The Last Years of Saint Paul Book

THE LAST YEAES OF SAINT PAUL BY THE ABBE CONSTANT FOUARD fottfy tfye Eutfjofs sanction Httti canperatum BY GEORGE F. X. GRIFFITH LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO 91 AND 93 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK LONDON AND BOMBAY 190 Copyright, 1900, BY GEORGE F. X. GRIFFITH, First Edition, November, 1900 Reprinted, December, 1901 December, 1904 October, 1906 THE UNIVERSITY PRESS, CAMBRIDGE, U. S. A. PREFACE. To me to live is Christ and to die is gain, Philip, i. 21. THOSE missionary journeys of Saint Paul, which I en deavored to set forth in a preceding volume, 1 go to make up the longer term of his Apostolate from 42 to 62. No more than five years of life were destined to be his after his arrival in Borne, while one half of this time he was to drag out in captivity. And yet, restricted in every respect though this closing of his ministry may seem, it is of an importance equal to, if not greater than, that of the longer period during which Paul evangelized Asia and Greece. His main object in the course of those seventeen years of mission-work had been to free the Christian com munities which he was founding from the bondage of Judaism. On emerging from that struggle he finds that both his own views, as well as his sphere of action, have widened. Against the nascent shadows of heresy he must needs now uphold the pure light of the Incarna tion unto poor, dying Jerusalem he is destined to dis play Jesus, High Priest from everlasting unto everlasting, abolishing the ancient worship of Mosaic Law to all he is to repeat the fact that this Divine Saviour perpetuates His life in the Church finally he develops the Hierarchy, which was destined to maintain and regulate the functions of that mystical body of Christ. Vast, indeed, from every point of view, was this labor, but Paul was not to be left alone to work out its accom-1 St. Paul and His Missions, Longmans, 1894. 3LC65391 saine Spirit which inspired Him animated ers of tie Apostolic College as well, thus bifeatfi. inginto thf hearts-oif one and all a like solicitude for their Churches. Of this we have plentiful testimony in the foiir lifers addressed during this same period to the believers in Asia. Therein James and Jude, Peter especially, while combating with the same sectaries as did the Apostles of the Gentiles, will enable us to follow with keener appreciation the rise and development of the Gnostic heresies which were to harass Christianity for many a long day. We are bound to glean every slightest fact we can from these writings for, together with the last Epistles of Saint Paul, they are the only sources available to the student of this period of the Churchs infancy. In other words, I have had to content myself with constructing a history without historical facts, and, as a general rule, to limit myself to setting forth the meaning of the Apostles, in default of any knowledge of their acts. Even these few documents would avail us nothing if we were to lend an ear to the voice of rationalistic crit icism for in the Holy Books I shall have to make use of there is little enough left that is authentic, were we to listen to its objections. It is true, indeed, that these critics have found themselves constrained, step by step, to order back their attacking lines and to acknowledge that the majority of their assaults have been triumphantly repulsed. 1 In short, we may assert, without unduly dwelling on this point, that to-day they accept the Epis tles to the Philippians and to the Colossians, and even that addressed to the Ephesians. The short note written This tendency, all along the line, to accept opinions authorized by Catholic Tradition is particularly noticeable in two works which stand in great repute at the date of writing. One is that of Professor Harnack, chief of the new school in Berlin Die Chronologic der altchristlichen Litteratur bis Eusfbius Leipzig, 1897 the other that of the iUustrious Professor Blass of Halle Acta Apostolorum, Editio Philologica Gottingen, 1895...Read More