Page:Lives of the apostles of Jesus Christ (1836).djvu/587

 the offspring of Abraham, and afterwards images the freedom of the true believers in Jesus, in the exalted privilege of the descendants of Sara, while those enslaved to forms are presented as analogous in their condition to the children of Hagar. He earnestly exhorts them, therefore, to stand fast in the freedom to which Christ has exalted them, and most emphatically condemns all observance of circumcision. Thus pointing out to them, the purely spiritual nature of that covenant, of which they were now the favored subjects, he urges them to a truly spiritual course of life, bidding them aim at the attainment of a perfect moral character, and makes the conclusion of the epistle eminently practical in its direction. He speaks of this epistle as being a testimony of the very particular interest which he feels in their spiritual prosperity, because, (what appears contrary to his practice,) he has written it with his own hand. To the very last, he is very bitter against those who are aiming to bring them back to the observance of circumcision, and denounces those as actuated only by a base desire to avoid that persecution which they might expect from the Jews, if they should reject the Mosaic ritual. Referring to the cross of Christ as his only glory, he movingly alludes to the marks of his conformity to that standard, bearing as he does in his own body, the scars of the wounds received from the scourges of his Philippian persecutors. He closes without any mention of personal salutations, and throughout the whole makes none of those specifications of names, with which most of his other epistles abound. In the opening salutation, he merely includes with himself those "brethren that are with him," which seems to imply that they knew who those brethren were, in some other way,—perhaps, because he had but lately been among them with those same persons as his assistants in the ministry.

On this very doubtful point, I have taken the views adopted by Witsius, Louis Cappel, Pearson, Wall, Hug and Hemsen. The notion that it was written at Rome is supported by Theodoret, Lightfoot, and Paley,—of course making it a late epistle. On the contrary, Michaelis makes it the earliest of all, and dates it in the year 49, at some place on Paul's route from Troas to Thessalonica. Marcion and Tertullian also supposed it to be one of the earliest epistles. Benson thinks it was written during Paul's first residence in Corinth. Lenfant and Beausobre, followed by Lardner, conjecture it to have been written either at Corinth or at Ephesus, during his first visit, either in A. D. 52, or 53. Fabricius and Mill date it A. D. 58, at some place on Paul's route to Jerusalem. Chrysostom and Theophylact, date it before the epistle to the Romans. Grotius thinks it was written about the same time. From all which, the reader will see the justice of my conclusion, that nothing at all is known with any certainty about the matter.

THE EPHESIAN MOB.

Paul having now been a resident in Ephesus for nearly three