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Apollos Apologists

THE JEWISH ENCYCLOPEDIA

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attention of Aquila and Priscilla Jews who had espoused the cause of the new Christian faith in Corinth. They found him not sufficiently informed in the new doctrine for he knew " only the baptism of John " when he spoke to the people of " the way of the Lord." So they expounded the way of God

him more fully; and, turned into a firmer believer in Jesus as the Messiah, he went to Achaia, to

where he converted the Jews to his new faith by his arguments from Scriptures. This is illustrated by another story which immediately follows: While Apollos was still at Corinth, Paul found in Ephesus about twelve disciples of John the Baptist who had never heard of the Holy Ghost, but had undergone baptism for the sake of repentance. Paul succeeded in baptizing them anew in the name of Jesus and then, after "Paul had laid his hands upon them, the Holy Ghost came on them; and they spake with tongues, and prophesied " (Acts xix. 1-6). The sect, then, to which Apollos, as well as these twelve men of Ephesus, belonged, were simply Baptists, like John preaching the doctrine of the " Two Ways " the Way of Life and of Death as taught in the "Didache," the propaganda literature of the Jews before the rise of Christianity. They were



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thenceforward won over to the new Christian sect probably under the influence of such ecstatic states of

mind

But

jecture.

Cor.

it is

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.

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.

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For ishness of preaching to save them that believe. the Jews require a sign, and the Greeks seek after wisdom" (ib. 21, 22). Originally the people of Corinth were, according to I Cor. xii. 2, not Jews, but It is, therefore, easy to understand why Gentiles.

Apollos' preaching appealed to them far more than Paul's. Still, the difference between the two "apostles " (I Cor. iv. 9) was not of a nature to keep them apart for Paul, toward the close of his letter to the Corinthians, says " As touching our brother Apollos, .he will I greatly desired him to come unto you come when he shall have convenient time " (I Cor. have reason to ascribe to Apollos some xvi. 12).





We

IV.

APOLOGISTS: Men of pious zeal who defended both the Jewish religion and the Jewish race against the attacks and accusations of their enemies writing, either in the form of dissertations or of dialogues, works in defense of the spirit and doctrines of Judaism, so that its essentials might be placed in the proper light. It was in the nature of things, therefore, that they were impelled to expose the general weakness of the positions of their antagonists, and to attack those positions rigorously hence

by



the apologies are, at the same time, polemical arraignments. So long as the Jewish state was independent and respected by neighboring peoples, and so long as religious reverence retained its hold upon the heathen nations with whom the Jews came into contact, it was unnecessary to ward off attacks on their nationality, on their religious teachings,

Persian empire, and later with Greeks they dwelt alongside of Parthians and New Persians, and their Judaism received no manner of offense. But when the Jewish state fell into internal decay, and the Greeks, with whom the Jews held the closest relations, lost their reverence for their own deities when, furthermore, with the translation of the Bible into Greek, the Hellenes were introduced to a literature that claimed at least equality with their own and, finally, when the Egyptians were by that translation informed of the pitiful role their ancestors had played at the birth of the Jewish nation, these peoples felt themselves severely wounded in their national vanity. It was, accordingly, in Alexandria that anti-

10) that while

i.



1898, p. 67.

rp

to the class of thinkers of course, a matter of conlearned from Paul's own words is,

working on the same lines as Paul, Apollos differed essentially from him in his Four different parties had arisen there teachings. one adhering to Paul, another to Apollos, a third to Peter, and the fourth calling itself simply "of the Christ." "Who, then," says he, "is Paul, and who is Apollos, but ministers by whom ye believed, even as the Lord gave to every man? I have we are laborers toplanted, Apollos watered If any gether. ". Let no man deceive himself. man among you seemeth to be wise in this world, let him become a fool that he may be wise. Whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, or the world, or life, or death, or things present, or things to come; all are yours; and ye are Christ's; and Christ Evidently Apollos beis God's" (I Cor. iii. 5-23). trayed more of that wisdom which Alexandrian philosophers gloried in. Wherefore, Paul contends that " not with wisdom of words " (I Cor. i. 17) was "The world by he sent to preach the gospel. wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the fool(I





Der VorchrixMchc JUdische Gnmticismus,

They dwelt in or on their manners and customs. harmony with Persians when Cyrus established the

and

Whether Apollos belonged Philo or not

Luther are disposed to attribute to him the Epistle to the Hebrews. Bibliography Weizsftcker, Das Apostolmche Zeitaltcr, p. 268 Blass, Commentary on Acts, pp. 201, 203 Friedlinder,

in the writings of

as are described here

Paul. like

influence in the direction which led to a blending of the Philonic Logos with the Jewish idea of the Messiah—a Hellenization of the Christian belief in the sense of John's Gospel; though many critics since

.







Jewish literature originated, to withstand which the Jewish Apologists resident there devoted their energies.

Manetho, an Egyptian temple scribe at Thebes, first to assail the Jewish nationality with all manner of fables invented by himself. The First Opportunity to disseminate misinforAttacks in mation concerning the Jews had been Egypt by afforded by the Syrian king Antiochus Heathens. Epiphanes, whose wonderful stories concerning his experiences in the Temple of Jerusalem were seized upon and elaborated by the anti-Jewish writers of Alexandria. In this city, the capital of Egypt, dwelt numerous Jews who were distinguished for their intellectual activity and moral life, and many Greeks detested the Jews for their difference in moral ideals, founded as they were upon religious codes quite different from their own. Alexandria was accordingly the market where unscrupulous writers were certain of finding sale for their multifarious calumnies against the Jewish peo pie. In Alexandria, consequently, the earliest Jew-

was the

ish Apologists

made

their appearance.