An analysis of religious belief

by viscount John Russell Amberley

The writer now follows the fortunes of Paul in his missionary work in various countries, and it is remarkable that in the sixteenth chapter he drops the third person, and begins to speak in the first person plural, implying that he himself was one of the company. The fact that from this point onwards the book becomes practically not the Acts of the Apostles, but the Acts of Paul, who is evidently the hero of the story, indicates an author who belonged to the Pauline section of the Church, and to whom Paul was the chief living embodiment of the Christian faith. Who this author was—whether Silas, or some other companion—it would be hard to say, but he seems to have written under the direct inspiration of Paul himself.

Increased by the addition of Timotheus, the party, guided by a vision seen by Paul of a Macedonian entreating them to come, went into Macedonia. At Philippi they met with some success among women, making particular friends with a purple-seller named Lydia. But the conversion of a divining girl who was a source of profit to her employers, led to the imprisonment of Paul and Silas, from which, however, an opportune earthquake set them free (Acts xvi).

At Athens Paul made a speech on the Areopagos, in which he ingeniously availed himself of an altar he had noticed, inscribed "To an Unknown God," to maintain that this unknown God was no other than the Jehovah of the Jews (Acts xvii. 16-34). At Corinth he was allowed to preach every Sabbath in the synagogue (as he had done at Thessalonica, and did again at Ephesus), another evidence of the tolerant spirit of the Jews as compared with Christians. Not, of course, that the Jews were not bigoted adherents of their narrow creed, or that they had any scruple about supporting it by physical force; but they were willing to allow those who had a reformation to propose to be heard in the synagogues. The effect, as might be expected, was to embitter those who remained orthodox against Paul. But an attempt on their part to bring him under the jurisdiction of the civil tribunals failed, and after remaining a long time at Corinth, he went on to Ephesus, and thence continued his course through Galatia and Phrygia (Acts xviii. 1-23). An eloquent and able Alexandrian, Apollos by name, came to Ephesus, after Paul had left it. He was a believer in John the Baptist, and was received into the Church by Paul's friends, Aquila and Priscilla, whom he had left behind.

A singular incident occurred on a subsequent visit of Paul's to Ephesus. He found some disciples there and asked them whether they had received the Holy Ghost. They replied that they did not even know whether there was a Holy Ghost. Such crass ignorance must have astonished Paul, who inquired into what they had been baptized. They said, into John's baptism, and the apostle accordingly baptized them in the name of Jesus, with the striking result that they immediately received the Holy Ghost and began to speak in tongues (Acts xix. 1-7). Curious incidental evidence is thus supplied by the case of Apollos and by that of these Ephesians of the existence of a Johannine sect which Christianity superseded and swept into oblivion; and it is remarkable, as affording a presumption that the Baptist did not regard himself as the mere precursor of Christ, that these Johannists do not appear to have been looking forward to any further development of their principles such as the religion of Jesus supplied.

At Ephesus Paul preached for three months in the synagogue, and then, meeting with much opposition, betook himself to a public room, where he disputed daily. But after he had taught two years, a dangerous riot was excited by the tradesmen who dealt in silver shrines for the Ephesian Artemis, and Paul, after the disturbance had been quelled, determined to go into Macedonia (Acts xix. 8-xx. 1). While he was preaching at Troas, a young man, who had fallen asleep, fell from the window at which he was sitting, and was supposed to have been killed. Paul, however, declared that he was still alive, and told them not to be disturbed. This opinion proved to be correct. To this simple incident the historian, by stating that he was "taken up dead," has contrived to give the aspect of a miracle. The case exactly resembles the supposed miracle of Jesus, discussed above (Supra, vol. i. p. 320-323), and is another illustration of the facility with which natural occurrences may, by the turn of a phrase, be converted into marvels (Acts xx. 7-12).

No arguments were now availing to dissuade the apostle from visiting Jerusalem, where it was well known that peril awaited him. Arrived at the centre of Judaism, his first business was to clear himself from the suspicions entertained of his rationalistic tendencies by taking a vow according to the Mosaic ritual. After this the Asiatic Jews raised a clamor against him which ended in a dangerous tumult. From the violent death which threatened him at the hands of the enraged multitude he was rescued by the Roman troops, under cover of whose protection he made his defense before the people (Acts xxi. 27-xxii. 21). It naturally did not conciliate the Jews; and the Roman officer who had made him prisoner, having been deterred from the application of torture by Paul's Roman citizenship, desired his accusers to appear in court to prefer their charges on the following day (Acts xxii. 22-30). But when the case came on, Paul ingeniously contrived to set the Pharisees against the Sadducees by the assertion that he himself was a Pharisee, and that he was charged with believing in a future state. By this not very candid shift he obtained the support of the Pharisaic party, and produced among his prosecutors a scene of clamor and discord from which it was thought expedient to remove him. Defeated in the courts of law, the more embittered of his enemies formed a scheme of private assassination which was revealed to the captain of the guard by Paul's nephew, and from which he was rescued by being sent by night under a strong military escort to the governor of the province, a man named Felix (Acts xxiii). Ananias, the high priest, and others of the prosecutors, followed Paul to Cæsarea in five days, but the nature of their charges was such that they made little impression upon the mind of the governor. He nevertheless kept Paul in confinement, perhaps hoping (as the narrator suggests) that he would receive a bribe to set him free (Acts xxiv). After two years Festus succeeded Felix, and when this governor visited Jerusalem he was entreated by the priests to send for Paul, which, however, he refused to do, and required the prosecutors to come to him at Cæsarea. They went, and charged Paul with offenses which it is said they could not prove. When Festus asked him whether he would go to Jerusalem to be tried by him, Paul replied that he ought to be tried at Cæsar's judgment-seat, as he had done the Jews no wrong, and that he appealed to Cæsar. The policy of this appeal was questionable, for after a time Festus was visited by King Agrippa, to whom he related the facts of the case; and the king, having heard the statement of the prisoner himself, declared that he might have been set at liberty had he not appealed to Cæsar (Acts xxv., xxvi).

Paul therefore was now sent with a gang of prisoners to Rome, on the way to which the ship he was in was wrecked off the island of Melita, where the winter months were accordingly passed. Here he cured numerous inhabitants of diseases, and received high honors in consequence. After three months an Alexandrine vessel conveyed the shipwrecked company to the capital. Arrived at Rome, Paul summoned the Jews to come to the house where, guarded by a soldier, he was allowed to live, and endeavored to convert them. Meeting with indifferent success, he dismissed them with insulting words drawn from Isaiah, and roundly informed them that the salvation of God was now sent to the Gentiles, and that these would hear it (Acts xxvii., xxviii). What was the ultimate fate of this great teacher of Christianity, whether his case was ever heard, and if so, how it was decided; whether he lived a prisoner, or was set free, or died a martyr, we have no historical information, and it is useless, in the absence of evidence, to attempt to conjecture.

Subdivision 2.—The Epistles.

In the epistles which have been preserved to us, and which are no doubt but a few rescued from a much larger correspondence, the apostolic authors enforce upon their respective converts or congregations the doctrines of Christianity as understood by them. They explain the relation of Jesus to the Jewish law; they inculcate morality; they reply to objections; they hold out the prospect of the speedy revolution which they expect. Since their opinions on all the topics upon which they touch cannot, within the limits of a general treatise, be discussed in detail, all that is necessary now is to glance rapidly at the more general characteristics of the several writers.

A letter addressed to the twelve tribes scattered abroad, and traditionally ascribed to the apostle James, may best be taken in connection with an anonymous epistle addressed to the Hebrews. They have these two features in common, that they are written to Jewish Christians, and that they discuss the relation of faith to works. It is true that this question is treated by their authors from opposite points of view. Theological controversy began early in the history of the Christian Church, and its first controversial treatises have been embodied in the Canon of its Sacred Books. It appears, moreover, to be highly probable, not only that the two epistles were written on opposite sides of a disputed question, but that the chapter in the one dealing with that question was designed as an answer to the corresponding chapter in the other. It may be difficult to say which was the original statement, which the reply; but when we find the very same examples chosen by both, the one maintaining that Abraham and Rahab were justified by faith, the other that they were justified by works, it is not easy to believe that so exact a coincidence in the mode of treating their subject was accidental. The more argumentative tone taken by James—as of one answering an opponent—induces me to believe that his epistle was the later of the two. The author of the Hebrews insists upon the paramount necessity of faith; showing by a number of historical examples that the conduct of the great heroes of the Hebrew race, besides that of many inferior models of excellence, was wholly due to this cause. The author of James, on the contrary, strenuously maintains that faith is of no value without works, and, as if endeavoring to set aside the force of the examples produced on the other side, selects for his consideration the history of two persons who had been held up as illustrations of the doctrine that we are justified by faith. Abraham, he says, was not justified by faith only, but by works; for he offered Isaac on the altar, which was a very practical illustration of his faith (James ii. 21-23). Rahab again, who according to you was saved from destruction with the unbelievers by faith, was in reality justified by works, for it was a work to receive the messengers and send them out another way (James ii. 25). Not that we deny the importance of faith altogether; but we do deny the exclusive position which you, in your Epistle to the Hebrews, assign to it. Without works faith is a dead, unproductive thing; like a body without its animating spirit. Indeed a man may say to him who relies upon his faith alone, Show me your faith without works, and I will show you mine by my works. What is the use of a faith unaccompanied by works? can it save any one by itself? Certainly not, answers James; Certainly, says the author of the Hebrews. The whole question turns on those hair-splitting distinctions in which theologians have ever delighted; for while the one party considers faith as the producing cause of good actions, the other treats good actions as the evidence of faith. Neither the one nor the other really meant to question the necessity of either element in the combination.