PART II. CHAPTER THE EIGHTH. OF THE GENUINENESS AND ARRANGEMENT OF ST. PAUL'S EPISTLES. OF the fourteen Epistles ascribed to St. Paul (a) in our canon, the first thirteen have, in all ages of the Church, been universally acknowledged to be written by the Apostle. Some doubts have been entertained, as we shall see hereafter, concerning the Epistle to the Hebrews. As the testimonies in favour of the Genuineness of these thirteen Epistles are nearly the same, I shall, to avoid repetition, state them all at once; and I am the more inclined to do this, because the style of these different Epistles is so exactly the same, and of so peculiar a kind (b), that whatever proves any one of them to be genuine, may be considered as a proof of the Genuineness of them all. Clement of Rome expressly ascribes the first Epistle to the Corinthians to St. Paul, and it is quoted by Polycarp; Ignatius and Polycarp both quote the Epistle to the Ephesians; and Polycarp also quote (a) The learned are not agreed whether these be the only Epistles which St. Paul wrote. I am inclined to think they are, as no other Epistle written by this Apostle is quoted or referred to by any of the Fathers. (b) Vide Paley's Hora Paul. c. 1. p. 16. the Epistle to the Philippians. Besides these quotations, all the thirteen Epistles, except the short one to Philemon, are plainly referred to by one or more of the apostolical Fathers, although they do not say that they were written by St. Paul. Justin Martyr does not quote by name any one of St. Paul's Epistles; but there are passages in his remaining works which may be considered as allusions to seven of them; namely, to the Epistle to the Romans, to the first of the Corinthians, to the Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, and second of the Thessalonians. Athenagoras quotes the first Epistle to the Corinthians. Theophilus of Antioch refers to the Romans, to the first and second of the Corinthians, to the Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, first of Timothy, and Titus. All the thirteen Epistles, except that to Philemon, are quoted by Irenæus, Clement of Alexandria, and Cyprian; and all, without any exception, are quoted by Tertullian, Origen, Dionysius of Alexandria, Eusebius, Athanasius, Epiphanius, Jerome, Augustine, and Chrysostom. These writers reach from the days of the Apostles to the end of the fourth century, and are amply sufficient to establish the Genuineness of these Epistles. It is unnecessary to enumerate writers of a later date. The brevity of the Epistle to Philemon, and the private nature of its subject, account for its not being quoted so early or so frequently as the other Epistles of St. Paul. It appears from the above statement, that Tertullian is the earliest author who mentions this Epistle; but he tells us that it was received by Marcion, who lived in the beginning of the second century. It was always inserted in every catalogue of the books of the New Testament; and, short as it is, it bears strong internal marks of being the genuine The respective dates of these Epistles will be considered when we speak of them separately; but in the mean time we may observe, that they are not placed in our Bibles (c) in the order in which they were written. The Epistles to whole churches are placed before those which are addressed to particular persons. The Epistle to the Romans is placed first, probably because, when the Gospel was propagated, Rome was the mistress of the world. The Epistles to the Corinthians are placed next, because Corinth was at that time the capital of Greece. Then comes the Epistle to the Galatians, who were not the inhabitants of a single city, but of a country in Asia Minor, in which several churches had been founded. This is followed by the Epistle to the Ephesians, Ephesus being the principal city of Asia Minor. Philippi was a Roman colony, which might perhaps cause the Epistle to the Philippians to be placed before those to the Colossians and Thessalonians, whose cities were not distinguished by any particular circumstance. The Epistles to Timothy have the precedence among those which are written to individuals, because there are two of them; or because they are the longest; or because Timothy was a frequent and favourite companion of St. Paul. Then follows the Epistle to Titus, who was a preacher of the Gospel; and the last of these Epistles is that to Philemon, who was probably a private Christian. The Epistle to the Hebrews seems to have been placed the last of all St. Paul's Epistles, because, as was just now observed, some doubts were at first entertained whether it were really written by that Apostle. (c) The order of these Epistles is different in different Greek MSS. PART II. CHAPTER THE NINTH. OF THE EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS. I. Date and other Circumstances of this Epistle.— II. The Introduction of the Gospel into Rome.III. Design and Substance of this Epistle. I. THIS Epistle was written from Corinth, A. D. 58, being the fourth year of the emperor Nero, just before St. Paul set out for Jerusalem with the contributions which the Christians of Macedonia and Achaia had made for the relief of their poor brethren in Judæa (a). It was transcribed or written, as St. Paul dictated it, by Tertius (b); and the person who conveyed it to Rome was Phoebe (c), a deaconess of the church at Cenchrea, which was the eastern port of the city of Corinth. It is addressed to the church at Rome, which consisted partly of Jewish, and partly of Heathen converts; and throughout the Epistle it is evident that the Apostle has regard to both these descriptions of Christians. II. ST. PAUL, when he wrote this Epistle, had not been at Rome (d), but he had heard an account of the state of the church in that city from Aquila and Priscilla, two Christians who were banished from thence (a) Rom. c. 15. v. 25 and 26. Acts, c. 20. v. 1. (c) Rom. c. 16. v. 1. (d) Rom. c. 1. v. 13. c. 15. v. 23. by the edict of Claudius, and with whom he lived during his first visit to Corinth. Whether any other apostle had at this time preached the Gospel at Rome, cannot now be ascertained. Among those who witnessed the effect of the first effusion of the Holy Ghost, are mentioned, "strangers of Rome, Jews and proselytes (e)," that is, persons of the Jewish religion, who usually resided at Rome, but who had come to Jerusalem to be present at the feast of Pentecost. It is highly probable that these men, upon their return home, proclaimed the Gospel of Christ; and we may further suppose that many Christians, who had been converted at other places, afterwards settled at Rome, and were the cause of others embracing the Gospel (ƒ). III. BUT by whatever means Christianity had been introduced into Rome, it seems to have flourished there in great purity; for we learn from the beginning of this Epistle, that the faith of the Roman Christians was at this time much celebrated (g). To confirm them (e) Acts, c. 2. v. 10. "It may seem," says Mr. Milner, in his Ecclesiastical ⚫ History," to have been purposely appointed by Infinite Wisdom, that our first accounts of the Roman church should be very imperfect, in order to confute the proud pretensions to universal dominion which its bishops have, with unblushing arrogance, supported for so many ages. If a line or two in the Gospels, concerning the keys of St. Peter, has been made the foundation of such lofty pretensions in his supposed successors to the primacy, how would they have gloried if his labours at Rome had been so distinctly celebrated as those of St. Paul in several churches? What bounds would have been set to the pride of ecclesiastical Rome, could she have boasted of herself as the mother church, like Jerusalem, or even exhibited such trophies of scriptural fame as Philippi, Thessalonica, Corinth, or Ephesus. The silence of Scripture is the more remarkable, because the church itself was in an early period by no means insignificant, either for the number or piety of its converts; their 'faith was spoken of through the whole world.' Romans, c. 1. v. 8." Vol. 1. sect. 12. (g) Rom. c. 1. v. 8. |