Lives of the apostles of Jesus Christ

by David Francis Bacon

“By τούτων, (verse 17,) we may, I think, understand both the accusation brought forward, and the cuffs which followed; to neither of which the Proconsul paid much attention; and this from disgust at the litigious conduct of the Jews; as also from the custom, mentioned by Pricaeus, of the Roman governors, to pass by any conduct which did not directly tend to degrade the dignity of the Roman name, or weaken its influence, in order that the yoke might be as easy as possible to the provincials.” (Bloomfield’s Annotations, Vol. IV. pp. 603–605.)

CORINTH——CENCHREA.
Romans xvi. 1. Acts xviii. 18.

His character having been thus vindicated, and his safety thus assured him by the supreme civil authority, Paul resided for a long time in Corinth, steadily pursuing his apostolic work, without any direct hindrance or molestation from the Jews. There is no reason to suppose that he confined all his labor entirely to the city; on the contrary, it is quite certain, that the numerous smaller gospel fields throughout the adjacent country, must have attracted his attention, and it appears, from the commencement of his second epistle to the Corinthians, that many throughout all Achaia had received the gospel, and had been numbered among the saints. Corinth, however, remained the great center of his operations in Greece, and from this place he soon after directed another epistle to one of his apostolic charges in Macedonia,——the church of Thessalonica. Since his former epistle had been received by them, there had arisen a new occasion for his anxious attention to their spiritual condition, and in his second letter he alludes distinctly to the fact that there had been misrepresentations of his opinion, and seems to imply that a letter had been forged in his name, and presented to them, as containing a new and more complete account of the exact time of the expected coming of Christ, to which he had only vaguely alluded in the first. In the second chapter of his second epistle, he renews his warning against these delusions about the coming of Christ, alluding to the fact, that they had been deceived and disturbed by misstatements on this subject, and had been led into error, both by those who pretended to be inspired, and by those who attempted to show by prediction, that the coming of Christ was at hand, and also by the forged epistle pretending to contain Paul’s own more decisive opinions on the subject. He exhorts them to “let no man deceive them by any of these means.” He warns them moreover, against any that exalt themselves against the doctrines which he had taught them, and denounces all false and presumptuous teachers in very bitter terms. After various warnings against these and all disorderly persons among them, he refers to his own behavior while with them, as an example for them to follow, and reminds them how blamelessly and honestly he behaved himself. He did not presume on his apostolic office, to be an idler, or to eat any man’s bread for naught, but steadily worked with his own hands, lest he should be chargeable to any one of them; and this he did, not because his apostolic office did not empower him to live without manual labor, and to depend on those to whom he preached for his means of subsistence, but because he wished to make himself, and his fellow-laborers, Silas and Timothy, examples for their behavior after he was gone. Yet it seemed that, notwithstanding the pains he had taken to inculcate an honest and industrious course, several persons among them had assumed the office of teaching and reproving, and had considered themselves thereby excused from doing anything for their own support. In the conclusion, he refers them distinctly to his own signature and salutation, which authenticate every epistle which he writes, and without which, no letter was to be esteemed genuine. This he specifies, no doubt, for the sake of putting them on their guard against the repetition of any such deception as had been lately practised on them in his name.

HIS VOYAGE BACK TO THE EAST.

Soon after Paul had written his second epistle to the Thessalonians, he left Corinth, in the spring of A. D. 56, as it is commonly calculated, and after bidding the brethren farewell, journeyed back to Asia, from whose shores he had now been absent not less than three years. On his return journey, he was accompanied by his two acquaintances and fellow-laborers, Aquilas and Priscilla, who were now his most intimate friends, and henceforth were always esteemed among the important aids of the apostolic enterprise. Journeying eastward across the isthmus, they came to Cenchreae, the eastern port of Corinth, and at the head of the great Saronic gulf, about seven miles from the city itself. At this place Paul discharged himself of the obligation of a vow, which he had made some time before, in conformity with a common Jewish custom of thus giving force to their own sense of gratitude for the accomplishment of any desired object. He had vowed to let his hair grow until some unknown end was attained, and now, having seen the prayers which sanctioned that vow granted, he cut off his hair in token of the joyful completion of the enterprise on which he had thus solemnly and formally invoked the blessing of heaven. The actual purpose of this vow is not recorded,——but when the occasion on which he thus exonerated himself is considered, it seems most reasonable to suppose that now, embarking from the shores of Europe, after he had there passed so many years of very peculiar labor and trials, he was thus celebrating the prosperous and happy achievment of his first great western mission, and that this vow had been made for his safe return, when he first sailed from the eastern coast of the Aegean, at Alexandria Troas.

He sailed from Cenchreae to Ephesus, a great city of Ionic Asia, which had never been the scene of his apostolic labors, though he had traversed much of the country around it; for it will be remembered, that on his last journey through Asia Minor, when he had passed over Galatia and Phrygia, he was about to enter Asia Proper, but was hindered by a special impulse of the Spirit, which sent him in a different direction. But having thus achieved his great western enterprise, there was now no longer any more important commission to prevent him from gratifying his eyes with a sight of this very interesting region, and making here an experimental effort to diffuse the knowledge of the gospel through the numerous, wealthy, refined and populous cities of this, the most flourishing and civilized country in the world. He did not intend, however, to make anything more than a mere call at Ephesus; for the great object of his voyage from Europe was to return to Jerusalem and Syria, and give to his brethren, a full statement of all the interesting particulars of his long and remarkable mission in Macedonia and Greece. But he took occasion to vary this eastern route, so as to effect as much good as possible by the way; and therefore embarked first for Ephesus, where he landed with Aquilas and Priscilla, whom he left there, while he continued on his journey, southeastwards. He stopped with them however, a few days, with a view to open this new field of labor with them; and going into the synagogue, discoursed with the Jews. He was so well received by his hearers, that he was earnestly besought to prolong his stay among them; but he excused himself for his refusal of their kind invitation, by stating the great object which he had in view in leaving Europe at that particular time:——“I must by all means keep this coming feast at Jerusalem; but I will return to you,——God willing.” And bidding them farewell, he sailed away from Ephesus to Caesarea, on the coast of Palestine, where he landed. Thence he went up to Jerusalem, to salute the church. In this part of the history of Paul, Luke seems to be exceedingly brief; perhaps because he was not then with him, and had never received from him any account of this journey. There is therefore no way of ascertaining what was the particular motive or design of this visit. It would appear, however, from the very hurried manner in which the visit was noticed, that it was exceedingly brief, and his departure thence may, as Calvin conjectures, have been hastened by the circumstance, that possibly the business on which he went thither did not succeed according to his wishes. At any rate, there seems to have been something very mysterious about the whole matter, else there would not have been this very studied concealment of the motives and details of a journey, which he announced to the brethren of the church at Ephesus, as absolutely necessary for him to perform. This also may have been concealed for the same reason, which has been conjectured to have caused the visit to be so short, as would seem from the manner in which it is noticed. From Jerusalem he went down to Antioch, by what route is not specified,——but probably by way of Caesarea and the sea.

“xviii. 22. Caesarea. A town on the sea-coast. [See the note on p. [173].] Ἀναβὰς, ‘and having gone up.’ Whither? Some commentators, as Camerarius, De Dieu, Wolf, Calov., Heumann, Doddridge, Thaleman, Beck, and Kuinoel, refer it to Caesarea. But this requires the confirmation of examples. And we must take for granted that the city was built high above the port, (which is not likely,) or that the church was so situated; which would be extremely frigid. Neither is it certain that there was a church. Besides, how can the expression καταβαίνω be proper, as used of traveling from a seaport-town, like Caesarea, to Antioch? I therefore prefer the mode of interpretation adopted by some ancient and many modern commentators, as Beza, Grotius, Mor., Rosenmueller, Reichard, Schott, Heinrichs, and others, who supply εἰς Ἱεροσόλυμα. This may indeed seem somewhat harsh; yet it must be remembered that not a few things are so in the New Testament; and ἀναβαίνω is there often used absolutely of going up to Jerusalem, and καταβαίνω of going from thence. Nor is this unexampled in the classical writers. Xenophon uses the word in the very same sense, of those going from Greece to the capital of Persia. See Anabasis 1, 1, 2. Hist. 2, 1. 9, 10. Anabasis 1, 4, 12. Hist. 4, 1, 2. 1, 5, 1. 1, 4, 2. and many other passages referred to by Sturz in his Lexicon Xenophon in voce. Besides, as the words εἰς Ἱεροσόλυμα have just preceded, it is not very harsh to repeat them. Kuinoel, indeed, and some others, treat those words as not genuine; but their opinion rests on mere suspicion, unsupported by any proof.” (Bloomfield Annotations. Vol. IV. p. 607.)

From the very brief and general manner in which the incidents of this visit of Paul to the eastern continent are commemorated, the apostolic historian is left to gather nothing but the most naked circumstances, of the route pursued, and from the results, it is but fair to conclude that nothing of consequence happened to the apostle, as his duties consisted merely in a review and completion of the work he had gone over before. Luke evidently did not accompany Paul in this Asian journey, and he therefore only states the general direction of the apostle’s course, without a single particular. He says that Paul, after making [♦]some stay in Antioch,——where, no doubt he greatly comforted the hearts of the brethren, by the glad tidings of the triumphs of Christ in Europe,——went in regular order over the regions of Galatia, and Phrygia, everywhere confirming the disciples. Beyond this, no incident whatever is preserved; yet here great amplification of the sacred record might be made, from the amusing narrative of that venerable monkish story-teller, who assumes the name of Abdias Babylonius. But from the specimens of his narrative already given, in the lives of Andrew and John, the reader will easily apprehend that they contain nothing which deserves to be intruded into the midst of the honest, authentic statements, of the original and genuine apostolic history; and all these with many other similar inventions are wholly dismissed from the life of Paul, of whose actions such ample records have been left in the writings of himself and his companions, that it is altogether more necessary for the biographer to condense into a modernized form, with proper illustrations, the materials presented on the authority of inspiration, than to prolong the narrative with tedious inventions. In this part of the apostolic history, all that Luke records is, that Paul, after the before-mentioned survey of the inland countries of Asia Minor, came down to the western shore, and visited Ephesus, according to the promise which [♠]he had made them at his farewell, a few months before. Since that hasty visit made in passing, some events important to the gospel cause had happened among them. An Alexandrine Jew named Apollos, a man of great Biblical learning, (as many of the Jews of his native city were,) and indued also with eloquence,——came to Ephesus, and there soon distinguished himself as a religious teacher. Of the doctrines of Jesus Christ and his apostles, indeed, he had never heard; but he had somewhere been made acquainted with the peculiar reforming principles of his great forerunner, John the Baptist, and had been baptized, probably by some one of his disciples. With great fervor and power, he discoursed learnedly of the things of the Lord, in the synagogue at Ephesus, and of course, was brought under the notice of Aquilas and Priscilla, whom Paul had left to occupy that important field, while he was making his southeastern tour. They took pains to draw Apollos into their acquaintance, and found him, like every truly learned man, very ready to learn, even from those who were his inferiors in most departments of sacred knowledge. From them he heard with great interest and satisfaction, the peculiar and striking truths revealed in Jesus, and at once professing his faith in this new revelation, went forth again among the Jews, replenished with a higher learning and a diviner spirit. After teaching for some time in Ephesus, he was disposed to try his new powers in some other field; and proposing to journey into Achaia, his two Christian friends gave him letters of introduction and recommendation to the brethren of the church in Corinth. While he was there laboring with great efficiency in the gospel cause, Paul returning from his great apostolic survey of the inland and upper regions of Asia Minor, came to Ephesus. Entering on this work of perfecting and uniting the results of the various irregular efforts made by the different persons, who had before labored there, he found, among those who professed to hold the doctrines of a new revelation, about a dozen men, who knew very little of the great doctrines which Paul had been in the habit of preaching. One of his first questions to them, of course, was whether they had yet received that usual convincing sign of the Christian faith,——the Holy Spirit. To which they answered in some surprise, that they had not yet heard that there was any Holy Spirit;——thus evidently showing that they knew nothing about any such sign or its effects. Paul, in his turn considerably surprised, at this remarkable ignorance of a matter of such high importance, was naturally led to ask what kind of initiation they had received into the new dispensation; and learning from them, that they had only been baptized according to the baptism of John,——instantly assured them of the incompleteness of that revelation of the truth. “John truly baptized with the baptism of repentance, telling the people that they must believe on him that should come after him,——that is on Christ Jesus.” Hearing this, they consented to receive from the apostle of Jesus, the renewal of the sign of faith, which they had formerly known as the token of that partial revelation made by John; and they were therefore baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus,——a form of words which of course had never been pronounced over them before. Paul, then laying his hands on them, invoked the influence of the Holy Spirit, which was then immediately manifested, by the usual miraculous gifts which accompanied its effusion.

[♦] removed duplicate word “some”