Chapter XXXI: Part 31

“Thirdly, James, Peter, and John, being all the apostles now
present at the council, the mention of their consent to his
doctrine and practice was all that was necessary to his purpose
to be mentioned concerning that council, It is no objection to
this opinion, that we find no mention, in Acts xv. of Titus’s
being with him; for he is not mentioned in the whole of the Acts,
during which interval the journey must have happened.” (Whitby.)

“_The Council of Jerusalem_ was assembled in the fourteenth year
after St. Paul’s conversion. For the apostle adverts to this
same journey, and determinately specifies the time in Galatians
ii. 1, 2. Grotius is of opinion that four years should be here
written instead of fourteen; who, nevertheless, allows, that the
one mentioned in Galatians, is this journey to the Council. But
the reason is evident why the apostle should date these years
from the epoch of his conversion, from the scope of the first
and second chapters. He styles himself an apostle, not of men,
neither by man, chap. i. 1: he declared that his gospel was not
according to men, and that he neither received nor learned it
from men, but by the revelation of Jesus Christ, verses 11, 12.
And this he proves to the Galatians by his conversion, which
was not unknown to them. He begins with his strict profession of
the Jewish religion, according to the tenets of the Pharisees,
which ended in a most violent persecution of the Christians.
Then he goes on to show how God revealed his Son to him, and
that immediately he conferred not with flesh and blood, he
neither held communion with any man, neither did he go up to
Jerusalem to them that were apostles before him, by whom he
could have been taught more fully the mind of God, ‘but went
into Arabia,’ where he received the gospel by revelation; and
he returned to Damascus, and preached the word of God to the
confounding of the Jews: ‘Then after three years he went up to
Jerusalem to see Peter.’ From all this it appears evident, that
the epoch of these _three years_ should commence at the time of
his conversion. The same is to be said of the other epoch of the
_fourteen years_. ‘Then, after fourteen years, I went up again
to Jerusalem,’ chap. ii. 1, because the scope of both is the
same,――and they both date from the same period of time. The word
επειτα does not connect this sentence with that of the three
years, as if the beginning of these should be dated from the
close of those, because there is another επειτα which comes
between these two texts, viz. in verse 21, of chap. i. where
he begins to relate his travels in Syria and Cilicia, but does
not specify the period of time he remained in those regions;
therefore no chronological connexion can have been intended by
him. The apostle still following up his design, says επειτα and
παλιν, but neither does επειτα refer to his stay in Syria and
Cilicia,――nor παλιν to his second coming to Jerusalem: for he
had been with a second collection to Jerusalem, then suffering
from famine, accompanied by Barnabas, but not by Titus; and
because he then saw none of the apostles, he omitted mentioning
that journey, considering it quite foreign to his present
purpose.” (Pearson, Annales, 49.)

PAUL’S QUARREL WITH PETER.

The whole company of envoys, both Barnabas and Paul, the original messengers of the Syrian church, and Jude and Silas, the deputies of the apostolic college, presented the complete results of the Jerusalem consultation before a fall meeting of the whole congregation of believers at Antioch, and read the epistle of the council to them. The sage and happy exhortations which it contained were not only respectfully but joyfully received; and in addition to the comfort of these, _the first written words of Christian inspiration_, the two envoys, Jude and Silas, also discoursed to the church, commenting at more length on the apostolic message of which they were the bearers, and confirmed their hearers in the faith. After remaining there for some time, Jude bade them farewell, and returned to his apostolic associates; but Silas was so much pleased with the opportunities thus afforded him of doing good among the Gentiles, of whom he himself also was one, as his name shows,――that he stayed in Antioch after the departure of Jude, and labored along with Paul and Barnabas, teaching and preaching the word of the Lord, with many others also. This is commonly understood to be the time of Paul’s dissension with Peter, as mentioned in the epistle to the Galatians. The circumstances of this disagreeable occurrence have already been narrated and commented on, in the Life of Peter,――nor need anything additional be presented here in relation to Paul, except the observation, that his dispute with the chief apostle, and his harsh censure of his conduct, are very much in accordance with the impressions of his character, given in other passages of his life. He was evidently a man of violent and hasty passions; and is uniformly represented, both by his historian and by himself, as exceedingly bitter and harsh in his denunciations of all who differed from him on practical or speculative points, both before and after his calling to the apostleship; and this trait is manifested on such a variety of occasions, as to be very justly considered an inseparable peculiarity of his natural disposition and temperament. Doubtless there are many to whom it seems very strange, that the Apostle Paul should ever be spoken of as having been actually and truly angry, or ever having made an error in his conduct after his conversion; but there are instances enough to show that it was not a mere modest injustice to himself for him to tell the Lystran idolaters that he was a man of like passions with them,――but a plain matter of fact, made evident not only by his own noble and frank confession, but by many unfortunate instances throughout his recorded life. Yet there are a great many Protestants, who have been in the habit of making such a kind of idol or demi-god out of Paul, that they are as little prepared as the Lystrans to appreciate the human imperfections of his character; and if Paul himself could at this moment be made fully sensible of the dumb idolatrous reverence with which many of his modern and enlightened adorers regard him, he would be very apt to burst out in the same earnest and grieved tone, in which he checked the similar folly of the Lystrans,――“Sirs! why do ye these things? I also am a man of like passions with yourselves.”――“The spirit of divine truth which actuated me, and guided me in the way of light, by which I led others to life eternal, still did not make me anything more than a man,――a man in moral as in bodily weakness, nor exempt from liabilities to the accidents of passion, any more than to the pains of mortal disease. The Spirit that guided my pen in the record of eternal truth, and my tongue in the preaching of the word of salvation, did not exalt me above the errors, the failings and distresses of mortality; and I was still all my lifetime subject to the bondage of sin, groaning under that body of death, and longing for the day when I should pass away from the frailties and distresses of earth, to that state of being which alone is wholly sinless and pure.”

“From the opposition to St. Peter, which they suppose to be
before the Council at Jerusalem, some would have it, that this
Epistle to the Galatians was written before that Council; as
if what was done before the Council could not be mentioned in a
letter written after the Council. They also contend, that this
journey, mentioned here by St. Paul, was not that wherein he
and Barnabas went up to that Council to Jerusalem, but that
mentioned Acts xi. 30; but this with as little ground as the
former. The strongest reason they bring, is, that if this
journey had been to the Council, and this letter after that
Council, St. Paul would not certainly have omitted to have
mentioned to the Galatians that decree. To which it is answered,
1. The mention of it was superfluous; for they had it already,
see Acts xvi. 4. 2. The mention of it was impertinent to the
design of St. Paul’s narrative here. For it is plain, that his
aim, in what he relates here of himself, and his past actions,
is to shew, that having received the gospel from Christ by
immediate revelation, he had all along preached that, and
nothing but that, everywhere; so that he could not be supposed
to have preached circumcision, or by his carriage, to have shewn
any subjection to the law; all the whole narrative following
being to make good what he says, ♦chap. i. 11, ‘that the gospel
which he preached was not accommodated to the humoring of men;
nor did he seek to please the Jews (who were the men here meant)
in what he taught.’ Taking this to be his aim, we shall find the
whole account he gives of himself, from that verse 11 of chap.
i., to the end of the second chapter, to be very ♠clear and
easy, and very proper to invalidate the report of his preaching
circumcision.” (Locke’s Paraphrase.)

♦ “ehap.” replaced with “chap.”

♠ “ctear” replaced with “clear”

“I conceive that this happened at the time here stated, because
Paul intimates in Galatians ii. 11, that he was in Antioch when
Peter came there; and Peter had never been to Antioch before
Paul was in that city after the Council of Jerusalem; and
besides the dissension between Paul and Barnabas, who was the
intimate friend of Peter, appears to have originated here.”
Pearson’s Annales Paul. (A. D. 50.)

A fine exhibition of a quibbling, wire-drawn argument, may be
found in Baronius, (Annales, 51,) who is here put to his wits’
end to reconcile the blunt, “round, unvarnished tale,” in Paul’s
own account, (in Galatians ii. 11‒14,) with the papistical
absurdity of the moral infallibility of the apostles. He lays
out an argument of five heavy folio pages to prove that, though
Paul quarreled thus with Peter, yet neither of them was in the
slightest degree to blame, &c. But the folly of explaining away
the Scriptures in this manner, is not confined wholly to the
bigoted, hireling historian of papal Rome; some of the boldest
of protestants have, in the same manner, attempted to reconcile
the statement of Paul with the vulgar notions of apostolic
infallibility. Witsius (Vita Pauli, iv. 12,) expends a paragraph
to show that neither of them was to blame; but following the
usual course of anti-papist writers, he represents the great
protestant idol, Paul, in altogether the most advantageous
light, according to the perfectly proverbial peculiarity of
the opponents of the church of Rome, who, in their apostolic
distinctions, uniformly “rob Peter to pay Paul.”

PAUL’S QUARREL WITH BARNABAS.

The church of Antioch having thus made great advances under these very abundant and extraordinary instructions, the apostles began to turn their eyes again to a foreign field, and longed for a renewal of those adventurous labors from which they had now had so long a repose. Paul therefore proposed to Barnabas that they should go over their old ground again:――“Let us go again and visit our brethren in every city, where we have preached the word of the Lord, and see how they do.” To this frank and reasonable proposition, Barnabas readily agreed, and as it was desirable that they should have an assistant with them on this journey, he proposed that his nephew Mark should accompany them in this capacity as he had done on their former voyage. But Paul, remembering the manner in which he had forsaken them just as they were entering upon the arduous missionary fields of Asia Minor, refused to try again one who had once failed to do them the desired service, at a time when he was most needed. Yet Barnabas, being led, no doubt by his near relationship to the delinquent evangelist, to overlook this single deficiency, and perhaps, having good reason to think that he had now made up his mind to stick to them through thick and thin, through good and bad fortune, was disposed to give him another trial in the apostolic service, and therefore strongly urged Paul to accept of him as their common assistant in this new tour for which he was well fitted by his knowledge of the routes. Paul, however, no doubt irritated against Mark, for the wavering spirit already manifested by him at Perga, utterly refused to have anything to do with him after such a display of character, and wished to take some other person who had been tried in the good work with more satisfactory results as to his resolution and ability. Barnabas of course, was not at all pleased to have his sister’s son treated so slightingly, and refused to have any substitute whatever, insisting that Mark _should_ go, while Paul was equally resolved that he should _not_. The conclusion of the whole matter was, that these two great apostles, the authorized messengers of God to the Gentiles, quarreled downright; and after a great deal of furious contention, they parted entirely from one another; and so bitter seems to have been the division between them that they are not known to have ever after been associated in apostolic labors, although they had been the most intimate friends and fellow-travelers for many years, standing by one another through evil and good report, through trials, perils, distresses and almost to death. A most lamentable exhibition of human ♦weakness marring the harmonious progress of the great scheme of evangelization! Yet it must be esteemed one of the most valuable facts relating to the apostles, that are recorded in the honest, simple, clear, and truly impartial narrative of Luke; because it reminds the Christian reader of a circumstance, that he might otherwise forget, in an undue reverence for the character of the apostles,――and that is, the circumstance that these consecrated ministers of the word of truth were, really and practically, in spite of their holiness, “men of like passions with ourselves,” and even in the arrangement of their apostolic duties, were liable to be governed by the impulses of human passion, which on a few occasions like this, acting in opposite directions in different persons at the same time, brought them into open collisions and disputes,――which, if men of their pure martyr-spirit, mostly too, under the guidance of a divine influence, could not avoid, nor could satisfactorily settle, neither may the unconsecrated historian of a later age presume to decide. Who was right and who was wrong in this difficulty, it is impossible to say; and each reader may judge for himself. It may be remarked, however, that Paul was no more likely to be right than Barnabas; he was a younger man, as it would appear from the circumstance that he is named after him in the apostolic epistle;――he was no more an apostle than Barnabas was; for both are thus named by Luke in his account of their first journey, and both were expressly called by a distinct revelation from the Holy Spirit to undertake the apostleship of the Gentiles together. Paul also is known to have quarreled with other persons, and especially with Peter himself, and that too without very just cause; and although Barnabas may have been influenced to partiality by his relationship to Mark, yet much also may be justly chargeable to Paul’s natural violence and bitterness of temper, which often led him into hasty acts, of which he afterwards repented, as he certainly did in this very case, after some time; for he repeatedly mentions Mark in his epistles in terms of regard, and what is most in point, declares him to be “profitable to him in the ministry.”

♦ “weaknes” replaced with “weakness”

Witsius remarks, (Vita Pauli, iv. 16,) that the ancient
Christian writers ascribe the greatest part of the blame of this
quarrel to Barnabas, whom they consider as having been unduly
influenced by natural affection for his kindred according to the
flesh. “But”, as Witsius rather too cautiously remarks, “it may
well be doubted whether Paul’s natural violence of temper did
not carry him somewhat beyond the bounds of right. The Greeks
have not unwisely remarked――Ὁ Παυλος ἐζητει το δικαιον, ὁ
Βαρναβας το Πιλανθροπον ‘Paul demanded what was just――Barnabas,
what was charitable.’ It might have been well enough if Barnabas
had yielded to the zeal of Paul; but it would not have been bad
if Paul had persuaded himself to allow something to the feelings
of that most mild and amiable man. Meanwhile, it deserves notice,
that God so ordered this, that it turned out as much for the
individual benefit of Mark, as for the general benefit of the
church. For the kind partiality of Barnabas was of advantage
to Mark, in preventing him from being utterly cast off from
apostolic companionship, and forsaken as unworthy; while to the
church, this separation was useful, since it was the means of
confirming the faith of more of the churches in the same time.”
(Witsius.)

“From hence we may learn, not only that these great lights in
the Christian church were men of the like passions with us,
but that God, upon this occasion, did most eminently illustrate
the wisdom of his providence, by rendering the frailties of two
such eminent servants instrumental to the benefit of his church,
since both of them thenceforward employed their extraordinary
industry and zeal singly and apart, which till then had been
united, and confined to the same place.” (Stanhope on the
Epistles and Gospels, vol. 4.)

HIS SECOND APOSTOLIC MISSION.

After this unhappy dispute, the two great apostles of the Gentiles separated; and while Barnabas, accompanied by his favorite nephew, pursued the former route to Cyprus, his native island, Paul took a different direction, by land, north and west. In selecting a companion for a journey which he had considered as urgently requiring such blameless rectitude and firmness of resolution, he had set his heart upon Silas, the efficient Hellenist deputy from Jerusalem, whose character had been fully tested and developed during his stay in Antioch, where he had been so active in the exercise of those talents, as a preacher, which had gained for him the title of “prophet” before his departure from Jerusalem. Paul, during his apostolic association with him, had laid the foundation of a very intimate friendship; and being thus attached to him by motives of affection and respect, he now selected him as the companion of his missionary toils. Bidding the church of Antioch farewell, and being commended by them to the favor of God, he departed,――not by water, but through the cities of Syria, by land,――whence turning westward, he passed through the Syrian gates into Cilicia; in all these places strengthening the churches already planted, by making large additions to them from the Gentiles around them. Journeying northwest from Cilicia, he came by the Cilician gates of Taurus, to his old scenes of labor and suffering, in Lycaonia, at Derbe and Lystra, where he proceeded in the task of renewing and completing the good work which he had himself begun on his former tour with Barnabas; with whom he might now doubtless have effected vastly more good, and whose absence must have been deeply regretted by those who owed their hopes of salvation to the united prayers and labors of him and Paul. Among those who had been converted here by the apostles on their first mission, was a half-bred Jew, by name Timotheus, his father having been a Greek who married Eunice, a Jewess, and had maintained a high character among his countrymen in that region, both in Lystra and Iconium. Under the early and careful instructions of his pious mother, who had herself received a superior religious education under her own mother Lois, Timothy had acquired a most uncommon familiarity with the Scriptures, which were able to make him wise unto salvation; and that he had learned them and appreciated their meaning in a much more spiritual and exalted sense than most Jews, appears from the fact, that notwithstanding his early regard for the law as well as the prophets, he had never complied with the Mosaic rite of circumcision,――perhaps because his father may have been prejudiced against the infliction of such a sign upon his child. Paul becoming acquainted with Timothy, and seeing in the young man the germ of those talents which were afterwards so eminent in the gospel cause, determined to train him to be an assistant and associate with him in the apostolic ministry,――and in order to make him so far conform to all the rites of the ancient covenant, as would fit him for an acceptable ministry among the Jews as well as the Gentiles, he had him circumcised; and he was induced still farther to this step of conformity, by the consideration of the effect it would have on the Jews in that immediate neighborhood, who were already very suspicious that Paul was in reality aiming at the utter overthrow and extinction of all the Mosaic usages, and was secretly doing all that he could to bring them into contempt and disuse. Having made this sacrifice to the prejudices of his countrymen, he now considered Timothy as completely fitted for usefulness in the apostolic ministry, and henceforth made him his constant companion for years.

HIS WESTWARD JOURNEY.

With this accession to his company, Paul proceeded through the cities of that region which he had before visited, and communicated to them the decrees passed by the apostles and elders at Jerusalem, for the regulation of the deportment of professing Christians, in regard to the observance of Mosaic usages. They all, moreover, labored for the extension of the churches already founded, and thus caused them to be built up, so that they received fresh additions daily. Nor did Paul limit his apostolic labors to the mere confirmation of the work begun on his tour with Barnabas; but after traversing all his old fields of exertion, he extended his journey far north of his former route, through all Phrygia, and Galatia, a province which had never before been blessed with the presence of a Christian missionary,――and after laboring in his high vocation there, he was disposed to move west, to the Ionian or true Asian shore of the Aegean, but was checked by a direction which he could not resist; and passing northward of the true Asian cities, he came out of Phrygia into Mysia, the province that occupies the northwestern corner of all Asia Minor, bounded north by the Propontis and Hellespont, and west by the northern part of the Aegean,――the true Asia lying south of it, within the geographical division commonly named Lydia. Having entered Mysia, they were expecting to turn northeast into Bithynia, when again their own preferences and counsels were overruled by the same mysterious impulse as before, and they therefore continued their westward journey to the shore of the Hellespont and Aegean, arriving within the classic region of the Troad, at the modern city of Alexandria Troas, some miles south of that most glorious of all the scenes of Grecian poetical antiquity, where, thirteen hundred years before, “TROY WAS.” Here they rested for a brief space, and while they were undecided as to the course which they ought next to pursue, Paul had a remarkable vision, which gave a summons too distinct to be mistaken or doubted, to a field in which the most noble triumphs of the cross were destined to be won under his own personal ministration, and where through thousands of years the name of Christ should consecrate and re-exalt the land, over all whose hills, mountains, streams, valleys, and seas, then as now, clustered the rich associations of the most splendid antiquity that is marked in the records of the past, with the beautiful and the excellent in poetry, art, taste, literature, philosophy and moral exaltation. In the night, as Paul was slumbering at his stopping-place, in the Troad, there appeared to him a vision of a Macedonian, who seemed to cry out beseechingly to him――“Come over into Macedonia, and help us!” This voice of earnest prayer for the help of Christ, rolling over the wide Aegean, was enough to move the ardent spirit of Paul, and on waking he therefore summoned his companions to attend him in his voyage to this new field. He had been joined here by a new companion, as appears from the fact, that the historian of the Acts of the apostles now begins to speak in the first person, of the apostolic company, and it thence appears that besides Silas and Timotheus, Paul was now attended by Luke. Setting sail from Troas, as soon as they could get ready for this unexpected extension of their travels, the whole four were wafted by a fresh south-eastern breeze from the Asian coast, first to the large island of Samothrace; and on the second day, they came to Neapolis, a town on the coast of Macedonia, which is the seaport of the great city of Philippi.

HIS MISSION IN MACEDONIA.

They without delay proceeded to Philippi, the chief city of that part of Macedonia, taking its name from that sage monarch who laid the foundation of the Macedonian dominion over the Grecian world, and gave this city its importance and splendor, re-building it, and granting it the honors of his peculiar favor. Under the Roman conquest it had lost no part of its ancient importance, but had been endowed by Julius Caesar, in a special decree, with the high privileges of a Roman colony, and was in the apostolic age one of the greatest cities in that part of Europe. Here Paul and his companions staid for several days; and seeking on the sabbath, for some place where they could, in that heathen land, observe the worship, and celebrate the praises of the God of their fathers, they wandered forth from the great pagan city, and sat down, away from the unholy din of mirth and business, in a retired place on the banks of the little stream which ran by the town, being made up of numerous springs that rise at the foot of the hills north of it,――which gave it the name of CRENIDES, or “the city of _springs_;”――the common name of the town before its conquest by Philip. In such places, by the side of streams and other waters, the Jews were always accustomed to construct their places for social worship; and here, in this quiet place, a few Jewish residents of the city resorted for prayer, remembering the God of their fathers, though so far from his sanctuary. Those who thus kept up the worship of God in this place, are mentioned as being women only; for it may always be observed that it is among the softer sex that religion takes its deepest root, and among them a regard to its observances is always found, long after the indifference generated by a change of circumstances, or by the engrossing cares of business, has turned away the devotions of men. So was it in Philippi; while the sons of Judah had grown indifferent to those observances of their religion, which were inconvenient, by interfering with the daily arrangements of business intercourse with their heathen fellow-citizens, the daughters of Zion came still regularly together, to the place where prayer was wont to be made. Here the apostolic company met them, and preached to them the new word of grace, now revealed for all the scattered race of Israel, far and near,――and not for them only, but also for the Gentiles. Among these gentle auditors of the word of grace, now first proclaimed in Greece, was a Jewess, named Lydia, who had emigrated from Thyatira, in Lydian Asia, and now carried on in Philippi, a trade in the purple dye, for which the region from which she came was so famous, even from the time of Homer. While listening to the words of Paul, her heart was opened to the comprehension of the truth of the gospel, and she professed her faith in Jesus. Having been baptized with all her household, she was so moved with regard for those who had thus taught her the way of salvation, that she earnestly invited them to make her house their home. Complying with her benevolent and hospitable invitation, Paul, Silas, Timothy and Luke, took up their abode in her house, and remained there throughout their whole stay in Philippi.

Such was the beginning of the propagation of the gospel in Greece,――such was the foundation of the first church ever planted east of the Hellespont; and thus did Europe first receive the doctrines of that faith, which now holds in all that mighty division of the world, a triumphant seat, and constitutes the universal religion of the nations that hold within themselves the sources of art, learning,――all the refinements of civilization,――and of the dominion of half the globe. Four pilgrims entered the city of Philippi, unknown, friendless, and scorned for their foreign, half-barbarian aspect. Strolling about from day to day, to find the means of executing their strange errand, they at last found a few Jewish women, sitting in a little retired place, on the banks of a nameless stream. To them they made known the message of salvation;――one of the women with her household believed the gospel, and professed the faith of Jesus;――and from this beginning did those glorious results advance, which in their progress have changed the face of Europe, revolutionized the course of empires, and modified the destiny of the world!

An incident soon occurred, however, which brought them into more public notice, though not in a very desirable manner. As they went out to the usual place of prayer on the bank of the stream, they at last were noticed by a poor bedeviled crazy girl, who, being deprived of reason, had been made a source of profit to a set of mercenary villains, who taking advantage of the common superstition of their countrymen about the supernatural endowments of such unfortunate persons, pretended that she was a Pythoness, indued by the Pythian Apollo with the spirit of prophecy; for not only at Delphi, on his famous tripod, but also throughout Greece, he was believed to inspire certain females to utter his oracles, concerning future events. The owners and managers of this poor girl therefore made a trade of her supposed soothsaying faculty, and found it a very profitable business, through the folly of the wise Greeks of Philippi. This poor girl had her crazy fancy struck by the appearance of the apostolic company, as they passed along the streets to their place of prayer, and following them, perceived, under the impulse of the strange influence that possessed her, the real character of Paul and his companions; and cried out after them, “These men are the servants of the most high God, who show us the way of salvation.” This she did daily for a long time, till at last, Paul, annoyed by this kind of proclamation thus made at his heels, turned about, and by a single command subdued the demoniac influence that possessed her, and restored her to the freedom of sense and thought. Of course she was now no longer the submissive instrument of the will of her mercenary managers, and it was with no small vexation that they found all chance of these easy gains was forever gone. In their rage against the authors of what they deemed their calamity, they caught Paul and Silas, as the foremost of the apostolic company, and dragging them into the forum or courthouse, where the magistrates were in session, they presented their prisoners as a downright nuisance: “These men, who are Jews, do exceedingly trouble our city; and teach customs which are not lawful for us to adopt nor observe, if we are to maintain the privileges of Roman citizens.” What the latter part of the accusation referred to, in particular, it is not easy to say, and probably there was no very definite specification made by the accusers; for the general prejudice against the Jews was such, that the mob raised a clamor against them at once; and the magistrates seeing in the apostles only some nameless foreign vagabonds, who having come into the city without any reasonable object in view were disturbing the peace of the inhabitants, had no hesitation whatever in ordering them to be punished in the most ignominious manner, and without any question or defense, conforming to the dictation of that universally divine and immaculate source of justice,――the voice of the people,――instantly had them stripped and flogged at the discretion of their persecutors. After having thus shamefully abused them, they did not dismiss them, but cast them into prison, and set their feet in the stocks.

“_Philippi_ was a city of Macedonia, of moderate extent, and not
far from the borders of Thrace. It was formerly called Crenides,
from its ♦numerous springs, from which arises a small stream,
mentioned Acts xvi. 13, though it is commonly omitted in the
maps. The name of Philippi it received from Philip, father of
Alexander, who enlarged it, and fortified it as a barrier town
against the Thracians. Julius Caesar sent hither a Roman colony,
as appears from the following inscription on a medal of this
city, COL. IUL. AUG. PHIL. quoted in Vaillant Num. æn. imp.
T. I. p. 160, and from Spon Misc. p. 173. See also Pliny, L. IV.
c. ii. and the authors in Wolfii Curae, πρωτη της μεριδος της
Μακεδονιας πολις, ‘the first city of that district of Macedonia:’
but in what sense the word πρωτη, or ‘first,’ is here to
be taken, admits of some doubt. Paulus Æmilius had divided
Macedonia into four districts, and that in which Philippi was
situated, was called πρωτη, or the first district. But of this
district, Philippi does not appear to be entitled, in any sense,
to the name of πρωτη πολις. For if πρωτη be taken in the sense
of ‘first in respect to place,’ this title belonged rather to
Neapolis, which was the frontier town of Macedonia, towards
Thrace, as appears from Acts xvii. 1. And, if taken in the sense
of ‘first in respect to rank,’ it belonged rather to Amphipolis,
which was the capital of this district of Macedonia, as appears
from the following passage Livii History Lib. XLV. 29. Capita
regionum, ubi concilia fierent, primae regionis Amphipolin,
secundae Thessalonicen, &c. But the difficulty is not so great
as it appears to be. For, though Amphipolis was made the capital
of the first district of ♠Macedonia in the time of Paulus
Æmilius, and therefore entitled to the name of πρωτη, it is not
impossible that in a subsequent age, the preference was given
to Philippi. Or even if Amphipolis still continued to be the
capital of the district, or the seat of the Roman provincial
government, yet the title πρωτη may have been claimed by the
city of Philippi, though it were not the very first in point of
rank. We meet with many instances of this kind, on the medals
of the Greek cities, on which we find that more than one city
of the same province, assumed the title of πρωτη. St. Luke,
therefore, who spent a long time at Philippi, and was well
acquainted with the customs of the place, gave this city the
title which it claimed, and which, according to the custom of
the Greek cities, was inscribed probably on its coins. Hence
it appears that the proposal made by Pierce to alter πρωτη
της μεριδος to πρωτη μεριδος, is unnecessary.” (Michaelis’s
Introduction, Vol. IV. pp. 152‒154. Marsh’s translation.)

♦ “numerons” replaced with “numerous”

♠ “Macodonia” replaced with “Macedonia”

“‘_Where prayer was wont to be made._’ xvi. 13. This proseuchae
signifies an oratory, a place appointed for prayer; in heathen
countries, they were erected in sequestered retreats, commonly
on the banks of rivers (as here) or on the sea-shore. Josephus
has preserved the decree of the city of Halicarnassus,
permitting the Jews to erect oratories, part of which is in the
following terms:――‘We ordain that the Jews, who are willing,
both men and women, do observe the Sabbaths and perform sacred
rites according to the Jewish law, and _build proseuchae by
the seaside, according to the custom of their country_; and if
any man, whether magistrate or private person, give them any
hinderance or disturbance, he shall pay a fine to the city.’
(Josephus, Antiquities, lib. xiv, cap. 10.) (Al. 24.)

“Many commentators, viz. Grotius, Drs. Whitby, Doddridge, and
Lardner, agree with Josephus, Philo, and Juvenal, that these
places of worship were synonymous with synagogues. But Calmet,
Prideaux, and Hammond, contend that they were _nearly_ the same,
yet there was a _real_ difference between them; the synagogues
were within the cities, while the proseuchae were without,
in retired spots, particularly in heathen countries, by the
river-side, with galleries or the shades of trees for their only
shelter. Prideaux considers them to be of greater antiquity than
the synagogues, and that they were formed by the Jews in open
courts, that those who lived at a distance from Jerusalem might
offer their private worship as in the open courts of the Temple
or Tabernacle. In the synagogues, Prideaux observes, _public_
worship was performed, and in the proseuchae _private_ prayer
was used to be made. It is highly probable that these proseuchae
were the same which are called in the Old Testament ‘high
places.’ (Hammond on Luke vi. 12, and Acts xvi. 13‒16. Calmet’s
Dictionary voce proseucha. Prideaux’s Connec, part i. book iv.
sub anno 444. vol. I. pp. 387‒390. edition 1720.) (Horne’s
Introduction.)

“‘And a certain woman named Lydia, a seller of purple, of the
city of Thyatira.’ verse 14. It is a remarkable fact, that among
the ruins of Thyatira, there is an inscription extant with the
words ΟΙ ΒΑΦΕΙΣ, _the dyers_. Wheler’s Journey into Greece, vol.
iii. p. 233. Spon, Miscellanea Eruditae Antiquitates, p. 113;
from whence we learn that the art and trade of dyeing purple
were carried on in that city.” (Horne’s Introduction.)

Here was fine business for the apostle and his companion! “_Come over into Macedonia and help us!_” Such were the words of deep agonizing entreaty, in which the beseeching Macedonian had, in the night-vision, summoned the great apostle of the Gentiles to this new field of evangelizing labor. Taking that summons for a divine command, he had obeyed it――had crossed the wide Aegean, and sought in this great city of Macedonia, the occasions and the means of “helping” the idolatrous citizens to a knowledge of the truth as it was in Jesus. Week after week they had been inoffensively toiling in the faithful effort to answer this Macedonian cry for help; and what was the result and the reward of all these exertions? For no crime whatever, and for no reason except that they had rescued a gentle and unfortunate spirit from a most degrading thraldom to demoniac agencies, and to men more vile and wicked than demons, they had been mobbed,――abused by a parcel of mercenary scoundrels,――stripped naked in the forum, and whipped there like thieves,――and at last thrown into the common jail among felons, with every additional injury that could be inflicted by their determined persecutors, being fettered so that they could not repose their sore and exhausted bodies. Was not here enough to try the patience of even an apostle? What man would not have burst out in furious vexation against the beguiling vision which had led them away into a foreign land, among those who were disposed to repay their assiduous “help,” by such treatment? Thus might Paul and Silas have expressed their vexation, if they had indeed been misled by a mere human enthusiasm; but they knew Him in whom they had trusted, and were well assured that He would not deceive them. So far from giving way to despondency and silence, they uplifted their voices in _praise_! Yes, _praise_ to the God and Father of Jesus Christ, that he had accounted them worthy to suffer thus for the glory of his name. “At midnight Paul and Silas prayed and sang praises to God, and the prisoners heard them.” In the dreary darkness,――inclosed between massive walls, and bound in weighty fetters, their spirits rose in prayer,――doubtless for those persecutors whom they came over to “help,” and not for themselves,――since their souls were already so surely stayed on God. To him they raised their voices in praise, for their own peace and joy in believing. Not yielding like those inspired by the mere impulses of human ambition or wild enthusiasm,――they passed the dreary night, _not_

“In silence or in fear.――
They shook the depths of the prison gloom,
With their hymns of lofty cheer.――
Amid the storm they sang,”

for He whom they thus invoked did not leave them in their heroic endurance, without a most convincing testimony that their prayers and their songs had come up in remembrance before him. In the midst of their joyous celebration of this persecution, while their wondering fellow-prisoners, waked from their sleep by this very unparalleled noise, were listening in amazement to this manifestation of the manner of spirit with which their new companions were disposed to meet their distresses,――a mighty earthquake shook the city, and heaved the whole prison-walls on their foundations, so that all the firmly barred doors were burst open, and, what was more remarkable, all the chains fell from the prisoners. The jailer waking up amidst this horrible crash, and seeing all the prison-doors open, supposed that the prisoners had all escaped; and knowing how utterly certain would be his ruin if his charge should thus be broken,――in a fit of vexation and despair, he drew his sword, and would have instantly killed himself, had not Paul, seeing through the darkness the frenzied actions of the wretched man, called out to him in a loud voice, clear and distinct amid the dreadful din, “Do thyself no harm, for we are all here.”

Hearing these consolatory words, the jailer called for a light, and sprang in, and came trembling, and fell down before Paul and Silas, saying,――“Sirs! What must I do to be saved?” They replied――“Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, with all thy house.” The jailer of course spoke of being saved merely from present danger,――and appalled by the shock of the earthquake, concluded at once that it had some connection with the prayers and songs of the two Jewish prisoners, whom he knew to have been unjustly punished and imprisoned. He supposed therefore, that from those who were the occasion of the awful occurrence, he might best learn the means of escaping its destructive consequences. But his alarmed inquiries were made instrumental in teaching him the way of escape from a peril of far greater magnitude, threatening his spirit with the eternal ruin that would fall at last on all the sinful opposers of the truth. The two imprisoned preachers then proclaimed to him the word of the Lord, and not only to him, but to all that were in his house. No sooner had the jailer thus learned, by their eloquent words, the real character and objects of his prisoners, than he immediately determined to make them all the atonement in his power, for the shameful treatment which they had received from his fellow-citizens. He took them that same hour of the night, and washed their stripes, and was baptized with all his house. Of course he could no longer suffer those who were the authors of his hopes of salvation, to lie any longer among felons; and he immediately brought them out of the jail into his own house, and gave them food, making it a sort of festal ♦occasion for himself and his whole family, who were all rejoicing with him in the knowledge of the gospel. When it was day the magistrates sent the officers of justice with a verbal order for the release of the two prisoners, of whose abominable usage they were now quite ashamed, after a night’s reflection, without the clamors of a mob to incite them; and perhaps also their repentance may have been promoted by the great earthquake during the night, for which the Greeks and Romans would, as usual, seek some moral occasion, looking on it of course, as a prodigy, expressive of the anger of the gods, who might be supposed perhaps, to be indignant at the flagrant injustice committed against these two friendless strangers. But however satisfactory this atonement might seem to the magistrates, Paul was by no means disposed to let them off so quietly, after using him and Silas in this outrageous manner, in absolute defiance of all forms of law and justice. To this permission thus given him to sneak off quietly, he therefore returned the indignant answer――“They have openly beaten us uncondemned, though we are Roman citizens, and they have cast us into prison; and now do they thrust us out so slily? No, indeed; but let them come themselves and fetch us out.” This was alarming news indeed, to the magistrates. Here they were found guilty of having violated “the sacred privilege of Roman citizenship!”――a privilege which always shielded its possessor from irregular tyranny, and required, throughout the Roman world, that he should never be subjected to punishment without the most open and formal investigation of the charge; a privilege too, whose violation would bring down on them the most remorseless vengeance of the imperial fountain of Roman power. So nothing would do, but they must submit to the uncomfortable necessity of bringing down their magisterial dignity, to the low business of visiting their poor, abused prisoners in the jail, and humbly apologizing for their own cruelty.

♦ “accasion” replaced with “occasion”

The magistrates of the great city of Philippi therefore came to the prison, and brought out their abused victims, respectfully requesting them to depart out of the city. The two prisoners accordingly consented to retire quietly from the city, without making any more trouble for their persecutors. Going first to the house of their kind hostess, Lydia, they saw the brethren who had believed the gospel there, during their apostolic ministrations, and having exhorted them, bade them farewell, and in company with their two companions, Timothy and Luke, left the city.

Turning southwestwards towards Greece proper, and keeping near the coast, they came next to Amphipolis, a Macedonian city on the river Strymon, near where it flows into the Strymonic gulf; but making no stay that is mentioned, they continued their journey in the same direction to Apollonia, an inland town on the river Chabrius, in the peninsula of Chalcidice; whence turning northwest they came next to Thessalonica, a large city at the head of the great Thermaic gulf. In this place was a synagogue of the Jews,――the first that they had found in their European travels; for in this thriving commercial place the Jews were, and always have been, in such large numbers, that they were abundantly able to keep their own house of worship and religious instruction, and had independence enough, as well as regard for the institutions of their fathers, to attend in large numbers weekly at this sanctuary. So zealous and successful indeed had they been in their devotion to their religion, that they had drawn into a profession of the faith of the God of Israel, a vast number of Greeks who attended worship with them; for such was the superior purity of the religion of the Jews, which regarded the one only living God, who was to be worshiped not in the debasing forms of statues, but in spirit and truth, that almost every place throughout the regions of Grecian civilization, in which the Jews had planted their little commercial settlements, and reared the houses of religious instruction, showed abundance of such instances as this, in which the bright intellectual spirit of the Greek readily appreciated the exalted character and the holy truth of the faith owned by the sons of Israel, and felt at once how far more suited to the conceptions of Hellenic genius was such a religion, than the degrading polytheism which the philosophy and poetry of a thousand years had striven in vain to redeem from its inherent absurdities. Among these intelligent but mixed congregations, Paul and his companions entered, and taking advantage of the freedom of religious discourse allowed to all by the order of a Jewish synagogue, they on three successive sabbaths reasoned with them out of the scriptures, on that great and all-absorbing point in the original apostolic theology,――that the Christ, the Messiah, so generally understood to be distinctly foretold in the Hebrew scriptures, was always described as destined to undergo great sufferings during his earthly career, and after a death of shame, was to rise from the grave;――and at last concluded with the crowning doctrine――“This Jesus, whom I preach to you, is this Christ.”

This glorious annunciation of a new and spiritual dispensation, was at once well received by a vast majority of the hearers――but more especially by the Greeks, whose conceptions of the religion which they had espoused, were far more rational and exalted than even the notions of the original Israelites, whose common ideas of a Redeemer being connected and mixed up, as their whole faith was, so much with what was merely national and patriotic in their feelings, had led them to disregard the necessarily spiritual nature of the new revelation expected, and had caused them almost universally to image the Messiah as a mere Jewish conqueror, who was to aim mainly at the restoration of the ancient dominion of long-humbled Judah. Therefore, while the Greeks readily and joyfully accepted this glorious completion of the faith whose beginnings they had learned under the old covenant,――the Jews for the most part scornfully rejected the revelation which presented to them as their Messiah, “a man of sorrows,”――a Galilean,――a Nazarene,――one without pomp or power; the grand achievment of whose earthly career was that most ignominious death on the cross. No: this was not the Messiah for whom they looked and longed, as the glorious restorer of Israel, and the bloody conqueror of the Gentiles; and it was therefore with the greatest indignation that they saw the great majority of those converts from heathenism, whom they had made with so much pains, now wholly carried away with the humbling doctrines of these new teachers. Thus “moved with _envy_,” the unbelieving Jews resorted to their usual expedient of stirring up a mob; and accordingly, certain low fellows of the baser sort among them, gathered a gang, and set the whole city on an uproar,――an effect which might seem surprising, from a cause apparently so trifling and inadequate, did not every month’s observation on similar occurrences, among people that call themselves the most enlightened and free on the globe, suffice to show every reader, that to “set a whole city in an uproar,” is the easiest thing in the world, and one more often done by “certain lewd fellows of the baser sort,” about the merest trifle, than in any other way. And here then again, is another of those fac-simile exhibitions of true human nature, with which the honest and self-evident story of Luke abounds; and in this particular instance what makes him so beautifully graphical and natural in his description of this manifestation of public opinion, is the fact that he himself was a spectator of the whole proceedings at Thessalonica,――and therefore gives an eye-witness story. The mob being thus gathered, immediately made a desperate assault on the house of Jason, where Paul and Silas were known to lodge, and sought to drag them out to the people. (One would think that this was a mere prophetic account of perfectly similar occurrences, that pass every month under the noses of modern Europeans.) Paul and Silas, however, had been wise enough to make off at the first alarm, and had found some place of concealment, beyond the reach of the mob. Provoked at not obtaining the prime object of the attack, the rascals then seized Jason and other Christians whom they found there, and dragged them before the magistrates, crying――“These that have turned the world upside down, have come hither also,――whom Jason has entertained; and they all do contrary to the statutes of Caesar, saying that there is another king,――one Jesus.” This communication of the mode in which the great mundane inversion had been effected by these four travelers and their new converts, excited no small commotion among all the inhabitants; for it amounted to a distinct charge of a treasonable conspiracy against the Roman government, and could not fail to bring down the most disagreeable consequences on the city, if it was made known, even though it should amount to nothing. However, the whole proceedings against Jason and his friends were conducted with a moderation truly commendable, and far above any mob-action in these enlightened times; for without any personal injury, they simply satisfied themselves with taking security of Jason and his companions, that they should keep the peace, and attempt nothing treasonable, and then quietly let them go. Who would expect any modern European mob to release their victims in this moderate and reasonable way?