*

ical epistles, strung together with very little skill. The second, which is a more versute and specious forgery, is introduced with a list of names of persons who wrote to St. Paul from Corinth; and is preceded by an account sufficiently particular of the manner in which the epistle was sent from Corinth to St. Paul, and the answer returned. But they are names which no one ever heard of; and the account it is impossible to combine with any thing found in the Acts, or in the other epis tles. It is not necessary for me to point out the internal marks of spuriousness and imposture which these compositions betray; but it was necessary to observe, that they do not afford those coincidences which we propose as proofs of authenticity in the epistles which we defend.

Having explained the general scheme and formation of the argument, I may be permitted to subjoin a brief account of the manner of conducting it.

is deduced; in a word, the more circuitous the in- I simply a collection of sentences from the canonvestigation is, the better, because the agreement which finally results is thereby farther removed from the suspicion of contrivance, affectation, or design. And it should be remembered, concerning these coincidences, that it is one thing to be minute, and another to be precarious; one thing to be unobserved, and another to be obscure; one thing to be circuitous or oblique, and another to be forced, dubious, or fanciful. And this distinction ought always to be retained in our thoughts. The very particularity of St. Paul's epistles; the perpetual recurrence of names of persons and places; the frequent allusions to the incidents of his private life, and the circumstances of his condition and history; and the connexion and parallelism of these with the same circumstances in the Acts of the Apostles, so as to enable us, for the most part, to confront them one with another; as well as the relation which subsists between the circumstances, as mentioned or referred to in the I have disposed the several instances of agreedifferent Epistles-afford no inconsiderable proof ment under separate numbers: as well to mark of the genuiness of the writings, and the reality of more sensibly the divisions of the subject, as for the transactions. For as no advertency is suf- another purpose, viz: that the reader may thereby ficient to guard against slips and contradictions, be reminded that the instances are independent of when circumstances are multiplied, and when one another. I have advanced nothing which I did they are liable to be detected by contemporary not think probable; but the degree of probability accounts equally circumstantial, an impostor, I by which different instances are supported, is unshould expect, would either have avoided particu- doubtedly very different. If the reader, therefore, lars entirely, contenting himself with doctrinal meets with a number which contains an instance discussions, moral precepts, and general reflec- that appears to him unsatisfactory, or founded tions; or if, for the sake of imitating St. Paul's in mistake, he will dismiss that number from style, he should have thought it necessary to inter- the argument, but without prejudice to any other. sperse his composition with names and circum- He will have occasion also to observe that the costances, he would have placed them out of the incidences discoverable in some epistles are much reach of comparison with the history. And I am fewer and weaker than what are supplied by confirmed in this opinion by the inspection of two others. But he will add to his observation this attempts to counterfeit St. Paul's epistles, which important circumstance that whatever ascertains have come down to us; and the only attempts of the original of one epistle, in some measure estawhich we have any knowledge, that are at all de-blishes the authority of the rest. For, whether serving of regard. One of these is an epistle to these epistles be genuine or spurious, every thing the Laodiceans, extant in Latin, and preserved about them indicates that they come from the by Fabricius, in his collection of apocryphal-scrip- same hand. The diction, which it is extremely tures. The other purports to be an epistle of St. difficult to imitate, preserves its resemblance and Paul to the Corinthians, in answer to an epistle peculiarity throughout all the epistles. Numerfrom the Corinthians to him. This was trans- ous expressions and singularities of style, found in lated by Scroderus from a copy in the Arininian no other part of the New Testament, are repeated language which had been sent to W. Whiston, in different epistles; and occur in their respective and was afterwards, from a more perfect copy places, without the smallest appearance of force or procured at Aleppo, published by his sons, as an art. An involved argumentation, frequent obscuappendix to their edition of Moses Chorenensis. No rities, especially in the order and transition of Greek copy exists of either: they are not only not thought, piety, vehemence, affection, bursts of supported by ancient testimony, but they are nega- rapture, and of unparalleled sublimity, are protived and excluded; as they have never found ad- perties, all or most of them, discernible in every mission into any catalogue of apostolical writings, letter of the collection. But although these episacknowledged by, or known to, the early ages of tles bear strong marks of proceeding from the same Christianity. In the first of these I found, as I hand, I think it is still more certain that they were expected, a total evitation of circumstances. It is originally separate publications. They form no continued story; they compose no regular correspondence; they comprise not the transactions of any particular period; they carry on no connexion of argument; they depend not upon one another; except in one or two instances, they refer not to one another. I will farther undertake to say, that no study or care has been employed to produce or preserve an appearance of consistency amongst them. All which observations show that they were not intended by the person, whoever he was, that wrote them, to come forth or be read together: that they appeared at first separately, and have been collected since.

a

*This, however, must not be misunderstood. A person writing to his friends, and upon a subject in which the transactions of his own life were concerned, would probably be led, in the course of his letter, espe cially if it was a long one, to refer to passages found in his history. A person addressing an epistle to the pub lic at large, or under the form of an epistle delivering discourse upon some speculative argument, would not, it is probable, meet with an occasion of alluding to the circumstances of his life at all; he might, or he might not; the chance on either side is nearly equal. This is the situation of the catholic epistle. Although, there fore, the presence of these allusions and agreements be a valuable accession to the arguments by which the authenticity of a letter is maintained, yet the want of them certainly forms no positive objection.

The proper purpose of the following work is to

bring together, from the Acts of the Apostles, and from the different epistles, such passages as furnish examples of undesigned coincidence; but I have so far enlarged upon this plan, as to take into it some circumstances found in the epistles, which contributed strength to the conclusion, though not strictly objects of comparison.

It appeared also a part of the same plan, to examine the difficulties which presented them selves in the course of our inquiry.

I do not know that the subject has been proposed or considered in this view before. Ludovicus Capellus, Bishop Pearson, Dr. Benson, and Dr. Lariner, have each given a continued history of St. Paul's life, made up from the Acts of the Apostles and the Epistles joined together. But this, it is manifest, is a different undertaking from the present, and directed to a different purpose.

If what is here offered shall add one thread to that complication of probabilities by which the Christian history is attested, the reader's attention will be repaid by the supreme importance of the subject; and my design will be fully answered.

CHAPTER II.
The Epistle to the Romans.

No. I.

THE first passage I shall produce from this epistle, and upon which a good deal of observation will be founded, is the following:

several journeys to Jerusalem before, and one also immediately after his first visit into the peninsula of Greece, (Acts xviii, 21,) it cannot from hence be collected in which of these visits the epistle was written, or with certainty, that it was written in either. The silence of the historian, who professes to have been with St. Paul at the time, (c. xx. v. 6,) concerning any contribution, might lead us to look out for some different journey, or might induce us, perhaps, to question the consistency of the two records, did not a very accidental reference, in another part of the same history, afford us sufficient ground to believe that this silence was omission. When St. Paul made his reply before Felix, to the accusations of Tertullus, he alleged, as was natural, that_neither the errand which brought him to Jerusalem, nor his conduct whilst he remained there, merited the calumnies with which the Jews had aspersed him. "Now after many years (i. e. of absence,) I came to bring alms to my nation, and offerings; whereupon certain Jews from Asia found me purified in the temple, neither with multitude, nor with tumult, who ought to have been here before thee, and object, if they had aught against me." Acts xxiv. 17-19. This mention of alms and offerings certainly brings the narrative in the Acts near to an accordancy with the epistle; yet no one, I am persuaded, will suspect that this clause was put into St. Paul's defence, either to supply the omission in the preceding narrative, or with any view to such accordancy.

After all, nothing is yet said or hinted, concerning the place of the contribution; nothing concerning Macedonia and Achaia. Turn therefore to the First Epistle to the Corinthians, chap. xvi. ver. 1-4, and you have St. Paul delivering the following directions: "Concerning the collection for the saints, as I have given or

"But now I go unto Jerusalem, to minister unto the saints; for it hath pleased them of Macedonia and Achaia, to make a certain contribution for the poor saints which are at Jerusa-ders to the churches of Galatia, even so do ye; lem."-Rom. xv. 25, 26.

upon the first day of the week let every one of In this quotation three distinct circumstances you lay by him in store as God hath prospered are stated-a contribution in Macedonia for the him, that there be no gatherings when I come. relief of the Christians of Jerusalem, a contribu- And when I come, whomsoever you shall approve tion in Achaia for the same purpose, and an in- by your letters, them will I send to bring your tended journey of St. Paul to Jerusalem. These liberality unto Jerusalem; and if it be meet, that circumstances are stated as taking place at the I go also, they shall go with me." In this passame time, and that to be the time when the epis- sage we find a contribution carrying on at Cotle was written. Now let us inquire whether we rinth, the capital of Achaia, for the Christians of can find these circumstances elsewhere, and whe-Jerusalem; we find also a hint given of the posther, if we do find them, they meet together in sibility of St. Paul going up to Jerusalem himrespect of date. Turn to the Acts of the Apos- self, after he had paid his visit into Achaia: but ties, chap. XX. ver. 2, 3, and you read the follow-this is spoken of rather as a possibility than as ing account: "When he had gone over those any settled intention; for his first thought was, parts, (viz. Macedonia,) and had given them Whomsoever you shall approve by your letters, much exhortation, he came into Greece, and them will I send to bring your liberality to Jeruthere abode three months; and when the Jews salem:" and in the sixth verse he adds, "that ye hid wait for him, as he was about to sail into Sy-may bring me on my journey whithersoever I ria, he proposed to return through Macedonia." go." This epistle purports to be written after St. From this passage, compared with the account of Paul had been at Corinth: for it refers throughSt. Paul's travels given before, and from the se-out to what he had done and said amongst them quel of the chapter, it appears that upon St. Paul's second visit to the peninsula of Greece, his intention was, when he should leave the country, to proceed from Achaia directly by sea to Syria; but that to avoid the Jews, who were lying in But though the contribution in Achaia be exwait to intercept him in his route, he so far pressly mentioned, nothing is here said concernchanged his purpose as to go back through Mace-ing any contribution in Macedonia. Turn, theredonia, embark at Philippi, and pursue his voyage from thence towards Jerusalem. Here, therefore, is a journey to Jerusalem; but not a syllable of any contribution. And as St. Paul had taken

whilst he was there. The expression, therefore, "when I come," must relate to a second visit; against which visit the contribution spoken of was desired to be in readiness.

fore, in the third place, to the Second Epistle to the Corinthians, chap. viii. ver. 1-4, and you will discover the particular which remains to be sought for: "Moreover, brethren, we do you to

wit of the grace of God bestowed on the churches | nice examination, that he could have determined

them to belong to the same period. In the third place, I remark, what diminishes very much the suspicion of fraud, how aptly and connectedly the mention of the circumstances in question, viz. the journey to Jerusalem, and of the occasion of that journey, arises from the context, "Whensoever I take my journey into Spain, I will come to you; for I trust to see you in my journey, and to be brought on my way thitherward by you, if first I be somewhat filled with your company. But now I go unto Jerusalem, to minister unto the saints; for it hath pleased them of Macedonia and Achaia to make a certain contribution for the poor saints which are at Jerusalem. It hath pleased them verily, and their debtors they are; for if the Gentiles have been made partakers of their spiritual things, their duty is also to minister unto them in carnal things. When therefore I have performed this, and have sealed them to this fruit, I will come by you into Spain." Is the passage in Italics like a passage foisted in for an extraneous purpose? Does it not arise from what goes before, by a junction as easy as any example of writing upon real business can furnish? Could any thing be more natural than that St. Paul, in writing to the Romans, should speak of the time when he hoped to visit them; should mention the business which then detained him; and that he purposed to set forwards upon his journey to them when that business was completed?

No. II.

of Macedonia; how that, in a great trial of affliction, the abundance of their joy and their deep poverty abounded unto the riches of their liberality: for to their power, I bear record, yea and beyond their power, they were willing of themselves: praying us with much entreaty, that we would receive the gift, and take upon us the fellowship of the ministering to the saints." To which add, chap. ix. ver. 2: "I know the forwardness of your mind, for which I boast of you to them of Macedonia, that Achaia was ready a year ago." In this epistle we find St. Paul advanced as far as Macedonia, upon that second visit to Corinth which he promised in his former epistle; we find also, in the passages now quoted from it, that a contribution was going on in Macedonia at the same time with, or soon however following, the contribution which was made in Achaia; but for whom the contribution was made does not appear in this epistle at all: that information must be supplied from the first epistle. Here, therefore, at length, but fetched from three different writings, we have obtained the several circumstances we inquired after, and which the Epistle to the Romans brings together, viz. a contribution in Achiaia for the Christians of Jerusalem; a contribution in Macedonia for the same; and an approaching journey of St. Paul to Jerusalem. We have these circumstances each by some hint in the passage in which it is mentioned, or by the date of the writing in which the passage occurs-fixed to a particular time; and we have that time turning out upon exammation to be in all the same: By means of the quotation which formed the namely towards the close of St. Paul's second subject of the preceding number, we collect that visit to the peninsula of Greece. This is an in- the Epistle to the Romans was written at the stance of conformity beyond the possibility, I will conclusion of St. Paul's second visit to the peninventure to say, of random writing to produce. I sula of Greece; but this we collect, not from the also assert, that it is in the highest degree im- epistle itself, nor from any thing declared conprobable that it should have been the effect of cerning the time and place in any part of the contrivance and design. The imputation of de- epistle, but from a comparison of circumstances sign amounts to this: that the forger of the Epis-referred to in the epistle, with the order of events tle to the Romans inserted in it the passage upon which our observations are founded, for the purpose of giving colour to his forgery by the appearance of conformity with other writings which were then extant. I reply, in the first place, that, if he did this to countenance his forgery, he did it for the purpose of an argument which would not strike one reader in ten thousand. Coincidences so circuitous as this, answer not the ends of forgery; are seldom, I believe, attempted by it. In the second place, I observe, that he must have had the Acts of the Apostles, and the two epistles to the Corinthians, before him at the time. In the Acts of the Apostles (I mean that part of the Acts which relate to this period,) he would have found the journey to Jerusalem; but nothing about the contribution. In the First Epistle to the Corinthians he would have found a contribution going on in Achaia for the Christians of Jerusalem, and a distant hint of the possibility of the journey; but nothing concerning a contribution in Macedonia. In the Second Epistle to the Corinthians he would have found a contribution in Macedonia accompanying that in Achaia; but no intimation for whom either was intended, and not a word about the journey. It was only by a close and attentive collation of the three writings, that he could have picked out the circumstances which he has united in his epistle; and by a still more

recorded in the Acts, and with references to the same circumstances, though for quite different purposes, in the two epistles to the Corinthians. Now would the author of a forgery, who sought to gain credit to a spurious letter by congruities, depending upon the time and place in which the letter was supposed to be written, have left that time and place to be made out, in a manner so obscure and indirect as this is? If therefore coincidences of circumstances can be pointed out in this epistle, depending upon its date, or the place where it was written, whilst that date and place are only ascertained by other circumstances, such coincidences may fairly be stated as undesigned. Under this head I adduce

Chap. xvi. 21-23: "Timotheus, my workfellow, and Lucius, and. Jason, and Sosipater, my kinsmen, salute you. I, Tertius, who wrote this epistle, salute you in the Lord. Gaius, mine host, and of the whole church, saluteth you; and Quartus, a brother." With this passage I compare, Acts xx. 4: "And there accompanied him into Asia, Sopater of Berea; and, of the Thessalonians, Aristarchus and Secundus; and Gaius of Derbe, and Timotheus; and, of Asia, Tychicus and Trophimus." The Epistle to the Romans, we have seen, was written just before St. Paul's departure from Greece, after his second visit to that peninsula: the persons mentioned in the

quotation from the Acts are those who accompanied him in that departure. Of seven whose names are joined in the salutation of the church of Rome, three, viz. Sosipater, Gaius, and Timothy, are proved, by this passage in the Acts, to have been with St. Paul at the time. And this is perhaps as much coincidence as could be expected, from reality, though less, I am apt to think, than would have been produced by design. Four are mentioned in the Acts who are not joined in the salutation; and it is in the nature of the case probable that there should be many attending St. Paul in Greece, who knew nothing of the converts at Rome, nor were known by them. In like manner, several are joined in the salutation who are not mentioned in the passage referred to in the Acts. This also was to be expected. The occasion of mentioning them in the Acts was their proceeding with St. Paul upon his journey. But we may be sure that there were many eminent Christians with St. Paul in Greece, besides those who accompanied him into Asia.*

his wife Priscilla, because that Claudius had commanded all Jews to depart from Rome." They were connected, therefore, with the place to which the salutations are sent. That is one coincidence; another is the following: St. Paul became acquainted with these persons at Corinth during his first return into Greece. They accompanied him upon his visit into Asia; were settled for some time at Ephesus, Acts xviii. 19-26, and appear to have been with St. Paul when he wrote from that place his First Epistle to the Corinthians, 1 Cor. xvi. 19. Not long after the writing of which epistle St. Paul went from Ephesus into Macedonia, and, "after he had gone over those parts," proceeded from thence upon his second visit into Greece; during which visit, or rather at the conclusion of it, the Epistle to the Romans, as hath been shown, was written. We have therefore the time of St. Paul's residence at Ephesus after he had written to the Corinthians, the time taken up by his progress through Macedonia, (which is indefinite, and was probably But if any one shall still contend that a forger considerable,) and his three months' abode in of the epistle, with the Acts of the Apostles before Greece; we have the sum of those three periods him, and having settled this scheme of writing a allowed for Aquila and Priscilla going back to letter as from St. Paul, upon his second visit into Rome, so as to be there when the epistle before Greece, would easily think of the expedient of us was written. Now what this quotation leads putting in the names of those persons who ap- us to observe is, the danger of scattering names pared to be with St. Paul at the time as an ob- and circumstances in writings like the present, vious recommendation of the imposture: I then how implicated they often are with dates and repeat my observations; first, that he would have places, and that nothing but truth can preserve made the catalogue more complete; and, secondly, consistency. Had the notes of time in the Epistle that with this contrivance in his thoughts, it was to the Romans fixed the writing of it to any date certainly his business, in order to avail himself of prior to St. Paul's first residence at Corinth, the the artifice, to have stated in the body of the epis-salutation of Aquila and Priscilla would have te that Paul was in Greece when he wrote it, and that he was there upon his second visit. Neither of which he has done, either directly, or even so as to be discoverable by any circumstance found in the narrative delivered in the Acts.

Under the same head, viz. of coincidences depending upon date, I cite from the epistle the folowing salutation: "Greet Priscilla and Aquila, my helpers in Jesus Christ, who have for my life Laid down their own necks; unto whom not only I give thanks, but also all the churches of the Gentiles-Chap. xvi. 3. It appears, from the Acts of the Apostles, that Priscilla and Aquila had originally been inhabitants of Rome; for we read, Acts xviii. 2, that "Paul found a certain Jew, named Aquila, lately come from Italy with

Of these Jason is one, whose presence upon this oceasion is very naturally accounted for. Jason was an inhabitant of Thessalonica in Macedonia, and entertamed St. Paul in his house upon his first visit to that Entry-Acts xvii 7. St. Pad, upon this his second Visit, passed through Macedonia on his way to Greece, and, from the situation of Thessalonica, most likely 15ugh that city. It appears, from various instances in the Acts, to have been the practice of many converts, to attend St. Paul from place to place. It is therefore herbly probable. I mean that it is highly consistent with

the account in the history, that Jason, according to that account a zealous disciple, the inhabitant of a city at Bo great distance from Greece, and through which, as boull seem. St. Paul had lately passed, should have accompanied St. Paul into Greece, and have been with m there at this time. Lucius is another name in the epistle. A very slight alteration would convert Asux105 to Assoas, Lucius into Luke, which would produce an silitional coincidence: for, if Luke was the author of the history, he was with St. Paul at the time; in asmuch as, describing the voyage which took place soon after the writing of this epistle, the historiau uses the first person-We sailed away from Philippi." Acts xx. 6.

contradicted the history, because it would have been prior to his acquaintance with these persons. If the notes of time had fixed it to any period during that residence at Corinth, during his jour

ney to Jerusalem when he first returned out of Greece, during his stay at Antioch, whither he went down to Jerusalem, or during his second progress through the Lesser Asia, upon which he proceeded from Antioch, an equal contradiction would have been incurred; because from Acts xviii. 2-18, 19-26, it appears that during all this time Aquila and Priscilla were either along with St. Paul, or were abiding at Ephesus. Lastly, had the notes of time in this epistle, which we have seen to be perfectly incidental, compared with the notes of time in the First Epistle to the Corinthians, which are equally incidental, fixed this epistle to be either contemporary with that, or prior to it, a similar contradiction would have ensued; because, first, when the Epistle to the Corinthians was written, Aquila and Priscilla salutation of that church, 1 Cor. xvi. 19; and were along with St. Paul, as they joined in the because, secondly, the history does not allow us to suppose, that between the time of their becoming acquainted with St. Paul and the time of St. Paul's writing to the Corinthians, Aquila and Priscilla could have gone to Rome, so as to have been saluted in an epistle to that city; and then come back to St. Paul at Ephesus, so as to be joined with him in saluting the church of Corinth. As it is, all things are consistent. The Epistle to the Romans is posterior even to the Second Episthe to the Corinthians; because it speaks of a contribution in Achaia being completed, which the Second Epistle to the Corinthians, chap. viii, is only soliciting. It is sufficiently therefore posterior