pose of guarding them against the hasty expectation of that last decisive period, he directed their attention to the signs of the times which would precede it. The revelation of the evil that opposed itself to the kingdom of God-a self-idolatry excluding the worship of the living God-would first rise to the highest pitch. The power of the delusion, by a hypocritical show of godliness, and by extraordinary power, apparently miraculous, would deceive those who were not disposed to follow the simple, unadulterated truth. The rejection of the True and the Divine would be punished by the power of falsehood. Those persons would be ensnared by the arts of deception, who, because they had suppressed the sense of truth in their hearts, deserved to be deceived, and by their own criminality had prepared themselves for all the deceptions of falsehood. Then would Christ appear, in order by his victorious divine power to destroy the kingdom of evil, after it had attained its widest extension, and to consummate the kingdom of God. As signs similar to those which prognosticate the last decisive and most triumphant epoch, are repeated in all the great epochs of the kingdom of God, as it advances victoriously in conflict with the kingdom of evil, Paul might believe that he recognised in many signs of his own time, the commencement of the final epoch. By the light of the divine Spirit, and according to the intimations of Christ' himself, he discerned the general law of the development of the kingdom of Christ, which is applicable to all the great epochs down to the very last; but he was not aware that similar phenomena must often recur until the arrival of the final crisis, 2 cessory prayers of the churches, that he might be delivered from the machinations of evil-minded men; for such were not wanting, who were unsusceptible of receiving the gospel; 2 Thess. iii. 2. This reminds us of the accusations made by the Jews against Paul. 1 See Leben Jesu, pp. 558, 612. 2 When persons have attempted to determine with exactness the signs of the times given by Paul, they have failed in many points. In the first place, they have sought for the appearances to which the apostle refers in later ages, while Paul refers to appearances in his own age, or to those which they seemed to forebode. In other important periods, which preceded remarkable epochs for the development of the kingdom of Christ, signs might be found similar to those which Paul has here described. Still we should not be justified in saying that these signs in this particular form were consciously present to Paul's As Paul was unexercised in writing Greek, and, amidst his numerous cares and labours, instead of writing his epistles with his own hand, dictated them, as was a usual practice among the ancients, to an amanuensis, letters could be more easily forged in his name. Perhaps he had already adopted the plan of adding a few words of salutation with his own hand, in order to give the churches a special proof of his affectionate sympathy. Such an autograph addition would now be so much the more necessary for the purpose of preventing falsifications of his epistles; accordingly, in this epistle to the Thessalonians he expressly notices this circumstance, that they might in future know all the epistles that really were his own production.1 mind. And thus we should fall into error, if we expected to find what is anti-Christian only in certain particular appearances of the Ecclesiastical History, instead of recognising in these appearances a Christian truth lying at their basis, and the same anti-Christian spirit (by which the Christian principle is here disturbed, and at last wholly obscured) likewise in other appearances. When too, these signs have been looked for in the actual situation of the apostle, the defectiveness of our knowledge of his situation, and of the appearances peculiar to his times, has been forgotten. Or, instead of estimating the great views respecting the development of the kingdom of God, which the apostle here unfolds, according to the ideas contained, the kernel has been thrown away, and the shell retained, and they have been compared with the Jewish fables respecting Antichrist. From these words of Paul, 2 Thess. iii. 17, we cannot infer with Schrader, that Paul must have already written many epistles (to the Thessalonians), and, therefore, that this could not be the second; for if Paul had determined now for the first time to employ this precaution against the falsification of his epistle, he might certainly thus express himself; it was not necessary to use the future oral, and yet Paul might have written many epistles before this. For, might he not already have written epistles to the churches in Cilicia, and Syria, and others lately founded by him, as well as to individuals? We cannot certainly maintain, that the whole correspondence of the great apostle, who was so active and careful in every respect, has come down to us. Lastly, the forgery of a letter under his name was still easier when only a few, than when many of his epistles were extant. Therefore the proofs fail which are employed partly for the later origin, partly for the spuriousness of the epistle. And as to the salutation added by Paul as a mark of his handwriting, it only follows that, under the existing circumstances, he determined to add such a mark of his handwriting to all his epistles, but by no means that, under altered circumstances, he adhered to this resolution; nor could we conclude with certainty, that in all those epistles in which Pau! has not expressly remarked that the salutation was penned by him, the benediction at the close was really Thus Paul laboured during another half-year for the spread of Christianity in these parts, and then concluded the second period of his ministry among the heathen, which began with the second missionary journey. We are now arrived at a resting-place, from which we shall proceed to a new period in his ministry, and in the history of the propagation of the gospel among the Gentiles. CHAPTER VII. THE APOSTLE PAUL'S JOURNEY TO ANTIOCH, AND HIS RENEWED MISSIONARY LABOURS AMONG THE HEATHEN. AFTER Paul had laboured during another half-year for the establishment of the Christian church in Corinth and Achaia, he resolved, before attempting to form new churches among the heathen, to visit once more that city which had been hitherto the metropolis of the Christian-Gentile world, Antioch, where possibly he had arranged a meeting with other publishers of the gospel. This was no doubt the principal, but probably not the only, object of his journey. He felt it to be very important to prevent the outbreak of a division between the Jewish and the Gentile Christians, and to take away from the Jews and Jewish Christians the only plausible ground for their accusation, that he was an enemy of their nation and the religion of their fathers. On this account, he resolved to revisit at the same time the metropolis of Judaism, in order publicly to express his gratitude to the God of his fathers in the temple at Jerusalem, according to a form much approved by the Jews, and thus practically to refute these imputations. There was at that time among the Jews a religious custom, arising most probably from a modification of the Nazarite vow, that those who had been visited with sick-. ness or any other great calamity vowed, if they were restored, not in his handwriting. When once that peculiar practice and his handwriting had become generally known among the churches, he might make such an addition, without expressly mentioning that it was written by himself. to bring a thank-offering to Jehovah in the temple, to abstain from wine for thirty days, and to shave their heads.' Paul had probably resolved, on the occasion of his deliverance from some danger during his last residence at Corinth, or on his journey from that city, publicly to express his grateful acknowledgments in the temple at Jerusalem. The form of his doing this was in itself a matter of indifference, and in the spirit of Christian wisdom, he felt no scruple to become in respect of form, to the Jews a Jew, or to the Gentiles a Gentile. When he was on the point of sailing with Aquila to Lesser Asia, from Cenchræa, he began the fulfilment of his Vow. 3 He left his companion with his wife behind at Ephesus, whither he promised to return, and hastened to Jerusalem, where he visited the church, and presented his 1 Josephus, de Bello Jud. ii. 15, τοὺς γὰρ ἢ νόσῳ καταπονουμένους ἤ τισιν ἄλλαις ἀνάγκαις ἔθος εὔχεσθαι πρὸ λ' ἡμερῶν, ἧς ἀποδώσειν μέλλοιεν θυσίας, οἴνου τε ἀφέξεσθαι καὶ ξυρήσασθαι τὰς κόμας. It appears to me quite necessary to change the aorist in the last clause into the future Euphoeσba; and I would translate the passage thus-" they were accustomed to vow that they would refrain from wine and shave their hair thirty days before the presentation of the offering." From comparing this with the Nazarite vow, we might indeed conclude that the shaving of the hair took place at the end of thirty days, as Meyer thinks in his commentary; but the words of Josephus do not agree with this supposition, for we cannot be allowed to interpolate another period before the Euphσeobaι, "and at the end of these thirty days." Also what follows in Josephus is opposed to it, and Paul's shaving his hair several weeks before his arrival at Jerusalem, will not harmonize with such a supposition. 2 From how many dangers he was rescued, and how much would be required to complete the narrative given in the Acts, we learn from 2 Cor. xi. 26, 27. 3 Unnecessary difficulties have been raised respecting Acts xviii. 18. Paul in the 18th, and the verse immediately following, is the only subject to which every thing is referred; and the words relating to Aquila and Priscilla form only a parenthesis. All that is here expressed must therefore be referred to Paul and not to Aquila, who is mentioned only incidentally. Schneckenburger, in his work on the Acts, p. 66, finds a reason for mentioning such an unimportant circumstance respecting a subordinate person in this, that a short notice of a man, who for half a year lived in the same house as Paul, would serve as an indirect justification of the apostle against the accusations of his Judaizing opponents: but this is connected with the whole hypothesis, of which, for reasons already given, I cannot approve. * Besides, Aquila could not have taken such a vow, because he did not travel to Jerusalem, where the offering ought to be presented. We must therefore suppose that he had made a vow of another kind, offering in the temple.' He then travelled to Antioch, where he stayed a long time, and met with Barnabas, and other friends and former associates in publishing the gospel. The that he would not allow his hair to be cut till he had left Corinth in safety, like the Jews who bound themselves by a vow to do or not to do something till they had accomplished what they wished, as, for example, not to take food; compare Acts xxiii. 14, and the legends from the εὐαγγέλιον καθ ̓ Ἑβραίους, in Jerome de v. i. c. ii. But such unmeaning folly no one can attribute to Aquila. And Luke would hardly have related any thing so insignificant of Aquila, who was not the hero of his narrative. But Meyer thinks he has found a special proof that this relates not to Paul but to Aquila; because, in Acts xviii. 18, the name of Priscilla is mentioned not as it is in v. 2 and 26, and contrary to the usage of antiquity, with a design to make the reference here designed to Aquila more pointed. We might allow some weight to this consideration, if we did not find the same arrangement of the names in Rom. xvi. 3, and 2 Tim. iv. 19. Hence we shall find a common ground of explanation for what appears a striking deviation from the customs of antiquity, that although Priscilla was not a public instructress, which would have been contrary to the laws of the church, yet she was distinguished even more than her husband for her Christian knowledge, and her zeal for the promotion of the kingdom of God; that in this respect Paul stood in a more intimate relation, a closer alliance of spirit to her, as Bleek has suggested in his Introduction to the Epistle to the Hebrews, p. 422. And thus we find in this undesigned departure from the prevailing usage, on a point so unimportant in itself, an indication of the higher dignity conferred so directly by Christianity on the female sex. The words in Acts xviii. 21 cannot prove that Paul travelled to Jerusalem, for the original expression only makes it highly probable. "I will return to you again, God willing;" and all the rest is only a gloss. If, therefore, we do not find the journey to Jerusalem indicated in the avaßàs and κaтéßŋ of v. 22, we must assume that Paul on this journey came only as far as Antioch, and not to Jerusalem, and then the interpretation of Acts xviii. 18, given in the text, must be abandoned. It is also remarkable that Luke, in referring to Paul's sojourn at Jerusalem, should mention only his saluting the church, and say nothing of the presentation of his offering; and that James, who, on Paul's former visit to Jerusalem, had advised him to such a line of conduct, should not have appealed to the example given by himself of such an accommodation to the feelings of the Jews. But Luke is never to be regarded as the author of a history complete in all its parts, but simply as a writer who, without historical art, put together what he heard and saw, or what became known to him by the reports of others. Hence he narrates several less important circumstances, and passes over those which would be more important for maintaining the connexion of the history. Also, to a reader familiar with Jewish customs, it might be sufficiently clear that Paul, according to what is mentioned in xviii. 18, must have brought an offering to Jerusalem. At all events, if we wish to refer v. 22 only to Cæsarea |