Lives of the apostles of Jesus Christ

by David Francis Bacon

SECOND VOYAGE TO EUROPE.

After the disturbances connected with the mob raised by Demetrius had wholly ceased, and public attention was no longer directed to the motions of the preachers of the Christian doctrine, Paul determined to execute the plan, which he had for some time contemplated, of going over his European fields of labor again, according to his universal and established custom of revisiting and confirming his work, within a moderately brief period after first opening the ground for evangelization. Assembling the disciples about him, he bade them farewell, and turning northward, came to Troas, whence, six or seven years before, he had set out on his first voyage to Macedonia. The plan of his journey, as he first arranged it, had been to sail from the shores of Asia Minor directly for Corinth. He had resolved however, not to go to that city, until the very disagreeable difficulties which had there arisen in the church, had been entirely removed, according to the directions given in the epistle which he had written to them from Ephesus; because he did not desire, after an absence of years, to visit them in such circumstances, when his Corinthian converts were divided among themselves, and against him,——and when his first duties would necessarily be those of a rigid censor. He therefore waited at Troas, with great impatience, for a message from them, announcing the settlement of all difficulties. This he expected to receive through Titus, a person now first mentioned in the apostle’s history. Waiting with great impatience for this beloved brother, he found no rest in his spirit, and though a door was evidently opened by the Lord for the preaching of the gospel in Troas, he had no spirit for the good work there; and desiring to be as near the great object of his anxieties as possible, he accordingly took leave of the brethren at Troas, and crossed the Aegean into Macedonia, by his former route. Here he remained in great distress of mind, until his soul was at last comforted by the long expected arrival of Titus. Luke only says, that he went over those parts and gave them much exhortation. But though his route is not given, his apostolic labors are known to have extended to the borders of Illyricum. At this time also, he made another important contribution to the list of the apostolic writings.

THE SECOND EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS.

There is no part of the New Testament canon, about the date of which all authorities are so well agreed, as on the place and time, at which Paul wrote his second epistle to the Corinthians. All authorities, ancient and modern, decide that it was written during the second visit of Paul to Macedonia; although as to the exact year in which this took place, they are not entirely unanimous. The passages in the epistle itself, which refer to Macedonia as the region in which the apostle then was, are so numerous indeed, that there can be no evasion of their evidence. A great topic of interest with him, at the time of writing this epistle, was the collecting of the contributions proposed for the relief of the Christian brethren in Jerusalem; and upon this he enlarges much, informing the Corinthians of the great progress he was making in Macedonia in this benevolent undertaking, and what high hopes he had entertained and expressed to the Macedonians, of the zeal and ability of those in Achaia, about the contributions. This matter had been noticed and arranged by him, in his former epistle to them, as already noticed, and he now proposed to send forward Titus and another person, (who is commonly supposed to be Luke,) to take charge of these funds, thus collected. He speaks of coming also himself, after a little time, and makes some allusions to the difficulties which had constituted the subject of the great part of his former epistle. Of their amendment in the particulars then so severely censured, he had received a full account through Titus, when that beloved brother came on from Corinth, to join Paul in Macedonia. Paul assures the Corinthians of the very great joy caused in him, by the good news of their moral and spiritual improvement, and renews his ardent protestations of deep affection for them. The incestuous person, whom they had excommunicated, in conformity with the denunciatory directions given in the former epistle, he now forgives; and as the offender has since appeared to be truly penitent, he now urges his restoration to the consolations of Christian fellowship, lest he should be swallowed up with too much sorrow. He defends his apostolic character for prudence and decision, against those who considered his change of plans about coming directly from Ephesus to Corinth, as an exhibition of lightness and unsettled purpose. His real object in this delay and change of purpose, as he tells them, was, that they might have time to profit by the reproofs contained in his former epistle, so that by the removal of the evils of which he so bitterly complained, he might finally be enabled to come to them, not in sorrow, nor in heaviness for their sins, but in joy for their reformation. This fervent hope had been fulfilled by the coming of Titus to Macedonia, for whom he had waited in vain, with so much anxiety at Troas, as the expected messenger of these tidings of their spiritual condition; and he was now therefore prepared to pass on to them from Macedonia, to which region he tells them he had gone from Troas, instead of to Corinth, because he had been disappointed about meeting Titus on the eastern side of the Aegean. With the exception of these things, the epistle is taken up with a very ample and eloquent exhibition of his true powers and office as an apostle; and in the course of this argument, so necessary for the re-establishment of his authority among those who had lately been disposed to contemn it, he makes many very interesting allusions to his own personal history. The date of the epistle is commonly supposed, and with good reason, to be A. D. 58, the fifth of Nero’s reign, and one year after the preceding epistle.

MILETUS. Acts xx. 15–17.

“Chapter ii. 12, 13. ‘When I came to Troas to preach Christ’s gospel, and a door was opened unto me of the Lord, I had no rest in my spirit, because I found not Titus my brother; but taking my leave of them, I went from thence into Macedonia.’

“To establish a conformity between this passage and the history, nothing more is necessary to be presumed, than that St. Paul proceeded from Ephesus to Macedonia, upon the same course by which he came back from Macedonia to Ephesus, or rather to Miletus in the neighborhood of Ephesus; in other words, that, in his journey to the peninsula of Greece, he went and returned the same way. St. Paul is now in Macedonia, where he had lately arrived from Ephesus. Our quotation imports that in his journey he had stopped at Troas. Of this, the history says nothing, leaving us only the short account, ‘that Paul departed from Ephesus, for to go into Macedonia.’ But the history says, that in his return from Macedonia to Ephesus, ‘Paul sailed from Philippi to Troas; and that, when the disciples came together on the first day of the week, to break bread, Paul preached unto them all night; that from Troas he went by land to Assos; from Assos, taking ship and coasting along the front of Asia Minor, he came by Mitylene to Miletus.’ Which account proves, first, that Troas lay in the way by which St. Paul passed between Ephesus and Macedonia; secondly, that he had disciples there. In one journey between these two places, the epistle, and in another journey between the same places, the history makes him stop at this city. Of the first journey he is made to say, ‘that a door was in that city opened unto him of the Lord;’ in the second, we find disciples there collected around him, and the apostle exercising his ministry, with, what was even in him, more than ordinary zeal and labor. The epistle, therefore, is in this instance confirmed, if not by the terms, at least by the probability of the history; a species of confirmation by no means to be despised, because, as far as it reaches, it is evidently uncontrived.

“Grotius, I know, refers the arrival at Troas, to which the epistle alludes, to a different period, but I think very improbably; for nothing appears to me more certain, than that the meeting with Titus, which St. Paul expected at Troas, was the same meeting which took place in Macedonia, viz. upon Titus’s coming out of Greece. In the quotation before us, he tells the Corinthians, ‘When I came to Troas, I had no rest in my spirit, because I found not Titus, my brother; but, taking my leave of them, I went from thence into Macedonia.’ Then in the seventh chapter he writes, ‘When we were come into Macedonia, our flesh had no rest, but we were troubled on every side; without were fightings, within were fears; nevertheless, God, that comforteth them that are cast down, comforted us by the coming of Titus.’ These two passages plainly relate to the same journey of Titus, in meeting with whom St. Paul had been disappointed at Troas, and rejoiced in Macedonia. And amongst other reasons which fix the former passage to the coming of Titus out of Greece, is the consideration, that it was nothing to the Corinthians that St. Paul did not meet with Titus at Troas, were it not that he was to bring intelligence from Corinth. The mention of the disappointment in this place, upon any other supposition, is irrelative.” (Paley’s Horae Paulinae. 2 Corinthians No. VIII.)

SECOND JOURNEY TO CORINTH.