earlier than the time of St. Paul's last visit to Galatia, which was A. U. 805. This collection had been projected and going forward at Corinth in particular, a year before it was completed in Macedonia ; and it was completed, or about to be so, in Macedonia, when St. Paul wrote his Second Epistle to the Corinthians: and it had been projected at least, if not for some time going on, before he wrote his First; for the directions at xvi. 1. are manifestly given in answer to an enquiry of the Corinthians among other things, about which they had written y, respecting the mode to be adopted in making this collection also: and the collection, we may presume, was in a great measure a proposal of their own, or St. Paul would not write to them in the Second Epistle as he does write 2. Now, we have seen one instance of a similar collection made at Antioch; to which it was peculiar to have been made in or just after a sabbatic year, and against a period of dearth. we have seen also that the third of Nero was very probably a year of dearth; and if we turn to the table of sabbatic years-which is given in Diss. vii. App.-it will be seen that the thirty-second in order coincides with the second of Nero, from seed-time in A. U. 808. to the same time in A. U. 809. throughout. It was in this year, at the Pentecost A. U. 809, that the contributions thus made and collected were brought by St. Paul to Jerusalem; and they must have been made and collected, at least before the Passover, when he set out on this journey from Philippi. They had begun to be collected a year before they were completed; and the time of their completion was at hand when St. Paul wrote the Second to the Corinthians; and they had been some little while in progress when he wrote the First. The Second Epistle could certainly not have been written earlier than midsummer A. U. 808. therefore neither could the First later than the Passover of the same year. The truth is, as it appears to me, the collection was projected and begun to be made in Achaia about the au* 2 Cor. viii. 1-4. viii. 10. ix. 2. 10-15. ix. 1-5. y I Cor. vii. 1. * 2 Cor. viii. tumn of A. U. 807: and St. Paul was written to, on this subject as well as on others, and returned his answer, in the First Epistle to the Corinthians, early in the winter quarter of A. U. 808. I have said nothing, in considering the time of this Epistle, on the allusion to the gymnastic exercises of antiquity, which occurs at ix. 24. not because it is not capable of proof that all the most celebrated of these games in former times, the Olympia, the Pythia, the Isthmia, the Nemea, and even others of more recent date, as the Actia, instituted by Augustus, A. U. 724. or 726. were still in being and long after, but because as their number was so great, and their times so various, some of them might fall out every year, and none are referred to in particular. The same remark is applicable to later instances of the same kind, as 1 Tim. iv. 7, 8. and 2 Tim. ii. 5. Allusions of this description, among such a people as the Greeks or the Romans, were always in character, whether suggested by the occasion or not. III. On the Second Epistle to the Corinthians. The Second Epistle to the Corinthians was not written before St. Paul had determined to go himself to Jerusalem, along with the bearers of the contributions of the churches both of Asia, and of Macedonia and Achaia; which, however, he had not determined on doing when he wrote the First to the Corinthians a. It was not written, therefore, prior to the time when Timothy and Erastus were sent from Ephesus to Macedonia b; nor, consequently, as we may safely presume, to the Pentecost, before which St. Paul did not propose to leave Ephesus ; which we have seen was the Pentecost of A. U. 808. the first of Nero. Again; It was not written until St. Paul had both departed from Ephesus; and passed through Troas; and come into Macedonia; as in the history he was made to come directly from Asia; and was still there d. Nor was it written until Titus both had been sent to Corinth from Epheb Acts xix. 21. 22. c 1 Cor. xvi. 8. 1.—ix. 2. Acts xx. I. a 2 Cor. viii. 19. 1 Cor. xvi. 3. 4. d2 Cor. i. 8. ii. 12. 13. vii. 5-viii. sus, after the First Epistle, and had rejoined St. Paul again in Macedonia, subsequent to his departure from Asia; and from Macedonia had once more been sent to Corinth e. That it was written, then, from Macedonia, after St. Paul left Ephesus, and before he passed into Greece, and consequently sometime between Acts xx. 1. and xx. 3. there can be no question; the only difficulty remaining will concern the time; or at what period of the interval, so included, it was actually written. Now that St. Paul spent some months in Macedonia, preaching the gospel there, round about as far even as Illyricum, and exhorting them with many words, before he revisited Greece, appears both from the direct narrative in the Acts, and, as we shall see by and by, indirectly from the Epistle to the Romans. The time when he passed into Greece was about three months, or at the utmost four, before the Passover, March 19.f A. U. 809. in the second of Nero: it is possible, therefore, that the Epistle might not have been written before the middle of the autumnal quarter of A. U. 808. or the beginning of the second of Nero: and this appears to me to have been the case. For it has been proved that it was after the Pentecost of A. U. 808. that St. Paul left Ephesus; and, consequently, it must have been in the summer quarter that he came into Macedonia: there must have been some interval, and perhaps of considerable length, between the sending of the message, or the formation of the design, alluded to i. 15, 16, 17. (which message we have rendered it probable was sent by Timothy at a time not specified in the Acts,) and the writing of the Epistle; it must have been written the best part of a year at least since the collection had begun in Achaia, which is, in fact, since the First Epistle had been sent : it must have been written not long before St. Paul expected that he himself should be in Corinth h: that is to say, not long before the commencement of the three months" residence there. All these criteria determine its actual time • 2 Cor. vii. 6-8-14. viii. 6—16. 17—23. viii. 10. ix. 2. h 2 Cor. ix. 3-5. f Vol. i. Diss. v. 2 Cor. to the last quarter of A. U. 808. and the first quarter of the second of Nero: and this conclusion being thus established, I shall point out its accordance with a remarkable note of time, contained in the Epistle itself: the time of the rapture which is stated to have occurred, πρὸ ἐτῶν δεκατεσσάρων ', referred to the date of the Epistle, or the year then current when it was written. I shall prove hereafter, in its proper place, by a multitude of examples, that such notes of duration as these are never to be construed either inclusively, or exclusively, of both their extremes, but, if inclusively of the one, exclusively of the other, and conversely: upon which principle, the date of the rapture was the fourteenth year before-exclusive of the date of the Epistle-or the date of the Epistle was the fifteenth year subsequently-inclusive of the date of the rapture-and in either case, if the date of the Epistle was A. U. 808. the date of the rapture was A. U. 794. Now, at Acts xxii. 17-21. St. Paul affirms the fact of an ecstasy, the scene of which he places in the temple at Jerusalem, upon occasion of some visit there, which the context alone must determine to be the first visit after his conversion, when he stayed in Jerusalem only fifteen daysk. The time of this visit has been proved to coincide with the Passover of the first of Claudius, A. U. 794. exactly fourteen years before the Passover of the first of Nero, A. U. 808. and fifteen before the Passover of his second, A. U. 809. IV. On the Epistle to the Romans. The Epistle to the Romans was written after the First to the Corinthians, and by parity of consequence, as well as for other reasons, which will shortly appear, after the Second. For Aquila and Priscilla, when this Epistle was written, were at Rome; but when the First to the Corinthians was written they were at Ephesus'. The same passage asserts that they had jeoparded their lives for the sake of Paul; which they might be said to have done, after the k Gal. i. 18. Acts. ix. 28-30. Rom. xvi. 3. i 2 Cor. xii. 2. 1 Cor. xvi. 19. danger to which they, in common with the rest of St. Paul's companions or fellow-labourers, or, perhaps, they in particular, had been exposed at the time of the uproar in Ephesus; but not, as far as it appears from the history, before that. Again; It was not written until after the time when St. Paul, having begun from Jerusalem, and by his individual ministry, had made an end of preaching the gospel round about as far as Illyricum". Between the departure from Asia and the arrival in Greece, it has been shewn that there was an interval of five or six months, which must have been spent by St. Paul in Macedoniao. Macedonia confined upon Illyricum, and a noble road, branching out from two heads, Apollonia and Dyrrhachium, both upon the Sinus Adriaticus, and close upon the borders of that region, stretched eastward right through the country for an extent of five hundred and thirty-five Roman miles P, and afforded an easy access to all parts of Macedonia. Its name was the Via Ignatia; and its course is described by Strabo. The expression of St. Paul, μέχρι τοῦ Ἰλλυρικοῦ, does not imply that he had preached in Illyricum itself, but only as far as its borders, or, as we should express ourselves, up to it; and this he would necessarily do if, as he is represented in the history, he traversed the whole of Macedonia; for, beginning at its eastern extremity, by which only he could approach it from Asia, he must thus have proceeded to its western, where only it confined on Illyricum. There is no period in the previous history of St. Paul's travels, during which it was possible for the circuit of this country to have been thus made; and in passing thither now, he was merely completing a purpose, which it has been seen that he had formed some time before. The Epistle to the Romans, then, was not written until the circuit of Macedonia was over. Again; It could not have been written before the three months' residence subsequently in Greece' were either com • Acts xx. 1. 2. P Strabo Acts xix. 23. n Rom. xv. 19. |
