Essays on the work entitled "Supernatural Religion"

by J. B. Lightfoot

APPENDIX

The following paper has no reference to the work entitled 'Supernatural Religion'; but, as it is kindred in subject and appeared in the same Review, I have given it a place here.

DISCOVERIES ILLUSTRATING THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES.

[MAY, 1878.]

In a former volume M. Renan declared his opinion that 'the author of the Third Gospel and the Acts was verily and indeed (bien réellement) Luke, a disciple of St Paul [291:1]. In the last instalment of his work he condemns as untenable the view that the first person plural of the later chapters is derived from some earlier document inserted by the author, on the ground that these portions are identical in style with the rest of the work [291:2]. Such an expression of opinion, proceeding from a not too conservative critic, is significant; and this view of the authorship, I cannot doubt, will be the final verdict of the future, as it has been the unbroken tradition of the past. But at a time when attacks on the genuineness of the work have been renewed, it may not be out of place to call attention to some illustrations of the narrative which recent discoveries have brought to light. No ancient work affords so many tests of veracity; for no other has such numerous points of contact in all directions with contemporary history, politics, and topography, whether Jewish or Greek or Roman. In the publications of the year 1877 Cyprus and Ephesus have made important contributions to the large mass of evidence already existing.

1. The government of the Roman provinces at this time was peculiarly dangerous ground for the romance-writer to venture upon. When Augustus assumed the supreme power he divided the provinces under the Roman dominion with the Senate. From that time forward there were two sets of provincial governors. The ruler of a senatorial province was styled a proconsul ([Greek: anthupatos]), while the officer to whom an imperatorial province was entrusted bore the name of proprætor ([Greek: antistratêgos]) or legate ([Greek: presbeutês]). Thus the use of the terms 'proconsul' and 'proprætor' was changed; for, whereas in republican times they signified that the provincial governors bearing them had previously held the offices of consul and prætor respectively at home, they were now employed to distinguish the superior power under which the provinces were administered without regard to the previous rank of the governors administering them. Moreover, the original subdivision of the provinces between the Emperor and Senate underwent constant modifications. If disturbances broke out in a senatorial province and military rule was necessary to restore order, it would be transferred to the Emperor as the head of the army, and the Senate would receive an imperatorial province in exchange. Hence at any given time it would be impossible to say without contemporary, or at least very exact historical knowledge, whether a particular province was governed by a proconsul or a proprætor. The province of Achaia is a familiar illustration of this point. A very few years before St Paul's visit to Corinth, and some years later, Achaia was governed by a proprætor. Just at this time, however, it was in the hands of the Senate, and its ruler therefore was a proconsul as represented by St Luke.

Cyprus is a less familiar, but not less instructive, example of the same accuracy. Older critics, even when writing on the apologetic side, had charged St Luke with an incorrect use of terms; and the origin of their mistake is a significant comment on the perplexities in which a later forger would find himself entangled in dealing with these official designations. They fell upon a passage in Strabo [292:1] where this writer, after mentioning the division of the provinces between the Emperor and the Senate, states that the Senate sent consuls to the two provinces of Asia and Africa but prætors to the rest on their list,—among which he mentions Cyprus; and they jumped at the conclusion—very natural in itself—that the governor of Cyprus would be called a proprætor. Accordingly Baronio [293:1] suggested that Cyprus, though a prætorian province, was often handed over honoris causa to be administered by the proconsul of Cilicia, and he assumed therefore that Sergius Paulus held this latter office; while Grotius found a solution in the hypothesis that proconsul was a title bestowed by flatterers on an official whose proper designation was proprætor. The error illustrates the danger of a little learning, not the less dangerous when it is in the hands of really learned men. Asia and Africa, the two great prizes of the profession, exhausted the normal two consuls of the preceding year; and the Senate therefore were obliged to send ex-prætors and other magistrates to govern the remaining provinces under their jurisdiction. But it is now an unquestioned and unquestionable fact that all the provincial governors who represented the Senate in imperial times, whatever magistracy they might have held previously, were styled officially proconsuls [293:2].

The circumstances indeed, so far as regards Cyprus, are distinctly stated by Dion Cassius. At the original distribution of the provinces (B.C. 27) this island had fallen to the Emperor's share; but the historian, while describing the assignment of the several countries in the first instance, adds that the Emperor subsequently gave back Cyprus and Gallia Narbonensis to the Senate, himself taking Dalmatia in exchange [293:3]; and at a later point, when he arrives at the time in question (B.C. 22), he repeats the information respecting the transfer. 'And so,' he adds, 'proconsuls began to be sent to those nations also' [294:1]. Of the continuance of Cyprus under the jurisdiction of the Senate, about the time to which St Luke's narrative refers we have ample evidence. Contemporary records bear testimony to the existence of proconsuls in Cyprus not only before and after but during the reign of Claudius. The inscriptions mention by name two proconsuls who governed the province in this Emperor's time (A.D. 51, 52) [294:2]; while a third, and perhaps a fourth, are recorded on the coins [294:3]. At a later date, under Hadrian, we come across a proprætor of Cyprus [294:4]. The change would probably be owing to the disturbed state of the province consequent on the insurrection of the Jews. But at the close of the same century (A.D. 198)—under Severus—it is again governed by a proconsul [294:5]; and this was its normal condition.

Thus the accuracy of St Luke's designation is abundantly established; but hitherto no record had been found of the particular proconsul mentioned by him. This defect is supplied by one of General Cesnola's inscriptions. It is somewhat mutilated indeed, so that the meaning of parts is doubtful; but for our purpose it is adequate. A date is given as [Greek: EPI PAULOU [ANTH]UPATOU], 'in the proconsulship of Paulus.' On this Cesnola remarks: 'The proconsul Paulus may be the Sergius Paulus of the Acts of the Apostles (chap. xiii.), as instances of the suppression of one of two names are not rare' [294:6]. An example of the suppression in this very name Sergius Paulus will be given presently, thus justifying the identification of the proconsul of the Acts with the proconsul of this inscription.

Of this Sergius Paulus, the proconsul of Cyprus, Dean Alford says that 'nothing more is known.' But is it certain that he is not mentioned elsewhere? In the index of contents and authorities which forms the first book of Pliny's Natural History, this writer twice names one Sergius Paulus among the Latin authors to whom he was indebted. May not this have been the same person? The name is not common. So far as I have observed, only one other person bearing it [295:1]—probably a descendant of this Cyprian proconsul—is mentioned, of whom I shall have something to say hereafter; and he flourished more than a century later. Only one test of identity suggests itself. The Sergius Paulus of Pliny is named as an authority for the second and eighteenth books of that writer. Now on the hypothesis that the proconsul of Cyprus is meant, it would be a natural supposition that, like Sir J. Emerson Tennent or Sir Rutherford Alcock, this Sergius Paulus would avail himself of the opportunities afforded by his official residence in the East to tell his Roman fellow-countrymen something about the region in which he had resided. We therefore look with interest to see whether these two books of Pliny contain any notices respecting Cyprus, which might reasonably be explained in this way; and our curiosity is not disappointed. In the second book, besides two other brief notices (cc. 90, 112) relating to the situation of Cyprus, Pliny mentions (c. 97) an area in the temple of Venus at Paphos on which the rain never falls. In the eighteenth book again, besides an incidental mention of this island (c. 57), he gives some curious information (c. 12) with respect to the Cyprian corn, and the bread made therefrom. It should be added that for the second book, in which the references to Cyprus come late, Sergius Paulus is the last-mentioned Latin authority; whereas for the eighteenth, where they are early, he occupies an earlier, though not very early, place in the list. These facts may be taken for what they are worth. In a work, which contains such a multiplicity of details as Pliny's Natural History, we should not be justified in laying too much stress on coincidences of this kind.