It is not difficult to tell to which of the four parties at Corinth this epistle was addressed. That the difference between Paul and Apollos grew out of opposing opinions as to the nature of Christ admits of little doubt, and is rendered certain by the first, second, and third chapters of his First Epistle to the Corinthians. He says: "For other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ." That is, I have taught to you Christ as he is, and it is not for any other man to teach anything different. He declares that "according to the grace of God which is given unto me, as a wise master-builder, I have laid the foundation.".... "let every man take heed how he buildeth thereon." Here is a plain intimation that the Christ of Paul rested upon a different foundation from that of Apollos—the one divine, the other human. "I have planted, Apollos watered." That is, I have planted the seed that will produce the true fruit, and it is for others only to cultivate and nourish what I have planted.
He tells the Corinthians that they were born unto a knowledge of Christ through his gospel—that is, through his preaching; and that if they had ten thousand instructors, of these there would not be many who, as spiritual fathers, could reveal to them the truth as he had. "Wherefore, I beseech you, be ye followers of me. For this cause have I sent unto you Timotheus, who is my beloved son, and faithful in the Lord, who shall bring you into remembrance of my ways which be in Christ, as I teach everywhere in every church." (1 Cor. iv. 16, 17.) What more conclusive evidence could be asked that Apollos was preaching doctrines different from those of Paul as to the nature of Christ, than that the latter sent Timothy to counteract them? and what other doctrines was the former teaching than those of the Alexandrian school? When Paul says all Asia had turned against him, it could only be on the questions which had sprung up between himself and Apollos. It could not be on account of circumcision, because on this point the Greeks would agree with Paul. It was not on account of different views on the subject of the resurrection, because that was retained and became the foundation of the Christian faith. There was but a single point upon which those who professed Christianity at that day could turn upon Paul, and that is his "ways which be in Christ" as he taught them in all the churches. The quarrels of Paul with the Jews on the subject of circumcision died away in the church not long after his death, drowned out by the Greek and Therapeutæ element; but the cause of the strife between the followers of Paul and Apollos has continued down, in some form, even to our own times.
It could not be long after his letter to the Corinthians that the doctrines preached by Apollos spread through all the churches of Asia Minor and became the established orthodox faith. Paul, in the Second Epistle to Timothy, says: "All Asia has turned against me." A mere change of name—Therapeutæ to Christian—and the revolution was complete. It was made so rapidly that the world scarcely noticed it. The Therapeutæ, who were spread over Europe, Asia, and portions of Africa, disappeared so suddenly that it has always been a problem in history what became of them. But we can find here and there, in the history of the times, evidences that the few friends of Paul did not give up the contest with their powerful foe without a struggle. These struggles come to the surface of history like the bubbles from the mouth of a drowning man.
But little change in doctrines was required to justify the Therapeutæ in taking upon themselves the name of Christians. Christ, with Paul, was a Mediator, and so was the Logos of Philo. "What intelligent person," says the latter, "who views mankind engaged in unworthy and wicked pursuits, but must be grieved to the heart, and call upon that Saviour God, that these crimes may be exterminated, and that by a ransom and price of redemption being given for his soul, it may again obtain its freedom. It pleased God, therefore, to appoint his Logos to be a Mediator. To his Word, the chief and most ancient of all in heaven, the great Author of the world gave this especial gift: that he should stand as a medium (or intercessor) between the Creator and the created; and he is accordingly the Advocate of all mortals." (Jacob Bryant, quoted in Clarke's Commentaries on St. John's Gospel.) As the Therapeutæ of Philo were the descendants of a Jewish colony who had settled in Egypt, and still retained in some degree their Mosaic ideas and belief in the Old Testament, under the light of the school of Alexandria, where the doctrines of Philo were taught, they readily adopted the Alexandrian ideas of the Logos. The belief in some intermediate or mediatorial power between God and man was common to the Jews as well as most other people. Adam, by his disobedience, had broken the law, and if he or his descendants are ever to be restored to the favor of the Creator, it is to be done through the office of a Mediator. The notions of Philo on the nature of the Logos suited the Therapeutæ much better than did those of Paul, and after a short struggle we will discover the Alexandrian dogmas to be the creed of the orthodox. Christ's appearance on earth, his death and resurrection, are what Paul preached, and what the Therapeutæ, who were converted by him, believed. These features were retained in the church after the Philo ideas of the Logos had displaced the Christ of Paul. It was only Paul's doctrine of the descent of Jesus from Mary and Joseph after the flesh that was thrown aside by them. The intervention of the Virgin, at a later period in the history of the church, was the means by which the Christ of Paul was made the Son of God in the sense of the Alexandrian school.
The transition of the Therapeutæ to Christianity was easy. Little or no change was made in the form of the services in the church. According to Eusebius, they sang hymns. They read sacred books and made comments on them as well after as before the change. Like the first Christian community, they held all their property in common. They said grace at table both before and after meals, according to Josephus, which they continued to do after they took the name of Christians. They made no change in their fasts and festivals, and retained the monasteries. The transfer of the form of the Therapeutæ church government to the new church was the work of time, and was not fully effected until the second century. The influence of Paul's name, with other causes, was too strong during the first to permit the change.
A Bishop in a Christian church is the work of the second century. Like every other new feature in its history, we find the first Bishop at Alexandria. Gibbon says: "The extensive commerce of Alexandria, and its proximity to Palestine, gave an easy entrance to the new religion. It was at first embraced by great numbers of the Therapeutæ, or Essenians of the lake Mareotis, a Jewish sect which had abated much of its reverence for the Mosaic ceremonies. The austere life of the Essenians, their fasts and excommunications, the community of goods, the love of celibacy, their zeal for martyrdom, and the warmth though not the purity of their faith, already offered a very lively image of the primitive discipline. It was in the school of Alexandria that the Christian theology appears to have assumed a regular and scientific form; and when Hadrian visited Egypt he found a church, composed of Jews and of Greeks, sufficiently important to attract the notice of that inquisitive prince." (Ch. xv. (162) (163), vol. I. p. 283.)*
* After the author had written out his views as above, he
met with the following passages from the writings of
Michaelis, the great German critic, quoted in Taylor's
Diegesis. Of the Therapeutæ, he says they are a "Jewish
sect, which began to spread itself at Ephesus, and to
threaten great mischief to Christianity in the time (or
indeed previous to the time) of St. Paul, on which account,
in his epistles to the Ephesians, to the Colossians, and to
Timothy, he declares himself openly against them."
(Diegesisy 58.)
Again: "It is evident from the above-mentioned epistles of
Paul, that, to the great mortification of the apostle, they
insinuated themselves very early into the church." (60.) The
writer does not wish to be understood that the disturbances
created in the church were confined to Corinth, and that
Apollos was the only one who taught during the life of Paul
the doctrines of the Alexandrian school. Wherever Paul had
founded a church, there the Therapeutæ element was at work.
Apollos, by his superior eloquence and learning, was
distinguished from a host of agitators, and called forth the
special notice of Paul. element was at work. Apollos, by his
superior eloquence and learning, was distinguished from a
host of agitators, and called forth the special notice of
Paul.
It is safe to say that it was the Therapeutæ who caused the troubles in the churches in Paul's time and afterwards, because no other sect or society was so extended, and had the power to make the disturbance so universal. Paul could complain of no other, and it was this sect that turned all Asia against him. There is no way to account for the sudden and wonderful increase of Christians in a few years before Paul's death, unless we can refer the cause to the sudden conversion of the Therapeutæ to the new religion. When they are suddenly lost to sight, the small churches of Paul have grown great in numbers, and spread over Europe and Asia in an incredibly short space of time.
Before going to press, the writer came into the possession of the works of Michaelis, where we find the following passage: "But even before Apollos had received the instructions of Aquila and Priscilla, he taught publicly in the synagogue at Ephesus concerning the Messiah. Hence it is not improbable that the Essenes introduced themselves into the church at Ephesus by means of Apollos, who came from Alexandria, in the neighborhood of which city, according to Philo, the Essenes were not only numerous but were held in high estimation." (Vol. iv. p. 85.) It would seem from this that Apollos only continued to do at Corinth what he first began at Ephesus.
No man of any age suffered so much abuse, nor was there ever one whose memory labored under such a weight of obloquy as that of Paul—first from the followers of Apollos; and afterwards from the Catholics of the second century, when the mother of God rose like a new star in the heavens. The first half of the Acts was written, as will be shown, expressly to exalt Peter over him and degrade him from the rank of an Apostle. The Revelation ascribed to St. John is nothing but a bitter tirade of denunciation against Paul and his followers. He is called a liar, "the false prophet," who with the beast was cast alive into a lake of burning fire. He is the great red dragon who stood before the woman ready to devour the child Jesus as soon as he was born, and who warred with Michael and the angels. Paul is not only denounced, but Christ himself is made to declare his status in the Godhead. "I Jesus have sent mine angel to testify unto you these things in the churches." (xxii. 16.) What the things were to which the angel was to bear testimony, sufficiently appears in every portion of the book of Revelation. Why was Paul the subject of so much abuse? There can be but one answer. It was because of the way in which he taught Christ in all the churches, which he had learned from the Apostles in his interviews with them at Jerusalem, and probably from Joseph and Mary themselves, for they occurred about the year A.D. 40.