostor who had forged the epistle for the purpose of producing St. Paul’s authority in the dispute, which, as hath been observed, is the only credible motive that can be as­signed for the forgery, might have made the apostle deliver his opinion upon the subject in strong and decisive terms, or might have put his name to a train of reasoning and argu­mentation upon that side of the question which the impostor was intended to recommend. I can allow the possibility of such a scheme as that; but for a writer, with this purpose in view, to feign a series of transactions supposed to have passed amongst the Christians of Galatia, and then to counterfeit expressions of anger and resentment excited by these trans­actions; to make the apostle travel back into his own his­tory, and into a recital of various passages of his life, some indeed directly, but others obliquely, and others even ob­scurely bearing upon the point in question; in a word, to substitute narrative for argument, expostulation and complaint for dogmatic positions and controversial reasoning, in a writing properly controversial, and of which the aim and design was to support one side of a much agitated question—is a method so intricate, and so unlike the methods pursued by all other impostors, as to require very flagrant proofs of imposition to induce us to believe it to be one.

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No. II.

 

In this number I shall endeavour to prove,

 

1.  That the Epistle to the Galatians, and the Acts of the Apostles, were written without any communication with each other.

 

2.  That the Epistle, though written without any commu­nication with the history, by recital, implication, or reference, bears testimony to many of the facts contained in it.

 

1. The Epistle and the Acts of the Apostles were written without any communication with each other.

 

To judge of this point, we must examine those passages in each, which describe the same transaction; for, if the author of either writing derived his information from the account which he had seen in the other, when he came to speak of the same transaction, he would follow that account. The history of St. Paul, at Damascus, as read in the Acts, and as referred to by the epistle, forms an instance of this sort. According to the Acts, Paul (after his conversion) was cer­tain days with the “disciples which were at Damascus. And straightway he preached Christ in the synagogues, that he is the Son of God. But all that heard him were amazed, and said, Is not this he that destroyed them which called on his name in Jerusalem, and came hither for that intent, that he might bring them bound unto the chief priests? But Saul increased the more in strength, confounding the Jews which dwelt at Damascus, proving that this is very Christ. And after that many days were fulfilled, the Jews took counsel to kill him. But their laying await was known to Saul. And they watched the gates day and night to kill him. Then the disciples took him by night, and let him down by the wall in a basket. And when Saul was come to Jerusalem, he assayed to join himself to the disciples,” chap. 9:19—26.

 

According to the epistle, “When it pleased God, who separated me from my mother’s womb, and called me by his grace, to reveal his Son in me, that I might preach him among the heathen; immediately I conferred not with flesh and blood: neither went I up to Jerusalem to them which were apostles before me; but I went into Arabia; and returned again unto Damascus.    Then after three years I went up to Jerusalem.”

 

Beside the difference observable in the terms and general complexion of these two accounts,” the journey into Arabia,” mentioned in the epistle and omitted in the history, affords full proof that there existed no correspondence between these writers. If the narrative in the Acts had been made up from the epistle, it is impossible that this journey should have been passed over in silence; if the epistle had been composed out of what the author had read of St. Paul’s history in the Acts, it is unaccountable that it should have been inserted.*

 

The journey to Jerusalem related in the second chapter of the epistle (“then, fourteen years after, I went up again to Jerusalem”) supplies another example of the same kind. Either this was the journey described in the fifteenth chapter of the Acts, when Paul and Barnabas were sent from Antioch to Jerusalem, to consult the apostles and elders upon the ques­tion of the Gentile converts; or it was some journey of which the history does not take notice. If the first opinion be fol­lowed, the discrepancy in the two accounts is so considerable, that it is not without difficulty they can be adapted to the same transaction: so that, upon this supposition, there is no place for suspecting that the writers were guided or assisted by each other. If the latter opinion be preferred, we have then a journey to Jerusalem, and a conference with the prin­cipal members of the church there, circumstantially related in the epistle, and entirely omitted in the Acts; and we are at liberty to repeat the observation, which we before made, that the omission of so material a fact in the history is inex­plicable, if the historian had read the epistle; and that the insertion of it in the epistle, if the writer derived his informa­tion from the history, is not less so.

 

St. Peter’s visit to Antioch, during which the dispute arose between him and St. Paul, is not mentioned in the Acts.

 

If we connect, with these instances, the general observation, that no scrutiny can discover the smallest trace of transcrip­tion or imitation, either in things or words, we shall be fully satisfied in this part of our case; namely, that the two records, be the facts contained in them true or false, come to our hands from independent sources.

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* N.B. The Acts of the Apostles simply inform us that St. Paul left Damascus in order to go to Jerusalem,” after many days were fulfilled.” If any doubt whether the words “many days” could be intended to express a period which included a term of three years, he will find a complete instance of the same phrase used with the same latitude in the first book of Kings, chap. 11: 38, 39. “And Shimei dwelt in Jerusalem many days. And it came to pass at the end of three years, that two of the servants of Shimei ran away.”

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Secondly, I say that the epistle, thus proved to have been written without any communication with the history, bears testimony to a great variety of particulars contained in the history.

 

1. St Paul, in the early part of his life, had addicted him­self to the study of the Jewish religion, and was distinguished by his real for the institution, and for the traditions which had been incorporated with it. Upon this part of his character the history makes St. Paul speak thus: “I am verily a man which am a Jew, born in Tarsus, a city of Cilicia, yet brought up in this city at the feet of Gamaliel, and taught accord­ing to the perfect manner of the law of the fathers; and was zealous toward God, as   ye all are this day,” Acts 22:3.

 

The epistle is as follows: “I profited in the Jews’ religion above many my equals in mine own nation, being more ex­ceedingly zealous of the traditions of my fathers,” chap. 1:14.

 

2. St. Paul, before his conversion, had been a fierce perse­cutor of the new sect.”As for Saul, he made havoc of the church, entering into every house, and haling men and women, committed them to prison,” Acts 8:3.

 

This is the history of St. Paul, as delivered in the Acts; in the recital of his own history in the epistle, “Ye have heard,” says he, “of my conversation in time past in the Jews’ religion, how that beyond measure I persecuted the church of God,” chap. 1:13.

 

3. St. Paul was miraculously converted on his way to Damascus. “And as he journeyed, he came near Damas­cus: and suddenly there shined round about him a light from heaven: and he felt to the earth, and heard a voice saying unto him, Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me? And he said, Who art thou, Lord? And the Lord said, I am Jesus, whom thou persecutest: it is hard for thee to kick against the pricks. And he trembling and astonished said, Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?” Acts 9:3-6. With these compare the epistle, chap. 1:15-17: “When it pleased God, who separated me from my mother’s womb, and called me by his grace, to reveal his Son in me, that I might preach him among the heathen; immediately I conferred not with flesh and blood: neither went I up to Jerusalem to them that were apostles before me; but I went into Arabia, and re­turned again unto Damascus.”

 

In this quotation from the epistle, I desire it to be remarked how incidentally it appears, that the affair passed at Damascus. In what may be called the direct part of the account, no men­tion is made of the place of his conversion at all: a casual expression at the end, and an expression brought in for a different purpose, alone fixes it to have been at Damascus; “I returned again unto Damascus.” Nothing can be more like simplicity and undesignedness than this is. It also draws the agreement between the two quotations somewhat closer, to observe, that they both state St. Paul to have preached the gospel immediately upon his call: “And straightway he preached Christ in the synagogues, that he is the Son of God,” Acts 9:20.”When it pleased God .... to reveal his Son to me, that I might preach him among the heathen; imme­diately I conferred not with flesh and blood,” Galatians 1:15.

 

4. The course of the apostle’s travels after his conversion was this: He went from Damascus to Jerusalem, and from Jerusalem into Syria and Cilicia. At Damascus, “the disciples took him by night, and let him down by the wall in a basket. And when Saul was come to Jerusalem, he assayed to join himself to the disciples,” Acts 9:25, 26. Afterwards, “when the brethren knew” the conspiracy formed against him at Jerusalem, “they brought him down to Cæsarea, and sent him forth to Tarsus,” a city in Cilicia, ver. 30. In the epistle, St. Paul gives the following brief account of his proceedings within the same period: “After three years, I went up to Jerusalem to see Peter, and abode with him fifteen days.—Afterwards I came into the regions of Syria and Cilicia.” The history had told us that Paul passed from Cæsarea to Tarsus: if he took his journey by land, it would carry him through Syria into Cilicia; and he would come, after his visit at Jerusalem, “into the regions of Syria and Cilicia,” in the very order in which he mentions them in the epistle. This supposition of his going from Cæsarea to Tarsus, by land, clears up also another point It accounts for what St. Paul says in the same place concerning the churches of Judæa: “Afterwards I came into the regions of Syria and Cilicia; and was unknown by face unto the churches of Judæa which were in Christ: but they had heard only, That he which per­secuted us in times past now preacheth the faith which once he destroyed. And they glorified God in me.” Upon which passage I observe, first, that what is here said of the churches of Judæa, is spoken in connexion with his journey into the regions of Syria and Cilicia. Secondly, that the passage itself has little significancy, and that the connexion is inexplicable, unless St. Paul went through Judæa* (though probably by a hasty journey) at the time that he came into the regions of Syria and Cilicia. Suppose him to have passed by land from Cæsarea to Tarsus, all this, as hath been observed, would be precisely true.(r.)

 

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* Dr. Doddridge thought that the Cæsarea here mentioned was not the celebrated city of that name upon the Mediterranean sea, but Cæsarea Philippi, near the borders of Syria, which lies in a much more direct line from Jerusalem to Tarsus than the other. The objection to this, Dr. Benson remarks, is, that Cæsarea, without any addition, usually denotes Cæsarea Palestinæ.

(r.) This hypothesis of a land journey is without the least warrant in the passage, on which Paley, by a very unusual oversight, has sought to found it; for the words (Gal. 1:21, 22) clearly do not refer to the order of St. Paul’s route on a hasty journey, but to the scene of his continued abode for many years. Syria is named before Cilicia, either because Antioch was a more important scene of labour than Tarsus, or because his stay was much longer in that province.—ED.

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5.  Barnabas was with St. Paul at Antioch. “Then de­parted Barnabas to Tarsus, for to seek Saul: and when he had found him, he brought him unto Antioch. And it came to pass, that a whole year they assembled themselves with the church,” Acts 11:25, 26. Again, and upon another occasion, Paul and Barnabas “sailed to Antioch:” and there they continued a “long time with the disciples,” chap. 14:26.

 

Now what says the epistle? “When Peter was come to Antioch, I withstood him to the face, because he was to be blamed.—And the other Jews dissembled likewise with him; insomuch that Barnabas also was carried away with their dissimulation” chap. 2:11, 13.

 

6.  The stated residence of the apostles was at Jerusalem. “At that time there was a great persecution against the church which was at Jerusalem; and they were all scattered abroad throughout the regions of Judæa and Samaria, except the apostles,” Acts 8:1. “They (the Christians at An­tioch) determined that Paul and Barnabas, and certain other of them, should go up to Jerusalem unto the apostles and elders about this question,” Acts 15:2.—With these accounts agrees the declaration in the epistle: “Neither went I up to Jeru­salem to them which were apostles before me,” chap. 1:17, for this declaration implies, or rather assumes it to be known, that Jerusalem was the place where the apostles were to be met with.

 

7.  There were at Jerusalem two apostles, or at the least two eminent members of the church, of the name of James. This is directly inferred from the Acts of the Apostles, which in the second verse of the twelfth chapter relates the death of James, the brother of John; and yet in the fifteenth chapter, and in a subsequent part of the history, records a speech de­livered by James in the assembly of the apostles and elders. It is also strongly implied by the form of expression used in the epistle: “Other apostles saw I none, save James, the Lord’s brother:” that is, to distinguish him from James the brother of John.

 

To us who have been long conversant in the Christian history, as contained in the Acts of the Apostles, these points are obvious and familiar; nor do we readily apprehend any greater difficulty in making them appear in a letter purporting to have been written by St. Paul, than there is in introducing them into a modern sermon. But, to judge correctly of the argument before us, we must discharge this knowledge from our thoughts. We must propose to ourselves the situation of an author who sat down to the writing of the epistle with­out having seen the history; and then the concurrences we have deduced will be deemed of importance. They will at least be taken for separate confirmations of the several facts, and not only of these particular facts, but of the general truth of the history.

 

For, what is the rule with respect to corroborative testi­mony which prevails in courts of justice, and which prevails only because experience has proved that it is an useful guide to truth? A principal witness in a cause delivers his account: his narrative, in certain parts of it, is confirmed by witnesses who are called afterwards. The credit derived from their testimony belongs not only to the particular circumstances in which the auxiliary witnesses agree with the principal witness, but in some measure to the whole of his evidence; because it is improbable that accident or fiction should draw a line which touched upon truth in so many points.

 

In like manner, if two records be produced, manifestly in­dependent, that is, manifestly written without any participa­tion of intelligence, an agreement between them, even in few and slight circumstances, (especially if from the different nature and design of the writings few points only of agreement, and those incidental, could be expected to occur,) would add a sensible weight to the authority of both, in every part of their contents.

 

The same rule is applicable to history, with at least as much reason as any other species of evidence.

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No. III.

 

But although the references to various particulars in the epistle, compared with the direct account of the same parti­culars in the history, afford a considerable proof of the truth not only of these particulars, but of the narrative which con­tains them; yet they do not show, it will be said, that the epistle was written by St. Paul: for admitting (what seems to have been proved) that the writer, whoever he was, had no recourse to the Acts of the Apostles, yet many of the facts referred to, such as St. Paul’s miraculous conversion, his change from a virulent persecutor to an indefatigable preacher, his labours amongst the Gentiles, and his zeal for the liberties of the Gentile church, were so notorious as to occur readily to the mind of any Christian, who should choose to personate his character, and counterfeit his name; it was only to write what every body knew. Now I think that this supposition—namely, that the epistle was composed upon general informa­tion, and the general publicity of the facts alluded to, and that the author did no more than weave into his work what the common fame of the Christian church had reported to his ears—is repelled by the particularity of the recitals and refer­ences. This particularity is observable in the following in­stances; in perusing which, I desire the reader to reflect, whether they exhibit the language of a man who had nothing but general reputation to proceed upon, or of a man actually speaking of himself and of his own history, and consequently of things concerning which he possessed a clear, intimate, and circumstantial knowledge.

 

1.  The history, in giving an account of St. Paul after his conversion, relates, “that, after many days,” effecting, by the assistance of the disciples, his escape from Damascus, “he proceeded to Jerusalem,” Acts 9:25. The epistle, speaking of the same period, makes St. Paul say that “he went into Arabia,” that he returned again to Damascus, that after three years he went up to Jerusalem» Chap. 1:17, 18.

 

2.  The history relates, that, when Saul was come from Damascus, he was with the disciples “coming in and going out,” Acts 9:28. The epistle, describing the same journey, tells us, that he” went up to Jerusalem to see Peter, and abode with him fifteen days,” chap. 1:18.

 

3.  The history relates that when Paul was come to Jerusa­lem, “Barnabas took him, and brought him to the apostles,” Acts 9:27. The epistle, that he saw Peter; but other of the apostles saw he “none, save James, the Lord’s brother,” chap. 1:19.

 

Now this is as it should be. The historian delivers his account in general terms, as of facts at which he was not pre­sent. The person who is the subject of that account, when he comes to speak of these facts himself, particularizes time, names, and circumstances.

 

4.   The like notation of places, persons, and dates, is met with in the account of St. Paul’s journey to Jerusalem, given in the second chapter of the epistle. It was fourteen years after his conversion; it was in company with Barnabas and Titus; it was then that he met with James, Cephas, and John; it was then also that it was agreed amongst them, that they should go to the circumcision, and he unto the Gentiles.

 

5.  The dispute with Peter, which occupies the sequel of the second chapter, is marked with the same particularity. It was at Antioch; it was after certain came from James; it was whilst Barnabas was there, who was carried away by their dissimulation. These examples negative the insinuation, that the epistle presents nothing but indefinite allusions to public facts.

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No. IV.

 

Chap. 4:11-16. “I am afraid of you, lest I have be­stowed upon you labour in vain. Brethren, I beseech you, be as I am; for I am as ye are: ye have not injured me at all. Ye know how through infirmity of the flesh I preached the gospel unto you at the first. And my temptation which was in the flesh ye despised not, nor rejected; but received me as an angel of God, even as Christ Jesus. Where is then the blessedness ye spake of? for I bear you record, that, if it had been possible, ye would have plucked out your own eyes, and have given them unto me. Am I therefore become your enemy, because I tell you the truth?”

 

With this passage compare 2 Corinthians 7:1-9: “It is not expedient for me doubtless to glory. I will come to visions and revelations of the Lord. I knew a man in Christ above fourteen years ago, (whether in the body I cannot tell; or whether out of the body I cannot tell: God knoweth;) such a one caught up to the third heaven; and I knew such a man, (whether in the body, or out of the body, I cannot tell: God knoweth;) how that he was caught up into paradise, and heard unspeakable words, which it is not lawful for a man to utter. Of such a one will I glory: yet of myself I will not glory, but in mine infirmities. For, though I would desire to glory, I shall not be a fool; for I will say the truth: but now I forbear lest any man should think of me above that which he seeth me to be, or that he heareth of me. And lest I should be exalted above measure through the abund­ance of the revelations, there was given to me α thorn in the flesh, the messenger of Satan to buffet me, lest I should be ex­alted above measure. For this thing I besought the Lord thrice, that it might depart from me. And he said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made per­fect in weakness. Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me.”

 

There can be no doubt but that “the temptation which was in the flesh,” mentioned in the Epistle to the Galatians, and “the thorn in the flesh, the messenger of Satan to buffet him,” mentioned in the Epistle to the Corinthians, were in­tended to denote the same thing. Either therefore it was, what we pretend it to have been, the same person in both, alluding, as the occasion led him, to some bodily infirmity under which he laboured; that is, we are reading the real letters of a real apostle; or, it was that a sophist, who had seen the circumstance in one epistle, contrived, for the sake of correspondency, to bring it into another; or, lastly, it was a circumstance in St. Paul’s personal condition, supposed to be well known to those into whose hands the epistle was likely to fall; and, for that reason, introduced into a writing de­signed to bear his name. I have extracted the quotations at length, in order to enable the reader to judge accurately of the manner in which the mention of this particular comes in, in each; because that judgment, I think, will acquit the author of the epistle of the charge of having studiously inserted it, either with a view of producing an apparent agreement be­tween them, or for any other purpose whatever.

 

The context, by which the circumstance before us is intro­duced, is in the two places totally different, and without any mark of imitation: yet in both places does the circumstance rise aptly and naturally out of the context, and that context from the train of thought carried on in the epistle.

 

The Epistle to the Galatians from the beginning to the end, runs in a strain of angry complaint of their defection from the apostle, and from the principles which he had taught them. It was very natural to contrast with this conduct, the zeal with which they had once received him; and it was not less so to mention, as a proof of their former disposition towards him, the indulgence which, whilst he was amongst them, they         had shown to his infirmity: “My temptation which was in the flesh ye despised not, nor rejected; but received me as an angel of God, even as Christ Jesus. Where is then the blessedness ye spake of?” that is, the benedictions which you bestowed upon me; “for I bear you record, that, if it had been possible, ye would have plucked out your own eyes, and have given them to me.”

 

In the two Epistles to the Corinthians, especially in the second, we have the apostle contending with certain teachers in Corinth, who had formed a party in that church ‘against him. To vindicate his personal authority, as well as the dignity and credit of his ministry amongst them, he takes occa­sion (but not without apologizing repeatedly for the folly, that is, for the indecorum, of pronouncing his own panegyric)* to meet his adversaries in their boastings: “Whereinsoever any is bold, (I speak foolishly,) I am bold also. Are they Hebrews? so am I. Are they Israelites? so am I. Are they the seed of Abraham? so am I. Are they the ministers of Christ? (I speak as a fool) I am more; in labours more abundant, in stripes above measure, in prisons more fre­quent, in deaths oft.” Being led to the subject, he goes on, as was natural, to recount his trials and dangers, his incessant cares and labours in the Christian mission. From the proofs which he had given of his zeal and activity in the service of Christ, he passes (and that with the same view of establishing his claim to be considered as “not a whit behind the very chiefest of the apostles”) to the visions and revela­tions which from time to time had been vouchsafed to him. And then, by a close and easy connexion, comes in the men­tion of his infirmity: “Lest I should be exalted,” says he, “above measure through the abundance of the revelations, there was given to me a thorn in the flesh, the messenger of Satan to buffet me.”

 

Thus then, in both epistles, the notice of his infirmity is suited to the place in which it is found. In the Epistle to the Corinthians, the train of thought draws up to the circumstance by a regular approximation. In this epistle, it is sug­gested by the subject and occasion of the epistle itself. Which observation we offer as an argument to prove that it is not, in either epistle, a circumstance industriously brought forward for the sake of procuring credit to an imposture.

 

A reader will be taught to perceive the force of this argu­ment, who shall attempt to introduce a given circumstance into the body of a writing. To do this without abruptness, or without betraying marks of design in the transition, requires, he will find, more art than he expected to be necessary, cer­tainly more than any one can believe to have been exercised in the composition of these epistles.

 

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* “Would to God you would bear with me a little in my folly: and indeed bear with me,” Chap. 11:1.

“That which I speak, I speak it not after the Lord, but as it were foolishly, in this confidence of boasting,  chap. 11:17.

“I am become a fool in glorying; ye have compelled me,” chap. 12:11.

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No. V.

 

Chap. 4:29. “But as then he that was born after the flesh persecuted him that was born after the Spirit, even so it is now.”

 

Chap. 5:11.”And I, brethren, if I yet preach circumci­sion, why do I yet suffer persecution? then is the offence of the cross ceased.”

 

Chap. 6:17. “From henceforth, let no man trouble me; for I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus.”

 

From these several texts, it is apparent that the perse­cutions which our apostle had undergone were from the hands or by the instigation of the Jews; that it was not for preaching Christianity in opposition to heathenism, but it was for preach­ing it as distinct from Judaism, that he had brought upon himself the sufferings which had attended his ministry. And this representation perfectly coincides with that which results from the detail of St. Paul’s history, as delivered in the Acts. At Antioch, in Pisidia, the “word of the Lord was. published throughout all the region. But the Jews stirred up the devout and honourable women, and the chief men of the city, and raised persecution against Paul and Barnabas, and expelled them out of their coasts,” Acts 13:49, 50. Not long after, at Iconium, “a great multitude both of the Jews and also of the Greeks believed. But the unbelieving Jews stirred up the Gentiles, and made their minds evil affected against the brethren,” chap. 14:1,2. At Lystra “there came certain Jews from Antioch and Iconium, who persuaded the people, and, having stoned Paul, drew him out of the city, supposing he had been dead,” chap. 14:19. The same enmity, and from the same quarter, our apostle experienced in Greece: At Thessalonica, “some of them (the Jews) believed, and consorted with Paul and Silas; and of the devout Greeks a great multitude, and of the chief women not a few. But the Jews which believed not, moved with envy, took unto them certain lewd fellows of the baser sort, and gathered a company, and set all the city in an uproar, and assaulted the house of Jason, and sought to bring them out to the people,” chap. 17:4, 5. Their persecutors follow them to Berea: “When the Jews of Thessalonica had knowledge that the word of God was preached of Paul at Berea, they came thither also, and stirred up the people,” chap. 17:13. And lastly at Corinth, when Gallio was deputy of Achaia, “the Jews made insurrection with one accord against Paul, and brought him to the judgment seat.” I think it does not appear that our apostle was ever set upon by the Gentiles, unless they were first stirred up by the Jews, except in two instances; in both which the persons who began the assault were immediately interested in his expulsion from the place. Once this happened at Philippi, after the cure of the Pythoness: “When her masters saw that the hope of their gains was gone, they caught Paul and Silas, and drew them into the market-place, unto the rulers,” chap. 16:19. And a second time at Ephesus, at the instance of Demetrius, a silver­smith which made silver shrines for Diana, who called to­gether “workmen of like occupation, and said, Sirs, ye know that by this craft we have our wealth. Moreover ye see and hear, that not alone at Ephesus, but almost throughout all Asia, this Paul hath persuaded and turned away much people, saying that they be no gods, which are made with hands: so that not only this our craft is in danger to be set at nought; but also that the temple of the great goddess Diana should be despised, and her magnificence should be destroyed, whom all Asia and the world worshippeth.”

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No. VI.

 

I observe an agreement in a somewhat peculiar rule of Christian conduct, as laid down in this epistle, and as exem­plified in the second Epistle to the Corinthians. It is not the repetition of the same general precept, which would have been a coincidence of little value; but it is the general precept in one place, and the application of that precept to an actual occurrence in the other. In the sixth chapter and first verse of this epistle, our apostle gives the following direction: “Brethren, if a man be overtaken in a fault, ye which are spiritual, restore such an one in the spirit of meekness.”    In 2 Cor. 2:6-8, he writes thus: “Sufficient to such a man” (the incestuous person mentioned in the first epistle) “is this punishment, which was inflicted of many. So that con­trariwise ye ought rather to forgive him, and comfort him, lest perhaps such an one should be swallowed up with over­much sorrow. Wherefore I beseech you that ye would confirm your love toward him.” I have little doubt but that it was the same mind which dictated these two passages.

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No. VII.

 

Our epistle goes further than any of St. Paul’s epistles; for it avows in direct terms the supersession of the Jewish law, as an instrument of salvation, even to the Jews themselves. Not only were the Gentiles exempt from this authority, but even the Jews were no longer either to place any dependency upon it, or consider themselves as subject to it on a religious account. “Before faith came, we were kept under the law, shut up unto the faith which should afterwards be revealed. Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith. But after that faith is come, we are no longer under a schoolmaster” chap. 3:23-25. This was undoubtedly spoken of Jews and to Jews. In like manner, chap. 4:1-5; “Now I say, That the heir, as long as he is a child, differeth nothing from a servant, though he be lord of all; but is under tutors and governors until the time appointed of the father. Even so we, when we were children, were in bondage under the elements of the world; but when the fulness of time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons.” These passages are nothing short of a declaration, that the obligation of the Jewish law, considered as a religious dispensation, the effects of which were to take place in another life, had ceased with respect even to the Jews themselves. What then should be the conduct of a Jew (for such St. Paul was), who preached this doctrine? To be consistent with himself, either he would no longer comply, in his own person, with the directions of the law; or, if he did comply, it would be for some other reason than any confidence which he placed in its efficacy, as a religious institution. Now so it happens, that whenever St. Paul’s compliance with the Jewish law is mentioned in the history, it is mentioned in connexion with circumstances which point out the motive from which it pro­ceeded; and this motive appears to have been always exoteric, namely, a love of order and tranquillity, or an unwillingness to give unnecessary offence. Thus, Acts 16:3: “Him (Timothy) would Paul have to go forth with him; and took and circumcised him because of the Jews which were in those quarters.” Again, Acts 21:26, when Paul consented to exhibit an example of public compliance with a Jewish rite by purifying himself in the temple, it is plainly intimated that he did this to satisfy “many thousands of Jews who believed, and who were all zealous of the law.” So far the instances, related in one book, correspond with the doctrine delivered in another.

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No. VIII.*

 

Chap. 1:18. “Then after three years I went up to Jeru­salem to see Peter, and abode with him fifteen days.”

 

The shortness of St. Paul’s stay at Jerusalem is what I desire the reader to remark. The direct account of the same journey in the Acts, chap. 9:28, determines nothing concern­ing the time of his continuance there: “And he was with them (the apostles) coming in and going out at Jerusalem. And he spake boldly in the name of the Lord Jesus, and dis­puted against the Grecians: but they went about to slay him. Which when the brethren knew, they brought him down to Cæsarea.” Or rather this account, taken by itself, would lead a reader to suppose that St. Paul’s abode at Jerusalem had been longer than fifteen days. But turn to the twenty-second chapter of the Acts, and you will find a reference to this visit to Jerusalem, which plainly indicates that Paul’s continuance in that city had been of short duration: “And it came to pass, that, when I was come again to Jerusalem, even while I prayed in the temple, I was in a trance; and saw him saying unto me, Make haste, and get thee quickly out of Jerusalem: for they will not receive thy testimony concerning me.” Here we have the general terms of one text so explained by a distant text in the same book, as to bring an indeterminate expression into a close conformity with a specification delivered in another book: a species of consistency not, I think, usually found in fabulous relations.(s)

 

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(s) The reality of this coincidence has been questioned by Mr. Biley, in his valuable Supplement to the Hone Pauline, who conceives that the allusion in Acts 22. is not to the first, but to the second visit. In Horæ Apostolicæ. cap. II. No. I. the accuracy of Paley’s view is vindicated, and it is shown that it is the first visit to which the allusion is really made.—ED.

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No. IX.

 

Chap. 6:11. “Ye see how large a letter I have written unto you with mine own hand.”

 

These words imply that he did not always write with his own hand; which is consonant to what we find intimated in some other of the epistles. The Epistle to the Romans was written by Tertius: “I Tertius, who wrote this epistle, salute you in the Lord.” (Chap. 16:22.) The first Epistle to the Corinthians, the Epistle to the Colossians, and the second Epistle to the Thessalonians, have all, near the conclusion, this clause, “The salutation of me, Paul, with mine own hand;” which must be understood, and is universally under­stood to import, that the rest of the epistle was written by. another hand. I do not think it improbable, that an impostor, who had remarked this subscription in some other epistle, should invent the same in a forgery; but that is not done here. The author of this epistle does not imitate the manner of giving St. Paul’s signature; he only bids the Galatians observe how large a letter he had written to them with his own hand. He does not say this was different from his ordinary usage; this is left to implication. Now to suppose that this was an artifice to procure credit to an imposture, is to suppose that the author of the forgery, because he knew that others of St. Paul’s were not written by himself, therefore made the apostle say that this was: which seems an odd turn to give to the circumstance, and to be given for a purpose which would more naturally and more directly have been answered by subjoining the salutation or signature in the form in which it is found in other epistles.*

 

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* The words πηλίκοις γράμμασιν may probably be meant to describe the character in which he wrote, ana not the length of the letter. But this will not alter the truth of our observation. I think, however, that as St. Paul by the mention of his own hand designed to express to the Galatians the great concern which he felt for them, the words, whatever they signify, belong to the whole of the epistle; and not, as Grotius, after St. Jerome, interprets it, to the few verses which follow.

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No. X.*

 

An exact conformity appears in the manner in which a cer­tain apostle or eminent Christian, whose name was James, is spoken of in the epistle and in the history. Both writings refer to a situation of his at Jerusalem, somewhat different from that of the other apostles; a kind of eminence or presidency in the church there, or at least a more fixed and sta­tionary residence. (Chap. 2:11, 12.) “When Peter was at Antioch, .... before that certain came from James, he did eat with the Gentiles.” This text plainly attributes a kind of pre-eminency to James; and, as we hear of him twice in the same epistle, dwelling at Jerusalem (chap. 1:19, and 2:9), we must apply it to the situation which he held in that church. In the Acts of the Apostles, divers intimations occur, conveying the same idea of James’s situation. When Peter was miraculously delivered from prison, and had sur­prised his friends by his appearance among them, after de­claring unto them how the Lord had brought him out of prison, “Go show,” says he, “these things unto James, and to the brethren.” (Acts 7:17.) Here James is manifestly spoken of in terms of distinction. He appears again with like distinction in the twenty-first chapter, and the seventeenth and eighteenth verses: “And when we (Paul and his com­pany) were come to Jerusalem,.... the day following Paul went in with us unto James; and all the elders were present.” In the debate which took place upon the business of the Gentile converts in the council at Jerusalem, this same person seems to have taken the lead. It was he who closed the debate, and proposed the resolution in which the council ulti­mately concurred: “Wherefore my sentence is, that we trouble not them which from among the Gentiles are turned to God.”

 

Upon the whole, that there exists a conformity in the ex­pressions used concerning James throughout the history, and in the epistle, is unquestionable. But admitting this con­formity, and admitting also the undesignedness of it, what does it prove? It proves that the circumstance itself is founded in truth; that is, that James was a real person, who held a situation of eminence in a real society of Christians at Jerusalem. It confirms also those parts of the narrative which are connected with this circumstance. Suppose, for instance, the truth of the account of Peter’s escape from prison was to be tried upon the testimony of a witness who, among other things, made Peter, after his deliverance, say, “Go show these things unto James, and to the brethren;” would it not be mate­rial, in such a trial, to make out by other independent proofs, or by a comparison of proofs, drawn from independent sources, that there was actually at that time, living at Jerusalem, such a person as James; that this person held such a situation in the society amongst whom these things were transacted, as to render the words which Peter is said to have used concerning him, proper and natural for him to have used? If this would be pertinent in the discussion of oral testimony, it is still more so in appreciating the credit of remote history.

 

It must not be dissembled that the comparison of our epistle with the history presents some difficulties, or, to say the least, some questions of considerable magnitude. It may be doubted, in the first place, to what journey the words which open the second chapter of the epistle, “then, fourteen years after­wards, I went to Jerusalem,” relate. That which best cor­responds with the date, and that to which most interpreters apply the passage, is the journey of Paul and Barnabas to Jerusalem, when they went thither from Antioch, upon the business of the Gentile converts; and which journey produced the famous council and decree recorded in the fifteenth chapter of Acts. To me this opinion appears to be encumbered with strong objections. In the epistle, Paul tells us that he “went up by revelation,” chap. 2:2. In the Acts, we read that he was sent by the church of Antioch: After no small dissension and disputation, “they determined that Paul and Barnabas, and certain other of them, should go up to the apostles and elders about this question,” Acts 15:2. This is not very reconcilable. In the epistle, St. Paul writes that, when he came to Jerusalem, “he communicated that gospel which he preached among the Gentiles, but privately to them which were of reputation,” chap. 2:2. If by "that gospel” he meant the immunity of the Gentile Christians from the Jewish law, (and I know not what else it can mean,) it is not easy to conceive how he should communicate that privately, which was the object of his public message. But a yet greater difficulty remains, namely, that in the account which the epistle gives of what passed upon this visit at Jerusalem, no notice is taken of the deliberation and decree which are re­corded in the Acts, and which, according to that history, formed the business for the sake of which the journey was undertaken. The mention of the council and of its determi­nation, whilst the apostle was relating his proceedings at Jerusalem, could hardly have been avoided, if in truth the narrative belong to the same journey. To me it appears more probable that Paul and Barnabas had taken some journey to Jerusalem, the mention of which is omitted in the Acts. Prior to the apostolic decree, we read that "Paul and Bar­nabas abode at Antioch a long time with the disciples,” Acts 14:28. Is it unlikely, that during this long abode, they might go up to Jerusalem and return to Antioch? Or would the omission of such a journey be unsuitable to the general brevity with which these memoirs are written, espe­cially of those parts of St. Paul’s history which took place before the historian joined the society?

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But, again, the first account we find in the Acts of the Apostles of St. Paul’s visiting Galatia, is in the sixteenth chapter and the sixth verse: “Now when they had gone through Phrygia and the region of Galatia,.....they assayed to go into Bithynia.” The progress here recorded was subse­quent to the apostolic decree; therefore that decree must have been extant when our epistle was written. Now, as the pro­fessed design of the epistle was to establish the exemption of the Gentile converts from the law of Moses, and as the decree pronounced and confirmed that exemption, it may seem ex­traordinary that no notice whatever is taken of that deter­mination, nor any appeal made to its authority. Much, however, of the weight of this objection, which applies also to some other of St. Paul’s epistles, is removed by the fol­lowing reflections.

 

1. It was not St. Paul’s manner, nor agreeable to it, to re­sort or defer much to the authority of the other apostles, es­pecially whilst he was insisting, as he does strenuously throughout this epistle insist, upon his own original inspiration. He who could speak of the very chiefest of the, apostles in such terms as the following— “of those who seemed to be somewhat, (whatsoever they were it maketh no matter to me, God accepteth no man’s person,) for they who seemed to be somewhat in conference added nothing to me”—he, I say, was not likely to support himself by their decision.

 

2. The epistle argues the point upon principle: and it is not perhaps more to be wondered at, that in such an argument St. Paul should not cite the apostolic decree, than it would be that in a discourse designed to prove the moral and reli­gious duty of observing the sabbath, the writer should not quote the thirteenth canon.

 

3. The decree did not go the length of the position main­tained in the epistle; the decree only declares that the apostles and elders at Jerusalem did not impose the observance of the Mosaic law upon the Gentile converts, as a condition of their being admitted into the Christian church. Our epistle argues that the Mosaic institution itself was at an end, as to all effects upon a future state, even with respect to the Jews themselves.

 

4. They whose error St. Paul combated, were not persons who submitted to the Jewish law, because it was imposed by the authority, or because it was made part of the law of the Christian church; but they were persons who, having already become Christians, afterwards voluntarily took upon them­selves the observance of the Mosaic code, under a notion of attaining thereby to a greater perfection. This, I think, is precisely the opinion which St. Paul opposes in this epistle. Many of his expressions apply exactly to it: “Are ye so foolish? having begun in the Spirit, are ye now made perfect by the flesh?” chap. 3:3. “Tell me, ye that desire to be under the law, do ye not hear the law?” chap. 4:21. “How turn ye again to the weak and beggarly elements, whereunto ye desire again to be in bondage?” chap. 4:9. It cannot be thought extraordinary that St. Paul should resist this opinion with earnestness; for it both changed the cha­racter of the Christian dispensation, and derogated expressly from the completeness of that redemption which Jesus Christ had wrought for them that believed in him. But it was to no purpose to allege to such persons the decision at Jerusalem; for that only showed that they were not bound to these ob­servances by any law of the Christian church: they did not pretend to be so bound; nevertheless, they imagined that there was an efficacy in these observances, a merit, a recom­mendation to favour, and a ground of acceptance with God for those who complied with them. This was a situation of thought to which the tenor of the decree did not apply. Accordingly, St. Paul’s address to the Galatians, which is throughout adapted to this situation, runs in a strain widely different from the language of the decree: “Christ is become of no effect unto you, whosoever of you are justified by the law,” chap. 5:4; that is, whosoever places his dependence upon any merit he may apprehend there to be in legal ob­servances. The decree had said nothing like this; therefore it would have been useless to have produced the decree in an argument of which this was the burden. In like manner as in contending with an anchorite, who should insist upon the superior holiness of a recluse, ascetic life, and the value of such mortifications in the sight of God, it would be to no purpose to prove that the laws of the church did not require these vows, or even to prove that the laws of the church ex­pressly left every Christian to his liberty. This would avail little towards abating his estimation of their merit, or towards settling the point in controversy.*

 

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* Mr. Locke’s solution of this difficulty is by no means satisfactory. “St. Paul,” he says,” did not remind the Galatians of the apostolic decree, because they already had it.” In the first place, it does not appear with any certainty that they had it; in the second place, if they had it, this was rather a reason than otherwise for referring them to it. The passage in the Acts, from which Mr. Locke concludes that the Galatic churches were in possession of the decree, is the fourth verse of the sixteenth chapter: “And as they (Paul and Timothy) went through the cities, they delivered them the decrees for to keep, that were ordained of the apostles and elders which were at Jerusalem.” In my opinion, this delivery of the decree was confined to the churches to which St. Paul came, in pursuance of the plan upon which he set out, “of visiting the brethren in every city where he had preached the word of the Lord;” the history of which progress, and of all that pertained to it, is closed in the fifth verse, when the history informs us that “so were the churches established in the faith, and increased in number daily.” Then the history proceeds upon a new section of the narrative, by telling us that “when they had gone throughout Phrygia and the region of Galatia, they assayed to go into Bithynia.” The decree itself is directed to “the brethren which are of the Gentiles in Antioch, Syria, and Cilicia;” that is, to churches already founded, and in which this question had been stirred. And I think the observation of the noble author of the Miscellanea Sacra is not only ingenious but highly probable, namely, that there is in this place a dislocation of the text, and that the fourth and fifth verses of the sixteenth chapter ought to follow the last verse of the fifteenth, so as to make the entire passage run thus: “And they went through Syria and Cilicia (to the Christians of which country the decree was addressed), confirming the churches; and as they went through the cities, they delivered them the decrees for to keep, that were ordained of the apostles and elders which were at Jerusalem; and so were the churches established in the faith, and increased in number daily.” And then the sixteenth chapter takes up a new and unbroken paragraph: “Then came he to Derbe and Lystra,” etc. When St. Paul came, as he did into Galatia, to preach the gospel, for the first time, in a new place, it is not probable that he would make mention of the decree, or rather letter, of the church of Jerusalem, which presupposed Christianity to be known, and which related to certain doubts that had arisen in some established Christian communities.

 

The second reason which Mr. Locke assigns for the omission of the decree, namely, “that St. Paul’s sole object in the epistle was to acquit himself of the imputation that had been charged upon him of actually preaching circumcision,” does not appear to me to be strictly true. It was not the sole object. The epistle is written in general opposition to the Judaizing inclination which he found to prevail among his converts. The avowal of his own doctrine, and of his stedfast adherence to that doctrine, formed a necessary part of the design of his letter, but was not the whole of it.

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Another difficulty arises from the account of Peter’s con­duct towards the Gentile converts at Antioch, as given in the epistle, in the latter part of the second chapter; which con­duct, it is said, is consistent neither with the revelation com­municated to him, upon the conversion of Cornelius, nor with the part he took in the debate at Jerusalem. But, in order to understand either the difficulty or the solution, it will be necessary to state and explain the passage itself. “When Peter was come to Antioch, I withstood him to the face, because he was to be blamed. For before that certain came from James, he did eat with the Gentiles: but when they were come, he withdrew and separated himself, fearing them which were of the circumcision. And the other Jews dissembled likewise with him; insomuch that Barnabas also was carried away with their dissimulation. But when I saw they walked not up­rightly according to the truth of the gospel, I said unto Peter before them all, If thou, being a Jew, livest after the manner of the Gentiles, and not as do the Jews, why com-pellest thou the Gentiles to live as do the Jews?” Now the question that produced the dispute to which these words re­late, was not whether the Gentiles were capable of being admitted into the Christian covenant; that had been fully settled: nor was it whether it should be accounted essential to the profession of Christianity that they should conform themselves to the law of Moses; that was the question at Jerusalem: but it was, whether, upon the Gentiles becoming Christians, the Jews might henceforth eat and drink with them, as with their own brethren. Upon this point St. Peter betrayed some inconstancy; and so he might, agreeably enough to his history. He might consider the vision at Joppa as a direction for the occasion, rather than as universally abo­lishing the distinction between Jew and Gentile; I do not mean with respect to final acceptance with God, but as to the manner of their living together in society: at least, he might not have comprehended this point with such clearness and certainty, as to stand out upon it against the fear of bringing upon himself the censure and complaint of his brethren in the church of Jerusalem, who still adhered to their ancient pre­judices. But Peter, it is said, compelled the Gentiles Ιουδαιζειν— “Why compellest thou the Gentiles to live as do the Jews?” How did he do that? The only way in which Peter appears to have compelled the Gentiles to comply with the Jewish institution, was by withdrawing himself from their society. By which he may be understood to have made this declaration: “We do not deny your right to be considered as Christians; we do not deny your title in the promises of the gospel, even without compliance with our law: but if you would have us Jews live with you as we do with one another, that is, if you would in all respects be treated by us as Jews, you must live as such yourselves.” This, I think, was the compulsion which St. Peter’s conduct imposed upon the Gen­tiles, and for which St. Paul reproved him.

 

As to the part which the historian ascribes to St. Peter in the debate at Jerusalem, beside that it was a different question which was there agitated from that which produced the dis­pute at Antioch, there is nothing to hinder us from supposing that the dispute at Antioch was prior to the consultation at Jerusalem; or that Peter, in consequence of this rebuke, might have afterwards maintained firmer sentiments.(t)

 

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(t) See Horæ Apostolicæ: cap. II. No. IV., where the sameness of the visit, in the book of Acts, and the Epistle, is placed, I conceive, on solid grounds of evidence. Among recent writers, Dr. Burton and Mr. Biley maintain their identity, while Mr. Browne (Ordo Seclorum), Mr. Greswell, in his Dissertations, and Canon Tate, in his Continuous History of St. Paul, suppose them to be distinct. These three writers, however, all disagree in their own hypothesis. The first identifies it with the journey in Acts 11., the second with the one in Acts 18:, and the third with a private journey, not mentioned by the historian, during the interval of Acts 13:28. The question is fundamental in the whole subject of the chronology of the book of Acts, besides its important bearing on the harmony of the epistle with the sacred history.—ED.

 

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  • 1 month later...

CHAPTER VI.

 

THE EPISTLE TO THE EPHESIANS.

 

No. 1.*

 

This epistle, and the Epistle to the Colossians, appear to have been transmitted to their respective churches by the same messenger: “But that ye also may know my affairs, and how I do, Tychicus, a beloved brother and faithful minister in the Lord, shall make known to you all things; whom I have sent unto you for the same purpose that ye might know our affairs, and that he might comfort your hearts,” Eph. 6:21, 22. This text, if it do not expressly declare, clearly I think intimates, that the letter was sent by Tychicus. The words made use of by him in the Epistle to the Colossians are very similar to these, and afford the same implication that Tychicus, in conjunction with Onesimus, was the bearer of the letter to that church: “All my state shall Tychicus declare unto you, who is a beloved brother, and a faithful minister and fellow­servant in the Lord; whom I have sent unto you for the same purpose, that he might know your estate, and comfort your hearts;   with  Onesimus,  a  faithful  and  beloved  brother, who is one of you. They shall make known unto you all things which are done here,” Col. 4:7-9. Both epistles represent the writer as under imprisonment for the gospel; and both treat of the same general subject. The Epistle therefore to the Ephesians, and the Epistle to the Colossians, import to be two letters written by the same person, at, or nearly at, the same time, and upon the same subject, and to have been sent by the same messenger. Now everything in the sentiments, order, and diction of the two writings, corre­sponds with what might be expected from this circumstance of identity or cognation in their original. The leading doctrine of both epistles is the union of Jews and Gentiles under the Christian dispensation; and that doctrine in both is established by the same arguments, or, more properly speaking, illustrated by the same similitudes:* “one head,” “one body,” “one new man,” “one temple,” are in both epistles the figures under which the society of believers in Christ, and their common relation to him as such, is represented.+ The ancient, and, as had been thought, the indelible distinction between Jew and Gentile, in both epistles, is declared to be “now abolished by his cross.” Beside this consent in the general tenor of the two epistles, and in the run also and warmth of thought with which they are composed, we may naturally expect, in letters produced under the circumstances in which these appear to have been written, a closer resemblance of style and diction, than between other letters of the same person but of distant dates, or between letters adapted to dif­ferent occasions. In particular, we may look for many of the same expressions, and sometimes for whole sentences being alike; since such expressions and sentences would be repeated in the second letter, (whichever that was,) as yet fresh in the author’s mind from the writing of the first This repetition occurs in the following examples:**

 

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* St. Paul, I am apt to believe, has been sometimes accused of inconclusive reasoning, by our mistaking that for reasoning which was only intended for illustration. He is not to be read as a man whose own persuasion of the truth of what he taught always or solely depended upon the views under which he represents it in his writings. Taking for granted the certainty of his doctrine, as resting upon the revelation that had been imparted to him, he exhibits it frequently to the conception of his readers under images and allegories, in which, if an analogy may be perceived, or even sometimes a poetic resemblance be found, it is all perhaps that is required.

 

+

Eph. 1:22

 

 

 

Col. 1:18

 

Compare

Eph. 4:15

with

Col. 2:19

 

 

Eph. 2:15

 

Col. 3:10, 11

 

 

 

Also

Eph. 2:14, 15

 

 

 

Col. 2:14

 

 

Eph. 2:16

with

Col. 1:18-21

 

Eph. 2:20

 

Col. 2:7

 

 

** When verbal comparisons are relied upon, it becomes necessary to state the original; but that the English reader may be interrupted as little as may be, I shall in general do this in the notes.

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  • 3 weeks later...

Eph. 1:7. “In whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins.”1

 

Col. 1:14. “In whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins.”2

 

Besides the sameness of the words, it is further remarkable that the sentence is, in both places, preceded by the same introductory idea. In the Epistle to the Ephesians it is the “beloved” (ήγαπημένψ); in that to the Colossians it is “his dear Son,” (υioυ της αγάπης αυτου), “in whom we have re­demption.” The sentence appears to have been suggested to the mind of the writer by the idea which had accompanied it before.

 

Eph. 1:10. “All things, both which are in heaven and which are on earth even in him.”3

 

Col. 1:20. “All things by him, whether they be things in earth, or things in heaven.”4

 

This quotation is the more observable, because the con­necting of things in earth with things in heaven is a very sin­gular sentiment, and found nowhere else but in these two epistles. The words also are introduced by describing the union which Christ had effected, and they are followed by telling the Gentile churches that they were incorporated into it.

 

Eph. 3:2.  “The dispensation of the grace of God, which is given me to you ward.”5

 

Col. 1:25. “The dispensation of God, which is given to me for you.”6

 

Of these sentences it may likewise be observed that the accompanying ideas are similar. In both places they are im­mediately preceded by the mention of his present sufferings; in both places they are immediately followed by the mention of the mystery which was the great subject of his preaching.

 

Eph. 5:19. “In psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your hearts to the Lord.”7

 

Colos. 3:16. “In psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord.”8

 

Eph. 6:22. “Whom I have sent unto you for the same purpose, that ye might know our affairs, and that he might comfort your hearts.”9

 

Col. 4:8. “Whom I have sent unto you for the same purpose, that he might know your estate, and comfort your hearts.”10

 

In these examples, we do not perceive a cento of phrases gathered from one composition, and strung together in the other; but the occasional occurrence of the same expression to a mind a second time revolving the same ideas.

 

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1 Eph. 1:7. Ἐν ᾧ ἔχομεν τὴν ἀπολύτρωσιν διὰ τοῦ αἵματος αὐτοῦ, τὴν ἄφεσιν τῶν παραπτωμάτων..

2 Col. 1:14. Έν ᾧ ἔχομεν τὴν ἀπολύτρωσιν διὰ τοῦ αἵματος αὐτοῦ, τὴν ἄφεσιν τῶν ἁμαρτιῶν. However, it must be observed, that in this latter text many copies have not διά τοῦ αἵματος αὐτοῦ.

3 Eph. 1:10.    Τά τε ἐν τοῖς οὐρανοῖς καὶ τὰ ἐπὶ τῆς γῆς ἐν αὐτῷ.

4 Col.  1:20.   Διʼ αὐτοῦ, εἴτε τὰ ἐπὶ τῆς γῆς εἴτε τὰ ἐν τοῖς οὐρανοῖς.

5 Eph. 3:2.   Τὴν οἰκονομίαν χάριτος τοῦ θεοῦ τῆς δοθείσης μοι εἰς ὑμᾶς.

6 Col. 1:25.   Τὴν οἰκονομίαν τοῦ θεοῦ τὴν δοθεῖσάν μοι εἰς ὑμᾶς.

7 Eph. 5:19. ψαλμοῖς καὶ ὕμνοις καὶ ᾠδαῖς πνευματικαῖς, ᾄδοντες καὶ ψάλλοντες τῇ καρδίᾳ ὑμῶν τῷ Κυρίῳ.

Col. 3:16. ψαλμοῖς κάι ὕμνοις κάι ᾠδαῖς πνευματικαῖς ἐν χάριτι, ᾄδοντες ἐν τῇ καρδίᾳ ὑμῶν τῷ Κυρίῳ.

9 Eph. 6:22. ὃν ἔπεμψα πρὸς ὑμᾶς εἰς αὐτὸ τοῦτο ἵνα γνῶτε τὰ περὶ ἡμῶν καὶ παρακαλέσῃ τὰς καρδίας ὑμῶν.

10 Col. 4:8. ὃν ἔπεμψα πρὸς ὑμᾶς εἰς αὐτὸ τοῦτο ἵνα γνῶτε τὰ περὶ ἡμῶν καὶ παρακαλέσῃ τὰς καρδίας ὑμῶν.

 

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2. Whoever writes two letters, or two discourses, nearly upon the same subject, and at no great distance of time, but without any express recollection of what he had written before, will find himself repeating some sentences, in the very order of the words in which he had already used them; but he will more frequently find himself employing some principal terms, with the order inadvertently changed, or with the order disturbed by the intermixture of other words and phrases ex­pressive of ideas rising up at the time; or in many instances repeating not single words, nor yet whole sentences, but parts and fragments of sentences. Of all these varieties the ex­amination of our two epistles will furnish plain examples; and I should rely upon this class of instances more than upon the last; because, although an impostor might transcribe into a forgery entire sentences and phrases, yet the dislocation of words, the partial recollection of phrases and sentences, the intermixture of new terms and new ideas with terms and ideas before used, which will appear in the examples that follow, and which are the natural properties of writings pro­duced under the circumstances in which these epistles are represented to have been composed—would not, I think, have occurred to the invention of a forger; nor, if they had occurred, would they have been so easily executed. This studied variation was a refinement in forgery which I believe did not exist; or, if we can suppose it to have been practised in the instances adduced below, why, it may be asked, was not the same art exercised upon those which we have collected in the preceding class?

 

Eph. 2:19; 2:5. “Towards us who believe, according to the working of his mighty power, which he wrought in Christ, when he raised him from the dead (and set him at his own right hand in the heavenly places, far above all principality, and power, and might, and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this world, but in that which is to come. And hath put all things under his feet: and gave him to be the head over all things, to the church, which is his body, the fulness of him, that filleth all in all); and you hath he quickened, who were dead in tres­passes and sins (wherein in times past ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience; among whom also we all had our conversa­tion, in times past, in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others. But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewithal he loved us,) even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ.”1

 

Col. 2:12, 13. “Through the faith of the operation of God, who hath raised him from the dead: and you, being dead in your sins, and the uncircumcision of the flesh, hath he quickened together with him.”2

 

Out of the long quotation from the Ephesians take away the parentheses, and you have left a sentence almost in terms the same as the short quotation from the Colossians. The resemblance is more visible in the original than in our transla­tion; for what is rendered in one place, “the working,” and in another the “operation,” is the same Greek term νεργεία:

 

in one place it is, τοὺς πιστεύοντας κατὰ τὴν ἐνέργειαν; in the other, διὰ τῆς πίστεως τῆς ἐνεργείας. Here, therefore, we have the same sentiment, and nearly in the same words; but, in the Ephesians, twice broken or interrupted by inci­dental thoughts, which St. Paul, as his manner was, enlarges upon by the way,3 and then returns to the thread of his discourse. It is interrupted the first time by a view which breaks in upon his mind of the exaltation of Christ; and the second time by a description of heathen depravity. I have only to remark that Griesbach, in his very accurate edition, gives the parentheses very nearly in the same manner in which they are here placed; and that without any respect to the comparison which we are proposing.

 

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1 Eph. 1:19, 20; 2:1, 5. τοὺς πιστεύοντας κατὰ τὴν ἐνέργειαν τοῦ κράτους τῆς ἰσχύος αὐτοῦ ἣν ἐνήργηκεν ἐν τῷ Χριστῷ ἐγείρας αὐτὸν ἐκ νεκρῶν, καὶ καθίσας ἐν δεξιᾷ αὐτοῦ ἐν τοῖς ἐπουρανίοιςκαὶ ὑμᾶς ὄντας νεκροὺς τοῖς παραπτώμασιν καὶ ταῖς ἁμαρτίαιςκαὶ ὄντας ἡμᾶς νεκροὺς τοῖς παραπτώμασιν συνεζωοποίησεν τῷ Χριστῷ.

2 Col. 2:12, 13. διὰ τῆς πίστεως τῆς ἐνεργείας τοῦ θεοῦ τοῦ ἐγείραντος αὐτὸν ἐκ νεκρῶν. καὶ ὑμᾶς νεκροὺς ὄντας ἐν τοῖς παραπτώμασιν καὶ τῇ ἀκροβυστίᾳ τῆς σαρκὸς ὑμῶν, συνεζωοποίησε σὺν αὐτῷ.

3 Vide Locke in loc.

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Eph. 4:2-4. “With all lowliness and meekness, with long-suffering, forbearing one another in love; endea­vouring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit, even as ye are called in one hope of your calling.”1

 

Col. 3:12-15. “Put on therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, bowels of mercies, kindness, hum­bleness of mind, meekness, long-suffering, forbearing one another, and forgiving one another; if any man have a quarrel against any, even as Christ forgave you, so also do ye; and, above all these things, put on charity, which is the bond of perfectness; and let the peace of God rule in your hearts, to the which also ye are called in one body.”2

 

In these two quotations, the words ταπεινοφροσύνην, πραΰτητα, μακροθυμίαν, ἀνεχόμενοι ἀλλήλων, occur exactly in the same order: αγάπη is also found in both, but in a different con­nexion; συνδέσμῳ τῆς εἰρήνης answers to σύνδεσμος τῆς τελειότητος: ἐκλήθητε ἐν ἑνὶ σώματι to ἓν σῶμα καὶ ἓν πνεῦμα, καθὼς καὶ ἐκλήθητε ἐν μιᾷ ἐλπίδι: yet is this similitude found in the midst of sentences otherwise very different.

 

Eph. 4:16. “From whom the whole body fitly joined together, and compacted by that which every joint supplieth, according to the effectual working in the measure of every part, maketh increase of the body.”3

 

Col. 2:19. “From which all the body by joints and bands having nourishment ministered and knit together, increaseth with the increase of God”4

 

In these quotations are read ἐξ οὗ πᾶν τὸ σῶμα συναρμολογούμενον in both places, ἐπιχορηγούμενον answering to ἐπιχορηγούμενον καὶ συμβιβαζόμενον αὔξει τὴν αὔξησιν: and yet the sentences are considerably diversified in other parts.

 

Eph. 4:32. “And be kind one to another, tender­hearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ’s sake hath forgiven you.”5

 

Col. 3:13. “Forbearing one another, and forgiving one another, if any man have a quarrel against any: even as Christ forgave you, so also do ye.”6

 

Here we have “forgiving one another even as God, for Christ’s sake (ἐν Χριστῷ) hath forgiven you,” in the first quotation, substantially repeated in the second. But in the second the sentence is broken by the interposition of a new clause, “if any man have a quarrel against any;” and the latter part is a little varied; instead of “God in Christ,” it is “Christ hath forgiven you.”

 

Eph. 4:22-24. “That ye put off concerning the former conversation the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts; and be renewed in the spirit of your mind; and that ye put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness.”7

 

Col. 3:9,10. “Seeing that ye have put off the old man with his deeds; and have put on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him.”8

 

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1 Eph. 4:2-4. μετὰ πάσης ταπεινοφροσύνης καὶ πραΰτητος, μετὰ μακροθυμίας, ἀνεχόμενοι ἀλλήλων ἐν ἀγάπῃ, σπουδάζοντες τηρεῖν τὴν ἑνότητα τοῦ πνεύματος ἐν τῷ συνδέσμῳ τῆς εἰρήνης. ἓν σῶμα καὶ ἓν πνεῦμα, καθὼς καὶ ἐκλήθητε ἐν μιᾷ ἐλπίδι τῆς κλήσεως ὑμῶν.

2 Col. 3:12-15. Ἐνδύσασθε οὖν ὡς ἐκλεκτοὶ τοῦ θεοῦ, ἅγιοι καὶ ἠγαπημένοι, σπλάγχνα οἰκτιρμοῦ, χρηστότητα, ταπεινοφροσύνην, πραΰτητα, μακροθυμίαν, ἀνεχόμενοι ἀλλήλων καὶ χαριζόμενοι ἑαυτοῖς ἐάν τις πρός τινα ἔχῃ μομφήν· καθὼς καὶ ὁ κύριος ἐχαρίσατο ὑμῖν οὕτως καὶ ὑμεῖς· ἐπὶ πᾶσιν δὲ τούτοις τὴν ἀγάπην, ἣτις ἐστὶ σύνδεσμος τῆς τελειότητος. καὶ ἡ εἰρήνη τοῦ θεοῦ βραβευέτω ἐν ταῖς καρδίαις ὑμῶν, εἰς ἣν καὶ ἐκλήθητε ἐν ἑνὶ σώματι·

3 Eph. 4:16. ἐξ οὗ πᾶν τὸ σῶμα συναρμολογούμενον καὶ συμβιβαζόμενον διὰ πάσης ἁφῆς τῆς ἐπιχορηγίας κατʼ ἐνέργειαν ἐν μέτρῳ ἑνὸς ἑκάστου μέρους τὴν αὔξησιν τοῦ σώματος ποιεῖται.

4 Col. 2:19. ἐξ οὗ πᾶν τὸ σῶμα διὰ τῶν ἁφῶν καὶ συνδέσμων ἐπιχορηγούμενον καὶ συμβιβαζόμενον αὔξει τὴν αὔξησιν τοῦ θεοῦ.

5 Eph. 4:32. γίνεσθε δὲ εἰς ἀλλήλους χρηστοί, εὔσπλαγχνοι, χαριζόμενοι ἑαυτοῖς, καθὼς καὶ ὁ θεὸς ἐν Χριστῷ ἐχαρίσατο ὑμῖν.

6 Col. 3:13. ἀνεχόμενοι ἀλλήλων, καὶ χαριζόμενοι ἑαυτοῖς, ἐάν τις πρός τινα ἔχῃ μομφήν· καθὼς καὶ ὁ Xριστὸς ἐχαρίσατο ὑμῖν, οὕτως καὶ ὑμεῖς·

7 Eph. 4:22-24. ἀποθέσθαι ὑμᾶς κατὰ τὴν προτέραν ἀναστροφὴν, τὸν παλαιὸν ἄνθρωπον τὸν φθειρόμενον   κατὰ τὰς ἐπιθυμίας τῆς ἀπάτης· ἀνανεοῦσθαι δὲ τῷ πνεύματι τοῦ νοὸς ὑμῶν, καὶ ἐνδύσασθαι τὸν καινὸν ἄνθρωπον, τὸν κατὰ θεὸν κτισθέντα ἐν δικαιοσύνῃ καὶ ὁσιότητι τῆς ἀληθείας.

8 Col. 3:9, 10. ἀπεκδυσάμενοι τὸν παλαιὸν ἄνθρωπον σὺν ταῖς πράξεσιν αὐτοῦ, καὶ ἐνδυσάμενοι τὸν νέον τὸν ἀνακαινούμενον εἰς ἐπίγνωσιν κατʼ εἰκόνα τοῦ κτίσαντος αὐτόν.

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In these quotations, “putting off the old man, and putting on the new,” appears in both. The idea is further explained by calling it a renewal: in the one, “renewed in the spirit of your mind; in the other, “renewed in knowledge.” In both, the new man is said to be formed according to the same model; in the one, he is, after God “created in righteous­ness and true holiness;” in the other, he is renewed “after the image of him that created him.” In a word, it is the same person writing upon a kindred subject, with the terms and ideas which he had before employed still floating in his memory.1

 

Eph. 5:6-8. “Because of these things cometh the wrath of God upon the children of disobedience. Be not ye therefore partakers with them. For ye were sometime darkness, but now are ye light in the Lord: walk as children of light.”2

 

Col. 3:6-8. “For which things’ sake the wrath of God cometh on the children of disobedience: in the which ye also walked some time, when ye lived in them. But now ye also put off all these.”3

 

These verses afford a specimen of that partial resemblance which is only to be met with when no imitation is designed, when no studied recollection is employed, but when the mind, exercised upon the same subject, is left to the spontaneous return of such terms and phrases as, having been used before, may happen to present themselves again. The sentiment of both passages is throughout alike: half of that sentiment, the denunciation of God’s wrath, is expressed in identical words; the other half, namely, the admonition to quit their former conversation, in words entirely different.

 

Eph. 5:15-16. “See then that ye walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise, redeeming the time.”4

 

Col. 4:5. “Walk in wisdom toward them that are without, redeeming the time.”5

 

This is another example of that mixture which we remarked of sameness and variety in the language of one writer. “Re­deeming the time,” (ἐξαγοραζόμενοι τὸν καιρόν,) is a literal repetition. “Walk not as fools, but as wise,” (περιπατεῖτε μὴ ὡς ἄσοφοι ἀλλʼ ὡς σοφοί,) answers exactly in sense, and nearly in terms, to “walk in wisdom” (ι σοφία περιπατεῖτε). Περιπατεῖτε ἀκριβῶς is a very different phrase, but is intended to convey precisely the same idea as περιπατεῖτε πρὸς τοὺς ἔξω. Ἀκριβῶς is not well rendered “circumspectly.” It means what in modern speech we should call "correctly;” and when we advise a person to behave "correctly;” our advice is always given with a reference “to the opinion of others,” πρὸς τοὺς ἔξω. “Walk correctly, redeeming the time,” that is, suiting yourselves to the difficulty and ticklishness of the times in which we live, “because the days are evil.”

 

Eph. 6:19, 20. “And (praying) for me, that utter­ance may be given unto me, that I may open my mouth boldly, to make known the mystery of the gospel, for which I am an ambassador in bonds: that therein I may speak boldly, as I ought to speak.”6

 

Col. 4:3, 4. “Withal praying also for us, that God would open unto us a door of utterance, to speak the mystery of Christ, for which I am also in bonds: that I may make it manifest, as I ought to speak.”7

 

In these quotations, the phrase “as I ought to speak,” (ὡς δεῖ με λαλῆσαι,) the words “utterance,” (λόγος) a “mystery,” (μυστήριον,) "open,” (άνοίζη and εν ανοίξει,) are the same. “To make known the mystery of the gospel,” (γνωρίσαι τὸ μυστήριον,) answers to “make it manifest” (ἵνα φανερώσω αὐτὸ) "for which I am an ambassador in bonds,” (ὑπὲρ οὗ πρεσβεύω ἐν ἁλύσει,) to “for which I am also in bonds” (διʼ ὃ καὶ δέδεμαι).

 

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1 In these comparisons we often perceive the reason why the writer, though ex­pressing the same idea, uses a different term; namely, because the term before used is employed in the sentence under a different form: thus, in the quotations under our eye, the new man is καινὸς νθρωπος in the Ephesians, and τὸν νέον in the Colossians; but then it is because τὸν καινὸν is used in the next word, ανακαινόυμενον.

2 Eph. 5:6-8. διὰ ταῦτα γὰρ ἔρχεται ἡ ὀργὴ τοῦ θεοῦ ἐπὶ τοὺς υἱοὺς τῆς ἀπειθείας.  μὴ οὖν γίνεσθε συμμέτοχοι αὐτῶν· ἦτε γάρ ποτε σκότος, νῦν δὲ φῶς ἐν κυρίῳ· ὡς τέκνα φωτὸς περιπατεῖτε.

3 Col. 3:6-8. διʼ ἃ ἔρχεται ἡ ὀργὴ τοῦ θεοῦ ἐπὶ τοὺς υἱοὺς τῆς ἀπειθείας· ἐν οἷς καὶ ὑμεῖς περιεπατήσατέ ποτε, ὅτε ἐζῆτε ἐν τούτοις· νυνὶ δὲ ἀπόθεσθε καὶ ὑμεῖς τὰ πάντα.

4 Eph. 5:15,16. Βλέπετε οὖν ἀκριβῶς πῶς περιπατεῖτε μὴ ὡς ἄσοφοι ἀλλʼ ὡς σοφοί, ἐξαγοραζόμενοι τὸν καιρόν.

5 Col. 4:5. Ἐν σοφίᾳ περιπατεῖτε πρὸς τοὺς ἔξω, τὸν καιρὸν ἐξαγοραζόμενοι.

6 Eph. 6:19, 20. καὶ ὑπὲρ ἐμοῦ, ἵνα μοι δοθῇ λόγος ἐν ἀνοίξει τοῦ στόματός μου, ἐν παρρησίᾳ, γνωρίσαι τὸ μυστήριον τοῦ εὐαγγελίου, ὑπὲρ οὗ πρεσβεύω ἐν ἁλύσει, ἵνα ἐν αὐτῷ παρρησιάσωμαι, ὡς δεῖ με λαλῆσαι.

7 Col. 4:3, 4. προσευχόμενοι ἅμα καὶ περὶ ἡμῶν, ἵνα ὁ θεὸς ἀνοίξῃ ἡμῖν θύραν τοῦ λόγου, λαλῆσαι τὸ μυστήριον τοῦ Χριστοῦ, διʼ ὃ καὶ δέδεμαι, ἵνα φανερώσω αὐτὸ ὡς δεῖ με λαλῆσαι.

 

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Eph. 5:22-33; 6:1-9. “Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the Head of the church: and he is the saviour of the body. Therefore as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in every thing. Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it; that he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word, that he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish. So ought men to love their wives as their own bodies. He that loveth his wife loveth himself. For no man ever yet hated his own flesh; but nourisheth and cherisheth it, even as the Lord the church: for we are members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones. For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall be joined unto his wife, and they two shall be one flesh. This is a great mystery: but I speak concerning Christ and the church. Nevertheless let every one of you in particular so love his wife even as himself; and the wife see that she reverence her husband.—Children, obey your parents in the Lord: for this is right. Honour thy father and mother, (which is the first commandment with promise,) that it may be well with thee, and thou mayest live long on the earth. And, ye fathers provoke not your children to wrath: but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. Servants, be obedient to them that are your masters according to the flesh, with fear and trembling, in singleness of your heart, as unto Christ: not with eye-service, as menpleasers; but as the servants of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart; with good will doing service, as to the Lord, and not to men: knowing that whatsoever good thing any man doeth, the same shall he receive of the Lord whether he be bond or free. And, ye masters, do the same things unto them, forbearing threatening: knowing that your Master also is in heaven; neither is there respect of persons with him.”1

 

2 Col. 3:18. “Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as it is fit in the Lord. Husbands, love your wives, and be not bitter against them. Children, obey your parents in all things: for this is well pleasing unto the Lord. Fathers, provoke not your children to anger, lest they be dis­couraged. Servants, obey in all things your masters according to the flesh: not with eye-service, as men-pleasers; but in singleness of heart, fearing God: and whatever ye do, do it heartily, as to the Lord, and not unto men; knowing that of the Lord ye shall receive the reward of the inheritance: for ye serve the Lord Christ. But he that doeth wrong shall receive for the wrong which he hath done; and there is no respect of persons. Masters, give unto your servants that which is just and equal, knowing that ye also have a master in heaven.”

 

The passages marked by Italics in the quotation from the Ephesians, bear a strict resemblance, not only in signification but in terms, to the quotation from the Colossians. Both the words and the order of the words are in many clauses a duplicate of one another. In the Epistle to the Colossians, these passages are laid together; in that to the Ephesians, they are divided by intermediate matter, especially by a long digressive allusion to the mysterious union between Christ and his church; which possessing, as Mr. Locke hath well observed, the mind of the apostle, from being an incidental thought, grows up into the principal subject. The affinity between these two passages in signification, in terms, and in the order of the words, is closer than can be pointed out between any parts of any two epistles in the volume.

 

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1 Eph. 5:22.   Αἱ γυναῖκες, τοῖς ἰδίοις ἀνδράσιν ὑποτάσσεσθε, ὡς τῷ κυρίῳ.

2 Col. 3:18. Αἱ γυναῖκες, ὑποτάσσεσθε τοῖς ἱδίοις ἀνδράσιν, ὡς ἀνῆκεν ἐν κυρίῳ.

Eph. 6:1. Τὰ τέκνα, ὑπακούετε τοῖς γονεῦσιν ὑμῶν ἐν κυρίῳ· τοῦτο γάρ ἐστιν δίκαιον.

Col. 3:20. Τὰ τέκνα, ὑπακούετε τοῖς γονεῦσιν κατὰ πάντα, τοῦτο γὰρ ἐστιν εὐάρεστόν τῷ κυρίῳ.

Eph. 6:4. Καὶ οἱ πατέρες, μὴ παροργίζετε τὰ τέκνα ὑμῶν.

Col. 3:21. Οἱ πατέρες, μὴ ἐρεθίζετε* τὰ τέκνα ὑμῶν.

Eph. 6:5-8. Οἱ δοῦλοι, ὑπακούετε τοῖς κυρίοις κατὰ σάρκα μετὰ φόβου καὶ τρόμου, ἐν ἁπλότητι τῆς καρδίας ὑμῶν, ὡς τῷ Χριστῷ· μὴ κατʼ ὀφθαλμοδουλίαν ὡς ἀνθρωπάρεσκοι ἀλλʼ ὡς δοῦλοι Χριστοῦ, ποιοῦντες τὸ θέλημα τοῦ θεοῦ ἐκ ψυχῆς, μετʼ εὐνοίας δουλεύοντες [ὡς] τῷ κυρίῳ, καὶ οὐκ ἀνθρώποις, εἰδότες ποιήσῃ ἀγαθόν, τοῦτο κομίσεται παρὰ τοῦ κυρίου, εἴτε ἐλεύθερος.

Col. 3:22-24. Οἱ δοῦλοι, ὑπακούετε κατὰ πάντα τοῖς κατὰ σάρκα κυρίοις, μὴ ἐν ὀφθαλμοδουλίᾳ, ὡς ἀνθρωπάρεσκοι, ἀλλʼ ἐν ἁπλότητι καρδίας φοβούμενοι τὸν θεὸν· καὶ  πᾶν , τι  ἐὰν ποιῆτε, ἐκ ψυχῆς ἐργάζεσθε, ὡς τῷ Kυρίῳ, καὶ οὐκ ἀνθρώποις· εἰδότες ὅτι ἀπὸ Kυρίου ἀπολήμψεσθε τὴν ἀνταπόδοσιν τῆς κληρονομίας· τῷ γὰρ Kυρίῳ Χριστῷ δουλεύετε.

_______________________

 

* παροργίζετε, lectio non spernenda, GRIESBACH.

 

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If the reader would see how the same subject is treated by a different hand, and how distinguishable it is from the pro­duction of the same pen, let him turn to the second and third chapters of the first Epistle of St. Peter. The duties of servants, of wives, and of husbands, are enlarged upon in that epistle, as they are in the Epistle to the Ephesians; but the subjects both occur in a different order, and the train of senti­ment subjoined to each is totally unlike.

 

3. In two letters issuing from the same person, nearly at the same time, and upon the same general occasion, we may expect to trace the influence of association in the order in which the topics follow one another. Certain ideas universally or usually suggest others. Here the order is what we call natural, and from such an order nothing can be concluded. But when the order is arbitrary, yet alike, the concurrence indicates the effect of that principle, by which ideas, which have been once joined, commonly revisit the thoughts together. The epistles under consideration furnish the two following remarkable instances of this species of agreement:—

 

Eph. 4:24, 25. “And that ye put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness. Wherefore putting away lying, speak every man truth with his neighbour: for we are members one of another.”1

 

Col. 3:9. “Lie not one to another, seeing that ye have put off the old man with his deeds; and have put on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge.”2

 

The vice of “lying,” or a correction of that vice, does not seem to bear any nearer relation to the “putting on the new man” than a reformation in any other article of morals. Yet these two ideas, we see, stand in both epistles in immediate connexion.

 

Eph. 5:20, 21, 22. “Giving thanks always for all things unto God and the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ; submitting yourselves one to another in the fear of God. Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord.”3

 

Col. 3:17, 18. “Whatsoever ye do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God and the Father by him. Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as it is fit in the Lord.”4

 

In both these passages, submission follows giving of thanks, without any similitude in the ideas which should account for the transition.

 

It is not necessary to pursue the comparison between the two epistles further. The argument which results from it stands thus. No two other epistles contain a circumstance which indicates that they were written at the same, or nearly at the same time. No two other epistles exhibit so many marks of correspondency and resemblance. If the original which we ascribe to these two epistles be the true one, that is, if they were both really written by St. Paul, and both sent to their respective destination by the same messenger, the simili­tude is in all points what should be expected to take place. If they were forgeries, then the mention of Tychicus in both epistles, and in a manner which shows that he either carried or accompanied both epistles, was inserted for the purpose of accounting for their similitude: or else the structure of the epistles was designedly adapted to the circumstance: or lastly, the conformity between the contents of the forgeries, and what is thus directly intimated concerning their date, was only a happy accident. Not one of these three suppositions will gain credit with a reader who peruses the epistles with atten­tion, and who reviews the several examples we have pointed out, and the observations with which they were accom­panied.(u)

 

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1 Eph. 4:24, 25. Καὶ ἐνδύσασθαι τὸν καινὸν ἄνθρωπον, τὸν κατὰ θεὸν κτισθέντα ἐν δικαιοσύνῃ καὶ ὁσιότητι τῆς ἀληθείας· διὸ ἀποθέμενοι τὸ ψεῦδος, λαλεῖτε ἀλήθειαν ἕκαστος μετὰ τοῦ πλησίον αὐτοῦ· ὅτι ἐσμὲν ἀλλήλων μέλη.

2 Col. 3:9, 10. Mὴ ψεύδεσθε εἰς ἀλλήλους, ἀπεκδυσάμενοι τὸν παλαιὸν ἄνθρωπον σὺν, ταῖς πράξεσιν αὐτοῦ, καὶ ἐνδυσάμενοι τὸν νέον, τὸν ἀνακαινούμενον εἰς ἐπίγνωσιν.

3 Eph. 5:20, 21, 22. Eὐχαριστοῦντες πάντοτε ὑπὲρ πάντων, ἐν ὀνόματι τοῦ Kυρίου ἡμῶν Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ, τῷ θεῷ καὶ πατρί, ὑποτασσόμενοι ἀλλήλοις ἐν φόβῳ θεοῦ. Αἱ γυναῖκες, τοῖς ἰδίοις ἀνδράσιν, ὑποτάσσεσθε,  ὡς τῷ Kυρίῳ.

4 Col. 3:17, 18. Kαὶ πᾶν ὅ τι ἐὰν ποιῆτε, ἐν λόγῳ ἢ ἐν ἔργῳ, πάντα ἐν ὀνόματι Kυρίου Ἰησοῦ, εὐχαριστοῦντες τῷ θεῷ καὶ πατρὶ διʼ αὐτοῦ. Αἱ γυναῖκες, ὑποτάσσεσθε τοῖς ἰδίοις ἀνδράσιν, ὡς ἀνῆκεν ἐν Kυρίῳ.

 

(u) The simple and striking proof of reality, which Paley has unfolded in this article, would lose all its force if the hypothesis of Professor Hug and Dr. Lardner were adopted, that the second Epistle to Timothy was interposed between these two letters to Ephesus and Colosse. But the view is most untenable; and it is surprising that Dr. Burton and the able writer of the Literary History of the New Testament have ventured to espouse it anew. Mr. Greswell, Mr. Biley, and Canon Tate fully abide by the view of the Horæ, that the second to Timothy was the latest of St. Paul’s letters. In Horæ Apostolicæ: caps. VI. and VII. the opposite argu­ments are examined and disproved. No theory, indeed, could be more fatal to all reasoning from internal evidence, than one which interposes an epistle, so utterly diverse in tone, style, and character, between two others of such a peculiar and marked similarity.—Ed.

 

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No. II.

 

There is such a thing as a peculiar word or phrase cleaving, as it were to the memory of a writer or speaker, and present­ing itself to his utterance at every turn. When we observe this, we call it a cant word or a cant phrase. It is a natural effect of habit: and would appear more frequently than it does, had not the rules of good writing taught the ear to be offended with the iteration of the same sound, and oftentimes caused us to reject, on that account, the word which offered itself first to our recollection. With a writer who, like St. Paul, either knew not these rules, or disregarded them, such words will not be avoided. The truth is, an example of this kind runs through several of his epistles, and in the epistle before us abounds; and that is in the word riches, (πλοτος,) used metaphorically as an augmentative of the idea to which it happens to be subjoined. Thus, “the riches of his glory,” “his riches in glory,” “riches of the glory of his inheritance,” “riches of the glory of this mystery,” Rom. 9:23, Eph. 3:16, Philip. 4:19, Eph. 1:18, Col. 1:27: “riches of his grace,” twice in the Ephesians 1:7, and 2:7; “riches of the full assurance of understanding,” Col. 2:2; “riches of his goodness,” Rom. 2:4; “riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God,” Rom. 11:33; “riches of Christ,” Eph. 3:8. In a like sense, the adjective, Rom. 10:12, “rich unto all that call upon him;” Eph. 2:4, “rich in mercy;” 1 Tim. 6:18, “rich in good works.” Also the adverb, Col. 3:16, “let the word of Christ dwell in you richly.” This figurative use of the word, though so familiar to St. Paul, does not occur in any part of the New Testament, except once in the Epistle of St. James, (2:5,) “Hath not God chosen the poor of this world, rich in faith?” where it is manifestly suggested by the antithesis. I propose the frequent, yet seemingly unaffected use of this phrase, in the epistle before us, as one internal mark of its genuineness.

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No. IIΙ.

 

There is another singularity in St. Paul’s style, which, wherever it is found, may be deemed a badge of authenticity; because, if it were noticed, it would not, I think, be imitated, inasmuch as it almost always produces embarrassment and interruption in the reasoning. This singularity is a species of digression which may properly, I think, be denominated going off at a word. It is turning aside from the subject upon the occurrence of some particular word, forsaking the train of thought then in hand, and entering upon a parenthetic sentence in which that word is the prevailing term. I shall lay before the reader some examples of this, collected from the other epistles, and then propose two examples of it which are found in the Epistle to the Ephesians. In 2 Cor. 2:14-17, at the word savour: “Now thanks be unto God, which always causeth us to triumph in Christ, and maketh manifest the savour of his knowledge by us in every place. (For we are unto God a sweet savour of Christ, in them that are saved, and in them that perish: to the one we are the savour of death unto death, and to the other the savour of life unto life. And who is sufficient for these things?) For we are not as many, which corrupt the word of God: but as of sincerity, but as of God, in the sight of God speak we in Christ. Again, 2 Cor. 3:1-3, at the word epistle: “Need we, as some others, epistles of commendation to you, or of commendation from you? (Ye are our epistle written in our hearts, known and read of all men: forasmuch as ye are manifestly declared to be the epistle of Christ ministered by us, written not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God; not in tables of stone, but in the fleshy tables of the heart.)” The position of the words in the original, shows more strongly than in the translation, that it was the occurrence of the word ἐπιστολὴ which gave birth to the sentence that follows: 2 Cor. 3:1-3   Ἔῖ μὴ χρῄζομεν, ὥς τινες, συστατικῶν ἐπιστολῶν πρὸς ὑμᾶς, ἢ ἐξ ὑμῶν συστατικῶν; ἡ ἐπιστολὴ ἡμῶν ὑμεῖς ἐστε, ἐγγεγραμμένη ἐν ταῖς καρδίαις ἡμῶν, γινωσκομένη καὶ ἀναγινωσκομένη ὑπὸ πάντων ἀνθρώπων· φανερούμενοι ὅτι ἐστὲ ἐπιστολὴ Χριστοῦ διακονηθεῖσα ὑφʼ ἡμῶν, ἐγγεγραμμένη οὐ μέλανι, ἀλλὰ πνεύματι θεοῦ ζῶντος· οὐκ ἐν πλαξὶν λιθίναις, ἀλλʼ ἐν πλαξὶν καρδίαις σαρκίναις.

 

Again, 2 Cor. 3:12, etc., at the word vail: “Seeing then that we have such hope, we use great plainness of speech: and not as Moses, which put a vail over his face, that the children of Israel could not stedfastly look to the end of that which is abolished. But their minds were blinded; for until this day remaineth the same vail untaken away in the reading of the Old Testament, which vail is done away in Christ; but even unto this day, when Moses is read, the vail is upon their heart. Nevertheless when it shall turn to the Lord, the vail shall be taken away. (Now the Lord is that Spirit; and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty). But we all with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord. Therefore seeing we have this ministry, as we have received mercy, we faint not.”

 

Who sees not that this whole allegory of the vail arises entirely out of the occurrence of the word, in telling us that “Moses put a vail over his face,” and that it drew the apostle away from the proper subject of his discourse, the dignity of the office in which he was engaged? which subject he fetches up again almost in the words with which he had left it ”therefore, seeing we have this ministry, as we have received mercy, we faint not.” The sentence which he had before been going on with, and in which he had been interrupted by the vail, was, “Seeing then that we have such hope, we use great plainness of speech.”

 

In the Epistle to the Ephesians, the reader will remark two instances in which the same habit of composition obtains: he will recognise the same pen. One he will find, chap. 4:8-11, at the word ascended: “Wherefore he saith, When he ascended up on high, he led captivity captive, and gave gifts unto men. (Now that he ascended, what is it but that he also descended first unto the lower parts of the earth? He that descended is the same also that ascended up far above all heavens, that he might fill all things.) And he gave some, apostles,” etc.

 

The other appears, chap. 5:12-15, at the word light: “For it is a shame even to speak of those things which are done of them in secret. But all things that are reproved, are made manifest by the light: (for whatsoever doth make mani­fest is light. Wherefore he saith, Awake, thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light.) See then that ye walk circumspectly.”

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No. IV.*

 

Although it does not appear to have ever been disputed that the epistle before us was written by St. Paul, yet it is well known that a doubt has long been entertained concerning the persons to whom it was addressed. The question is founded partly on some ambiguity in the external evidence. Marcion, a heretic of the second century, as quoted by Tertullian, a father in the beginning of the third, calls it the epistle to the Laodiceans. From what we know of Marcion, his judgment is little to be relied upon; nor is it perfectly clear that Marcion was rightly understood by Tertullian. If, however, Marcion be brought to prove that some copies in his time gave εν Λαοδικείᾳ in the superscription, his testimony, if it be truly interpreted, is not diminished by his heresy; for, as Grotius observes, “cur in eâ re mentiretur nihil erat causœ.” The name ἐν Ἐφέσ, in the first verse, upon which word singly depends the proof that the epistle was written to the Ephesians, is not read in all the manuscripts now extant.    I admit, however, that the external evidence preponderates with a manifest excess on the side of the received reading. The objection, therefore, principally arises from the contents of the epistle itself, which, in many respects, militate with the supposition that it was written to the church at Ephesus. According to the history, St. Paul had passed two whole years at Ephesus, Acts 19:10. And in this point, namely, of St. Paul having preached for a. considerable length of time at Ephesus, the history is confirmed by the two Epistles to the Corinthians, and by the two Epistles to Timothy. “I will tarry at Ephesus until Pentecost,” 1 Cor. 16:8. “We would not have you ignorant of our trouble which came to us in Asia,” 2 Cor. 1:8. “As I besought thee to abide still at Ephesus, when I went into Macedonia,” 1 Tim. 1:3. “And in how many things he ministered to me at Ephesus, thou knowest very well,” 2 Tim. 1:18. I adduce these testi­monies, because, had it been a competition of credit between the history and the epistle, I should have thought myself bound ‘to have preferred the epistle. Now, every epistle which St. Paul wrote to churches which he himself had founded, or which he had visited, abounds with references, and appeals to what had passed during the time that he was present amongst them; whereas there is not a text, in the Epistle to the Ephesians, from which we can collect that he had ever been at Ephesus at all. The two Epistles to the Corinthians, the Epistle to the Galatians, the Epistle to the Philippians, and the two Epistles to the Thessalonians, are of this class; and they are full of allusions to the apostle’s history, his reception, and his conduct whilst amongst them; the total want of which, in the epistle before us, is very difficult to account for, if it was in truth written to the church of Ephesus, in which city he had resided for so long a time. This is the first and strongest objection. But further, the Epistle to the Colossians was addressed to a church in which St. Paul had never been. This we infer from the first verse of the second chapter: “For I would that ye knew what great conflict I have for you, and for them at Laodicea, and for as many as have not seen my face in the flesh.” There could be no pro­priety in thus joining the Colossians and Laodiceans with those “who had not seen his face in the flesh,” if they did not also belong to the same description.1   Now, his address to the Colossians, whom he had not visited, is precisely the same as his address to the Christians, to whom he wrote in the epistle which we are now considering: “We give thanks to God and the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, praying always for you, since toe heard of your faith in Christ Jesus, and of the love which ye have to all the saints,” Col. 1:3. Thus, he speaks to the Ephesians, in the epistle before us, as follows: “Wherefore I also, after I heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus, and love unto all the saints, cease not to give thanks for you, making mention of you in my prayers,” chap. 1:15. The terms of this address are observable. The words “having heard of your faith and love,” are the very words, we see, which he uses towards strangers; and it is not probable that he should employ the same in accosting a church in which he had long exercised his ministry, and whose “faith and love” he must have personally known.2 The Epistle to the Romans was written before St. Paul had been at Rome; and his address to them runs in the same strain with that just now quoted: “I thank my God through Jesus Christ for you all, that your faith is spoken of throughout the whole world:” Rom. 1:8. Let us now see what was the form in which our apostle was accustomed to introduce his epistles, when he wrote to those with whom he was already acquainted. To the Corinthians it was this: “I thank my God always on your behalf, for the grace of God which is given you by Jesus Christ,” 1 Cor. 1:4. To the Philippians: “I thank my God upon every remembrance of you,” Phil. 1:3. To the Thessalonians: “We give thanks to God always for you all, making mention of you in our prayers; remembering without ceasing your work of faith, and labour of love,” 1 Thess. 1:3. To Timothy: “I thank God, whom I serve from my forefathers with pure conscience, that without ceasing I have remembrance of thee in my prayers night and day,” 2 Tim. 1:3. In these quotations, it is usually his remembrance, and never his hearing of them, which he makes the subject of his thankfulness to God.  

 

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1 Dr. Lardner contends against the validity of this conclusion; but, I think without success.   Lardner, vol. xiv. p. 473, edit. 1757

2 Mr. Locke endeavours to avoid this difficulty, by explaining “their faith, of which St. Paul had heard,” to mean the stedfastness of their persuasion that they were called into the kingdom of God, without subjection to the Mosaic institution. But this interpretation seems to me extremely hard; for in the manner in which faith is here joined with love, in the expression “your faith and love,” it could not meant to denote any particular tenet which distinguished one set of Christians from others; forasmuch as the expression describes the general virtues of the Christian profession.   Vide Locke in loc.

 

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As great difficulties stand in the way of supposing the epistle before us to have been written to the church of Ephesus, so I think it probable that it is actually the Epistle to the Laodi­ceans, referred to in the fourth chapter of the Epistle to the Colossians. The text which contains that reference is this: “When this epistle is read among you, cause that it be read also in the church of the Laodiceans, and that ye likewise read the epistle from Laodicea,” ver. 16. The “epistle from Laodicea,” was an epistle sent by St. Paul to that church, and by them transmitted to Colosse. The two churches were mutually to communicate the epistles they had received. This is the way in which the direction is explained by the greater part of commentators, and is the most probable sense that can be given to it. It is also probable that the epistle alluded to was an epistle which had been received by the church of Laodicea lately. It appears then, with a considerable degree of evidence, that there existed an epistle of St. Paul’s nearly of the same date With the Epistle to the Colossians, and an epistle directed to a church (for such the church of Laodicea was) in which St. Paul had never been. What has been observed concerning the epistle before us, shows that it answers perfectly to that character.

 

Nor does the mistake seem very difficult to account for. Whoever inspects the map of Asia Minor will see, that a person proceeding from Rome to Laodicea would probably land at Ephesus, as the nearest frequented sea-port in that direction. Might not Tychicus then, in passing through Ephesus, com­municate to the Christians of that place the letter with which he was charged? And might not copies of that letter be mul­tiplied and preserved at Ephesus? Might not some of the copies drop the words of designation ἐν τῇ Λαοδικείᾳ,1 which it was of no consequence to an Ephesian to retain? Might not copies of the letter come out into the Christian church at large from Ephesus; and might not this give occasion to a belief that the letter was written to that church? And lastly, might not this belief produce the error which we suppose to have crept into the inscription?(v)

 

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1 And it is remarkable that there seem to have been some ancient copies without the words of designation, either the words in Ephesus, or the words in Lao­dicea. St. Basil, a writer of the fourth century, speaking of the present epistle. has this very singular passage: “And writing to the Ephesians, as truly united to him who is through knowledge, he (Paul) calleth them in a peculiar sense such who are; saying to the saints who are and (or even) the faithful in Christ Jesus; for so those before us have transmitted it. and we have found it in ancient copies.” Dr. Mill interprets (and, notwithstanding some objections that have been made to him, in my opinion rightly interprets) these words of Basil, as declaring that his father had seen certain copies of the epistle in which the words”in Ephesus”were wanting. And the passage, I think, must be considered as Basil’s fanciful way of explaining what was really a corrupt and defective reading; for I do not believe it possible that the author of the epistle could have originally written άγίοις τος οΰσιν, without any name of place to follow it.

 

(v) The subject is resumed in Horæ A post. cap. vx. No. I. Reasons are there given for adopting in preference the view of Archbishop Usher, received also by Michaelis, Canon Tate, Dr. Burton, and Olshausen, that the epistle was a circular letter to all the actual churches of Proconsular Asia, including the church of Laodicea, as well as Ephesus.—Ed.

 

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