into the "number" other women who were not widows,

5

some at a very early age, according to Tertullian,1 even under the age of twenty. These, as well as the others, entered into a more or less positive engagement to live ascetically according to a certain rule, a custom designated by Tertullian as unnatural and monstrous in regard to younger women;3 it often happening that the latter forgot their first faith, and thus caused scandal in the Church. It is this state of things against which the writer protests. He makes advanced age, as well as good character, an indispensable condition for reception into the ecclesiastical "number," forbidding the unnatural admission of young persons (vewтepai), and generally requiring all, whether young or old, who had children or other connections (vv. 4 and 16) able to support them, to refrain from becoming chargeable to the church. Schleiermacher first pointed out the incompatibility of these circumstances with apostolic times; 6 and it were hard to understand how St. Paul, who in Corinthians (vii. 7, 32) intimates so decided a preference for the unmarried state, should here abruptly and absolutely enjoin marriage (ver. 14), unless other exigencies are supposed to have intervened, tending to prove against the rigid asceticism of the Marcionites,7 its propriety and necessity. And, indeed, the general view as to marriage and the status of women in these letters, is very similar to that of the Clementine Homilies, where,

So too in 1st Timothy, the writer first describes the duties and calling of bishops and deacons (chap. iii. and iv.); and in the 5th chapter he first speaks of the πρεσβύτεροι and πρεσβύτεραι generally-in verse 9, coming to the special subject of the widows."

1 De Veland. Virg. ch. 9; and see Ignatius ad Smyrnæ. ch. 13.

2 Tertull. de Præscr. ch. 3.

De Vel., Virg. ch. 9.

1 Tim. v. 12.

If the expression "younger widows," in ver. 11, be understood of younger women who had been married, the subsequent injunction (ver. 14) that they should marry, will conflict with the restriction (ver. 9) to a single marriage. See vol. ii. of his Theological Works, p. 312.

7 Chap. iv. 3. See Clem. Alex. Strom. 3, 6.

2

3

although woman is made the source of evil,1 wedlock is emphatically insisted on. There was also an obvious reason for a repetition of St. Paul's mandate as to the propriety of female silence in ecclesiastical ministrations, if we recollect what Tertullian states as to the practices of the "mulieres procaces" among the Marcionites, who, in this respect, admitted no distinction between the sexes.

4

Among the names mentioned at the close of the letters,5 those of "Mark" and "Luke" have a special significancy for those who are familiar with the conciliatory literature and symbolical language of the early church. "Mark" was traditionally the companion and interpreter of Peter, writing a Petrine gospel under his auspices; "Luke" acted a similar part in relation to Paul. When the course of events, issuing in Roman Catholicism, associated the functions and final destiny of the two apostolic leaders in the metropolitan city, the approximation of the leaders induced a corresponding association of their companions and followers. Hence we find a series of writings beginning with the first Petrine Epistle and the " Kerugma,' in which a modified Pauline doctrine is presented under St. Peter's recommendation, to the more distinctly ecclesiastical tone of Acts, the Pastorals, and Ignatius, in which St. Paul is made to patronise doctrinal and ecclesiastical ideas to which he was personally a stranger; and the names of secondary apostolic personages are made to do duty either as titular evangelists, or as a collateral guarantee in appendices to epistles in a similar spirit. For as Köstlin remarks, the titles of the gospels were affixed not in the time of their origin, but that in which they

1 Comp. Hom. 2, 27, with 1 Tim. ii. 13, 14.

2 Baur, "Pastoral Briefe," p. 51.

3 1 Cor. xiv. 34, comp. 1 Tím. ii. 12.

sage.

Clem. Hom. 3, 26, etc.

De Præscr. Hær. ch. 41. See Baur, "Pastoral Br." p. 41, as to this pas

32 Tim. iv. 11, sq.

6 Eusebius H. E. 3, 4, and 39; 5, 8.

7 Tübingen Jahrbücher, vol. 10, p. 215. Compare on the Apostolic “ συνεργοι,” "Baur's Christenthum, i. pp. 129, 130.

66

were arranged and legalised in correspondence with the tendency of their contents; and in a similar feeling epistolary greetings were transmitted from persons ostensibly belonging to the opposite party, as well as from those known as the familiar associates of the authors of the letters. Thus, in the first Petrine Epistle in which Peter advocates Pauline doctrine, his spiritual "son" or companion "Mark" is associated with Paul's well-known companion Silvanus ; on other occasions, not Luke only, but Clement and Mark, are claimed as Pauline “ovveρyoɩ,” and as it were summoned to attest and confirm the implied treaty of apostolical alliance. To treat these incidental intimations as historical would lead to endless einbarrassment. For instance, in 2 Tim. iv. 11 (ostensibly the last Pauline Epistle), Mark is summoned to come to Rome with Timothy from Ephesus; whereas, according to Colossians (iv. 10) and Philemon (ver. 24), he was already there in the company of St. Paul, and that at the very time marked in all the Epistles by the mission of Tychicus to Ephesus.2

The Thessalonians.

Omitting "Hebrews" and the Pastorals, the remainder of the commonly received Pauline writings were placed in the ancient catalogue of Marcion3 in the following order :1, Galatians. 2 and 3, Corinthians. 4, Romans. Then 5 and 6, Thessalonians. 7, Ephesians or Laodiceans. 8, Colossians. 9, Philemon. 10, Philippians. On this arrangement Baur remarks that the place here assigned to Thessalonians (supposed to have been the earliest of St. Paul's epistles) relatively to Romans (usually reckoned among the latest) is only to be accounted for as indicating the

1 Philip. iv. 22. Coloss. iv. 10. Philemon 24.

2 Comp. 2 Tim. iv. 12, with Ephes. vi. 21. Coloss. iv. 7.

3 Epiphan. Hæres. 42, 9.

"Paulus," p. 249.

commencement of a new series, namely the series of deutero-Pauline letters; so that we have in fact two lists; one of Homologoumena, the other of a set of Pauline Antilegomena; both arranged chronologically in themselves considered as separate lists, though not in relation to each other as standing in one list. And this distinction and subordination of the second series of writings agrees with what a fair consideration of the subject will deduce from their contents. The first Epistle to the Thessalonians must, if genuine, be the very earliest in date of all the extant letters of St. Paul. But if, as commonly supposed, it was written from Corinth a few months only after the first Thessalonian conversions, how, it may be asked, could these converts have had time to signalize themselves so much as to have become already "ensamples to all Macedonia and Achaia," nay to the whole Christian world ?1 How could they so soon have exhibited both cosmopolitan philanthropy and wide-spread demoralisation ?? how in the midst of so many pressing and immediate calls on his attention should the apostle have so early experienced a reiterated desire to revisit them? or how could it so soon have become necessary to reassure the still infant community in regard to the disappointed expectations of those who had died in the interval? Time must have elapsed ere the condition of the Christian dead in the new community could have become a distinct source of anxiety to the living; ere delay in the "second coming" could have produced a demoralization making it necessary to warn the anxious or indifferent as to the necessarily unexpected nature of the Lord's advent, and the general uncertainty of times and seasons.1 Baur dwells on the absence of particular motive and specific interest as suspicious; and also on the needless recapitulation of circumstances already "known" to the Thessalonians,5 since if they already knew

1 1 Thess. vii. 8. 2 1 Thess. iv. 10. 3 1 Thess. iv. 13. 41 Thess. v. 1. 5 See 1 Thess. i. 5; ii. 1, 5, 9, 11; iii. 3, 4; iv. 2, 9; v. 2, etc.

them, why should the writer indulge in needless repetitions? The general good advice and expressions of good will occasionally occurring elsewhere here constitute nearly the whole; and Baur enumerates a multitude of parallelisms1 tending to shew the absence of originality in what he holds to be a mere tame imitation of Corinthians. The only matters giving a specific interest and semblance of purpose to the Epistles are the notices regarding the condition of the dead and the "second coming;" and these in several respects vary from those in Corinthians. In Corinthians the allusions are incidental; here they are of primary importance, and are enlarged upon with a circumstantial detail and melodramatic effect strongly contrasting with the simplicity of Corinthians; in Corinthians the apostle looks with eager assurance to the immediate approach of the great day, and to a victory over the last enemy, death; here, in what by hypothesis should be an earlier epistle, delays are interposed, intervening circumstances are contemplated, other enemies have to be overcome, and elaborate reasons are given why the "last things" are not to be immediately expected. Such indications point to the priority of Corinthians, and to the later date of the apology for postponement. The cause of delay is, according to the second Epistle, a certain mysterious restraint or impediment; "TO KаTEXOV," or "ó το κατεχον,” “ὁ κατεχων, KaтEXOν,"-a hindrance or hinderer,-whose time must be completed before Antichrist, or the "mystery of iniquity,"

1 Compare, for instance, 1 Thess. i. 5 with 1 Cor. ii. 1, 4.

i. 6 ii. 4

xi. 1.

iv. 3; 2 Cor. ii. 17; and v. 11.

ii. 6, 9,

and 2 Thess. iii. 8, 9

1 Thess. ii. 7

1 Cor. iii. 1, 2.

These parallelisms should be studied with Baur's Commentary (Paulus, p. 481; and Tübinger Theol. Jahrbücher for 1855. vol. xiv. p. 143) in order to be correctly appreciated.