История Церкви Апостольской (Академические лекции А.В.Горского)

The Apostles from the Ascension of the Lord into heaven until the descent of the Holy Spirit on them During His stay in various places of Judea, Samaria, the Trans-Jordanian country and especially Galilee, the Lord Jesus Christ, by His good deeds and the sending of the seventy apostles to preach, shortly before His departure from the world, aroused in very many strong expectations that the kingdom of God would soon open. During His life, there were many here and there who believed in Him as the messenger of God, although not everyone recognized Him as the Messiah Himself. Many sealed their union with Him by baptism from His disciples. The inglorious death of Jesus in Jerusalem during the Passover festival in the presence of all the Jews seemed to destroy all their hopes in Jesus. “We hoped that He would deliver Israel, of course, many repeated with the Emmaus travelers, but He died on the cross, this prophet is strong in deed and in word before God and before the people.” - The Lord has risen: but he did not appear to many, as the apostles say, only to chosen witnesses - the apostles (Acts 10:41), namely eleven, then seventy, and once again to five hundred brothers (1 Cor. 15:5-7). Other believers remained in the dark about His resurrection and had to remain only in their respect for the memory of the great man of God, or even believe the rumor spread by the Jews that the body of Jesus was stolen by His disciples. The Feast of Pentecost was approaching. Jerusalem is again filled with Jews and proselytes from near and far countries in Asia, Africa and Europe and from Palestinian cities. This holiday, falling in the summer, was even more convenient for travelers than the early one - Passover, or the later one - Tabernacles. People came here from Pareia, Media, Elam, Mesopotamia (from the eastern countries), from Cappadocia, Pontus, Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia (from the northern countries), from Arabia, Egypt and Libya (from the southern countries), from Crete and Rome (from the western countries). Those who knew and believed in Jesus no longer had anyone to hear sermons from at the holiday. His enemies no longer had anyone to fear. Those who did not know Him and were not present at the last Easter holiday could now easily obtain more or less favorable information about Him. But Jesus prepared witnesses in Jerusalem who were ready to proclaim to all those who knew Him and those who did not know Him, those who believed and those who did not believe in Him, that He was alive and that He was the Messiah. These witnesses He had in Jerusalem alone were no longer twelve, but one hundred and twenty. They spoke while the Spirit of God, the witness of God, who came to convict the world about sin, about righteousness and about judgment, spoke within them. When they parted with the Lord, then, returning to Jerusalem, they remained inseparably in prayer at the church, glorifying God for His great deeds and asking themselves for help in their service (προσευχή and δέησις mean the first - praise of God, the last - petition, according to the interpretation of Chrysostom by Photius). Preparing for this service at the suggestion of Peter, they chose from among themselves by lot one to complete the face of the apostle, namely Matthew, and put him in the place of the fallen Judas (here for the first time we see them turning with prayer to the Lord Jesus: show, you have chosen him. - The election of the apostles, the messengers of Jesus Christ, is His work). The desire for the promised Comforter, the Spirit of truth and the Divine witness for Jesus grew every day in the disciples abandoned by the Lord with the promise to soon ask Him from the Father: meanwhile, their faith in this state of deprivation gradually strengthened more and more, rising to the point of unshakability. On the very day of Pentecost, at about nine o'clock in the morning, when the people had gathered in the church for sacrifices and prayer, and when the apostles and disciples of Jesus Christ were in their upper room, suddenly there was a movement and noise from heaven: something rushed from where Jesus had ascended, cutting through the air and making noise with its desire, which was heard by those gathering in the church (like the movement of the glory of the Lord, seen by Ezekiel). This hidden power rushed to the place of residence of the witnesses of Christ and, penetrating inside, filled the whole house with itself (like the glory of the Lord, seen by Isaiah) and, as if thus turning their upper room into a font of new baptism, it rested in the form of divided tongues of fire on the heads of the apostles and they began to speak in languages ​​hitherto unknown to them. Here is the promised witness of Jesus, the Comforter and Mentor of the apostles! Encouraged and enlightened by Him, they can now boldly set out on their course of action and suddenly proclaim in several languages ​​to the heterogeneous worshipers of Jerusalem that the Lord Jesus is the Christ. Pouring out in glorification of the greatness and goodness of the divine, they come to the astonished Jews, who hear them speaking, each in his own language. A new and worldwide holiday has arrived. The subject of the holiday was not the ancient good deed, but the good deed now poured out from heaven from Jesus before the eyes of all, and not the law of slavery, but the law of freedom and adoption to God is now spoken by the Holy Spirit, and in this outpouring of the Spirit, each people received a guarantee of new life, a guarantee of grace-filled renewal when the Gospel of the kingdom reaches them. The apostles envisioned the beginning of that glorious triumph when all nations would gather in heavenly Jerusalem and glorify the one all-generous grace of God. They also forgot the hour of prayer; everyone going to the church surrounds those who proclaim the greatness of God. Some wonder where the knowledge of so many heterogeneous languages ​​comes from among the simple Galileans. Others, perhaps local residents, not understanding what they are hearing, scoff. Then the 12 apostles come out to the people and Peter - not the former Peter - timid and fearful, but courageous and undaunted, tells them that the extraordinary phenomenon that has now happened over them is the action of the Holy Spirit, which God once promised to send on His servants - that this Spirit was sent down on them, the disciples of Jesus, by Jesus Himself, Whom the Jews had recently crucified here and whom God raised from the dead, glorified, and seated at His right hand, that therefore Jesus is the Christ. The recent instructions of the Risen One Himself that Christ had to suffer and only in this way enter into His glory, and the real enlightenment of the Spirit of God, opened for his speech a new source of power and evidence in prophecies. Until now, they were dark and could not so much have power over the minds of the Jews: now they were intelligible to anyone who wanted to know the truth. The sign from heaven, which the Jews so often and in vain asked from Jesus, now itself appeared from the one who had ascended to heaven and testified where the Crucified One, whom they considered powerless, was. The ability to speak new unknown languages ​​was an extraordinary gift among the miracles known from ancient and recent times. All this, combined with what was known about Jesus’ own deeds and teachings, made such an impression on the apostle’s listeners that about three thousand of them then repented of their sins, received baptism and formed the first society of the Church of Christ with the apostles. On the day of Pentecost, gifts from the harvest taken from the fields were usually brought to the Church of Judea; Here are the fruits of the entire Old Testament harvest. Sermon and miracles of the apostles The pursuers of Jesus, amazed by the extraordinary phenomenon on the day of Pentecost and the courage of the disciples, who were considered dispelled by fear and abandoned all their hopes with the death of their Mentor, were themselves lost from fear (Acts 2:43). The people, who willingly listened to the teachings of the Lord, listened to the instructions of the apostles with the same disposition and rejoiced at their miracles. Instructing the believers, the apostles at the same time entered the vestibule of the church and took every opportunity to preach to the people about Jesus crucified. In order to devote themselves completely to this work, they took off all concerns about maintaining the community of believers, who received food from the generosity of other brethren, and were engaged only in teaching. Their miracles also attracted the attention of everyone: they healed diseases of all kinds, so that the sick were brought to them from the surrounding cities. And Peter was the first in teaching and working miracles. The power of God poured out through him in such abundance that his very shadow brought relief to the sick. For their part, the apostles, wanting to fully benefit from the fruits of the Old Testament preparation, at first did not separate from their fellow tribesmen: with everyone, as we see, they went to the Jewish church to pray and kept in their own worship and way of life rules and regulations compatible with the spirit of Christianity. The respect of the Jews for the Apostle James, according to the testimony of Hegesippus, extended to the point that the people willingly listened to his instructions and rejoiced at his miracles. Thus, the community of believers (having members in other places in Palestine), in Samaria and Galilee (Acts 9:31), grew every day in Jerusalem. Soon the Jewish priests themselves began to move into it (Acts 6:7). The Sanhedrin no longer wanted to ignore the cause of Christianity. When Peter and John, having healed the lame man at the church, then preached to the people about the crucified and risen Christ, by whose power they performed the healing, the priests, with the followers of the Sadducee sect, took them into custody in order to present them to the Sanhedrin in the morning. The next day they were indeed presented to the Sanhedrin along with the healed man. The same Annas and Caiaphas sat here who tried Jesus. The apostles were asked, by what power or in whose name did you do this? perhaps not expecting them to dare to speak before the Sanhedrin as openly as before the common people. However, the apostles, without hesitation, declared that the lame man lying at the church was raised by them in the name of Jesus, who was crucified by them, i.e. according to the definition of the Sanhedrin, and they added that this Jesus, as He Himself declared to them, is as if there was a stone neglected by those who built it, but became the head of the corner. They were recognized: John was known to one of the bishops. Their courage surprised the members of the Sanhedrin. However, the miracle could not be denied. The people were on their side, because they were not disposed towards the Sadducees. So, they only decided to forbid them, so that they would no longer preach to any person “about this name.” Peter and John answered that they needed to obey God rather than people; they were only threatened and released with the same. It goes without saying that this prohibition and threat had no effect on the apostles. Having returned home after they experienced the first persecution for the name of Christ and saw the first experience of the help of the Holy Spirit, about which Jesus Christ predicted that it would not be they who would speak at judgment, but the Holy Spirit, the first thing they did was to pray to God for the continuation of His help to them in signs and wonders to convert unbelievers. And having received a new sign as evidence of God’s favor (the place where they prayed was shaken), they preached the gospel with even greater boldness. This was the reason for the second imprisonment of the apostles and, moreover, in the people's prison, as violators of public peace. The main characters were again the Sadducees. To ridicule their vain plans, the angel (and they rejected the very existence of angels) opens the doors of the prison to the apostles. They are back in the church and teaching. From here they are taken and presented to the Sanhedrin, interrogated as violators of the commands of their superiors. They do not ask how they got out of prison, but they ask why they preach about Him whose name they hate. But the apostles, without hesitation, say that God must be obeyed more than people, and they preach about the resurrection of Jesus and the testimony of the Holy Spirit. The Sadducees can no longer bear this; they want to kill the apostles. But the voice of the learned Pharisee, Gamaliel, respected by all the people, served to benefit the Cause of God. They are only punished and released. However, the Pharisees themselves tolerated Christianity only for a time. When it began to threaten them with danger, they also rebelled against it with persecution, which was all the stronger because they themselves enjoyed greater power and strength, and that they already had against the Christians the voice of another sect, which usually competed with them. Thus, they first killed one of the deacons of the Jerusalem church, Stephen, accusing him of blasphemy against God and Moses, for allegedly saying that Jesus of Nazareth would come, destroy the church and change the customs established by Moses. Then they extended their violence to other believers who lived in Jerusalem; They plundered their homes and put them in prison, so that they all had to leave Jerusalem. Only the apostles did not disperse. Spread of Christianity in Samaria, Judea, Galilee and other places But, according to Providence, this was only a new means of spreading Christianity outside of Judea. Those who moved from Jerusalem brought with them the preaching of the gospel to other places, both in Palestine and outside Palestine. Some went to Samaria, where the Lord still found those inclined to faith (Philip), others to other cities of Judea and Galilee. New churches were formed here and there. Preaching in some coastal cities, such as Azoth, Joppa and Caesarea, could serve to spread the gospel in distant countries. But even now some went beyond the borders of Palestine - to the island of Crete, to Phenicia, to Syria, specifically to Damascus and Antioch. At first they preached only to the Jews. These newly founded churches from the Jews entered into relations with Jerusalem, the mother of churches, which, having decreased in the number of its own members, began to have incomparably more churches dependent on it. The churches located in Palestine were then visited by the apostles themselves and confirmed by them. Thus, here too the word of the Lord was fulfilled: although a grain of wheat falls on the earth and does not die, it remains alone; if it dies, it produces much fruit (John 12:24). After the vision that Peter had in Joppa and the baptism of Cornelius the centurion from the pagans in Caesarea (Palestine), the Church of Jerusalem acquired new daughters for itself in the churches formed here and there from the pagans. In addition to Caesarea, the gospel was preached to the pagans in the capital of Syria - Antioch, therefore the Church of Jerusalem sent there one of its most active members (though not one of the 12 apostles), Barnabas. So the net of the fishermen of the Gospel spread widely after ten or twelve years from the first Christian day of Pentecost. In the year 44, a new persecution of the church arose in Jerusalem, and it was from the ruler of Judea, Herod Agrippa. Wanting to please the people, he had already killed one of the first apostles, James Zebedee, John's brother, and wanted to kill Peter too and had already imprisoned him. But on that very night, after which his death awaited, God freed him from prison through His angel, and soon after struck his persecutor. And, perhaps, from this very time it is necessary to begin action outside Palestine between the Jews and the pagans themselves (12 or more precisely, after the death of James, 11) the apostles, whose number was soon supplemented by their most zealous collaborator Paul. There is an ancient tradition in the church from the 2nd century that the Lord Himself did not command the apostles to leave Jerusalem before 12 years. This legend, according to Eusebius, was found in the work of Apollonius against the Montanists and in other books. Consideration of the Gift of Tongues Having revealed the circumstances of the matter with which the existence of the Church of Christ begins, special attention must be paid to the gift that was communicated to the apostles on the day of Pentecost. The gift of tongues to the apostles, many of the learned theologians take in an improper sense, namely that the gift of tongues is nothing more than the sending down of the ability and power to speak with the people in an animated, fascinating way. They interpret that λαλείν έτέραις γλώσσαις (Acts 2:4) means the same as Mar. 16:17: γλώσσαις καιναίς, and this is the same as Matt. 10:19, 20, 21 or Luke. 21:15, that is: speak with an inspired tongue, with an irresistible, captivating force. At the same time, it is assumed that among the so-called Galileans there were also those who did not speak the Galilean dialect; and on the other hand, that among the foreign languages ​​that were heard here, one should not look for the languages ​​of all those peoples that St. Luke is counted because several adjacent peoples could speak the same language: they meant Greek or Roman. Finally they add: when the evangelist notices the surprise of those who heard the preaching of the apostles, then Luke only wants to notice that the carnal Jews, instead of paying attention to the preaching of the evangelists, only wondered where the Galileans came from such learning that they could speak foreign languages, and some - even worse - mocked the speeches of the apostles, whom they did not understand. But 1, it should be noted that the speakers were all from the disciples of Jesus Christ and, moreover, by their long-term treatment with Him, they were worthy of the name of believers: and these were all Palestinian Jews. Only at the end of the ministry of Jesus Christ did the Greeks begin to come (John 12:21), but these Greeks did not become so close to Him as to receive the name of believers and become one of His disciples. If so, then, in all likelihood, the students could only know their natural language, some Greek, others, perhaps Phoenician, but no more. Meanwhile, the surprise of the heterogeneous foreigners shows that incomparably more heterogeneous languages ​​were heard in this case. That assumption is not based on anything, that “not all the peoples named in Luke had their languages ​​heard among the apostles.” On the contrary, all these nations heard “each his own language” (Acts 2:8). Words by Mark. 16:17 are not explained by the words of Luke (21:20) or Matthew (10:19–21); these are not parallel places; in Mark the Lord speaks of general signs that will accompany believers; in Matthew and Luke about assistance to the apostles in the event of their trial before the authorities. They say: 1) The apostles used interpreters, or interpreters, for example. Peter Marcom (Eus. Η. E. III, 39, Clem. Strom. VII, 7. 765). 2) The apostles Paul and Barnabas did not know the language of the Lycaonians (Acts 14:11). 3) The Greek language of the New Testament writers contains a lot of Hebrew; in the manner of expression of the apostles it is clear that they learned Greek from Hebrew or Syrochaldean: their Greek is not a pure language. 4) They did not need knowledge of many languages: a) because their preaching was limited to the boundaries of the Roman Empire, many - only to Palestine, or to the Jews in general. In the Roman Empire, it was possible to operate quite successfully with knowledge of one dominant language; b) because this gift was revealed and communicated only for prayer (1 Cor. 14:13–17). 5) Places of Acts. 10:46–19:6 and 1 Cor. 14:13, make us understand by γλώσσαις λαλέιν something other than the suddenly aroused ability to speak in foreign languages. 6) Finally, only from the 3rd century, from the time of Origen, they began to teach that the apostles on the day of Pentecost received knowledge of languages ​​​​unknown to them. Irenaeus and Tertullian, speaking about the gift of languages, both as existing in their time and as existing before, bring it closer to the gift of προψητεία. 'Ερμηνευτής may not mean an interpreter; Mark could even be an interpreter in a language that was not known to the Apostle Peter. For Peter, of course, did not know all languages. And the Apostle Paul tells the Corinthians that he speaks in tongues more than they, but does not say that he can speak with all. There is a final remark against the second. Against the third, it is enough to say that the apostles, receiving the ability to speak in a new language, were not deprived of all their previous concepts, which stemmed from a Jewish source; therefore, it is natural to find a lot of Jewish in their speech. Against the fourth a) we note: that if the limits of the apostolic preaching were really limited to the Roman Empire, then even then it would not be possible to say that knowledge of one dominant language would be enough for them, because this dominant language in very many places was inaccessible to the common people, with whom, for the most part, initially they had to deal. In Asia Minor alone there were many different languages, according to Strabo (Geogr. Lib. 12. p. 524). Mithridates, King of Pontus, who finished his career a little over sixty years before Christ, knew 23 languages ​​of the peoples subject to him (Plin. Hist. natural, Lib. 7. p. 24. A. Gell. Noct. Attic. Lib. 17. p. 17). But if we give full meaning to the words of the Savior: “Go on, learn all languages,” then there will be no doubt that with the usual methods of learning languages, the apostles would have stretched their preaching too far. b) The Apostle condemns the use of the gift of the tongue in prayer without interpretation, but this does not mean that it was revealed only on this occasion. Otherwise, the apostle would have denounced the Spirit Himself who distributes these gifts. But he teaches how to use this gift in the church. And this does not at all exclude the possibility of using it in other cases and for other purposes. Against the fifth. Sound philology requires determining the meaning of a word or expression that appears repeatedly in any work, if possible, by its original use. Now the expression: γλώσσαις λαλείν in chapters 10 and 19 of the book of Acts does not allow itself to be understood; this expression is obviously taken from the story of the 2nd chapter of the same book. The action is the same here and there. But in the 2nd chapter one cannot understand by γλώσσαις λαλείν one inspired language, as we saw above. Ap. Peter (Acts 11:15) says that with the house of Cornelius in this case the same thing happened as with the apostles on the day of Pentecost. (It is clear that these cases were rare). So, not with these places this, but with these should explain. – As for 1 Cor. Chapter 14, then even there one cannot understand the same ecstatic language, one cannot understand such an expression of praises that would be understandable only to one who pronounces them; but we must understand the gift of speaking in foreign languages, a) If in this chapter we give the expression γλώσσαις λαλείν the first meaning, then we cannot say that it is the same with γλώσσαις έτέραις λαλείν (Acts. 2:4), because those who heard the apostles understood what they said (v. 11); opposite in both places and 1 Cor. Chapter 14 and Acts. Chapter 2 the same circumstances are assumed, i.e., both speaking in tongues and the presence of foreigners who understand those languages ​​(word 1 Cor. 14:23). b) The Apostle says: the Gentiles are not a sign to believers, but to unbelievers (1 Cor. 14:22). Brief, incomprehensible sayings cannot in themselves be a sign for an infidel: on the contrary, from incoherent words that do not have a clear meaning, the hearer could conclude that the speaker is ignorant. Tongues will then be a sign for unbelievers, when a person who did not know any language before suddenly speaks a new language. c) In verse 21, the Apostle quotes the words of Isaiah (28:13), which speak specifically about foreign unknown languages, and applies these words without any limitation to the matter of his reasoning about languages. In Isaiah, the Lord tells His people that they will speak in a foreign language, the language of those who took them captive; just as there it is impossible to understand any other meaning of the word: language, so it is here. d) Finally, only in the sense of their own tongues can these words of the Apostle have meaning: to another give birth to tongues (1 Cor. 12:10), as Chrysostom understood this (Hom. 29. in 1 Cor.). We answer against the evidence: none directly speaks in favor of the stated assumption. On the contrary, Irenaeus (advers. Haeg. 5, 6. - Euseb. Η. E. 5, 6) when he says about himself that he himself did not have the gift of tongues, that, having arrived in Gaul, he had to learn the native language, - and meanwhile he writes that in his time there were those who had prophetic gifts and all kinds of (παντοδαπαίς) spoke in the spirit tongues and human mysteries were discovered, noting that the apostle understands these people who have received the Spirit of God and speak in all languages by the Spirit of God where he says: “wisdom is an imperfect verb” - this clearly shows that the languages of these “perfect” people should be understood in the proper sense as foreign languages. From the words of the apostle: I thank my God... we can conclude that this ability could also depend on the moral qualities of the person. – Traces of the antiquity of this understanding of the event of Pentecost and the gift of tongues in the apostolic and later churches in general can be seen in the fact that Philostratus, describing the life of Apollonius of Tyana, whom he wanted to oppose to Jesus Christ, noted about him that he knew not only all human languages, but also the language of animals (Phil. de vita Apollonis L. I. cap. 13. Conf. Euseb. contr. Hieroclem p. 521). Later in church history there are examples of miraculous understanding of foreign languages, for example. in Ephraim the Syrian. Calling and Formation of Paul as Apostle to the Gentiles Saul or Paul (the first name is Hebrew, the second is Roman) was from the tribe of Benjamin, originally from Tarsus of Cilicia. That he was born there is clear from his own words in the book of Acts 21:39, 22:3. (The contradictory tradition in Jerome de vir. ill. p. 5, that Paul was born in Giskala, a city of Galilee, does not deserve to be believed, although it may have some truth in it: perhaps his ancestors once lived in this town). Since we do not know how long Paul lived in his father’s house, we cannot determine how great an influence his birth had on his education in the main city of Cilicia, which was scientifically equal at that time to Athens and Alexandria (according to Strabo). Of course, his early acquaintance with the Greek language and the life of the Greeks did not remain without influence on his formation as a teacher of Greeks (languages). But few passages from Greek poets in his Athenian speech and epistles do not yet prove that he benefited his upbringing from acquaintance with Greek literature (1 Cor. 15:33 from Menander. Titus 1:12 from Epimenides. Acts 17:28 from Aratus). The first two sayings could circulate among the people like proverbs. The latter is remarkable for its accuracy: even γάρ is retained: τού γάρ καί γένος έσμέν. But Aratus was a Cilician by birth, therefore, a compatriot of Paul: therefore, his poems could have been known to him from school. Moreover, the apostle himself says that he was brought up not in Tarsus, but in Jerusalem (Acts 22:3 άνατεϑραμμένος). After rabbinic education, a zealous Pharisee, such as Paul was before his conversion, would not allow himself to enter into such close communication with the pagans as to study in their academy. He was intended by his father to be a Pharisee, apparently, to become a rabbi, and for this purpose he was sent to Jerusalem in order to become a learned interpreter of Scripture and traditions in the Pharisee school. He was brought up by Gamaliel, a teacher of the law of the Pharisaic sect, who, in the words of the book of Acts (5:34), was honest to all people 56 . Education in these schools consisted of the interpretation of Holy Scripture. Jews, writes Josephus (Antiquit. 1. XX c. XL) all wisdom lies in a) clearly understanding one’s laws (τά νίμιμα σαφώς έπιστάμευοι) and b) interpreting the power of sacred books (τήν τών ίερών γραμμάτων δύναμιν έρμηνεύσαί). The study of the law (according to the Talmud in Pirke Aroth. c. 5. 521) began at the age of five, at the age of 10 the study of the mishna, and at the age of 13 the young man was obliged to strictly observe the law (Tholuck. Stud. u. Kritik. 1835. p. 366). Paul's obligatory study of the law can be seen from the many passages of Scripture he cited in his letters. Up to 50 places are given in them from memory, i.e., not with exact retention of the translation words. The mentor Pavlov was distinguished by his moderation of views on those who differ in their views (Acts 5:34); he was even familiar with Greek literature. The Talmud writes that he even allowed himself to go to pagan baths, decorated with statues of gods. When this aroused surprise among the pagans, Gamaliel answered: the bathhouse was built before the statues, it was not erected for the goddess (Venus), but the goddess was erected to decorate the bathhouse (Tholuck. ibid. S. 378). Such freedom of spirit could have a beneficial effect on his students. But a young man with a fiery and strong soul, such as Paul, if he took on anything, it was with all the fervor: his heart itself was inclined towards the most immoderate jealousy - and Pharisaism gave a lot of food for such a direction. From the personal properties of his character, as well as from his own testimonies, we can conclude that he tried to surpass all his contemporaries in legal righteousness, as the ardent Pharisees understood it. And this was not without the intention of Providence. The more zealous his desire for holiness was, the more he had to struggle with the rebellious impulses of his fiery and strong nature, the more occasions he had to prove that there is evil in man, which cannot be tamed by the bridle of the law alone, that a person can know good, but cannot always do good, that he is involuntarily, with all his good disposition, carried away by the power of ungodly impulses from good to evil. Paul, of course, would never have described such a state so vividly and accurately in the seventh chapter of the Epistle to the Romans if he had not known it from his own experience. And the fact that he switched to Christianity from a sect in which they used all precautions, put up all sorts of barriers against the power of desires and passions, tried by all means to force themselves to do good - was very important for Paul. Having experienced all these measures for himself and learned their weakness, he could, as the representative of all people with zealous moral aspirations, be testified by his own experience how deep in human nature lies the feeling of the need for redemption. After this, also from his own experience, he could determine the relationship of internal freedom, stemming from faith in redemption, to legal slavery. Although Paul was a faithful and zealous disciple of Gamaliel, it cannot be concluded from this that the spirit of moderation, which distinguished Gamaliel in relation to Christianity, also passed into him. The student, and especially the student with such a strong original spirit, submits to the spiritual influence of his teacher only in so far as it corresponds to his own disposition. The inflexibility of his character, the fire of nature, the fire of youth made him strong, prone to persecution, zealous against everything that contradicted the system he revered as sacred. And when Stephen rebelled against the Pharisees, Paul, who was then in Jerusalem, became from that time on the strongest persecutor of Christianity. He entered the houses of Christians, dragged men and women to the court of the Sanhedrin and imprisoned them (Acts 8:3), forced them to blaspheme Christ (26:11). After the martyrdom of Stephen, when many followers of the Gospel sought refuge in other cities, he considered it his calling to pursue them in the noble Syrian city of Damascus, where quite a few of them had retired. And he hurried there, having been authorized by his supreme court for ecclesiastical affairs (to which the Romans themselves granted the right to take all sorts of measures against violators of their law) - to exterminate all Christians. We know what happened to Paul on the road to Damascus. As for the great change that was produced in Paul by this journey undertaken to destroy the Christian faith, some think that this important incident only seems so sudden and miraculous to us because history presents us with one outcome of the matter, and not the various preparatory circumstances and paths that led to this denouement: and by adding such gaps as are found in history, they want to give it a natural explanation. Paul, so say those who look at Paul's conversion from this point of view, was already predisposed in favor of Christianity; his soul, which always so ardently loved the truth, could not fail to be favorably impressed by the moderate reviews of Gamaliel, the speech of Stephen, whose character was akin to his, and the sight of his martyrdom. But he was still too bound by the spirit of pharisaism to suddenly indulge in these impressions, which acted on him against his own will. He suppressed them as much as he could; he looked at these new thoughts, which involuntarily arose in his soul, in favor of the new teaching, as the suggestions of Satan, from whom he produced all this rebellion against the importance of ancient sacred traditions; and therefore, with the strongest jealousy, he rebelled against the new sect. However, he failed to completely suppress them and drown out the voice of conscience rebelling against his fanaticism. A struggle began in his soul. When he was in such a state of mind, another external impression was added, which turned a spark into a fire. Not far from Damascus, a storm met him and his companions: lightning struck close to Paul and threw him unconscious to the ground. In this he now recognized the punishing and warning power of the Messiah he was persecuting; and since in this state it was easy to confuse one’s own sensations with reality, the objective with the subjective, the real impression was reflected in his soul by the actual appearance of Jesus. Blinded by lightning and deafened by thunder, he came to Damascus. – But how can one explain Paul’s meeting with Ananias from natural causes? And here something can be noticed that history does not clearly mention. Since Ananias was a man known among the Jews for his strict legal piety, it is not incredible that both of them knew each other in Jerusalem. In Paul, who heard about the spiritual gifts of this man in Christianity, the idea was born that this man, respected by Christians, could help him, free him from his present miserable situation; and while he was occupied with this thought, a vision was formed from it. On the other hand, one might think that Ananias also heard something about the great change that had happened to Paul, but did not believe it until a psychologically explained vision in the same way defeated his incredulity. Considering this explanation, one could still assume that the change that happened to Paul could have been prepared by the mentioned impressions, but based on what history presents to us, it is in no way possible to prove the necessity or even the likelihood of such an explanation. History in general presents us with quite a few examples of the power of religious fanaticism even over hearts that are, on other sides, open to the true and the good; - how they know how to turn to their advantage everything that could lead them out of error. So, taking into account the strong character of Paul, it cannot be considered incredible that even in the martyrdom of Stephen he thought to see only the power of the evil spirit over the spirit that was carried away by him to fall away from pure teaching; that therefore I felt even more strongly the urge to oppose the spread of teachings that could lead to destruction such people who were distinguished in their talent and heart. Consequently, from here Saul’s confirmation in the accepted direction rather than change should have been expected. - Further, how unlike the storm the presentation of the circumstances of the incident! If there had not been a real appearance of Jesus, but only a storm had produced such an effect, then how can we explain that Paul’s companions saw and heard something similar to what the apostle saw and heard? Of course, we must assume that they were in a similar state of mind as Paul, i.e., that they were already either Christians or on the way to Christianity. But such people would certainly not agree to be persecutors of Christians. And how could the deception accepted by Paul—that the Savior had appeared to him—serve as the reason for such a revolution as took place in Paul’s life? – The differences in the narration of this incident in chapters 9, 22 and 26 do not prove anything against its reality. They could easily have occurred in the repetition of the narration of an event so far beyond the circle of ordinary phenomena, there is no need to attribute them to the different mode of narration of Paul himself; they can be explained from the inaccuracy of the transmission of his speeches. If we assume that Paul’s companions received only a general impression of the phenomenon, and not as specific as Paul, for whom this phenomenon actually happened; that they saw the light, but no definite shape; heard the words, but did not distinguish or understand anything definite, then it will be explained how the same phenomenon could be presented differently from different sides. Since this phenomenon, by its very nature, cannot be judged according to the laws of ordinary earthly communication and sensation, the objection that Paul and his companions did not see and hear the same thing has no force against its objective reality. We do not yet know the laws according to which there are messages from the spiritual world to people living in the sensory world, in order to be able to say something definite about it. Others do not doubt the actual appearance of Jesus Christ, but recognize this entire event as one internal phenomenon in the spirit of Paul, allowing one spiritual revelation of Jesus Christ without an external one. With such an explanation, the experiences of his struggle with himself in Pharisaism, the impressions of Stephen’s speech and martyrdom would be exactly a preparation for this inner revelation. The divinity and truth of the event with such a view would not suffer anything, because no matter how one looks at the external, it will all be only a means by which Paul had to be prepared for that internal revelation of Jesus Christ, on which all his apostolic activity depended. And sensory sensations can no more have certainty and reality, just like spiritual events. (That this was not some kind of deception that can be explained psychologically, this would be guaranteed by the extraordinary change that occurred in Paul from this internal event, his entire apostolic activity: it testifies to everything that he experienced within himself, as an effect about a cause). But this explanation is also contradicted by the fact that Paul’s companions were also struck by this event - that Paul lost his sight. The opinion that the vision on which Paul's conversion depended is the same one which he describes in the second letter to the Corinthians (12:2), an opinion which has been restored in modern times, cannot be accepted. Here Paul describes his ascent of the spirit into the highest region of the spiritual world; the vision that was the reason for the conversion describes the descent of Jesus to him, while he was not deprived of the consciousness that he lives on earth. The impression of this phenomenon was overwhelming: and that event was combined with an extraordinary delight of the spirit; from the first his Christian consciousness began; the second was one of those highest moments of inner life when a person, who has already lived for a long time in communion with Christ, after the various battles that he had to endure, is calmed by a foretaste of heavenly existence and is again revived for his earthly labors. The 14 years mentioned here should mean that this message was written 14 years after Pavlov’s conversion. But this completely confuses the entire chronology. It is best to look at how Paul himself in his epistles depicts this incident, which in any case was important to him, as the beginning of a new period of his life. – He often testifies against his enemies the Jews, who did not want to recognize his apostolic calling, by the fact that he, like the other apostles, was entrusted with the apostolic ministry by Jesus Christ himself, for example. Galat. 1:1, but this can be understood not about an external event, but, as was said, about an internal one. In the indicated place in Art. 16. the apostle seems to be talking about the inner (έν έμοί) revelation of the Lord in his self-consciousness, which made him capable of proclaiming Christ independently of any human instruction. Not quite the same when the Apostle 1 Cor. 9:1 ​​refers to the fact that he saw the Lord Jesus and that because he himself saw Him, he became His apostle. But even this can be understood about a vision in some kind of ecstatic state, similar to the one described by the Apostle himself 2 Cor. 12:1. - But it’s a completely different matter when he’s in 15th chapter. his first letter to Cor. The appearance of the Lord Jesus that happened to him puts him on a par with all other appearances of the risen Savior. And this review of the apostle is all the more important because, as the passage from 2 Cor. shows, he knew how to distinguish an ecstatic state from a state of ordinary self-consciousness. Naturally, Paul could not suddenly get down to business after such an impression. At one time, everything that had hitherto been the motivation and goal of all his actions was destroyed for him; his heart became filled with a feeling of contrition. He was in a state of spiritual and physical weakness and could not help himself. He spent three days without food; this was for him a transition from death to a new life. And nothing better can describe to us his feelings in these critical days than the short exclamation that he himself, being transferred to his previous state (Rom. 7:24), puts into the mouth of a man unbearably burdened by the consciousness of internal slavery and thirsting for freedom from the law and sin - his whole heart pours out in these words: who will deliver me from this body of death, from this calamity? that is, from sin living in the flesh (v. 18), which constitutes the death of the soul, giving birth to the death of the body. It is not at all incredible that in this state he would seek treatment from others. Dealing with any of the Jews could not now be pleasant for him, and seeking acquaintance with any of the persecuted Christians, of course, could not even occur to him. In general, a person in such a state of mind may enjoy solitude most of all. Therefore, it is in itself incredible that the news of the change that had happened to him reached Ananias through others. History justifies itself when it explains his rapprochement with Christians as the work of the same Divine power that converted him. “When Paul appealed to Christ, who appeared to him, so that He would help him in his present situation, enlighten his bodily and spiritual eyes, he was promised in a vision that a man whom he probably knew by ear and face, a famous enlightened man of the Damascus church, Ananias, would be an instrument of his spiritual and physical healing. Ananias, submissive to the calling of God, appeared to him. Paul recognized him as the man pointed out by the vision; accepted him with confidence and in communication with him received the highest power of life, received his sight, was baptized, and was filled with the Holy Spirit. Ananias led Paul to other Christians in the city. And when, after spending several days with them, Paul felt quite strengthened, he was forced by his conscience to appear in the local synagogue and testify about the matter that he had hitherto so strongly pursued 57 . But whether Paul, having made this first testimony, wanted to give him further action without his personal presence, or whether the machinations of the Jews were already forcing him to think about salvation by flight, only soon he retired to the neighboring part of Arabia, where, among the Jews who lived in great numbers, he could find a new field for his preaching. From here again he returned to Damascus. But is it because the Jews, irritated by his previous preaching, as soon as they learned of his arrival in the city, immediately began to try to capture into their hands the man who could be so dangerous for Judaism, or only now he aroused them against himself by continuing the sermon in the synagogue - Paul only had to seek salvation in flight: the fetters of the Jews threatened his life. And this man, who later did not fear any dangers in his rank, in the very heat of jealousy after his recent conversion, was so alien to any thought of ardent dreamers seeking arbitrary martyrdom 58 that he allowed himself to be lowered by his friends in a box through the window of a city house adjacent to the wall outside the city, and thus, unnoticed by anyone, hid from the searches of the Jews, who were guarding all the exits from the city 59 . When three years had thus passed after his conversion, Paul decided (about 39 A.D.) to go to Jerusalem, there to personally see Peter, who was greatly respected in the church and was most involved in matters related to the church. And since in Jerusalem Paul was known only as a persecutor, everyone here avoided meeting him until the teacher Barnabas, respected in the Jerusalem church, who, as a Hellenist, was closer to him and perhaps had known him even before, introduced him to the church. The Hellenistic origin of Paul was the reason for some conversations and disputes about Judaism and Christian teaching with the Jews (Acts 9:29). When the Apostle Paul, during this visit to Jerusalem, prayed in the church and, lifted up in prayer to the Lord, renounced everything earthly, it was revealed to him in a vision that He could not accomplish anything in Jerusalem against the irritated Jews; that on the contrary he is appointed to carry the teaching of salvation to other nations (Acts 22:21). And soon, no more than after a fifteen-day stay in Jerusalem, Paul was forced by the machinations of the Jews to leave the city. He returned to his homeland and spent several years here, of course, without leaving to preach the Gospel, although Luke does not talk about this, as well as about some other initial events of his life. It is very likely that the Cilician churches, formed from the pagans, which we subsequently find, owed their origin to Paul. It is impossible to think that after the command of Jesus Christ, Paul began to remain silent in his fatherland about Jesus Christ, Whom he preached in other cities even before the command. (For the churches in Cilicia, see Epistle of the Council of the Apostles Acts 15:23. The apostle himself, of course, means preaching, and not a simple journey to Syria and Cilicia in Galatians 1:21). The question is, is Paul’s Christian polemic towards Judaism in the same relation now as it was later? Or - which is the same - from the very time Paul became acquainted with the Gospel, did he begin to assert its independence from the Law of Moses? It could be very difficult to assert this, only that having renounced the principles of Pharisaism, we see that those who entered Christianity from this sect were very inclined to mix the Gospel with Pharisaic tenets. Ananias, the first teacher of the Apostle, was respected by everyone for his legal piety and therefore, of course, was far from wanting to separate the Gospel from the ritual law of Moses. In general, around the time of Paul's conversion, this was the dominant trend among Christians; It was only the events after the martyrdom of Stephen that little by little began to reveal a new point of view from various sides. – But we have no right to assert that it was precisely this same event that served to determine Paul’s way of thinking. In general, we should not in Paul, with his great independent spirit, place very high a certain influence on the external communication of teachings and ideas. Let us better believe him himself when he testifies with such strong confidence that he borrowed his way of preaching not from human instruction, but only from the spirit of Christ. But the spirit of Christ enlightening him, regardless of human instruction, introduced him to a special understanding and special development of letters and matter. In whom Pharisaic Judaism gradually turned into Christianity, a lot of time had to pass before the spirit of the Gospel destroyed the Pharisaic-Jewish form. It was different with Pavel. In it, Pharisaism was expressed from the very opposite side to Christianity; but now, without any gradual transition, suddenly, after one sudden turning point, embraced by the power of the Gospel, he became from the strongest persecutor to the most zealous confessor; when the feeling of slavery reached the highest degree in him, then he was already completely imbued with faith in the Redeemer in order to receive freedom from him. Naturally, all ties with Pharisaism in him were severed at once; the place of the persecution of the Gospel was replaced by the persecution of Pharisee Judaism, as he himself says (Phil. 3:8): I count all the vanity of existence for the surpassing understanding of Christ Jesus my Lord: for his sake I have emptied it all, and I count all the wisdom of existence, that I may gain Christ. So Paul from the very beginning freely and deeply understood the relation of the Gospel to Judaism, and this under the action of the enlightenment of the Spirit alone, without any instructions from Peter or those Christians of Hellenistic origin who had already preached the Gospel to the Gentiles 60 · Antioch, the mother of the churches formed from the Gentiles, and its relation to the mother of the churches formed from the Jews Meanwhile, Christianity had already been brought by Hellenistic preachers of the Gospel to the great capital of Roman Asia, Antioch, to the pagans. The news of this attracted the attention of the Christians of Jerusalem. Is it because they have never had anything like this before, i.e. Peter had not yet returned from his journey, during which he enlightened Cornelius, and the news of the newly formed church from the pagans without observing the ritual law of Moses produced only bewilderment and distrust: or because, although the incident with Cornelius had already in some way prepared for such a phenomenon, they could not yet agree to the innovations associated with these incidents, and have direct trust in the pagan Christians - since this distrust in the majority of Christians from the Jews remained for a long time and after repeated experiences of the Divine power of the Gospel among Christians from the pagans - only Barnabas was entrusted, as a long-standing and universally respected teacher and as a Hellenist, better able to deal with Christians of purely Hellenic origin, - to go to survey the new church from the pagans. Barnabas rejoiced in the true fruits of the Gospel that he found here; zealously contributed to the further success of the work, and when great new opportunities opened up here for the further spread of the kingdom of God, he called into the community Paul, known for his purpose, to preach to the pagans. Proof of the power with which Christianity spread here among the pagans in an independent manner was that the believers here adopted the first name of Christians. In relations with each other, they called themselves disciples of the Lord, disciples of Jesus, brothers, believers. But unlike the Jews and pagans, as believers in Christ, they called themselves Christians. - They think that Christians did not accept this name themselves, but from others - not from the Jews, but from the pagans. The Jews would have given them a name that would have expressed contempt: they certainly would not have called them followers of the Messiah. The pagans, hitherto seeing that they were observing the ritual Jewish law, did not know how to distinguish them from the Jews. But now, when Christianity began to spread among the pagans without observing the ritual law, it seemed to them a completely new religious sect (genus tertium, as Christians were later called, i.e., neither Jews nor pagans), and since they took the name “Christ” as their own, to designate the followers of the new Teacher, they made up a name from it in the same form in which they usually called the followers of some teacher who established special school. But why not allow the idea that Christians themselves accepted such a wonderful name? Disciples, brothers, believers - it was not defined in relation to outsiders. Disciple of the Lord, Christ is not a one-word title; on the contrary, χριστιανοί - and expressed the essence of their difference from followers of other confessions - is also important in home church use. The Roman form at the end ανοι shows only that in this case the believers followed the form adopted in the empire. From this time on, Antioch became a very important place in the development of Christianity. From now on there were two focal points for its distribution. What hitherto was Jerusalem for the spread of Christianity among the Jews, now Antioch has become for the spread of Christianity among the pagans. Here, for the first time, two views on Christianity came into contact and struggle with each other, one that carried an element of Jewish education, the other - pagan. Just as in Alexandria the development of Christianity in subsequent times was to be influenced by various mixtures of elements of Eastern philosophy with the predominant element of Hellenistic education: so in the eastern Roman-Asian capital it was to encounter various mixtures of elements of Eastern religion. From Antioch at the beginning of the 2nd century, systems spread: eastern anti-Jewish Gnosticism, which placed Christianity in a hostile relationship with Judaism. From that time on, frequent relations opened between the two main churches of Jerusalem and Antioch. Recognizing each other as brothers, Christians gave each other help with all their zeal. When the prophet Agabus came from Jerusalem to Antioch and began to predict a famine, which especially threatened the poor Christians of Jerusalem (this famine occurred in Palestine around 44 AD), then the Christians of Antioch considered it their duty to help the church, from which they received the highest spiritual benefits and, of course, before the famine began, they sent monetary assistance to the primates of the Church of Jerusalem through Paul and Barnabas. The Church of Jerusalem at this time, after eight years of peace after the death of Stephen, again, although not for long, was subject to indignation. King Herod Agrippa, to whom Emperor Claudius entrusted the administration of Judea itself, wanted to show his zeal for strict observance of the law. Although his behavior was not always in accordance with this jealousy - he adapted to the Roman way of life in order to attract the favor of the pagans - but in order not to arm the Jews against himself, he rebelled against the preachers of the new teaching: Apostle James, the eldest son of Zebedee, the brother of the Apostle John, he ordered to be killed, and during the Easter holiday in 44 he threw Peter into prison so that at the end of the holiday they would do with him the same as with Jacob. But Peter, with the special assistance of God, was freed from prison. Through the prayer of the church for him, the angel loosed his bonds, brought him out of the locked prison, brought him into the city, and thus saved the chief apostle, whose life the church still needed, from death. Soon after this, Herod himself died, struck by an angel as punishment for his actions against the Church of Christ; and his death restored peace to the Jerusalem Christians. Paul and Barnabas came to Jerusalem during these troubles 61 . Therefore, they probably were here for a very short time, could not do anything significant, and soon returned to Antioch. But since the Church of Antioch did not lack teachers and the beginning of the conversion of the pagans had already been made, now the time had come in which the promise of I. Christ to Paul to send him far to the pagans was to be fulfilled. The Holy Spirit revealed to the shepherds of the Church of Antioch this appointment of Paul and with him Barnabas, who took with him his nephew Mark from Jerusalem. The mother of this Mark had her own house in Jerusalem; believers gathered in it for prayer (Acts 12:12, 25). But Mark left both his home and his mother for the work of God. When Barnabas took his nephew Mark with him to Antioch from Jerusalem, he, perhaps, already had in mind to use him as a collaborator in this field. The revelation of the Holy Spirit now decided their purpose. It was announced on the occasion of a special fast appointed for this purpose (Acts 13:2). Then they learned that it was time to dedicate and release Paul and Barnabas to the work to which they had been called by the Lord. Spread of Christianity from Antioch by Paul and Barnabas Accompanied by Mark, Paul and Barnabas first went to the island of Cyprus, the homeland of Barnabas, and walked the island from east to west, from Salamis to Paphos. With their preaching they addressed first the Jews, then the pagans. The Jews, by their calling and the promises given to them, were the first to have the right to do so; they had certain places for religious meetings - synagogues, where proselytes also gathered, and through the proselytes a convenient passage was opened to the pagans themselves. In Paphos they found in the proconsul Sergius Paulus one of those people who were not satisfied with either the popular faith or philosophy and greedily grabbed at everything that seemed new to them, and therefore he was very eager to hear what a new doctrine Barnabas and Paul were preaching. But carried away by his religious demands, which he himself was not clearly aware of, he was in the networks of the deceiver, the Jewish sorcerer Bar-Jesus. These wise men in subsequent times were the most powerful enemies of Christianity, because Christianity threatened them with the destruction of their power over the pagans. Therefore, Bar-Jesus made every effort to prevent the spread of the Gospel and rebelled the proconsul against him. But Paul, filled with the Holy Spirit, pronounced the judgment of which he was worthy, as a hater of light: according to the word of the apostle, he lost his sight. This proof of the power of the new teaching against his enemies had a decisive effect on the proconsul and he believed in the Gospel. Then the evangelists, having crossed the sea and entered the shore of Asia Minor, went to the north, passed Pamphylia, they were in Perga (Acts 13:13), came to the borders of Phrygia, Isauria, Pisidia and in Antioch of Pisidia, as a significant border city, they stopped to preach. Paul's sermon in the local synagogue presents us with the first image of the wisdom and skill of the apostle in influencing the hearts of his hearers. Desiring to gain their attention and confidence, he first points out how God has chosen them to be a special people to Himself, and then briefly surveys all that God did for His people before David, from whose descendants the Messiah was to come in fulfillment of the promises. After this preparation, the apostle moves on to the main goal of the speech, to the appearance of the Messiah and to what He accomplished for the salvation of the human race. Now, said Paul, addressing the Jews and proselytes present, this sermon on salvation is appointed for you; for those who were first reached by this gospel, the Jews of Jerusalem and their leaders, did not want to accept it, did not recognize the Messiah, did not understand the prophecies that are read every Saturday in the synagogue. However, having condemned the Messiah to death, they could not destroy the promises, but only themselves, against their knowledge and expectation, served to fulfill them, since He, having endured everything that was to suffer according to the predictions of the prophets, rose from death. You have not seen Him, but by faith in Him you can receive remission of sins and justification, which the law could never provide. - Having announced this promise, the apostle added a threat against unbelief. These words, filled with meekness, made a favorable impression at first. On behalf of the entire congregation, they asked Paul to preach the following Saturday in order to reveal the proposed teaching in more detail. Meanwhile, some of those present, especially the proselytes, imbued with the power of the truth more than others and thirsting for the redemption about which Paul preached, did not want to wait until the next Sabbath; They hastened to Paul and asked him for detailed instructions. Thus, Paul and Barnabas had repeated occasions during the week to preach the Divine teaching in private societies and to spread it even among the pagans. The rumor about the new gospel teaching spread throughout the city before the next Sabbath, and the pagans flocked to the synagogue in large crowds, as did the Jews. This sight alone was enough to arouse anger in the Jews, filled with a high opinion of themselves, as a chosen people, who had contempt for everything pagan. Therefore, the present sermon was not received with the same favor and calm as the first. Paul was interrupted with contradictions and ridicule; He remarked to this that since they do not want to accept the proclaimed salvation and themselves deviate from it, the preachers are free to turn to the pagans, who expressed more disposition towards the Gospel. Thus, Barnabas and Paul, with the believing pagans, left the synagogue and chose another place for the meeting of believers and those expressing a desire to believe. Christianity spread from here throughout the area. - But the Jews managed to arouse the noblest inhabitants of the city against them through proselytes and, through their influence on their husbands, raised open persecution against Paul and Barnabas, so that they were forced to leave the city. They retired to Iconium of Lycaonia, a city ten miles distant from Antioch, and found here access from Jews and pagans. But the enmity of the Jews, who won over the leaders of the city to their side, expelled them from here, after they had already managed to acquire quite attentive disciples for themselves by preaching and miracles. The apostles went to another city in the same province and first acted in Lystra for quite a long time. Here, apparently, there was no synagogue and in general the Jews did not live here. Therefore, there was no better place left for preaching the Gospel than a national meeting in the squares and outside the city. When Paul and Barnabas were thus engaged in their work in the vicinity of the city, one lame man, perhaps a beggar, listened to their preaching. Paul's words made such a strong impression on him that he looked forward to not only spiritual, but also physical restoration. Paul noticed this and, in order to confirm his hope in Christ, and through him in others, he said to him: stand on your feet and walk upright. The lame man was healed. This phenomenon attracted an even larger crowd of people. The gullible people mistook them for gods who appeared in human form to communicate their benefits to people (such a belief, arising from the depths of the human heart, from the undeniable feeling of the union of the human race with the Divine, has been widespread among pagans since ancient times). Since in this city Jupiter was especially revered, who was revered as the creator of cities, chief, ruler and guardian of the civil order (Ζεύς πολιεύς, πολιούχος), and therefore a church was dedicated to him before entering the city; then the people thought that Jupiter himself, the patron saint of the city, had descended to earth. Since Paul usually excelled in speech over Barnabas, he was recognized as Mercury, and Barnabas, who may have been older than Paul and had something especially important in appearance, was recognized as Jupiter. The superstitious inhabitants communicated their guesses to each other in their own dialect, but Paul and Barnabas did not know what honor was in store for them. The people immediately reported the news of the appearance of the gods in the church and the priest came to the gates of the city with waters for sacrifice to Jupiter and with wreaths for sacrificial animals. When the evangelists of the Gospel learned about this, they, filled with sorrow, in torn clothes, rushed into the crowd to stop their insane attempt. "What are you doing?" Paul told them, “We are people like you. We then came here to turn you, from these insignificant idols, to the living, omnipotent God, the Author of all existence, Who, although hitherto left people to their own will, so that they could experience how little they could do on their own, but never left them without evidence of Himself, sending down to them everything they needed for content and pleasure.” With difficulty, the apostles stopped this movement of the people with their ideas. But this impression, seemingly so strong, did not last long, since few were imbued with the power of truth. The Jews of Iconium managed to arouse most of the pagans against Paul here, so that the people, excited, threw stones at him and he was dragged out of the city as if dead. But with the help of the believers he stood up again; Having spent the rest of the day still in Lystra, strengthened by the power of God, the next day he retired with Barnabas to the neighboring town of Derbe. Having preached here and in the surroundings of both cities of Lystra and Derbe, they again visited those cities where they first spread the faith and from where they had to leave earlier than they wanted, due to persecutions; they tried to establish new Christians in the faith and gave the newly founded churches a solid hierarchical organization. Then they returned to Antioch the same way they came. Dispute between Jewish Christians and Gentile Christians and reconciliation. Independent development of the Christian Church among the pagans While Christianity was spreading more and more among the pagans in Antioch, and from here in Syria and Cilicia, disagreement or schism threatened to arise between the new churches, which could lead to constant hostility between the two main components of the Christian church. Christians who adhered to strict Pharisaism came to Antioch from Jerusalem, who told the pagans that without circumcision they could not have a part in the kingdom of God and argued with Paul and Barnabas regarding the doctrine they preached. The Church of Jerusalem, in all likelihood, consisted of only converted Jews. Turning to Christ, they, like Jews, still continued to observe respect for their Jewish law, not only in civil matters, but also in church affairs: since both were closely connected with each other. Thus, the Jewish believers observed, as before, the holidays and other rites of the Jewish religion, just as the Savior Himself was subject to the law during His earthly life (Acts 21:20, 21). In this they were more zealous than the converted Jews from the dispersion, or the Greek Jews. The Jews who lived outside Jerusalem were not so closely tied to both the church and the sacrifices. They only visited Jerusalem from time to time for holidays, or were content to send money for the maintenance of the temple and for sacrifices; Meanwhile, they gathered in synagogues to read sacred books and observed Jewish laws on food and purification. Now, when they converted to Christianity, they either completely abandoned the law or, at least, were even weaker in their adherence to it; it did not cost them much difficulty to enter into communication with converted pagans, from whom they were not required to observe the Jewish law. At first, perhaps, they did not leave their synagogues, but over time, not finding in them such edification for themselves as in Christian assemblies and not seeing any hope of influencing their fellow tribesmen favorably in favor of Christianity, they left dead schools; drawing closer to the converted pagans in church and home life, they ate food with them; That’s why the Jewish rules about food and cleansing little by little fell into oblivion. In a few years (about 10 years) we will see that some Jews who converted to Christianity outside Palestine stopped circumcising their children: the last decisive sign that they were completely abandoning Judaism. This was the case among Jewish converts outside Palestine. But not so in Jerusalem. Although the Jerusalem Christians had their own meetings to celebrate the sacraments of their faith and mutual edification, they did not abandon visiting the church and performing other duties of a faithful Jew. It goes without saying that the apostles and other God-enlightened men did not place any special holiness in this, and therefore agreed to recognize Cornelius, a converted pagan, as their brother in Christ, although he was not one of the circumcised; therefore, they did not demand that in the future pagans converting to Christianity be obliged to observe the Jewish law. But not everyone thought so. Many zealots of the law (Acts 21:20) thought that for the pagans the law was necessary for justification and inheritance of the kingdom of God (Acts 15:1); therefore, they did not want to allow them into the church before circumcision had been performed on them, as on proselytes. Thus, it is not surprising that they did not like the orders of Paul and his staff. To resolve this dispute, the Christians of Antioch decided to send deliberate men to Jerusalem; Naturally, the choice fell on Paul and Barnabas, since they were the most active in preaching among the pagans. Paul also had his own reasons for this, which, even without a public order, prompted him to undertake such a journey. Now it seemed to him the most necessary thing to explain to the apostles about the distinctive manner of his preaching among the pagans, so that, given the difference in methods necessary for the difference in the place of action, he could maintain the unity of the spirit and ward off all disagreements that could disturb the consciousness of this essential unity. By divine revelation, he was sure that exactly such an explanation was now necessary for the good of the church (Gal. 2:2). And thus in 14 after his conversion, as he himself says in the epistle to the Galatians, he went to Jerusalem with the intention of presenting to the most respected apostles there the image of his preaching of the Gospel among the Gentiles, so that they would not think that all his actions were in vain, but would learn that he preached the same Gospel as they did, and that this Gospel acted with the same Divine power among the Gentiles as among the Jews. To provide a living example of the work of the Gospel among the Gentiles, Paul took with him one of his converted young men of Gentile origin, Titus; who later became his special collaborator in preaching. In Jerusalem, before public research began, private communications were carried out 62. Paul presented to the apostles Peter, John and James (Gal. 2:9) a detailed account of the manner in which he preached the Gospel to the Gentiles and the fruits of his activities. They recognized the divinity of his calling and were too far from teaching him. They agreed with him that he should continue to act independently among the pagans and only do not forget to instill in the newly converted churches that they help with the bodily needs of the church of Jerusalem (Gal. 2:1-10). Even in separate societies, where Paul and Barnabas told about what God had done through their preaching among the pagans, their news was received with joyful participation. But some of the converted Pharisees began to insist that the pagans accept circumcision along with the Gospel, only under this condition did they agree to recognize them as their brothers (and therefore even demanded that Titus be circumcised). Paul defended the equality of the rights of the pagans in the kingdom of God with the circumcision on the basis of one faith in the Redeemer (and therefore did not concede even regarding Titus, because his concession would have been considered a sign of consent to the teaching they affirmed). This intransigence led to further disputes. It became necessary to consider this matter as a whole church. Its elected members 63 were assembled. In this meeting there was a lot of debate on both sides. Finally, the Apostle Peter came forward with his proposal, which he based on his own experience. “You know,” he told those gathered, that long before this 64 God chose me to proclaim the Gospel to the pagans for the first time. And when God, Who looks at the heart, communicated His Holy Spirit to them just as He did to the Jewish believers, He testified that the pagans no longer had any uncleanness in His sight; that having purified their hearts by faith in the Redeemer, they became as pure as the believing Jews. How can one be so impudent as to doubt the omnipotence and goodness of God and assert that God cannot allow pagans to participate in the blessings of the kingdom of heaven without the law? Why do you want to impose on the believers something that neither yourselves nor your fathers could bear? By this yoke, Peter did not mean, of course, the external observance of rituals in itself, since he himself observed them and did not want the Jews not to observe them, but he understood such observance of them, which came from the internal domination of the law over the conscience, with which was connected the thought that justification and blessedness depended on it, from which they were afraid of losing salvation for the slightest deviation from the law, from which a painful anxiety was born, concocting various precautions against any violation of the law. Understanding his position in this way, Peter could add: but we, too, by faith in Jesus as our Redeemer, are freed from the yoke of the law; it no longer constitutes a means of justification for us, and we, together with the pagans, believe that we are saved by the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. Peter's words made a deep impression on many. After Peter, Barnabas, who had previously enjoyed great respect in this church, rose up, then Paul. Both added to the events indicated by Peter new ones from their own experience, which confirmed Peter’s thought and talked about the miracles with which God supported them in their actions. When the hearts of all were thus prepared, the Apostle James, the brother of the Lord, who for his strict observance of the law was in great respect even among the Jews, began to speak, and whose voice could all the more be trusted in this case. He concluded the meeting with a proposal that was intended to enter into a mediation between the disputing parties. Based on the speech of Peter, he said: it has already been shown how God received the pagans for the first time in order to form a sacred kingdom out of them for Himself. This was also consistent with the predictions of the prophets, who proclaimed that at the time when the fallen throne of David was restored, then the veneration of the true God would spread among the pagans. Therefore, there is nothing strange in what is now happening among the pagans. God, Who does all this, carries out only His eternal council, and since, as a result of this eternal council, the pagans also have the opportunity to enter the kingdom of the Messiah, let no one dare to stop or hinder the course of this matter. Therefore, no unnecessary burden should be placed on the pagans. There is no need to oblige them to anything, except that they abstain from eating meat sacrificed to idols, the meat of strangled animals, the blood of slaughtered animals, and from fornication. This is enough for the converted Gentiles 65 because wherever the Jews live, the Law of Moses through weekly reading in the synagogues is deeply rooted in their hearts and intransigence even in this can only give rise to unrest. (But as for the Jewish believers, they do not require special rules. They know what they, as Jews, must observe; in every city where there are Jews, the law is read every Saturday in the synagogues). This proposal was intended to help end the dispute between Jewish Christians and Gentile Christians by bringing both sides closer together. The observance of these commandments by pagan Christians could serve to soften and little by little destroy the disgust with which natural Jews looked at pagan Christians - unclean people who came out of the dominion of idolatry. If the believing Jews could not overcome their prejudice against the believing pagans because of their uncircumcision, then it would be all the more difficult to bring them closer together if the pagans did not agree to observe what was required of ordinary proselytes; if they had not renounced what, according to the Jewish concept, was closely connected with idolatry and unclean idolatrous life. While thus promoting the rapprochement of pagan Christians with Jewish Christians, these commandments, on the other hand, served to further distance the former from the ordinary pagan way of life, and to warn them against the temptations of surrounding paganism and pagan vices. At the same time, it might seem strange that, along with ritual commandments set only for a specific purpose, there is a prohibition of adultery, a prohibition that is valid at all times, based on a purely moral principle. But the connection in which this prohibition occurs here also gives permission for the reason and purpose of such a special reminder. Πορνεία is mentioned here only in the same respect as the previous parts, i.e. because of the connection with idolatry, as it seemed to the Jews; Even from the books of the Old Testament, they learned to imagine idolatry and adultery as inextricably linked; in addition, vices of this kind were indeed associated with certain branches of idolatry, and in general the strict concept of chastity is far from the beginnings of natural religion. Here we are not talking about a special moral rule of Christianity; in this case the prohibition would not be posed as separately as a purely positive one; on the contrary, it would be derived from the whole system of Christian doctrine and moral teaching, as is done in the epistles. Here we are dealing only with the old Jewish aversion to everything that has any connection with paganism, and this aversion is now transferred to some parts of the Christian Church. When this proposal was accepted by everyone, a message was written from the entire church (the first apostolic letter) to the pagan churches in Syria and Cilicia, which was intended to put an end to the disturbances caused by the Judaists. It clearly stated that these people, acting arbitrarily, were not at all authorized to do so by either the apostles or the elders of Jerusalem. And Barnabas and Paul, whom the Judaizers probably presented as destroyers of the teachings of Christ, are presented as true and zealous preachers of the Gospel, people who gave up their souls in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. And in order to give this definition more reality and clarity, two venerable men, Judas and Silas, were chosen from among the church of Jerusalem itself, who could give instructions and confirmation to the church 66. The determination of the Apostolic Council in Jerusalem constitutes an important era in the history of the Apostolic Church. The first disagreement that arose in Christianity was immediately brought to public discourse and brought into clarity: at the same time, it was recognized that this disagreement must destroy the unity of the Christian church. Although in the development of the church between Jews and pagans there had to remain a very important and striking difference in appearance, the essential unity of the church, based on the internal communion of faith and life, must also be preserved. This is unity regardless of external differences. Let some observe such external rites, others not; - but both of them, by the strength of their common faith in Jesus as the Redeemer, have the Holy Spirit as a faithful supporter of their participation in the kingdom of God. However, this difference extended not only to appearance: but, as one could conclude from the peculiarity of the Jewish view of Christianity, other dogmatic differences were also connected with it, which were not expressed now and which later, if they are not conquered by the power of the deeper and deeper indwelling Spirit, will arise all the more powerfully. The mediation itself, no matter how prudent it was, could not destroy the deeply based division, unless it was destroyed by the action of the same Spirit from whom this mediation came. Since Pharisaical-minded Christians have long been accustomed to consider only that Christianity to be genuine and perfect, the only one giving the right to possess all the advantages of members of the kingdom of God, which is closely connected and fused with Judaism, the measures of the Apostolic Council were not yet entirely strong enough to produce a revolution in their way of thinking. They could either not look at the definition of the Council of Jerusalem at all, as if it did not exist at all, or interpret it according to their own understanding and in their favor, that is, agreeing that observation of the law was not an obligation for pagan Christians, but from this it should not be concluded that the pagans would not do better if they voluntarily, out of love for Jehovah, kept the whole law. And just as before this council they were not ashamed to refer to the authority of the apostles, although they, as they themselves clearly say, did not at all give authority to do so: so they could subsequently do the same and even more: - using the local remoteness of the pagan churches from Jerusalem. For the first time, however, the importance of the apostolic agency silenced the cries of the Judaizers and the division was reconciled. Later it flared up again. Second Journey of the Apostle Paul After spending some time in the Antioch church, Paul and Barnabas decided to visit the churches they had founded during their first trip and then expand their activities even further. Barnabas again wanted to take his nephew Mark with him. But Paul did not agree: he could not forgive Mark for allowing attachment to the fatherland to overcome his sense of the calling of serving the Lord, and he considered someone who was not ready to sacrifice everything to Him not worthy of this title. In Paul, in the present case, the zeal of his character was revealed: where it was about the demands of the calling of God, there Paul denied all personal natural sensations, and wanted the same in others. Barnabas's condescension towards Mark could have come from the special gentleness of his Christian character, or from the beginnings of the still unconquered power of the Christian spirit of love for a relative. That such human relationships could still have quite an effect on Barnabas is proven by his conversion in Antioch in the presence of Peter and Paul (Gal. 2). Be that as it may, this instant disagreement was the reason for the separation between the two men, who had hitherto acted together in the service of the Lord. The consequence of the division between Paul and Barnabas was that a new circle of action was added in favor of the Gospel. From that time on, Barnabas formed a certain circle for himself, going with Mark first to his homeland in Cyprus, and then probably to other places to preach. That Barnabas was not inactive in the spread of Christianity can not only be concluded from his previous activities; but also to prove that Paul, long after the present incident, points to him as a man known for his constant activity in preaching the Gospel (1 Cor. 9:6). Paul's severity in relation to Mark could be useful for Mark himself; she had to bring him to consciousness of his guilt, and he then showed himself faithful to his calling. Finally, this separation was only temporary. Subsequently, we see Paul, Barnabas and Mark again closely united with each other, although from that time on Barnabas, it seems, already had a separate independent circle of action. Instead of him, Paul took as his companion Silas or Silvanus, who was sent from the Jerusalem church to Antioch with a message. Since from the beginning Paul set himself a rule: to preach the gospel, not where Christ is named, and not build on someone else’s foundation, but as it is written: they will not know about him, they will see: and those who do not hear will understand, that is, as he himself expresses himself (Rom. 15:20; 2 Cor. 10:16), to discover for yourself the circle of action and spread of the Gospel and do not enter into someone else's; then he did not go now, as at the beginning of his first journey, to the island of Cyprus; but outside Syria and Cilicia he came to Pisidia and here he visited those border cities in which he acted during his first journey. In the city of Lystra (Acts 16:1, έκεί, of course in Lystra) he found a young man named Timothy, who received from his mother Eunice, a pious Jew, who, however, was married to a pagan, - a pious upbringing, which did not remain without fruit in him. During Pavlov's first stay in this city, his mother turned to Christianity, and even young Timothy became a zealous confessor of the Gospel. In the churches of Lystra and the neighboring city of Iconium, he was known to everyone for his zeal in the faith, and in public meetings of believers the prophets were heard, who proclaimed that Timothy was appointed by God himself to great deeds in favor of the Gospel (1 Timothy 1:18). Paul was pleased to have with him such a zealous young man who could help him in the labors of preaching and, under his leadership, could himself become a great preacher; The young man himself was ready, out of love for their common Lord and for Paul himself, to follow him everywhere. Since Timothy, by his origin, on the one hand belonged to the Jews, and on the other to the pagans, he was all the more capable of accompanying the apostle between the pagans and among the Jews. To bring him even closer to the latter, Paul forced him to be circumcised. There was no violation of the generally recognized rights of pagan Christians in this; as the son of a Jewish woman, raised in Judaism, he was more likely to be appropriated by the Jews than by the pagans. Visiting previously founded churches, the evangelists announced everywhere the decision of the Jerusalem Council to eliminate the confusion that arose on the part of the converting Jews and to ease the path of the pagans turning to Christianity. Having thus visited the previously founded churches, Paul went to Phrygia. Naturally, he could not preach the Gospel in all sixty-two cities of the populated province of Phrygia on this journey, or in the subsequent one. Therefore, he had to provide a lot to his disciples (Col. 2:1), since it is indeed known that one of them, Epaphras of Colossae, was the founder of the churches of Colosse, Hierapolis and Laodicea (Col. 4:12, 13). From here Paul traveled north to Galatia. Many Jews lived in this province; Therefore, it is very likely that Paul addressed his sermon initially to them and the proselytes who were among them. But the bad reception met by the Jews opened the way for him to the pagans, and the pagans received him with great favor (Gal. 4:13, 14): “they received me as an apostle of God, as Jesus Christ.” And the infirmities in the flesh mentioned here, temptation in the flesh, which the Galatian Christians did not abhor, are probably the essence of his suffering for the cause of Christ, which he recently endured, about which he speaks in detail in 2 Cor. 11:23–26, or illness of the flesh, for the aversion of which he asked God three times, but did not receive relief, so that the power of God would be all the more evident in his weakness. And in the present case, his infirmity not only was not an obstacle to the spread of the Gospel, but even more attracted the hearts of the converts to him. Seeing his zeal for the cause of the Gospel, despite illness and suffering, they became even more attached to the teacher of Christ, and were ready, as the apostle puts it, to give their eyes for him. Paul struggled a lot with bodily ailments, as can be seen from some allusions in his letters, where he says how depressing he was by the feeling of human weakness. And this shouldn't seem strange; While still a Pharisee, striving to achieve legal holiness, he did not spare his body. His new title allowed him to take care of himself even less; he had to at the same time earn his livelihood by the labors of his hands and strain all his strength in the duty of his apostolic service, endure so many dangers, endure so many insults and beatings. And not a weak body could soon fall under such a weight. But with the feeling of human weakness, the stronger became in him the consciousness of a power towering above everything that human power can do - a power that he knew how to distinguish from everything that he recognized in himself that was actually human - that victorious power of God, which appeared through his preaching of the Gospel. Feeling his human weakness, he rose even more above himself with inner revelations, communications with the higher world, with which he was honored. He had one particularly serious illness, which even stopped the impulses of his sublime spirit, and he looked at it as an instruction to humility sent by God, as a balancing agent against the moments of inner illumination that were his lot. He said that he asked the Lord three times to free him from this serious illness; but the voice of God answered him that he should not ask to be delivered from the feeling of human weakness; that the consciousness of the grace imparted to him should be enough for him, because the power of God appears where human weakness also makes itself felt. This was especially revealed during its action in Galatia. His body was racked with illness; but the divine power of his words and actions, being in complete contrast to the weak organ that served as its instrument, made the strongest impression on the hearts of those predisposed. The fiery zeal of self-sacrificing love, which forced him in his very sufferings to joyfully endure everything for the salvation of others, should have attracted hearts to him all the more powerfully; and therefore he could respond to the Galatians’ disposition towards him the way he responds (4:14, 15). The Galatian churches consisted mainly of natural pagans; some of them were proselytes, for whom Judaism was a transition to Christianity; some of them turned directly from paganism to Christianity. This main body of the church was also joined by some Jews, who differed in their acceptance of the Gospel from the larger mass of their unbelieving like-minded people. Through proselytes and Christians from the Jews, relations with the Jews did not cease in this church; From here it is necessary to make those movements that we subsequently see in the Galatian churches. When Paul left Galatia, he wanted to take a southwestern direction to proconsular Asia, where Ephesus lay on the shores of the Aegean. But by an inner voice, or in a vision, the command of the Spirit of God was announced to him, which kept him from this direction. With his companions, he tried to go through Mysia to Bithynia; but even on this path they were stopped. All their steps, so to speak, were counted by their all-powerful Leader. They must be everywhere in due time. These closest provinces, which were more convenient for preaching, he had to leave to others, and in some he had to act later. Now the only way left for him was through Mysia to Troas and cross to the other side of the Hellespont into Europe. As soon as Paul arrived in Troas with such a disposition, a Macedonian appeared to him in a dream, calling him to come to him on the other side. Here in Troas Paul found Luke, the future descriptor of his actions. The first Macedonian city they stopped in was Philippi. The number of Jews living here was not so large that they could have a synagogue. Perhaps there were only proselytes here; for prayers, for performing sacred rites and the necessary purifications, they had a tree-lined area near the river (the so-called προσευχή) 67 . Although there were no such teachings here as in the Jewish synagogues, yet on the Sabbath the proselytes and especially the proselytes came together to pray, and Paul could find among them such people who were ready to accept what they would hear from him. He went on Saturday morning to the river with his companions and entered into discussions on pious subjects with the women of the city who had gathered for prayer. His words made an impression on the heart of one merchant woman, Lydia, from Thyatira, a Lydian city. After the service was performed, she was baptized by them with her entire family and gave them shelter in her home. From Lydia's family, Christianity spread to Philippi. Since there were no or very few Jews in this city, Christianity did not encounter any obstacles from this side and, perhaps, without inciting any persecution, would have acquired even more adherents if the selfishness of some of the pagans touched by his preaching had not rebelled against the apostle. Is this not a foreshadowing of the fact that the church in Europe will suffer most from the pagans? One maid, who had the spirit of darkness in herself, through whom she predicted the future and revealed the hidden, following the apostles, said in the hearing of the people: here are the servants of God, they preach to you the way of salvation. It is unknown what prompted her to do this, or better yet, the spirit that lived in her. Whether he was afraid of being expelled from the fortuneteller and therefore wanted to win Paul over to her in advance, or whether he found it indecent to remain silent about such people as the spirit to whom they should be known, he only repeated such reviews many times, despite the fact that by doing this he apparently harmed himself. But the apostles were just as far from accepting such evidence in their favor as the Savior. Paul commanded the spirit to come out of the soothsayer: and the maid fell silent and stopped predicting completely. This incident would not have had any consequences other than the healing of the maid, if her masters had not been deprived of the rich income that they received through predictions. Irritated by this, they outraged the people, seized Paul and Silas and presented them to the city authorities - the strategists - as troublemakers of public peace, as preachers of a secret religion and customs that were contrary to those previously established in their city, as Jews who, contrary to the laws of the empire, are trying to impose their religion on the Romans. The city leaders, without investigating the matter, immediately subjected the apostles to public corporal punishment: they beat them with clubs and then imprisoned them. The apostles complacently accepted all this as the name of Christ. Neither the prison where they were chained, nor the disgrace to which they were subjected in the sight of their followers, nor the illness from the wounds inflicted on them, nor the expectation of new tortures the next day, nor the failure to fulfill the hopes that the vision of the Macedonian in Troas, inviting them to himself, could have given them - nothing plunged them into despondency. They praised God and sang songs of praise to Him in the ears of the prisoners. Suddenly, at midnight, an earthquake shook their prison, opened all its doors, and broke all the bonds of the prisoners. An ordinary earthquake could not do this. Rather, they could all be buried under the ruins of the building, rather than receive complete freedom from the earthquake. The guard of the prison, awakened by him in horror, finding its doors open, wanted to kill himself: but was stopped by the Apostle Paul. Having demanded fire, he made sure from his own experience that indeed none of the prisoners left the dungeon. Attributing this miracle to Jewish aliens, the guard threw himself at the feet of Paul and Silas and, probably knowing about their preaching before, asked them what he should do to be saved. The apostles demanded that he believe in Jesus Christ and be baptized. The prison guard did not hesitate to fulfill their demand and, after a short instruction, was baptized along with his entire household. In gratitude to his benefactors, he took them from prison to his house, washed their wounds, offered them a meal, and thus the next morning was greeted with joy. Meanwhile, the city leaders, either frightened by the night's adventure, or informed by the guard about an unusual incident in the prison, or for other reasons, sent the order to the prison guard to release the apostles to freedom. Paul and Silas, having endured torment for the name of Christ, now wanted to convert the present disposition of the city authorities towards them in favor of the Gospel. “No,” answered Paul, we were publicly insulted, punished without trial, Roman citizens were beaten with sticks, contrary to the laws. Let the leaders themselves appear in prison to free us from our bonds and thereby atone for their guilt.” Without a doubt, this should have had a strong effect on the city leaders and paid more attention to their preaching. The fear of retribution for the insult could have placed them in favor of the newly formed society of Christians: whereas if the apostles had left prison on one order from their superiors, that unfair opinion about them and their followers, which was inspired by greed and malice, could have remained in the city. So Paul did not want to neglect any means for the benefit of the Gospel. The leaders fulfilled his wish and thereby showed how impressed they were by the actions of Paul and Silas. However, probably in order not to arouse unrest among the people, they demanded that they leave the city. Paul and Silas did not resist; Having only entered Lydia’s house, they gave farewell consolation and instruction to the believers. But they left Timothy and Luke to continue the work begun in their place. (Timothy is already mentioned in Berea (Acts 17:14), and since Timothy was not personally known to the Thessalonians, Paul recommends him to them in 1 Thessalonians 3:2, and Luke hitherto, from the time of the departure of the Apostle Paul from Troas (16:10), who spoke about him in the first person plural, now talks about the apostle in the third person. Five or six years later Luke is found again in Philippi (Acts 20:6). It is not known whether he spent all this time here. The Philippian Christians were so disposed towards Paul that they repeatedly sent him financial assistance to Thessalonica (Phil. 4:15, 16) and during his stay in Rome they sent brethren to him to share in His sorrows (v. 14). Paul and Silas headed their way to the city of Thessalonica, twenty miles from Philippi, the largest of the Macedonian cities, where, as in a large trading city, many Jews lived. Therefore, a synagogue could also be found here. For three weeks, Paul visited her on Saturdays; He converted many proselytes with his preaching, and through them the door of preaching was opened to the pagans. How much can be seen from the 1st last. to Sol. 2:10, 11, he was not content to preach only in the synagogue and therefore only on Saturdays, that is, once a week; if so, he would have had to limit himself to only the few proselytes who attended the synagogue. For his teachings in the synagogue, he always chose a form that was especially closer to the concepts of the Jews. In this case, he could assume a lot, leave a lot without detailed disclosure - which for the pagans should have been revealed first of all and in more detail. However, we know from some examples that he knew how to distinguish very well the point of view and needs of Jew and Gentile and no doubt took advantage of the opportunity to pay special attention to that. Of course, the pagans, who showed attention to his preaching, began to gather in special places to listen to him; and from these pagans, converted by Paul himself to faith in the One Living God and Redeemer, the Church of Thessalonica was formed for the most part. In accordance with the words of Jesus Christ (Matthew 10:10), Paul considered it fair that preachers of the Gospel should receive support for themselves, which they could not earn for themselves, from those to whom they teach incomparably higher benefits (1 Cor. 9:14). But he himself did not want to use this right and by such a sacrifice of his own right he only wanted to further contribute to the success of the apostolic activity among the pagans. Such completely selfless love, sacrificing everything for the good of others, enduring all labors and hardships without retribution, should have gained him the trust of many people who, seeing his zeal for his work, incomprehensible to them, could suspect him of selfish motives. And it was all the more necessary for him to remove from himself any reason for such suspicions, since some Jewish proselytes actually justified them. His previous education helped him find means to support himself everywhere. Paul, although he was appointed as a Jewish theologian, but, according to the rules that prevailed in schools, along with the study of the law, he was engaged in weaving tents, and this craft, due to the special type of travel in the east and other various uses of tents, could have good sales. So, during the day, busy caring for the spiritual needs of the pagans and new Christians, at night he had to work to provide support for himself and his companions (1 Thess. 2:1-9), until he received help from Philip (Philip. 4:14). However, even in such cases, he found more pleasure in giving than in receiving. Paul constantly preached publicly in public meetings, but he also visited his believers separately in their families (1 Thess. 11:11, 12) and here in private conversations he again proclaimed to them the most important truths of the Gospel. He warned them against the dangers that threatened them and usually directed their gaze from the sorrows of earthly life to the time when Christ would come to solemnly open His kingdom on earth. This time for those who have already been awarded redemption should not be a subject of fear, but of joyful, longed-for expectations. However, the apostle taught that one should not assign any specific time for the appearance of this kingdom (1 Thess. 5:1-3), or build with one’s imagination any images of future bliss: one must remember that one must still endure many sorrows in order to achieve it (1 Thess. 3:4). Especially terrible is the man of lawlessness, the son of destruction, who exalts himself above everything called God or sacred (2 Thess. 1:3-5). In his discussion of morality, Paul tried to warn against that misunderstanding, which was so close to a superficial conversion and which, in particular, could arise from the confusion of Jewish concepts of faith with Christian teaching about it, from that beginning: as if belief alone without a complete change in life could have dignity; as if anyone who renounces idols and believes in Jesus the Messiah can already promise himself safety from the punishments that threaten the infidels. He often reminded them in the most expressive way that they must show change throughout their lives; that they become even more guilty when, instead of devoting themselves to God to serve Him with a holy life, they return to their former vices and defile themselves, becoming the dwelling place of the Holy Spirit (1 Thessalonians 4:2, 6; 2:12). But the great participation taken by the pagans in the preaching of the Gospel aroused the strongest fanaticism and jealousy in numerous Jews, for whom it was bitter to hear what was offered in the synagogues, and even more of this could be found in the private conversations of the apostle with believers. They managed to create indignation among the people and part of them rushed to the house of the Christian Jason, where Paul lived. The apostle himself was not found here; but Jason and some other Christians were presented to the judgment seat. (Since the persecution came from the Jews, and the pagans here were only instruments, different charges were brought against the apostles than those at Philippi (Acts 16:20, 21). Here they could not be accused, as happened in other cases, of disturbing the peace of the Jews, who were granted by the laws the free exercise of their religion, by stirring up divisions between them. They had no reason to make such accusations, because Paul mostly acted among the pagans; and they would have had little time to do with this accusation from such superiors, who were not particularly disposed towards them. Most of all, the political accusation, crimen majestatis, could have had force, since subsequently the enemies of Christianity actually often used it against Christians. Since Paul spoke a lot in Thessalonica about the coming kingdom of Christ, this served as a reason for slander against him, as if he taught to recognize as sovereign not the sovereign reigning in Rome, but some Jesus (Acts 17: 6, 7). However, the leaders themselves soon saw the injustice of such accusations, and when Jason and his friends assured that no indignation could be expected from the preachers and that Paul and his companion would soon leave the city themselves, they were immediately released. And on the night that followed the day of the disturbance, Paul and Silas left the city after a stay of three or four weeks. Since Paul, due to these circumstances, had to leave here earlier than the state of the church allowed, he was very concerned, especially foreseeing that the new Christians would subsequently suffer a lot from the pagans irritated by the Jews. Therefore, he had the intention, as soon as the excitement subsided, to go there again (1 Sol. 2:18). But this intention remained unfulfilled. In Berea, which is about ten miles from Thessalonica, they were better received by the Jews; many pagans were also converted. But the indignation aroused by the Thessalonian Jews forced Paul to soon leave this city. Accompanied by some of the believers, he took the road to Athens: Silas and Timothy remained in Berea. No matter how insignificant the actions of the Apostle Paul's preaching in Athens were at first, his appearance here, without any doubt, belongs to the most remarkable events of the Christian world. Paul appears with a teaching that, with its divine power, should transform the way of life and thoughts of the ancient world - in such a city that was the source of Greek education and philosophy, to which the entire Roman world owed its education, which together was the focus of Greek worship and with an animated attachment to everything ancient Greek retained the strongest attachment to the ancient Greek worship (it remained there until the 4th century). The zeal for the veneration of the gods, each of whom had his own church and his own altars, each was glorified by monuments of art, was the glory of Athens in the ancient world. At first, Paul intended to wait for the arrival of Timothy and Silas in order to reveal his actions here, and therefore, with the guides returning to Berea, he ordered them to come to Athens as soon as possible. But seeing himself surrounded by idols, altars and churches - works of art, anticipating the honor that belongs to the one living God, he could not long resist the attraction of holy jealousy - to testify to the one who calls the lost to repentance and promises them salvation. He preached not only in the synagogue to Jews and proselytes; he did not wait here to find his way to the pagans through proselytes, as in other cities. Since from ancient times it was the custom in Athens to gather under covered porticos in public squares to discuss matters of little and significant importance, and since at the present time, just as under Demosthenes, such a large number of people gathered who valued nothing more than news, Paul came here every day in order to somehow connect his conversations on subjects most important to man with current conversations. (The enthusiasm that animated him had nothing in common with that enthusiasm of fanatics who, carried away by the one-sided direction of their hearts, cannot see that this very direction serves as an obstacle for others to recognize as truth what appears to be so to them). He knew very well, as he himself says, that preaching about the crucified Savior of mankind can seem like a riot to the wise men of this age, while they themselves are still stupid, until, that is, they have not recognized the insufficiency of their wisdom for the knowledge of divine objects, for satisfying the religious needs of man (1 Cor. 1:23–9:18). But he was not ashamed, as he himself again admits, to testify before the wise, as well as the ignorant, Greeks and barbarians about that in which, from his own experience, he found the power of God, creating blessed all who accept it with faith (Rom. 1:16). The square (άγορά, formerly έρετρία) where he appeared was close to the meeting place of philosophers (στοά ποικίλη). And here he encountered philosophers of the Epicurean and Stoic schools. Paying attention to the mutual relationship between Stoic and Epicurean philosophy; knowing that the Stoics recognized the deity as an omnipotent principle in the universe and in human nature, that they were animated by the desire for an ideal based in the moral nature of man, relying on the religious needs of man and the traditions testifying to this - and the Epicureans, although they left faith in the gods to exist, but represented it as something idle, accidental, completely superfluous; the highest goal of human endeavor was pleasure and existing religions were mocked as works of human impotence and a frightening ghost - taking all this into account, one could conclude that the Stoics were closer to Christianity than the Epicureans. However, it did not follow from this that they could suddenly accept him with favor. The teaching, which demanded repentance and traces of self-abasement, preached remission of sins, grace and justification through faith - this teaching was strongly contradicted by the idea of ​​\u200b\u200bthe moral complacency of the wise. Their highest deity, living in the universe, the unconscious, eternal mind was not the living God, not the heavenly Father with His love, which the Gospel preached. The Christian God must have seemed to the Stoics to be too human a being. Finally, the Stoics and Epicureans agreed among themselves, to a new detriment for Christianity, that those infected with their philosophical pride could not look without contempt at a teaching proposed in Jewish colors that was not developed in a philosophical form; for them it was a folk belief, which the philosopher allows himself to look at with regret. However, some of those who gathered here were at least curious to hear anything new; therefore, it was very desirable for them to obtain more detailed information about the alien god. They took Paul to the hill where the first Athenian tribunal, the Areopagus, usually met, and where it was more convenient to find a place so that many could hear him. Paul's speech before this assembly is a living proof of his apostolic wisdom and eloquence; we see here how Paul, in his own expression, could be a Gentile for the Gentiles, so that the Gentiles could be won by the Gospel. It would seem that by one feeling, cultivated in the heart of every pious Jew from his youth, by one fiery zeal for the glory of his God that animated the apostle, Paul should have been filled with disgust when looking at the idolatry surrounding him and could easily allow himself to speak as this feeling inspired. But instead of beginning his speech by expressing this disgust of his, instead of directly refuting the error, he found the underlying truth and, trying to awaken in his listeners the innate consciousness of God, suppressed by the power of this error, he attempted little by little to lead them to the one whom he had come to tell them. As when speaking with the Jews, whose consciousness of God, under the influence of Divine Revelation, constantly led to a clear and pure idea of ​​the Messiah, Paul could refer to the entire history of theocracy, to the law and the prophets: so here he referred to the undeniable natural demand of the unknown Divinity. He began his speech with the thought that the religious jealousy of the Athenians expresses, although incorrectly, not without reason, a truly religious feeling, an irresistible attraction of the heart to the divine; One cannot but approve of their piety, which, among other altars, set one to the unknown Deity 68. This inscription, according to the meaning of those who made it, of course, did not mean that they were filled with reverence for some unknown deity exalted above all other gods, but only that they considered the culprit of pleasant and unpleasant adventures with them, in addition to the known ones, and another unknown God, and this unknown in relation to the fullness of God’s worship is closely connected with polytheism; By His very nature He must be infinite. But Paul, giving this inscription a deeper meaning, used it as a basis to indicate in it the highest aspiration, unconscious of polytheism, but lying at its foundation. (Polytheism comes from a feeling of dependence on a higher unknown force with which a person needs to be in a correct relationship; but instead of, following this feeling, moving from the consciousness of something supernatural, akin to the Divine in its nature, to the consciousness of the Divinity hovering above all nature, it stops at nature, acting on him sensually. What he now makes the object of his veneration is already much different from what his original religious feeling). The apostle looks at the entire religion of the Athenians as the veneration of a deity unknown to himself and declares himself a man who wants to bring them to a clear consciousness of their relationship to Him. This God, he says, whom you worship without knowing, I preach to you. This is God who created the world and everything in it. He, the Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in churches made by human hands; He does not require the service of human hands; He is all-sufficient, He Himself has given life and breath and everything to everything. From Him the entire human race received its beginning, and He directs the development of all its parts towards one goal. He produced all the nations of the earth from one man, and in the spread of nations across the earth it is not chance that reigns, but His providence; He showed every nation its dwelling place; He assigned his periods to the history of peoples (the local and temporal development of peoples - everything depends on His all-ruling wisdom). And He reveals Himself in this way in the destinies of nations for the purpose of making people look for Him. Will they not recognize Him, will they not find Him? It is very easy to recognize the One who is not far from each of us, in Whom is the source of our being. As proof of the awareness of this initial affinity with the Divine, Paul quotes to the pagans the word of one of them, the poet Aratus, a compatriot of the apostle: “we are His race.” After this indication of universal higher self-consciousness, Paul concludes: if we are the race of God, we should not think that the Divinity is like some earthly matter or a model of human art. This negative conclusion contained the following positive teaching: on the contrary, we must more often ascend to the Divine by the very thing that is in us from the Divine race. But instead of further polemicizing against idolatry, the apostle leaves his hearers to their own conscience; and having thus laid the consciousness of guilt as the basis, but without developing it further, he immediately added to the sermon about the Gospel. Having long patiently endured these times of ignorance, God now declares the truth to everyone and calls everyone to repentance. Then followed a sermon about the Redeemer, about the forgiveness of sins He granted, about His resurrection, which serves as a confirmation of His teaching and a guarantee of resurrection to a blessed life for believers, about the judgment that is about to take place. As long as the apostle developed truths that have their basis in the universal consciousness of God, until then his listeners, accustomed to the lessons of Hellenic philosophy, were attentive to him. But how soon did he touch upon the doctrine with which Christian philosophy necessarily came into conflict with pagan philosophy; as soon as he spoke about the resurrection of the dead, immediately some of his listeners interrupted his speech with mockery; others asked him to talk about it another time - which meant either only a refusal, or perhaps a sincere desire to receive further instruction regarding this subject of his teaching. Few adhered to the apostle; among them there was one member of the Areopagus, Dionysius, who in particular later served in the founding of the church in Athens and was its primate 69. While Paul was in Athens, Timothy, although he returned to him from Macedonia (Acts 17:15; 1 Thessalonians 3:1), but Paul, caring for the new church of Thessalonica, sent him again to Thessalonica to strengthen her in the faith and console her in the suffering that she had to endure. Timothy told him some very unpleasant news about the persecution that had affected this church. Therefore, the apostle from Athens came alone to the capital of Achaia, Corinth. This city, destroyed fifty years earlier by Julius Caesar and then rebuilt again, was again the center of trade and relations between the eastern and western Roman empires; his very position assigned him to this: his two piers, one from Asia Minor Κεγχρέαι, the other from Italy Λέχαιον. Due to its position, Corinth could be a very important center for the spread of Christianity in most of the Roman Empire; and Paul, taking into account this advantage in the area, chose it as a place of long-term stay. But here there were especially strong obstacles to the spread of Christianity, and the same reasons that prevented the first acceptance of the Gospel threatened the purity of Christianity in doctrine and life even when, having overcome obstacles, it was accepted there. Both opposing directions of the religious spirit, which generally then hindered the spread of Christianity, dominated in Corinth with deliberate force: firstly, one-sided love of love in religion, drowning out living practical needs - the direction that Paul called the “seeking of wisdom”, secondly, sensuality, subjugating the religious feeling, a coarse carnal feeling that wanted to make the divine the object of sensory experience - the direction that Paul called the “seeking of signs.” The first dominated most of those of the Corinthians who had a claim to education: the new Corinth differed from the ancient one in that it was both the patron of literature and philosophical schools. The second direction dominated especially among the Jews, of whom there were many in Corinth, as a trading city; the ordinary sensual concept of the Messiah prevailed in them. In addition, the spread and activities of Christianity were opposed here by strong corruption of morals. Although it then prevailed in all the great cities of the Roman Empire, in Corinth it was strengthened by the veneration of Venus, to whom a famous church was built, and by all the amenities for the gratification of sensuality in a commercial and seaside city. Some benefit for Paul's activities in Corinth was that he found here a zealous collaborator in the cause of the Gospel from the Jews, Aquila of Pontus, with whom he could live in a house and find work to earn his own living. It seems probable that Aquila had large establishments in the craft that supported Paul, and that he, not having a permanent stay in Rome, at various times stopped in various trading cities along the way, such as Corinth, Ephesus, etc., therefore he was not a stranger anywhere. But at this time, against his will, he had to leave Rome by decree of the Emperor Claudius, by which he condemned all the Jews who lived here in great numbers for their restless and outrageous spirit to exile. Whether he was a Christian before this time cannot be determined with certainty. But in any case, his treatment of Paul must have had a great influence on the formation of his Christian knowledge. Aquila has been from this time on a zealous preacher of the Gospel, and his various travels and changes of residence could bring him quite a few occasions. Even his wife Priscilla was distinguished by her active zeal in favor of Christianity; why Paul (Rom. 16:3) called both of them his fellow workers in the work of the Lord. One can imagine that the reception of the preaching of the Gospel in Athens must have made a very unpleasant impression on the heart of the apostle. Therefore, he himself said that he came to the Corinthians in a sense of his human weakness, with fear and trembling, when, that is, he looked at his human strength, but at the same time with great trust in the power of God acting through him in preaching. He had already experienced in Athens that nothing could help one to be a Hellenic in wisdom for the Greeks unless the inner need opened access to the heart. So in Corinth he wanted to leave the whole action to a simple word about the Redeemer, who died for the salvation of humanity corrupted by sin. And he did not want to know anything except Jesus Christ and Him crucified. Even in Corinth he did not so much enter into relations with the higher class of people as in Athens, but for the most part with people of lower status who did not have such education; already quite some time after this sermon, when Christianity could spread among the highest states, Paul could say that in Corinth among the Christians there were few people distinguished by human education and high status, that God chose among them those who were humbled by the world, so that in them the power of the Gospel would be all the more clearly demonstrated (1 Cor. 1:26 et seq.). Among these people of lower status were those who had hitherto indulged in the vices that prevailed in this capital of the corruption of morals - and who, by the preaching of the Apostle, were converted to repentance and experienced in their hearts the power of the preaching of the remission of sins (1 Cor. 6:11). Although Paul could also refer to miracles as evidence of his apostolic calling (2 Cor. 12:12); however, it was not in these sensual actions that the preaching of the Gospel found its primary reinforcement in Corinth. Just as for the philosophical Greeks, as long as they remained in the darkness of their wisdom, the Gospel seemed riotous: so for the sign-seeking Jews, as long as they demanded only external miracles and did not open their hearts to receive the spiritual actions of divine power, the Gospel, which preached the Messiah as a spiritual king, a transformer of all life, must always remain a temptation. The evidence that Paul used in Corinth in favor of the Gospel was evidence that at all times most powerfully supported the preaching - without which all other evidence and aids were in vain - evidence of the Spirit and power (1 Cor. 2:4), that is, experiences of those actions of the Gospel that it produced with its divine power on hearts prepared for this by a sense of moral needs. In this case, the sign-seeking Jews, turning to faith, could see the power of God in the Gospel in a much clearer light than in all sensory miracles, and the believers among the Hellenic wisdom-seeking people could find in the Gospel divine wisdom, in comparison with which all the wisdom of philosophers is nothing. Although the preaching of the Gospel in the Corinthian synagogue was not so well received by most of the Jews, Paul nevertheless did not cease to testify to them about Jesus Christ, especially when Timothy and Silas arrived to him. But seeing no more success, he turned his preaching to the pagans, and the new church was formed mostly from pagans; Very few of the Jews came to them. In these labors he was strengthened by a divine vision, which revealed to him that there were many people here ready to receive the sermon. Meanwhile, the zeal with which the Gospel was received by the pagans aroused strong hatred among the Jews, and they took advantage of the arrival of the new proconsul Annaeus Gallio, brother of the famous philosopher Seneca, to accuse Paul before him. Since they were given the right to carry out all religious activities according to their charters, they concluded from this that the one who, by spreading among them a teaching contrary to their charters, creates divisions between them, is guilty of violating their rights, guilty of a crime of the laws of the empire. But the proconsul, a man with a tender heart (dulcis Gallio), did not express any desire to interfere in the religious disputes of the Jews, which to a Roman politician might seem like empty verbal disputes. And the pagans did not miss the opportunity to express their displeasure against the accusers: they rushed at Sosthenes, the leader of the synagogue, and nailed him before the judgment seat itself. After this, the apostle could continue his actions with greater calm in these places and throughout Achaia (1 Sol. 1:8; 2 Sol. 1:4 and 2 Cor. 1:1). Timothy returned to him from Thessalonica with news about the state of the church there, which, however, was not entirely joyful. Although the Christians of Thessalonica maintained their faith during continuous persecution, some were not entirely clean from the temptation of pagan corruption (1 Thessalonians 4:3 et seq. 5:4 et seq.). In some, the expectation of the coming of Jesus Christ took a dreamy direction, so that they left their jobs and expected their support from the generosity of wealthy members of the church. Prophets appeared in church meetings who mixed the inspiration of the Spirit of God with the dreams of their own imagination; others, knowing this dreaminess of theirs, went so far in the opposite direction from them that they disparaged all manifestations of true inspiration (1 Thess. 5:19. Do not quench the Spirit). Taking all this into account, Paul found it necessary to send a letter of encouragement and exhortation to this church. In this letter he reminds the Christians of Thessalonica how he acted among them, what instructions he gave, and points to his own example of hard work; calms their fears regarding the fate of those who died at this time, warns against attempts to set the time of the coming of Jesus Christ. This time will come unexpectedly; you can’t calculate this time; Christians must always be prepared for it. They should not wander in the darkness, lest this day find them like a thief in the night; as children of light, they must always walk in the light: constantly watch over themselves in order to joyfully meet the day of the appearance of the Lord. After some time, Paul learned that this letter had not achieved its goal. The dreamy trend among some members of the Church of Thessalonica intensified even more. Even then, with his message, he wanted to lead them away from both opposites and from complete disregard for prophetic suggestions, inspiring them to keep everything temptingly good. This means that even then he had reasons to suspect the danger of excessive trust in everything that is presented as a prophecy. Now he learned that people actually appeared in the church of Thessalonica who thought they had revelations that the appearance of the Lord was very close. Even the distorted predictions of the apostle himself, given by him during his stay in Thessalonica, which confirmed these revelations, were disclosed. But since Paul's epistle clearly contradicted this dreamy trend, which wanted to know something definite about the time of the coming of Christ, one of these dreamers went so far as to invent another epistle in the name of Paul, which supported his expectations (2 Thessalonians 2:2). This direction also had the harmful effect that it increased idleness and, with neglect of one’s own affairs, the desire to interfere in others’ (3:6, 7). Therefore, Paul considered it necessary to send another letter to Thessalonica. In it, Paul, warning against vain expectations of the last decisive time, draws attention to the signs that should precede it. Since Paul, due to his many affairs, did not write epistles with his own hand (Rom. 16:22), but dictated them to another, as was the custom of the ancients, and only added something with his own hand at the end (1 Cor. 16:21), he made this a permanent sign by which his genuine epistles could be distinguished from forged ones (2 Thess. 3, last verses). Having thus been engaged in the propagation of Christianity in Corinth and its environs for about a year and a half, Paul finally concluded this period of his separate activities among the pagans by departing for Jerusalem. The departure of the Apostle Paul to Antioch and a new journey to preach among pagan nations Before taking up the further spread of Christianity among pagan peoples, Paul intended to visit Antioch, the center of churches formed from pagans, where, perhaps, a meeting with other preachers was being prepared. This purpose of his travel, apparently, was connected with another. He always tries to prevent the opening of division between Christians from the Jews and Christians from the pagans and to take away from the Jews and Christians from the Jews any even imaginary pretext for the accusation that he is an enemy of his people and the national religion. Therefore, he now decided to visit the capital of Judaism in order to give thanks to the God of his Fathers, and, according to Jewish custom, in the church publicly, and thus refute that accusation by his very deed. Then it was the custom of the Jews (probably taken from the vows of the Nazirites) to make a vow when exposed to some illness or some other important disaster: if I get rid of this misfortune, then I will offer a sacrifice of thanksgiving to Jehovah in the church, I will not drink wine for thirty days, I will cut my hair (Jos. de bell. 11, 15). Paul could have made such a vow on himself regarding liberation from any danger during the last period of his stay in Corinth or that happened during his departure from here; we know from 2 Cor. how many dangers and disasters he had. 11:26, 27. The form in which this thanksgiving was expressed was in itself indifferent, and possessing the spirit of Christian wisdom, Paul had no difficulty in relation to the form - to be a Jew to the Jews, a pagan to the pagans. Therefore, when he went with Aquila from Cenchrea to Asia Minor, he began to fulfill his vow (Acts 18:18). Then he left his companion and his wife in Ephesus, where he himself had promised to be, and hurried to Jerusalem, where he visited the church and made his vow in the church (v. 22). Having fulfilled his vow, he went to Antioch, where he spent quite some time with Barnabas (although he soon parted with him) and other former collaborators in the spread of Christianity. The Apostle Peter was also in communion with him here. Thus, Christians from the Jews and Christians from the pagans, the apostle of the Jews and the apostle of the pagans were united with each other in a pure Christian union - when suddenly this beautiful unity was broken by some Judaizing zealots who came from Jerusalem, probably with evil intent. To their narrow Jewish eyes it seemed tempting to hear about the free preaching of the Gospel among the Gentiles. Although by the definition of the Apostolic Council the Pharisaic Christians had long been forced into silence, this did not completely change their way of thinking. The extraordinary expansion of Pavlov's circle of activities, with special attention paid to his travel to Jerusalem and Antioch, again aroused envy and competition against him. To give more power to their voice, these zealots pretended to be sent from Jacob from Jerusalem. But this was completely false; they had no such authority. These people did not want to recognize as their brothers in Christ the uncircumcised pagan Christians who did not observe the ritual Mosaic Law, and considering them unclean for this reason, they disdained to eat food with them. Peter, who at first so strongly defended the rights of Gentile Christians, and then at the Apostolic Council, did not change his way of thinking, but fearing that the Jewish believers would cause confusion in the church, he began to avoid communicating at meals with Gentile converts. The example of a particularly respected apostle had a strong effect on others, so that Barnabas himself began to withdraw from communication with pagan Christians. Paul, considering this hypocrisy, found it necessary to say to Peter in the presence of everyone; “how you, being a Jew, did not find any difficulty before living with the pagans in a pagan way; and now you want to force the Gentiles to be Jews? We are natural Jews; if the claims of the Jews were fair, we were by no means sinners like the pagans; as members of the chosen people we were pure, holy people. But we express a completely opposite confidence with our actions. With all our observation of the law, we recognized ourselves as sinners who, like other people, have a need for justification. Knowing that by the works of the law no person will be justified before God, that this is possible only under the condition of faith in Christ, we seek justification in this faith alone. It does not agree with this to seek again justification in matters of the law. Otherwise, we must think that Christ deprived us of the only means of justification and taught us sin - teaching us to abandon the law. But this will not happen! Chrysostom thinks that the Apostle Peter in this case acted in this way in order to give Paul an opportunity to more strongly expose the Jewish error. Indeed, one cannot think that Paul had any need to reveal to Peter that justification is given not by the law, but by Jesus Christ; this was necessary only for the Judaizing Christians to explain to them the contradiction with themselves when they recognize themselves as Christians and yet continue to attribute such importance to the law. The denunciation of this way of thinking in the person of Peter, who deliberately took the side of his defenders for a while, is not reflected by Peter, but accepted by him as fair, should have produced more success than a nameless refutation or denunciation of people little known and little respected. By relating this dispute between Paul and Peter, who, as subsequent history shows, did not make any division between them, to this time, we receive a little more light for considering the connection of subsequent events. The peace hitherto concluded between Jewish Christians and Gentile Christians in Jerusalem was preserved. Hitherto, Paul in the pagan churches had to fight with unbelieving Jews, and not with Judaists. Now this discord arose again in the capital of the pagan churches, and from here it quickly spread throughout all the churches that consisted of Jews and pagans. It may seem strange why this disagreement arose now, and not at another time; arose at a time when Paul’s last stay in Jerusalem could only serve more to make a favorable impression on the hearts of Christians who still held onto Pharisaism. But this could only be expected in more moderate people, and in fanatical zealots who in no way wanted to agree their principles with his way of teaching, one should have expected the completely opposite. They saw in Paul a man who among pagans speaks so freely about the law, who has always given Gentile Christians equal rights with Jewish Christians, who has shown himself to be a despiser of the law, and yet he comes to Jerusalem to make a vow. But Paul contradicted himself here; he looked at the law in relation to the grace of redemption as an indifferent thing, and used it according to Christian views, as if he could achieve more benefit. For him, the law in itself was not important, but it could be important as long as it could serve to achieve his apostolic goals, just like other means; but his opponents reinterpreted his actions, accused him of contradicting himself, of flattering pagan Christians. The influence of these opponents of Pavlov's teaching quickly spread to the Galatian and Achaian Christians (in Corinth). When Paul, leaving his friends in Antioch, on his way to Ephesus, visited the churches in Phrygia and Galatia, he still did not find any significant change in them. However, I already noticed how these Judaizing teachers tried to sneak into the churches he founded, what zeal they expressed for the salvation of the souls of converted pagans, with what zeal they apparently wanted that these converts could fully achieve the promised benefits of the kingdom of Christ. Paul then chose as the place of long-term activity a city that was especially important for the spread of the gospel, the center of communications and trade for a vast part of Asia, the largest trading city in Asia on this side of the Taurus - Ephesus. However, here Christianity faced a new struggle with alien trends of the religious spirit, which either directly opposed it or threatened to merge with it. Pagan magic 70 reigned here, which had its origins in the mystical service of Diana, and behind this pagan magic, Jewish magic also had access here. The spirit of the time, not satisfied with religion and always thirsting for something new, supported this false teaching - to discover with one’s own strength an alliance with heaven, with spiritual forces. After preaching the Gospel in the synagogue for three months, Paul was forced, due to the hostile disposition that the Jews began to show him, to turn to the pagans and gather his listeners in the house of one pagan rhetorician named Tyrannus. In contrast to the magic that spread here, which deceived many, the power of God showed the most striking signs in order to distract people from these deceptions and open the way to the spiritual power of truth in their hearts (Acts 19:11, 12). And although the Jewish “search for signs” could contain all of Christianity in these sensory phenomena alone, performed by the power of God, and reverence it only as the highest magic, just as Simon the Magus thought, it was laid down in the very essence of Christianity that where it found true access to the heart, there aroused the strongest disgust from any such attempt. - Then there were many Jewish exorcists wandering around in this country, who, using various incantations, incantations using the power of well-known herbs - according to the rules, which were traced back to Solomon, drove out evil spirits from people possessed by them - and these people, whether by their knowledge of the arts that help to deceive the senses, or by using the forces of nature, unknown to others, or by irritating the imagination of those susceptible to illness, or indeed by connection with dark spirits - could produce very actions that are striking at first glance. Seeing what actions Paul performed by invoking the name of Jesus Christ, they decided to use this name in their spells. The unfortunate consequence of such an attempt (Acts. 19:15, 16) made a strong impression on many who, through the actions of the apostle, although they were already disposed to honor the Lord Jesus as the imparter of Divine powers to people, they still did not abandon either their former vicious behavior or their empty art, on the contrary, they also tried to combine it with Christianity and use Christianity itself as an aid to him. Frightened by this incident, the inhabitants of Ephesus themselves now came to the apostle, brought before him repentance for their wicked deeds and declared a decisive renunciation of all such things. Books filled with magical formulas and worth a large sum (about 20,000 rubles) were brought to the square and burned in front of everyone. Since in Ephesus it was possible to meet people of various beliefs of the East, Paul, among other things, found here 12 people from the disciples of John the Baptist, who was called upon to prepare his modern compatriots for the appearance of the Redeemer; but, as usually happens, with the preliminary manifestations in the Kingdom of God, due to the different acceptability of hearts, not everyone was equally impressed. From his school there also came out those who, following his instructions, attached themselves to the Savior with living faith and some even became His apostles; and those who remained with very insufficient concepts about the person and teaching of Jesus Christ; and those who, without imitating the example of their mentor, remaining in their extreme prejudices, acted even hostilely against Christians (since the beginning of the sect of John’s disciples, which survived to modern times, in all likelihood, should be dated as close as possible to the times of the Gospel). The disciples of John whom Paul met in Ephesus belonged to the second of these classes. It is not known whether they became John’s disciples in Palestine and received baptism from him, or were drawn into the community of his disciples afterwards - in any case, it is only necessary to note about them that although they knew little about the person and teaching of Jesus Christ, they considered themselves to have the right to be called Christians just like others (Luke calls them μαϑητάς Acts 19:1). Paul really thought to find Christians in them; but when I entered into a conversation with them, it turned out that they had not yet received anything from the glorified Lord Jesus, they did not even know about the Holy Spirit. Paul willingly gave them instructions about the relationship between the ministry of John and the ministry of Jesus Christ and the baptism of John to baptism, which introduced them into communion with Jesus Christ, making them partakers of the Divine life that comes from him. Then he gave them Christian baptism with the laying on of hands and prayer. And in John’s disciples the same signs of the descent of the Holy Spirit were revealed as once in the apostles. Paul's stay in Ephesus was important not only because here and from here throughout Asia Minor he could act to spread Christianity both through his own travels and through the disciples whom he acquired again, but especially because, being here in the center of so many communications, he could very conveniently receive news about the state of the churches he founded and, according to their moral and religious needs, act on them by letters and through envoys. Paul always carried in his soul concerns about the churches he founded: so often he mentions in his epistles that he prays and thanks God for them daily (1 Thess. 1:2 - 2 Thess. 1:11 - 1 Cor. 1:4 - Eph. 1:16 - Phil. 1:9); so, in the outpouring of his love, he assures the Corinthians that he always carries them in his heart (2 Cor. 7:3, but this is most vividly depicted in 2 Cor. 11:28, 29). Probably soon after his arrival in Ephesus, Paul received unpleasant news about the Galatian churches. The Judaizing Christians, who recently rebelled again against the teachings of Paul, managed to create an indignation here before other places, demanding from pagan Christians the fulfillment of the ritual law, as a necessary condition for participation in the Kingdom of God. Although these people were instruments of the party, which had its main stay in Palestine, it seems that they did not come from there, but belonged to the Hellenists; despite mutual zeal in fulfilling the law, when dealing with pagans, they themselves sometimes betrayed it; therefore, the apostle reproached them for not keeping the law themselves, which, it seems, could not be said about the Palestinian Jewish Christians (Gal. 5:3, 9). They did not want to recognize the apostolic importance of Paul, because it was as if he did not receive direct instructions from Jesus Christ, like the other apostles: they argued that the preaching of the gospel depended mainly on those who were appointed apostles by Jesus Christ himself; they tried to show the contradiction between the teachings of Paul and the teachings of the other apostles, who allowed the law to be observed in their churches; and all this was used to accuse Paul of deviating from the purity of the teachings of Christ and the apostles. At the same time, they tried to assure that Paul himself shows himself to be a Jew observing the law, therefore he acts differently among the pagans and flatters them to the detriment of the truth. Since this was the first example of such a mixture of Judaism and Christianity, and this confusion threatened the very essence of the Gospel in the new churches by introducing ritual Jewish service in place of a purely Christian one, this danger should have made a deep impression on the apostle. In order to prove to the Galatian Christians his love, which the Judaizers wanted to bring into suspicion, in order to make them feel how important the matter about which he cared, Paul, despite his many affairs, decided against his custom to write to them with his own hand (Gal. 6:11). He begins his epistle by defending his apostolic calling, which he received from Jesus Christ, like the other apostles, testifying to the Galatian Christians with solemn oaths that there is no other Gospel than the one he proclaims. He is too far from seeking to please people in the way of his preaching, as was the case before, when, following the principles of Pharisaism, he relied only on human authorities. When he entered into the ministry of Jesus Christ, he renounced all this; now teaches and acts according to the Divine calling. Then he proves to them through history itself how from the very beginning he preached the Gospel through direct Divine enlightenment and regardless of any human eminence; how even the other apostles recognized his independent apostolic character (at the apostolic council). Fully confident in the idea that only faith in the Crucified One can save a person and impart to him the fullness of Divine life, he turns to the Galatians with such a strong reproach: “reckless Galatians! who could deceive you, forget Jesus crucified, whom we depicted before your eyes as the only basis of our salvation, seek your salvation in external things, in works of the law? Oh, how unreasonable you are! Having begun your Christianity with the spirit, with the Divine life flowing from faith, having begun with what is the highest for us, you are now looking for something higher, some addition to your Christianity in the low, sensual, earthly, in that which cannot have any influence on the inner life of the spirit.” He refers to the evidence of their own experience: although at first the Gospel was proclaimed to them independently of the law, however, by the power of faith in the Redeemer, the Divine power of the Gospel carried out its various actions among them. Since his opponents relied on the importance of the Old Testament, Paul proves to them against this that the law had only the purpose of preparing for the appearance of the Redeemer, faith in whom brings everyone into participation in the Divine life, that the promises given to Abraham were given under the condition of faith, and these promises were fulfilled in all those who followed Abraham in faith, as his true children in spirit; that the appearance of the law was to constitute only a preparatory intermediate period between the giving of the promise and its fulfillment in the appearance of the Redeemer. Judaism and paganism, in every other respect different from each other, he places in the same category in relation to Christianity: this is a state of infancy in religion, in relation to maturity and adulthood, which gives full right to everything that the sons of God can enjoy; this is the state of dependence of religion on external sensual things, on worship, which consists only of sensual actions - in relation to the state of religion of the spirit, inner life, trace. freedom. Since Paul was accused by his opponents that he was freeing the pagans from fulfilling the law that was painful for them only out of man-pleasing, he did not find a better way to refute this and inspire confidence in the Galatians than by presenting them with an example of his own life to follow. He himself lived among the pagans, like a pagan, without being bound by the Mosaic Law - which, of course, he would not have done if he had been sure that without observing this law it was impossible to achieve full possession of the blessings of the kingdom of the Messiah. Therefore, he offers the Galatians the following rule: be like me (in relation to non-observance of the law), because I myself am the same as you (I am a natural Jew, but due to non-observance of the law I became like you). If the apostle had found a contradiction in the fact that he observed the rites of the law among the Jews in Palestine with these words about his own example, then of course he would not have pointed it out. But according to his principles, this contradiction did not exist, because he observed the rites of the law not always, but only in certain relationships and circumstances. And this already sufficiently showed that he does not attribute to them any objective religious importance, that, in his confidence, they cannot at all serve to justify and sanctify a person; that in relation to them he observes one rule, which he adheres to in general in relation to all external and indifferent things - out of love for the brethren, do not tempt them with anything. Paul urges the Galatians to preserve the freedom given to them by Jesus Christ and not to submit again to the yoke of slavery. He conjures them that if they allow themselves to be circumcised, then Christ will not bring them any benefit; that whoever is circumcised must keep the whole law; that by seeking justification from the law, they renounce union with Christ and fall from grace. These words of Paul do not at all contradict the fact that he himself circumcised Timothy and in external rites adapted himself to the Jews. He is not speaking here of outward circumcision itself, but of circumcision in conjunction with the religious confidence expressed in it; A pagan, when he accepts circumcision, can do so only in the confidence that through this and consequently through the law, to which he is obligated by circumcision, he can receive justification. And this confidence, of course, contradicts the trend of considering oneself to owe one’s salvation only to the Redeemer. Contrasting his true, correct love for the Galatian Christians with the boastful zeal of the Judaizers for their salvation, the apostle says about these latter: they are zealous for you, but wrongly; they want to excommunicate (from the Church of God) so that you will be zealous for them, that is, so that you will agree that you, like uncircumcised pagans, cannot enter the kingdom of God; so that therefore you take care to become Jews like them. Those who boast of external advantages (external Judaism) force you to be circumcised only in order not to be persecuted for the cross of Christ (i.e. for the teaching of Jesus crucified as the only basis of salvation). They do not want to be obliged for their salvation only to the Lord alone and to renounce all their own merit, from everything that they think is unnecessary against others. They want to circumcise you only so that they can boast about your flesh, that is, the change they made in you, forcing you to become Jews in appearance. The Apostle finally conjures the Galatians so that they do not cause him any more grief, because he bears on his body the signs of suffering suffered for the cause of Christ. Further, during the apostle’s stay in Ephesus, the affairs of the Corinthian church attracted his special attention. The history of this church provides a pattern of phenomena and movements that were repeated in later church times, only on a larger scale. Various influences flowed into this church: here it was impossible to derive everything from one influence, for example, from the influence of various parties, although the common reason for explaining these numerous influences must be sought in the overall state of the church at that time: the new Christian spirit had penetrated it so little and there was still so much left for it to struggle with the previous practical directions. Many of the naturally lively and irritable Greeks, carried away by the strong impression that Paul's actions made on them in Corinth, at first showed great zeal for Christianity: but in their fickle minds Christianity had not yet taken deep root. In a city like Corinth, where such corruption of morals reigned, where there were so many temptations to sensuality, there were even more dangers for a superficial conversion. It was added to this that when Paul laid the first foundation of the Corinthian church, other preachers came here after him, who proclaimed the Gospel partly in a different form, partly according to different principles; with this they gave the Greeks, already prone to divisions into parties and disputes, reasons for some splits. Firstly, there were among them those who, like the false teachers of the Galatian church, wanted to introduce Christianity mixed with Judaism, who could not tolerate the independence and freedom with which the Christianity preached by Paul was spreading among the pagans - although they did not reveal their opinions as sharply as the Galatian false teachers, since they called themselves not by the name of James, to whom the strictest Judaists usually assumed the highest authority, but by the name Petra. It could be that since they were dealing here with people of a different kind, with people of the Greek spirit, not so capable of accepting Jewish influence, they found it necessary not suddenly to openly and directly express what they wanted, but in advance to skillfully weaken the principles on which Paul proclaimed the Gospel, instill distrust of his apostleship and alienate them from him. They began by spreading doubts regarding Paul's apostolic dignity; they presented the only true apostles as those who studied with Jesus Christ Himself and were appointed apostles by Him. Further, they knew how to arouse in some scrupulous consciences doubts, which could easily have been caused by living among paganism and for which the former proselytes of Judaism were very capable. Thus, a schism appeared in the Corinthian church among the imaginary followers of Peter. And since one opposite always causes another, in contrast to the imaginary followers of Peter, a sect of one-sided followers of Paul was formed, who wanted to see pure Christianity only in the form in which Paul proposed; They laughed at the scrupulousness of suspicious consciences and were inclined to take a decisive direction against everything Jewish. In the first direction we find the germ of the later Judaizing sects; in the latter the beginning of the later Marcionite direction. In Paul's sect itself we discern a twofold direction, which stemmed from the following reason. Among the disciples of John, who were in Ephesus and posed as Christians, although their knowledge was too limited, belonged a certain Apollos, an Alexandrian Jew, who received the Judeo-Greek education characteristic of the learned Alexandrian Jews. Aquila and his wife sufficiently instructed him in Christianity, and when he set out to go to Achaia, they recommended him to the Corinthian church as a man who, with his zeal and his special gifts, could do a lot in favor of the cause of God. And these successes were especially to be expected in Corinth, where his Alexandrian education could give him free access to most of the pagans and Jews. Indeed, the Alexandrian way of development and presentation, closer to the Greek, especially satisfied the Corinthian scholars; but they, carried away by it, assimilated too much value into this special form and because of it they neglected the simple preaching of Paul, who, while they were with them, did not want to know anything except Christ and Him crucified. Here we see something similar to the gnosis (γνώσις) that subsequently arose on Alexandrian soil, which wanted to rise above faith (πίστις). In addition, we see another fourth sect in the Corinthian church. The peculiarities of its spirit are difficult to recognize, because its name, if taken as the name of the sect condemned by the apostle, is not easy to explain, and because in the 1st letter of Paul to the Corinthians there are no definite indications of this sect that could serve to signify its own character. These are those who called themselves Christ's. If the censure pronounced by the apostle is extended to those who wanted to be only Christ’s, as the same grammatical form requires, then it is obvious that these people did not want to be only Christ’s in the same sense as Paul wished (1 Cor. 3:27), but that the Corinthians unjustly appropriated Christ for themselves alone, wanted to make Him in some way the head of the schism. In this case, we must agree that Paul, although primarily in relation to this name of the sect, but together and in relation to all sects, said: was Christ divided (1 Cor. 1:13)? Does each schism have its own piece of Christ, or its own Christ? No, Christ is one for all, crucified for you all, into whom you were baptized and to whom you must be faithful. Now the question is, what should we think about the distinctive characteristics and origin of these followers of Christ? If we take into account that the Apostle mentions them next to the followers of Petrov, and compare this with the party of Apollos in relation to Paul, then it might seem very likely that the followers of Christ were in the same relation to the Petrovs as the Apollos were to Paul, that these names signify only a special party that belonged to the side of the Judaists. And since the latter presented themselves partly as disciples of James, partly as disciples of Peter, one might think that here of course there is a separate party between Jacob and Petrova. The first is stricter and more severe in Judaism, the second is freer and more meek. But this assumption is by no means supported by the name οί τού Χριστού. The explanation is very unnatural, as if it came from the common name of Jacob - άδελφός τού Χριστού. If there were any from the party of Jacob in Corinth, they would be called οί τού Ιακώβου. But, recognizing the so-called “Christians” as Jewish Christians, it would be more likely to develop this assumption in this form. The name οί τού Χριστού, one might say, was the name with which Petrov’s party called itself in contrast to Paul and his disciples. With this name, the followers of Petrov wanted to mean that they adhere to the true apostles of Christ, from them they received the pure teaching of Christ, through them they are united with Christ, and, appropriating it exclusively for themselves, they wanted to show that everyone else does not deserve the name of Christians, they are not disciples of Christ, not disciples of some true apostle of Christ, but disciples of people who have damaged the true teaching of Christ, giving out his fictitious teaching for the genuine Christ. This meaning, apparently, would not be alien to the predicate: οί τού Χριστού and it could also be confirmed by some hints in both epistles, in which the apostle defends his truly apostolic character and says about himself that he has the same right to say about himself as another, that he is Christ's (2 Cor. 10:7). But in all these places, although Paul really rebels against those who, for well-known reasons, rejected his apostolic importance, this does not yet prove the existence of such a name for a well-known sect among Jewish Christians. Reading next to οί τού Κηφά - οί τού Χριστού one expects that this last name signifies a party that, although it has a common origin with Petrova, is nevertheless different from her; meanwhile, according to this interpretation, οί τού Χριστού from οί τού Κηφά differ only in name; and this cannot be allowed, taking into account the relationship of the names of the previous two parties. So, this interpretation could be allowed only in a case where it would be possible to find in this way not only a formal, but also a material difference between the last two parties. Is it possible to admit that not all οί τού Κηφά, but only the most committed to Judaism, the strictest of them, not agreeing to recognize Paul's Christians among the pagans as participants in the benefits of the Messiah, gave their Judaizing department the name οί τού Χριστού. However, there is no need to be bound by the fact that οί τού Χριστού is placed next to οί τού Κηφά. It does not follow from this that these two names necessarily mean two related parties. Paul, of course, did not arbitrarily invent members of the opposition, as in other cases, but the choice of names depended on historical data. Therefore, if between the Judaizing Christians there were not two parties, as between Paul’s, but only one, then Paul should have shown only one name. In this case, he would have named οί τού Χριστού in the last place because this party went against all the above-mentioned sects, rejected the importance of all the apostles and other teachers who adhered to them, boasting that they wanted to know only Christ. Given the circumstances of the Corinthian church, we could present the matter this way: When some accepted the name of followers of Paul, others of Apollos, and still others of Peter, then people appeared who rejected the importance of all these teachers and wanted to form pure Christianity for themselves independently of the apostles, perhaps expelling from it everything that contradicted their philosophical ideas. Knowing the enmity of Hellenism with Judaism, knowing how strong the philosophical trend was in Corinth, one can imagine how a small party with such a view could be formed. It is not at all incredible that several persons with philosophical education were carried away by what they heard about the teaching of Christ and thought to find in it something in between with their previous ideas. Christ seemed to them a second, perhaps a higher Socrates. Only they could not decide to accept the teaching of Christ in the form in which it was preached by the apostles. All these apostles, it seemed to them, mixed in a lot of Jewish things and did not explain the teachings of Christ so purely. Thinking to adhere to Christ alone, they wanted, through philosophical criticism, to separate the pure teaching of Christ from what was transmitted to them. Similar phenomena actually occur in the 2nd century. It may seem strange that Paul does not make any special refutations of the beginnings of such a sect, which, more than others, threatened the destruction of apostolic Christianity. But what he says in other respects about the only source of knowledge of the truths of Divine revelation, what he speaks against the claims of the unenlightened mind, which undertakes to judge the Divine, against the insignificance of arrogant philosophy (1 Cor. 2:11) - all this can serve as an excellent refutation of the main error of this sect. And in general, the nature of apostolic polemics was to attack the very root of error, while in later times church polemics dealt with more specific branches of it. The disagreement between Pavlov and Petrov, between pagan Christians and Jewish Christians, had a very strong influence on the practical relations of both, and from here some disputes arose. Jews and Jewish Christians, when dealing with pagans, were extremely worried lest they become defiled in any way by touching idolatrous things. The Jewish rabbis came up with various means to protect themselves from such defilement and determined what should be considered defiling and what should not: this is discussed a lot in the Talmud. Since one could easily be exposed to such a danger of desecration, e.g. buy at the market or at a party eat such meat that was from a sacrificial animal: then not a single day passed without having to suffer from such fears. This suspiciousness probably occurred not only in those who actually belonged to the Judaizing opponents of Paul, but also tormented the weak consciences of some others. Since the faith of the gods had great power over them before, naturally they could not suddenly renounce faith in their reality: these gods still remained something existing for them. And just as paganism in general can be called the domain of the prince of darkness, then, seeing evil spirits in idols, they were afraid by eating meats dedicated to idols to come into contact with the evil spirits themselves. That these doubts worried not only the Jews, but also other Christians, is clear from one incident to which Paul points out. It is he who says that such weak consciences were among those who went to visit the pagans. And those who belonged to the Judaists, of course, would not have decided to eat anything from the pagans. Others laughed at this painful anxiety and even fell into the opposite error - these were those who presented themselves as Paul's Christians. Although they correctly understood Pavlov’s principles in a theoretical sense; but they made a mistake in applying them; because they lacked the spirit of love and prudence. They said: idols in themselves are nothing; gods are creatures of the imagination, therefore eating meats dedicated to them is an indifferent thing. Regarding such external, indifferent things, a Christian is not bound by any law; everything is permitted to him; πάντα έξεστιν - was their saying. They referred to knowledge, to the freedom that they have as Christians; γνώσις, έξουσία – was their password. At the same time, they did not pay any attention to the needs of the weakest in conscience; forced some of them to follow their example only because of the shame of being ridiculed for their petty affection and timidity; and these people, forced to act for these external reasons - against their own convictions - were therefore disturbed in their conscience. “Thus,” Paul said to the seducers, “your weak brother, for whom Christ died, perished because of your knowledge.” Some, with this arrogance of knowledge in the abuse of Christian freedom, went so far that they did not refuse to take part even in festive evenings, which the pagans gave to their friends in the temples after making a sacrifice from the remains of the sacrificial animal, and after that they could easily take part in other pagan vices. Thus, they clearly violated the decree of the Apostolic Council on not eating things sacrificed to idols (Acts 15). In fact, we see here the beginning of that one-sided movement towards theoretical knowledge, that incorrect understanding of Christian freedom, false indifference in moral teaching, which later was so abused by Gnosticism, posing as the teaching of Paul, to justify all unmoral pleasures. However, the preachers of Christian freedom in Corinth had not yet gone that far. Although pagan corruption of morals had crept among some members of the Corinthian church, they were far from justifying this immorality, otherwise the apostle would have rebuked them much more severely. The disagreement in the principles of the Petrovs and Pavlovs among themselves probably had an influence on the different way they judged marriage and celibate life. Although Christianity’s own action consisted in explaining the highest significance of all moral relations based on human nature, however, before this transformative and enlightening influence of Christianity could be revealed in all relationships of life, the strict moral spirit of the Gospel, entering into the struggle with the spirit of corruption that dominates the world, could naturally form an ascetic direction, evading marital relations. This direction, no doubt, no longer came from the Judaizing side of the church, because the apostles, to whose authority Petrine’s followers mostly relied, were married and went with their spouses on their travels (1 Cor. 9:6). In general, a marriage rich in children was considered by them to be a special favor of God and a special honor; on the contrary, a childless marriage and a celibate life are disgraceful. And among the Pavlovs one could find here and there a special respect for celibate life; they even thought of imitating their apostle in this regard. Mocking the suspiciousness of Judaism, incorrect free-thinking sometimes prompted people to violate the limits set by certain beneficent customs. Although it could be fairly admitted that the hitherto existing separation between the female and male sex in relation to the affairs of the higher life, Christianity was destroyed, and the female sex was liberated from its former slavery: however, some, led by a falsely understood spirit of freedom, began to spread this too far and transgress the limits set by nature and custom, which, however, Christianity recognized and illuminated. Women appeared in church meetings, contrary to Greek custom, without veils; Besides this, they wanted to become equal with men in that they wanted to teach publicly in church. Further, the lack of Christian love was also reflected in the fact that disputes arose over “mine” and “yours,” and these disputes were proposed for resolution - not as was previously the custom in the Jewish and Christian churches - to someone from among the brethren themselves; but pagan Christians, who boasted of their freedom, did not consider it a sin to appear before pagan courts. Because of this lack of the spirit of Christian love, that holy institution, which actually should serve to depict and preserve love and communication between Christians, lost its significance - Christian suppers, which were added to the Eucharist. At these suppers Christian fellowship should have been demonstrated without any difference in status and education; rich and poor, masters and servants, would have to share these simple meals among themselves. But in the Corinthian church, where these differences were expressed very sharply, this could not be achieved. The Greeks have long preserved the custom of holding such suppers, at which everyone who took part in them brought their own food, and at which everyone ate what they brought with them. According to this ancient custom, suppers were established in the Corinthian church, although this custom did not at all correspond to their special purpose, and at such suppers the difference between the rich and the poor became even more striking: the rich sometimes even indulged in immoderation, which desecrated the holy institution. In the zeal for such talents, which related to the oral presentation of the teachings of religion, the predominantly Greek spirit and education of the Corinthian church is revealed, and at the same time a one-sided direction (1 Cor. 4:20), which valued high words more than a godly active life. This impractical direction and the aforementioned lack of inspiring love were also seen in the way they valued and used the various teaching talents; They sought more the amazing and brilliant than what was more useful for general edification; above all, they left the gift of speaking in tongues. To which of these parties the opponents of the doctrine of the resurrection belonged cannot be determined with certainty, because we have no definite information about their own opinion. Our sources for information on this subject are: the objections to the doctrine of the resurrection which Paul seems to propose, and Paul's own arguments in defense of this doctrine; only for this reason can we judge the principles on which the doctrine of the resurrection was refuted. But no decisive conclusions can yet be drawn from this. As for the first, Paul could have made these objections to himself; he often does this when he reveals some important subject; From here it cannot be concluded that such and such objections to the doctrine of the resurrection were really known at that time. As for the second, in proving the dogma of the resurrection, he could follow the order and connection of this dogma with other fundamental truths of the Christian faith, in which he imagined it; and not the order and connection of the teachings of their opponents. Pavel eg. provides evidence of the truth of the resurrection of Christ: but it does not follow from this that his Corinthian opponents rejected the resurrection of Christ. Paul, even without this opinion, could especially reveal this truth because for him, faith in the resurrection of the Redeemer was the basis of faith in the resurrection of the redeemed. Next, he sets out together the doctrine of resurrection and the doctrine of immortality - and one could conclude from this that his opponents also rejected personal immortality. But the question is, did Paul have such an accurate understanding of the opinion of these opponents? In this case, did he follow the connection in which the truths of faith were presented to his Christian consciousness, did he not follow the opinion of those who saw opponents of the doctrine of immortality in those who rejected the doctrine of resurrection? In the ordinary polemics of Jewish theology, these two teachings coincided. This attack on the doctrine of the resurrection was made by the ordinary opponents of Paul from the Jews, i.e., the Sadducees, and concluded from the fact that the opponents of the doctrine of the resurrection in Corinth belonged to the Judaizing side of the Corinthian church. This assumption is apparently supported by the fact that Paul especially cites Peter and James as witnesses to the truth of the resurrection of Christ, as the most eminent persons in the eyes of Judaists: but this is not proof. In any case, it was natural for Paul to refer to the testimony of the apostles and to give special importance to the testimony of some of them about the apparitions. If Paul were dealing with the Sadducees, then he should have paid attention to their own refutation of the doctrine of the resurrection, that it is not mentioned in the Pentateuch, as they presented it to Jesus Christ. Moreover, we do not find a single example of Christianity being mixed with Sadducees; and since nothing in common with Christianity can be found in the way of thinking of the Sadducees, such a confusion is even quite incredible: just as it is difficult to imagine a mixture of Epicurianism with Christianity. It is much more likely that some philosophically educated pagan Christians were seduced by the doctrine of the resurrection and, perhaps, this was caused, as in subsequent times, by the crude understanding of this teaching that prevailed among ordinary Christians, which is why Paul especially refutes it. Objections: why the soul in its highest state will have a body the same as the one it now has - and how it is possible for this body turned to dust to rise again - is much more natural to come from pagan Christians with some philosophical education, although - as we noted above - it is still impossible to conclude from here that these are precisely the objections made by opponents of the doctrine of the resurrection. And if we could take it for granted that by Christ we should mean people who understood Christianity in a special philosophical way, then it would be very likely that these people formed for themselves a special concept of the resurrection, which they wanted to understand only spiritually. The question is how Paul received the first information about these movements towards the Corinthian church. From some hints, especially in the second letter to the Corinthians, one could conclude that he wrote the first letter to them, having already been with them for the second time, albeit for a very short time. In this case, it is very natural to assume that Paul, having left Antioch and before going to Ephesus for a long time, undertook a new journey between the pagan nations, which is why he was in Corinth, although nothing is said about this in the fragmentary narrative of the apostolic history. Then, from these hints about his secondary existence in Corinth, one could conclude that even at that time he noticed some troubles in the church and already had reasons to threaten or reproach. If this is so, then in Ephesus Paul should have taken even more care to obtain the most detailed information about the state of the Corinthian church, which he left under such unfavorable omens. But even if Paul had not been to Corinth another time, he could have received the first information in Ephesus about the disastrous changes that had taken place in the Corinthian church. Having heard about the corruption of morals that had crept into the Corinthian church and in particular about the vicious life of one of its members, who lived with his stepmother, Paul, in a deliberate letter, reproached the Corinthians for tolerating such a person among them and demanded that they renounce all communication with such people. Meanwhile, Apollos himself came from Corinth. He was completely alien to the idea of ​​​​being the head of a sect, as the Corinthians wanted; he was completely of the same thoughts with Paul, and Paul persuaded him to go again to Corinth (1 Cor. 16:12). But perhaps because the excessive respect shown to him in Corinth was unpleasant to him himself, he did not want to fulfill it now. Then Paul received and from some others information about the state of the Corinthian church, as we depicted above; finally, messengers from the church itself arrived and brought with them a letter; in this letter he was asked several questions (about the celibate life 1 Cor. 7:1, about eating things sacrificed to idols 8:1, about spiritual gifts, 12:1, perhaps about the rules of decency, 5:10), partly aroused by the first letter of Paul, partly stemming from the mentioned disputes, partly born from the influence of other circumstances. This news, received by Paul partly from Apollos, partly from the Corinthian epistle and from its bearers, partly from others, prompted Paul to write a letter to them, which serves as a model of apostolic wisdom in the government of the church and contains the beginnings of many transformations in the relations of ordinary life. Probably Paul sent him with the envoys of the local church returning to Corinth. Paul condemned all divisions in the Corinthian church. Christ alone is the head to be held; Preachers should be looked upon as instruments with which God works; each of them has his own measure of talents in order to promote the cause that everyone must serve. What is there to boast about: I had such and such a teacher? Such praise makes you dependent on people; if you attributed everything only to Christ, through whom you enter into communion with God, then you could look at everything as property (1 Cor. 4:21). These words show what freedom of spirit, what sublimity comes from Christian humility. This universal rule - how one should look at all preachers and their personal qualities and how to use them - Paul later explains deliberately with his relationship to Apollos - since he could speak most freely, most unsuspiciously about his relationship with this man, with whom he was in the closest connection. To those who did not find the sought-after wisdom in his simple preaching and who gave dignity only to Apollos, he said: it is your fault that you did not find the teaching of wisdom in my preaching; the source of all wisdom, the wisdom of God, and not the wisdom of the world, is in the doctrine of Jesus crucified, the Savior of the world, which was the focus of his preaching; - however, this Divine wisdom can be found in it and understood only by those who have a feeling capable of accepting the Divine. The Gospel was not wisdom for them because the carnal feeling was still too strong in them - this is clear from their disputes. – He gives the Corinthians a rule by which they should reason about every Christian teacher. Whoever recognizes the unchangeable foundation of Christian life that he has laid, that Jesus is the Savior, that salvation must be sought in him alone, and on this basis further reveals Christian teaching, he already testifies by this that he is a Christian teacher and through faith in Him in whom alone he seeks salvation, he will achieve it and lead others to it. But in a building built on this foundation, the Divine can be more or less mixed with the human and therefore be presented in more or less pure form. Time is left to separate the human from the Divine - the day will reveal - until the final judgment. Another, who valued humanity too much, will see the whole work that he created perished, although the foundation on which he created will remain intact both for him and for others; and he himself will be saved only by grave temptations, which he must endure in order to be cleansed from the human things that have mixed in him with the work of God (1 Cor. 3:11). In relation to the disputes about eating meat sacrificed to idols, it is noteworthy that Paul does not refer to the definition of the Apostolic Council in Jerusalem in order to keep pagan Christians from eating meat sacrificed to idols, just as he does not oppose the importance of the definition of the same council, which freed them from it, to the Jewish Christians who forced the pagans to be circumcised. It was a characteristic feature of Paul that he referred not to an external positive commandment, to νόμον, but to an internal law, in the hearts of believers, to the demand of the spirit of the Gospel. Paul points primarily to the law of love (8:1). He does not dispute the principle, which the free-thinking Corinthians always put forward, that no law can be laid down regarding such external things. - But from the spirit of the Gospel he proves to them that sometimes what is permissible in itself may be impermissible under certain circumstances, because it may contradict the law of love, the duty of a Christian to do everything in such a way that it serves as much as possible for the salvation of others, for the glory of God. He proves to them that they themselves deny Christian freedom, making themselves dependent on external things that they should use in the spirit of love as required by circumstances (6:12). And, setting his own example, he says that he refuses to eat meat altogether, so as not to tempt his brother (8:13). Resolving the issue of celibate life, Paul keeps to the middle between the disputing parties: he does not pester either those who completely condemned celibate life, or those who looked at it as a necessary requirement of Christian perfection. He agrees that forced renunciation of marriage can be harmful in a church such as the Corinthian one, and tries to warn it against the harmful consequences of it (7:1, 26). But whoever has the gift of abstinence from God and finds himself capable of leading such a life, let him choose the virgin life, since in it one can freely engage in the affairs of the kingdom of God, especially in those difficult times (vv. 33, 34). He places the essence of Christian perfection not in celibacy, not in external renunciation of earthly things; but in renunciation of the world in heart. Whether you are rich or poor, famous or in a low place, use it all so that you can sacrifice everything that is asked of you, whatever is dear to your heart (1 Cor. 7:30). Speaking about the different ranks in which someone was before his conversion, Paul makes it a law that everyone should remain in his previous rank. Christianity does not expel a person from the relationships in which his birth, upbringing and the Divine determination of his fate placed him. It will only teach you to look at them from a new point, with a new thought. It does not produce sudden revolutions, but renews everything little by little with the power of the inner spirit. In particular, Paul applies these principles to marriages of different faiths and to the state of slaves; He rather had to talk about the latter both because the Gospel at first found more access among them and because with the development of consciousness of human dignity and rights through Christianity, the desire to overthrow the earthly yoke could sooner be aroused in them. And here Christianity, so as not to confuse the spiritual with the worldly and not to sin against its goal, which actually relates to the salvation of the soul, did not undertake any sudden violent transformation of relations, and here it wanted to act only from the spirit, from the heart. The Gospel imparted to the slaves a higher life that lifted them beyond the boundaries of their earthly relationships. And although the apostle did not demand from the masters that they give freedom to their slaves, because it was beyond the scope of his actions to interfere in the structure of civil relations, he nevertheless revealed in the masters the consciousness of such responsibilities in relation to their slaves, he inspired such dispositions towards them, so made them feel their brotherhood with Christians from the slaves, that from this their relations towards the slaves themselves should have changed. Paul tells the slaves that although Divine Providence denied them civil freedom, this should not crush them: they should rejoice that the Lord has granted them true inner freedom. But when he calls this freedom the only true one, since with it a person can be free from all external constraints and without it no other freedom can have a goal, he nevertheless does not take away a secondary dignity from civil freedom. To the same slave to whom he speaks about the true freedom granted to him, he writes: but if you can become free, take advantage of it (7:21). From this it is clear that the apostle considered the state of civil freedom more consistent with the title of Christian, and when Christianity succeeds in renewing social relations, then this advantage indicated by the apostle will be accepted everywhere. Although the apostle recognized the equal participation in the redemption of the female and male sexes, he did not free women from natural subordination to their husbands and the modesty appropriate to their sex. Why did he not approve of the most apparently indifferent thing - namely, that the Corinthian women removed their veils from their heads during worship. These veils were symbols of the authority of their husbands over them and the protection of their modesty (11:1-15). Still less could he allow women to offer instruction in church meetings; The law orders a woman to be submissive. Even if she came across something incomprehensible in the instruction offered by others, she should not ask about it immediately - in the meeting, or afterwards - from the mentor himself, but from her husband. The husband is her head; her husband is her teacher. Here a high concept of the husband's duties is revealed; the union of marriage is not just an earthly matter; it must be a means of training matched persons for heavenly things. When I am alone, I am responsible for myself alone; when the fate of another person is connected with my fate, I am responsible for him too. What he did not know, for his salvation, what he did not do - in this I also take an intimate part and bear responsibility. Imbued with the spirit of love, Paul strongly reproaches the transformation of the order of the supper of love into the supper of enmity and discord. While sacredly revering the Divine institution of the Eucharist, he condemns the inattention and contempt with which some approach it. What is the purpose of these suppers? Is it possible to eat and drink? There are houses for this. What is the purpose of the Eucharist? Remembrance of the death of the Lord. But is this possible when some people’s feelings are upset by the disorder of previous meals, displeasure is aroused towards the rich, who before them delighted their taste with the best dishes and good wines; For others, the meaning of drinking drinks is clouded, or, at least, the soul is not capable of receiving spiritual things, being burdened by a satiated body. Shall I praise you for this? I won't praise you. Is this how to remember the death of Christ? Is this how to take the bread and cup of the Lord? Valuing every gift and ministry in the church in relation to its benefit to the whole community of believers, the apostle tries to reconcile their disputes about gifts and ministries, pointing out that what matters most is what will always remain with a person - that is, love. Those who spoke in tongues argued with those who prophesied. To speak in tongues is a lofty gift: its culprit is the Holy Spirit. There is not a single example of this among the pagans. However, we must not forget that this is not the only talent; there are many of them according to the variety of services and there is one Originator of them all, distributing to each according to his own will; if all these gifts are used for the benefit of the church, there is no doubt that it will bear abundant fruit (12:4–11). The Church is one body; each member has its own importance and meaning; there should be no disputes or competition between them; not everyone can do everything, not everyone has gifts that could be used by the whole church (12-31). Here is a universally important gift - love; without it all other gifts mean nothing; The gifts of faith and hope are great, but even those are inferior to it. This is a gift that will remain with a person forever; Such and such a gift should be sought more and more (13:1-13). After this general discussion of gifts, Paul moves on to his main subject, the debate about the superiority of the gift of tongues over the gift of prophecy. Paul resolves this dispute in favor of the latter, as more useful for the ordinary affairs of the church. The gift of tongues should not be rejected, but neither should it be given undue respect in comparison with prophecy; It is not done well that in church meetings those speaking in unknown tongues come out one after another and pray out loud, and thus take away the time of those who prophesy to speak for the edification of the church. As for me, the apostle writes, although I speak in tongues more than you, I would rather say five intelligible words in church than ten incomprehensible ones. In particular, ununderstood prayers in unknown languages ​​may seem tempting to pagans who come to church meeting places. On the contrary, one accurate glance of the prophet into the soul of a curious pagan, revealing himself to him, will force him to have deep respect for Christianity and even recognize it as the true religion (14:23, 24). All that remained for Paul was to refute the opponents of the doctrine of the resurrection. He proves the possibility of resurrection in general by the example of the resurrection of Jesus. If He was resurrected, then resurrection is possible. If Christ was not resurrected, then all the preaching of the apostles means nothing; all faith in their preaching is in vain; all hope for remission of sins is vain; there are and cannot be any expectations in the future - in the future life; Christians are left with only the present and that disastrous. But if the professing Christian does not agree to this, if he recognizes the connection between the resurrection of Jesus Christ and all the benefits that we can enjoy in His kingdom; if he believes it is necessary for Christ to be resurrected, then he must believe that we too will be resurrected (15:12–20). This is also necessary - necessary in order to restore peace. The world was subjected to death by one man: it is necessary that it should be raised from death by one man. Further, it is necessary that everything that has fallen away from the Creator should be subjugated to Him by the Intercessor; this is impossible except when the last enemy of the all-creating Power is abolished - death, i.e. when the deceased will be brought back to life (21–28). Mistaking the opponents of the resurrection for the opponents of immortality, Paul adds: if the existence of a person were destroyed with his death, then nothing would be better than to follow this rule: let us eat and drink, tomorrow we will die. Why is it that the pagans, seeing us constantly dying, seeing martyrs in places ending their days in suffering, come to us and demand baptism (v. 29). Why do we expose ourselves to so many dangers, torments, etc. (29–34)? Turning again to opponents of the resurrection, Paul continues: it seems to some that if the future life is the highest degree of human existence, then why should man be constrained there by the body? The body is the prison of the soul. But the body that we will receive with the resurrection, although it is formed from the remains thrown into the ground, just as grass arises from a seed, it will be different from the real body, just as a plant or ear of wheat is from grain. And now in the whole of nature one can notice this diversity of bodies; from some seeds such plants will be born, from others - others; The human body is constructed differently, and the bodies of animals are constructed differently. Each animal, due to its special properties, housing, etc., has its own body shape. The same thing is noticeable in the celestial bodies, some more, others less; some are lighter, others are dimmer. In the same way, the body that we will put on in the resurrection will not be exactly the same as the one we now wear - weak, despised; it will be much better, more glorious. The first elements of this body are in the present; but they will be cleansed, and the body will appear instead of the corruptible, the incorruptible, instead of the despised, the glorious, instead of the weak, the strong, instead of the spiritual. It goes without saying that flesh and blood - this real body - will not inherit the kingdom of God. But why can’t such a transformed body be an easy instrument of the soul? How will it burden the soul? Will it not even serve to increase the perfection of human nature (35–50)? Finally, they present another question regarding the resurrection, which the inquisitive, distrustful mind dwells on: when will this happen and what will happen to those who do not die before the resurrection? Those who do not die until then, says the apostle, will change, be transformed. And this resurrection and change will follow when Jesus Christ comes to earth a second time to destroy forever death, which through sin ruled over man. Paul wrote this epistle around the time of the Jewish Passover, as can be guessed from the allusion (5:17), and at the time he wrote he intended to remain in Ephesus until Pentecost (16:8). At the end he wrote that there was still a lot to do for his preaching, but there were also many opponents (v. 9). He even mentions the daily danger of death (15, 30). When he sent this message to Corinth, he had already drawn up an extensive plan for future action. Having laid a sufficient foundation for the spread of the church among the Greek peoples, especially during his many years of stay in Achaia and Ephesus, Paul intended to transfer the circle of his action to the west. And since he made it a rule to choose for his activities only such places where no one had yet preached, he wanted to go to Spain and begin his preaching from the very extreme limit of Western Europe, and while going to Spain he intended to visit Rome, where, however, the church had long been founded (Rom. 15:24, 28). Before he began to implement this plan, he wanted to collect alms from the pagan churches in favor of the poor Christians of Jerusalem and take delivery of it himself together with some of the brethren (1 Cor. 16:3, 4; 2 Cor. 1:16). By this act, he wanted to show the Jewish Christians living in Jerusalem the most tangible evidence of the conversion of the pagans, to force them to recognize the action of the Spirit of God among pagan Christians; at the same time, to conclude in a worthy manner his actions in the east, establishing a close union of Christian communion between Jewish believers and pagan believers. Therefore, even before sending the aforementioned letter to the Corinthians, he sent Timothy with some other brethren to Macedonia and Achaia to collect alms there and to stop the disturbing influences in the Corinthian church (1 Cor. 4:17; 16:10). He hoped through him to receive news about what impression his message made on the Corinthian church. But his hope was not fulfilled: Timothy was probably stopped by something from reaching Corinth and therefore returned to Ephesus, not bringing with him the news expected by the apostle (Acts 19:22). Concerned about this tender fatherly care (2 Cor. 2:3, 4), Paul sent Titus to Corinth in order, at least through him, to receive the necessary news and make orders consistent with the impression made by the letter (2 Cor. 2:13). And since he intended to soon leave Ephesus, he made a condition to meet with him in Troas, where he intended to stay longer in order to become more engaged in preaching (v. 12) and, perhaps, to draw up a plan for his journey in accordance with the newly received news from Titus. Meanwhile, a strong indignation arose in Ephesus against the apostle, which was at the same time proof of the important consequences of his preaching in Asia Minor. In this city, silver and gold models of the famous Church of Diana, located here, were made, which were sent everywhere and brought rich income to the city. A certain Demetrius, who carried out a large fabrication of such models and who employed many workers, seeing such powerful successes of the Gospel in Asia Minor and feeling a decrease in his income with the beginning of the decline of faith in Diana, came to fear that his craft would completely lose its momentum. He gathered his like-minded people and could easily inflame their indignation against people who threatened to destroy Diana's fame and deprive them of income. The people began to stir; everyone hurried to the public square, where they usually gathered; many shouted, not knowing what was going on. Two of Pavlov's companions were captured. Since the Greek people, who made up the main population of the city, generally hated the Jews who lived here, as enemies of the gods, and popular hatred, with a small insult, could easily flare up into a rebellion, from which they could suffer a lot; then, in the present case, when many still did not know what actually was the cause of the people's indignation, the Jews, hearing only that the people were worried because of the insult inflicted by the enemies of the gods, immediately attributed the cause of such indignation to themselves, and someone named Alexander appeared to give an explanation to the people and, if necessary, lay the blame on the Christians. But the appearance of such a person, who himself belonged to the number of enemies of the popular religion, only caused severe irritation; the screams increased even more. However, it seems that only the mob harbored these hostile dispositions towards the apostle; The leaders of the city knew the way of life and actions of Paul for almost three years in Ephesus and this could not help but give them a favorable judgment about Paul. Some of the rulers of the city, who managed the affairs of religion in Asia Minor that year (Άσιάρχαι), who had supervision over public games, even expressed their participation in his fate, begging him not to appear to the people during this unrest. Finally, the city solicitor managed to calm the restless crowd, presenting that satisfaction should be demanded legally: that it could not be that anyone would rebel against the great goddess of Ephesus, that one could fear responsibility for indignation. After this incident, Paul left Ephesus. It is very likely that he had more than one such misfortune here (see Acts 20:18,19; Rom. 16:4; 1 Cor. 15:31; 2 Cor. 1:8). In Macedonia he encountered many disappointments (2 Cor. 7:5), but he was also delighted by the zeal and love of the churches, which were subjected to continuous persecution (2 Cor. 8:1 et al.). Here he met Titus, whom he had waited in vain in Troas (2 Cor. 2:13). Here I learned from him that his message caused a saving sorrow in the Corinthian church (2 Cor. 7:7-16). Everyone expressed indignation at the lawless man - he was excommunicated from church communion; everyone who had respect for the apostle refused all relations with him - and this made such a strong impression on him that he himself recognized his crime and expressed great sorrow (2 Cor. 2:7). Why did Paul need to insist on being welcomed back into his church? Very many showed great zeal in defending the apostolic importance of Paul (2 Cor. 1:14), as well as they grieved that they had caused him so much grief, and strongly desired to have him among them. But Paul’s opponents from the Judaizers were not only not softened by this, but by their denunciations and the submission that he found in other churches, they became even more irritated against him and tried everything to make him suspicious of the church (2 Cor. 3: 1, 5, 12). They said: Paul is strict and strong only in letters, but weak in person (10:10). He threatens more than he can do; therefore there is no need to be afraid of him much. At first, Paul made it known (with the Corinthian brethren) that he would soon leave Ephesus and come to Corinth, and if the bad was not corrected, he would use all his rights, all severity to stop the riots. But since after that he remained in Ephesus for a long time, changed his plan and began to tell the Corinthians that he would first go to Macedonia (1 Cor. 16:5), and from there he would come to them, Paul’s enemies took advantage of this to accuse him of instability, inconstancy and instability in his word. He was the same in his teaching, they further concluded. Hence the contradictions in his behavior between Jews and pagans, precisely in relation to the Law of Moses. They tried to present this Christian wisdom, which was combined in him with simplicity, in an unfavorable light; they said that he uses various tricks to somehow deceive people (2:17, 4, 2, 12, 16). And on the side that was committed to the apostle, not everything was done that Paul demanded in his letter. Given this state of the Corinthian church, Paul considered it necessary, without appearing in Corinth, so as not to encounter any new sorrows here, in order to enjoy only peace and love with the believers (1:23), to write another letter to them in order to thus prepare them for their personal actions (13:10). And he sent to them with a message Titus, known to them, with two other brothers who took an active part in serving the church (8:16-23). They had to start collecting alms before Paul arrived. To justify himself against suspicions of the sincerity of his behavior and character, Paul refers in this letter to the testimony of his own conscience (1:12), shows the reasons why he changed the plan of his journey to them (15, 16, 23-2,1), is testified by God that in preaching the Gospel he never contradicted himself, constantly proclaimed one teaching of Christ and the promises that they received will, without any doubt, be fulfilled by Jesus Christ: in this can vouch for their own conscience or consciousness of change in themselves. Wanting to justify his apostolic character against his enemies, Paul was forced to speak here more than in other epistles about himself, about his labors for the kingdom of God, about suffering, about the gifts of God's grace in revelations. He spent the rest of the summer and autumn in Macedonia and, probably, at this time he extended his preaching to the neighboring region of Illyria, as he mentions in his letter to the Romans (15:19). Then he went to Achaia, where he spent the winter (1 Cor. XVI, 6). Since Paul had already decided with the beginning of spring, having gone to Jerusalem, to transfer his circle of action to the west and visit the capital of the world; then it was advisable for him to enter into an agreement with the local church in advance. And the sending of the deaconess Thebes to Rome from the Cenchrean church was therefore the best case for Paul: with her he sent a letter to the Roman church, in which he recommended Thebes to her (16:1, 2). The seed of the Gospel could have been brought quite early to Rome to the Jews by Jewish Christians; and, from the greetings appended to the end of the letter to the Romans, it is clear that there were people in Rome who had long belonged to Christianity (Rom. 16:7). However, the indigenous society of the church did not consist of Jews: most of the Christians in Rome were of pagan origin; The Gospel was preached to them by Paul's disciples, regardless of the Law of Moses. Therefore, Paul considered it his duty to write to them as the apostle to the Gentiles (1:13, 14). In the Roman Church the circumstances were the same as in general in those churches where the main element was pagan-Christian and mixed with Judeo-Christian. Jewish Christians could not decide to recognize the equality in the kingdom of God of pagan Christians who did not observe the ritual law. Pagan Christians retained their former contempt for the Jews, even those who had converted, which was strengthened even more by the persecution of the Jews raised against the preachers of the Gospel (chap. 11, 12, 17). In the letter to the Romans, Paul offers the church, in which he himself could not yet preach, an outline of the essential truths of the gospel: he wanted to resurrect in their minds what was proclaimed to them as the teaching of Christianity (Rom. 15:15). Therefore, the letter to the Romans may especially serve to show what Paul recognized as the essence of the gospel. He begins with the assurance that he is not ashamed to appear preaching the Gospel in the capital of the educated world. This teaching is necessary for everyone, both Jews and Gentiles, because everyone is sinners. Sinners are pagans because with sinful desires they suppressed in themselves the best knowledge about God that was innate to them; as a result of which they dishonored God and, in retribution for unworthy reverence for God, were given over to those great vices (chapter 1). Although the Jews had the most correct knowledge of God, God showed them special favor, but they were not faithful to the duties that they knew, and even less excusable. From this it is clear how necessary is that great gospel dispensation of salvation, which provides justification to a person without asking his own works of righteousness (chapters 2 and 3). This path of justification is also recognized by the Old Testament. In Abraham and David we already find a similar righteousness (4). The fruits of this Divine justification turn out to be peace and joy in man - joy not only in the hope of future glory, but also in the present. Therefore, this economy of salvation is majestic and venerable. Just as through one man everything was lost, so through one – the new ancestor of man – everything was restored (5). Only our sanctification cannot be without our consent, although it is not a slavish observation of the law, but a freer fruit of the consciousness of redemption vividly awakened in us (6). The law is dead for us, and so are we in relation to the law. This is the course of inner life: at first a person does not know any law and finds delight in all his sins. Then he learns the law, tries to fulfill it, strengthens himself, struggles - and always falls under the burden of his work, powerless. Only Christ makes it possible to fulfill the requirements of the law, investing in a person a new beginning of life, faith in the grace freely given to him (7). In this way, it becomes possible for the regenerate to do what was previously impossible for man. And the final outcome of his life is glory. Although he must still endure a lot, eternal ineffable glory awaits him, which no earthly power can steal (8). “How I would like,” the apostle further writes, to incline my brothers according to the flesh to accept this teaching about salvation. But their stubborn resistance to believe in Christ blocks their path to Him; they think they can boast about the righteousness of their works. However, God alone, as the unlimited Ruler, can open these paths to justification: He has now set faith in Christ as the only condition for salvation; it depended on His free election (9). If Israel had accepted this faith, they would have been saved (10). However, even now this famous God’s chosen people will not be rejected forever. First the Gentiles will be converted, and one day all Israel. And then the glory of God’s wisdom will be revealed in various ways, but leading all sinners to one goal - salvation and the only means of salvation - faith in the Redeemer. In the practical instructions that form the last part of this letter, Paul entered into all the relationships in which the new Christians found themselves, foresaw the errors in which they might be carried away, and tried to warn them against it. The outrageous spirit of the Jews, who did not tolerate any pagan authorities, although it could not be strong among the Roman Christians, because most of them were from the pagans; but even one incorrect understanding of Christian truth could easily give rise to such attempts. As members of the kingdom of God, looking at the pagan world as the kingdom of an evil spirit, they could easily enter into a struggle with all their real political relations. The doctrine of Christian freedom could easily have received the wrong meaning, since Paul already had occasions to refute such a crude, carnal interpretation (Gal. 5:15). Wanting to warn against these practical errors, Paul especially tried to instill in the Roman Christians that, like civil authorities in general, they should be viewed as a Divine institution established for specific purposes that have their basis in the Divine government of the world; This is how the government should look at the reality of that time and behave in relation to it accordingly. Finally, Paul touches on the relationship of free-thinking Christians to suspicious ones, still infected with Jewish prejudices. The circumstances here were the same as in the Corinthian church. Some did not respect the prohibition of eating things sacrificed to idols and laughed at the scrupulousness of Jewish Christians, while others directly passed off eating things sacrificed as a sin and therefore pronounced condemnation on everyone who dared to eat everything without distinction. In the same way, some are accustomed to consider certain days as especially holy; the free-thinking, on the contrary, did not want to make any difference between the days in relation to religion. Paul tries to reveal to both sides that there should be no disputes, no condemnations over subjects of such unimportant importance; that all the concerns of a Christian should be focused on his essential good, which is life for the Lord, life by faith. Participation in the kingdom of God does not consist in the use of this or that for food and drink, or not, but in the assimilation of the heavenly goods of the inner man - truth - resulting from the peace and joy of Divine life (14, 17). He inspires both sides to tolerate each other with love, not to judge each other; Everyone should try to be firm in their own confidence and act on it. However, those who are stronger in Christian conviction should be condescending to those who are weaker. Having spent three months in Achaia, Paul, having collected money, intended to go to Jerusalem and thus conclude his apostolic activities in the east with a journey that was supposed to capture Christian communion between the two parties that made up the church - to establish the unity of the new church. The fifth and final journey of the Apostle Paul to Jerusalem; the immediate consequences of this journey; Paul's imprisonment in Palestine In the spring around Easter 58 or 59, Paul left Corinth. Some of his companions had already crossed over to Troas (Acts 20:4, 5). Paul spent Easter in Philippi, took Luke from here, who had been left there before; spent a week in Troas to compensate for the brevity of his last stay there, the reason for which was the desire to quickly learn about the state of the Corinthian church (2 Cor. 2:12). Here on the first day of the week he was at church services, talking with the brethren at home; Providence, which saw the need to confirm the believers in the teaching they had accepted and spread it among the pagans, opened the opportunity to show itself to the Divine power acting in the Apostle in the most striking form. One young man, who fell from the third dwelling of the house and was raised dead, was brought back to life by him. But hastening to Jerusalem for the Feast of Pentecost, Paul did not want to stay here any longer. His companions boarded the ship; He himself, as long as he could, walked on foot with the Troadian brethren to Assus, and in order not to linger in Ephesus, he decided to pass it, only ordering that the leaders of the Ephesian church and, probably, some other churches 71 come with him to Miletus. This farewell was touching. Paul considered his meeting with these shepherds to be his last. On the one hand, the firm intention to go preaching to the west, on the other, the signs of irreconcilable hatred of his compatriots, for whom he burned with such high love (Rom. 9), began to appear, disturbed his spirit and disposed him to look at his present separation from Asia Minor as always. He felt fears from the Jews the last time he was in Corinth; Even then, sending his letter to the Romans from here, he wrote: I beseech you, brethren, by our Lord Jesus Christ and by the love of the Spirit, to strive with me in prayers for me to God, so that I may be delivered from the unbelievers in Judea (15:30, 31). Even then, because of these fears, he had to partly change the plan of his journey to Jerusalem; instead of sailing directly from Corinth to Syria, he had to go to Macedonia (Acts 20:3). The movements of the Corinthian Jews, apparently, were in connection with the displeasure that the Jerusalem Jews felt towards him most of all; Paul already expected that he would be met with bonds and tribulations there (23). A new sadness for Pavlov’s heart was the unknown of how he would be received by the Christians themselves in Jerusalem. The freedom with which he viewed the Law of Moses was known. If many Christians from the Hellenistic Jews did not like it, then even less could it please the Christians from the native Jerusalem Jews, who could be so little distinguished from themselves by the Jews in appearance that the Jerusalem church grew by the thousands, without arousing indignation among the zealots of Judaism (Acts 21:20, 23). Paul tried by all means to preserve the unity of the church; the rich alms that he carried with him to Jerusalem from pagan Christians were one of the means to maintain this unity. But he was not sure that this measure would achieve the desired goal: therefore, asking for the prayers of the Roman Church to deliver him from the malice of the unbelieving Jews, he also asked her to pray that “his service for Jerusalem would be pleasing to the saints” (Rom. 15:31). So much gloomy expectation, so much uncertainty was associated with the thought of Jerusalem for Paul. But his heart felt no less sad when looking at the churches he left behind. With the eye of his spirit he foresaw that many false teachers were soon to appear here, and that some would be from among those very Christians who were now still faithful to the truth. These are no longer the false teachers with whom he had hitherto fought, these are not the Judaizing opponents of Paul, who could not cause much harm to the churches formed for the most part from pagans; and one could hardly expect such people to appear from among the leaders of the church themselves. These were false teachers for whom the dominant trend of the spirit of these countries allowed access here and whose successes here could be all the stronger. Although outraged by such ideas, Paul felt no less strongly the call to go to Jerusalem. In the cities through which he passed and where he visited the churches founded there, prophets appeared from among the brethren who predicted that bonds and disasters awaited him there. This completely blocked the path to Rome from him, for which he actually undertook a real journey to Jerusalem. But, ready to sacrifice himself for the service that he received from the Lord Jesus, Paul did not hesitate. When the leaders of Ephesus gathered to him in Miletus, Paul, imbued with tender, fatherly love, wants to give one last personal instruction and warning about the future. He reminds them how he himself worked for them in preaching for three years, in order to set an example for their own zeal for the benefit of the church. He reveals with friendly sincerity his circumstances and the state of his soul, tormented by the desires of the spirit and the undoubted expectations of disasters in Jerusalem. Then he turns their gaze to their own future; He conjures to protect his flock from the coming wolves, points out weapons against them in God and the gracious word: “it can bring you to the desired inheritance with all the sanctified.” Finally, teaching to seek rewards for these labors not in temporary possessions, which could be provided to them by those they flock, but from the Lord Jesus, Paul softens the tone of the mentor and no longer in the form of an admonition says: “You yourselves know that these hands of mine served my needs and the needs of those who were with me. In everything I have shown you that it is necessary, while working, to support the weak and remember the words of the Lord Jesus, who said: there is more happiness in giving than in taking.” The Apostle's words made a deep impression on the hearts of his listeners (Acts 20:36). Everyone was crying. Everyone threw themselves on Pavlova's neck. Everyone kissed him. The travelers forcibly escaped from their hands (21:1). This spectacle was later repeated in Tire, and finally in Caesarea Philippi. The closer Paul got to Jerusalem, the clearer and more striking the fate awaiting him in Jerusalem appeared to him. In Caesarea, Agabus, the same one who, fourteen or fifteen years ago, with a prediction of famine, opened the way for Paul to Jerusalem with alms, and now, having met him also with alms, tied the hands and feet of the benefactor himself with his own belt. This means, the prophet said, that they will bind this man in Jerusalem and give him into the hands of the pagans. “But all the convictions and pleas of those who asked Paul not to go to Jerusalem were in vain. At Tire some began, by the inspiration of the Spirit, to turn him away from it (21:4); in Caesarea, Paul’s companions added their voices to the prayers of the church, but all was in vain. Paul said: “I am ready not only to be a prisoner, but also to die in Jerusalem for the name of the Lord Jesus.” Meanwhile, one brief feature in Agave’s prediction somewhat clarified the future. He said: the Jews will bind this man, but they will not kill him, but will give him into the hands of the pagans, that is, the Romans. That's exactly what Pavel needed. Arriving in Jerusalem, Paul the next day went with his companions to the Apostle James; Then the elders of the church gathered to him; all listened with great sympathy to what Paul told them about the workings of the Gospel among the Gentiles. Only Jacob noticed that in Jerusalem there are now several thousand believing Jews, who, however, strictly observe the law of Moses; and that some of the Judaizers, who everywhere tried to present the actions of Paul on the bad side, spread the rumor among them that Paul not only exempts the Gentiles from observing the Mosaic Law, but also forbids the Jews living among the Gentiles to circumcise their children and generally teaches them to deviate from the Law, although this accusation was unjust in the sense that Paul rejected the outward observance of Judaism in himself; he rejected it only as a means of justification and sanctification of man. His main principle was: no one should leave any earthly national civil relations in which he was before Christianity, unless there are some important reasons for this; As a result of this beginning, Paul allowed the Jews to remain with their Jewish regulations, which included keeping the Law of Moses (1 Cor. 7:17, 18). So, to refute this accusation by action itself, James invited Paul to publicly testify with his respect for the rites of Judaism that he was not an enemy of Jewish law. Paul accepted this offer and, together with four Jewish brothers, decided to take a vow of Nazaritehood for seven days. As a result, he subjected himself to the same renunciations that were required of the Nazarenes and announced to the priests of the church that he would contribute the following amount for himself and for his partners in the vow to make a sacrifice to God in resolution of the vow. Although Paul thus reassured the Jewish Christians, the irreconcilable zealots of the law among the Jews did not become any more favorable to him. They became even more irritated against him, seeing that a man who, as they said, teaches to blaspheme the people of God, the law and the church, dares to take part in the worship of this church. They saw with him in Jerusalem a pagan Christian, Trophimus, and in fanatical anger they concluded from this that Paul took a pagan with him to the temple and thereby desecrated the temple. A strong indignation arose and Paul could only be torn out of the hands of the enraged fanatics with the help of a detachment of Roman troops emerging from the Antonieva fortress adjacent to the church. They were already about to scourge Paul in order to extort from him a confession of guilt, which incited the rebellion, when he announced himself that he was a Roman citizen and thereby saved himself from torture. After this, the tribune, in order to explain his case, decided to present him to the Sanhedrin. Here Paul showed himself to be a man who, with Christian meekness, knows how to subdue all the disturbances of his feelings and use circumstances with Christian prudence, without causing damage to the truth. Although he allowed himself to be carried away for a moment by a feeling of righteous indignation and began to speak harsher than he wanted, he immediately restrained himself. In a fit of excitement, he expressed several bitter words to the high priest Ananias, however just, words for his unjust command to beat Paul on the mouth - not knowing that it was the high priest; but as soon as he found out about this, softening his speech, he said in apology that he spoke only out of ignorance, knowing himself that the law requires respect for superiors. Then, in order to win over the majority of votes among his judges, he used for the benefit of truth the very means that his opponents often used: divide et impera. He pointed to a truth that a larger number of those present could accept with him and against which the remaining small number of opponents could not be dangerous for him, and thereby created division in the assembly. In all fairness, he could say that he stood on trial because of the hope of the people of Israel for the fact that he testified to the hoped-for resurrection of the dead: just as he preached about Jesus that through Him this hope should be fulfilled. These words had such an effect that the Pharisees in the Sanhedrin took his side and entered into a strong dispute with the Sadducees, of whom the high priest himself belonged. They did not find any guilt in him: “although he says that the spirit of the deceased, or an Angel appeared to him (meaning the appearance of the risen Jesus Christ), but whatever he means by this, and whether it is fair or not, is not the point, only there is no crime in this.” The tribune of the Roman cohort saw that in order to save Paul's life from the attacks of his enemies, it was necessary to take him under cover from Jerusalem to Caesarea and transfer the whole matter to the procurator Felix. The accusation brought here by the Sanhedrin against Paul consisted of the only thing that could have significance in the eyes of the Roman government in relation to the Jews: they accused Paul of everywhere violating the rights that the Jews were given to enjoy freely in the empire, causing disturbances and divisions between them, and recently daring to desecrate the church. They complained to the tribune that he had prevented the Jews from judging Paul according to the rights granted to them. Felix did not want to get involved in the domestic disputes of the Jews and although he did not find the accused guilty, he did not want to give him justice without money. And since Paul did not want to buy his freedom in such an unfavorable manner, which brought suspicion upon his very cause; then Felix, in order to make amends for his insults to the Jews, at his farewell to them, left Paul in prison. Paul remained in this state for two years when Felix’s successor, Porcius Festus, arrived. Paul had long harbored the idea of ​​preaching the Gospel in the capital of the world. Circumstances in Jerusalem apparently overshadowed this thought. But on that very night that followed his explanation in the Sanhedrin, where he testified to his faith, the Lord Himself appeared to him and assured him that just as he testified about Christ in Jerusalem, so he should testify about Him in Rome. Of course, this vision forced him to submit his case for appeal to the emperor, when he noticed that the procurator wanted to sacrifice him to please the people. At this time, Festus was very pleased with the arrival in Caesarea of ​​the young king Agrippa II, who, as a Jew, was knowledgeable in the affairs of the Jewish faith. Festus hoped that if he now provided Paul to his guest, he could write something more definite about him to Rome. Paul appeared among a crowded meeting of noble persons before the Roman procurator and the king of the Jews, rejoicing in advance that he could testify before such high people about what was most dear to his heart. He especially turned to King Agrippa, in whom he could more likely assume a closeness to Christianity, as in Judea. He explained how he himself, from an ardent zealot of the Pharisees' traditions, became a zealous preacher of the Gospel and, following the Divine calling, still constantly testifies about it to Jews and pagans, noble and ignorant. And, having added that he does not preach anything new, except for what Moses and the prophets predicted, namely: that Christ the Messiah must suffer, that He will rise from the dead and proclaim light to the whole world - Jews and pagans. Paul could have believed all this to be known to the king and undoubted to him; but to the Roman it seemed strange; It was also strange for the cold ruler that Paul expressed all this with such animation. He saw nothing more in this than dreaminess: “The great learning of the Jews, the procurator told Paul, is driving you crazy!” But Paul answered with new confidence: “I am not speaking madly, my words are words of truth and common sense.” And turning to Agrippa, he called him himself as a witness, since he too should know what was not happening in secret, but publicly, in Jerusalem. And firmly convinced that in all this the predictions of the prophets were only being fulfilled, he said to the king: of course you believe the prophets - yes, I know that you believe.” Agrippa, taking these words in a bad way, answered him: “It’s true, in a few minutes you made me a Christian!” The apostle with chains on his hands, aware of himself much more than what all the glory of the world is worth, then uttered these great words: “Oh, that God would grant that soon or not soon, not only you, O king, but also all those who heard me now would be the same as I, except for these bonds.” Neither Festus nor Agrippa found Paul guilty, but since Paul himself took his case to appeal to Rome, they decided to send him there along with other prisoners. Luke and Aristarchus went with him (Acts 27:2). It was already too late for sailing: therefore the journey was unsafe. Paul suggested spending the winter on the island of Crete (27:8); but the centurion who accompanied him trusted the captain of the ship and the helmsman more than Paul. And what happened was that near the island of Malta they lost all their cargo and ship, but they all saved their lives, as Paul predicted from the vision he had. The circumstances of the unfortunate voyage should have attracted the attention of his companions to Paul, and the event on the island of Malta should have endeared him to local residents. Unharmed by a snake bite and the healing of many sick people (including the father of the head of this island, Publius) during a three-month stay on the island. Malte was the preparatory means of Providence for the conversion of the inhabitants of this island. In the spring, when free navigation on the sea opened, Paul and his companions entered the shores of Italy in the town of Puteole, found the brethren there, stayed here for a week and went to Rome, where the believers met him at the exit from the city at three hotels. At the beginning of his stay and subsequently, Paul enjoyed freedom; however, a warrior lived with him and guarded him - only he was not in prison, but rented a house and could have free access to everyone and send letters wherever he wanted. Taking advantage of these circumstances, Paul, three days after his arrival, gathered the Jews in order, both in other cities and here, to begin his preaching with the Jews. In offering the teaching, he found it necessary to touch upon his own circumstances. He imagined them to be somewhat famous in their day and therefore had the need to eliminate suspicion: but he learned that the Roman Jews had not heard of him, and when Paul announced that he was bound for the hope of Israel, they asked him to reveal his thoughts about this: we heard, they said, that there is a lot of controversy about this teaching. Paul appointed a day and expounded to them the doctrine of the kingdom of God, proving from Moses and the prophets that Jesus is the true Messiah. But not many found faith in his preaching, and he had to repeat the denunciation of Isaiah to his contemporaries (Acts 28:26–28). Paul's first imprisonment in Rome and his concerns for the churches he founded With the imprisonment of Paul in Rome, a new department opens, a new period not only of his apostolic activity, but also new phenomena are seen in the state of the churches he founded in the East. The further Christianity spread, the more diverse elements had to come into motion. Paul, upon his arrival in Rome, was not suddenly required to be publicly examined, but some time passed after his arrival before his trial in Rome. Paul's position in Rome inspired him with comforting expectations, and after his release, he was already thinking, before, according to the predetermined plan, to spread his actions in the west, to go again to Asia Minor. There it was necessary for his personal presence and action against certain influences harmful to the state of the church that arose during his two-year imprisonment in Caesarea. Paul had already written to the head of the Colossian church, Philemon, that he would come to them and stay with him (v. 22). Later, after the first interrogation (Philip. 1:7), although he did not imagine as much joy in the future, the thought of martyrdom was close to his soul; but the hope of liberation took precedence over this thought and he wrote to the Philippian church that he would soon be with them, although he still did not know what would happen to him (2:23, 24). During this imprisonment, Paul was much concerned about the spread of the Church of God and the integrity of the churches he founded. Since he could freely receive all kinds of visits, he used this right mainly to preach the Gospel. Everyone knew that he was imprisoned not for any crime, but for preaching a new faith: and this served a lot in favor of the holy cause. The teaching, for which the preacher was exposed to such great danger, involuntarily attracted attention. Paul's bonds became known to the praetoria, and there were believers even from the house of Caesar (Phil. 1:13; 4:22). Moreover, his example aroused zeal among the Roman Christians themselves to work with great effort to spread the Gospel (1:14). But just as we had previously seen in the Roman Church traces of the actions of Judaizing Christians, so by the most natural assumption they should now have shown a hostile disposition towards Paul. There were those in Rome about whom he said that they preached Christ only in order to oppose him with their party, in order to cause him grief in his imprisonment - not out of pure love for the Gospel, but out of envy of his extensive actions (Phil. 1:15-17). It is worthy of note how Paul speaks of these opponents of his (v. 18): “What then? No matter how Christ is preached, feignedly or unfeignedly, I rejoice and will rejoice in that.” Of the churches founded by Paul before, the churches of Asia Minor first attracted his attention during his imprisonment. Paul received sufficient information about their condition from one excellent man from the church of Colossians, the founder of it, as well as other neighboring churches. He himself went to Paul in Rome and provided him with active assistance: it was Epaphras, whom Paul, in his letter to Philemon, called his fellow prisoner (v. 23). From him the apostle learned how useful his personal presence would be in the churches of Asia Minor, where some new movements had taken place. In recent years, in these places a new direction has developed from Judaism, with which Christianity had not yet come into contact, but which now began to interfere with it and threatened its purity and simplicity. It was natural that Christianity, when it first spread among the Jews, especially struggled with the Pharisaism that prevailed among them, with the Pharisaic way of thinking. Hence the first false teachers with whom Paul had hitherto argued came from the confusion of Pharisaic Judaism with Christianity. But since the Jews had sects with a theosophical-ascetic direction, to which the Essenes sect belonged, as one of them, Christianity had to someday come into contact with it. People with this tendency, even more than the Jews with the ordinary Pharisaic tendency, were attracted by the side of Christianity that affected the inner religious feeling. Only they were too busy with their mystical-ascetic direction; too infected with a high opinion of themselves, so that, having renounced the claims to the highest wisdom, to the highest understanding of religion, which they thought they had, and from the highest practical perfection in their self-mortifications, they could assimilate the Gospel in all its purity and simplicity. It was much easier for them to transform Christianity according to their previous ideas and directions. Here we see the trend that arose from the soil of Judaism, from which in subsequent centuries various branches of Gnosticism were formed, which attacked the simplicity of the Gospel. Paul probably, even during his long stay in Asia Minor, from his own experiences, had reasons to fear the appearance of such a trend distorting Christianity; therefore in his speech he warned the shepherds of Ephesus against it. What he feared happened. False Jewish teachers with this direction appeared in the Colossian church. They differed from ordinary Pharisaic Christians from the Jews in that they did not begin by demanding that pagans observe Jewish rites as a necessary means to achieve justification, sanctification and blessedness. With such demands, they probably would not have found a good reception in churches formed almost entirely of pagans. But they boasted of the knowledge of the highest wisdom, which came to them in tradition through people initiated into the mysteries (and perhaps they called it φιλοσοφία Colossians 2:8). They boasted of the highest knowledge of the world of spirits 72; They claimed that they were in the closest union with him and could bring into this union those who wanted to be initiated into their mysteries. They combined their asceticism with this theoretical direction, which probably had its basis in ideas about matter as the source and beginning of evil. Thus, their rules regarding abstinence from certain things, their opinion that there are types of food, the very touch of which, not only consumption, can be harmful to morality, were based not only on the Jewish laws on food, but something also came from their own theoretical principles. This theosophical spirit then took a twofold direction. Some completely despised the external side of religion, its letter, and considered it the work of infants in religion, still guided by sensuality, the carnal mind; the religion of the perfect, in their opinion, should be purely internal; others placed their doctrine in close connection with external religious rites, and taught that although only through contemplation one can penetrate into the true meaning of religion and learn the mysteries, the symbols of which external Judaism contains; however, the more with reverence one observes the external, the more deeply one is introduced by the Divine light into the knowledge of the internal. The sect we are talking about undoubtedly belonged to this last category. As little as ordinary Judaizers could be dangerous for the Church of Colossians, on the contrary, this direction of Judaism with its attractive side to many was dangerous for it. For that age, which languished with a thirst for communication with heaven and the test of the invisible, which strove beyond the boundaries of earthly existence, the promise of higher knowledge, as well as detachment from the sensory, brought to a certain degree, had a lot of seductiveness. This thirst attracted many to Christianity; and although Christianity, leading to awareness of the true needs of their moral nature and giving them satisfaction, was thus supposed to impart a different direction to their spirit; but, before it penetrated their whole life and way of thinking, they could easily be deceived by these empty promises, which approached the previously dominant and still unconquered inclination to seek something higher than what simple apostolic teaching aimed at activity could give. In particular, such a trend could be dangerous for Christianity in Phrygia, where the Colossi were and where the tendency towards false mysticism and magic, which was expressed in native religious rites, in the veneration of Cybele and then in Montanism, has always dominated. Paul, having received information about the actions of these false teachers, whose spirit was more clearly reflected in Corinth, considered it necessary to write to Colossae how Christians should look at them. He calls their wisdom the wisdom of human tradition, tied to the elements of the world, or simply worldly, and not coming from Christ. He reproaches the false teachers of Colossians for not holding to Christ as their head - not in the sense that they completely rejected Christ, but that their teaching is in contradiction with the spirit of Christianity, that although they recognize Jesus as Christ and their head, the spirit and direction of their teaching contradicts this recognition, since in their striving and knowledge of Divine objects they do not begin with Christ and do not place Christ as the focus. To their vain opinion about possessing the highest wisdom, their promising information about spirits (φίλοσφία), Paul, without going into details, contrasts the following provisions that contain the essence of Christian teaching: only through communion with Christ do we achieve the fullness of Divine life, only through Him do we enter into the kingdom of God, and through union with Him as the head do we belong to the same kingdom of God to which the highest spirits belong; in Him we have everything we need for the development of our inner life. In order to destroy the tormenting fear of superstition, which considered some things desecrating, harmful and prescribed various warnings against the influence of evil spirits, Paul refers to the fact that Christians have been redeemed from the power of the evil spirit, and having triumphed with Christ over all the powers of darkness, of course, they should no longer fear it; that since their inner life is removed from the realm of earthly things, for which they died with Christ, since they belong to heaven, into which they became established through Christ, then they rise above the realm of religion that is stagnant in the sensual; Christians should not relegate their sublime religion, which has its root in communion with God, to an earthly one. “Be careful, brothers, that no one deceives you”... (Colossians 2:8–3:4). Paul, sending this letter with Tychicus (4:7, 8), could not give him letters to other churches in Asia Minor, however, he wanted to testify to everyone his lively participation in their situation; as the apostle of the pagans, he wanted to talk to everyone; therefore he gave Tychicus another letter to all the churches of those places. In this letter, where Paul, as the apostle of the pagans, speaks to pagan Christians, he talks only about the great action of the Gospel that is important for everyone, without dwelling on any particular subjects. Although this letter, according to the inscription, refers specifically to the Church of Ephesus, its content, aimed at meeting the needs of all churches in Asia Minor in general, and the absence of any particular instructions given the particularly close relations between the apostle and the Church of Ephesus, do not allow us to establish the idea that this letter was actually written to the Ephesians. This conclusion, deduced from the content of the epistle, is confirmed by evidence from antiquity that in Paul’s greeting, delivered in the book of the epistle, there was no place name before (Creation. St. Fathers, 1846 book. I p. 92). But since the Ephesian church for the most part consisted of converted pagans, this letter could have been written for it, although, as common to many, it concerned only the needs and relationships common with other churches. In the second half of his imprisonment, Paul received financial assistance from the Philippian church, which had previously provided him with such benefits; it was sent with Epaphroditus, who informed the apostle of the news about the state of this church. As a result of the information received, the apostle saw the need to give a warning to the Philippian Christians regarding the Judaizing false teachers, to write to them about preserving peace, and to instill in free-thinking Christians about leniency towards the weak. In this last respect, the apostle gives an important rule, so that everyone correctly uses the measure of knowledge that he has achieved; then the Lord will reveal to him the inadequacy of this measure, and thus everyone will reach maturity in Christianity (3:15, 16): “as we have comprehended, so we must think and live according to that rule.” Towards the end of Pavlov's imprisonment in Rome there is also a letter to the Jews, i.e., Jewish Christians, according to the usual meaning of this word in the New Testament, to Palestinian Christians. It is not clear which church in Palestine it was assigned to, but it is clear that the Christians of this church were close to Paul: he recalls not only their previous sufferings, but also their participation in his bonds and sufferings (10:34) and, upon release, wants to be with them, as in those churches that he himself founded (13:18, 19). This Church had in its mentors valiant examples of firmness in the faith. The apostle finds it necessary to point out to them some of them who have already died (13:7). Based on these features, one could recognize these Christians as Jerusalem Christians, who were repeatedly persecuted by the Jews at the beginning - and during Paul’s imprisonment in Caesarea and in Rome, who lost their bishop James, at whose suggestion Paul, during his last stay in Jerusalem, undertook Nazirite cleansing in the church. Through the efforts of the same high priest Ananias, who tried Paul in the Sanhedrin, after the removal of the procurator Festus, before the arrival of the new procurator Albinus (about 62), James was killed as a confessor of faith in Jesus Christ. And the epistle itself aims to keep those converted to Christ in union with Christ, from whom the evils that oppressed them threatened to tear them away (2:2, 3; 3:12, 13; 4:11-14; 5:12; 6:1, 11, 12; 10:23ff. 12:12, 13, 15ff.). Therefore, the apostle tries to present to them the superiority of Jesus Christ, the harm of all the previous messengers of God, and in the law only a shadow of the benefits that He bestowed on the believers. Paul's actions after his release from the first Roman imprisonment before his martyrdom Hitherto we have had correct and direct information about the fate and actions of the apostle during his imprisonment in Rome. As for the end of the conclusion, there is a lot of dark and unknown in the news related to this subject. The question arises: did this imprisonment of Paul end with martyrdom, or was he released and began his apostolic activity again? - The solution to this question depends partly on historical evidence, partly on those results that are drawn from research, especially about the second letter to Timothy. There is no doubt that this epistle was written during the apostle's imprisonment in Rome (1:8, 16; 2:9). But can it be placed among those messages that were undoubtedly written during the already known to us imprisonment of Pavlov in Rome? or we must assume for him another conclusion in which Paul was. The news borrowed from the writers of the 4th century, according to which Paul, freed from prison, preached the Gospel in Spain, does not yet have decisive importance here, because they could easily be deduced from what Paul wrote in his letter to the Romans about his intention to go to Spain. Of undoubted importance is the testimony drawn from the epistle of a man who was partly contemporary with Paul and probably his disciple. Bishop Clement of Rome, in his first letter to the Corinthians, clearly says that Paul suffered after he preached to the ends of the West (έπί τό τέρμα τής δύσεως). By this nothing more natural can be understood than Spain. If Clement had meant by this only the preaching of the Apostle in Rome, he would have expressed himself differently, since he himself wrote in Rome, and therefore could not mean Rome by this expression. From this news of Clement we must conclude that Paul fulfilled his intention to be in Spain, at least that he was leaving Italy, therefore we must assume that he was released from the prison known to us. We must adhere to this conclusion even if we had no other news about Paul’s condition during his second imprisonment; when even his second letter to Timothy could be attributed to the time of his first imprisonment. Regarding this last assumption, one can imagine two times in the continuation of Pavlov's first conclusion when Paul could have written this letter: either at the beginning of this conclusion or at the end. – First case: from the letter it is clear that Paul calls Timothy to himself (4:9). We know that the apostle arrived in Rome without Timothy (for Luke speaks only of Aristarchus), but that Timothy then appears together with Paul (Phil. 1:1; Cor. 1:1). So, one might think that Paul, with this letter, summoned Timothy to Rome from Asia Minor, and that from the time of his arrival Timothy was no longer absent from him. But this assumption is completely contradicted by what Paul writes in this letter regarding his then situation. When he wrote his second letter to Timothy, he was already at a public interrogation (4:16) and defended his case. On the contrary, this did not yet happen in the first period of his imprisonment (he mentions this for the first time only in Philippians 1:12, 13). In 2 Timothy he foresees death (4:6); but his first messages from Roman imprisonment resonate with the hope of deliverance (Epistle to Philemon). Another case. The second letter to Timothy dates back to the last period of Roman imprisonment. But it is strange that Paul asks Timothy to come to him (4:9, 11, 13), without mentioning that he had already been with him during his imprisonment: and Timothy had already written a letter with Paul before this. When you read this letter from Pavlovo, everything suggests that he recently said goodbye to Timothy in the place where Timothy remained, and then was imprisoned. Paul warns Timothy against false teachers who are near him (in Asia Minor, probably in Ephesus 2:17) and speaks about them as if he himself had the opportunity to become quite acquainted with them. And this could not have happened during his previous stay in Asia Minor; At that time these heretical trends had not yet arisen, as could be seen from previous remarks. On the contrary, everything is explained if Paul, freed from his imprisonment, in accordance with his intention (Philip. 2:24), again went to Asia Minor and there personally fought with the false teachers who appeared there during his first imprisonment. He writes to Timothy about his public interrogation (4:16) and in such a tone that it must be assumed that Timothy did not know anything about it yet and that it happened in his absence from Ram. But when Paul made a defensive speech during his first imprisonment, Timothy was with him (Phil. 1:7). And so the interrogation, during which Timofey was not present, should have been different. Further, there are signs that show that Paul came to the west by the usual route from Asia Minor through Achaia (4:20), meanwhile, when Paul went to Rome from Caesarea, escorted by the Roman authorities, he did not go this way. He orders Timothy to bring with him the phelonion and books, especially the parchment ones, which he left in Troas (4:13). It is much more likely that he left these things a few months before than four or six years, as should be assumed if this message is attributed to the time of his first imprisonment. Revealing the idea that he was abandoned by everyone, Paul writes that Erastus, one of his ordinary companions, was probably with him for the last time in Asia Minor (Acts. 19:22), remained in his homeland, Corinth, and left his other companion Trophimus, due to illness, in Miletus (4:20). He stayed - this gives the idea that Paul was also in Corinth, but left from there. Left - directly shows that Paul was with Trophimus in Miletus. But Trophimus could not be left by Paul in Miletus before his first trip to Rome, because he was with him in Jerusalem and because of him there was indignation in Jerusalem. He writes that Demas left him (4:10), meanwhile, in the letters that he sent with Timothy to the Colossian church, to Philemon, bows are sent from Demas (Col. 4:14; Philim. v. 23). Against our assumption that this epistle was written during Paul’s second imprisonment, we can only object that there are no noticeable references or allusions to the previous imprisonment in Rome. But this will not seem strange if we take into account the following: Paul did not at all want with this letter to convey to Timothy the first news of his new imprisonment; on the contrary, he assumes that it, and partly his position in this imprisonment, is already known to Timothy, as can be seen from 1:15. And with the constant communication between the main cities of the Roman Empire, with the living participation of the churches in the affairs of Paul, it is very natural that news of him soon reached Ephesus. – Further, with the beginning of Paul’s new activity after his release from imprisonment, many things happened that greatly occupied his soul, which was generally more occupied with the affairs of the kingdom of God than with those pertaining to his person and that could completely obscure the memory of his previous imprisonment. So, if we agree that Paul was released from this imprisonment, then we must assume that he received his freedom before the persecution that followed the fire in Rome in 64. Otherwise, if he had still been in prison at that time, he would not have been spared. So, in accordance with the previous comments about timing, we can assume that Paul was in prison for two years, received freedom in 62 or 63: the favorable end of his case and the victory over the Jews who wanted to destroy him, compared with the circumstances of that time, has nothing incredible in itself. The accusation of causing disturbance in Jerusalem was found to be unjust; the contradiction of Christianity to the state religion did not yet attract public attention and under Emperor Nero, who mocked his religion, generally cared little about the ancient Roman state institutions - this could have been all the easier. The friends he made during his imprisonment (Phil. 4:22) may have contributed in part to the success of his cause. That he did not die in the very heat of persecution, in the year 64, is confirmed by ancient tradition, which says that he was not crucified like Peter. At this time, they would not have discussed the rights of citizenship, but as the head of a hated sect they would have been put to the most painful and most shameful death. From the letters written by Paul during his new imprisonment, we saw how zealously he worked in Rome to spread Christianity. His firm defense of the cause of God and his successful deliverance must have had a favorable influence on these labors. From here Christianity began to spread with even greater force among the pagans in Rome. But by the same token, the young church, which spread out of the ruins of idolatry, attracted the attention of a fanatical people, who could only look at the enemies of idolatry with hostility. This hatred was reinforced by rumors spreading about unnatural vices that were allegedly committed in meetings of God-haters. Perhaps the hatred of the pagans also contributed to the Jews, who were all the more irritated against the Christians because they could not achieve their desires regarding Paul. This is the situation in which Paul left Rome. So, from the year 64, we have the right to begin a new era of Paul’s activity, but the history of this time consists mostly of remarks about where the apostle was. Luke interrupted his narrative at the arrival of the apostle in Rome; what followed next, he doesn't tell us anything. From the 1st letter to Timothy it is clear that the apostle was with Timothy in Ephesus for some time: Paul writes: as I begged thee to abide in Ephesus, going to Macedonia (1:3). From these words it is clear that Paul and Timothy were together; but the apostle needed to go from Ephesus, and he asked Timothy to stay here (προσμένειν - means: to add to his stay here), but he himself intended to go to Macedonia. In general, this letter of the apostle is such that we do not find another time when the apostle could write to Timothy, left in Ephesus, as at the present time. Judging by this letter, it can be seen that the Church of Ephesus had already existed for quite some time: it was founded before Paul’s last journey to Jerusalem, when he was in Ephesus for about three years, as he says in his speeches to the Ephesian shepherds. Such unrest had already crept into the Ephesian church that required a change in the previous shepherds. That is why the apostle gives Timothy instructions on whom to elect for church degrees, how to judge those who are accused, for example. elders. New false teachers, with whom Paul fought during his imprisonment in Rome, in his letter to the Colossians, acquired a strong influence in the church of Ephesus. Some, even among the shepherds themselves, were carried away by the spirit of false teaching. The false teachers about whom the apostle speaks bear the same signs that we noticed in the false teachers of the Colossian church. These were people who belonged to Judaism, and therefore argued that the Law of Moses remained binding on Christians. The apostle makes a point about this in the first chapter (vv. 8, 9), but it was not the actual Judaizers who defended the force of the law and with whom Paul had previously fought. In the Epistle to the Galatians they differ from the Judaists in their ascetic and theosophical direction, as in the Church of Colossians. The Apostle notes that they taught abstinence from certain foods and prescribed a celibate life as necessary for all Christians. This direction was based on special theoretical principles; they boasted of higher knowledge and looked with contempt at simple faith; at the same time, they conveyed fabulous tales about the beginning and spread of spirits, or as the apostle calls γενεαλογίαι (1:4), and in general were occupied with such subjects that rather led into empty disputes than served to strengthen piety. In various places in this letter the apostle points out these characteristics of false teachers (6:4 λογομαχίαι). The fight against this false knowledge or false mind must have occupied Paul a lot. Therefore, the apostle writes that the prophets, as they predicted on other occasions about the calamities of the church in one country or another, also warned against the danger that would come from these false teachers: The Spirit speaks clearly, that in the last times there will be some who will depart from the faith, heeding spiritual flattery and the teachings of demons, in the hypocrisy of the false, those who are burned in their conscience, who forbid to marry, etc. d. (4:1–3). Here the apostle uses the same expression as in Acts. 20:23, where the apostle actually means the oral predictions of the prophets, namely the prophets of his time about the disasters that awaited him in Jerusalem. Paul learned all this not only from rumors, but also from personally being in Ephesus. Circumstances required that he stay here longer, but for reasons unknown to us, he found it more necessary to be in Macedonia and left Timothy here for the purpose of fighting false teachers and establishing the hierarchy of the Ephesian church. With the arrival of the Apostle Paul in Asia Minor and with his journey to Macedonia, even geographically it is convenient to agree with his journey to the island of Crete to spread the Gospel, and this can better determine the place and time of writing the letter to his disciple Titus, who was left here on the island. Let us also recall from the history of the Apostle’s first journey to Rome what means were discovered here by God’s providence for the founding of the Christian Church. Having begun the work then, the Apostle wanted to complete it now. Having laid the foundation of the church, he left here himself and left Titus with the goal that he would give the correct hierarchical structure to the church. The Apostle himself, in general, was not so much concerned with hierarchical affairs, as he himself wrote in his letter to the Corinthians, that he himself did not baptize, but left it to others; but we can say that he left the ordination and appointment of pastors of the church to his other disciples. At the same time, he instructed Titus to confirm the minds of the new believers in the purity of Christian teaching and to counteract the influence of false teachers, who were then spreading their harmful thoughts in Asia Minor. It can be seen that they followed in the footsteps of the Apostle everywhere where he laid the foundation of the church. From the very epistle to Titus it can be seen that there were false teachers here as in Colossae and later in Ephesus; it is clear that they were Jews. The Apostle says that these are disobedient people, talkers of vain things, deceived in their minds, and especially those of circumcision (Titus 1:10); he says that they make their own regulations regarding food (14:15); it is clear that they were engaged in the genealogies of the highest spirits, arguing about the law (3:9). Turning attention away from these subjects, Paul instructs Titus to occupy himself with other subjects that are more useful for life according to God, to delve deeper into the teaching in which lies the basis of salvation, to instill and accustom new Christians to justify their obedience to the teaching by life, that is, to testify to their faith by deeds. At the conclusion of his letter to Titus, the Apostle writes to Titus to try to come to Nicopolis. There were many cities with this name in the ancient world; but since cities were founded on the occasion of victories, and the Romans had no shortage of such cases, then probably this refers to Nicopolis, founded by Augustus Caesar on the occasion of the victory at Actium. Here the Apostle intended to spend the winter (3:12) and called Titus here for personal conferences, since he himself no longer intended to be on the island. What was the reason for this calling of Titus is unknown. Afterwards, the Apostle probably fulfilled his intention to be in Ephesus, as he promised (1 Tim. 3:14) to come to Timothy, and therefore gives such rules that he is limited to what is necessary, leaving further disclosure to a personal meeting. That the Apostle actually fulfilled his intention is indicated and revealed by previous traces of his coming back to Rome to the west. During his activity in the west, probably in Spain, the Apostle was taken and brought to Rome and again imprisoned here as a Christian, and from here he wrote the second letter to Timothy during the persecution of Nero. Paul's position in this imprisonment was much different from his previous state; he is seen to be in bondage again (1:8–2:9). This state of his differed from his first imprisonment in that there they looked at him as only a new teacher, to whom both Jews and pagans turned with curiosity - here he suffered as a villain (2:9). Christians themselves at this time were considered malicious people, criminals; That’s why the blame for the incendiary act was laid on them. In his first conclusion, the Apostle wrote that the brethren were encouraged by his bonds (Phil. 1:14); we see that there were many brothers with him then, now he writes that everyone left him except Luke (1:15–4:9–16). From the letters that the Apostle wrote during his first imprisonment, it is clear that he wavered between the expectation of torment and the hope of deliverance (Phil. 1:20). Now he is confident of his imminent martyrdom (2 Tim. 4:6); tells Timothy how the Lord strengthened him in the first answer, how he delivered him from the lions’ jaws, but even after that he has only one expectation, that the Lord will deliver him from sin, and no longer from death. He has only Jesus Christ in mind: a feeling of peace of mind, forgetting himself for the sake of the cause of God, concern for the works of the Gospel, trust in God, Whose servant he was, tender care for Timothy, all this shows a person preparing for death. It is worth comparing his view of himself in the second letter to Timothy, characterizing his state of mind, in order to see the difference between his present state and the one in which he wrote the letter to Philip. 3:12, 13; 2 Tim. 4:7, 8. From the same letter to Timothy it is clear that more than thoughts about himself, he was occupied by the thought of the church; he again speaks of false teachers (4:6), mentions those who rejected the resurrection (2:18) - perhaps these are among the same ones who were in Corinth - in conclusion he calls Timothy to Rome. The time of Paul's death is unknown: but from church tradition it is known that Paul died as a martyr in the year 67 or 68 A.D. This was at the end of Nero’s persecution, and from this it can be understood that the Apostle died under the observation of the right of Roman laws, that, as a Roman citizen, he died with the sword. If it had been in the heat of persecution, then no doubt they would not have disassembled the instruments of death, when everyone, even senators, was subjected to terrible torture and torment. Activities of other Apostles The history of the Apostle Paul was so comprehensive that together it revealed the history of all the churches of his time. At least we do not have other sources more complete for depicting the state of the Church of Christ in apostolic times; You can add only private information about some of the apostles of Jesus Christ. When starting to consider the activities of the other apostles, we cannot help but mention that since ancient times the church had the idea that the apostles, when setting out to preach, divided, so to speak, all the lands among themselves. The first to express this idea is Rufinus, a writer of the 4th century. He writes in his history: “during this division of the globe, which the apostles did to preach the word of God, by lot, when each got his own province, Thomas got Parthia, Matthew got Ethiopia.” Another church historian borrowed these words from him. Socrates, a writer of the 5th century, also uses the expression: “by lot, each apostle preached in his own area.” Rufinus himself probably took this idea from Origen, but he did not so much define this expression as to keep it literally: “when the apostles were scattered throughout the entire universe, Thomas, as the legend says, received Parthia (είληφε) as his inheritance.” Rufinus translated this word so that everyone got by lot. Meanwhile, Origen understood either chance or the purpose of God; sorte divina assigned to each apostle his own place of action. Without admitting the idea that the apostles actually divided the then known world among themselves for preaching, we cannot, however, deny that they acted in all the countries known at that time. The Apostle Paul testifies in his letter to the Romans that the faith of Christ is being proclaimed throughout the world. That the apostles did not divide lands among themselves by lot is evident from the fact that some apostles acted in one country, not embarrassed by the fact that another apostle had acted here before or at the same time. Apostle James, brother of the Lord In the Jerusalem church, after James, the brother of John the Theologian, who died during the persecution of Herod Agrippa, around the year 44, when the Apostle Paul was in Jerusalem for the second time, another important person appears, also James. We see him at the Jerusalem Council. Paul appeared to him on his last arrival in Jerusalem. Who was this second Jacob? In the books of the New Testament, in addition to Jacob Zebedee, Jacob Alpheus is also mentioned. Matthew and Mark also mention James, the brother of the Lord. But this is one person with Jacob Alpheus, and not another. Let's present the evidence. In the history of the suffering of Jesus Christ, the following wives are found, about whom it is said that they stood at the cross of Jesus and were at His burial (Matthew 27:56): Mary Magdalene and Mary stood as the mother of James and Josiah, and as the mother of the son of Zebedee; when placed in the grave (v. 61): Mary Magdalene and the other Mary. Mark writes (15:40): Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of James little and Josiah and Salome. John says (14:25) that His mother and His mother’s sister, Mary of Cleopas and Mary Magdalene, stood at the cross of Jesus. From this calculation it is revealed that the sister of the Mother of God Mary of Cleopas was one person with the mother of Jacob and Josiah. The same persons are counted, only with some variations. If now this Mary is the sister of the Mother of God, then her sons are cousins ​​of the Lord. If she is also called Cleopas, then either after her father or her husband. We will see further that Cleopas was the father of James and Josiah, therefore the husband of Mary. In the number of the apostles (Matthew 10:2–4; Mark 3:16–19; Luke 6:14–16 and Acts 1:13) Jacob Alpheus Ίάκωβος ό τού Άλφαίου and Ίάκωβος Άλφαίου. Alpheus and Cleopas are two pronunciations of the same name חל׆as Haggai in Hebrew and Haggai in Greek. Consequently, when Mark calls him small, younger, he calls him only in contrast to the elder - Jacob of Zebedee. The use of this nickname: “little”, and the other “Zebedee” (although John was also a Zebedee, but nowhere is he called that) shows that there were two names of Jacob in the same society. That the Lord's brother James really was an apostle is clear from the words of the Apostle Paul. The apostle did not see anyone else except James, the brother of the Lord (Gal. 1:19). What does Paul want to prove in this passage? That he did not borrow his teaching from any of the apostles, but directly from Jesus Christ. What does he cite as evidence? That at the beginning of his illumination with the light of Christianity he did not have contact with a single apostle. I was in Jerusalem: but I did not see any of the apostles, with the exception of Peter, with whom he stayed only two weeks, and James, the brother of the Lord. It is obvious who Paul considers this Jacob to be. Why talk about him here when he is not an apostle, even though he was a respected person in the Jerusalem church, a bishop. It is the work of the apostle to establish doctrine. The addition: the brother of the Lord Paul does this only because at the time when he was in Jerusalem, another Jacob, the Zebedee, was still alive. But when it comes to later events, in the same letter to the Galatians (2:9-12; ff. Acts 15:13), he simply calls him Jacob. James the Apostle and Brother of the Lord is the only person known in the Apostolic Church with this name. Luke, having spoken (Acts 12:2) about the death of Jacob Zebedee, then speaks about the same Jacob about whom we are dealing, simply without adding anything to his name, as about a person known to everyone (Acts 15:13 and 21:18). Apparently, the “brothers of the Lord” are excluded from the number of apostles (1 Cor. 9:5; Matt. 12:48, 49; Mark 3:31–34; John 7:5, 10), where μα9ηταί and άδελφοί differ: brothers do not believe (John 7:5); and in the book of Acts (1:14), Jesus' brothers are directly distinguished from His apostles. But in all cases, you just need to take a closer look at the words and meaning of the speech, so that there is no contradiction in the conclusions from those clear passages. Of the Lord's brothers, besides James, only Judas still belonged to the ranks of the apostles, as can be seen from the fact that he himself calls himself the brother of James (Jude v. 1; Luke 6:16; Acts 1:13). Other evangelists, namely Matthew, call him Levi, called Thaddeus (10:3), and Mark simply Thaddeus (3:18). In addition to sacred books, we also find strangers; historical evidence that James was the brother of the Lord and an apostle. Egesippus (in Evs. 4:22) writes: “after the martyrdom of the righteous James, Simeon was appointed bishop, whom everyone proposed: he was the second, cousin of the Lord.” Who is the first cousin? Obviously, Jacob. Josephus, attributing the destruction of Jerusalem, among other things, to the killing of the righteous James, that particular brother of the Lord, the son of Alpheus, expresses himself as follows: “The righteous James, who was the brother of Jesus, the spoken Christ.” (This place is given in Origen Contr. Cels. I, II. num. 13. Lib. 1, 47; in Jerome Catalog. Scrpt. Eccl. c. 2 and 13; but it is not found in the now known work of Flavius). Clement of Alexandria says that after the ascension of the Savior, Peter, James and John, although preferred by the Lord, did not argue about honor, but chose the righteous James as bishop of Jerusalem. Jerome writes that James was a bishop for 30 years. Jacob, according to the testimony of Hegesippus, was a Nazarite from birth, was a zealous prayer book and was popularly called Sedek (righteous) and Oblias (wall, fortress of the city). In the features of Jacob's life, as Hegesippus describes it, one can notice Ebionite embellishments; but his testimony about the life of the Apostle James is confirmed by Josephus, who also calls James righteous. But the spirit of this apostle is best evidenced by his message, in which one can see some features of the Christian churches that were formed out of Judaism itself. According to the teaching about faith and works contained in this epistle, for a long time it was thought that the Apostle James was correcting some - correct, others - incorrect understanding of the doctrine of justification, revealed by the Apostle Paul in his epistles. Certain expressions, taken separately, and the similarity in the choice of examples to prove their truth with the Apostle Paul in the epistles to the Romans and Hebrews (Abraham and Sarah, Rahab) supported this opinion. But from a consideration of the whole epistle, it is revealed that the main direction in it is actually Jewish, but not that strict Jewish spirit in which Paul acted before his conversion, and which most of the Pharisees adhered to during the time of Jesus Christ; this is the direction of people who do not want to know that religious life must have a basis in the very heart of a person, and does not consist in observing just a dead form, just a religious appearance; This is the same direction that put dead, arrogant learning in the place of true wisdom, inseparable from life according to God, vainly boasted of a dead knowledge of the law, not thinking at all about its fulfillment: which all the worship of God consisted in the mere performance of ceremonies and neglected serving God in matters of love; which, if it boasted of love, was only in words. People of this tendency usually thought that faith in the one true God and in the Messiah was completely sufficient for those who professed it to be freed from the fate of the rest of sinful humanity. This trend was one of the dominant ones among the Jews: it passed with some converts into the Christian churches that were formed from the Jews themselves. This direction was refuted by the Apostle Paul (Gal. 5:21; Eph. 5:6). This way of thinking was later denounced by Justin the Martyr: and how you deceive yourself and some others like you in this, who say: that although they are sinners, they know God, and the Lord will not impute sin to them (Dialog. cum Triph. 141). As for the external state of the churches, it is clear from the message that they consisted for the most part of only the poor (1:10): the rich were very rare among them: the rich, but unbelieving Jews, cruelly oppressed the poor believers; They had their own hierarchy modeled on the Jerusalem church: church elders (5:14) and teachers. But so many wanted to be teachers that the apostle finds it necessary to give special instruction on this subject. He tried with special force to reveal how difficult this title is (chapter 3). He requires the teacher to be able to master his tongue (3:8, 9) and to be wise in deeds and not in words only (13-18). The apostle calls their gatherings congregations or synagogues (2:2). When Festus, the Jewish procurator, died, and Albinus had not yet arrived, Jacob was killed by the Jews. The high priest Ananias, who was dissatisfied with the fact that Paul was kidnapped by Jacob from the hands of the Jews, took a special part in his death. The reason for his death, according to Egesippus, was that he did not want to publicly renounce Jesus Christ, whom they crucified, in front of everyone (Ar. Evseb. 2, 3). Jacob's brother. He writes a letter against those who, although they participate in church meetings (v. 10), deny Jesus Christ as the Lord (v. 4), do not recognize His second coming and introduce their own teaching about spirits. Peter, having been freed from prison in Jerusalem (about 44), as Luke writes (Acts 12:17), withdrew to another place. Eusebius claims that at the same time (during the time of Emperor Claudius) he traveled to Rome, preached the Gospel there and defeated Simon the Magus, who acquired such fame in the capital of the world for his false miracles that a statue was erected to him as to God. Justin Martyr also mentions the statue, but erroneously. He mistook the statue of the Sabine demigod for the statue of Simon the Magus. On the statue there was probably an inscription: Semoni deo, which means the same as Semideo, i.e. to the demigod. In 50, Peter was in Jerusalem at the council, where they discussed the ritual law in relation to converted pagans (Acts chapter 15). After that, a short time later, we saw the Apostle Peter again - in Antioch together with the Apostle Paul in Barnabas (Gal. 2:11). The Apostle Paul says that Peter was primarily entrusted with preaching the Gospel to the Jews, since Paul was the apostle to the Gentiles (vv. 7, 9). James was concerned with the actual affairs of the church in Palestine, (Peter was among the Jews in the diaspora. And in the first letter to the Corinthians (9:5) the apostle speaks of Peter’s travels (which does not allow his twenty-year bishopric in Rome from 44, as the chronicle of Eusebius and Jerome claim). During Pavlov's last stay in Jerusalem, Peter was not there. According to ancient tradition (starting with Origen, who, however, expresses himself hesitantly), the Apostle Peter preached in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia and Bithynia to the scattered Jews. Precisely, one of the letters of Petrov is inscribed “to the strangers of dispersion” in all these countries and, if we take into account what the apostle writes in his second letter (1:16), obviously written to the same churches (v. 12): then the tradition preserved by Origen should not be completely rejected. From the very first letter we can conclude that Peter preached among the Jews in Babylon, since at the end of the letter there is a greeting from the Babylonian church (5:13). This city, in all likelihood, is Babylon, famous in antiquity. Although at this time it was already in ruins, although during the time of Emperor Claudius the Jews were persecuted here by local residents and many were exterminated (I. Flavius, Antiquit. L. XVIII, p. 9. n. 8. 9), but without any doubt many could have remained here, if not in the city itself, then in its environs, and there were quite a few proselytes here (Ioseph. de bello iudaic. I. 2. pp. 20. n. 2. Babylon at that time belonged to the Parthian kingdom: the Jews were scattered there everywhere. It was from here that Peter wrote his first epistle to the churches of Asia Minor, founded by Paul and his collaborators, but also by Peter himself (and not from Rome, as Eusebius and others write in the allegorical explanation of the name: Babylon). By all indications, the time of this letter refers to the last period of Peter’s apostolic activity, to Paul’s first imprisonment in Rome. Together with Peter we see Silvanus, Pavlov’s former colleague (5:12); Since Pavlov’s last trip to Jerusalem, it has not been seen that he accompanied Paul anymore. The Christians to whom Peter writes were subject to persecutions of the kind that only began to arise around this time. Christians are persecuted for being Christians; according to the popular sentiments that Nero took advantage of, they were considered villains (κακοποιοί 3:16). The pagans already knew the strict way of life of Christians, noticed that they avoided spectacles and other ordinary pagan pleasures - and they harbored hatred against them and slandered them (4:4, 5). If we pay attention to the internal state of the churches of Asia Minor during the first imprisonment of Pavlov, then the time of the message will be explained from here. They were threatened with persecution from the outside; Inwardly they were outraged by heretics who accused Paul of damaging the original teachings of Christ. And since they, defending the binding force of the Law of Moses, referred to the elder apostles, Peter testifies with this letter that the teaching proclaimed to them by Paul and his disciples and collaborators, among whom was Silvanus, and to whom it was sent, is the truth of Christ (1:12; 2:2, 3). Peter wrote to Christians not only from Jews, but also from pagans; from the many allusions and direct indications in his letter (2:10–4:3) it is clear that the speech applies especially to the converted Gentiles. The inscription of the epistle does not contradict this: διαπορά (1:1) in its own meaning, simply means the church scattered among the Jews. Judging by the internal and external state of the churches, the purpose of the message was twofold: firstly, to confirm in Christians the idea that in faith in Jesus Christ as the Redeemer, proclaimed and accepted by them diligently, lies the source of bliss, that the teaching proclaimed by them, as the word of God, is eternal, immutable, and thereby dispose them to surrender to it with childish simplicity; secondly, to instill in them firmness in this faith, amid all persecution, and courage to overcome all the temptations of the pagan world, so that no one could reproach them for anything. The apostle himself expressed this twofold purpose in the conclusion of the letter (5:12): faithful brother Silouan brings you this letter, brief in comparison with what I would like to tell you, which I wrote to you for encouragement (παρακαλών) and for witnessing that this is the true grace of God in which you stand. Before the end of his life, the apostle sent another message to the same Christians (2 Peter 3:1), with which he wanted to warn them against false teachers, who were increasing more and more every day in Asia Minor, as Paul’s story showed us. Probably, these are the same false teachers against whom the Apostle Jude wrote (Compare Jude v. 4 with 2 Peter 2:1, 2, 3 - v. 8. v. 2:10 - art. 10 v. 2:12 - art. 16 v. 2:18). Judging by the features in which the theoretical and practical principles of these false teachers are presented, they did not agree with those Judaizing Gnostics, whom Paul refuted in his letter to the Colossians and in others, and who held Judaism as a revelation about God and the law delivered by angels, and wanted to merge it with Christianity; who talked about the different classes of angels, their origin and genealogies. The false teachers, whom Peter and Jude refute, looked at Judaism completely differently: they despised this religion as the work of limited spirits, arguing that the sons of God, by redemption, are higher than these angels and are not subject to any Jewish laws. Connected with this was also a practical, moral direction opposite to the asceticism of the Judaizing Gnostics, which gave all freedom to passions, considering any constraint as slavery to the law. From here came opinions opposite to the expectations of the imminent coming of Jesus Christ and His visible kingdom, especially strong among the Judaizing Gnostics, for example. Kerinthos is of the opinion that these expectations are in vain: the world, as it stands, will stand forever. In Rome, the Apostle Peter dies on the cross. His martyrdom there is testified by: Clement of Rome, Dionysius of Corinth, Caius, Roman presbyter, Irenaeus of Lyons, Tertullian; the latter also speaks of Peter’s death on the cross; Rufinus, of course, more correctly translates the dark passage from Origen, which speaks of the crucifixion of Peter in a perverse position. Life of St. John the Theologian, placed in the Four Menaions, is composed a) from the stories of the Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles about John; b) from Prokhorov’s narrative and c) from the story told by Clement of Alexandria, in the essay: “Whoever is rich can be saved.” From Prokhor's narrative the following circumstances are given here: 1. St. John from Jerusalem retired to Asia Minor with his disciple Prokhor; On the way, their ship crashed (near Seleucia): but John, having spent 40 days and 40 nights at sea, came ashore unharmed and, together with Prochorus, came to Ephesus. 2. In Ephesus a) they worked for hire in the bathhouse; John, having resurrected the youth Domnus, the son of the elder of Ephesus, strangled by an evil spirit in the bathhouse, and then the father of this youth, who died out of sorrow for him, converted them to Christ, as well as the owner of the bathhouse Romana; b) John resurrected up to 200 people who died through his prayer, when he denounced them for worshiping Artemis; c) healed a paralytic 12-year-old in the town of Tikha; d) expelled a demon from the city, which appeared in Ephesus under the name of the guard of Clarius, who was looking for his prisoners who had escaped from prison - John and Prochorus. 3. On the occasion of the persecution of Domitian, John went to Rome, drank poison, was thrown into a cauldron of boiling oil, and was exiled from here to the island of Patmos; On the way to the sea, he delivered from death a young man who fell into the sea from a ship, tamed a storm with prayer, healed a warrior who had stomach pain, and made sea water sweet for drinking. 4. On the island Patmose drove out the inquisitive spirit from Apollonides and thereby converted the healed man to Christ along with his father’s house; the apostle himself enjoyed their hospitality for three summers; He put the sorcerer Kinops to shame and healed many other sick people. After a three-year stay in one place, the apostle retired to another city in the same place, 50 stadia from the first, and expelled from there a demon in the form of a wolf, which devoured several young men every year; drove away the demon who strangled the young man in the bathhouse and who, after being expelled from Ephesus by John, had already lived here for six years; denounced Prokliana, who wrongly accused her son of violence. When Domitian was killed and Nerva granted everyone freedom, John wanted to return to Ephesus. The believers released him in no other way than by asking him for the word of teaching - the Gospel, the first words of which were announced from heaven in thunder. There he also wrote the Apocalypse. Before leaving Patmos, the apostle went around all its cities and confirmed the believers, installing bishops and elders 5. Returning to Asia Minor, he visited the previously founded churches there. Here follows the story of the youth from Clement of Alexandria. The Apostle saved one poor man from despair, who had already tried more than once to end his days with poison, but each time the poison lost its effect from the power of the sign of the cross. At the same time, John turned the hay into gold. 6. The Apostle John died by going to his grave. In the morning, nothing was found at the site of his burial, except sandals. In the Metaphrastic biography (printed in the interpretation of the Ecumenium on the epistles of the Apostle and Andrew of Crete on the Apocalypse t. 2 p. 838), the travels of the apostle are narrated in the same way, but very few miracles are narrated. Legends 73 are also quoted from Clement of Alexandria. More reliable evidence shows that the place of action of John, after his removal from Palestine, was Asia Minor, since it was useful and necessary for the local churches. Here there was persecution both from the Jews (Apoc. 2:8), and from the pagans (Apoc. 2:13) and indignation of heretics, especially those whom Paul struck both in his last epistles and personally (Apoc. 2:20) and those against whom Peter and Jude wrote. In Asia Minor, the Judaizing heretics acted with all their might. Their free thoughts went so far as to deny any law. He who has reached the depths (Apoc. 2:24) of knowledge is not constrained by any apostolic decrees: extending the limits of their freedom even further than the Corinthian freethinkers (who said: all the years are), they, without any twinge of conscience, took part in pagan feasts, ate food sacrificed to idols and allowed themselves all sorts of carnal pleasures. In the apocalypse they are called Nicolaitans and are compared to Balaam and Jezebel. Irenaeus (2:17) says that this sect had as its head Nicholas, one of the seven deacons; but Eusebius (3:29) protects him from such thoughts, saying that both his daughters and son remained, as is known, in virginity until the end of their lives. Peter and Jude wrote against them in 2 Epistle. John also wrote against them in a letter to the churches of Pergamum and Thyatira (in Lydia). But not only the pagans who rejected the law adopted gnosis, but the Jews also preached it in their own way, as in Colossae; – this Gnosticism was even more developed in the teaching of Cerinthos. On the one hand, he adhered to the ordinary ideas of the Jews about the Messiah, argued that He was a simple man and represented in Him a phenomenon of a higher nature, as something sudden; but he differed from the Jews in that, instead of special Divine power, he allowed the influx of the spirit emanating from the Most High God, which unites God with creation. This spirit, Cerinthus taught, descended on Jesus in the form of a dove at baptism; He revealed through him the Father, Who had hitherto been known only to the chosen ones among the Jews, but before His suffering He abandoned Him, leaving Him to His own devices. Thus, according to the teaching of Cerinthus, there was no essential and necessary connection between the Divine and human natures of the Redeemer; human nature was only a temporary vessel for the redeeming Spirit, served for the Word so that it could only appear, but was not itself united in it by an everlasting union. From this direction another opinion was formed, even more deviating from the truth, which allowed only a ghostly, imaginary manifestation of the human nature of the Redeemer, an optical illusion; just as the angels, when visiting earth, did not put on a real material body. Against such and such people John had to defend that Jesus Christ came in the flesh. And he defended with zeal: he wrote the Gospel and epistles. However, since his character was more contemplative than a disposition to reason, in his writings polemics are often hidden behind a positive presentation of subjects. This is exactly what his Gospel should say. It cannot be said that it was written against such and such sects, and one cannot analyze its private narratives or sayings from such a point of view. For example, the Word became flesh - this is the main idea of ​​the entire narrative; the whole life of Jesus Christ is revealed as the manifestation of the Word in human nature. If John definitely wrote against Cerinthos, then he should have seen an exposition of what Jesus Christ was before baptism, how signs of the Divine nature appeared in the baby Jesus; but he doesn't have that. They also say that in the Gospel (19:34) about the flow of blood and water from the side of Jesus, it was written to refute the Docetes. But if they rejected other evidence of the appearance of the Messiah in the flesh, they could not be convinced of this either. The first conciliar epistle of the apostle presents us with his fatherly side towards the believers. It contains a) an exhortation to firmly and faithfully maintain the faith in the midst of various temptations that threaten both from Jews and pagans, as well as false teachers, and b) warns against appearing to be only Christians, without being such in life. The false teachers whom the apostle has in mind were not Jews (2:18), but from among the Christians themselves (vv. 19, 22), and in all likelihood these are those who did not admit the real, but only the imaginary coming of Christ in the flesh (Docets 4:2). But in chapter 5, v. 6. one can see a hint of polemic against Cerinthos, who really distinguished Christ from the crucified Jesus. In the second letter to one Christian wife, Kiria, with her children, the apostle warns against the same false teachers who do not recognize the coming of Christ in the flesh (v. 7), looks at them as a new phenomenon, not just as opponents of Christianity, but as apostates from the original teaching and commands them not to accept such people into their homes and not to welcome them as Christian brethren. The third letter of John to one significant member of a church unknown to us named Caius; it reveals to us some special church relations. Kai was known for the active love with which he received foreign preachers of the faith when they visited his church. But in the same church there was a power-hungry man, Diotrephes, probably the primate, who not only did not show hospitality himself, but also hindered others and even excommunicated the apostle himself for this. It is evident that these preachers were from the Jews; The apostle gives them special praise because they did not use anything from tongues (v. 7). Therefore, we can judge that Diotrephes was one of the opponents of Judaism, only he acted incorrectly. The long stay here and the management of the church of the Apostle John contributed to the formation of many worthy shepherds under his fatherly supervision; Of these, Polycarp is famous. John's influence on the churches of Asia Minor is also revealed by the fact that during subsequent disputes about Easter, about the baptism of heretics, his example was always referred to here. James (brother of John the Evangelist) died in Jerusalem ca. 44 R. Chr. Simon (Zealot), according to many Church Fathers, takes James Alpheus; according to Sophronius, the Bishop of Jerusalem after James (according to Eusebius, Simeon, the son of Cleopas, was called the Bishop of Jerusalem). According to Nicephorus (2:40), he preached in Egypt, Cyrene, Mauritania, Libya, the British Isles and died on the cross. Judas, the brother of the Lord and brother of Jacob, according to Western legends, preached in Persia and died a martyr there; according to Nicephorus (2:40) he preached in Palestine, Syria and Arabia and died peacefully in Edessa. According to Nicephorus (2:40), Matthias preached in Ethiopia, according to Sophronius - in altera Aethiopia, i.e. in Colchis, according to others - only in Judea. According to this, the Talmud also writes: from the time Gamaliel died, the glory of the law ended. Hardly ήμέραι τινές Acts. 9:19, also means that ήμέραι ίκαναί v. 23. But from these words it is not yet clear that Luke wanted to signify the preceding days of Paul’s journey to Arabia with the last expression. A much more natural order of events can be represented as follows: ήμέραι τινές includes only those few days that Paul, shortly after his baptism, spent in communication with the Christians of Damascus; this also includes καί είϑέως or the time in which the apostle, after several days of communication with the Christians of Damascus, visited the synagogues. And ήμέραι ίκαναί means the entire subsequent stay of Paul in Damascus. During this time ήμέραι ίκαναί, about which the Acts of the Apostles tell us nothing, we must also assume Paul’s journey to Arabia, which we would not have known without the letter to the Galatians In this regard, it is his characteristic feature and distinguishes him from all dreamers τα της άσϑενείας καυχάσϑαι, which refers to flight. 2 Cor. 11:30, 32 This circumstance serves as one of the few chronological signs of its history. When Paul, three years after his conversion, fled from Damascus, Damascus was in the power of Aretha, king of Arabia Stony (1 Cor. 11:32). But since it actually belonged to the Roman province, Arefa could only own this city due to special circumstances. These circumstances were probably as follows: Emperor Tiberius, as an ally of King Herod Agrippa, whose army was defeated by Arethas, ordered the Syrian governor Vitellius to present the king of Arabia, alive or dead, into his hands (Ioseph Antiqu 18:5.1). While Vitellius was preparing to carry out this command and was then delayed by certain circumstances during the campaign itself, news was received of the death of Tiberius, who died in March 37, and Vitellius, having received the news, stopped by embarking on war. Arefa took advantage of this time and took possession of the Roman city. But it is incredible that he long owned this city captured from the Romans: it is very likely that when in the second year of the reign of Caligula (38-39) Arabian affairs were put in order, and Damascus was not left unattended. So, if we date Paul’s flight to the year 39, then the year of his conversion will be the 36th, because his flight followed three years after his conversion. In this three-year space we must place the martyrdom of Stephen. Due to the lack of certain chronological information about the circumstances of this time, although we cannot reliably determine in this way the year of Pavlov’s conversion, the assumption that it followed in the year 36 is also in its favor that for the events that happened between the Ascension of the Lord and the martyrdom of Stephen, connected with the conversion of Paul, it leaves neither too short nor too long a period of time. Conflict of tongues (Acts 9:24 the Jews were in charge and 2 Cor. 11:32 the pagan prince (έϑνάρχης) Arethas the king guard) is explained by the assistance of the city governor of Damascus, appointed by Arethas, who then owned the city, the assistance he provided to the Jews, irritated against Paul Gal. 1:12, apparently should be attributed to that part of Paul's gospel, which was especially attacked by Paul's opponents. Paul wants to say that the doctrine of the Christian’s perfect freedom from the Law of Moses is not his own or someone else’s human creation, but was communicated to him through revelation by Jesus Christ. - But 1) the apostle, saying that he could not learn it from any of the people, even from the apostles themselves or any of the Jewish Christians, generally expresses himself so broadly that one cannot understand only the doctrine of freedom from the law and justification by faith without the works of the law, but the whole teaching as first preached by Paul. 2) “Παρέλαβον” (v. 12) Apostle Paul in 1 last. to Cor. 2:23, repeats in relation to the story of Jesus Christ. 3) As for the image of Paul’s gospel, the apostle did not need to prove that it did not come from the apostles: since his enemies attacked this most of all Words: καί έκείνον τόν καιρόν Acts. 12:1, however they do not determine the exact time Since Paul in the Epistle. to Gal. speaks only about private relations (κατ ίδίαν), then at first glance this seems to contradict the narrative of the Acts of the Apostles. But this contradiction only proves that these two narratives are not talking about the same thing. But first there could be private relations, then general reasoning. Consequently, both narratives can relate to the same subject Πάν τό πλήϑος Acts. 15:12 σύν όλη τή έκκλησία 22. But due to its large number, the whole church could hardly be gathered Άφ ήμερών ιίρχαίων - this shows that a lot of time passed from the conversion of Cornelius to the council Most of these prohibitions are counted among the seven commandments to which people were obligated before the law of Moses, which God gave to the sons of Noah and which the proselytes of the gate were required to observe. Buxtorf. Lexicon Talmudicum et Rabbinic. under the word נד In the definition of the Apostolic Council (Acts 15:20,29) in some copies and in the translation the addition is read: and whatever is displeasing to oneself, do not do it to others. – That this is a later addition can be seen from the very definition in Greek. the text ζξ ών διατηρούντες cannot be translated: observing this, but refraining from this, and this can only be attributed to άπέχεοϑαι τών είδωλοϑύτων Tertull. de jeiun. sar. 16 writes: iudaicum certe jeiunium ubique celebratur, qunm amissis templis per omnc litus quocunque in aperto aliquando jam preces ad coelum mittant In Athens there were altars to unknown gods. Pausan. 1, 1, 4, βωμοί Θεών τών όνομαζομένων άγνώστων καί ήρώων – Philostrat. in vit. Apollon. 6, 2. Άϑήνησιν, ού καί άγνώστων Θεών ίδρύνται . So the fact itself is undeniable. The origin of such altars is explained by an example known from Diogenes Laertius. Bl. Jerome (ad Tit. 1, 12) says that in Athens there was no such inscription as is given in the speech of St. Paul: αγώνστω Θεώ, but there was an altar with the inscriptions: Diis Asiae, et Evropae et Africae, diis ignotis et peregrinis (and Ecumenius gives the inscription: Θεοίς Ασίας καί Εύρώπης καί... Θεώ άγνώστω καί ξένω ). But such an inscription is unknown from the monuments and descriptions that have reached us. It must be assumed that the Apostle changed the inscription and presented it in a different form Known in ancient times were Έφέσια γράμματα, magical writings, which were assigned invincible power Έν οίς διήλϑον (Acts 20:25) does not refer to one place or society, but to many. Irenaeus, a disciple of Polycarp, the bishop of those countries, speaks directly about the bishops and elders of Ephesus and other nearby cities (Contr. Haeres; III, 4. § 12). The indication of the time of Paul’s preaching in Ephesus, two years and three months, also agrees with this (Acts 19:8 and 10) This teaching was preserved in Colossae until the 5th century, as evidenced by Theodoret (ad. J. c. Coloss). The Council of Laodicea in Art. 4, 35 forbade the rule: “It is not fitting for Christians to leave the Church of God and go away and name angels and hold assemblies. This is rejected. For this reason, if anyone is found practicing such secret idolatry, let him be anathema: he has forsaken our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, and has begun to worship idols.” The following 36 rule may also be directed against the same false teaching: “It is not fitting for the sanctified or the clerics to be magicians, or charmers, or number-tellers, or astrologers, or to make the so-called precautions, which are the bonds of their souls.” Colossi, according to Theophylact (ad Coloss. 1, 2), are the same as Khona, or at least close to them. (Miracle of Arch. Michael in Khoneh) For Prokhorov's narrative, see Fabric. Cod. Apocryph. p. 815–818 and Thilo prolegom. ad. acta Thom. p. LXXII. The latter proves that Prokhorov’s narrative, known sometimes under the name Πράξεις, sometimes Περίοδοι, is the same thing that is found among the apocryphal ones in the Synopsis of St. Scripture attributed to St. Athanasius of Alexandria (see notes to pp. LXXVIII and LXXIX). He thinks that the ancient acts of John, which were among the Eucratites, Manichaeans and Priscillians, were later remade under the name of Prochorus, a disciple of John You might be interested in: