in which we must allow it to be possible for ancient writings to be placed; and it is a situation in which it is more difficult to distinguish spurious from genuine writings, than in either of the cases described in the preceding suppositions; inasmuch as the congruities observable are so far accidental, as that they are not produced by the immediate transplanting of names and circumstances out of one writing into the other. But although, with respect to each other, the agreement in these writings be mediate and secondary, yet it is not properly or absolutely undesigned: because, with respect to the common original from which the information of the writers proceeds, it is studied and factitious. The case of which we treat must, as to the letters, be a case of forgery: and when the writer who is personating another, sits down to his composition-whether he have the history with which we now compare the letters, or some other record before him; or whether he have only loose tradition and reports to go by-he must adapt his imposture, as well as he can, to what he finds in these accounts; and his adaptations will be the result of counsel, scheme, and industry: art must be employed; and vestiges will appear of management and design. Add to this, that, in most of the following examples, the circumstances in which the coincidence is remarked, are of too particular and domestic a nature, to have floated down upon the stream of general tradition. Of the three cases which we have stated, the difference between the first and the two others is, that in the first the design may be fair and honest, in the others it must be accompanied with the consciousness of fraud; but in all there is design. In examining, therefore, the agreement between ancient writings, the character of truth and originality is undesignedness: and this test applies to every supposition; for, whether we suppose the history to be true, but the letters spurious; or, the letters to be genuine, but the history false; or, lastly, falsehood to belong to both-the history to be a fable, and the letters fictitious: the same inference will result-that either there will be no thing sought after and ascertained: it must be the groundwork of every other observation. The reader then will please to remember this word undesignedness, as denoting that upon which the construction and validity of our argument chiefly depend. As to the proofs of undesignedness, I shall in this place say little; for I had rather the reader's persuasion should arise from the instances themselves, and the separate remarks with which they may be accompanied, than from any previous formulary or description of argument. In a great plurality of examples, I trust he will be perfectly convinced that no design or contrivance whatever has been exercised: and if some of the coincidences alleged appear to be minute, circuitous, or oblique, let him reflect that this very indirectness and subtility is that which gives force and propriety to the example. Broad, obvious, and explicit agree ments prove little; because it may be suggested that the insertion of such is the ordinary expe dient of every forgery: and though they may occur, and probably will occur in genuine writings, yet it cannot be proved that they are peculiar to these. Thus what St. Paul declares in chap. xi. of 1 Cor. concerning the institution of the eucharist-" For I have received of the Lord that which I also delivered unto you, that the Lord Jesus, the same night in which he was betrayed, took bread; and when he had given thanks he brake it, and said, Take, eat; this is my body, which is broken for you; this do in remembrance of me"--though it be in close and verbal conformity with the account of the same transaction preserved by St. Luke, is yet a conformity of which no use can be made in our argument; for if it should be objected that this was a mere recital from the gospel, borrowed by the author of the epistle, for the purpose of setting off his composition by an appearance of agreement with the received account of the Lord's supper, I should not know how to repel the insinuation. In like manner, the description which St. Paul gives of himself in his epistle to the Philippians (iii. 5.) -"Circumcised the eighth day, of the stock of agreement between them, or the agreement will Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, an Hebrew of be the effect of design. Nor will it elude the the Hebrews; as touching the law, a Pharisee; principle of this rule, to suppose the same person concerning zeal, persecuting the Church; touchto have been the author of all the letters, or evening the righteousness which is in the law, blame the author both of the letters and the history; for no less design is necessary to produce coincidence ⚫ between different parts of a man's own writings, especially when they are made to take the different forms of a history and of original letters, than to adjust them to the circumstances found in any other writing. With respect to those writings of the New Testament which are to be the subject of our present consideration, I think, that, as to the authenticity of the epistles, this argument, where it is sufficiently sustained by instances, is nearly conclusive; for I cannot assign a supposition of forgery, in which coincidences of the kind we inquire after are likely to appear. As to the history, it extends to these points:-It proves the general reality of the circumstances: it proves the historian's knowledge of these circumstances. In the present instance it confirms his pretensions of having been a contemporary, and in the latter part of his history, a companion, of St. Paul. In a word, it establishes the substantial truth of the narration; and substantial truth is that, which, in every historical inquiry, ought to be the first less"-is made up of particulars so plainly delivered concerning him, in the Acts of the Apos tles, the Epistle to the Romans, and the Epistle to the Galatians, that I cannot deny but that it would be easy for an impostor, who was fabricating a letter in the name of St. Paul, to collect these articles into one view. This, therefore, is a conformity which we do not adduce. But when I read in the Acts of the Apostles, that when "Paul came to Derbe and Lystra, behold a certain disciple was there, named Timotheus, the son of a certain woman which was a jewess;" and when, in an epistle addressed to Timothy, I find him reminded of his "having known the Holy Scriptures from a child;" which implies that he must, on one side or both, have been brought up by Jewish parents: I conceive that I remark a coincidence which shows, by its very obliquity, that scheme was not employed in its formation. In like manner, if a coincidence depend upon a comparison of dates, or rather of circumstances from which the dates are gathered-the more intricate that comparison shall be; the more numerous the intermediate steps through which the conclusion ical epistles, strung together with very little skill. The second, which is a more versute and specious forgery, is introduced with a list of names of persons who wrote to St. Paul from Corinth; and is preceded by an account sufficiently particular of the manner in which the epistle was sent from Corinth to St. Paul, and the answer returned. But they are names which no one ever heard of; and the account it is impossible to combine with any thing found in the Acts, or in the other epistles. It is not necessary for me to point out the internal marks of spuriousness and imposture which these compositions betray; but it was necessary to observe, that they do not afford those coincidences which we propose as proofs of authenticity in the epistles which we defend. Having explained the general scheme and formation of the argument, I may be permitted to subjoin a brief account of the manner of conducting it. is deduced; in a word, the more circuitous the in- I simply a collection of sentences from the canonvestigation is, the better, because the agreement which finally results is thereby farther removed from the suspicion of contrivance, affectation, or design. And it should be remembered, concerning these coincidences, that it is one thing to be minute, and another to be precarious; one thing to be unobserved, and another to be obscure; one thing to be circuitous or oblique, and another to be forced, dubious, or fanciful. And this distinction ought always to be retained in our thoughts. The very particularity of St. Paul's epistles; the perpetual recurrence of names of persons and places; the frequent allusions to the incidents of his private life, and the circumstances of his condition and history; and the connexion and parallelism of these with the same circumstances in the Acts of the Apostles, so as to enable us, for the most part, to confront them one with another; as well as the relation which subsists between the circumstances, as mentioned or referred to in the I have disposed the several instances of agreedifferent Epistles-afford no inconsiderable proof ment under separate numbers: as well to mark of the genuiness of the writings, and the reality of more sensibly the divisions of the subject, as for the transactions. For as no advertency is suf- another purpose, viz: that the reader may thereby ficient to guard against slips and contradictions, be reminded that the instances are independent of when circumstances are multiplied, and when one another. I have advanced nothing which I did they are liable to be detected by contemporary not think probable; but the degree of probability accounts equally circumstantial, an impostor, I by which different instances are supported, is unshould expect, would either have avoided particu- doubtedly very different. If the reader, therefore, lars entirely, contenting himself with doctrinal meets with a number which contains an instance discussions, moral precepts, and general reflec- that appears to him unsatisfactory, or founded tions; or if, for the sake of imitating St. Paul's in mistake, he will dismiss that number from style, he should have thought it necessary to inter- the argument, but without prejudice to any other. sperse his composition with names and circum- He will have occasion also to observe that the costances, he would have placed them out of the incidences discoverable in some epistles are much reach of comparison with the history. And I am fewer and weaker than what are supplied by confirmed in this opinion by the inspection of two others. But he will add to his observation this attempts to counterfeit St. Paul's epistles, which important circumstance that whatever ascertains have come down to us; and the only attempts of the original of one epistle, in some measure estawhich we have any knowledge, that are at all de-blishes the authority of the rest. For, whether serving of regard. One of these is an epistle to the Laodiceans, extant in Latin, and preserved by Fabricius, in his collection of apocryphal scriptures. The other purports to be an epistle of St. Paul to the Corinthians, in answer to an epistle from the Corinthians to him. This was translated by Scroderus from a copy in the Arminian language which had been sent to W. Whiston, and was afterwards, from a more perfect copy procured at Aleppo, published by his sons, as an appendix to their edition of Moses Chorenensis. No Greek copy exists of either: they are not only not supported by ancient testimony, but they are negatived and excluded; as they have never found admission into any catalogue of apostolical writings, acknowledged by, or known to, the early ages of Christianity. In the first of these I found, as I expected, a total evitation of circumstances. It is This, however, must not be misunderstood. A person writing to his friends, and upon a subject in which the transactions of his own life were concerned, would probably be led, in the course of his letter, espe cially if it was a long one, to refer to passages found in his history. A person addressing an epistle to the public at large, or under the form of an epistle delivering a discourse upon some speculative argument, would not, it is probable, meet with an occasion of alluding to the circumstances of his life at all; he might, or he might not; the chance on either side is nearly equal. This is the situation of the catholic epistle. Although, there fore, the presence of these allusions and agreements be a valuable accession to the arguments by which the authenticity of a letter is maintained, yet the want of them certainly forms no positive objection. these epistles be genuine or spurious, every thing about them indicates that they come from the same hand. The diction, which it is extremely difficult to imitate, preserves its resemblance and peculiarity throughout all the epistles. Numerous expressions and singularities of style, found in no other part of the New Testament, are repeated in different epistles; and occur in their respective places, without the smallest appearance of force or art. An involved argumentation, frequent obscurities, especially in the order and transition of thought, piety, vehemence, affection, bursts of rapture, and of unparalleled sublimity, are properties, all or most of them, discernible in every letter of the collection. But although these epistles bear strong marks of proceeding from the same hand, I think it is still more certain that they were originally separate publications. They form no continued story; they compose no regular correspondence; they comprise not the transactions of any particular period; they carry on no connexion of argument; they depend not upon one another; except in one or two instances, they refer not to one another. I will farther undertake to say, that no study or care has been employed to produce or preserve an appearance of consistency amongst them. All which observations show that they were not intended by the person, whoever he was, that wrote them, to come forth or be read together: that they appeared at first separately, and have been collected since. The proper purpose of the following work is to bring together, from the Acts of the Apostles, and from the different epistles, such passages as furnish examples of undesigned coincidence; but I have so far enlarged upon this plan, as to take into it some circumstances found in the epistles, which contributed strength to the conclusion, though not strictly objects of comparison. It appeared also a part of the same plan, to examine the difficulties which presented them selves in the course of our inquiry. I do not know that the subject has been proposed or considered in this view before. Ludovicus, Capellus, Bishop Pearson, Dr. Benson, and Dr. Lardner, have each given a continued history of St. Paul's life, made up from the Acts of the Apostles and the Epistles joined together. But this, it is manifest, is a different undertaking from the present, and directed to a different purpose. If what is here offered shall add one thread to that complication of probabilities by which the Christian history is attested, the reader's attention will be repaid by the supreme importance of the subject; and my design will be fully answered. CHAPTER II. No. I. THE first passage I shall produce from this epistle, and upon which a good deal of observation will be founded, is the following: several journeys to Jerusalem before, and one also immediately after his first visit into the peninsula of Greece, (Acts xviii, 21,) it cannot from hence be collected in which of these visits the epistle was written, or with certainty, that it was written in either. The silence of the historian, who professes to have been with St. Paul at the time, (c. xx. v. 6,) concerning any contribution, might lead us to look out for some different journey, or might induce us, perhaps, to question the consistency of the two records, did not a very accidental reference, in another part of the same history, afford us sufficient ground to believe that this silence was omission. When St. Paul made his reply before Felix, to the accusations of Tertullus, he alleged, as was natural, that neither the errand which brought him to Jerusalem, nor his conduct whilst he remained there, merited the calumnies with which the Jews had aspersed him. "Now after many years (i. e. of absence,) I came to bring alms to my nation, and offerings; whereupon certain Jews from Asia found me purified in the temple, neither with multitude, nor with tumult, who ought to have been here before thee, and object, if they had aught against me." Acts xxiv. 17-19. This mention of alms and offerings certainly brings the narrative in the Acts near to an accordancy with the epistle; yet no one, I am persuaded, will suspect that this clause was put into St. Paul's defence, either to supply the omission in the preceding narrative, or with any view to such accordancy. After all, nothing is yet said or hinted, concerning the place of the contribution; nothing concerning Macedonia and Achaia. Turn therefore to the First Epistle to the Corinthians, chap. xvi. ver. 1-4, and you have St. Paul delivering the following directions: " Concerning the collection for the saints, as I have given or "But now I go unto Jerusalem, to minister unto the saints; for it hath pleased them of Macedonia and Achaia, to make a certain contribution for the poor saints which are at Jerusaders to the churches of Galatia, even so do ye; lem."-Rom. xv. 25, 26. upon the first day of the week let every one of In this quotation three distinct circumstances you lay by him in store as God hath prospered are stated-a contribution in Macedonia for the him, that there be no gatherings when I come. relief of the Christians of Jerusalem, a contribu- And when I come, whomsoever you shall approve tion in Achaia for the same purpose, and an in- by your letters, them will I send to bring your tended journey of St. Paul to Jerusalem. These liberality unto Jerusalem; and if it be meet, that circumstances are stated as taking place at the I go also, they shall go with me." In this pas same time, and that to be the time when the epis-sage we find a contribution carrying on at Cotle was written. Now let us inquire whether we rinth, the capital of Achaia, for the Christians of can find these circumstances elsewhere, and whe- Jerusalem; we find also a hint given of the posther, if we do find them, they meet together in sibility of St. Paul going up to Jerusalem himrespect of date. Turn to the Acts of the Apos- self, after he had paid his visit into Achaia: but tles, chap. xx. ver. 2, 3, and you read the follow- this is spoken of rather as a possibility than as ing account: "When he had gone over those any settled intention; for his first thought was, parts, (viz. Macedonia,) and had given them "Whomsoever you shall approve by your letters, much exhortation, he came into Greece, and them will I send to bring your liberality to Jeruthere abode three months; and when the Jews salem:" and in the sixth verse he adds, "that ye laid wait for him, as he was about to sail into Sy- may bring me on my journey whithersoever I ria, he proposed to return through Macedonia." go." This epistle purports to be written after St. From this passage, compared with the account of Paul had been at Corinth: for it refers throughSt. Paul's travels given before, and from the se-out to what he had done and said amongst them quel of the chapter, it appears that upon St. Paul's second visit to the peninsula of Greece, his intention was, when he should leave the country, to proceed from Achaia directly by sea to Syria; but that to avoid the Jews, who were lying in wait to intercept him in his route, he so far changed his purpose as to go back through Macedonia, embark at Philippi, and pursue his voyage from thence towards Jerusalem. Here, therefore, is a journey to Jerusalem; but not a syllable of any contribution. And as St. Paul had taken whilst he was there. The expression, therefore, "when I come," must relate to a second visit; against which visit the contribution spoken of was desired to be in readiness. But though the contribution in Achaia be expressly mentioned, nothing is here said concerning any contribution in Macedonia. Turn, therefore, in the third place, to the Second Epistle to the Corinthians, chap. viii. ver. 1-4, and you will discover the particular which remains to be sought for: "Moreover, brethren, we do you to them to belong to the same period. In the third place, I remark, what diminishes very much the suspicion of fraud, how aptly and connectedly the mention of the circumstances in question, viz. the journey to Jerusalem, and of the occasion of that journey, arises from the context, "Whensoever I take my journey into Spain, I will come to you; for I trust to see you in my journey, and to be brought on my way thitherward by you, if first I be somewhat filled with your company. But now Igo unto Jerusalem, to minister unto the saints; for it hath pleased them of Macedonia and Achaia to make a certain contribution for the poor saints which are at Jerusalem. It hath pleased them verily, and their debtors they are, for if the Gentiles have been made partakers of their spiritual things, their duty is also to minister unto them in carnal things. When therefore I have performed this, and have sealed them to this fruit, I will come by you into Spain." Is the passage in Italics like a passage foisted in for an extraneous purpose? Does it not arise from what goes before, by a junction as easy as any example of writing upon real business can furnish? Could any thing be more natural than that St. Paul, in writing to the Romans, should speak of the time when he hoped to visit them; should mention the business which then detained him; and that he purposed to set forwards upon his journey to them when that business was completed? No. II. wit of the grace of God bestowed on the churches | nice examination, that he could have determined of Macedonia; how that, in a great trial of affliction, the abundance of their joy and their deep poverty abounded unto the riches of their liberality: for to their power, I bear record, yea and beyond their power, they were willing of themselves: praying us with much entreaty, that we would receive the gift, and take upon us the fellowship of the ministering to the saints." To which add, chap. ix. ver. 2: "I know the forwardness of your mind, for which I boast of you to them of Macedonia, that Achaia was ready a year ago." In this epistle we find St. Paul advanced as far as Macedonia, upon that second visit to Corinth which he promised in his former epistle; we find also, in the passages now quoted from it, that a contribution was going on in Macedonia at the same time with, or soon however following, the contribution which was made in Achaia; but for whom the contribution was made does not appear in this epistle at all: that information must be supplied from the first epistle. Here, therefore, at length, but fetched from three different writings, we have obtained the several circumstances we inquired after, and which the Epistle to the Romans brings together, viz. a contribution in Achiaia for the Christians of Jerusalem; a contribution in Macedonia for the same; and an approaching journey of St. Paul to Jerusalem. We have these circumstances-each by some hint in the passage in which it is mentioned, or by the date of the writing in which the passage occurs-fixed to a particular time; and we have that time turning out upon examination to be in all the same: namely towards the close of St. Paul's second visit to the peninsula of Greece. This is an instance of conformity beyond the possibility, I will venture to say, of random writing to produce. I also assert, that it is in the highest degree improbable that it should have been the effect of contrivance and design. The imputation of design amounts to this: that the forger of the Epis-referred to in the epistle, with the order of events tle to the Romans inserted in it the passage upon recorded in the Acts, and with references to the which our observations are founded, for the pur- same circumstances, though for quite different pose of giving colour to his forgery by the ap- purposes, in the two epistles to the Corinthians. pearance of conformity with other writings which Now would the author of a forgery, who sought were then extant. I reply, in the first place, that, to gain credit to a spurious letter by congruities, if he did this to countenance his forgery, he did it depending upon the time and place in which the for the purpose of an argument which would not letter was supposed to be written, have left that strike one reader in ten thousand. Coincidences time and place to be made out, in a manner so so circuitous 'as this, answer not the ends of for- obscure and indirect as this is? If therefore coingery; are seldom, I believe, attempted by it. Incidences of circumstances can be pointed out in the second place, I observe, that he must have had the Acts of the Apostles, and the two epistles to the Corinthians, before him at the time. In the Acts of the Apostles (I mean that part of the Acts which relate to this period,) he would have found the journey to Jerusalem; but nothing Chap. xvi. 21-23: "Timotheus, my workabout the contribution. In the First Epistle to the fellow, and Lucius, and Jason, and Sosipater, my Corinthians he would have found a contribution kinsmen, salute you. I, Tertius, who wrote this going on in Achaia for the Christians of Jerusa-epistle, salute you in the Lord. Gaius, mine host, lem, and a distant hint of the possibility of the journey; but nothing concerning a contribution in Macedonia. In the Second Epistle to the Corinthians he would have found a contribution in Macedonia accompanying that in Achaia; but no intimation for whom either was intended, and not a word about the journey. It was only by a close and attentive collation of the three writings, that he could have picked out the circumstances which he has united in his epistle; and by a still more By means of the quotation which formed the subject of the preceding number, we collect that the Epistle to the Romans was written at the conclusion of St. Paul's second visit to the peninsula of Greece; but this we collect, not from the epistle itself, nor from any thing declared concerning the time and place in any part of the epistle, but from a comparison of circumstances this epistle, depending upon its date, or the place where it was written, whilst that date and place are only ascertained by other circumstances, such coincidences may fairly be stated as undesigned. Under this head I adduce and of the whole church, saluteth you; and Quartus, a brother." With this passage I compare, Acts xx. 4: "And there accompanied him into Asia, Sopater of Berea; and, of the Thessa lonians, Aristarchus and Secundus; and Gaius of Derbe, and Timotheus; and, of Asia, Tychicus and Trophimus." The Epistle to the Romans, we have seen, was written just before St. Paul's departure from Greece, after his second visit to that peninsula: the persons mentioned in the But if any one shall still contend that a forger of the epistle, with the Acts of the Apostles before him, and having settled this scheme of writing a letter as from St. Paul, upon his second visit into Greece, would easily think of the expedient of putting in the names of those persons who appeared to be with St. Paul at the time as an obvious recommendation of the imposture: I then repeat my observations; first, that he would have made the catalogue more complete; and, secondly, that with this contrivance in his thoughts, it was certainly his business, in order to avail himself of the artifice, to have stated in the body of the epistle, that Paul was in Greece when he wrote it; and that he was there upon his second visit. Neither of which he has done, either directly, or even so as to be discoverable by any circumstance found in the narrative delivered in the Acts. quotation from the Acts are those who accom- | his wife Priscilla, because that Claudius had panied him in that departure. Of seven whose commanded all Jews to depart from Rome." names are joined in the salutation of the church They were connected, therefore, with the place of Rome, three, viz. Sosipater, Gaius, and Timo- to which the salutations are sent. That is one thy, are proved, by this passage in the Acts, to coincidence; another is the following: St. Paul have been with St. Paul at the time. And this is became acquainted with these persons at Corinth perhaps as much coincidence as could be expected, during his first return into Greece. They accomfrom reality, though less, I am apt to think, than panied him upon his visit into Asia; were settled would have been produced by design. Four are for some time at Ephesus, Acts xviii. 19-26, mentioned in the Acts who are not joined in the and appear to have been with St. Paul when he salutation; and it is in the nature of the case wrote from that place his First Epistle to the probable that there should be many attending St. Corinthians, 1 Cor. xvi. 19. Not long after the Paul in Greece, who knew nothing of the con- writing of which epistle St. Paul went from verts at Rome, nor were known by them. In like Ephesus into Macedonia, and, "after he had manner, several are joined in the salutation who gone over those parts," proceeded from thence are not mentioned in the passage referred to in upon his second visit into Greece; during which the Acts. This also was to be expected. The visit, or rather at the conclusion of it, the Epistle occasion of mentioning them in the Acts was to the Romans, as hath been shown, was written. their proceeding with St. Paul upon his journey. We have therefore the time of St. Paul's residence But we may be sure that there were many eminent at Ephesus after he had written to the CorinChristians with St. Paul in Greece, besides those thians, the time taken up by his progress through who accompanied him into Asia.* Macedonia, (which is indefinite, and was probably considerable,) and his three months' abode in Greece; we have the sum of those three periods allowed for Aquila and Priscilla going back to Rome, so as to be there when the epistle before us was written. Now what this quotation leads us to observe is, the danger of scattering names and circumstances in writings like the present, how implicated they often are with dates and places, and that nothing but truth can preserve consistency. Had the notes of time in the Epistle to the Romans fixed the writing of it to any date prior to St. Paul's first residence at Corinth, the salutation of Aquila and Priscilla would have contradicted the history, because it would have been prior to his acquaintance with these persons. If the notes of time had fixed it to any period during that residence at Corinth, during his jour ney to Jerusalem when he first returned out of Greece, during his stay at Antioch, whither he went down to Jerusalem, or during his second progress through the Lesser Asia, upon which he proceeded from Antioch, an equal contradiction would have been incurred; because from Acts xviii. 2—18, 19—26, it appears that during all this time Aquila and Priscilla were either along with St. Paul, or were abiding at Ephesus. Lastly, had the notes of time in this epistle, which we have seen to be perfectly incidental, compared with the notes of time in the First Epistle to the Corinthians, which are equally incidental, fixed this epistle to be either contemporary with that, or prior to it, a similar contradiction would have ensued; because, first, when the Epistle to the Corinthians was written, Aquila and Priscilla salutation of that church, 1 Cor. xvi. 19; and were along with St. Paul, as they joined in the because, secondly, the history does not allow us to suppose, that between the time of their becoming acquainted with St. Paul and the time of St. Paul's writing to the Corinthians, Aquila and Priscilla could have gone to Rome, so as to have been saluted in an epistle to that city; and then come back to St. Paul at Ephesus, so as to be joined with him in saluting the church of Corinth. As it is, all things are consistent. The Epistle to the Romans is posterior even to the Second Epistle to the Corinthians; because it speaks of a contribution in Achaia being completed, which the Second Epistle to the Corinthians, chap. viii, is only soliciting. It is sufficiently therefore posterior Under the same head, viz. of coincidences depending upon date, I cite from the epistle the following salutation: "Greet Priscilla and Aquila, my helpers in Jesus Christ, who have for my life laid down their own necks; unto whom not only I give thanks, but also all the churches of the Gentiles."-Chap. xvi. 3. It appears, from the Acts of the Apostles, that Priscilla and Aquila had originally been inhabitants of Rome; for we read, Acts xviii. 2, that "Paul found a certain Jew, named Aquila, lately come from Italy with *Of these Jason is one, whose presence upon this occasion is very naturally accounted for. Jason was an inhabitant of Thessalonica in Macedonia, and entertained St. Paul in his house upon his first visit to that country. Acts xvii 7. St. Paul, upon this his second visit, passed through Macedonia on his way to Greece, and, from the situation of Thessalonica, most likely through that city. It appears, from various instances in the Acts, to have been the practice of many converts, to attend St. Paul from place to place. It is therefore highly probable, I mean that it is highly consistent with the account in the history, that Jason, according to that account a zealous disciple, the inhabitant of a city at no great distance from Greece, and through which, as it should seem, St. Paul had lately passed, should have accompanied St. Paul into Greece, and have been with him there at this time. Lucius is another name in the epistle. A very slight alteration would convert Avx. into Aoux, Lucius into Luke, which would produce an additional coincidence: for, if Luke was the author of the history, he was with St. Paul at the time; inasmuch as, describing the voyage which took place soon after the writing of this epistle, the historian uses the first person-"We sailed away from Philippi." Acts xx. 6. |