pleted or drawing to a close; for it was written when not only the mind of St. Paul had been made up about going to Jerusalem, and the collections for the Church of that city, still pending when the Second to the Corinthians was written, had now been completed, but when St. Paul was on the eve of departure; or having no longer room, or occasion for staying, in the parts where he was at the time, was preparing to return to Judæas. I infer, then, that it must have been written at the close of the three months in question; and either from Corinth, where the three months were most probably spent, or at least from Cenchrea; in which case it was certainly written a little before the Passover of A. U. 809; and this conclusion may be confirmed in various ways as follows. I. Among the salutations at the end of the Epistle, Erastus the steward, or oixovóuos, of the city, saluteth you, is one'; and Erastus, it might be conjectured from Acts xix. 22. and it must be almost certain from 2 Tim. iv. 20. was either a native, or an inhabitant, of Corinth, or both. In the same text Gaius, or Caius, is spoken of as the host or entertainer of Paul; and in the First to the Corinthians the name of Gaius is mentioned, as the name of a Corinthian convert, whom St. Paul had baptized in person", along with the name of Crispus, (whom the Acts shew to have been really a householder in Corinth,) and also along with the name of Stephanus, whom a subsequent passage recognizes as the first-fruits of Achaiaw. There must have been, consequently, another Gaius, a Corinthian, besides the Gaius, whom the Acts specify by name as a native, or inhabitant, of Derbex. I may observe also, that in the phrase suδόκησαν γὰρ Μακεδονία καὶ ̓Αχαΐα, and that of Επαίνετον . . . ὅς ἐστιν ἀπαρχὴ τῆς ̓Αχαΐας εἰς Χριστὸν, this mention of Achaia after Macedonia, or of Achaia, anλs, and without Macedonia, is some proof that the writer of the Epistle was himself in Achaia at the time, and known to be so, by those to whom he wrote. Rom. xv. 23. 25. 26. 31. WI Cor. i. 16. xvi. 15. Rom. xvi. 23. u 1 Cor. i. 14. ▾ xviii. 8. * xx. 4. xix. 29. y Rom. xv. 26. . xvi. 5. II. Among such others, besides Erastus and Gaius, as are also specified by name, and take part in the salutations to the Roman Church along with St. Paul, Timothy and Sopater were actually companions of the writer, when he set out from Greece, upon his journey into Asia. And, in addition to these also, Jason, whose name occurs at Rom. xvi. 21. and whom Acts xvii. 5. 6. 7. prove to have lived in Thessalonica, as well as Aristarchus-whose presence with Paul, and whose relation to that city, are specified at Acts xx. 4—may likewise have been of the number; especially if, while Jason remained at Thessalonica, Aristarchus went on, with St. Paul, to Asia, and finally accompanied him even to Rome, and remained with him there, during his imprisonment, to the lasta. III. The Epistle was transmitted by Phoebe, a deaconess of the Church of Cenchreæ, and one who had personally ministered to St. Paul; which seems to infer that he had lodged at Cenchreæ in her house. If this inference is right, the exact time and place of the Epistle are both presumptively determined by it. It was written when St. Paul was at Cenchreæ, in the interim between his original purpose of setting out to Syria by sea, and the change of his purpose, in consequence of the conspiracy of the Jews, so as to determine on returning by land; which purpose he executed accordingly, travelling through Macedonia as far as Philippi, and taking ship first on departing from thence. It was written, then, at the point of time specified at Acts xx. 3. when Paul was preparing ἀνάγεσθαι εἰς τὴν Συρίαν; for which purpose it is morally certain he would be in Cenchreæ, not at Corinth. The discovery of the conspiracy of the Jews, who must have intended to execute their scheme against his life as soon as he had put to sea, was made in time to prevent his departure, and would compel him to retrace his steps. It is entirely in unison with this alleged date of the Epistle that the Romans are told he had longed to see them for many years back; for he might have conceived this desire when he first became acquainted with Aquila and Priscilla, six years before, A. U. 803: and it is equally so, with the supposition of its place, and the particular juncture of circumstances under which it was written, that he desires the cooperation of their prayers with his own, that he might be delivered or rescued from the malice of the unbelieving Jews; for the conspiracy of theirs against his life might have only just come to light. Nor is it any objection that mention is made, among others, of the household of Narcissus, οἱ ἐκ τῶν Ναρκίσσου, though this Narcissus should be considered the same with the celebrated freedman of Claudius, whose death occurred within a month after the accession of Nero, or sometime in November, A. U. 807. They of his household, and ὄντες ἐν Κυρίῳ, and who had been converted to the gospel, might still be described by their relation to Narcissus as before ; and ἐκ τῶν Ναρκίσσου no more means of necessity, those who are now, than those who were once, of the people of Narcissus. There is one more such allusion in verse 10. to persons ex Tv 'ApioтoßoÚλou. I cannot help suspecting that this was Aristobulus, the brother of Herod Agrippa, and of Herod of Chalcis; whose death is mentioned by Josephus in conjunction with that of the other two in such a manner, as proves that it could not have been earlier, and probably was somewhat later, than the time of the death of the latter, or A. U. 801. the eighth of Claudius. In this case, he also must have been dead A. U. 809. but perhaps he had not been dead long. V. On the Epistle to the Galatians. There is no Epistle whose date has been more contested, and more variously represented, than the date of the Epistle to the Galatians; and though I acknowledge the difficulty which exists upon this subject, still the uncertainty about it is not so great, but that two points may be presumptively established; the first with almost demonstrative conviction, f Tac. Ann. xiii. 1. Seneca's c xv. 23. ̓Αποκολοκύντωσις. d XV. 30. 31. and the second with a high degree of probability: first, that it could not have been written before A. U. 807-and, secondly, that it could not have been written after A. U. 809— the inference from which is that it must have been written A. U. 808. about the same time with the Second Epistle to the Corinthians, and the Epistle to the Romans; but whether between the two, or before, or after, them both, it may not be possible, except conjecturally, to determine. I. As the Church of Galatia itself was not founded before A. U. 802. the time of the second general circuit of St. Paul, it is manifest no Epistle could have been written to any such Church before A. U. 802. II. The Epistle could not have been written before the time of the visit, to which the Epistle itself alludes, ii. 1; and the time of this visit the very next verse, ii. 2. ascertains in general, as follows. It was the time of some visit to Jerusalem-posterior to either the first or the second of St. Paul's missions to the Gentiles-at least: I laid before them the Gospel which I am preaching among the Gentiles .... lest haply I should be running, or had been running, in vain-When they saw that I am entrusted with the Gospel of the Uncircumcision, just as Peter with the Gospel of the Circumcision-these expressions admit of no other construction than that St. Paul's commission to the Gentiles had both duly been received, and duly been acted upon, already. The visit to Jerusalem, therefore, when this interview took place, could not possibly be prior to the first of his circuits among the Gentiles, and it must have been posterior even to his second; for it was some visit just fourteen years later than the time of the return from Arabia to Damascus, which followed directly upon his conversion, and was the beginning of his ministry there. That the time of this return is the date, to which we are to refer the fourteen years specified Gal. ii. 1. follows both from the reason of the thing, that St. Paul naturally refers to the date of his own conversion, and to that of the com mencement of his ministry, as the only proper άpx or point of time, to which the more memorable, or cardinal, incidents in its progress afterwards ought to be referred; and also from the analogy of verse 18. of chapter the first. The visit there specified, at the end of three years, is referred to no other date. Now the time of the return to Damascus has been proved to synchronize with about the Passover of the second of Caius, A. U. 791: the time of a visit, then, just fourteen years posterior to that, is the time of some visit about the period of a Passover, A. U. 805; and this is precisely the time at which, as we have proved already, St. Paul returned to Jerusalem from his first visit (in A. U. 803.) to the peninsula of Greece: which coincidence, established as it is, upon perfectly independent data, must place it beyond a question, that the visit upon that occasion, recorded in the Acts, at xviii. 22. and the visit referred to in Galatians, at ii. 1. were one and the same. It makes in favour of the same conclusion, that we might have collected, from the extraordinary earnestness to attend the approaching feast at Jerusalem, which St. Paul expressed in the Acts, that he had special reasons for wishing to be present at it; which reasons the Epistle explains at once, if St. Paul's journey to Jerusalem, ii. 1. was produced by a revelation, or in obedience to some direct command from the Spirit. Nor would it be any objection that Barnabas must have accompanied St. Paul to Jerusalem on this occasion, though after their separation, A. U. 802.k we read no more in the Acts of the former, or of his ever being in company with the latter. It is clear, from the account of what passed in Jerusalem, that the object of the attendance of both was something, which intimately concerned them in their character as the Apostles, xar' xv, of the Gentiles; in which capacity, even after their separation in the Acts, Barnabas is still acknowledged as the co-partner of Paul so late as A. U. 807.1 and is spoken of as still alive, and, we may justly presume, still engaged in the same cha i xviii. 21. k Acts xv. 36. 1 1 Cor. ix. 6. |