Chapter XXXII: Part 32

“_Amphipolis_ is a city of Macedonia, on the confines of Thrace,
called so, as Thucydides informs us, (lib. iv. p. 321,) because
the rivers encompassed it. Suidas and others place it in Thracia,
giving it the name of the Nine Ways. It had the name likewise of
Chrysopolis.” (Wells, Whitby.)

“_Apollonia_, a city of Macedonia, lying between Amphipolis and
Thessalonica. Geographers affirm that there were fourteen cities,
and two islands of that name. Stephanus reckons twenty-five.”
(Whitby.)

_Thessalonica_, a large and populous city and sea-port of
Macedonia, the capital of the four districts into which the
Romans divided that country, after its conquest by Paulus
Æmilius. It was situated on the Thermian Bay, and was anciently
called Thermae; but, being rebuilt by Philip, the father of
Alexander, after his victory over the Thessalians, it then
received the name of Thessalonica.

“At the time of writing the Epistle to the Thessalonians,
Thessalonica was the residence of the Proconsul who governed the
province of Macedonia, and of the Quaestor who had the charge
of the imperial revenues. Besides being the seat of government,
this port carried on an extensive commerce, which caused a great
influx of strangers from all quarters; so that Thessalonica
was remarkable for the number, wealth, and learning of its
inhabitants. The Jews were extremely numerous here. The modern
name of this place is Salonichi; it is the chief port of modern
Greece, and has a population of sixty thousand persons, twelve
thousand of whom are Jews. According to Dr. Clarke, this
place is the same now as it was then; a set of turbulent Jews
constituted a very considerable part of its population; and when
St. Paul came here from Philippi to preach the gospel to the
Thessalonians, the Jews were numerous enough to ‘set all the
city in an uproar.’” (Williams.)

After this specimen of popular excitement, it was too manifest that nothing could be done just then at Thessalonica by the apostolic ministers of Christ, and that very night therefore the brethren sent off Paul and Silas in the darkness, to Beroea, a city also in Macedonia, about fifty miles from Thessalonica, exactly west, being on the same parallel of latitude, standing on the south bank of the river Astroeus. Arriving there, they went into the synagogue of the Jews, who were here for the most part of a much better character than the mean Jews of the great trading city of Thessalonica, and being more independent and spiritual in their religious notions, were also much better prepared to appreciate the spiritual doctrines preached by Paul and Silas. They listened respectfully to the new preachers, and when the usual references were made to the standard passages in the Old Testament, universally supposed to describe the Messiah, they diligently examined the passages for themselves, and studied out their correspondence with the events in the life of Jesus, which were mentioned by his preachers as perfectly parallel with these distinct prophecies. The natural result of this nobly candid and rational examination of this great question was, that many of these fair-minded and considerate Jews of Beroea professed their perfect conviction that Jesus was the Christ, and had by the actions of his life fully answered and completed the prophetic types of the Messiah. Here, too, as in Thessalonica, the Greek proselytes to Judaism readily and heartily accepted the doctrines of Jesus. But the gospel messengers were not long allowed the enjoyment of this fine field of apostolic enterprise; for their spiteful foes in Thessalonica, hearing how things were going on in Beroea, took the pains and trouble to journey all the way to that place, for the express purpose of hunting out the preachers of Jesus by a new mob: and in this they were so successful, that the brethren, according to the established rules of Christian expediency, immediately sent away Paul to the south, because he seemed to be the grand object of the persecution; but Silas and Timothy being less obnoxious, still remained in Beroea.

“_Beroea_ was a city of Macedonia; a great and populous city.
Lucian de Asino, p. 639. D.” (Whitby.) It was situated to the
west of Thessalonica, and not “_south_,” as Wells absurdly says,
“almost directly on the way to Athens.”

HIS VISIT TO ATHENS.

Paul, thus obeying the command given by Jesus in his first charge to the original twelve, went on under the guidance of his Beroean brethren, according to his own request, by sea, to Athens, where he parted from them, giving them charge to tell Silas and Timothy to come on after him, as soon as their commission in Macedonia would allow. He then went about Athens, occupying the interval while he waited for them, in observations upon that most glorious of all earthly seats of art and taste. As he wandered on, an unheeded stranger, among the still splendid and beautiful, though then half-decaying works, which the combined devotion, pride and patriotism of the ancient Athenians had raised to their gods, their country, and its heroes,――in the beautifully picturesque yet simple expression of the apostolic historian, “Paul saw the city wholly given to idolatry.” How many splendid associations does it call up before the mental eye of the classical scholar who reads it? As the apostle wandered along among these thousand works of art, still so hallowed in the fond regard of the scholar, the antiquarian, the man of taste, the poet, and the patriot, his spirit was moved within him, when he every where saw how the whole city was given to idolatry. Not a spot but had its altar; every grove was consecrated to its peculiar nymphs, its Dryads and its Fauns; every stream and fountain had the votive marble for its own bright Naiad;――along the plain rose the splendid colonnades of the yet mighty temples of Jupiter, and all the Olympian gods; and above all, on the high Acropolis, the noble PARTHENON rose over the glorious city, proclaiming to the eye of the distant traveler, the honors of the virgin goddess of wisdom, of taste and philosophic virtue, whose name crowned the city, of which she, was throughout all the reign of Polytheism, the guardian deity.

These splendid but mournful testimonies of the misplaced energies of that inborn spirit of devotion, which, all over the world in all times, moves the heart of man to the worship of that Eternal power of whose existence he is ever conscious, touched the spirit of Paul with other emotions than those of delight and admiration. The eye of the citizen of classical and splendid Tarsus, was not indeed blind to the beauties of these works of art, whose fame was spread throughout the civilized world, and with whose historic and poetic glories his eye and ear had long been made familiar; but over them all was cast a moral and spiritual gloom which darkened all these high and rich remembrances, otherwise so bright. Under the impulse of such feelings, he immediately sought occasion to make an attack on this dominant spirit of idolatry. He accordingly, in his usual theater of exertion,――the Jewish synagogue,――freely made known the new revelation of the truth in Jesus, both to the Jews, and to those Gentiles who reverenced the God of Israel, and listened to religious instruction in the Jewish house of worship. With such effect did he proclaim the truth, and with such fervid, striking oratory, that the Athenians, always admirers and cultivators of eloquence, soon had their attention very generally drawn to the foreign teacher, who was publishing these very extraordinary doctrines, in a style of eloquence so peculiar and irregular. The consequence was, that his audiences were soon extended beyond the regular attendants on the Jewish synagogue worship, and many of the philosophic sages of the Athenian schools sat listening to the apostle of Jesus. They soon undertook to encounter him in argument; and Paul now resorting to that most classic ground, the Athenian forum, or _Agora_, was not slow to meet them. On the spot where Socrates once led the minds of his admiring hearers to the noble conceptions of moral truth, Paul now stood uttering to unaccustomed ears, the far more noble conceptions of a divine truth, that as far outwent the moral philosophy of “Athena’s wisest son,” as did the life, and death, and triumphs of the crucified Son of Man, the course and fate of the hemlock-drinker. Greatly surprised were his philosophical hearers, at these very remarkable doctrines, before unheard of in Greece, and various were the opinions and comments of the puzzled sages. Some of those of the Epicurean and Stoic schools, more particularly, had their pride and scorn quite moved at the seeming presumption of this fluent speaker, who without diffidence or doubt uttered his strange doctrines, though characterized by a style full of irregularities, and a dialect remarkably distinguished by barbarous provincialisms, and scornfully asked, “What does this rattling fellow mean?” Others, observing that he claimed such divine honors for Jesus, the founder of his faith, remarked, that “he seemed to be a preacher of foreign deities.” At last, determined to have their difficulties resolved by the very highest authority, they took him before the very ancient and venerable court of the Areopagus, which was the supreme council in all matters that concerned religion. Here they invited him to make a full communication of the distinctive articles of his new faith, because they felt an honest desire to have the particulars of a subject never before introduced to their notice; and a vast concourse stood by to hear that grand object of life to the news-hunting Athenians,――“A NEW THING.”

“With regard to the application of _babbler_, Eustathius
gives two senses of the word σπερμολόγος. 1. The Attics called
those σπερμολόγοι who conversed in the market, and places of
merchandise. (In Odys. B. ad finem.) And Paul was disputing with
those he met in the market-place. 2. It is used of those who,
from some false opinions, boasted unreasonably of their learning.
(Idem.) Œcumenius says, a little bird that gathered up the seeds
scattered in the market-place, was called σπερμολόγος; in this
etymology, Suidas, Phavorinus, the scholiast upon Aristophanes
de Avibus, p. 569, and almost all grammarians agree. (Cave’s
Lives of the Apostles.) (Whitby’s Annotations.)

“18. σπερμολόγος. This word is properly used of those little
insignificant birds which support a precarious existence
by picking up seeds scattered by the sower, or left above
ground after the soil has been harrowed. See Maximus of Tyre,
Dissertations, 13, p. 133., Harpocrates, Aristophanes Av. 232.,
and the Scholiast, and Plutarch, T. 5, 50, edited by _Reiske_.
It was metaphorically applied also to paupers who prowled about
the market place, and lived by picking up any thing which might
be dropped by buyers and sellers; and likewise to persons who
gleaned in the corn fields. See Eustathius on Homer’s Odyssey
ε 241. Hence it was at length applied to all persons of mean
condition, who, as we say, “live on their wits.” Thus it is
explained by Harpocrates εὐτελὴς, _mean_ and _contemptible_.
And so Philo 1021 c. χρησάμενος――δούλῳ σπερμολόγῳ περιτρίμματι.”
(Bloomfield’s Annotations, Acts xvii. 18.)

“The _Areopagus_ was a place in Athens, where the senate usually
assembled and took its name (as some think) from Ἄρης which is
the same as Mars, the god of war, who was the first person tried
here, for having killed Apollo’s son. Others think that, because
ἄρης sometimes signifies _fighting_, murder, or violence of any
kind, and that παγὸς is properly a _rock_, or rising hill, it
therefore seems to denote a court situated upon an eminence,
(as the Areopagus was,) where causes of murder, &c. were tried.
This court at present is out of the city, but in former times
it stood almost in the middle of it. Its foundations, which are
still standing, are built with square stones of prodigious size,
in the form of a semi-circle, and support a terrace or platform,
of about a hundred and forty paces, which was the court where
this senate was held. In the midst of it, there was a tribunal
cut in a rock, and all about were seats also of stone, where the
senate heard causes in the open air, without any covering, and
(as some say) in the night time, that they might not be moved to
compassion at the sight of any criminal that was brought before
them. This judicature was held in such high esteem for its
uprightness, that when the Roman proconsuls ruled there, it was
a very common thing for them to refer difficult causes to the
judgment of the Areopagites. After the loss of their liberty,
however, the authority of the senate declined, so that in
the apostles’ times, the Areopagus was not so much a court
of judicature as a common rendezvous, where all curious and
inquisitive persons, who spent their time in nothing else, but
either in hearing or telling some new thing, were accustomed
to meet, Acts xvii. 21. Notwithstanding, they appeared still
to have retained the privilege of canonizing all gods that
were allowed public worship; and therefore St. Paul was brought
before them as an assertor and preacher of a Deity, whom they
had not yet admitted among them. It does not appear that he was
brought before them as a criminal, but merely as a man who had
a new worship to propose to a people religious above all others,
but who took care that no strange worship should be received on
a footing of a _tolerated religion_, till it had the approbation
of a court appointed to judge such matters. The address of the
court to St. Paul, ‘May we know what this doctrine is whereof
thou speakest?’ implies rather a request to a teacher, than an
interrogatory to a criminal; and accordingly his reply has not
the least air of _an apology_, suiting a person accused, but is
one continued information of important truths, such as it became
a teacher or benefactor, rather than a person arraigned for
crime, to give. He was therefore neither acquitted nor condemned,
and dismissed as a man _coram non judice_. We are indeed told,
that when they heard of ‘the resurrection of the dead,’ some
mocked, and others said, ‘We will hear thee again of this
matter,’ putting off the audience to an indefinite time; so
that nothing was left him but to depart.” (Calmet’s Commentary.
Beausobre’s and Hammond’s Annotations, and Warburton’s Divine
Legation.)

Illustration: THE AREOPAGUS, OR MARS HILL;
WITH THE TEMPLE OF THESEUS, ATHENS.
Acts xvii. 22.

“That Athens _was_ wholly enslaved to idolatry, has been
abundantly proved by our philological illustrators, especially
the indefatigable Wetstein, from Pausanias Attic. 1, 24: Strabo
10. p. 472, c: Lucian, t. 1. Prometheus p. 180: Livy 45, 27.
So also Pausanias in Attic. c. 18, 24. (cited by Pearce and
Doddridge,) who tells us, that Athens had more images than
all the rest of Greece; and Petronius Satyricon c. 17, who
humorously says, ‘It was easier to find a god than a man
there.’” (Bloomfield Annotations.)

“καὶ ἐν τῆ ἀγορᾶ. Of the _market-places_ at Athens, of which
there were many, the most celebrated were the Old and the New
Forum. The former was in the Ceramicus, a very ample space, part
within, and part without the city. See Meursius, dissertatione
de Ceramico Gemino, § 46. and Potter’s Archaeology 1, 8. p. 30.
The latter was outside of the Ceramicus, in a place called
Eretria. See Meursius, Ath. Attic. l. 1. c. 6. And this seems
to be the one here meant. For no forum, except the Ceramicus and
the Eretriacum, was called, absolutely, ἄγορα, but had a name
to denote _which_ was meant, as Areopagiticum, Hippodamium,
Piraeum, &c. In process of time, and at the period when Paul
was at Athens, the forum was transferred from the Ceramicus into
the Eretria; a change which, indeed, had been introduced in the
time of Augustus; and that this was the most frequented part of
the city, we learn from Strabo 10. p. 447. Besides, the Eretriac
forum was situated before the στοὰ, or portico, in which the
Stoics, of whom mention is just after made, used to hold their
public discourses. It was moreover called κύκλος, from its round
form.”

“Ἄρειον πάγον, _Mars’ Hill_. Πάγος signifies properly a _high
situation_. _This_ was a hill opposite to that of the citadel
on the west; as we learn from Herodias 8, 52. [See the passages
produced supra, to which I add Livy 26, 44. Tumulum quem
Mercurii vocant. Editor.] It was so called, either because it
had been consecrated to Mars (as the Campus Martius at Rome,)
or because (as ♦Pausanias relates, Att. C. 28,) Mars, when he
had slain Halyrrothius, son of Neptune, was the first who there
pleaded a capital cause, which took place before the twelve gods.
The judges used to sit by night, and _sub dio_; and whatever
was done was kept _very secret_. [whence the proverb Ἀρεοπαγίτου
σιωπηλότερος, to which may be compared ours, ‘_as grave as a
Judge_.’ Editor.] They gave their judgment, not _viva voce_, but
in writing. Nor were any admitted into the number of Areopagists
but persons of noble birth, of unspotted morality, and eminent
for justice and equity. See more in Meursius de Areopago.”
(Kuinoel.) (Bloomfield Annotations.)

♦ “Pausanius” replaced with “Pausanias”

Paul taking his stand there, in that splendid scene, uttered in a bold tone and in his noblest style, the great truths which he was divinely consecrated to reveal. Never yet had Athens, in her most glorious state, heard a discourse which, for solemn beauty and lofty eloquence, could equal this brief declaration of the providence of God in the religion of his creatures. Never did the world see an orator in a sublimer scene, or in one that could awaken higher emotions in those who heard, or him who spoke. He stood on the hill of Mars, with Athens beneath and around him, and the mighty Acropolis rising with its “tiara of proud towers,” walls and temples, on the west,――bounding and crowning the view in that direction;――to the north-east lay the forum, the late scene of his discussions, and beyond lay the philosophic Academia, around and through which rolled the flowery Cephisus. Before him sat the most august and ancient court in the Grecian world, waiting for the revelation of his solemn commission respecting the new deities which he was expected to propose as an addition to their polytheistic list;――around him were the sages of the Athenian schools, listening in grave but curious attention, for the new things which the eastern stranger had brought to their ears. The apostle raised his eyes to all the monuments of Athenian devotion which met the view on every side. Before him on the high Acropolis was the mighty temple of the Athenian Minerva; on the plain beyond was the splendid shrine of the Olympian Jove; on his right was the temple of Theseus, the deified ancient king of Attica, who laid the first foundation of her glories; and near were the new piles which the later Grecian adulation had consecrated to the worship of her foreign conquerors――to the deified Caesars. Beginning in that tone of dignified politeness, which always characterized his address towards the great ones of earth, he won their hearts and their attention by a courteously complimentary allusion to the devout though misguided zeal, whose solid tokens everywhere surrounded him. “Ye men of Athens! I see in all places that you are VERY RELIGIOUS. For passing along and gazing at the shrines of your devotion, I found an altar on which was written,――‘TO THE UNKNOWN GOD;’――Him therefore, whom, not knowing, you worship, I preach to you.” The rest of this splendid, though brief discourse, need not be repeated, because it is given with tolerable fidelity in the common English translation; but it deserves notice how readily and completely, on all occasions, Paul accommodated himself to the circumstances of his hearers. His style on this occasion is remarkably protracted and rounded in its periods, highly cumulative in structure, and harmonious in its almost rhythmical flow;――the whole bearing the character which was best suited to the fancy and fashion of the Athenians,――though still very decidedly marked by the peculiarities of his eastern origin. Here too, he gave them a favorable impression of his knowledge of the Grecian classics, by his apt and happy quotation from Aratus, the philosophical poet of his native province, Cilicia. “For we also are his offspring.”

_Very religious._――This is unquestionably the just meaning of
xvii. 22. See Bloomfield and all the standard commentators. “Too
superstitions” is insulting.

“‘TO THE UNKNOWN GOD.’ (xvii. 23.)――It is very evident from the
testimony of Laertius, that the Athenians had altars in their
public places, inscribed to unknown gods or demons. He informs
us, that when Athens was visited with a great plague, the
inhabitants invited Epimenides the philosopher, to lustrate
their city. The method adopted by him was to carry several
sheep to the Areopagus; whence they were left to wander as
they pleased, under the observation of persons sent to attend
them. As each sheep lay down, it was sacrificed on the spot to
the _propitious god_; (In vita Epimenides lib. xi.) and as the
Athenians were ignorant of what god was propitious, they erected
an altar with this inscription, ♦ΘΕΟΙΣ ΑΣΙΑΣ, ΚΑΙ ΕΥΡΩΠΗΣ, ΚΑΙ
ΛΙΒΗΥΣ, ΘΕΩ ΑΓΝΩΣΤΩ ΚΑΙ ΞΕΝΩ:――_To the gods of Asia, Europe, and
Africa, to the strange and unknown god_.

♦ “AΙΒΗΥΣ” replaced with “ΛΙΒΗΥΣ” and
“KΛI” replaced with “ΚΑΙ”

“On the architrave of a Doric portico at Athens, which was
standing when that city was visited about sixty years since,
by Dr. Chandler and Mr. Stuart, is a Greek inscription to the
following purport:――‘The people’ [of Athens have erected this
fabric] ‘with the donations to Minerva Archegetia,’ [or the
conductress,] ‘by the god Caius Julius Caesar and his son the
god Augustus, when Nicias was Archon.’ Over the middle of the
pediment was a statue of Lucius Caesar, with this inscription:
――‘The people’ [honor] ‘Lucius Caesar, the son of the Emperor
Augustus Caesar, the son of the god.’ There was also a statue
to Julia, the daughter to Augustus, and the mother of Lucius,
thus inscribed:――‘The Senate of the Areopagus, and the Senate of
the Six Hundred’ [dedicate this statue to] ‘the goddess Julia,
Augusta, Provident.’ These public memorials supply an additional
proof of the correctness of Paul’s observations on the Athenians,
that they were too much addicted to the adoption of objects for
worship and devotion.” (Hammond’s Annotations of Cave’s Lives of
the Apostles, Horne’s Introduction.)

As he concluded however, with the solemn declaration of the great foundation-truth of Christianity,――that God had raised Jesus from the dead,――there was a very general burst of contempt from the more scornful portion of his audience, at the idea of anything so utterly against all human probability. Of the immortality of the soul, the divinest of their own philosophers had reasoned,――and it was by most of the Athenian sects, considered on the whole, tolerably well established; but the notion of the actual revivification of the perished body,――the recall of the scattered dust and ashes, to the same breathing, moving, acting, thinking form, which for ages had ceased to be,――all amounted to a degree of improbable absurdity,――that not the wildest Grecian speculator had ever dreamed of. So the proud Epicureans and Stoics turned sneeringly away from the barbarian stranger who had come so far to try their credulity with such a tale; and thus they for ever lost the opportunity to learn from this new-opened fountain of truth, a wisdom that the long researches of all the Athenian schools had never reached and could never reach, without the light of this truly divine eastern source, which they now so thoughtlessly scorned. But there were some, more considerate, among the hearers of the apostle, who had learned that it is the most decided characteristic of a true philosopher, to reject nothing at first sight or hearing, though it may happen to be contrary to his own personal experience and learning; and these, weighing the matter with respectful doubt, told Paul――“We will hear thee again about this.” Without any further attempt to unfold the truth at that time, Paul departed from the Areopagus, and no more uplifted his voice on the high places of Athens, in testimony of that solemn revelation of the Son of Man from the dead,――the conviction of whose truth, in spite of all philosophic sneers, was destined to oversweep the whole of that world which they knew, and a new one beyond it, and to exalt the name of that despised wanderer to a fame compared with which that of Socrates should be small. Paul was however afterwards visited by several of those who heard him before the Areopagus; and after a free, conversational discussion of the whole subject, and a more familiar exhibition of the evidences of his remarkable assertions, professed their satisfaction with the arguments, and believed. Among these, even one of the judges of the august Areopagus owned himself a disciple of Jesus. Besides him is mentioned a woman named Damaris; and others not specified, are said to have believed.

“‘_Dionysius the Areopagite._’ Acts xvii. 34.――Dionysius is
said to have been bred at Athens in all the arts and sciences:
at the age of twenty-five he went into Egypt to learn astronomy.
At the time of our Savior’s death he was at Heliopolis, where,
observing the darkness that attended the passion, he cried
out thus:――‘That certainly, at that time, either God himself
suffered, or was much concerned for somebody that did.’
Returning to Athens he became one of the senators of the
Areopagus; he was converted by St. Paul, and by him appointed
bishop of Athens. Having labored and suffered much for the holy
cause, he became a martyr to the faith, being burnt to death
at Athens, in the 93d year of Christ.” (Cave’s Lives of the
Apostles. Stanhope on Epistles and Gospels. Calmet’s Dictionary.)

From the grave manner in which this story is told, the reader
would naturally suppose that these great writers had some
authority for these incidents; but in reality, everything that
concerns Dionysius the Areopagite, is utterly unknown; and not
one of these impudent inventions can be traced back further than
the sixth century.

After this tolerably hopeful beginning of the gospel in Athens, Paul left that city, and went southwestward to Corinth, then the most splendid and flourishing city of all Greece, and the capital of the Roman province of Achaia. It was famous, beyond all the cities of the world, for its luxury and refinement,――and the name of “Corinthian” had, long before the time of Paul, gone forth as a proverbial expression for what was splendid in art, brilliant in invention, and elegant in vice.

Here first arose that sumptuous order of architecture that still perpetuates the proverbial elegance of the splendid city of its birth, and the gorgeously beautiful style of the rich Corinthian column, “waving its wanton wreath,”――may be taken as an aptly expressive emblem of the general moral and internal, as well as external characteristics of this last home of true Grecian art. Here longest tarried the taste, art and refinement, which so eminently marked the first glories of Greece, and when the triumphs of that ancient excellence were beginning to grow dim in its brighter early seats in Attica and in Ionian Asia, they flashed out with a most dazzling beauty in the splendid city of the Isthmus,――but alas!――in a splendor that was indeed only a passing flash,――a last brilliant gleam from this glorious spot, before the lamp of Hellenic glory in art, went out forever. In the day of the apostle’s visit however, it was in its most “high and palmy state,”――the queen of the Grecian world. It was glorious too, in the dearest recollections of the patriotic history of Greece; for here was the center of that last brilliant Achaian confederacy, which was cherished by the noble spirits of Aratus and Philopoemen; and here too was made the last stand against the all-crushing advance of the legions of Rome: and when it fell at last before that resistless conquering movement,――“great was the fall of it.” The burning of Corinth by Mummius, (B. C. 144, the year of the fall of Carthage,) is infamous above all the most barbarous acts of Roman conquest, for its melancholy destruction of the works of ancient art, with which it then abounded. But from the ashes of this mournful ruin, it rose soon after, under the splendid patronage of Roman dominion, to a new splendor, that equalled, or perhaps outwent the glories of its former perfection, which had been ripening from the day when, as recorded by old Homer, in the freshness of its early power, it sent forth its noble armaments to the siege of Troy, or set afloat the earliest warlike navy in the world, or was made, through a long course of centuries, the center of the most brilliant of Grecian festivals, in the celebration of the Isthmian games before its walls. The Roman conquerors, as if anxious to make to this ancient seat of Grecian splendor, a full atonement for the barbarous ruin with which they had overwhelmed it, now showered on it all the honors and favors in their power. It was rebuilt as a Roman colony,――endowed by the munificence of senates, consuls, and emperors, and made the capital of the Roman province of Achaia, until the dismemberment of the empire. Shining in its gaudy fetters, it became what it has been described to be in the apostolic age, and was then beyond all doubt the greatest Grecian city in Europe, if not in the world. Athens was then mouldering in more than incipient decay――“the ghost of its former self;” for even Cicero, long before this, describes it as presenting everywhere spectacles of the most lamentable ruin and decline; but Corinth was in the highth of its glory,――its luxury,――its vice,――its heathen wickedness,――and may therefore be justly esteemed the most important scene of labor into which apostolic enterprise had ever yet made its way, and to have been well worthy of the attention which it ever after received from him, to the very last of his life, being made the occasion and object of a larger and a more splendid portion of his epistolary labors, than all with which he ever favored any other place in the world; nor can this protracted notice of its condition and character be justly blamed for its intrusion on this hurried narrative.

“_Corinth._――There is scarcely any one of the seats of ancient
magnificence and luxury, that calls up more vivid and powerful
associations, than are awakened by the name of this once opulent
and powerful city. Corinth, ‘the prow and stern of Greece,’
the emporium of its commerce, the key and bulwark of the
Peloponnesus, was proverbial for its wealth as early as the
time of Homer. Its situation was so advantageous for the
inexperienced navigation of early times, that it became of
necessity the center of trade. The first naval battle on record
was fought between Corinth and its colony Corcyra, about 657
B. C. ‘Syracuse, the ornament of Sicily, Corcyra, some time
sovran of the seas, Ambracia in Epirus, and several other cities
more or less flourishing, owe their origin to Corinth.’ (Travels
of ♦Anacharsis, vol. III. c. 37.) Thucydides states, that the
Corinthian ship-builders first produced galleys with three
benches of oars. The circumnavigation of the peninsula was
tedious and uncertain to a proverb; while at the Isthmus, not
only their cargoes, but, if requisite, the smaller vessels might
be transported from sea to sea. By its port of Cenchreae, it
received the rich merchandise of Asia, and by that of Lechaeum,
it maintained intercourse with Italy and Sicily. The Isthmian
Games, by the concourse of people which they attracted at their
celebration, contributed not a little to its immense opulence;
and the prodigality of its merchants rendered the place so
expensive, that it became a saying, ‘It is not for every one
to go to Corinth.’ Even after its barbarous destruction by
the Romans, it must have been an extremely magnificent city.
Pausanias mentions in and near the city, a theater, an odeum,
a stadium, and sixteen temples. That of Venus possessed above a
thousand female slaves. ‘The women of Corinth are distinguished
by their beauty; the men by their love of gain and pleasure.
They ruin their health by convivial debauches, and love with
them is only licentious passion. Venus is their principal
deity.... The Corinthians, who performed such illustrious acts
of valor in the Persian war, becoming enervated by pleasure,
sunk under the yoke of the Argives; were obliged alternately
to solicit the protection of the Lacedaemonians, the Athenians,
and the Thebans; and are at length reduced to be only the
wealthiest, the most effeminate, and the weakest state in
Greece.’” (Anacharsis.) (Modern Traveler, pp. 160, 161.)

♦ “Anarchasis” replaced with “Anacharsis”

The Hebrew stranger, entering without despondency, this new scene of labor, passed on unnoticed, and looking about for those with whom he might be bold to communicate, on the score of national and religious sympathies, he found among those who like himself were strangers, a Jew, by name Aquilas, who with his wife Priscilla had lately arrived from Italy, whence they had just been driven by a vexatious decree of Claudius Caesar, which, on some groundless accusation, ordered all the Jews to depart from Rome. Aquilas, though lately a resident in Italy, was originally from Pontus in the northern part of Asia Minor, not very far from Paul’s native province; and this proximity of origin joined to another circumstance arising out of it, drew the strangers together, in this foreign city. In Pontus even at this day is carried on that same famous manufacture of camlet articles for which Cilicia was also distinguished and proverbial, and it is therefore perfectly reasonable to suppose that in that age also, this business was common in the same region, because the variety of goat which produces the material, has always been confined within those limits. Being of the same trade, then, and both of them friendless strangers, seeking employment and support, Paul and Aquilas fell into one another’s company and acquaintance, and getting work at the same time, they seem to have set up a kind of partnership in their trade, living together, and working in the same way, from day to day. This, of course, gave constant opportunity for the freest communication on all subjects of conversation; and Aquila would not be long in finding out the great object, which had led Paul away from his country and friends, to a place where his necessities drove him to the laborious exercise of an occupation, which a person of his rank and character could not originally have acquired with any intention of gaining his livelihood thereby. That this was the sole motive of his present application to his tedious business, is abundantly testified in the epistles, which he afterwards wrote to this same place; for he expressly says, that he “was chargeable to no man,” but “labored with his own hands.” Yet the diligent pursuit of this laborious avocation, did not prevent him from appearing on the sabbath, in the synagogue, as a teacher of divine things; nor would the noble principles of Jewish education permit any man to despise the stranger on account of his necessitous and apparently humble circumstances. His weekly ministry was therefore pursued without hindrance, and with success; for “he persuaded the Jews and the Greeks.” Among those who received the most eminent advantage from his apostolic labors, was his fellow-workman Aquilas, who with his wife Priscilla, here imbibed such a portion of Christian knowledge, as ever after made both him and her, highly useful as teachers of the new faith, to which they were at this time converted. It would seem, however, that Paul did not, during the first part of his ministrations, very openly and energetically proclaim the grand doctrine of the faith; for it was not till after the arrival of Silas and Timothy from Macedonia, that he “pressed on in the word, and testified to the Jews that Jesus was the Messiah.” As had usually been the case, whenever he had proclaimed this solemn truth to his own countrymen, he was met by the Corinthian Jews, for the most part, with a most determined and scornful opposition; so that renouncing their fellowship in the expressive gesture of an Oriental,――shaking his raiment,――he declared――“Your blood be on your own heads:――I am clean. Henceforth, I will go to the Gentiles.” Leaving their company, he then went into the house of a religious friend, close to the synagogue, and there took up his abode. But not all the Jews were involved in the condemnation of this rejection. On the contrary, one of the most eminent men among them, Crispus, either then or formerly the ruling elder of the synagogue, professed the faith of Jesus, notwithstanding its unpopularity. Along with him his whole family were baptized, and many other Corinthians received the word in the same manner. In addition to these nobly encouraging results of his devoted labors, his ardor in the cause of Jesus received a new impulse from a remarkable dream, in which the Lord appeared to him, uttering these words of high consolation,――“Fear not, but speak, and hold not thy peace; for I am with thee, and no one shall hurt thee. I have many people in this city.” Under the combined influence of both natural and supernatural encouragements, he therefore remained zealously laboring in Corinth, and made that city his residence, as Luke very particularly records, for a year and six months.

“xviii. 5. συνείχετο τῳ λόγω, &c. The common reading is πνεύματι.
Now since συννέχεσθαι, among other significations, denotes
_angi_, _maerore corripi_, (see Luke ♦xii. 50, and the note on
Matthew ♦iv. 24,) many Commentators, as Hammond, Mill, and Wolf,
explain, “angebatur Paulus animo, dum docebat Judaeos, Jesum
esse Messiam;” viz. “since he could produce no effect among
them.” And they compare verse 6. But this interpretation is at
variance with the context.

♦ “12” replaced with “xii” and
“4” replaced with “iv” for consistency

“Now this verb also signifies to _incite_, _urge_; as in
2 Corinthians v. 14. Hence Beza, Pricaeus, and others,
explain: ‘intus et apud se aestuebat prae zeli ardore;’ which
interpretation I should admit, if there were not reason to
suppose, from the authority of MSS. and Versions, that the true
reading, (though the more difficult one,) is λύγῳ, of which the
best interpretation, and that most suitable to the context, is
the one found in the Vulgate ‘instabat verbo.’ For συνέχεσθαι
denotes also to be _held, occupied by_ anything; as in Sappho 17,
20. Herodotus 1, 17, 22. Aelian, Varia Historia, 14, 22. This
♦signification of the word being admitted, the sense will be:
‘When they had approached whom Paul (who knew that _combined_
strength is most efficacious) had expected as his assistants in
promulgating the Christian doctrine, and of whom, in so large
and populous a city there was need, _then_ he _applied himself
closely_ to the work of teaching.’ Kuinoel. (Bloomfield’s
Annotations, p. 593.)

♦ “significaiion” replaced with “signification”

HIS EPISTLES WRITTEN FROM CORINTH.

The period of his residence in this city is made highly interesting and important in the history of the sacred canon, by the circumstance that here he wrote some of the first of those epistles to his various missionary charges, which constitute the most controverted and the most doctrinal portion of the New Testament. In treating of these writings, in the course of the narrative of his life, the very contracted limits now left to his biographer, will make it necessary to be much more brief in his literary history, than in that of those other apostles, whose writings have claimed and received so full a statement, under their respective lives. Nor is there so much occasion for the labors of the apostolic historian on this part of the history of the apostolic works, as on those already so fully treated; for while the history of the writings of Peter, John, Matthew, James and Jude, has so seldom been presented to the eyes of common readers, the writings of Paul, which have always been the great storehouse of Protestant dogmatism, have been discussed and amplified in their history, scope, character, and style, more fully than all the rest of the Bible, for common readers; but in the great majority of instances, proving such a comment on the sadly prophetical words of Peter on these very writings, that the apostolic historian may well and wisely dread to immerse himself in such a sea of difficulties as presents itself to view; and he therefore cautiously avoids any intermeddling with discussions which will possibly involve him in the condemnation pronounced by the great apostolic chief, on those “unlearned and unstable,” who even in his time had begun to “wrest to their own destruction, the things hard to be understood in the epistles of his beloved brother Paul;” a sentence which seems to have been wholly overlooked by the great herd of dogmatizing commentators, who, very often, without either the “learning” or the “stability,” which Peter thought requisite for the safe interpretation of the Pauline epistles, have rushed on to the task of vulgarizing these noble and honest writings, to suit the base purposes of some popular system of mystical words and complex doctrines. If then, the “unlearned and unstable” have been thus distinctly warned by the highest apostolic authority, against meddling with these obscure and peculiar writings; and since the whole history of didactic theology is so full of melancholy comments on the undesignedly prophetical force of Peter’s denunciation,――it is no more than prudent to decline the slightest interference with a subject, which has been on such authority declared to require the possession of so high a degree of learning and stability, for its safe and just treatment. The few things which may be safely stated, will merely concern the place, time and immediate occasion of the writing of each of these epistles.

In the first place, as to the _order_ in which these works of Paul are arranged in the common New Testament canon, it should be observed that it has reference neither to date, subject, nor anything whatever in their character or object, except the very arbitrary circumstance of the _rank_ and _importance_ of the places and persons that were the original objects of their composition. The epistle to the Romans is always placed first, because the imperial city to which it was directed was beyond all question the greatest in the world. The epistles to the Corinthians are next, because that city was the nearest in rank and importance to Rome, of all those which were the objects of Paul’s epistolary attentions. The epistle to the Galatians is next, because it was directed to a great province, inferior indeed in importance, to the two great cities before mentioned, but vastly above any of the other places to which Paul wrote. The epistle to the Ephesians comes next, because Ephesus ranked far above any of the cities which follow. Philippi was _supposed_, by those who arranged the canon, greater than Colosse and Thessalonica, because it was thought to have been a capital city. Thus all those epistles which are addressed to whole churches, are placed first; and those which are addressed to individuals in the same manner, form a class by themselves; that to Timothy being placed first of these, because he was the most eminent of all the apostle’s assistants,――Titus being inferior to him in dignity, and Philemon, a person of no account at all, except from the bare circumstance, that he was accidentally the subject of Paul’s notice. The epistle to the Hebrews is last of all, because it is altogether peculiar in its character, addressed neither to churches, nor to an individual, but to a whole nation, being published and circulated for their general benefit. The circumstance also that it was long denied a place in the canon, and considered as a spurious writing, improperly attributed to Paul, probably caused it to be put last of all his writings, when in the course of time, it was at length allowed a place in the canon.

FIRST EPISTLE TO THE THESSALONIANS.

That epistle which the great majority of all modern critics consider as the earliest of all those writings of Paul that are now preserved, is the first to the Thessalonians. It is directed to them from Paul, Silvanus, (or Silas,) and Timothy, which shows that it was written after Paul had been joined by these two brethren, which was not until some time after his arrival in Corinth. It appears by the second and third chapters, that the apostle, having been hindered by some evil agency of the wicked, from visiting Thessalonica, as he had earnestly desired to do, had been obliged to content himself with sending Timothy to the brethren there, to comfort them in their faith, and to inquire whether they yet stood fast in their first honorable profession; for he declares himself to have been anxious to know whether by some means the tempter might not have tempted them, and his labor have thus been in vain. But he now informs them how he has lately been greatly comforted by the good news brought from them by Timothy, who had assured the apostle of their faith and love, and that they had great remembrance of him always, desiring much to see him, as he them. Making known to them the great joy which these tidings had caused in him, he now affectionately re-assures them of his high and constant regard for them, and of his continued remembrance of them in his prayers. He then proceeds briefly to exhort them to a perseverance in the Christian course, in which they had made so fair an outset, urging upon them more especially, those virtues which were peculiarly rare among those with whom they were daily brought in contact,――purity of life, rigid honesty in business transactions, a charitable regard for the feelings of others, a quiet, peaceable, inoffensive deportment, and other minuter counsels, according to the peculiar circumstances of different persons among them. The greater portion of this brief letter, indeed, is taken up with these plain, practical matters, with no reference to any deep doctrinal subjects, the whole being thus evidently well-suited to the condition of believers who had but just begun the Christian course, and had been in no way prepared to appreciate any learned discussion of those obscure points which in later periods were the subject of so much controversy among some of Paul’s converts. Their dangers hitherto had also been mainly in the moral rather than in the doctrinal way, and the only error of mere belief, to which he makes reference, is one which has always been the occasion of a great deal of harmless folly among the ignorant and the weak minded in the Christian churches, from the apostolic age to this day. The evil however, was considered by the apostle of so much importance, that he thought it worth while to briefly expose its folly to the Thessalonians, and he accordingly discourses to them of the day of judgment, assuring them that those who might happen to be alive at the moment of Christ’s coming, would derive no peculiar advantage from that circumstance, because those who had died in Christ should rise first, and the survivors be then caught up to meet the Lord in the air. But as for “the times and the seasons,”――those endless themes for the discursive nonsense of the visionary, even to the present day and hour,――he assures them that there was no need at all that he should write to them, because they already well knew that the day of the Lord should come as a thief in the night, according to the words of Jesus himself. The only practical benefit which they could expect to derive then, from this part of their faith, was the conviction of the necessity of constantly bearing in mind the shortness and uncertainty of their earthly stay, and the importance of watchfulness and sobriety. After several sententious moral exhortations, he concludes with affectionate salutations, and with an earnest, solemn charge, that the letter should be read to all the brethren of the church.

It will be observed, that at the conclusion of the epistle is a statement that it was written from _Athens_,――an assertion perfectly absurd, and rendered evidently so by the statements contained in the epistle itself, as above shown. All the similar statements appended to his other epistles are equally unauthorized, and most of them equally false;――being written by some exceedingly foolish copyists, who were too stupid to understand the words which they transcribed. Yet these idle falsehoods are gravely given in all copies of the English translation, and are thus continually sent abroad to mislead common readers, many of whom, seeing them thus attached to the apostolic writings, suppose them to be also of inspired authority, and are deceived accordingly. And they probably will continue to be thus copied, in spite of their palpable and mischievous falsehood, until such a revolution in the moral sense of common people takes place, that they shall esteem a new negative truth more valuable and interesting, than an old, groundless blunder.

For some time after the writing of the first epistle to the Thessalonians, with these triumphs and other encouragements, Paul and his faithful helpers appear to have gone on steadily in their apostolic labors, with no special obstacle or difficulty, that is commemorated in the sacred record. But at last their old difficulties began to manifest themselves in the gradually awakened enmity of the Jews, who, though at his first distinct public ministrations they had expressed a decided and scornful opposition to the doctrine of a crucified Savior, yet suffered the new teachers to go on, without opposing them any farther than by scornful verbal hostility, blasphemy and abuse. But when they saw the despised heresy making such rapid advances, notwithstanding the contempt with which it was visited, they immediately determined to let it no longer take advantage of their inefficiency in resisting its progress. Of course, deprived themselves, of all political power, they had not the means of meeting the evil by physical violence, and they well knew that any attempt on their part to raise an illegal commotion against the strangers, would only bring down on the exciters of the disturbance, the whole vengeance of their Roman rulers, who were unsparing in their vengeance on those that undertook to defy the forms of their laws, for the sake of persecution, or any private ends; and least of all would a class of people so peculiar and so disliked as the Jews, be allowed to take any such treasonable steps, without insuring them a most dreadful punishment. These circumstances therefore compelled them to proceed, as usual, under the forms of law; and their first step against Paul therefore, was to apprehend him, and take him, as a violator of religious order, before the highest Roman tribunal,――that of the proconsul.

The proconsul of Achaia, holding his supreme seat of justice in Corinth, the capital of that Roman province, was Lucius Junius GALLIO, a man well known to the readers of one of the classic Latin writers of that age,――Seneca,――as one of the most remarkable exemplifications of those noble virtues which were the great theme of this philosopher’s pen. Out of many beautiful illustrations which may be drawn from Roman and Jewish writers, to explain and amplify the honest and faithful apostolic history of Luke, there is none more striking and gratifying than the aid here drawn from this fine philosophical classic, on the character of the noble proconsul, who by his upright, wise, and clement decision, against the mean persecutors of Paul,――and by his indignant refusal to pervert and degrade his vice-regal power to the base ends of private abuse, has acquired the grateful regard and admiring respect of all Christian readers of apostolic history. The name of Lucius Junius Gallio, by which he is known to Roman writers as well as in apostolic history, was not his original family designation, and therefore gives the reader no idea of his interesting relationship to one of the finest moralists of the whole period of the Roman empire. His original family name was Marcus Annaeus Novatus Seneca,――which appellation he exchanged for his later one, on being adopted by Lucius Junius Gallio, a noble Roman, who being destitute of children, adopted, according to a very common custom of the imperial city, one of a family that had already given promise of a fine reward to those who should take its offspring as theirs. The famous philosopher before mentioned,――Lucius Annaeus Seneca,――was his own brother; both of them being the sons of Marcus Annaeus Seneca, a distinguished orator and rhetorician of the Augustan age. A strong and truly fraternal affection always continued to hold the two brothers together, even after they had been separated in name by the adoption of the older into the family of Gallio; and the philosopher often commemorates his noble brother, in terms of high respect; and dedicated to him one of the most perfect of those moral treatises which have immortalized the name of Seneca.