Imagens das páginas
PDF
ePub

hypotheses, not one is supported by authoritative testimony. Luke simply says (Acts 15: 1, 2): " And certain men which came down from Judea, taught the brethren, and said, Except ye be circumcised after the manner of Moses, ye cannot be saved. When therefore Paul and Barnabas had no small dissension and disputation with them, they determined that Paul and Barnabas, and certain other of them, should go up to Jerusalem unto the apostles and elders about this question."

We see that this mission followed soon after the beginning of the dissension. It was sent to the apostles at Jerusalem; the expression used indicates that they were, the greater part of them, in Jerusalem. Indeed it authorizes us to conclude, that up to this time Jerusalem was, among all, the supposed and well-known place of abode of the apostles. The council was held. Peter was present at it (ver. 7). Of his return from the West, nothing is mentioned; what hin ders us from supposing that up to this time he never had gone thither? Indeed, the circumstance that Peter and James are introduced as the only speakers, and are represented as the principal persons of the council, allows us to conclude that they had hitherto, Kar' èçoxv, especially presided over the church of Jerusalem, at that time the centre of all, and therefore they had remained at Jerusalem. Of James it is certain, and of Peter it may be taken for granted.

Now the main question is: When was this council? For this, Paul's Epistle to the Galatians gives us the key. Paul states there (Gal. 1: 18), that three years after his conversion he went up to Jerusalem, for the first time, to meet the apostles; which journey Luke relates (Acts 9: 26, etc.). Gal. 2: 1, Paul says: "Then fourteen years after, I went up again to Jerusalem, with Barnabas, and took Titus with me.” That this was the journey which Luke relates in Acts, chap. is evident enough from Gal. 2: 3, 4, etc., and will be denied by no one.

The time of the council, therefore, is accurately de

bas at Jerusalem, which gave rise to the Council, as is evident from Luke's account, and which was immediately held.-TR.

fined after the time of the conversion of Paul. If, with Natalis Alexander, Baronius, etc., we place this in A. D. 34, then the council falls in A. D. 48 or 51, according as those fourteen years in Gal. 2: 1, are reckoned from Paul's conversion or from his first journey; if we place this (Paul's conversion), as we have done, in A. D. 38 or 39, then the council (according to the different reckoning of that fourteen years) falls either in A. d. 52 (53) or 55 (56). The latter figures are plainly too late. Therefore we assume without doubt, that those fourteen years are to be counted from Paul's conversion, and not from his first visit to Jerusalem. As a reason for this, it may be justly claimed, that reckoning those fourteen years from the first visit onward, there would not remain sufficient material, from Paul's life, to fill up such a succession of years. For Paul did not stay long in Tarsus, and afterward he abode one year at Antioch (Acts 11: 26). In A. D. 45, he returned with Barnabas and Mark from Jerusalem (Acts 12: 35), and, not long after, they seem to have entered on their travels to Cyprus and Asia Minor. We must therefore, in order to fill up these fourteen years, either suppose that Paul spent five or six years idly at Tarsus (and this is contrary to the fact that Barnabas brought him thence soon after his arrival at Antioch, which, according to Acts. 11: 19, 22, etc., occurred not long after Paul's conversion), or, reckon for his first mission to Asia more than five years, which is evidently too much. For this journey embraced merely Cyprus, Pamphylia, and the southern part of Lycaonia (Acts xiii. and xiv.), a tract of country which, in all, is not over a thousand German square miles, - about three thousand English square miles. There lay on the route from Perga (where Paul and Barnabas landed), through Antioch of Pisidia to Lystra, Iconium and Derbe (Acts 13: 13, 14, 51. 14: 1, 6, 7, 19), only a few cities; and they returned back again to Perga, through the same places (Acts 14: 20), and afterwards sailed from Attalia, which was in that vicinity, again to Antioch and Syria. If we take into consideration that on their journey to Derbe they stayed only a few days in the principal places, namely at Antioch in Pisidia one

week, at Iconium not more than some months; and that they removed not far from the main roads, we can hardly allow more than two years for this journey.

Considering all this, it is evident that we must reckon those fourteen years from Paul's conversion, and not from his visit to Jerusalem. If Paul's conversion occurred, as we have proved above, in a. D. 38 or 39, then the Council of Jerusalem is to be placed in A. D. 52 or 53. In this year, therefore, Peter had not gone to Rome. All that is maintained of this journey to Rome, is not above a mere story or fiction, at the bottom of which there lies nothing solid.

§ 11. Peter at Antioch.

After the Council at Jerusalem (A. D. 53), Paul and Barnabas went back to Antioch (Acts 15: 35, 36) — “ Paul also and Barnabas continued in Antioch, teaching and preaching the word of the Lord, with many others also. And some days after, Paul said unto Barnabas, Let us go again and visit our brethren, in every city where we have preached the word of the Lord, and see how they do." During this abode of Paul at Antioch, Peter also came there, as is shown Gal. 2: 11. This journey occurred after the council, as is clear from the subsequent context of the second chapter.1 As

1 This appears to me made out, and I will here briefly give the proof. Paul says (Gal. 2: 1, etc.), that he made this his journey to Jerusalem to the Council with Titus; he had brought him with him from Asia Minor after he had converted him from heathenism. Therefore Paul went to Jerusalem after his first return from Asia Minor. Verse 3rd, etc., he states that Titus was not compelled to be circumcised, but that he had to withstand false heathen who came in to spy out their liberty in Christ. In verse 2nd he had stated, that he came to Jerusalem in order to communicate the Gospel privately to them who were of repu tation which he had preached to the Gentiles. With these men of reputation, among whom he names James, Peter, and John, he came to an understanding, and was acknowledged by them as an Apostle to the Gentiles. Verses 10 and 11, "Only they would that we should remember the poor; the same which I also was forward to do. But when Peter was come to Antioch, I withstood him to the face, because he was to be blamed." We see this coming of Peter to Antioch took place first after the Council. I cannot, therefore, agree with our excellent Hug, who places it before this Council, indeed, immediately after Peter's imprisonment. At that time, when Paul had not approved himself an Apostle of the Gentiles, he would scarcely have ventured on so bold a resistance against Peter.

now Peter went not directly to Antioch with Paul, but followed him there later, so it appears that his abode there was protracted till A. D. 54.

As after this time Luke no further mentions Peter's abode, either in Palestine or in Jerusalem, although in Acts 21: 17, 18, there was a pressing occasion for it in case Peter had stayed there; so we conclude that he travelled from Antioch to the East, to preach the gospel to the Jews of the dispersion. That, moreover, he did not then go to Rome, we will now prove.

§ 12. Peter, after his journey from Antioch.

If we assume, what we have proved, that Peter in a. D. 53 or 54 had not come out of Palestine and Syria, then the opinion that he went to Rome immediately after, at once falls away to nothing. Pagi and Stolberg (Religionsgeschichte History of Religions, vol. vi.), influenced by the reasons which the Holy Scriptures present, and which we have explained above, regard Peter's departure from Syria and Palestine as following first after the Council, and agreeable to Lactantius, make him come to Rome in the beginning of the reign of Nero, and therefore in a. D. 55, and accordingly assume that he journeyed there directly from Antioch.

But this cannot be absolutely assumed. Peter could not pass by the Jews of the dispersion. And, though we will not here adduce his Epistle written from Babylon, in proof of his abode in Chaldea and Mesopotamia, yet its address "to the strangers scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia," proves that Peter preached the gospel in these extended countries, and founded and set in order churches there. That for this, labor was required, not a few months merely, but a succession of years, we may conclude from the fact that Paul, on his second tour, which embraced only certain strips of South-western and Middle Asia Minor, and some points of Greece, yet spent five years. Pagi and Stolberg assume that Peter founded

[blocks in formation]

the churches in such extensive tracts of country while passing along; a supposition which is irrational. It must hence follow, that Peter had not come to Rome in the beginning of the reign of Nero, that is in a. D. 54 and 55. We will now prove that he had not yet come there up to a. D. 63.

§ 13. Proof from Paul's Epistle to the Romans. The Epistle to the Romans, according to the agreement of all the learned, was written A. D. 58. As a proof that when Paul wrote this Epistle, Peter was not bishop of Rome, and was not staying there, we first produce the fact that Paul not only gives no salutation to Peter, which must have necessarily been the case, had Peter already been bishop of that city and ruler of the whole church ever since A. D. 42 or 54; but also that only those men are mentioned who were not from Peter's school. Mark, Peter's favorite and constant companion, is not once named. In fact, we must assume either that Paul had no knowledge of Peter's abode in Rome and his bishopric there, or that the omission of a salutation to him supposes a gross want of respect, which was unworthy of Paul.

But, say Baronius, Natalis Alexander, Rothensen, and others, the omission of the salutation to Peter, Mark, etc., proves nothing: Paul might have known that Peter, exactly then, was absent from Rome on an apostolical mission. For, in the Epistle to the Ephesians, he does not salute Timothy, nor in the Epistle to the Hebrews, James, though the former was undoubtedly at Ephesus, and the latter in Jerusalem.

Both these resorts are good for nothing. For whence do we know that Paul was aware of Peter's absence? How can any one have recourse to an hypothesis for which there is not the semblance of a reason to be discovered? As to what relates to the second resort, namely, the salutations to Timothy and James, omitted in the two Epistles named, the case is wholly different. For, in the first place, in his Epistle to the Hebrews Paul salutes no one as he does

« AnteriorContinuar »