Page:EB1911 - Volume 20.djvu/1019

Rh The Pastoral

Epistles,

Paul meets both errors by his doctrine of the " new man, " the new moral personality, God's workmanship, " created in Christ Jesus for good works " (Eph. ii. 10), whose nature it is to be fruitful unto hoUness and love (cf. Gal. v. 6, vi. 15).

In the so-called Pastoral Epistles the same subject is handled similarly, yet more summarily, as befits one writing instructions to friends familiar with the spirit behind the concrete precepts. Allowing for this, and for the special circumstances presupposed, there is no more " moralism " about the " wholesome instruction " in the Christian walk given in these epistles (i Tim. i. 10; cf. vi. 3; 2 Tim. iv. 3) than in the other group. " MoraUsm " is ethical precept divorced from the Christian motive of grateful love, or connected with the notion of salvation as " of works " rather than prevenient grace. But of this there is no real trace in the Pastorals, which are a type of letter by themselves, as regards their recipients and certain of the aspects of church life with which they deal. As dealing with methods of instruction and organization, which must have occupied increasingly the attention of those responsible for the daily course of church life, they contain nothing inappropriate to the last two years of Paul's Hfe, when he was considering how his churches might best be safeguarded from errors in thought and practice in his absence or after his decease.

The main difficulties as to their substance have been imported by anachronistic reading of them, and are falling to the ground with the progress of exegesis and knowledge of the conditions of early church life. Our real difficulties in conceiving the Pastorals as what they purport to be, relate to their form, and " lie in the field of language and of ideas as embodied in language " (Hort, Jud. Christ, p. 131). But these, even as regards style and syntax, are reduced to narrow limits, when once due weight is given to the fresh analogies furnished by the now admitted Imprisonment Epistles (see also Ramsay, Expositor, 1909). This is specially the case with the use of new words of religious import, like " Saviour " or " Deliverer " (Soter, of God and Christ: see Eph. v. 23; Phil. iii. 20) — the idea of which springs naturally from Paul's own outward state, as well as from the trials of his readers; the " washing " or " laver " of baptism (Eph. v. 26; Tit. iii. 5); the Gospel as a revealed " mystery " (Eph. passim, esp. " the mystery " as " great, " Eph. v.;J2; i Tim. iii. 16); and the future " appearing " of Christ (so already m 2 Thess. ii. 8; cf. Col. iii. 4). As to the use of the last term for the incarnation in 2 Tim. I. 10, it ha-s a parallel in the " was manifested " of i Tim. iii. 16, itself a fragment of a Christian hymn of praise to Christ, such as is implied in Eph. v. 19, and especially Col. iii. 16. Not only is the fragment in question one in type with that in Eph. v. 14, but may even be part of the same hymn. Nothing could be more natural than for Paul to weave into his epistle to Timothy the religious phraseology actually current among Pauline Christians in Asia, as we see him doing in his repeated citations of the hortatory parts of their hymnology, with the formula " Faithful is the (familiar) saying" (i. 15, iii. i, 16, iv. 10; cf. 2 Tim. ii. 11 seq.). All this borrowed language, and much more that is virtually the parlance of the Asian churches, helps to explain a comparative lack of the distinctively Pauline element even in letters which contain highly characteristic passages. Hence there seem no insuperable difficulties to the authenticity of all three epistles — which most scholars recognize as at least partly from Paul's pen, though they disagree as to the exact limits of the genuine fragments — if only a natural historic setting can be found for them in Paul's life. But there is a general assumption that this cannot be found within the limits allowed by Acts. Accordingly some reject the situations implied in them as on the whole unhistorical, while others postulate a period in Paul's life of which Acts gives no hint, if it does not exclude it. This theory of a release after the " two whole years " with which Acts closes, and of a second imprisonment before the end really came, bases itself partly on the personal notices in the Pastorals themselves (for a suggested itinerary see e.g. Lightfoot, Biblical Essays), often full of verisimilitude, and partly on tradition. As regards the latter, the only evidence of real weight is the reference in a highly rhetorical passage of the Epistle of Clement (c. a.d. 96) to Paul as having come in his universal ministry, in East and West alike, " to the bound of the West." But, granting that Spain be meant, there is no sign that Clement thought of this visit as following on an imprisonment' in Rome,

I Cor. yi. 12-14, just as the denial by Hymenaeus and Philetus in 2 Tim. ii. 17 seq. of any resurrection, save that of the spirit in conversion (cf . Eph. v. 14), finds its earlier parallel in I Cor. xv. 12, 32-34.

Add the fact that Clement (ch. vi.) conceives Paul as being joined in the place of reward by the Neronian martyrs, and therefore as martyred not later than summer 64. No theory of the Pastorals, therefore, based on Clement's witness, can place Paul's death after this date.

rather than as falling somewhere in his career, simply on the warrant of Rom. XV. 28: while nowhere do the Pastorals themselves point to any journey west of Rome. Further no early tradition is clear enough to override the almost certain implication of Acts (xx. 25 and 38, read in the light of the closing chapters, and especially of xxvi. 32, which suggests that the appeal to Caesar was a fatal step) that Paul never visited Asia after his farewell at Miletus. Accordingly room for the epistles must be found, if at all, before the spring of 62 in keeping with Acts.- The following is an attempt to show how this may be done.

The pastoral epistles reveal certain special aspects of Paul's life and work in Rome during the " two years " of Acts xxviii. jiw. Addressed to intimate associates, they show him in the act of caring for his churches by deputy. In Tnus'" the case of Titus, indeed, the churches in question were apparently not of Paul's own foundation, but those in whose welfare he had become interested while sheltering on his voyage to Rome at Fair Havens in Crete (Acts xxvii. 8 seq.). This spot was nigh to a city named Lasea; and as they were detained " a considerable time, " for men eager to be gone, we may well imagine Paul coming into touch with the local Christians and leaving Titus (whose presence is never alluded to in Acts, even when proved by Paul's letters) to set in order the defective conditions prevailing among them (Tit. i. 5). Now, about early summer 60, we seem to see him writing further instructions, on the basis of reports received from Titus. There is no talk of a journey to Spain, and to judge from Paul's plan to winter at Nicopolis (iii. 12) he expects his case to come on too late in autumn to admit of the visit to Asia which he had in mind only shortly before, as it seems, when referring more indefinitely to his hopes in i Tim. iii. 14, iv. 13. Possibly his further reference in iii. 13 to ApoUos and Zenas " the lawyer " (bearers of the letter), as on a journey of urgency, may mean that a date for his trial was fixed in the interval, and that he was sending to the East to collect counter-evidence to that of the Jews of Asia (Acts xxi. 27; cf. the later plaint in 2 Tim. i. 15, that " all in Asia " had " turned their backs on him ).

Paul's appeal case was not a safe topic for correspondence (cf. Col. iv. 7 seq.), and we gather little directly on the point from his epistles. The long delay in its hearing would be due in part to the accusers' desire to collect evidence sufficient to ensure success even before a tribunal thought to be less amenable to Jewish influence than a procurator's; and, once the first summer was past, the wintry sea (mare clausum) would postpone things for another six months. The delay seems to have been unexpected by Paul, and to have led him to mistaken forecasts during his first half year in Rome, in i Tim., Titus and Philemon. Somewhat later he expressed himself more guardedly (Phil, ii. 2T, seq.; cf. i. 25). As to the charges on which all came to turn, we are left to intrinsic probabilities. They were no doubt those serious from the Roman rather than Jewish standpoint, viz. endangering public law and order by exciting the Jews throughout the world on religious matters, and fostering treason against the imperial cult generally (cf. the charge at Thessalonica). In defence Paul would urge the privileged position of a Jewish monotheist, and the Jews would be at pains to differentiate Christianity from Judaism, and so deprive it of the status of a legally recognized religion {religio licita). If they succeeded here, Paul's condemnation was only a matter of time. This is the most probable issue of the case (pace Sir W. M. Ramsay and others), both a priori and in the light of later phenomena, e.g. i Pet. (which in 62-63 seems to imply a recent impulse to persecution for the Name).

The rather earlier but vaguer situation implied in i Tim. is as follows. At the moment of Paul's appeal from Caesarea to Rome Timothy was perhaps on duty in Ephesus., Timothy There he would receive a message from Paul, possibly through Aristarchus (Acts xxvii. 2, 5 seq.), in terms of good hope as to his appeal. Timothy would in turn send word as to the situation in Ephesus, and at the same time express his desire to hasten to Paul's side. This would lead Paul, in

2 Also with I Pet., if Dr H. B. Swete {Comm. on St Mark, i8g8, p. xvii.) is right in saying that it implies Paul's death; for i Pet. probably dates from 62-63 (see Dr Hort's Comm.).