Lives of the apostles of Jesus Christ

by David Francis Bacon

[♦] “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.