8. The Epistle mentions St. Paul as conferring with James, Peter, and John; whereas, in Acts xv., John is not mentioned at all; and it seems strange that so distinguished a person, if present at the Council, should not have been mentioned.

9. Since, in the Galatians, St. Paul mentions James, Peter, and John, it seems most natural to suppose that he speaks of the well-known apostolic triumvirate so often classed together in the Gospels. But if so, the James mentioned must be James the Greater; and hence the journey mentioned in the Galatians must have been before the death of James the Greater, and therefore before the Council of Jerusalem.

10. St. Paul's refusal to circumcise Titus (Gal. ii.), and voluntary circumcising of Timothy (Acts xvi. 3), so soon afterwards.

8. This argument is only ex silentio, and obviously inconclusive.

9. This objection proceeds on the mere assumption, that, because James is mentioned first, he must be James the Greater; whereas James the Less became even a more conspicuous leader of the Church at Jerusalem than James the Greater had previously been, as we see from Acts xv.: hence he might be very well mentioned with Peter and John. And the fact of his name coming first in St. Paul's nar rative agrees better with this supposition; for James the Greater is never mentioned the first in the apostolic triumvirate, the order of which is Peter, James, and John: but James the Less would naturally be mentioned first, if the Council at Jerusalem was mentioned, since we find from Acts xv. that he took the part of president in that Council.

10. Timothy's mother was a Jewess, and he had been brought up a Jew;1 whereas Titus was a Gentile. The circumstances of Timothy's circumcision were fully discussed in pp. 228–231.

Thus we see that the objections against the identity of the Galatian Visit with visit (3) are inconclusive; consequently, we might at once conclude (from the obvious circumstances of identity between the two visits) that they were actually identical. But this conclusion is further strengthened by the following arguments:

1. The Galatian Visit could not have happened before visit (3); because, if so, the Apostles at Jerusalem had already granted to Paul and Barnabas' the liberty which was sought for the "gospel of the uncircumcision:" therefore there would have been no need for the Church to send them again to Jerusalem upon the same cause. And again: the Galatian Visit could not have happened after visit (3); because, almost immediately after that period, Paul and Barnabas ceased to work together as missionaries to the Gentiles; whereas, up to the time of the Galatian Visit, they had been working together.

2. The chronology of St. Paul's life (so far as it can be ascertained) agrees better with the supposition that the Galatian Visit was visit (3) than with any other supposition. Reckoning backwards from the ascertained epoch of 60 A.D., when St. Paul was sent

1 See 2 Tim. iii. 15. We may remark that this difficulty (which is urged by Wieseler) is quite as great on his own hypothesis; for, according to him,

the refusal happened only about two years after the consent.

Gal. ii. 3-6.

* Gal ii. 1,9

to Rome, we find that he must have begun his second missionary journey in 51 and that, therefore, the Council (i.e., visit (8)) must have been either in 50 or 51. This calculation is based upon the history in the Acts. Now, turning to the Epistle to the Galatians, we find the following epochs :-

A.-Conversion.

B. 3 years' interval (probably Judaically reckoned=2 years).1

C.-Flight from Damascus, and visit (1).

D.— 143 years' interval (probably Judaically reckoned = 13 years).1
E.-Galatian Visit.

And since Aretas was supreme at Damascus at the time of the flight, and his supremacy there probably began about 37 (see pp. 76 and 93), we could not put the flight at a more probable date than 38. If we assume this to have been the case, then the Galatian Visit was 38 +18=51; which agrees with the time of the Council (i.e. visit (3)) as above.

VI. Hence we need not further consider the views of those writers who (like Paley and Schrader) have resorted to the hypothesis, that the Galatian Visit is some supposed journey not recorded in the Acts at all; for we have proved that the supposition of its identity with the third visit there recorded satisfies every necessary condition. Schrader's notion is, that the Galatian Visit was between visit (4) and visit (5). Paley places it between visit (3) and visit (4). A third view is ably advocated in a discussion of the subject (not published) which has been kindly communicated to us. The principal points in this hypothesis are, that the Galatians were converted in the first missionary journey; that the Galatian Visit took place between visit (2) and visit (3); and that the Epistle to the Ga latians was written after the Galatian Visit, and before visit (3). This hypothesis cer tainly obviates some difficulties, and it is quite possible (see p. 212, n. 2) that the Gala tian churches might have been formed at the time supposed; but we are strongly of opinion that a much later date must be assigned to the Epistle.*

1 On this Judaical reckoning, see note B on the Chronological Table in Appendix III.

The reading "fourteen " (Gal. ii. 1) is undoubtedly to be retained. It is in all the ancient M88. which contain the passage. The reading "four" has probably arisen from the words "four years," which relate to a different subject, in the sentence below. The preposition "after," denoting "after an interval of," may be used, according to the Jewish way of reckoning time, inclusively. The fourteen years must be reckoned from the epoch last mentioned, which is the visit (1) to Jerusalem, and

not the Conversion: at least, this is the most natural way; although the other interpretation might be Justified, if required by the other circumstances of the case.

2 Cor. xi. 32.

Especially the difficulties which relate to the apparent discrepancies between the Galatian Visit and visit (3), and to the circumstance that the Apostle does not allude to the Council in his argument with the Galatians on the subject of circumvision.

Bee note on Epistle to the Galatians.

APPENDIX IL

B

ON THE DATE OF THE PASTORAL EPISTLES.

EFORE we can fix the time at which these Epistles were written, we must take the following data into account:

1. The three Epistles were nearly contemporaneous with one another. This is proved by their resembling each other in language, matter, and style of composition, and in the state of the Christian Church which they describe; and by their differing in all these three points from all the other Epistles of St. Paul. Of course, the full force of this argument cannot be appreciated by those who have not carefully studied these Epistles; but it is now almost universally admitted by all1 who have done so, both by the defenders and impugners of the authenticity of the Pastoral Epistles. Hence, if we fix the date of one of the three, we fix approximately the date of all.

2. They were written after St. Paul became acquainted with Apollos, and therefore after St. Paul's first visit to Ephesus. (See Acts xviii. 24, and Titus iii. 13.)

3. Hence they could not have been written till after the conclusion of that portion of his life which is related in the Acts; because there is no part of his history, between his first visit to Ephesus and his Roman imprisonment, which satisfies the historical conditions implied in the statements of any one of these Epistles. Various attempts have been made, with different degrees of ingenuity, to place the Epistles to Timothy and Titus at different points in this interval of time; but all have failed even to satisfy the conditions required for placing any single Epistle correctly. And no one has ever attempted to place all three together at any period of St. Paul's life before the end of his first Roman imprisonment; yet this contemporaneousness of the three Epistles is a necessary condition of the problem.

4. The Pastoral Epistles were written not merely after St. Paul's first Roman impris onment, but considerably after it. This is evident from the marked difference in their style from the Epistle to the Philippians, which was the last written during that imprisonment. So great a change of style (a change not merely in the use of single words, but in phrases, in modes of thought, and in method of composition) must require an interval of certainly not less than four or five years to account for it. And even that interval might seem too short, unless accompanied by circumstances which should further explain the alteration. Yet five years of exhausting labor, great physical and moral sufferings, and bitter experience of human nature, might suffice to account for the change.

1 We have noticed Dr. Davidson's contrary opinion before; and we should add that Wieseler may be considered another exception, only that he does not attempt to reply to the grounds stated by other critics for the contemporaneousness of the three Epistles, but altogether ignores the question of internal evidence from style and Church organization, which is the conclusive evidence here. Subjoined to this Appendix in the larger editions is an

alphabetical list of the words and phrases peculiar to the Pastoral Epistles.

• Wieseler's is the most ingenious theory which has been suggested for getting over this difficulty; but it has been shown by Huther that none of the three Epistles can be placed as Wieseler places them without involving some contradiction of the facts mentioned in them respectively.

5. The development of Church organization implied in the Pastoral Epistles leads to the same conclusion as to the lateness of their date. The detailed rules for the choice of presbyters and deacons, implying numerous candidates for these offices; the exclusion of new converts (neophytes1) from the presbyterate; the regular catalogue of Church widows (1 Tim. v. 9),—are all examples of this.

6. The heresies condemned in all three Epistles are likewise of a nature which forbids the supposition of an early date. They are of the same class as those attacked in the Epistle to the Colossians, but appear under a more matured form. They are apparently the same heresies which we find condemned in other portions of Scripture written in the later part of the apostolic age; as, for example, the Epistles of Peter and Jude. We trace distinctly the beginnings of the Gnostic Heresy, which broke out with such destructive power in the second century, and of which we have already seen the germ in the Epistle to the Colossians.

7. The preceding conditions might lead us to place the Pastoral Epistles at any point after A.D. 66 (see condition 4, above); i.e., in the last thirty-three years of the first century. But we have a limit assigned us in this direction by a fact mentioned in the Epistles to Timothy; viz., that Timotheus was still a young man (1 Tim. iv. 12, 2 Tim. ii. 22) when they were written. We must, of course, understand this statement relatively to the circumstances under which it is used. Timotheus was young for the authority intrusted to him; he was young to exercise supreme jurisdiction over all the Presbyters (many of them old men) of the Churches of Asia. According even to modern notions (and much more according to the feelings of antiquity on the subject), he would still have been very young for such a position at the age of thirty-five. Now, Timotheus was (as we have seen, pp. 175 and 228) a youth still living with his parents when St. Paul first took him in A.D. 51 (Acts xvi. 1–3) as his companion. From the way in which he is then mentioned (Acts xvi. 1-3, compare 2 Tim. i. 4), we cannot imagine him to have been more than seventeen or eighteen at the most. Nor, again, could he be much younger than this, considering the part he soon afterwards took in the conversion of Macedonia (2 Cor. i. 19). Hence we may suppose him to have been eighteen years old in A.D. 51. Consequently, in 68 (the last year of Nero), he would be thirty-five years old.

8. If we are to believe the universal tradition of the early Church, St. Paul's martyrlom occurred in the reign of Nero. Hence we have another limit for the date of the Pastoral Epistles; viz., that it could not have been later than A.D. 68: and this agrees very well with the preceding datum.

It will be observed that all the above conditions are satisfied by the hypothesis adopted in Chap. XXVII.,—that the Pastoral Epistles were written, the two first just before, and the last during, St. Paul's final imprisonment at Rome.*

1 1 Tim. iii. 6.

No objection against the genuineness of the Pastoral Epistles has been more insisted on than that furnished by the reference to the youth of Timotheus in the two passages above mentioned. How groundless such objections are, we may best realize by considering the parallel case of those young Colonial bishops who are almost annually leaving our shores. Several of these have been not more than thirty-four or thirty-five years of age at the time of their appointment; and how naturally might they be addressed by an elderly friend in the very language which St. Paul here addressed to Timotheus!

* See the authorities for this statement above, p. 846.

•At this point, in the larger editions, is a detailed discussion of the arguments of those, who, during the present century, have denied the genuineness of these three Epistles. This was written before the appearance of Dr. Davidson's third volume. The reader who is acquainted with that valuable work will perceive that we differ from Dr. Davidson on SoLe material points; nor, after considering his arguments, do we see reason to change our conclu sions. But this difference does not prevent us from appreciating the candor and ability with which he states the arguments on both sides. We would especially refer our readers to his statement of the difficulties in the way of the hypothesis that these Epistles were forged.