THE

BIBLE CHRISTIAN MAGAZINE.

SHORT STUDIES IN THE LIFE OF ST. PAUL.

VIII. THE FIRST MISSIONARY JOURNEY.

"He shall not fail nor be discouraged till he have set judgment in the earth; and the isles shall wait for his law" (more correctly, "his teaching.")—Is. xlii. 4.

URING a whole year Barnabas and Saul "assembled themselves with the Church and taught much people. And the disciples were called Christians first in Antioch." The interesting fact that the believers in Jesus became sufficiently distinct from Jews and proselytes to need a new name for the first time at the Syrian Antioch, about A.D. 44, has often been commented on. From our modern point of view, we can hardly help envying those who had an opportunity of seeing and hearing and noting the character and conduct of the earliest Christians. It was, however, an advantage little prized at the time. Perhaps the clergy of Devonshire scarcely knew less of the early labours of William O'Bryan and James Thorne than the people of Antioch knew of the little fraternity whom, owing to an erroneous idea as to the word Christ-supposed by them to be a proper name-they called Christians.

We need not be credulous enough to believe that every new sect of schismatics, which happens to make noise enough to win a nickname, will do great things for society, and glorify the name bestowed by malice or contempt; but we can never too often remind ourselves that there is no way of more hopelessly misleading ourselves and others than by hastily accepting a nickname as a rightful designation, if not a complete description, of any man or any body of men. Call a man a False Prophet or a Religious Fanatic, and thousands of Englishmen, good and sensible people in other respects, will at once deem it right and expedient to resist him and war him down, even when he is fighting for the best interests of his country and his race. Pelt a man with some such

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name as Heretic or Unbeliever, and his followers with that of Infidel, till the poisoned arrows stick fast, and then if he and they are contending for the most elementary truths of morality and religion, they will probably contend in vain. To coin a nickname is in short the simplest and most effectual-not to say the cruellest and most cowardly-method of refusing to learn the very lessons we most need, and the lessons which God intended those around us to impart. Those who ridiculed the early disciples as Christians, i.e., followers of some obscure Christus or Chrest us, thought no doubt that the name itself indicated sufficient reason for thinking no more about them or their teaching.

We have delayed for a moment a subject of great difficulty. The narrative of the Acts of the Apostles at the point at which we are arrived is unusually perplexing. It is related that a collection was made for the poor of Jerusalem, who were suffering from famine, and that Barnabas and Saul carried the contributions of the disciples of Antioch to Jerusalem (Acts xi. 27 et seqq and xii. 25). The account of the death of Herod Agrippa I., which intersects the narrative in the twelfth chapter of the Acts, dates this visit very precisely, at A.D. 44. Here is the difficulty. There is an account of a third visit of St. Paul to Jerusalem in Acts xv. We shall subsequently prove that this visit is identical with that referred to in the second chapter of the Epistle to the Galatians. The view we have adopted, that the second journey of the Epistle is the third of the Acts, is that of the majority of the best critics and

commentators.

Now, when we remember that St. Paul's whole argument depends on the rarity of his visits to Jerusalem, and his slight intercourse with the apostles of the circumcision, and that he distinctly implies that there were fourteen years between his two visits (the view adopted by Dr. Lightfoot), or eleven, if with Ewald we suppose the fourteen are reckoned from the time of his conversion, an interpretation of the Apostle's words quite consistent with the Greek construction, it is easy to see in either case that there is no possible place for this second visit of the Acts. The readiest mode of dealing with a discrepancy of this kind is quietly to ignore it altogether, as Professor Lumby does in his notes on the Acts in the Cambridge Bible for schools. But to resolve not to see and examine difficulties of this kind is equivalent to deciding not to study the New Testament at all, a course which Professor Lumby would hardly recommend. Similar discrepancies beset us on every hand, and we must give up honest inquiry, or do manful battle with them. Dr. Farrar does not ignore the difficulty; but to my thinking his explanation is utterly unsound and untenable. These

are his words (Life and Work of St. Paul), "Their visit―i.e., the visit of Barnabas and Saul-to Jerusalem was so purely an episode in the work of St. Paul that in the Epistle to the Galatians he passes it over without a single allusion. There is nothing surprising in this omission." (The italics are my own; there is something both surprising and suggestive in the composure of the eloquent Archdeacon.) He proceeds, "It is the object of the Apostle to show his absolute independence of the Twelve. The second visit had therefore no bearing on the subject with which he was dealing." Dr. Farrar is perfectly aware that the Epistle to the Galatians was addressed to a fickle and apostate church, and was the Apostle's answer to those Judaising teachers who were endeavouring to undermine his authority, and to turn aside his followers from the simplicity of the Gospel. Under such circumstances, it behoved him to observe a rigid accuracy in every statement he made, and to speak with a precision which was not necessary to the writer of the Acts, who wrote with an entirely different object, and who regarded the events from a widely different standpoint. Had the Apostle been guilty of the inaccuracy which Dr. Farrar ascribes to him, he would have been charged with prevarication, a meanness intensely odious to his soul, but one which his unscrupulous opponents did not hesitate to insinuate against him, as his own strong language distinctly shows. It seems to me impossible to believe that Saul actually entered Jerusalem on this occasion. Let us consider the exact words of the Acts, "And the disciples, every man according to his ability, determined to send relief unto the brethren that dwelt in Jerusalem: which also they did, sending it to the elders by the hands of Barnabas and Saul (xi. 29, 30). And Barnabas and Saul returned from Jerusalem, when they had fulfilled their ministration, taking with them, John, whose surname was Mark (xii. 25)." Saul and Barnabas, therefore, were appointed by the brethren at Antioch to carry their contributions to the famishing believers in Jerusalem, and without doubt they set out together on this mission. But it is quite possible, and by no means unlikely, that on their arrival at Cæsarea Stratonis or Joppa, it seemed good to Saul, remembering the violence of the Hellenists, and the coldness of most of the believers during his previous visit, to halt there and send on Barnabas alone to Jerusalem. This may even have happened in direct obedience to some Divine intimation of which we have no record. It cannot, of course, be denied, that the obvious interpretation of St. Luke's words implies that both apostles visited Jerusalem. It does not, however, involve any unnatural straining of language, nor will it in any way shake our confidence in the perfect candour and sincerity of St. Luke, to

suppose that the phrase "from Jerusalem," is here equivalent simply to "from their errand to Jerusalem." The sacred historian has just mentioned the famine in Judæa, and he wishes to record the noble conduct of the new disciples at Antioch, who, remembering their deep obligations to that people to whom were entrusted the oracles of God, and from whom, according to the flesh, Christ came, resolved to send relief to their famishing brethren in Jerusalem. A contribution was therefore set on foot, and the money was entrusted to Barnabas and Saul to carry to Jerusalem. The apostles set out on their journey together, and after the work was done, returned together to Antioch, bringing with them John Mark, the cousin of Barnabas. And this fact St. Luke tell us in his own simple and beautiful language, without regard to rigid accuracy in every clause. We have met with instances of this sort before, and we shall meet with parallel cases again. For example, St. Luke states that "Barnabas brought Saul to the apostles, and that he went in and out with them at Jerusalem," a statement which required, as Dr. Lightfoot remarks, to be interpreted and modified, by the more accurate account given by St. Paul.

The whole difficulty arises from confounding inspiration with verbal infallibility. The scriptures nowhere teach that men were made infallible in word or deed by the inspiration of the Holy Ghost. The very book which speaks of God's guiding Spirit tells us of the mistakes, the errors, and the contentions of the very men who were thus Divinely led. And certainly St. Luke would never have claimed for himself an infallibility which his own narrative shows that the greatest of the apostles did not possess (Acts xv. 37 seqq., xxiii. 5, et passim). To confess this once for all will not only save us the trouble of many ingenious and very frequently dishonest defences, but will enable us the more decidedly to reject the infamous insinuations of certain German and Dutch critics.* It is only by accepting St. Luke as a perfectly candid writer that we can hope to understand what he has to say. Jesus Christ himself could not be understood by those who adopted a policy of suspicion, and watched His words on purpose to entangle Him.

Except as it concerns the trustworthiness of the Acts of the Apostles, this collection for the poor in Jerusalem has no special significance in the study of St. Paul. We know from his own epistles that this matter of attending to the poor was one of the duties which he never forgot. Those who adopt the policy of suspicion, which I have repudiated, see some deep design in the opening of the 13th chapter of the Acts. The narrative starts afresh in a surprising manner. A list of teachers in the church at * The language is very strong; but see Zeller and Hooykaas.

Antioch is given which begins with Barnabas and ends with Saul. One is apt to wonder whether the writer of the Acts had an older document to refer to, in which the list was given in that order. But if St. Luke received his information by means of conversations with St. Paul, of which he sometimes did, and sometimes did not take notes at the time, the varying features of this part of the book are very naturally explained. In the list of teachers I see nothing beyond the implication that no special or inevitable connection was yet recognised as existing between Barnabas and Saul. Barnabas was probably the man of the greatest authority at this time in the church. His age and character would ensure that. Saul's genuine modesty, which in his character co-existed with an indomitable courage, prevented any rapid recognition of his incomparable worth. As compared to Barnabas he was as yet a novice. Then comes the mandate from the Holy Ghost, " Separate me Barnabas and Saul for the work whereunto I have called them." And with the prayers and blessings of the church the two departed,— the first example in Christian History of foreign missionaries.

The sea

With Conybeare and Howson we may very well imagine this first voyage to Cyprus to have taken place in the spring. "In that age and in these waters the commencement of a voyage was unusually determined by the advance of the season. was technically said to be 'open' in the month of March." There is no reason to suppose that Barnabas and Saul would despise such considerations, though Saul was certainly not the man to give them undue importance. We cannot follow the authors just named in thinking that this first mission journey was a comparatively rapid one, and that it was completed within one year. It is more reasonable to suppose with Renan that the first was the slowest of all the journeys of St. Paul; and that, as the Apostles had to earn their own maintenance wherever they went, as there were no churches ready to meet them and bring them on their way, and no one to communicate with them as concerning giving and receiving," a considerable time would elapse before there was any possibility of doing substantial work or making any decided impression. Later in life, St. Paul was master of that "spiritual thrift" which compels every circumstance, however seemingly adverse, to yield its own lesson and bear its own good fruit. But such Divine economy is not learnt in a day. It is the reward of long persistent effort, directed towards the glory of God and the suppression of self. Saul was hitherto a learner. During his first journey he was learning to be a missionary; learning how to be abased and how to abound; how to be full and how to suffer need ; how to do all things through Christ who strengthened him.