صور الصفحة
PDF
النشر الإلكتروني

of Tiberius, favoured with the true sun, shining not in the material firmament, but from the highest heavens, before all time, enlightening the world with his beams in his appointed time, i. e. Christ by his precepts." The most respectable and competent of the early fathers confidently affirm, that Great Britain was blessed with the gospel from the earliest period; and Philo, who witnessed its rapid and early diffusion, asserts, that it had then been conveyed through every part of the habitable globe, even in his days *.

Eusebius, D. E. lib. 3. c. 7. p. 113. Clemens Romanus Epist. p. 8. Tertullian contra Judæos, c. 7. Origen in Luc. hom, 6, and in Ezek. hom. 4.

CHAPTER XI.

THE EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS ILLUSTRATED

FROM JOSEPHUS.

IF our reasoning, in the preceding Chapter, be just, Josephus is the historian of certain events which happened to the christian church in Rome. To this church the apostle Paul, some years afterwards, addressed the letter, called " Epistle to the Romans." This being the case, we might expect, that the facts which the Jewish historian has recorded should be alluded to, or implied in this address of the apostle. Nor can it be said, that it is unreasonable to expect allusions to

For

events, in a letter which was written ten or fourteen years after they had taken place. these events were important and interesting, and founded in sentiments of a permanent nature. The wicked Jew and his associates had sown the tares of heresy, which, growing up in the Roman church, required not only the pen, but even the presence of the apostle to extirpate them. The claims of Jesus appear to have made the strongest impression on the minds, not only of the Jews,

but of the other inhabitants of Rome; and St. Paul says, that before the converts had yet been instructed by any of the apostles, their faith was spoken of in all the world. Rom. i. 8.

The wicked Jew and his associates, who professed to teach the philosophy of Moses, were int the number of those false teachers, afterwards known under the name of Gnostics. Their system and character will be described in the sequel; and we shall have reason to conclude that, while they pretended to teach, their object was artfully to undermine, the gospel. Josephus represents them as guilty of adultery and of defrauding the temple; and the robberies, which the malice of Tacitus imputes to the Jews in general, ought in candour to have been limited to them and their followers, It will be pleasing to discover, that the language of St. Paul is in perfect unison with the representation of the Jewish historian. In the second chapter he thus accosts the very Jew stigmatized by Josephus. "Behold thou callest thyself a Jew, and reposest in the law, and gloriest in God, and knowest his will, and approvest the superior principles of the law; and thou professest to be a guide of the blind, a light to them that are in darkness, an instructor of the ignorant, a teacher of babes, as possessing the characters of knowledge and truth in the law; dost thou, then, who teachest another,

neglect to teach thyself? Dost thou, who preachest against stealing, steal thyself? Dost thou, who forbiddest adultery, commit adultery? Dost thou abhor idols, and yet profanely rob the temple? Dost thou glory in the law, yet by the transgression of the law, dishonour God?" Rom. ii. 17-24.

At the close of the epistle our author thus adds, "Now I beseech you, brethren, mark them that are making divisions, and occasioning reproaches, contrary to the doctrine which ye have learnt, and avoid them. For such men are not servants of our Lord Jesus Christ, but of their own belly, and by their specious oracles* and festivals are deceiving the hearts of the simple; (for your obedience is become known to all. I rejoice therefore in you on this account; but I wish you to be wise unto goodness and harmless unto evil) but the God of peace will quickly

* The Gnostics were distinguished by their pride and arrogance. They claimed to themselves the most lofty titles, while they branded the sincere and humble believers with contemptuous and ignominious terms. The language which the apostle uses in regard to this Jew, is very appropriate, because it is the language in which he and his brethren spoke of himself, calling himself a guide of the blind, a light to them that are in darkness, an instructor of the ignorant, a teacher of babes.

bruise Satan under your feet." Many important particulars are obviously contained in this paragraph, namely, that before the apostle wrote this epistle false teachers had risen in the Roman church, who disgraced it by their immoral and tumultuous conduct; that, while they pretended to be servants of the Lord Jesus, they aimed only at the gratifications of their own base passions; that by violence and certain specious arts (namely, by oracles and festivals) they affected to deceive Satan or the world into a belief of the gospel, while, by these means, they only deceived the hearts of the simple. The history of Josephus supplies the best comment that can be offered in illustration of the above inferences. A Jew, of an infamous character, together with

* The original is Δια της χρησολογίας και ευλογίας εξαπατωσι τας καρδίας των ακακων. The impostors styled the festival, which they celebrated in honour of Christ, ευλογία. Sacra cæna vocatur Evλoya, says Suicerus, in his Lexicon. See 1 Cor. x. 16. We shall hereafter shew that the deceivers endeavoured to impose on the Greeks and Romans by certain oracles of their own invention, which they imputed to the Sibyl, respecting Jesus Christ. This fiction they appear to have disguised under the term xensoxoyiα, a word which occurs in no other author; and the apostle no doubt uses it, because he knew the deceivers used it in Rome and other places to express their specious impostures.

« السابقةمتابعة »