《基督教会史》第三章：使徒时期
Translated from Philip Schaff’s History of The Christian Church
第三章 使徒时期
目录
§ 20. 使徒时期的史料与文献
§ 21. 使徒时期的总体特征
§ 22. 使徒时期历史的批判性重构
§ 23. 使徒时期的年表
§ 20. 使徒时期的史料与文献
I. 史料
- 新约正典书籍。——新约的二十七卷书，相比任何古代经典著作，都有更充分的支持，既有一系列可追溯至使徒时代末期的外部证据链，也有其属灵深度和恩膏的内部证据，这些证据使其远超第二世纪的最佳作品。教会在筛选和最终确定基督教正典的过程中，无疑受到了圣灵的引导。但这当然不意味着无需批判性审视，而且对于优西比乌提出的七卷有争议的书（Eusebian Antilegomena），其证据力度也并非同等。图宾根学派（Tübingen School）和莱顿学派（Leyden School）起初只承认新约中的五卷书为真作，即保罗的四封书信——《罗马书》、《哥林多前书》、《哥林多后书》和《加拉太书》——以及约翰的《启示录》。但研究的进展带来了越来越多积极的成果，如今几乎所有保罗的书信都在自由派批评家中找到了支持者。（希尔根费尔德（Hilgenfeld）和利普修斯（Lipsius）承认七卷，增加了《帖撒罗尼迦前书》、《腓立比书》和《腓利门书》；雷南（Renan）则认为《帖撒罗尼迦后书》和《歌罗西书》也是保罗所写，从而使真书信数量增至九封。）即使是根据现代批判学最左翼所承认的这五份文献，使徒时代基督教的主要事实和教义也得到了充分的保证。
《使徒行传》为我们提供了早期基督教的外部历史，而书信则供了其内部历史。它们是各自独立的同期作品，从未相互引用；很可能路加从未读过保罗的书信，保罗也从未读过路加的《使徒行传》，尽管他无疑为路加提供了许多宝贵的信息。但它们通过一系列巧合间接地相互说明和证实，这些巧合具有很强的证据价值，更重要的是，这些巧合是无意和偶然的。如果它们是由后使徒时期的作者写成的，那么一致性会更强，细微的差异会被避免，《使徒行传》中的空白，特别是关于彼得和保罗最后的工作和死亡的部分，也会被填补。
《使徒行传》从表面上看，具有一切原始、鲜活、可信的当代事件叙述的特征，其信息来源于最佳渠道，且大部分来自作者的亲身观察和经历。路加作为保罗的同伴是该书作者的观点，已被大多数优秀的现代学者所接受，甚至包括埃瓦尔德（Ewald）。单凭这一事实就确立了其可信度。雷南（在其《圣保罗》第一章中）绝妙地称《使徒行传》为“一本充满喜悦与宁静热情的书。自荷马史诗以来，再没有见过充满如此新鲜感的书了。一股清晨的微风，一种海洋的气息，如果我可以这样表达，一种激发喜悦和力量的东西，渗透了整本书，使其成为一位绝佳的旅行伴侣 (compagnon de voyage)，是那些在南海寻找古代遗迹之人的精致 breviary。这是基督教的第二首田园诗。提比哩亚湖及其渔船提供了第一首。现在，一阵更强劲的风，对更遥远土地的向往，将我们带向了公海。”
- 后使徒时期和教父时期的著作充满了对使徒时期书籍的回忆和引用，它们对这些书籍的依赖，如同河流依赖其源头一样。
- 伪经和异端文献。众多的伪经《行传》、《书信》和《启示录》与伪经《福音书》一样，都是出于好奇心和教义兴趣的动机，具有类似的护教价值，尽管历史价值甚微。然而，其异端特征更为明显。这些文献尚未得到充分研究。利普修斯（Lipsius，在史密斯和韦斯的《基督教传记词典》第一卷第27页中）将伪经《行传》分为四类：(1) 以比昂派（Ebionitic）；(2) 诺斯底派（Gnostic）；(3) 最初为大公教会（Catholic）作品；(4) 大公教会对异端文献的改编或修订。最后一类数量最多，很少早于五世纪，但大多基于二、三世纪的文献。
(a) 伪经《行传》（Apocryphal Acts）：《彼得与保罗行传》（Acta Petri et Pauli，源于以便尼派，但经过改写）、《保罗与德克拉行传》（Acta Pauli et Theclae，在二世纪末被德尔图良提及，源于诺斯底派）、《多马行传》（Acta Thomae，诺斯底派）、《马太行传》（Acta Matthaei）、《达太行传》（Acta Thaddei）、《巴多罗买殉道记》（Martyrium Bartholomaei）、《巴拿巴行传》（Acta Barnabae）、《安得烈行传》（Acta Andreae）、《安得烈与马提亚行传》（Acta Andreae et Mathiae）、《腓力行传》（Acta Philippi）、《约翰行传》（Acta Johannis）、《西门与犹大行传》（Acta Simonis et Judae）、《达太行传》（Acta Thaddaei）、《使徒阿代教义》（The Doctrine of Addai, the Apostle）（由G. Phillips博士编辑叙利亚文和英文版，伦敦，1876年）。
(b) 伪经《书信》（Apocryphal Epistles）：《保罗与塞内加通信集》（Paul and Seneca，保罗六封，塞内加八封，耶柔米和奥古斯丁曾提及）、《保罗致哥林多人第三书信》（the third Epistle of Paul to the Corinthians）、《马利亚书信》（Epistolae Mariae）、《彼得致雅各书信》（Epistolae Petri ad Jacobum）。
(c) 伪经《启示录》（Apocryphal Apocalypses）：《约翰启示录》（Apocalypsis Johannis）、《彼得启示录》（Apocalypsis Petri）、《保罗启示录》（Apocalypsis Pauli，或保罗升天记，ajnabatiko;n Pauvlou，基于他被提到乐园的记载，林后12:2–4）、《多马启示录》（Apocalypsis Thomae）、《司提反启示录》（Apoc. Stephani）、《马利亚启示录》（Apoc. Mariae）、《摩西启示录》（Apoc. Mosis）、《以斯拉启示录》（Apoc. Esdrae）。
版本与文集：
Fabricius: Codex Apocryphus Novi Testamenti. Hamburg, 1703, 2d ed. 1719, 1743, 3 parts in 2 vols. (vol. II.)
Grabe: Spicilegium Patrum et Haereticorum. Oxford, 1698, ed. II. 1714.
Birch: Auctarium Cod. Apoc. N. Ti Fabrician. Copenh. 1804 (Fasc. I.). Contains the pseudo-Apocalypse of John.
Thilo: Acta Apost. Petri et Pauli. Halis, 1838. Acta Thomae. Lips. 1823.
Tischendorf: Acta Apostolorum Apocrypha. Lips. 1851.
Tischendorf: Apocalypses Apocryphae Mosis, Esdrae, Pauli, Joannis, item Mariae Dormitio. Lips. 1866.
R. A. Lipsius: Die apokryph Apostel geschichten und Apostel legenden. Leipz. 1883 sq. 2 vols.
- 犹太史料：斐洛（Philo）和约瑟夫斯（Josephus），见§ 14，第92页。约瑟夫斯对于公元70年犹太战争和耶路撒冷被毁的历史至关重要，这一事件标志着基督教会与犹太会堂和圣殿的彻底决裂。犹太伪经和塔木德文献为使徒的训练、他们的教导形式以及早期教会的纪律和崇拜提供了信息和例证。莱特福特（Lightfoot）、舒特根（Schöttgen）、卡斯泰利（Castelli）、德利奇（Delitzsch）、文舍（Wünsche）、齐格弗里德（Siegfried）、舒勒（Schürer）等少数人已将这些史料提供给解经家和历史学家使用。此处亦可参考§ 9，第61页提到的约斯特（Jost）、格拉茨（Graetz）和盖格（Geiger）的犹太著作，以及汉堡格（Hamburger）正在出版的《犹太教百科全书（圣经与塔木德）》（Real-Ecyclopädie des Judenthums (für Bibel und Talmud))。
- 异教徒作者：塔西佗（Tacitus）、普林尼（Pliny）、苏维托尼乌斯（Suetonius）、琉善（Lucian）、塞尔苏斯（Celsus）、波菲利（Porphyry）、朱利安（Julian）。他们提供的信息零碎、大多是偶然的、歪曲的和敌对的，但具有相当大的护教价值。
参考纳撒尼尔·拉德纳（Nath. Lardner，卒于1768年）：《古代犹太和异教徒对基督教真理的见证集》（Collection of Ancient Jewish and Heathen Testimonies to the Truth of the Christian Religion）。最初于1764-67年在伦敦分4卷出版，后收录于其《作品集》的多个版本中（第VI卷，第365-649页，基皮斯编辑）。
II. 使徒时期历史著作
William Cave (安立甘宗，卒于1713年): Lives of the Apostles, and the two Evangelists, St. Mark and St. Luke. 伦敦，1675年，新版由H. Cary修订，牛津，1840年（纽约再版，1857年）。另参考Cave的 Primitive Christianity, 第4版，伦敦，1862年。
Joh. Fr. Buddeus (路德宗，卒于耶拿，1729年): Ecclesia Apostolica. 耶拿，1729年。
George Benson (卒于1763年): History of the First Planting of the Christian Religion. 伦敦，1756年，3卷，4开本（德译本由Bamberger翻译，哈雷，1768年）。
J. J. Hess (卒于苏黎世，1828年): Geschichte der Apostel Jesu. 苏黎世，1788年；第4版，1820年。
Gottl. Jac. Planck (卒于哥廷根，1833年): Geschichte des Christenthums in der Periode seiner Einführung in die Welt durch Jesum und die Apostel. 哥廷根，1818年，2卷。
*奥古斯特·尼安德 (Aug. Neander，卒于柏林，1850年): Geschichte der Pflanzung und Leitung der Christlichen Kirche durch die Apostel. 汉堡，1832年，2卷；第4修订版，1847年。英译本 (History of the Planting and Training of the Christ. Church)，由J. E. Ryland翻译，爱丁堡，1842年，并收录于Bohn标准文库，伦敦，1851年；费城再版，1844年；由E. G. Robinson修订，纽约，1865年。此书标志着一个时代，至今仍具价值。
F. C. Albert Schwegler (卒于图宾根，1857年): Das nachapostolische Zeitalter in den Hauptmomenten seiner Entwicklung. 图宾根，1845年，1846年，2卷。这是一次极端批判的尝试，试图将使徒时期的文献（除五卷书外）转移到后使徒时期。
*费迪南德·克里斯蒂安·鲍尔 (Ferd. Christ. Baur，卒于1860年): Das Christenthum und die christliche Kirche der drei ersten Jahrhunderte. 图宾根，1853年，第2修订版，1860年（536页）。第3版只是第2版的重印或标题版，并构成其五卷本《教会通史》的第一卷，由其子编辑，1863年。这是图宾根学派大师对使徒历史重构的最后也是最出色的阐述。见第一卷，第1–174页。英译本由Allen Menzies翻译，2卷，伦敦，1878年和1879年。另参考鲍尔的《保罗》，第二版由Ed. Zeller修订，1866年和1867年，并由A. Menzies翻译，2卷，1873年，1875年。鲍尔的批判性研究迫使人们对使徒时期的传统观点进行彻底修正，尽管其存在根本性错误，但迄今为止仍非常有用。
A. P. Stanley (威斯敏斯特教长): Sermons and Essays on the Apostolic Age. 牛津，1847年。第3版，1874年。
*Heinrich W. J. Thiersch (爱尔文派，1885年卒于巴塞尔): Die Kirche im apostolischen Zeitalter. 法兰克福，1852年；第3版，奥格斯堡，1879年，“改进版”，但改动甚微。（英译本据第一版由Th. Carlyle翻译，伦敦，1852年。）
*J. P. Lange (卒于1884年):Das apostolische Zeitalter. 不伦瑞克，1854年，2卷。
Philip Schaff: History of the Apostolic Church, 最初为德文版，宾夕法尼亚州梅瑟斯堡，1851年；第2增订版，莱比锡，1854年；英文版由E. D. Yeomans博士翻译，纽约，1853年，1卷；爱丁堡，1854年，2卷；数次再版未作改动。（荷兰文版据第二德文版由T. W. Th. Lublink Weddik翻译，蒂尔，1857年。）
*G. V. Lechler (莱比锡教授): Das apostolische und das nachapostolische Zeitalter. 第2版，1857年；第3版彻底修订，莱比锡，1885年。英译本由Miss Davidson翻译，爱丁堡，1887年。保守派。
*Albrecht Ritschl (卒于哥廷根，1889年): Die Entstehung der altkatholischen Kirche. 第2版，波恩，1857年。第一版与图宾根学派观点一致；但第二版有重大改进，并为里奇尔学派奠定了基础。
*Heinrich Ewald (卒于哥廷根，1874年): Geschichte des Volkes Israel, 第VI和VII卷。第2版，哥廷根，1858年和1859年。这部巨著的第VI卷包含使徒时期至耶路撒冷被毁的历史；第VII卷包含后使徒时期至哈德良统治时期的历史。英译本 History of Israel 由R. Martineau和J. E. Carpenter翻译，伦敦，1869年起。第VI和VII卷无翻译计划。埃瓦尔德（“哥廷根的怪鸟” (Urvogel von Göttingen)）走了一条独立于传统正统和图宾根学派的道路，他谴责后者比异教徒还糟糕。见第VII卷前言。
*E. de Pressensé: Histoire des trois premiers siècles de l’église chrétienne. 巴黎，1858年起，4卷。德译本由E. Fabarius翻译（莱比锡，1862–65年）；英译本由Annie Harwood-Holmden翻译（伦敦和纽约，1870年，新版，伦敦，1879年）。第一卷包含第一世纪的内容，标题为 Le siècle apostolique; 修订版，1887年。
*Joh. Jos. Ign. von Döllinger (罗马天主教，1870年后为旧天主教): Christenthum und Kirche in der Zeit der Gründung. 雷根斯堡，1860年。第2版，1868年。英译本由H. N. Oxenham翻译，伦敦，1867年。
C. S. Vaughan: The Church of the First Days. 伦敦，1864–65年。3卷。《使徒行传》讲座。
N. Sepp (罗马天主教): Geschichte der Apostel Jesu his zur Zerstörung Jerusalems. 沙夫豪森，1866年。
C. Holsten: Zum Evangelium des Paulus und des Petrus. 罗斯托克，1868年 (447页)。
Paul Wilh. Schmidt 与 Franz v. Holtzendorf: Protestanten-Bibel Neuen Testaments. 第二修订版，莱比锡，1874年。这是一个对图宾根学派观点的通俗解经摘要，由Bruch、Hilgenfeld、Holsten、Lipsius、Pfleiderer等人撰稿。
A. B. Bruce (格拉斯哥教授): The Training of the Twelve. 爱丁堡，1871年，第二版，1877年。
*Ernest Renan (法兰西学院院士): Histoire des origines du Christianisme. 巴黎，1863年起。第一卷为《耶稣生平》（Vie de Jésus），1863年，见§ 14（第97和98页）；其后是II.《使徒》（Les Apôtres），1866年；III.《圣保罗》（St. Paul），1869年；IV.《敌基督》（L’Antechrist），1873年；V.《福音书》（Les Évangiles），1877年；VI.《基督教会》（L’Église Chrétienne），1879年；VII. 最后一卷，《马可·奥勒留》（Marc-Auréle），1882年。第II、III、IV、V卷属于使徒时期；最后两卷属于下一时期。这是一位持怀疑态度的局外人的作品，才华横溢、文笔优美、学识渊博。其价值随卷数增加而提升。《耶稣生平》是最有趣和最受欢迎的一卷，但也是迄今为止最受争议的，因为它几乎亵渎了最神圣的主题。
Emil Ferriére: Les Apôtres. 巴黎，1875年。
Supernatural Religion. An Inquiry into the Reality of Divine Revelation. 伦敦，1873年，（第七）“完整修订版”，1879年，3卷。这部匿名作品是图宾根学派鲍尔、施特劳斯、策勒、施韦格勒、希尔根费尔德、沃尔克马等人的批判性思辨的英文再现和汇集。可称之为施韦格勒《后使徒时代》的扩充版。第一卷主要讨论神迹问题的哲学思辨；第一卷剩余部分（第212–485页）和第二卷则对正典福音书的使徒起源进行历史探究，结论为否定。第三卷讨论《使徒行传》、书信和《启示录》，以及复活和升天的证据，这些都被解释为幻觉或神话。作者从神迹先验不可信的肯定出发，得出其不可能的结论；而这一哲学结论贯穿了整个历史研究。舒勒博士在1879年的《神学文献报》第26期（第622页）中，否认此书对德国的科学价值，但称赞其对近期德国文献的非凡熟悉和在收集历史细节方面的勤奋。莱特福特、桑迪、埃兹拉·阿博特等人揭露了其学术上的缺陷和作者推理的错误前提。该书的迅速销售表明了怀疑主义的广泛传播，以及在英美土地上重新进行德国和荷兰神学论战的必要性；希望这次能取得更辉煌的胜利。
*J. B. Lightfoot (自1879年起为达勒姆[Durham]主教): 一系列针对“超自然宗教”的详尽文章，发表于《当代评论》1875年至1877年。应以书本形式再版。另参考匿名作者在第六版长篇序言中的回应。莱特福特的《保罗书信注释》包含关于使徒时期几个历史问题的宝贵附录，特别是《加拉太书注释》中关于“圣保罗与三使徒”的部分，第283–355页。
W. Sanday: The Gospels in the Second Century. 伦敦，1876年。此书旨在反驳《超自然宗教》的批判部分。关于马吉安对圣路加福音的诺斯底式删改和重构的第八章（第204页起）先前已发表于1875年6月的《两周评论》，并在英国本土终结了一场先前在德国图宾根学派圈子内进行的争论。马吉安福音优先的荒谬假设曾由里奇尔、鲍尔和施韦格勒倡导，但被同派的沃尔克马和希尔根费尔德驳斥；于是鲍尔和里奇尔光荣地放弃了他们的错误。《超自然宗教》的匿名作者在其第七版中效仿了他们。德国人主要从历史和教义角度进行这场争论；桑迪借助霍尔茨曼对路加风格和词汇的分析，增补了语文学和文本论证。
A. Hausrath (海德堡教授): Neutestamentliche Zeitgeschichte. 海德堡，1873年起。第二和第三部分（第二版，1875年）涵盖使徒时期，第四部分（1877年）涵盖后使徒时期。英译本由Poynting和Quenzer翻译，伦敦，1878年起。H. 属于图宾根学派。
Dan. Schenkel (海德堡教授): Das Christusbild der Apostel und der nachapostolischen Zeit. 莱比锡，1879年。参考H. Holtzmann在Hilgenfeld的《科学神学杂志》1879年，第392页的评论。
H. Oort and I. Hooykaas: The Bible for Learners, 荷兰文译本由Philip H. Wicksteed翻译，第III卷（新约，由Hooykaas撰写），波士顿版第463–693页，1879年。（英文版为第VI卷）。这是对理性主义图宾根和莱顿批判学派的通俗摘要，受莱顿大学神学教授A. Kuenen博士的启发。其内容与上述《新教徒圣经》（Protestanten-Bibel）基本一致。
*George P. Fisher (耶鲁学院教授，纽黑文): The Beginnings of Christianity. 纽约，1877年。另参考作者早前的著作：Essays on the Supernatural Origin of Christianity, with special reference to the Theories of Renan, Strauss, and the Tübingen School. 纽约，1865年。新增订版，1877年。
*C. Weizsäcker (鲍尔在图宾根的继任者): Das Apostolische Zeitalter. 弗赖堡，1886年。批判性强且极具能力。
*O. Pfleiderer (柏林教授): Das Urchristenthum, seine Schriften und Lehren. 柏林，1887年。（图宾根学派。）
III. 使徒时期的年表
Rudolph Anger: De temporum in Actis Apostolorum ratione. 莱比锡，1833年（208页）。
Henry Browne: Ordo Saeculorum. A Treatise on the Chronology of the Holy Scriptures. 伦敦，1844年。第95–163页。
Karl Wieseler: Chronologie des apostolischen Zeitalters. 哥廷根，1848年（606页）。
早期和专门的著作见于Wieseler，第6–9页。另见Schäffer翻译的Lechler关于《使徒行传》的著作中详尽的使徒时期年表（在美国版Lange注释中）；Henry B. Smith的《教会史年表》（1860年）；以及Weingarten的《教会史年表》，第3版，1888年。
§ 21. 使徒时期的总体特征
“那从圣保罗胸中迸发出的战斗呐喊，
难道没有唤起千百场争战的回响？
而约翰的琴弦又奏出了何等和平的回音，
响彻了千百颗心灵！
有多少迅猛的火焰被点燃，
作为彼得火花的反映！
又见他人默默献上祭品，
那是因他们在雅各的门下成长：——
一个主题，以变奏的形式，
从最初的开端，响彻万古千秋。”(Tholuck.)
使徒时期的范围与环境
使徒时期从五旬节延伸至圣约翰去世，涵盖了约七十年，从公元30年到100年。活动领域是巴勒斯坦，并逐渐扩展到叙利亚、小亚细亚、希腊和意大利。最突出的中心是耶路撒冷、安提阿和罗马，它们分别代表了犹太基督教、外邦基督教和联合大公基督教的母教会。其次是 以弗所和哥林多。以弗所因约翰的居住和工作而获得了特殊的重要性，其影响通过波利卡普（Polycarp）和爱任纽（Irenaeus）在第二世纪得以体现。撒玛利亚、大马士革、约帕、凯撒利亚、推罗、塞浦路斯、小亚细亚各省、特罗亚、腓立比、帖撒罗尼迦、庇哩亚、雅典、克里特、拔摩岛、马耳他、部丢利等地也作为基督教信仰被建立的地点而出现。通过被腓利改变信仰的太监，福音传到了埃塞俄比亚女王甘大基那里。[1] 早在公元58年，保罗就可以说：“从耶路撒冷，及至以利哩古，我都传扬了基督的福音。”[2] 他后来将福音带到了罗马，那里在此之前就已经有人听闻，并且可能远至西班牙，即帝国的西部边界。[3]
在第一世纪，福音所触及的民族有犹太人、希腊人和罗马人，使用的语言是希伯来语或亚兰语，特别是希腊语，这在当时是罗马帝国内文明和国际交往的工具。
同期的世俗历史包括从提庇留到尼禄和图密善的罗马皇帝统治时期，他们要么忽视要么迫害基督教。我们直接接触到希律·亚基帕一世王（大希律的孙子），杀害使徒长老雅各的凶手；他的儿子亚基帕二世王（希律家族的最后一人），他与他的妹妹百尼基（一个极其腐败的女人）一起听了保罗的申辩；两位罗马总督，腓力斯和非斯都；法利赛人和撒都该人；斯多葛派和伊壁鸠鲁派；以弗所的庙宇和剧院，雅典的亚略巴古法庭，以及罗马的凯撒宫。
信息来源
《使徒行传》的作者以福音书作者讲述耶稣故事时同样质朴的简约和宁静的信念，记录了基督教从犹太教首都到异教首都的英雄征程；他深知这故事无需修饰，无需辩解，无需主观反思，它必将凭借其内在的属灵力量取得胜利。
《使徒行传》和保罗书信为我们提供了直到公元63年的可靠信息。彼得和保罗的身影消失在尼禄迫害的熊熊烈火中，那场迫害似乎要将基督教本身吞噬。关于那场恶魔般的景象，除了异教徒历史学家的信息外，我们从可靠来源中一无所知。[4] 几年后，耶路撒冷被毁，这必然造成了极其深刻的印象，并切断了犹太基督教与旧神权政治的最后联系。这一事件确实在基督的预言中被记载于福音书中，但对于其可怕的应验，我们依赖于一位不信的犹太人的记述，而作为敌人的见证，其说服力更强。
第一世纪剩下的三十年笼罩在神秘的黑暗中，只有约翰的著作为其带来一丝光明。这是教会历史中我们了解最少却又最想了解的时期。这一时期是教会传说和批判性猜想的热土。历史学家将多么感激地欢迎任何在彼得和保罗殉道与约翰去世之间，以及约翰去世与殉道者游斯丁（Justin Martyr）和爱任纽（Irenaeus）时代之间发现的任何新的可靠文献。
成功的原因
至于第一世纪末基督教的信徒数量，我们没有任何信息。那个时代没有统计报告。在罗马帝国一亿多居民中，五十万的估计可能有些夸大。五旬节在耶路撒冷一天之内三千人信主，[5] 以及尼禄治下“数量庞大”的殉道者，[6] 支持较高的估计。安提阿、以弗所和哥林多的教会也足够强大，能够承受争议和分裂的压力。[7] 但大多数会众无疑规模很小，通常只是一小撮穷人。在乡村地区，异教（正如其名所示）存留最久，甚至超过了君士坦丁时代。基督徒皈依者大多属于社会中下层，如渔夫、农民、工匠、商人、被释放的奴隶和奴隶。圣保罗说：“按着肉体有智慧的不多，有能力的不多，有尊贵的也不多。神却拣选了世上愚拙的，叫有智慧的羞愧；又拣选了世上软弱的，叫那强壮的羞愧。神也拣选了世上卑贱的，被人厌恶的，以及那无有的，为要废掉那有的，使一切有血气的，在神面前一个也不能自夸。”[8] 然而，这些贫穷、没有文化的教会却是最高贵恩赐的领受者，对一个不朽心灵所能关注的最深奥问题和最高尚思想充满活力。基督教是从基础向上建立的。未来崛起的人物来自下层阶级，他们不断补充上层阶级，防止其衰败。
在四世纪初君士坦丁皈依时，基督徒的人数可能达到了一千万或一千二百万，约占罗马帝国总人口的十分之一。有些估计更高。
在最不利的情况下，基督教的迅速成功令人惊讶，这本身就是其最好的辩护。它是在一个冷漠或敌对的世界中，通过纯粹属灵和道德的方式实现的，没有流一滴血，除了其无辜殉道者的血。吉本（Gibbon）在他著名的《历史》第十五章中，将基督教的迅速传播归因于五个原因，即：(1) 基督徒从犹太人那里继承的偏执但广泛的宗教热情；(2) 灵魂不朽的教义，古代哲学家对此只有模糊和梦幻般的想法；(3) 归于早期教会的神奇能力；(4) 早期基督徒更纯洁但严谨的道德；(5) 教会的统一和纪律，它在帝国内部逐渐形成了一个不断壮大的共同体。但是，如果正确理解，这些原因中的每一个都指向基督教的卓越性和神圣起源，而这正是这位自然神论历史学家所忽略的主要原因。
使徒时期的意义
基督的生平是基督教的神人合一的源头；使徒时期则是作为与犹太会堂分离并有组织的基督教会的源头。这是圣灵的时代，是为所有后世立法和启示的时代。
在这里，新创造的活水以其原始的清新和纯洁涌流而出。基督教作为一种超自然的事实从天而降，然而它早已被预言和准备，并适应了人性的最深需求。神迹奇事和圣灵的非凡彰显，为的是使不信的犹太人和异教徒归信，伴随着它进入这个罪恶的世界。它在我们堕落的种族中永久居住，通过一种安静的、如酵母般的过程，不通过战争或流血，逐渐将其转变为一个真理和公义的国度。它外表谦逊、卑微、不引人注目，但始终意识到其神圣的起源和永恒的命运；没有金银，却富于超自然的恩赐和能力，信心坚固，爱心热切，盼望喜乐；在瓦器里装着天上不朽的珍宝，它以唯一真实、完美的宗教姿态，为地上万国呈现在历史舞台上。起初在肉眼看来是一个微不足道甚至可鄙的教派，被犹太人和异教徒憎恨和迫害，它却使希腊的智慧和罗马的权力黯然失色，很快就在亚、非、欧的大城市中竖起了十字架的旗帜，并证明自己是世界的希望。
凭借早期基督教的这种原始纯洁、活力与美丽，其单一却取之不尽的文献的经典权威，以及使徒们的品格——那些圣灵的受感器皿，那些未受教育的人类导师——使徒时期在教会历史上具有无可比拟的趣味和重要性。它是整个历史不可动摇的基础。它对教会所有后续发展所具有的规范力量，就如同使徒们受感的著作对所有后世基督徒作者的作品所具有的规范力量一样。
此外，使徒时期的基督教是预成性的，包含了所有后续时期、人物和趋势的活生生的胚芽。它高举教义和纪律的最高标准；它是所有真正进步的鼓舞人心的天才；它向每个时代提出其特有的问题，并赋予解决问题的能力。基督教永远不能超越基督，但它在基督里成长；神学不能超越神的话语，但它必须在理解和应用神的话语上不断进步。三位主要使徒不仅代表了使徒教会的三个阶段，也代表了基督教的多个时代和类型，然而他们都存在于每一个时代和每一种类型中。[9]
代表性使徒
彼得、保罗和约翰作为被拣选的三位杰出人物，完成了使徒时代的伟大工作，并通过他们的著作和榜样，对所有后世产生了决定性的影响。与他们相对应的是三个影响中心：耶路撒冷、安提阿和罗马。
我们的主亲自从十二门徒中拣选了三位作为他最亲密的同伴，他们是唯一见证变像和客西马尼园痛苦的人。他们不负所望，彼得和约翰以其长期而成功的工作，而长老雅各则早早地饮下了他主人的苦杯，成为十二门徒中的首位殉道者。[10] 自他于公元44年去世后，主的兄弟雅各似乎接替了他，成为受割礼教会的三大“柱石”之一，尽管他严格来说不属于使徒，而且他作为耶路撒冷教会领袖的影响力更多是地方性的而非普世性的。[11]
保罗是最后被呼召的，且不合常规，是借着从天而降的荣耀之主的亲自显现而被呼召的。在权柄和重要性上，他与三位柱石中的任何一位都相等，但他作为一个独立的外邦人使徒，有他自己的位置。他身边有一小群同工和学生，如巴拿巴、西拉、提多、提摩太、路加。
最初的十二门徒中的九位，包括取代犹大位置的马提亚，无疑在罗马帝国各地和直到野蛮人边界的地方忠实而有效地传讲福音，但他们的职位是次要的，我们对他们的工作只从模糊而不确定的传统中得知。[12]
我们可以在《使徒行传》中追踪雅各和彼得的工作，直到公元50年的耶路撒冷会议及其后不久；保罗的工作则到他公元61-63年在罗马的第一次监禁；约翰则活到第一世纪末。关于他们最后的工作，我们在新约中没有确切的信息，但古代一致的见证是，彼得和保罗在尼禄迫害期间或之后在罗马殉道，而约翰在以弗所自然去世。《使徒行传》在保罗仍在罗马作为囚犯生活和工作，“放胆传讲神的国，并教导有关主耶稣基督的事，无人禁止”时戛然而止。这是一个意味深长的结局。
很难找到三个同样伟大和良善，同样被恩典圣化的天赋异禀，被对共同主人的深厚而强烈的爱紧密联系在一起，并为同一事业而努力，但在性情和体质上却如此不同的人，如彼得、保罗和约翰。彼得在历史上是早期教会的主要支柱，是磐石使徒，是新耶路撒冷十二块基石之首；约翰是救主的心爱门徒，是雷子，是翱翔的雄鹰，是爱的使徒；保罗是基督徒自由和进步的捍卫者，是最伟大的宣教士，心中怀着“为众教会挂心的事”，是基督教义体系的阐释者，是基督教神学之父。彼得是行动派，总是急于行事并乐于带头；第一个承认基督，第一个在五旬节传讲基督；保罗在言行上同样有力；约翰是神秘默想者。彼得没有学问，完全务实；保罗既是学者和思想家，也是实干家；约翰是神智学家和先知。彼得性格乐观、热情、冲动、充满希望、心地善良，易于突变，“始终如一地不一致”（用亚里士多德的话说）；保罗性格暴躁、精力充沛、大胆、高尚、独立、不妥协；约翰有些忧郁、内向、保守，内心燃烧着对基督的爱和对敌基督的恨。彼得的书信充满了甜蜜的恩典和安慰，是深刻谦卑和丰富经历的结果；保罗的书信则充满了严谨的思辨和逻辑论证，但有时能升到天籁般雄辩的高度，如对爱的天使般描绘和《罗马书》第八章的胜利凯歌；约翰的著作则简约、宁静、深刻、直观、崇高、取之不尽。
我们很想更多地了解这些柱石使徒之间的个人关系，但只能满足于一些零星的线索。他们在不同的领域工作，在忙碌的生活中很少见面。时间太宝贵，他们的工作太严肃，不容有伤感的朋友之乐。保罗在归信三年后，于公元40年前往耶路撒冷，目的就是为了亲自认识彼得，并与他共度了两周；他没有见到其他使徒，只见到主的兄弟雅各。[13] 他在公元50年的耶路撒冷会议上会见了柱石使徒，并与他们达成了关于分工和割礼问题的和平协议；老使徒们向他和巴拿巴伸出“相交的右手”，以示兄弟情谊和忠诚。[14] 不久之后，保罗在安提阿第三次会见彼得，但在基督徒自由以及犹太和外邦信徒联合的重大问题上与他发生了公开冲突。[15] 这次冲突只是暂时的，但显著地揭示了使徒时代的深刻动荡和发酵，并预示了教会未来的对抗与和解。几年后（公元57年），保罗最后一次提到矶法和主的弟兄们，关于娶妻并在传教旅程中带上妻子的权利。[16] 彼得在他的第一封写给保罗派教会的书信中，坚固了他们的保罗式信仰，在他的第二封书信中，即他的最后遗嘱，他深情地推荐他“所亲爱的兄弟保罗”的书信，但补充了一个所有解经家都必须承认是真实的特点性评论，即（即使不提安提阿的那一幕）其中“有些难明白的”。[17] 根据传统（细节上差异很大），犹太和外邦基督教的伟大领袖在罗马相遇，一同受审并被定罪，保罗，作为罗马公民，在奥斯提亚路上的三泉被剑处死；彼得，加利利的使徒，在雅尼库伦山上被处以更具侮辱性的十字架酷刑。约翰在他的福音书中多次提到彼得，特别是在附录中，[18] 但从未提及保罗；他似乎只在耶路撒冷见过他一次，与他行了右手相交之礼，成为他在小亚细亚丰硕工场的继承者，并在他的基础上建造。
彼得是使徒时代基督教第一阶段的主要角色，应验了他名字的预言，为犹太人和外邦人奠定了教会的基础。在第二阶段，他被保罗强大的工作所掩盖；但在使徒时代之后，他又在教会的记忆中脱颖而出。他被罗马教会选为特别的守护圣徒和第一任教皇。他总是被排在保罗之前。大多数教堂都奉献给他。以这位既无金也无银，像罪犯和奴隶一样被钉十字架的加利利渔夫的名义，头戴三重冠的教皇们废黜君王，动摇帝国，在地上和炼狱中分发祝福和诅咒，甚至现在仍声称拥有为天主教世界无误地解决所有基督教教义和纪律问题的权力。
保罗是使徒教会第二阶段的主要行动者，是外邦人的使徒，是小亚细亚和希腊基督教的奠基人，是将新宗教从犹太教的束缚中解放出来的解放者，是福音自由的先驱，是改革和进步的旗手。他的主导影响在罗马也感受得到，并且在克莱门特的真书信中清晰可见，克莱门特对他比对彼得更为重视。但不久之后，除了名字，他几乎被遗忘。他确实与彼得一起被认为是罗马教会的创始人，但处于次要地位；他写给罗马人的书信，即使在今天，罗马人也很少阅读和理解；他的教堂位于永恒之城墙外，而圣彼得大教堂则是其主要的装饰和荣耀。只有在非洲，他才受到赏识，首先是粗犷而活泼的德尔图良，然后是深刻的奥古斯丁，奥古斯丁在其宗教经历中也经历了类似的对比；但奥古斯丁的保罗主义罪与恩典的教义对东方教会毫无影响，在西方教会中实际上被伯拉纠主义的倾向所压倒。很长一段时间里，保罗的名字被反天主教的异端和宗派分子在抗议传统主义和仪式主义的新枷锁时使用和滥用。但在十六世纪，他实现了真正的复兴，并启发了福音派的宗教改革。那时，他写给加拉太人和罗马人的书信被路德和加尔文以号角般的声音重新出版、解释和应用。那时，他对犹太化偏见和律法束缚的抗议被重新提出，基督徒自由的权利在最大范围内得到伸张。在教会历史上的所有人中，除了圣奥古斯丁，马丁·路德，这位曾经的拘谨修士，后来的自由先知，在言行上与外邦人的使徒最有亲和力，从那时起，保罗的天才就主导了新教的神学和宗教。正如基督的福音被逐出耶路撒冷去祝福外邦人一样，保罗写给罗马人的书信也被逐出罗马，去启蒙和解放遥远北方和西方的的新教国家。
圣约翰，耶稣最亲密的同伴，爱的使徒，那位回顾万物创世之前、展望万物末世之后的先知，那位要等到主再来的人，在犹太基督教和外邦基督教的争论中保持了距离。他在《使徒行传》和《加拉太书》中作为柱石使徒之一出现，但没有一句话被记载。他以一种保留的力量，在神秘的沉默中等待着他自己的时机，这个时机直到彼得和保罗完成了他们的使命才到来。然后，在他们离世后，他在他奇妙的著作中揭示了他天才的隐藏深度，这些著作代表了使徒教会最后和顶峰的工作。约翰从未被完全理解，但在教会历史的所有时期，人们都感觉到他最了解并描绘了主，并可能在时代的冲突中说出最后的话，并迎来一个和谐与和平的时代。保罗是战斗教会的英雄领袖，约翰是得胜教会的神秘先知。
在整个使徒时代和所有后来的时代里，远在他们所有人之上的是那位伟大的主，彼得、保罗和约翰都从他那里汲取灵感，他们在他面前虔诚地敬拜，他们一生一死只为事奉和荣耀他，他们至今仍在他们的著作中指着他，他是上帝的完美形象，是罪与死亡的救主，是永生的赐予者，是冲突信条和学派的神圣和谐，是基督教信仰的阿拉法和俄梅戛。
§ 22. 使徒时期历史的批判性重构
信息我倒是听到了，只是缺少信心。
“Die Botschaft hör’ ich wohl, allein mir fehlt der Glaube.”歌德
在教会历史上，从未像我们这一代这样，从完全对立的立场，如此彻底地审视基督教的起源及其原始文献。这耗费了许多最杰出的学者和批评家的时间和精力。这本“包含全世界智慧”的小书，其重要性和力量如此之大，以至于它要求不断进行新的研究，并使各种信仰和不信的严肃思想家们行动起来，仿佛他们的生命取决于对它的接受或拒绝。没有一个事实或教义没有被彻底探究。基督的整个生平，使徒们的辛劳和著作，及其倾向、对抗和和解，都在学者们中间被理论性地再现，并在所有可能的方面进行审视。后使徒时代也因必然的联系被卷入研究过程，并被置于新的光照之下。
教父时代的伟大圣经学者们，主要致力于从神圣记载中汲取关乎普世救恩的教义和圣洁生活的准则；宗教改革家及早期的新教神学家们则带着特别的热忱重新研究圣经，为要阐明那些使他们与罗马教会分离的福音派信条；但他们都站在一个共同的立场上，即敬虔地相信圣经的神圣默示与权威。当今时代则是一个尤为注重历史与批判的时代。圣经正经历着与任何其他古代文学作品同样的研究和分析过程，其唯一目的便是查明事实真相。我们想要了解，基督教作为一个历史现象，在其与当代事件和思潮的有机联系中，其精确的起源、逐渐的成长和最终的完成过程。它从伯利恒的马槽到加略山的十字架，从耶路撒冷的楼房到凯撒的宝座所经历的整个过程，都将依据常规历史发展的法则被重现、解释和理解。也正是在这个批判的过程中，基督教信仰的根基遭到了攻击和动摇，以至于如今的问题变成了“生存还是毁灭”。歌德的评论既深刻又真实：“信仰与不信的冲突，依然是世界和人类历史的真正、唯一、最深的主题，所有其他主题都从属于它。”
现代批判运动可以说始于1830年左右，目前仍在全面进行中，并可能持续到十九世纪末，正如使徒教会本身也经历了七十年的发展才展现出其全部资源。起初它仅限于德国（施特劳斯、鲍尔和图宾根学派），后来传播到法国（雷南）和荷兰（斯科尔滕、库嫩），最后传到英国（《超自然宗教》）和美国，因此这场战斗现在已遍及整个新教世界。
圣经批判有两种：文本批判和历史批判。
文本批判
文本或言辞批判的目标是，根据最古老和最可信的来源，即大写字母手稿（尤其是梵蒂冈抄本和西奈抄本）、尼西亚会议前的译本和教父引文，尽可能地恢复希腊文新约的原始文本。在这方面，我们的时代借助古代手稿的重大发现，取得了巨大成功。通过拉赫曼（Lachmann，他为正确理论开辟了道路，Novum Testament. Gr., 1831, large Graeco-Latin edition, 1842–50, 2 vols.）、蒂申多夫（Tischendorf，第8版批判版，1869–72, 2 vols.）、特雷格勒斯（Tregelles，1857, completed 1879）、韦斯科特和霍特（Westcott and Hort，1881, 2 vols.）等人的宝贵劳动，我们现在有了一个比相对较晚且有讹误的“公认文本”(textus receptus)（伊拉斯谟及其追随者，如司提反、伯撒和埃尔泽维尔家族的版本，这是所有常用新教译本的基础）更古老、更纯粹的文本，这个文本今后必须成为所有修订译本的基础。在传统派与进步派之间经过激烈斗争后，现在在这个圣经研究的基础领域，批评家们之间已达到显著的和谐。新文本实际上是更古老的文本，而改革者在这种情况下是恢复者。这些结果远非动摇对新约的信仰，反而确立了文本的实质性完整性，尽管从所有来源中逐渐收集到了十五万个异读。值得注意的是，十九世纪最伟大的文本批评家都是信徒，他们相信的不是一种站不住脚且不值得辩护的机械或魔法般的默示，而是相信正典著作的神圣起源和权威，这一信念的基础远比任何特定的人类默示理论更为坚实。
历史批判
历史或内在批判（德国人称之为“高等批判”，höhere Kritik）处理新约著作的起源、精神和目的，它们的历史环境，以及在导致二世纪大公教会 triumphant 建立的伟大思想和宗教进程中的有机地位。在柏林的尼安德博士（Dr. Neander，卒于1850年）和图宾根的鲍尔博士（Dr. Baur，卒于1860年）的领导下，它呈现出两种截然不同的形态。这两位学者在教会史的矿藏中辛勤工作，彼此保持着尊重的距离，从未有过私人接触。尼安德和鲍尔都是巨人，在天才和学识、诚实和认真方面不相上下，但在精神上却大相径庭。他们为历史研究注入了强大的动力，并留下了一长串的学生和独立追随者，继续进行原始基督教的历史批判性重构。他们的影响在法国、荷兰和英国都能感受到。尼安德于1832年出版了他的《使徒时代》第一版，1837年出版了他的《耶稣生平》（反驳施特劳斯）（他的《教会通史》第一卷已于1825年出版，修订版1842年）；鲍尔于1831年写了他关于“哥林多党派”的文章，1844年和1847年发表了他对正典福音书的批判性研究，1845年出版了他的《保罗》（第二版由策勒修订，1867年），1853年出版了他的《前三世纪教会史》（修订版1860年）。他的学生施特劳斯（Strauss）先于他发表了第一部《耶稣生平》（Leben Jesu，1835年），该书引起的轰动超过了上述任何一部著作，仅被近三十年后雷南的《耶稣生平》（Vie de Jésus，1863年）所超越。雷南以独立的学识和卓越的天才，为法国公众再现并普及了施特劳斯和鲍尔的观点，而《超自然宗教》的作者则在英国呼应了图宾根和莱顿的思辨。另一方面，保守派批判的领袖莱特福特主教（Bishop Lightfoot）宣称，他从德国的尼安德那里学到的东西比从任何近代神学家那里都多（《当代评论》，1875年，第866页）。马修·阿诺德（Matthew Arnold）说（《文学与教条》，序言，第十九页）：“在所有科学问题上，尤其是在神学和圣经研究中，要获取事实和数据，人们会去德国。德国，这是她的崇高荣誉，已经探明了事实并将其展示出来。没有对事实的了解，任何清晰或公正的头脑在任何研究中都无能为力；这一点无论怎么强调都不过分。”但他否认德国人有“敏锐和细腻的感知力”。除了学识和感知力，要从事实中得出正确的结论还需要更多东西：健全的常识和均衡的判断力。而当我们处理神圣和超自然的事实时，我们首先需要的是一颗敬畏的心和那作为超自然器官的信心。这正是两个学派分歧的地方，与国籍无关；因为信心不是一种民族性的天赋，而是一种个人的恩赐。
两个对立的学派
由尼安德和鲍尔引入的两种关于使徒历史的理论，在原则和目标上是对立的，仅由寻求真理的道德纽带联系在一起。前者是保守和重构的，后者是激进和破坏的。前者接受正典福音书和《使徒行传》为关于基督生平和使徒工作的诚实、真实和可信的回忆录；后者则将其大部分内容斥为后使徒时代的非历史性神话或传说，并反过来过度相信二世纪的狂野异端小说。前者在正统教会所持守的真理与异端派别所持的谬误之间划出了一条本质的界线；后者则抹去了这些界线，并将异端置于使徒教会的内部阵营中。前者基于对上帝和基督的信仰，这意味着在有充分证据的情况下相信超自然和神迹；后者则从哲学上认为超自然和神迹是不可能的，并试图从纯粹的自然原因来解释福音历史和使徒历史，就像解释任何其他历史一样。前者对新约有道德和属灵以及智识上的兴趣，后者则纯粹是智识和批判性的兴趣。前者带着内心和良知中对神圣真理的主观体验来进行历史研究，并且知道并感觉到基督教是一种从罪和错误中拯救出来的力量；后者则仅仅将其视为众多宗教中最好的一种，这些宗教最终都注定要让位于理性和哲学的至高无上。这场争论的关键在于历史上是否有上帝；正如当代自然科学中的斗争关键在于自然界中是否有上帝一样。相信一位在历史和自然中全能且无所不在的位格神，就意味着超自然和神奇启示的可能性。绝对的无预设 (Voraussetzungslosigkeit，如施特劳斯所要求的) 是绝对不可能的，“无中不能生有”(ex nihilo nihil fit)。争论的双方都有预设，一方是肯定的，另一方是否定的，历史本身必须在它们之间做出裁决。事实必须支配哲学，而不是哲学支配事实。如果能够证明，基督的生平和使徒教会只有通过承认它们所声称的超自然元素才能在心理上和历史上得到解释，而其他任何解释只会增加问题的难度，并用一种非自然的奇迹取代一个超自然的奇迹，那么历史学家就赢得了这场官司，而哲学家则应调整其理论以适应历史。历史学家的责任不是制造事实，而是发现事实，然后构建一个足够宽广的理论，让所有事实都能舒适地容身其中。
使徒教会中所谓的对立
图宾根学派的理论始于一个假设，即以彼得为代表的犹太或原始基督教与以保罗为代表的外邦或进步基督教之间存在根本性的对立。该理论将新约的所有著作都解释为带有倾向性的作品 (Tendenzschriften)，它们提供给我们的不是纯粹的历史，而是为了某一派别或两派之间妥协的利益而调整过的历史，以服务于教义和实践目的。[19] 保罗写给加拉太人、罗马人、哥林多人的前书和后书——这些被公认为毫无疑问的真品——展现了反犹太和普世的基督教，而保罗本人必须被视为其主要创始人。《启示录》由使徒约翰于69年写成，展现了原始的犹太和狭隘的基督教，这与他作为受割礼者的“柱石”使徒之一的地位相符（加2:9），并且这是老使徒们唯一真实可信的文献。
鲍尔（《基督教会史》，I., 80页起）和雷南（《圣保罗》，第X章）甚至断言，这位真正的约翰将保罗排除在使徒名单之外（启21:14，这里只留了十二个位置），并间接攻击他为“假犹太人”（启2:9; 3:9）、“假使徒”（2:2）、“假先知”（2:20），如同“巴兰”（2:2, 6, 14, 15; 参 犹11; 彼后2:15）；正如《克莱门讲道集》（Clementine Homilies）以术士西门和异端之首的名义攻击他一样。雷南还将雅各的兄弟犹大的整封书信解释为对保罗的攻击，这封信是雅各组织的犹太反宣教行动的一部分，从耶路撒冷发出，几乎摧毁了保罗的工作。
新约的其他著作都是后使徒时期的产物，展示了联合运动的各个阶段，这一运动最终导致了二、三世纪正统教会的形成。《使徒行传》是一部大公教会的和平协定（Irenicon），它通过使彼得自由化和使保罗收缩或犹太化来调和犹太和外邦基督教，并掩盖他们之间的差异；尽管它可能基于路加的早期叙述，但直到一世纪末才被编成现在的样子。正典福音书，无论其早期记录基础如何，同样是后使徒时期的，因此作为历史叙述是不可靠的。《约翰福音》则是一位不知名的、具有深厚宗教天才的诺斯底派或神秘主义者的纯粹理想创作，他处理历史上的耶稣就像柏拉图在他的《对话录》中处理苏格拉底一样自由，并在哈德良时代以精湛的文学技巧完成了这一统一过程，其成书时间肯定不早于二世纪三十年代。鲍尔将其时间推迟到170年；希尔根费尔德则提前到140年，凯姆到130年，雷南到哈德良时代。
因此，整个新约文献被描绘成一个世纪的活生生的产物，是使徒和后使徒时代的一系列论战性和和平性小册子的集合。我们得到的不是同时代的、可靠的历史，而是一系列思想运动和文学虚构。神的启示让位于主观的幻象和错觉，默示被发展所取代，真理被真理与谬误的混合物所取代。使徒文献被置于与导致尼西亚正统形成的尼西亚时代的论战性文献同等的地位，或者与导致新教教义体系形成的宗教改革时期的文献同等的地位。
历史从不重演，但相同的规律和趋势以不断变化的形式再现。这种现代批判主义是二世纪异端学派观点的显著复兴。伪克莱门讲道集的以便尼派作者和诺斯底派的马吉安同样假设犹太和外邦基督教之间存在不可调和的对立，不同的是，前者反对保罗，视其为大异端和诽谤彼得者，而马吉安（约140年）则认为保罗是唯一真正的使徒，老使徒们是基督教的犹太化败坏者；因此，他拒绝了整个旧约和那些他认为是犹太化的新约书卷，在他的正典中只保留了删节版的《路加福音》和十封保罗书信（不包括教牧书信和《希伯来书》）。在现代批判主义眼中，这些狂野的异端分子比《使徒行传》的作者是更好的使徒时代历史学家。
诺斯底异端，尽管其具有破坏性倾向，但在古代教会中作为一种推动力，发挥了重要作用，并对教父神学产生了影响。同样，这种现代诺斯底主义也必须被承认，它通过消除旧偏见，开辟新的思想途径，揭示第一世纪的巨大发酵，激励研究，并迫使对基督教和教会起源的历史进行全面的科学重构，为圣经和历史研究做出了巨大贡献。其结果将是更深刻、更全面的知识，不是削弱而是加强我们的信仰。
反应
在这高等批判学派的学者中存在相当大的分歧，虽然鲍尔的一些学生（如施特劳斯、沃尔克马）甚至超越了他的立场，但其他人则对传统观点做出了让步。鲍尔本人在思想上发生了一个最重要的变化，即关于保罗的归信，他在临终前不久（1860年）承认，这对他来说是一个无法解决的心理问题，近乎一个神迹。里奇尔（Ritschl）、霍尔茨曼（Holtzmann）、利普修斯（Lipsius）、普夫莱德雷尔（Pfleiderer），尤其是罗伊斯（Reuss）、魏茨泽克（Weizsäcker）和凯姆（Keim）（他们和最激进的批评家一样没有正统偏见），都修正和纠正了图宾根学派的许多极端观点。即使是希尔根费尔德（Hilgenfeld），尽管他热衷于“进步神学”（Fortschrittstheologie）并反对“倒退神学”（Rückschrittstheologie），也承认七封而不是四封保罗书信为真品，将对观福音和《希伯来书》（他认为这是亚波罗在70年之前写的）的成书日期提前，并说：“不可否认，鲍尔的批判超出了适度的范围，给教会的信仰造成了太深的创伤”（《新约历史批判导论》，1875年，第197页）。雷南承认九封保罗书信，《使徒行传》的基本真实性，甚至约翰福音的叙事部分，但他拒绝接受其中的讲论，认为它们浮夸、夸张、形而上学、晦涩和乏味！（见他在《基督教会》（L’église chrétienne）第一至五章，第45页起的最新讨论）。马修·阿诺德和其他批评家则反其道而行之，接受这些讲论为所有人类作品中最崇高的，充满了“天堂的荣耀”（himmlische Herrlichkeiten，借用凯姆的表达，尽管凯姆完全拒绝第四福音）。申克尔（Schenkel，在他的《使徒的基督形象》，1879年）大大缓和了彼得主义和保罗主义之间的对立，并承认（序言，第十一页）在他的研究过程中，他“被迫相信《使徒行传》是一个比现代批判学通常认为的更可信的信息来源；其中除了众所周知的‘我们’来源（Wirquelle）外，还包含有其他值得信赖的古老文献；并且撰写它的保罗派作者并未有意歪曲事实，只是将它们置于他所处时代和环境看来以及必须看来是那样的光照下。在我看来，他并未为了误导读者而人为地将一个保罗化的彼得或一个彼得化的保罗搬上舞台，而是根据他所掌握的不完整信息，如实地描绘了这两位使徒。”凯姆在他最后一部著作（《从原始基督教中来》，Aus dem Urchristenthum，1878年，他去世前一年）中得出了类似的结论，并（在一篇关于“使徒会议”的批判性文章中，第64-89页）反对鲍尔、施韦格勒和策勒，但从同样的自由批判立场出发，并承认有后来的增补，证明了《使徒行传》和《加拉太书》在关于耶路撒冷使徒会议和协议方面基本一致。埃瓦尔德（Ewald）始终走自己的路，在大胆和任意的批判方面与鲍尔不相上下，但他猛烈反对鲍尔，并为《使徒行传》和《约翰福音》辩护。
除了这些德国的声音，我们还可以加上马修·阿诺德的见证，他是广派神学家和批评家中最勇敢、最开明的一位。尽管他非常钦佩鲍尔，但仍将他描述为一个“不安全的向导”，并抗议他关于保罗和柱石使徒之间存在深仇大恨的假设，认为这完全不符合公认的保罗的宗教伟大性，也与柱石使徒与耶稣的亲近关系不符（《上帝与圣经》，1875年，序言，vii-xii）。至于第四福音，这个如今这场激烈争论中最炙手可热的焦点，同一位作者在从内到外审视后得出结论，它“不是一部虚构作品，而是一份严肃而宝贵的文献，充满了传统所给的事件和真实的‘主的话语’”（第370页），并且“在最自由的批判被公正而严格地应用之后……仍然留下了一个真实可靠的残余，包含了第四福音中所有最深刻、最重要和最美丽的东西”（第372页）。
积极派
虽然在破坏性批判主义的阵营中出现了瓦解的迹象，但新约著作的历史真实性和真实性也从不同立场得到了博学有力的捍卫者，如尼安德（Neander）、乌尔曼（Ullmann）、C. F. 施密德（C. F. Schmid，鲍尔在图宾根的同事）、罗特（Rothe）、多尔纳（Dorner）、埃布拉德（Ebrard）、莱希勒（Lechler）、兰格（Lange）、蒂尔施（Thiersch）、维泽勒（Wieseler）、霍夫曼（Hofmann，埃尔朗根学派）、卢塔特（Luthardt）、克里斯特利布（Christlieb）、贝施拉格（Beyschlag）、乌尔霍恩（Uhlhorn）、魏斯（Weiss）、戈代（Godet）、埃德蒙·德·普雷桑塞（Edm. de Pressensé）。
英美学界也已开始以莱特福特（Lightfoot）、普朗特（Plumptre）、韦斯科特（Westcott）、桑迪（Sanday）、法拉（Farrar）、G. P. 费舍尔（G. P. Fisher）、埃兹拉·阿博特（Ezra Abbot，关于《第四福音的作者身份》，1880年）等学者为代表，勇敢而成功地应对这些问题。英美神学不大可能被这些来自欧洲大陆的超批判性思辨所广泛败坏。它在活跃的教会生活以及民众的信念和情感中有更坚实的立足点。德法思想，如同雅典人一样，总是倾向于讲述和倾听新事物，而英美思想则更关心什么是真实的，无论是旧是新。而真理最终必将获胜。
圣保罗对历史基督教的见证
幸运的是，即使是要求最苛刻的现代批判学派，也给我们留下了一个固定的支点，我们可以用它来论证基督教的真理，那就是保罗写给加拉太人、罗马人和哥林多人的四封书信。这些书信被公认为毫无疑问的真品，并成为攻击新约其他部分的阿基米德支点。我们打算仅限于这些书信。它们具有至关重要的历史和教义价值；它们代表了第一代基督徒，写于公元54至58年之间，也就是在基督被钉十字架后的四分之一个世纪内，当时老使徒和基督生平的大多数主要目击者仍然在世。作者本人是基督的同代人；在基督教赖以建立的重大事件发生时，他住在耶路撒冷；他与公会和杀害基督的人关系密切；他没有被有利的偏见所蒙蔽，而是一个猛烈的迫害者，有各种动机来为自己的敌意辩护；而在他彻底归信（公元37年）后，他与最初的门徒交往，可以从他们口中得知他们的亲身经历（加1:18; 2:1–11）。
现在，在这些被公认的、受过最好教育的使徒的文献中，我们拥有原始基督教所有重大事件和真理的最清晰证据，以及对现代怀疑主义主要反对意见和困难的满意答复。[20]
它们证明了
- 基督生平的主要事实：他的神圣使命，他由女人所生，出自大卫王室，他圣洁的生活和榜样，他的被出卖、受难和为世人的罪而死，他在第三天复活，他多次向门徒显现，他升天并被高举到上帝的右边，他将从那里再来审判人类，人们敬拜基督为弥赛亚、主和罪的救主、上帝的永恒之子；还证明了十二门徒的拣选，洗礼和主餐的设立，圣灵的差遣，教会的建立。保罗经常提及这些事实，特别是钉十字架和复活，不是以详细叙述的方式，而是在教义阐述和劝勉中顺带提及，对象是已经通过口头讲道和教导熟悉这些事的人。参考 加3:13; 4:4–6; 6:14; 罗1:3; 4:24, 25; 5:8–21; 6:3–10; 8:3–11, 26, 39; 9:5; 10:6, 7; 14:5; 15:3; 林前1:23; 2:2, 12; 5:7; 6:14; 10:16; 11:23–26; 15:3–8, 45–49; 林后5:21。
- 保罗自己的归信和蒙召成为使徒，是借着从天上荣耀的救赎主亲自向他显现。加 1:1, 15, 16; 林前 9:1; 15:8。
- 基督教会的起源和在罗马帝国各地的迅速发展，从耶路撒冷到安提阿和罗马，在犹太、叙利亚、小亚细亚、马其顿和亚该亚。他说，罗马教会的信德“传遍了天下”，并且“在各处”都有敬拜耶稣为主的人。这些小教会彼此之间保持着活泼积极的交往，尽管由不同的教师建立，并因意见和实践上的差异而分心，但他们敬拜同一位神圣的主，并形成了一个信徒的弟兄团体。加 1:2, 22; 2:1, 11; 罗 1:8; 10:18; 16:26; 林前 1:12; 8:1; 16:19 等。
- 当时教会中存在神迹能力。保罗自己也行了使徒的标记和大事。罗 15:18, 19; 林前 2:4; 9:2; 林后 12:12。然而，他并不十分强调外在的感官神迹，而更看重内在的道德神迹和圣灵在使罪人在一个极其败坏的社会中重生和成圣方面不断显现的大能。林前 12 至 14; 6:9–11; 加 5:16–26; 罗 6 和 8。
- 这些年轻教会中存在着许多激烈的争论，但这些争论并非关于他们信仰所基于的、双方都完全承认的重大事实，而是关于从这些事实中得出的教义和仪式推论，特别是关于割礼和摩西律法是否继续有效的议题，以及关于保罗使徒权威的个人问题。犹太派信徒坚持老使徒的优越地位，并指责他彻底背离了他们祖先那可敬的宗教；而保罗则用基督的赎罪死亡和复活若因律法称义便是徒然的论点来反驳他们。加 2:21; 5:2–4。
- 尽管保罗与老使徒们在立场和工作领域上存在差异，但他们在教义和属灵上是基本和谐的。在这里，《加拉太书》2:1-10 的见证——这正是怀疑派的堡垒——却有力地反驳了他们的观点。因为保罗明确指出，在公元50年的耶路撒冷会议上，受割礼者的“柱石”使徒雅各、彼得和约翰，认可了他过去十四年所传的福音；他们没有“加增”他什么，没有给他新的教导，没有强加给他任何新的条件或任何形式的负担，相反，他们承认上帝在他身上的恩典和他对外邦人的特殊使命，并向他和巴拿巴伸出“相交的右手”，以示兄弟情谊和忠诚。他明确而尖锐地区分了使徒和“偷着引进来的假弟兄，他们进来窥探我们在基督耶稣里的自由，要把我们拘于奴役之下”，他“一刻的工夫也没有容让顺服他们”。他对犹太使徒最严厉的话语是尊称；他称他们为教会的柱石，“有名望的人”（οἱ στῦλοι, οἱ δοκοῦντες”，加 2:6, 9）；而他却真诚谦卑地认为自己是“使徒中最小的”，因为他曾逼迫神的教会（林前 15:9）。
保罗的这一陈述使得（鲍尔、施韦格勒、策勒和雷南）的假设变得根本不可能和荒谬，即约翰会如此自相矛盾和愚蠢，在《启示录》中攻击他生前承认为弟兄的保罗，在他死后称他为假使徒和撒但会堂的头目。这种鲁莽和骇人听闻的断言，要么把保罗，要么把约翰变成了说谎者。陷入各种道德和礼仪污秽的《启示录》中的反律法和敌基督的异端分子（启 2:14, 15），同样会受到保罗和约翰的谴责；是的，他自己在对以弗所长老的告别演说中，就已经预言并描述了这类教师为“凶暴的豺狼”，在他离开后会进入他们中间，或从他们中间兴起，不爱惜羊群（徒 20:29, 30）。在淫乱问题上，他与《启示录》的教导完全一致（林前 3:15, 16; 6:15–20）；至于吃祭偶像之物（εἰδωλόθυτον）的问题，虽然他认为这事本身无关紧要，因为偶像算不得什么，但他谴责这种行为，只要它冒犯了那些更严谨的犹太归信者软弱的良心（林前 8:7–13; 10:23–33; 罗 14:2, 21）；这与使徒会议的决定是一致的（徒 15:29）。
- 保罗在安提阿与彼得的冲突，加2:11-14，这被图宾根理论视为坚固的堡垒，却证明了恰恰相反的结论。因为这并非原则和教义上的分歧；相反，保罗明确断言，彼得起初自由且习惯性地（注意未完成时态 συνήθειεν，加2:12）与外邦信徒交往，视他们为基督里的弟兄，但被来自耶路撒冷顽固犹太信徒的使者所威吓，违背了他自从在约帕见到异象以来（徒10:10-16）就持有的更佳信念，以及他在耶路撒冷会议上如此大胆承认（徒15:7-11）并在安提阿实行的信念。我们在这里看到的是同一个冲动、易受影响、多变的门徒，第一个承认主，也是第一个否认主，却又在痛苦的悔改和真诚的谦卑中迅速回到主身边。正是因为这种行为上的不一致，保罗称之为伪装或虚伪的强烈措辞，他为了基督徒自由的伟大原则毫不妥协的热情，在教会面前公开指责了他。一个公开的错误必须被公开纠正。根据图宾根的假设，虚伪的应该是彼得恰恰相反的行为。彼得当时默默顺服，证明了他对年轻同工的尊重，这既是对他的赞扬，也是对他软弱的指责。这种疏远只是暂时的，并未破坏他们的弟兄关系，这从几年后他们彼此提及对方时仍是尊敬而坦率的同工使徒的态度中可以明显看出。参考 加1:18, 19; 2:8, 9; 林前9:5; 彼后3:15, 16，以及马可和西拉作为他们之间的联系，轮流服事他们二人的事实。[21]
因此，《加拉太书》为这个难题提供了正确的解决方案，并从根本上证实了《使徒行传》的记载。它证明了保罗与老使徒之间的和谐与差异。它驳斥了他们之间关系如同二世纪的马吉安派和以便尼派的假设。这些人是使徒时代异端的后裔，是“偷着引进来的假弟兄”（ψευδαδέλφοι παρείσακτοι, 加2:4）；而真正的使徒们则承认并持续承认，那有效感动彼得使犹太人归信的，和有效感动保罗使外邦人归信的，是同一个上帝的恩典。至于犹太派信徒会引用犹太使徒，反律法主义的诺斯底派会引用保罗作为他们的权威，这并不比现代理性主义者引用路德和宗教改革更令人惊讶。
我们因此在一开始就相当详细地讨论了当前看待使徒教会历史的两个立场之间的根本差异，并为我们自己在这场争论中的总体立场进行了辩护。
我们不能假定所有模糊不清之处都已得到满意地澄清，或者将来能被解决到无可争议的地步。在那个在自然和历史中已足够清晰地启示自己以坚固我们信心的上帝，以及足够隐藏以考验我们信心的上帝那里，必然会留下一些信仰的空间。在使徒时代的天空中，某些星际空间将永远是空白的，以便人们能更专注地凝视那些明亮的星辰，而后使徒时期的书籍在它们面前就如同火炬般消失了。仔细研究二、三世纪的教会作家，特别是众多的伪经《行传》、《书信》和《启示录》，会给人留下一个强烈的印象，即新约在纯洁、真实、简约和庄严方面具有不可估量的优越性；而这种优越性指向了上帝圣灵的特殊作为，没有这种作为，这本万书之书就是一个无法解释的奥秘。
§ 23. 使徒时期的年表
见§ 20 第193、194页引用的著作，特别是维泽勒（Wieseler）的作品。另请参阅哈克特（Hackett）关于《使徒行传》的论述，第22至30页（第三版）。
使徒时期的年表部分是确定的，至少在几年之内，部分是推测性的：从公元30年到70年的主要事件是确定的，而期间的节点以及第一世纪最后三十年的时间则是推测性的。史料来源是新约（特别是《使徒行传》和保罗书信）、约瑟夫斯和罗马历史学家。约瑟夫斯（生于37年，卒于103年）在这里尤其有价值，因为他撰写了直到耶路撒冷被毁的犹太历史。
以下日期或多或少是确定的，并被大多数历史学家所接受：
- 公元30年五月的五旬节，基督教会的建立。这是基于基督生于公元前4或5年，并于公元30年4月被钉十字架，享年三十三岁的假设。
- 希律·亚基帕一世王于公元44年去世（根据约瑟夫斯）。这确定了在此之前长老雅各殉道、彼得被囚和获释的日期（徒12:2, 23）。
- 公元50年耶路撒冷的使徒会议（徒15:1及后；加2:1-10）。这个日期是通过回溯到保罗的归信，并前推到他在凯撒利亚的被囚来确定的。保罗可能在37年归信，从那件事到会议经过了“十四年”。但年代学家对保罗归信的年份有分歧，在31年到40年之间。[22]
- 《加拉太书》、《哥林多前后书》和《罗马书》的写作日期在56年至58年之间。《罗马书》的写作日期可以根据其自身的线索结合《使徒行传》的陈述，几乎精确到月份。它是在使徒尚未到过罗马时写的，但当时他正准备启程前往耶路撒冷和罗马，并途经西班牙，[23] 在他为犹太的贫穷弟兄在马其顿和亚该亚的募捐工作完成后；[24] 他通过哥林多东港教会的女执事非比寄送这封信，当时他就在那里。[25] 这些线索清楚地指向58年春天，因为那年他在耶路撒冷被捕并被带到凯撒利亚。
- 保罗在凯撒利亚被囚，公元58年至60年，期间总督为腓力斯和非斯都，他们在60年或61年交接，可能是在60年。这个重要的日期我们可以通过结合约瑟夫斯和塔西佗的几段记载来确定。[26] 这也使我们能够通过回溯来确定使徒生平中一些先前的事件。
- 保罗在罗马的第一次被囚，公元61年至63年。这是根据前一个日期和《使徒行传》28:30的陈述得出的。
- 罗马被囚期间的书信：《腓立比书》、《以弗所书》、《歌罗西书》和《腓利门书》，公元61-63年。
- 尼禄的迫害，公元64年（根据塔西佗，为尼禄在位的第十年）。保罗和彼得的殉道发生在那时，或者（根据传统）几年后。这个问题取决于保罗是否在罗马有第二次被囚。
- 提多摧毁耶路撒冷，公元70年（根据约瑟夫斯和塔西佗）。
- 约翰在图拉真即位后去世，公元98年（根据普遍的教会传统）。
对观福音、《使徒行传》、教牧书信、《希伯来书》以及彼得、雅各和犹大的书信的日期无法准确确定，只能说它们是在耶路撒冷被毁之前写成的，大多在60至70年之间。约翰的著作是在那之后，接近第一世纪末写的，除了《启示录》，一些最优秀的学者根据内部线索将其定于68或69年，即尼禄去世和耶路撒冷被毁之间。
详细信息见下表：
| 年份 | 关键事件 | 同期历史 |
|---|---|---|
| 公元前 5/4 | 基督诞生。 | 奥古斯都，罗马皇帝（公元前 27–公元 14）。 希律一世（大帝）去世。 |
| 公元 8 | 他十二岁时访问圣殿。 | 居里扭（奎里尼乌斯），叙利亚总督（第二次）。 人口登记，或“报税”（徒 5:37）。 “加利利的犹大”叛乱。 科波尼乌斯，犹太巡抚。 马库斯·安比维乌斯，巡抚。 |
| 9 | 提庇留成为奥古斯都的共治者。 | |
| 12 | 安尼乌斯·鲁孚斯，巡抚（约）。 | |
| 13 | 瓦勒里乌斯·格拉图斯，巡抚。 | |
| 14 | 奥古斯都去世。 提庇留成为独裁皇帝（14–37）。 |
|
| 26 | 本丢·彼拉多成为巡抚（自公元 26 年起）。 | |
| 27 | 基督受洗。 | 该亚法，大祭司（自公元 26 年起）。 |
| 27–30 | 他三年的事工。 | |
| 30 | 他被钉十字架、复活（四月）和升天（五月）。 圣灵在五旬节降临；教会的生日（五月）（徒 2）。 |
|
| 36 | 马塞勒斯，巡抚。 彼拉多被叙利亚总督送往罗马。 |
|
| 37 | 司提反殉道（徒 7）。 彼得和约翰在撒玛利亚（徒 8）。 扫罗归信（徒 9, 22, 26; 加 1:16; 林前 15:8）。 |
卡利古拉，皇帝（37–41）。 马里卢斯被任命为总督。 希律·亚基帕一世，犹太和撒玛利亚王。 |
| 40 | 扫罗从大马士革逃脱，归信后首次访问耶路撒冷（加 1:18）。 哥尼流被接纳入教会（徒 10, 11）。 |
斐洛在罗马。 |
| 41 | 克劳狄，皇帝（41-54）。 | |
| 44 | 耶路撒冷教会受迫害。 长老雅各被斩首。 彼得被囚并获释；离开巴勒斯坦（徒 12:2–23）。 保罗第二次访问耶路撒冷，带着安提阿的捐款（徒 11:30）。 |
希律·亚基帕一世在凯撒利亚去世。 征服不列颠（43-51）。 |
| 45 | 保罗被分别出来作使徒（徒 13:2）。 | 库斯皮乌斯·法杜斯，犹太巡抚。 |
| 46 | 提庇留·亚历山大，巡抚。 | |
| 47 | 文提狄乌斯·库马努斯，巡抚。 | |
| 50 | 保罗与巴拿巴和马可的第一次宣教旅程（塞浦路斯、皮西迪亚、路司得、特庇）；返回安提阿（徒 13, 14）。 雅各的《书信》（日期从44到62年不等）。 耶路撒冷使徒会议；犹太与外邦基督教的冲突（徒 15; 加 2:1-10）。 保罗第三次访问耶路撒冷。 在安提阿与彼得和巴拿巴的暂时冲突（加 2:11-14）。 |
|
| 51 | 保罗开始第二次宣教旅程，前往小亚细亚和希腊，开启欧洲的基督化进程（徒 15:36–18:22）。 | 安东尼乌斯·腓力斯，巡抚。 |
| 52–53 | 保罗在哥林多一年半。 从哥林多写《帖撒罗尼迦前书》和《后书》。 |
特拉可尼的分封地给予希律·亚基帕二世。 克劳狄颁布法令将犹太人逐出罗马。 |
| 54 | 保罗第四次访问耶路撒冷。 开始第三次宣教旅程（秋季）。 保罗在以弗所（54–57）（徒 19）。 |
尼禄，皇帝（54-68）。 |
| 55 | 由一名埃及人领导的匕首党人叛乱（徒 21:38）。 | |
| 56 | 保罗从以弗所或希腊写《加拉太书》（？）（徒 20）。 | |
| 57 | 保罗从以弗所写《哥林多前书》。 从马其顿写《哥林多后书》。 |
|
| 58 | 从哥林多写《罗马书》。 访问耶路撒冷（第五次）；被捕并在凯撒利亚被囚两年（徒 21:37–26:31）。 |
|
| 60 | 保罗在非斯都面前申辩，上告于凯撒，被送往意大利（秋季）。 在马耳他遭遇船难（徒 27, 28）。 |
波求·非斯都，巡抚。 |
| 61 | 保罗作为囚犯抵达罗马（春季）。 | 从耶路撒冷派往罗马的使团。 在不列颠与布狄卡的战争。 提亚那的亚波罗尼乌斯在奥林匹克运动会。 |
| 61–63 | 保罗在罗马监狱中写《腓立比书》、《以弗所书》、《歌罗西书》和《腓利门书》。 | |
| 62 | 主的兄弟雅各在耶路撒冷殉道。 | 约瑟夫斯在罗马。 |
| 63 | 保罗据信被释放（徒 28:30）。 | 阿尔比努斯，巡抚。 |
| 64 | 《希伯来书》从意大利写成。 | 革西乌斯·弗洛鲁斯，巡抚。 罗马大火（七月）；对基督徒的第一次帝国迫害。 |
| 64–67 | 彼得的《前书》、犹大的《书信》（？）、彼得的《后书》写成。 保罗访问克里特和马其顿；写《提摩太前书》和《提多书》（？）[27]。 保罗写《提摩太后书》（？）。 |
|
| 60–70 | 对观《福音书》和《使徒行传》写成。 | |
| 65 | 塞内加和卢坎被尼禄处死。 | |
| 66 | 罗马人与犹太人之间的大战开始。 | |
| 67 | 保罗和彼得在罗马殉道（？）。 | 维斯帕先成为巴勒斯坦的将军。 |
| 68 | 加尔巴，皇帝。 | |
| 68–69 | 约翰的《启示录》写成（？）。 | |
| 69 | 奥托和维特里乌斯，皇帝。 维斯帕先，皇帝。 |
|
| 70 | 提多摧毁耶路撒冷。 （约瑟夫斯获释。） |
|
| 76 | 罗马斗兽场开始建造。 | |
| 79 | 庞贝和赫库兰尼姆被毁。 提图斯，皇帝。 |
|
| 80–90 | 约翰写他的《福音书》和《书信》（？）。 | |
| 91 | 图密善，皇帝。 | |
| 95 | 约翰写《启示录》（？）。 | 基督徒受迫害。 |
| 96 | 涅尔瓦，皇帝。 | |
| 97 | 亚波罗尼乌斯去世。 | |
| 98–100 | 约翰去世。 | 图拉真，皇帝（自 98 年起）。 |
Original Text
Table of Contents
§ 20. Sources and Literature of the Apostolic Age.
§ 21. General Character of the Apostolic Age.
§ 22. The Critical Reconstruction of the History of the Apostolic Age.
§ 23. Chronology of the Apostolic Age.
§ 20. Sources and Literature of the Apostolic Age.
I. Sources.
- The Canonical Books of the New Testament.—The twenty-seven books of the New Testament are better supported than any ancient classic, both by a chain of external testimonies which reaches up almost to the close of the apostolic age, and by the internal evidence of a spiritual depth and unction which raises them far above the best productions of the second century. The church has undoubtedly been guided by the Holy Spirit in the selection and final determination of the Christian canon. But this does, of course, not supersede the necessity of criticism, nor is the evidence equally strong in the case of the seven Eusebian Antilegomena. The Tübingen and Leyden schools recognized at first only five books of the New Testament as authentic, namely, four Epistles of Paul-Romans, First and Second Corinthians, and Galatians—and the Revelation of John. But the progress of research leads more and more to positive results, and nearly all the Epistles of Paul now find advocates among liberal critics. (Hilgenfeld and Lipsius admit seven, adding First Thessalonians, Philippians, and Philemon; Renan concedes also Second Thessalonians, and Colossians to be Pauline, thus swelling the number of genuine Epistles to nine.) The chief facts and doctrines of apostolic Christianity are sufficiently guaranteed even by those five documents, which are admitted by the extreme left of modern criticism.
The Acts of the Apostles give us the external, the Epistles the internal history of primitive Christianity. They are independent contemporaneous compositions and never refer to each other; probably Luke never read the Epistles of Paul, and Paul never read the Acts of Luke, although he no doubt supplied much valuable information to Luke. But indirectly they illustrate and confirm each other by a number of coincidences which have great evidential value, all the more as these coincidences are undesigned and incidental. Had they been composed by post-apostolic writers, the agreement would have been more complete, minor disagreements would have been avoided, and the lacunae in the Acts supplied, especially in regard to the closing labors and death of Peter and Paul.
The Acts bear on the face all the marks of an original, fresh, and trustworthy narrative of contemporaneous events derived from the best sources of information, and in great part from personal observation and experience. The authorship of Luke, the companion of Paul, is conceded by a majority of the best modern scholars, even by Ewald. And this fact alone establishes the credibility. Renan (in his St. Paul, ch. 1) admirably calls the Acts “a book of joy, of serene ardor. Since the Homeric poems no book has been seen full of such fresh sensations. A breeze of morning, an odor of the sea, if I dare express it so, inspiring something joyful and strong, penetrates the whole book, and makes it an excellent compagnon de voyage, the exquisite breviary for him who is searching for ancient remains on the seas of the south. This is the second idyl of Christianity. The Lake of Tiberias and its fishing barks had furnished the first. Now, a more powerful breeze, aspirations toward more distant lands, draw us out into the open sea.”
- The Post-Apostolic and Patristic writings are full of reminiscences of, and references to, the apostolic books, and as dependent on them as the river is upon its fountain.
- The Apocryphal and Heretical literature. The numerous Apocryphal Acts, Epistles, and Apocalypses were prompted by the same motives of curiosity and dogmatic interest as the Apocryphal Gospels, and have a similar apologetic, though very little historical, value. The heretical character is, however, more strongly marked. They have not yet been sufficiently investigated. Lipsius (in Smith and Wace’s, “Dict. of Christ. Biog.” vol. I. p. 27) divides the Apocryphal Acts into four classes: (1) Ebionitic; (2) Gnostic; (3) originally Catholic; (4) Catholic adaptations or recensions of heretical documents. The last class is the most numerous, rarely older than the fifth century, but mostly resting on documents from the second and third centuries.
(a) Apocryphal Acts: Acta Petri et Pauli (of Ebionite origin, but recast), Acta Pauli et Theclae (mentioned by Tertullian at the end of the second century, of Gnostic origin), Acta Thomae (Gnostic), Acta Matthaei, Acta Thaddei, Martyrium Bartholomaei, Acta Barnabae, Acta Andreae, Acta Andreae et Mathiae, Acta Philippi, Acta Johannis, Acta Simonis et Judae, Acta Thaddaei, The Doctrine of Addai, the Apostle (ed. in Syriac and English by Dr. G. Phillips, London, 1876).
(b) Apocryphal Epistles: the correspondence between Paul and Seneca (six by Paul and eight by Seneca, mentioned by Jerome and Augustine), the third Epistle of Paul to the Corinthians, Epistolae Mariae, Epistolae Petri ad Jacobum.
(c) Apocryphal Apocalypses: Apocalypsis Johannis, Apocalypsis Petri, Apocalypsis Pauli (or ajnabatiko;n Pauvlou, based on the report of his rapture into Paradise, 2 Cor. 12:2–4), Apocalypsis Thomae, Apoc. Stephani, Apoc. Mariae, Apoc. Mosis, Apoc. Esdrae.
Editions and Collections:
Fabricius: Codex Apocryphus Novi Testamenti. Hamburg, 1703, 2d ed. 1719, 1743, 3 parts in 2 vols. (vol. II.)
Grabe: Spicilegium Patrum et Haereticorum. Oxford, 1698, ed. II. 1714.
Birch: Auctarium Cod. Apoc. N. Ti Fabrician. Copenh. 1804 (Fasc. I.). Contains the pseudo-Apocalypse of John.
Thilo: Acta Apost. Petri et Pauli. Halis, 1838. Acta Thomae. Lips. 1823.
Tischendorf: Acta Apostolorum Apocrypha. Lips. 1851.
Tischendorf: Apocalypses Apocryphae Mosis, Esdrae, Pauli, Joannis, item Mariae Dormitio. Lips. 1866.
R. A. Lipsius: Die apokryph Apostel geschichten und Apostel legenden. Leipz. 1883 sq. 2 vols.
- Jewish sources: Philo and Josephus, see § 14, p. 92. Josephus is all-important for the history of the Jewish war and the destruction of Jerusalem, a.d. 70, which marks the complete rapture of the Christian Church with the Jewish synagogue and temple. The apocryphal Jewish, and the Talmudic literature supplies information and illustrations of the training of the Apostles and the form of their teaching and the discipline and worship of the primitive church. Lightfoot, Schöttgen, Castelli, Delitzsch, Wünsche, Siegfried, Schürer, and a few others have made those sources available for the exegete and historian. Comp. here also the Jewish works of Jost, Graetz, and Geiger, mentioned § 9, p. 61, and Hamburger’s Real-Ecyclopädie des Judenthums (für Bibel und Talmud), in course of publication.
- Heathen writers: Tacitus, Pliny, Suetonius, Lucian, Celsus, Porphyry, Julian. They furnish only fragmentary, mostly incidental, distorted and hostile information, but of considerable apologetic value.
Comp. Nath. Lardner (d. 1768): Collection of Ancient Jewish and Heathen Testimonies to the Truth of the Christian Religion. Originally published in 4 vols. Lond. 1764–’67, and then in the several editions of his Works (vol. VI. 365–649, ed. Kippis).
II. Histories of the Apostolic Age.
William Cave (Anglican, d. 1713): Lives of the Apostles, and the two Evangelists, St. Mark and St. Luke. Lond. 1675, new ed. revised by H. Cary, Oxford, 1840 (reprinted in New York, 1857). Comp. also Cave’s Primitive Christianity, 4th ed. Lond. 1862.
Joh. Fr. Buddeus (Luth., d. at Jena, 1729): Ecclesia Apostolica. Jen. 1729.
George Benson (d. 1763): History of the First Planting of the Christian Religion. Lond. 1756, 3 vols. 4to (in German by Bamberger, Halle, 1768).
J. J. Hess (d. at Zurich, 1828): Geschichte der Apostel Jesu. Zür. 1788; 4th ed. 1820.
Gottl. Jac. Planck (d. in Göttingen, 1833): Geschichte des Christenthums in der Periode seiner Einführung in die Welt durch Jesum und die Apostel. Göttingen, 1818, 2 vols.
*Aug. Neander (d. in Berlin, 1850): Geschichte der Pflanzung und Leitung der Christlichen Kirche durch die Apostel. Hamb. 1832. 2 vols.; 4th ed. revised 1847. The same in English (History of the Planting and Training of the Christ. Church), by J. E. Ryland, Edinb. 1842, and in Bohn’s Standard Library, Lond. 1851; reprinted in Philad. 1844; revised by E. G. Robinson, N. York, 1865. This book marks an epoch and is still valuable.
F. C. Albert Schwegler (d. at Tübingen, 1857): Das nachapostolische Zeitalter in den Hauptmomenten seiner Entwicklung. Tübingen, 1845, 1846, 2 vols. An ultra-critical attempt to transpose the apostolic literature (with the exception of five books) into the post-apostolic age.
*Ferd. Christ. Baur (d. 1860): Das Christenthum und die christliche Kirche der drei ersten Jahrhunderte. Tübingen, 1853, 2d revised ed. 1860 (536 pp.). The third edition is a mere reprint or title edition of the second and forms the first volume of his General Church History, edited by his son, in 5 vols. 1863. It is the last and ablest exposition of the Tübingen reconstruction of the apostolic history from the pen of the master of that school. See vol. I. pp. 1–174. English translation by Allen Menzies, in 2 vols. Lond. 1878 and 1879. Comp. also Baur’s Paul, second ed. by Ed. Zeller, 1866 and 1867, and translated by A. Menzies, 2 vols. 1873, 1875. Baur’s critical researches have compelled a thorough revision of the traditional views on the apostolic age, and have so far been very useful, notwithstanding their fundamental errors.
A. P. Stanley (Dean of Westminster): Sermons and Essays on the Apostolic Age. Oxford, 1847. 3d ed. 1874.
*Heinrich W. J. Thiersch (Irvingite, died 1885 in Basle): Die Kirche im apostolischen Zeitalter. Francf. a. M. 1852; 3d ed. Augsburg, 1879, “improved,” but very slightly. (The same in English from the first ed. by Th. Carlyle. Lond. 1852.)
*J. P. Lange (d. 1884): Das apostolische Zeitalter. Braunschw. 1854. 2 vols.
Philip Schaff: History of the Apostolic Church, first in German, Mercersburg, Penns. 1851; 2d ed. enlarged, Leipzig, 1854; English translation by Dr. E. D. Yeomans, N. York, 1853, in 1 vol.; Edinb. 1854, in 2 vols.; several editions without change. (Dutch translation from the second Germ. ed. by T. W. Th. Lublink Weddik, Tiel, 1857.)
G. V. Lechler (Prof. in Leipzig): Das apostolische und das nachapostolische Zeitalter. 2d ed. 1857; 3d ed. thoroughly revised, Leipzig, 1885. Engl. trsl. by Miss Davidson,* Edinb. 1887. Conservative.
Albrecht Ritschl (d. in Göttingen, 1889): Die Entstehung der altkatholischen Kirche.* 2d ed. Bonn, 1857. The first edition was in harmony with the Tübingen School; but the second is materially improved, and laid the foundation for the Ritschl School.
Heinrich Ewald (d. at Göttingen, 1874): Geschichte des Volkes Israel, vols. VI. and VII. 2d ed. Göttingen, 1858 and 1859. Vol. VI. of this great work contains the History of the Apostolic Age to the destruction of Jerusalem; vol. VII. the History of the post-Apostolic Age to the reign of Hadrian. English translation of the History of Israel by R. Martineau and J. E. Carpenter. Lond. 1869 sqq. A trans. of vols. VI. and VII. is not intended. Ewald (the “Urvogel von Göttingen*”) pursued an independent path in opposition both to the traditional orthodoxy and to the Tübingen school, which he denounced as worse than heathenish. See Preface to vol. VII.
E. de Pressensé: Histoire des trois premiers siècles de l’église chrétienne. Par. 1858 sqq. 4 vols. German translation by E. Fabarius (Leipz. 1862–’65); English translation by Annie Harwood-Holmden (Lond. and N. York, 1870, new ed. Lond. 1879). The first volume contains the first century under the title Le siècle apostolique;* rev. ed. 1887.
Joh. Jos. Ign. von Döllinger (Rom. Cath., since 1870 Old Cath.): Christenthum und Kirche in der Zeit der Gründung*. Regensburg, 1860. 2d ed. 1868. The same translated into English by H. N. Oxenham. London, 1867.
C. S. Vaughan: The Church of the First Days. Lond. 1864–’65. 3 vols. Lectures on the Acts of the Apostles.
N. Sepp (Rom. Cath.): Geschichte der Apostel Jesu his zur Zerstörung Jerusalems. Schaffhausen, 1866.
C. Holsten: Zum Evangelium des Paulus und des Petrus. Rostock, 1868 (447 pp.).
Paul Wilh. Schmidt und Franz v. Holtzendorf: Protestanten-Bibel Neuen Testaments. Zweite, revid. Auflage. Leipzig, 1874. A popular exegetical summary of the Tübingen views with contributions from Bruch, Hilgenfeld, Holsten, Lipsius, Pfleiderer and others.
A. B. Bruce (Professor in Glasgow): The Training of the Twelve. Edinburgh, 1871, second ed. 1877.
Ernest Renan (de l’Académie Francaise): Histoire des origines du Christianisme*. Paris, 1863 sqq. The first volume is Vie de Jésus, 1863, noticed in § 14 (pp. 97 and 98); then followed II. Les Apôtres, 1866; III. St. Paul, 1869; IV. L’Antechrist, 1873; V. Les Évangiles, 1877; VI. L’Église Chrétienne, 1879; VII. and last volume, Marc-Auréle, 1882. The II., III., IV., and V. volumes belong to the Apostolic age; the last two to the next. The work of a sceptical outsider, of brilliant genius, eloquence, and secular learning. It increases in value as it advances. The Life of Jesus is the most interesting and popular, but also by far the most objectionable volume, because it deals almost profanely with the most sacred theme.
Emil Ferriére: Les Apôtres. Paris, 1875.
Supernatural Religion. An Inquiry into the Reality of Divine Revelation. Lond. 1873, (seventh), “complete ed., carefully revised,” 1879, 3 vols. This anonymous work is an English reproduction and repository of the critical speculations of the Tübingen School of Baur, Strauss, Zeller, Schwegler, Hilgenfeld, Volkmar, etc. It may be called an enlargement of Schwegler’s Nachapostolisches Zeitalter. The first volume is mostly taken up with a philosophical discussion of the question of miracles; the remainder of vol. I. (pp. 212–485) and vol. II. contain an historical inquiry into the apostolic origin of the canonical Gospels, with a negative result. The third volume discusses the Acts, the Epistles and the Apocalypse, and the evidence for the Resurrection and Ascension, which are resolved into hallucinations or myths. Starting with the affirmation of the antecedent incredibility of miracles, the author arrives at the conclusion of their impossibility; and this philosophical conclusion determines the historical investigation throughout. Dr. Schürer, in the “Theol. Literaturzeitung” for 1879, No. 26 (p. 622), denies to this work scientific value for Germany, but gives it credit for extraordinary familiarity with recent German literature and great industry in collecting historical details. Drs. Lightfoot, Sanday, Ezra Abbot, and others have exposed the defects of its scholarship, and the false premises from which the writer reasons. The rapid sale of the work indicates the extensive spread of skepticism and the necessity of fighting over again, on Anglo-American ground, the theological battles of Germany and Holland; it is to be hoped with more triumphant success.
J. B. Lightfoot (Bishop of Durham since 1879): A series of elaborate articles against “Supernatural Religion,” in the “Contemporary Review” for 1875 to 1877. They should be republished in book form. Comp. also the reply of the anonymous author in the lengthy preface to the sixth edition. Lightfoot’s Commentaries on Pauline Epistles contain valuable Excursuses on several historical questions of the apostolic age, especially St. Paul and the Three, in the Com. on the Galatians,* pp. 283–355.
W. Sanday: The Gospels in the Second Century. London, 1876. This is directed against the critical part of “Supernatural Religion.” The eighth chapter on Marcion’s Gnostic mutilation and reconstruction of St. Luke’s Gospel (pp. 204 sqq.) had previously appeared in the “Fortnightly Review” for June, 1875, and finishes on English soil, a controversy which had previously been fought out on German soil, in the circle of the Tübingen School. The preposterous hypothesis of the priority of Marcion’s Gospel was advocated by Ritschl, Baur and Schwegler, but refuted by Volkmar and Hilgenfeld, of the same school; whereupon Baur and Ritschl honorably abandoned their error. The anonymous author of “Supernatural Religion,” in his seventh edition, has followed their example. The Germans conducted the controversy chiefly under its historic and dogmatic aspects; Sanday has added the philological and textual argument with the aid of Holtzmann’s analysis of the style and vocabulary of Luke.
A. Hausrath (Prof. in Heidelberg): Neutestamentliche Zeitgeschichte. Heidelberg, 1873 sqq. Parts II. and III. (second ed. 1875) embrace the apostolic times, Part IV. (1877) the post-apostolic times. English translation by Poynting and Quenzer. Lond. 1878 sqq. H. belongs to the School of Tübingen.
Dan. Schenkel (Prof. in Heidelberg): Das Christusbild der Apostel und der nachapostolischen Zeit. Leipz. 1879. Comp. the review by H. Holtzmann in Hilgenfeld’s “Zeitschrift für wissensch. Theol.” 1879, p. 392.
H. Oort and I. Hooykaas: The Bible for Learners, translated from the Dutch by Philip H. Wicksteed, vol. III. (the New Test., by Hooykaas), Book III. pp. 463–693 of the Boston ed. 1879. (In the Engl. ed. it is vol. VI.) This is a popular digest of the rationalistic Tübingen and Leyden criticism under the inspiration of Dr. A. Kuenen, Professor of Theology at Leyden. It agrees substantially with the Protestanten-Bibel noticed above.
George P. Fisher (Prof. in Yale College, New Haven): The Beginnings of Christianity. N. York, 1877. Comp. also the author’s former work: Essays on the Supernatural Origin of Christianity, with special reference to the Theories of Renan, Strauss, and the Tübingen School.* New York, 1865. New ed. enlarged, 1877.
C. Weizsäcker (successor of Baur in Tübingen): Das Apostolische Zeitalter*. Freiburg, 1886. Critical and very able.
O. Pfleiderer (Prof. in Berlin): Das Urchristenthum, seine Schriften und Lehren.* Berlin, 1887. (Tübingen School.)
III. The Chronology of the Apostolic Age.
Rudolph Anger: De temporum in Actis Apostolorum ratione. Lips. 1833 (208 pp.).
Henry Browne: Ordo Saeculorum. A Treatise on the Chronology of the Holy Scriptures. Lond. 1844. Pp. 95–163.
Karl Wieseler: Chronologie des apostolischen Zeitalters. Göttingen, 1848 (606 pp.).
The older and special works are noticed in Wieseler, pp. 6–9. See also the elaborate Synopsis of the dates of the Apostolic Age in Schäffer’s translation of Lechler on Acts (in the Am. ed. of Lange’s Commentary); Henry B. Smith’s Chronological Tables of Church History (1860); and Weingarten: Zeittafeln zur K-Gesch. 3d ed. 1888.
§ 21. General Character of the Apostolic Age.
“Der Schlachtruf, der St. Pauli Brust entsprungen,
Rief nicht sein Echo auf zu tausend Streiten?
Und welch’ ein Friedensecho hat geklungen
Durch tausend Herzen von Johannis Saiten!
Wie viele rasche Feuer sind entglommen
Als Wiederschein von Petri Funkensprühen!
Und sieht man Andre still mit Opfern kommen,
Ist’s, weil sie in Jakobi Schul’gediehen:—
Ein Satz ist’s, der in Variationen
Vom ersten Anfang forttönt durch Aeonen.”
(Tholuck.)
Extent and Environment of the Apostolic Age.
The apostolic period extends from the Day of Pentecost to the death of St. John, and covers about seventy years, from a.d. 30 to 100. The field of action is Palestine, and gradually extends over Syria, Asia Minor, Greece, and Italy. The most prominent centres are Jerusalem, Antioch, and Rome, which represent respectively the mother churches of Jewish, Gentile, and United Catholic Christianity. Next to them are Ephesus and Corinth. Ephesus acquired a special importance by the residence and labors of John, which made themselves felt during the second century through Polycarp and Irenaeus. Samaria, Damascus, Joppa, Caesarea, Tyre, Cyprus, the provinces of Asia Minor, Troas, Philippi, Thessalonica, Beraea, Athens, Crete, Patmos, Malta, Puteoli, come also into view as points where the Christian faith was planted. Through the eunuch converted by Philip, it reached Candace, the queen of the Ethiopians.(1) As early as a.d. 58 Paul could say: “From Jerusalem and round about even unto Illyricum, I have fully preached the gospel of Christ.”(2) He afterwards carried it to Rome, where it had already been known before, and possibly as far as Spain, the western boundary of the empire.(3)
The nationalities reached by the gospel in the first century were the Jews, the Greeks, and the Romans, and the languages used were the Hebrew or Aramaic, and especially the Greek, which was at that time the organ of civilization and of international intercourse within the Roman empire.
The contemporary secular history includes the reigns of the Roman Emperors from Tiberius to Nero and Domitian, who either ignored or persecuted Christianity. We are brought directly into contact with King Herod Agrippa I. (grandson of Herod the Great), the murderer of the apostle, James the Elder; with his son King Agrippa II. (the last of the Herodian house), who with his sister Bernice (a most corrupt woman) listened to Paul’s defense; with two Roman governors, Felix and Festus; with Pharisees and Sadducees; with Stoics and Epicureans; with the temple and theatre at Ephesus, with the court of the Areopagus at Athens, and with Caesar’s palace in Rome.
Sources of Information.
The author of Acts records the heroic march of Christianity from the capital of Judaism to the capital of heathenism with the same artless simplicity and serene faith as the Evangelists tell the story of Jesus; well knowing that it needs no embellishment, no apology, no subjective reflections, and that it will surely triumph by its inherent spiritual power.
The Acts and the Pauline Epistles accompany us with reliable information down to the year 63. Peter and Paul are lost out of sight in the lurid fires of the Neronian persecution which seemed to consume Christianity itself. We know nothing certain of that satanic spectacle from authentic sources beyond the information of heathen historians.(4) A few years afterwards followed the destruction of Jerusalem, which must have made an overpowering impression and broken the last ties which bound Jewish Christianity to the old theocracy. The event is indeed brought before us in the prophecy of Christ as recorded in the Gospels, but for the terrible fulfilment we are dependent on the account of an unbelieving Jew, which, as the testimony of an enemy, is all the more impressive.
The remaining thirty years of the first century are involved in mysterious darkness, illuminated only by the writings of John. This is a period of church history about which we know least and would like to know most. This period is the favorite field for ecclesiastical fables and critical conjectures. How thankfully would the historian hail the discovery of any new authentic documents between the martyrdom of Peter and Paul and the death of John, and again between the death of John and the age of Justin Martyr and Irenaeus.
Causes of Success.
As to the numerical strength of Christianity at the close of the first century, we have no information whatever. Statistical reports were unknown in those days. The estimate of half a million among the one hundred millions or more inhabitants of the Roman empire is probably exaggerated. The pentecostal conversion of three thousand in one day at Jerusalem,(5) and the “immense multitude” of martyrs under Nero,(6) favor a high estimate. The churches in Antioch also, Ephesus, and Corinth were strong enough to bear the strain of controversy and division into parties.(7) But the majority of congregations were no doubt small, often a mere handful of poor people. In the country districts paganism (as the name indicates) lingered longest, even beyond the age of Constantine. The Christian converts belonged mostly to the middle and lower classes of society, such as fishermen, peasants, mechanics, traders, freedmen, slaves. St. Paul says: “Not many wise after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble were called, but God chose the foolish things of the world, that he might put to shame them that are wise; and God chose the weak things of the world that he might put to shame the things that are strong; and the base things of the world, and the things that are despised, did God choose, yea, and the things that are not, that he might bring to naught the things that are: that no flesh should glory before God.”(8) And yet these poor, illiterate churches were the recipients of the noblest gifts, and alive to the deepest problems and highest thoughts which can challenge the attention of an immortal mind. Christianity built from the foundation upward. From the lower ranks come the rising men of the future, who constantly reinforce the higher ranks and prevent their decay.
At the time of the conversion of Constantine, in the beginning of the fourth century, the number of Christians may have reached ten or twelve millions, that is about one-tenth of the total population of the Roman empire. Some estimate it higher.
The rapid success of Christianity under the most unfavorable circumstances is surprising and its own best vindication. It was achieved in the face of an indifferent or hostile world, and by purely spiritual and moral means, without shedding a drop of blood except that of its own innocent martyrs. Gibbon, in the famous fifteenth chapter of his “History,” attributes the rapid spread to five causes, namely: (1) the intolerant but enlarged religious zeal of the Christians inherited from the Jews; (2) the doctrine of the immortality of the soul, concerning which the ancient philosophers had but vague and dreamy ideas; (3) the miraculous powers attributed to the primitive church; (4) the purer but austere morality of the first Christians; (5) the unity and discipline of the church, which gradually formed a growing commonwealth in the heart of the empire. But every one of these causes, properly understood, points to the superior excellency and to the divine origin of the Christian religion, and this is the chief cause, which the Deistic historian omits.
Significance of the Apostolic Age.
The life of Christ is the divine-human fountainhead of the Christian religion; the apostolic age is the fountainhead of the Christian church, as an organized society separate and distinct from the Jewish synagogue. It is the age of the Holy Spirit, the age of inspiration and legislation for all subsequent ages.
Here springs, in its original freshness and purity, the living water of the new creation. Christianity comes down front heaven as a supernatural fact, yet long predicted and prepared for, and adapted to the deepest wants of human nature. Signs and wonders and extraordinary demonstrations of the Spirit, for the conversion of unbelieving Jews and heathens, attend its entrance into the world of sin. It takes up its permanent abode with our fallen race, to transform it gradually, without war or bloodshed, by a quiet, leaven-like process, into a kingdom of truth and righteousness. Modest and humble, lowly and unseemly in outward appearance, but steadily conscious of its divine origin and its eternal destiny; without silver or gold, but rich in supernatural gifts and powers, strong in faith, fervent in love, and joyful in hope; bearing in earthen vessels the imperishable treasures of heaven, it presents itself upon the stage of history as the only true, the perfect religion, for all the nations of the earth. At first an insignificant and even contemptible sect in the eyes of the carnal mind, hated and persecuted by Jews and heathens, it confounds the wisdom of Greece and the power of Rome, soon plants the standard of the cross in the great cities of Asia, Africa, and Europe, and proves itself the hope of the world.
In virtue of this original purity, vigor, and beauty, and the permanent success of primitive Christianity, the canonical authority of the single but inexhaustible volume of its literature, and the character of the apostles, those inspired organs of the Holy Spirit, those untaught teachers of mankind, the apostolic age has an incomparable interest and importance in the history of the church. It is the immovable groundwork of the whole. It has the same regulative force for all the subsequent developments of the church as the inspired writings of the apostles have for the works of all later Christian authors.
Furthermore, the apostolic Christianity is preformative, and contains the living germs of all the following periods, personages, and tendencies. It holds up the highest standard of doctrine and discipline; it is the inspiring genius of all true progress; it suggests to every age its peculiar problem with the power to solve it. Christianity can never outgrow Christ, but it grows in Christ; theology cannot go beyond the word of God, but it must ever progress in the understanding and application of the word of God. The three leading apostles represent not only the three stages of the apostolic church, but also as many ages and types of Christianity, and yet they are all present in every age and every type.(9)
The Representative Apostles.
Peter, Paul, and John stand out most prominently as the chosen Three who accomplished the great work of the apostolic age, and exerted, by their writings and example, a controlling influence on all subsequent ages. To them correspond three centres of influence, Jerusalem, Antioch, and Rome.
Our Lord himself had chosen Three out of the Twelve for his most intimate companions, who alone witnessed the Transfiguration and the agony in Gethsemane. They fulfilled all the expectations, Peter and John by their long and successful labors, James the Elder by drinking early the bitter cup of his Master, as the proto-martyr of the Twelve.(10) Since his death, a.d. 44, James, “the brother of the Lord” seems to have succeeded him, as one of the three “pillars” of the church of the circumcision, although he did not belong to the apostles in the strict sense of the term, and his influence, as the head of the church at Jerusalem, was more local than oecumenical.(11)
Paul was called last and out of the regular order, by the personal appearance of the exalted Lord from heaven, and in authority and importance he was equal to any of the three pillars, but filled a place of his own, as the independent apostle of the Gentiles. He had around him a small band of co-laborers and pupils, such as Barnabas, Silas, Titus, Timothy, Luke.
Nine of the original Twelve, including Matthias, who was chosen in the place of Judas, labored no doubt faithfully and effectively, in preaching the gospel throughout the Roman empire and to the borders of the barbarians, but in subordinate positions, and their labors are known to us only from vague and uncertain traditions.(12)
The labors of James and Peter we can follow in the Acts to the Council of Jerusalem, a.d. 50, and a little beyond; those of Paul to his first imprisonment in Rome, a.d. 61–63; John lived to the close of the first century. As to their last labors we have no authentic information in the New Testament, but the unanimous testimony of antiquity that Peter and Paul suffered martyrdom in Rome during or after the Neronian persecution, and that John died a natural death at Ephesus. The Acts breaks off abruptly with Paul still living and working, a prisoner in Rome, “preaching the kingdom of God and teaching the things concerning the Lord Jesus Christ, with all boldness, none forbidding him.” A significant conclusion.
It would be difficult to find three men equally great and good, equally endowed with genius sanctified by grace, bound together by deep and strong love to the common Master, and laboring for the same cause, yet so different in temper and constitution, as Peter, Paul, and John. Peter stands out in history as the main pillar of the primitive church, as the Rock-apostle, as the chief of the twelve foundation-stones of the new Jerusalem; John as the bosom-friend of the Saviour, as the son of thunder, as the soaring eagle, as the apostle of love; Paul as the champion of Christian freedom and progress, as the greatest missionary, with “the care of all the churches” upon his heart, as the expounder of the Christian system of doctrine, as the father of Christian theology. Peter was a man of action, always in haste and ready to take the lead; the first to confess Christ, and the first to preach Christ on the day of Pentecost; Paul a man equally potent in word and deed; John a man of mystic contemplation. Peter was unlearned and altogether practical; Paul a scholar and thinker as well as a worker; John a theosophist and seer. Peter was sanguine, ardent, impulsive, hopeful, kind-hearted, given to sudden changes, “consistently inconsistent” (to use an Aristotelian phrase); Paul was choleric, energetic, bold, noble, independent, uncompromising; John some what melancholic, introverted, reserved, burning within of love to Christ and hatred of Antichrist. Peter’s Epistles are full of sweet grace and comfort, the result of deep humiliation and rich experience; those of Paul abound in severe thought and logical argument, but rising at times to the heights of celestial eloquence, as in the seraphic description of love and the triumphant paean of the eighth chapter of the Romans; John’s writings are simple, serene, profound, intuitive, sublime, inexhaustible.
We would like to know more about the personal relations of these pillar-apostles, but must be satisfied with a few hints. They labored in different fields and seldom met face to face in their busy life. Time was too precious, their work too serious, for sentimental enjoyments of friendship. Paul went to Jerusalem a.d. 40, three years after his conversion, for the express purpose of making the personal acquaintance of Peter, and spent two weeks with him; he saw none of the other apostles, but only James, the Lord’s brother.(13) He met the pillar-apostles at the Conference in Jerusalem, a.d. 50, and concluded with them the peaceful concordat concerning the division of labor, and the question of circumcision; the older apostles gave him and Barnabas “the right hands of fellowship” in token of brotherhood and fidelity.(14) Not long afterwards Paul met Peter a third time, at Antioch, but came into open collision with him on the great question of Christian freedom and the union of Jewish and Gentile converts.(15) The collision was merely temporary, but significantly reveals the profound commotion and fermentation of the apostolic age, and foreshadowed future antagonisms and reconciliations in the church. Several years later (a.d. 57) Paul refers the last time to Cephas, and the brethren of the Lord, for the right to marry and to take a wife with him on his missionary journeys.(16) Peter, in his first Epistle to Pauline churches, confirms them in their Pauline faith, and in his second Epistle, his last will and testament, he affectionately commends the letters of his “beloved brother Paul,” adding, however, the characteristic remark, which all commentators must admit to be true, that (even beside the account of the scene in Antioch) there are in them “some things hard to be understood.”(17) According to tradition (which varies considerably as to details), the great leaders of Jewish and Gentile Christianity met at Rome, were tried and condemned together, Paul, the Roman citizen, to the death by the sword on the Ostian road at Tre Fontane; Peter, the Galilean apostle, to the more degrading death of the cross on the hill of Janiculum. John mentions Peter frequently in his Gospel, especially in the appendix,(18) but never names Paul; he met him, as it seems, only once, at Jerusalem, gave him the right hand of fellowship, became his successor in the fruitful field of Asia Minor, and built on his foundation.
Peter was the chief actor in the first stage of apostolic Christianity and fulfilled the prophecy of his name in laying the foundation of the church among the Jews and the Gentiles. In the second stage he is overshadowed by the mighty labors of Paul; but after the apostolic age he stands out again most prominent in the memory of the church. He is chosen by the Roman communion as its special patron saint and as the first pope. He is always named before Paul. To him most of the churches are dedicated. In the name of this poor fisherman of Galilee, who had neither gold nor silver, and was crucified like a malefactor and a slave, the triple-crowned popes deposed kings, shook empires, dispensed blessings and curses on earth and in purgatory, and even now claim the power to settle infallibly all questions of Christian doctrine and discipline for the Catholic world.
Paul was the chief actor in the second stage of the apostolic church, the apostle of the Gentiles, the founder of Christianity in Asia Minor and Greece, the emancipator of the new religion from the yoke of Judaism, the herald of evangelical freedom, the standard-bearer of reform and progress. His controlling influence was felt also in Rome, and is clearly seen in the genuine Epistle of Clement, who makes more account of him than of Peter. But soon afterwards he is almost forgotten, except by name. He is indeed associated with Peter as the founder of the church of Rome, but in a secondary line; his Epistle to the Romans is little read and understood by the Romans even to this day; his church lies outside of the walls of the eternal city, while St. Peter’s is its chief ornament and glory. In Africa alone he was appreciated, first by the rugged and racy Tertullian, more fully by the profound Augustine, who passed through similar contrasts in his religious experience; but Augustine’s Pauline doctrines of sin and grace had no effect whatever on the Eastern church, and were practically overpowered in the Western church by Pelagian tendencies. For a long time Paul’s name was used and abused outside of the ruling orthodoxy and hierarchy by anti-catholic heretics and sectaries in their protest against the new yoke of traditionalism and ceremonialism. But in the sixteenth century he celebrated a real resurrection and inspired the evangelical reformation. Then his Epistles to the Galatians and Romans were republished, explained, and applied with trumpet tongues by Luther and Calvin. Then his protest against Judaizing bigotry and legal bondage was renewed, and the rights of Christian liberty asserted on the largest scale. Of all men in church history, St. Augustine not excepted, Martin Luther, once a contracted monk, then a prophet of freedom, has most affinity in word and work with the apostle of the Gentiles, and ever since Paul’s genius has ruled the theology and religion of Protestantism. As the gospel of Christ was cast out from Jerusalem to bless the Gentiles, so Paul’s Epistle to the Romans was expelled from Rome to enlighten and to emancipate Protestant nations in the distant North and far West.
St. John, the most intimate companion of Jesus, the apostle of love, the seer who looked back to the ante-mundane beginning and forward to the post-mundane end of all things, and who is to tarry till the coming of the Lord, kept aloof from active part in the controversies between Jewish and Gentile Christianity. He appears prominent in the Acts and the Epistle to the Galatians, as one of the pillar-apostles, but not a word of his is reported. He was waiting in mysterious silence, with a reserved force, for his proper time, which did not come till Peter and Paul had finished their mission. Then, after their departure, he revealed the hidden depths of his genius in his marvellous writings, which represent the last and crowning work of the apostolic church. John has never been fully fathomed, but it has been felt throughout all the periods of church history that he has best understood and portrayed the Master, and may yet speak the last word in the conflict of ages and usher in an era of harmony and peace. Paul is the heroic captain of the church militant, John the mystic prophet of the church triumphant.
Far above them all, throughout the apostolic age and all subsequent ages, stands the one great Master from whom Peter, Paul, and John drew their inspiration, to whom they bowed in holy adoration, whom alone they served and glorified in life and in death, and to whom they still point in their writings as the perfect image of God, as the Saviour from sin and death, as the Giver of eternal life, as the divine harmony of conflicting creeds and schools, as the Alpha and Omega of the Christian faith.
§ 22. The Critical Reconstruction of the History of the Apostolic Age.
“Die Botschaft hör’ ich wohl, allein mir fehlt der Glaube.“
(Goethe.)
Never before in the history of the church has the origin of Christianity, with its original documents, been so thoroughly examined from standpoints entirely opposite as in the present generation. It has engaged the time and energy of many of the ablest scholars and critics. Such is the importance and the power of that little book which “contains the wisdom of the whole world,” that it demands ever new investigation and sets serious minds of all shades of belief and unbelief in motion, as if their very life depended upon its acceptance or rejection. There is not a fact or doctrine which has not been thoroughly searched. The whole life of Christ, and the labors and writings of the apostles with their tendencies, antagonisms, and reconciliations are theoretically reproduced among scholars and reviewed under all possible aspects. The post-apostolic age has by necessary connection been drawn into the process of investigation and placed in a new light.
The great biblical scholars among the Fathers were chiefly concerned in drawing from the sacred records the catholic doctrines of salvation, and the precepts for a holy life; the Reformers and older Protestant divines studied them afresh with special zeal for the evangelical tenets which separated them from the Roman church; but all stood on the common ground of a reverential belief in the divine inspiration and authority of the Scriptures. The present age is preëminently historical and critical. The Scriptures are subjected to the same process of investigation and analysis as any other literary production of antiquity, with no other purpose than to ascertain the real facts in the case. We want to know the precise origin, gradual growth, and final completion of Christianity as an historical phenomenon in organic connection with contemporary events and currents of thought. The whole process through which it passed from the manger in Bethlehem to the cross of Calvary, and from the upper room in Jerusalem to the throne of the Caesars is to be reproduced, explained and understood according to the laws of regular historical development. And in this critical process the very foundations of the Christian faith have been assailed and undermined, so that the question now is, “to be or not to be.” The remark of Goethe is as profound as it is true: “The conflict of faith and unbelief remains the proper, the only, the deepest theme of the history of the world and mankind, to which all others are subordinated.”
The modern critical movement began, we may say, about 1830, is still in full progress, and is likely to continue to the end of the nineteenth century, as the apostolic church itself extended over a period of seventy years before it had developed its resources. It was at first confined to Germany (Strauss, Baur, and the Tübingen School), then spread to France (Renan) and Holland (Scholten, Kuenen), and last to England (“Supernatural Religion”) and America, so that the battle now extends along the whole line of Protestantism.
There are two kinds of biblical criticism, verbal and historical.
Textual Criticism.
The verbal or textual criticism has for its object to restore as far as possible the original text of the Greek Testament from the oldest and most trustworthy sources, namely, the uncial manuscripts (especially, the Vatican and Sinaitic), the ante-Nicene versions, and the patristic quotations. In this respect our age has been very successful, with the aid of most important discoveries of ancient manuscripts. By the invaluable labors of Lachmann, who broke the path for the correct theory (Novum Testament. Gr., 1831, large Graeco-Latin edition, 1842–50, 2 vols.), Tischendorf (8th critical ed., 1869–72, 2 vols.), Tregelles (1857, completed 1879), Westcott and Hort (1881, 2 vols.), we have now in the place of the comparatively late and corrupt textus receptus of Erasmus and his followers (Stephens, Beza, and the Elzevirs), which is the basis of au Protestant versions in common use, a much older and purer text, which must henceforth be made the basis of all revised translations. After a severe struggle between the traditional and the progressive schools there is now in this basal department of biblical learning a remarkable degree of harmony among critics. The new text is in fact the older text, and the reformers are in this case the restorers. Far from unsettling the faith in the New Testament, the results have established the substantial integrity of the text, notwithstanding the one hundred and fifty thousand readings which have been gradually gathered from all sources. It is a noteworthy fact that the greatest textual critics of the nineteenth century are believers, not indeed in a mechanical or magical inspiration, which is untenable and not worth defending, but in the divine origin and authority of the canonical writings, which rest on fax stronger grounds than any particular human theory of inspiration.
Historical Criticism.
The historical or inner criticism (which the Germans call the “higher criticism,” höhere Kritik) deals with the origin, spirit, and aim of the New Testament writings, their historical environments, and organic place in the great intellectual and religious process which resulted in the triumphant establishment of the catholic church of the second century. It assumed two very distinct shapes under the lead of Dr. Neander in Berlin (d. 1850), and Dr. Baur in Tübingen (d. 1860), who labored in the mines of church history at a respectful distance from each other and never came into personal contact. Neander and Baur were giants, equal in genius and learning, honesty and earnestness, but widely different in spirit. They gave a mighty impulse to historical study and left a long line of pupils and independent followers who carry on the historico-critical reconstruction of primitive Christianity. Their influence is felt in France, Holland and England. Neander published the first edition of his Apostolic Age in 1832, his Life of Jesus (against Strauss) in 1837 (the first volume of his General Church History had appeared already in 1825, revised ed. 1842); Baur wrote his essay on the Corinthian Parties in 1831, his critical investigations on the canonical Gospels in 1844 and 1847, his “Paul“ in 1845 (second ed. by Zeller, 1867), and his “Church History of the First Three Centuries“ in 1853 (revised 1860). His pupil Strauss had preceded him with his first Leben Jesu (1835), which created a greater sensation than any of the works mentioned, surpassed only by that of Renan’s Vie de Jésus, nearly thirty years later (1863). Renan reproduces and popularizes Strauss and Baur for the French public with independent learning and brilliant genius, and the author of “Supernatural Religion” reëchoes the Tübingen and Leyden speculations in England. On the other hand Bishop Lightfoot, the leader of conservative criticism; declares that he has learnt more from the German Neander than from any recent theologian (“Contemp. Review” for 1875, p. 866. Matthew Arnold says (Literature and Dogma, Preface, p. xix.): “To get the facts, the data, in all matters of science, but notably in theology and Biblical learning, one goes to Germany. Germany, and it is her high honor, has searched out the facts and exhibited them. And without knowledge of the facts, no clearness or fairness of mind can in any study do anything; this cannot be laid down too rigidly.” But he denies to the Germans “quickness and delicacy of perception.” Something more is necessary than learning and perception to draw the right conclusions from the facts: sound common sense and well-balanced judgment. And when we deal with sacred and supernatural facts, we need first and last a reverential spirit and that faith which is the organ of the supernatural. It is here where the two schools depart, without difference of nationality; for faith is not a national but an individual gift.
The Two Antagonistic Schools.
The two theories of the apostolic history, introduced by Neander and Baur, are antagonistic in principle and aim, and united only by the moral bond of an honest search for truth. The one is conservative and reconstructive, the other radical and destructive. The former accepts the canonical Gospels and Acts as honest, truthful, and credible memoirs of the life of Christ and the labors of the apostles; the latter rejects a great part of their contents as unhistorical myths or legends of the post-apostolic age, and on the other hand gives undue credit to wild heretical romances of the second century. The one draws an essential line of distinction between truth as maintained by the orthodox church, and error as held by heretical parties; the other obliterates the lines and puts the heresy into the inner camp of the apostolic church itself. The one proceeds on the basis of faith in God and Christ, which implies faith in the supernatural and miraculous wherever it is well attested; the other proceeds from disbelief in the supernatural and miraculous as a philosophical impossibility, and tries to explain the gospel history and the apostolic history from purely natural causes like every other history. The one has a moral and spiritual as well is intellectual interest in the New Testament, the other a purely intellectual and critical interest. The one approaches the historical investigation with the subjective experience of the divine truth in the heart and conscience, and knows and feels Christianity to be a power of salvation from sin and error; the other views it simply as the best among the many religions which are destined to give way at last to the sovereignty of reason and philosophy. The controversy turns on the question whether there is a God in History or not; as the contemporaneous struggle in natural science turns on the question whether there is a God in nature or not. Belief in a personal God almighty and omnipresent in history and in nature, implies the possibility of supernatural and miraculous revelation. Absolute freedom from prepossession (Voraussetzungslosigkeit such as Strauss demanded) is absolutely impossible, “ex nihilo nihil fit.“ There is prepossession on either side of the controversy, the one positive, the other negative, and history itself must decide between them. The facts must rule philosophy, not philosophy the facts. If it can be made out that the life of Christ and the apostolic church can be psychologically and historically explained only by the admission of the supernatural element which they claim, while every other explanation only increases the difficulty, of the problem and substitutes an unnatural miracle for a supernatural one, the historian has gained the case, and it is for the philosopher to adjust his theory to history. The duty of the historian is not to make the facts, but to discover them, and then to construct his theory wide enough to give them all comfortable room.
The Alleged Antagonism in the Apostolic Church.
The theory of the Tübingen school starts from the assumption of a fundamental antagonism between Jewish or primitive Christianity represented by Peter, and Gentile or progressive Christianity represented by Paul, and resolves all the writings of the New Testament into tendency writings (Tendenzschriften), which give us not history pure and simple, but adjust it to a doctrinal and practical aim in the interest of one or the other party, or of a compromise between the two.(19) The Epistles of Paul to the Galatians, Romans, First and Second Corinthians—which are admitted to be genuine beyond any doubt, exhibit the anti-Jewish and universal Christianity, of which Paul himself must be regarded as the chief founder. The Apocalypse, which was composed by the apostle John in 69, exhibits the original Jewish and contracted Christianity, in accordance with his position as one of the “pillar”-apostles of the circumcision (Gal. 2:9), and it is the only authentic document of the older apostles.
Baur (Gesch. der christl. Kirche, I., 80 sqq.) and Renan (St. Paul, ch. X.) go so far as to assert that this genuine John excludes Paul from the list of the apostles (Apoc. 21:14, which leaves no room for more than twelve), and indirectly attacks him as a “false Jew” (Apoc. 2:9; 3:9), a “false apostle” (2:2), a “false prophet” (2:20), as “Balaam” (2:2, 6, 14 15; comp. Jude 11; 2 Pet. 2:15); just as the Clementine Homilies assail him under the name of Simon the Magician and arch-heretic. Renan interprets also the whole Epistle of Jude, a brother of James, as an attack upon Paul, issued from Jerusalem in connection with the Jewish counter-mission organized by James, which nearly ruined the work of Paul.
The other writings of the New Testament are post-apostolic productions and exhibit the various phases of a unionistic movement, which resulted in the formation of the orthodox church of the second and third centuries. The Acts of the Apostles is a Catholic Irenicon which harmonizes Jewish and Gentile Christianity by liberalizing Peter and contracting or Judaizing Paul, and concealing the difference between them; and though probably based on an earlier narrative of Luke, it was not put into its present shape before the close of the first century. The canonical Gospels, whatever may have been the earlier records on which they are based, are likewise post-apostolic, and hence untrustworthy as historical narratives. The Gospel of John is a purely ideal composition of some unknown Gnostic or mystic of profound religious genius, who dealt with the historic Jesus as freely as Plato in his Dialogues dealt with Socrates, and who completed with consummate literary skill this unifying process in the age of Hadrian, certainly not before the third decade of the second century. Baur brought it down as late as 170; Hilgenfeld put it further back to 140, Keim to 130, Renan to the age of Hadrian.
Thus the whole literature of the New Testament is represented as the living growth of a century, as a collection of polemical and irenical tracts of the apostolic and post-apostolic ages. Instead of contemporaneous, reliable history we have a series of intellectual movements and literary fictions. Divine revelation gives way to subjective visions and delusions, inspiration is replaced by development, truth by a mixture of truth and error. The apostolic literature is put on a par with the controversial literature of the Nicene age, which resulted in the Nicene orthodoxy, or with the literature of the Reformation period, which led to the formation of the Protestant system of doctrine.
History never repeats itself, yet the same laws and tendencies reappear in ever-changing forms. This modern criticism is a remarkable renewal of the views held by heretical schools in the second century. The Ebionite author of the pseudo-Clementine Homilies and the Gnostic Marcion likewise assumed an irreconcilable antagonism between Jewish and Gentile Christianity, with this difference, that the former opposed Paul as the arch-heretic and defamer of Peter, while Marcion (about 140) regarded Paul as the only true apostle, and the older apostles as Jewish perverters of Christianity; consequently he rejected the whole Old Testament and such books of the New Testament as he considered Judaizing, retaining in his canon only a mutilated Gospel of Luke and ton of the Pauline Epistles (excluding the Pastoral Epistles and the Epistle to the Hebrews). In the eyes of modern criticism these wild heretics are better historians of the apostolic age than the author of the Acts of the Apostles.
The Gnostic heresy, with all its destructive tendency, had an important mission as a propelling force in the ancient church and left its effects upon patristic theology. So also this modern gnosticism must be allowed to have done great service to biblical and historical learning by removing old prejudices, opening new avenues of thought, bringing to light the immense fermentation of the first century, stimulating research, and compelling an entire scientific reconstruction of the history of the origin of Christianity and the church. The result will be a deeper and fuller knowledge, not to the weakening but to the strengthening of our faith.
Reaction.
There is considerable difference among the scholars of this higher criticism, and while some pupils of Baur (e.g. Strauss, Volkmar) have gone even beyond his positions, others make concessions to the traditional views. A most important change took place in Baur’s own mind as regards the conversion of Paul, which he confessed at last, shortly before his death (1860), to be to him an insolvable psychological problem amounting to a miracle. Ritschl, Holtzmann, Lipsius, Pfleiderer, and especially Reuss, Weizsäcker, and Keim (who are as free from orthodox prejudices as the most advanced critics) have modified and corrected many of the extreme views of the Tübingen school. Even Hilgenfeld, with all his zeal for the “Fortschrittstheologie” and against the “Rückschrittstheologie,” admits seven instead of four Pauline Epistles as genuine, assigns an earlier date to the Synoptical Gospels and the Epistle to the Hebrews (which he supposes to have been written by Apollos before 70), and says: “It cannot be denied that Baur’s criticism went beyond the bounds of moderation and inflicted too deep wounds on the faith of the church” (Hist. Krit. Einleitung in das N. T. 1875, p. 197). Renan admits nine Pauline Epistles, the essential genuineness of the Acts, and even the, narrative portions of John, while he rejects the discourses as pretentious, inflated, metaphysical, obscure, and tiresome! (See his last discussion of the subject in L’église chrétienne, ch. I-V. pp. 45 sqq.) Matthew Arnold and other critics reverse the proposition and accept the discourses as the sublimest of all human compositions, full of “heavenly glories” (himmlische Herrlichkeiten, to use an expression of Keim, who, however, rejects the fourth Gospel altogether). Schenkel (in his Christusbild der Apostel, 1879) considerably moderates the antagonism between Petrinism and Paulinism, and confesses (Preface, p. xi.) that in the progress of his investigations he has been “forced to the conviction that the Acts of the Apostles is a more trustworthy source of information than is commonly allowed on the part of the modern criticism; that older documents worthy of credit, besides the well known We-source (Wirquelle) are contained in it; and that the Paulinist who composed it has not intentionally distorted the facts, but only placed them in the light in which they appeared to him and must have appeared to him from the time and circumstances under which he wrote. He has not, in my opinion, artificially brought upon the stage either a Paulinized Peter, or a Petrinized Paul, in order to mislead his readers, but has portrayed the two apostles just as he actually conceived of them on the basis of his incomplete information.” Keim, in his last work (Aus dem Urchristenthum, 1878, a year before his death), has come to a similar conclusion, and proves (in a critical essay on the Apostelkonvent, pp. 64–89) in opposition to Baur, Schwegler, and Zeller, yet from the same standpoint of liberal criticism, and allowing later additions, the substantial harmony between the Acts and the Epistle to the Galatians as regards the apostolic conference and concordat of Jerusalem. Ewald always pursued his own way and equalled Baur in bold and arbitrary criticism, but violently opposed him and defended the Acts and the Gospel of John.
To these German voices we may add the testimony of Matthew Arnold, one of the boldest and broadest of the broad-school divines and critics, who with all his admiration for Baur represents him as an “unsafe guide,” and protests against his assumption of a bitter hatred of Paul and the pillar-apostles as entirely inconsistent with the conceded religious greatness of Paul and with the nearness of the pillar-apostles to Jesus (God and the Bible, 1875, Preface, vii-xii). As to the fourth Gospel, which is now the most burning spot of this burning controversy, the same author, after viewing it from without and from within, comes to the conclusion that it is, “no fancy-piece, but a serious and invaluable document, full of incidents given by tradition and genuine ’sayings of the Lord’ “(p. 370), and that “after the most free criticism has been fairly and strictly applied,… there is yet left an authentic residue comprising all the profoundest, most important, and most beautiful things in the fourth Gospel” (p. 372 sq.).
The Positive School.
While there are signs of disintegration in the ranks of destructive criticism, the historic truth and genuineness of the New Testament writings have found learned and able defenders from different standpoints, such as Neander, Ullmann, C. F. Schmid (the colleague of Baur in Tübingen), Rothe, Dorner, Ebrard, Lechler, Lange, Thiersch, Wieseler, Hofmann (of Erlangen), Luthardt, Christlieb, Beyschlag, Uhlhorn, Weiss, Godet, Edm. de Pressensé.
The English and American mind also has fairly begun to grapple manfully and successfully, with these questions in such scholars as Lightfoot, Plumptre, Westcott, Sanday, Farrar, G. P. Fisher, Ezra Abbot (on the Authorship of the Fourth Gospel, 1880). English and American theology is not likely to be extensively demoralized by these hypercritical speculations of the Continent. It has a firmer foothold in an active church life and the convictions and affections of the people. The German and French mind, like the Athenian, is always bent upon telling and hearing something new, while the Anglo-American mind cares more for what is true, whether it be old or new. And the truth must ultimately prevail.
St. Paul’s Testimony to Historical Christianity.
Fortunately even the most exacting school of modern criticism leaves us a fixed fulcrum from which we can argue the truth of Christianity, namely, the four Pauline Epistles to the Galatians, Romans, and Corinthians, which are pronounced to be unquestionably genuine and made the Archimedean point of assault upon the other parts of the New Testament. We propose to confine ourselves to them. They are of the utmost historical as well as doctrinal importance; they represent the first Christian generation, and were written between 54 and 58, that is within a quarter of the century after the crucifixion, when the older apostles and most of the principal eye-witnesses of the life of Christ were still alive. The writer himself was a contemporary of Christ; he lived in Jerusalem at the time of the great events on which Christianity rests; he was intimate with the Sanhedrin and the murderers of Christ; he was not blinded by favorable prejudice, but was a violent persecutor, who had every motive to justify his hostility; and after his radical conversion (a.d. 37) he associated with the original disciples and could learn their personal experience from their own lips (Gal. 1:18; 2:1–11).
Now in these admitted documents of the best educated of the apostles we have the clearest evidence of all the great events and truths of primitive Christianity, and a satisfactory answer to the chief objections and difficulties of modern skepticism.(20)
They prove
- The leading facts in the life of Christ, his divine mission, his birth from a woman, of the royal house of David, his holy life and example, his betrayal, passion, and death for the sins of the world, his resurrection on the third day, his repeated manifestations to the disciples, his ascension and exaltation to the right hand of God, whence he will return to judge mankind, the adoration of Christ as the Messiah, the Lord and Saviour from sin, the eternal Son of God; also the election of the Twelve, the institution of baptism and the Lord’s Supper, the mission of the Holy Spirit, the founding of the church. Paul frequently alludes to these facts, especially the crucifixion and resurrection, not in the way of a detailed narrative, but incidentally and in connection with doctrinal expositions arid exhortations as addressed to men already familiar with them from oral preaching and instruction. Comp. Gal 3:13; 4:4–6; 6:14; Rom. 1:3; 4:24, 25; 5:8–21; 6:3–10; 8:3–11, 26, 39; 9:5; 10:6, 7; 14:5; 15:3 1 Cor. 1:23; 2:2, 12; 5:7; 6:14; 10:16; 11:23–26; 15:3–8, 45–49; 2 Cor. 5:21.
- Paul’s own conversion and call to the apostleship by the personal appearance to him of the exalted Redeemer from heaven. Gal. 1:1, 15, 16; 1 Cor. 9:1; 15:8.
- The origin and rapid progress of the Christian church in all parts of the Roman empire, from Jerusalem to Antioch and Rome, in Judaea, in Syria, in Asia Minor, in Macedonia and Achaia. The faith of the Roman church, he says, was known “throughout the world,” and “in every place “there were worshippers of Jesus as their Lord. And these little churches maintained a lively and active intercourse with each other, and though founded by different teachers and distracted by differences of opinion and practice, they worshipped the same divine Lord, and formed one brotherhood of believers. Gal. 1:2, 22; 2:1, 11; Rom. 1:8; 10:18; 16:26; 1 Cor. 1:12; 8:1; 16:19, etc.
- The presence of miraculous powers in the church at that time. Paul himself wrought the signs and mighty deeds of an apostle. Rom. 15:18, 19; 1 Cor. 2:4; 9:2; 2 Cor. 12:12. He lays, however, no great stress on the outer sensible miracles, and makes more account of the inner moral miracles and the constant manifestations of the power of the Holy Spirit in regenerating and sanctifying sinful men in an utterly corrupt state of society. 1 Cor. 12 to 14; 6:9–11; Gal. 5:16–26; Rom. 6 and 8.
- The existence of much earnest controversy in these young churches, not indeed about the great facts on which their faith was based, and which were fully admitted on both sides, but about doctrinal and ritual inferences from these facts, especially the question of the continued obligation of circumcision and the Mosaic law, and the personal question of the apostolic authority of Paul. The Judaizers maintained the superior claims of the older apostles and charged him with a radical departure from the venerable religion of their fathers; while Paul used against them the argument that the expiatory death of Christ and his resurrection were needless and useless if justification came from the law. Gal. 2:21; 5:2–4.
- The essential doctrinal and spiritual harmony of Paul with the elder apostles, notwithstanding their differences of standpoint and field of labor. Here the testimony of the Epistle to the Galatians 2:1–10, which is the very bulwark of the skeptical school, bears strongly against it. For Paul expressly states that the, “pillar”-apostles of the circumcision, James, Peter, and John, at the conference in Jerusalem a.d. 50, approved the gospel he had been preaching during the preceding fourteen years; that they “imparted nothing” to him, gave him no new instruction, imposed on him no now terms, nor burden of any kind, but that, on the contrary, they recognized the grace of God in him and his special mission to the Gentiles, and gave him and Barnabas “the right hands of fellowship” in token of their brotherhood and fidelity. He makes a clear and sharp distinction between the apostles and “the false brethren privily brought in, who came to spy out our liberty which we have in Christ Jesus, that they might bring us into bondage,” and to whom he would not yield, “no, not for an hour.” The hardest words he has for the Jewish apostles are epithets of honor; he calls them, the pillars of the church, “the men in high repute” (oiJ stu’loi, oiJ dokou’nte”, Gal. 2:6, 9); while he considered himself in sincere humility “the least of the apostles,” because he persecuted the church of God (1 Cor. 15:9).
This statement of Paul makes it simply impossible and absurd to suppose (with Baur, Schwegler, Zeller, and Renan) that John should have so contradicted and stultified himself as to attack, in the Apocalypse, the same Paul whom he had recognized as a brother during his life, as a false apostle and chief of the synagogue of Satan after his death. Such a reckless and monstrous assertion turns either Paul or John into a liar. The antinomian and antichristian heretics of the Apocalypse who plunged into all sorts of moral and ceremonial pollutions (Apoc. 2:14, 15) would have been condemned by Paul as much as by John; yea, he himself, in his parting address to the Ephesian elders, had prophetically foreannounced and described such teachers as “grievous wolves” that would after his departure enter in among them or rise from the midst of them, not sparing the flock (Acts 20:29, 30). On the question of fornication he was in entire harmony with the teaching of the Apocalypse (1 Cor. 3:15, 16; 6:15–20); and as to the question of eating meat offered in sacrifice to idols Gr215(rA fi8coX6zvra), though he regarded it as a thing indifferent in itself, considering the vanity of idols, yet he condemned it whenever it gave offence to the weak consciences of the more scrupulous Jewish converts (1 Cor. 8:7–13; 10:23–33; Rom. 14:2, 21); and this was in accord with the decree of the Apostolic Council (Acts 15:29).
- Paul’s collision with Peter at Antioch, Gal. 2:11–14. which is made the very bulwark of the Tübingen theory, proves the very reverse. For it was not a difference in principle and doctrine; on the contrary, Paul expressly asserts that Peter at first freely and habitually (mark the imperfect sunhvsqien, Gal. 2:12) associated with the Gentile converts as brethren in Christ, but was intimidated by emissaries from the bigoted Jewish converts in Jerusalem and acted against his better conviction which he had entertained ever since the vision at Joppa (Acts 10:10–16), and which he had so boldly confessed at the Council in Jerusalem (Acts 15:7–11) and carried out in Antioch. We have here the same impulsive, impressible, changeable disciple, the first to confess and the first to deny his Master, yet quickly returning to him in bitter repentance and sincere humility. It is for this inconsistency of conduct, which Paul called by the strong term of dissimulation or hypocrisy, that he, in his uncompromising zeal for the great principle of Christian liberty, reproved him publicly before the church. A public wrong had to be publicly rectified. According to the Tübingen hypothesis the hypocrisy would have been in the very opposite conduct of Peter. The silent submission of Peter on the occasion proves his regard for his younger colleague, and speaks as much to his praise as his weakness to his blame. That the alienation was only temporary and did not break up their fraternal relation is apparent from the respectful though frank manner in which, several years after the occurrence, they allude to each other as fellow apostles, Comp. Gal. 1:18, 19; 2:8, 9; 1 Cor. 9:5; 2 Pet. 3:15, 16, and from the fact that Mark and Silas were connecting links between them and alternately served them both.(21)
The Epistle to the Galatians then furnishes the proper solution of the difficulty, and essentially confirms the account of the Acts. It proves the harmony as well as the difference between Paul and the older apostles. It explodes the hypothesis that they stood related to each other like the Marcionites and Ebionites in the second century. These were the descendants of the heretics of the apostolic age, of the “false brethren insidiously brought in” (Yeudavdelfoi pareivsaktoi, Gal. 2:4); while the true apostles recognized and continued to recognize the same grace of God which wrought effectually through Peter for the conversion of the Jews, and through Paul for the conversion of the Gentiles. That the Judaizers should have appealed to the Jewish apostles, and the antinomian Gnostics to Paul, as their authority, is not more surprising than the appeal of the modern rationalists to Luther and the Reformation.
We have thus discussed at the outset, and at some length, the fundamental difference of the two standpoints from which the history of the apostolic church is now viewed, and have vindicated our own general position in this controversy.
It is not to be supposed that all the obscure points have already been satisfactorily cleared up, or ever will be solved beyond the possibility of dispute. There must be some room left for faith in that God who has revealed himself clearly enough in nature and in history to strengthen our faith, and who is concealed enough to try our faith. Certain interstellar spaces will always be vacant in the firmament of the apostolic age that men may gaze all the more intensely at the bright stars, before which the post-apostolic books disappear like torches. A careful study of the ecclesiastical writers of the second and third centuries, and especially of the numerous Apocryphal Acts, Epistles, and Apocalypses, leaves on the mind a strong impression of the immeasurable superiority of the New Testament in purity and truthfulness, simplicity and majesty; and this superiority points to a special agency of the Spirit of God, without which that book of books is an inexplicable mystery.
§ 23. Chronology of the Apostolic Age.
See the works quoted in § 20 p. 193, 194, especially Wieseler. Comp. also, Hackett on Acts, pp. 22 to 30 (third ed.).
The chronology of the apostolic age is partly certain, at least within a few years, partly conjectural: certain as to the principal events from a.d. 30 to 70, conjectural as to intervening points and the last thirty years of the first century. The sources are the New Testament (especially the Acts and the Pauline Epistles), Josephus, and the Roman historians. Josephus ( b. 37, d. 103) is especially valuable here, as he wrote the Jewish history down to the destruction of Jerusalem.
The following dates are more or less certain and accepted by most historians:
- The founding of the Christian Church on the feast of Pentecost in May a.d. 30. This is on the assumption that Christ was born b.c. 4 or 5, and was crucified in April a.d. 30, at an age of thirty-three.
- The death of King Herod Agrippa I. a.d. 44 (according to Josephus). This settles the date of the preceding martyrdom of James the elder, Peter’s imprisonment and release Acts 12:2, 23).
- The Apostolic Council in Jerusalem, a.d. 50 (Acts 15:1 sqq.; Gal. 2:1–10). This date is ascertained by reckoning backwards to Paul’s conversion, and forward to the Caesarean captivity. Paul was probably converted in 37, and “fourteen years” elapsed from that event to the Council. But chronologists differ on the year of Paul’s conversion, between 31 and 40.(22)
- The dates of the Epistles to the Galatians, Corinthians, and Romans, between 56 and 58. The date of the Epistle to the Romans can be fixed almost to the month from its own indications combined with the statements of the Acts. It was written before the apostle had been in Rome, but when he was on the point of departure for Jerusalem and Rome on the way to Spain,(23) after having finished his collections in Macedonia and Achaia for the poor brethren in Judaea;(24) and he sent the epistle through Phebe, a deaconess of the congregation in the eastern port of Corinth, where he was at that time.(25) These indications point clearly to the spring of the year 58, for in that year he was taken prisoner in Jerusalem and carried to Caesarea.
- Paul’s captivity in Caesarea, a.d. 58 to 60, during the procuratorship of Felix and Festus, who changed places in 60 or 61, probably in 60. This important date we can ascertain by combination from several passages in Josephus, and Tacitus.(26) It enables us at the same time, by reckoning backward, to fix some preceding events in the life of the apostle.
- Paul’s first captivity in Rome, a.d. 61 to 63. This follows from the former date in connection with the statement in Acts 28:30.
- The Epistles of the Roman captivity, Philippians, Ephesians, Colossians, and Philemon, a.d. 61–63.
- The Neronian persecution, a.d. 64 (the tenth year of Nero, according to Tacitus). The martyrdom of Paul and Peter occurred either then, or (according to tradition) a few years later. The question depends on the second Roman captivity of Paul.
- The destruction of Jerusalem by Titus, a.d. 70 (according to Josephus and Tacitus).
- The death of John after the accession of Trajan, a.d. 98 (according to general ecclesiastical tradition).
The dates of the Synoptical Gospels, the Acts, the Pastoral Epistles, the Hebrews, and the Epistles of Peter, James, and Jude cannot be accurately ascertained except that they were composed before the destruction of Jerusalem, mostly between 60 and 70. The writings of John were written after that date and towards the close of the first century, except the Apocalypse, which some of the best scholars, from internal indications assign to the year 68 or 69, between the death of Nero and the destruction of Jerusalem.
The details are given in the following table:
| Year(s) | Key Events | Contemporary History |
|---|---|---|
| B.C. 5/4 | Birth of Christ. | Augustus, Emperor of Rome (B.C. 27–A.D. 14). Death of Herod I (the Great). |
| A.D. 8 | His visit to the Temple at twelve years of age. | Cyrenius (Quirinius), Governor of Syria (second time). The registration, or “taxing” (Acts 5:37). Revolt of “Judas of Galilee.” Coponius, Procurator of Judaea. Marcus Ambivius, Procurator. |
| 9 | Tiberius becomes colleague of Augustus. | |
| 12 | Annius Rufus, Procurator (approx.). | |
| 13 | Valerius Gratus, Procurator. | |
| 14 | Augustus dies. Tiberius becomes sole Emperor (14–37). |
|
| 26 | Pontius Pilate becomes Procurator (from A.D. 26). | |
| 27 | Christ’s Baptism. | Caiaphas, high priest (from A.D. 26). |
| 27–30 | His three years’ ministry. | |
| 30 | His Crucifixion, Resurrection (April), and Ascension (May). Descent of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost; birthday of the Church (May) (Acts 2). |
|
| 36 | Marcellus, Procurator. Pilate sent to Rome by the Prefect of Syria. |
|
| 37 | Martyrdom of Stephen (Acts 7). Peter and John in Samaria (Acts 8). Conversion of Saul (Acts 9, 22, 26; Gal. 1:16; 1 Cor. 15:8). |
Caligula, Emperor (37–41). Maryllus appointed Hipparch. Herod Agrippa I, King of Judea and Samaria. |
| 40 | Saul’s escape from Damascus, and first visit to Jerusalem after his conversion (Gal. 1:18). Admission of Cornelius into the Church (Acts 10, 11). |
Philo at Rome. |
| 41 | Claudius, Emperor (41-54). | |
| 44 | Persecution of the Church in Jerusalem. James the Elder beheaded. Peter imprisoned and delivered; leaves Palestine (Acts 12:2–23). Paul’s second visit to Jerusalem with alms from Antioch (Acts 11:30). |
Herod Agrippa I dies at Caesarea. Conquest of Britain (43-51). |
| 45 | Paul is set apart as an apostle (Acts 13:2). | Cuspius Fadus, Procurator of Judea. |
| 46 | Tiberius Alexander, Procurator. | |
| 47 | Ventidius Cumanus, Procurator. | |
| 50 | Paul’s first missionary journey with Barnabas and Mark (Cyprus, Pisidia, Lystra, Derbe); returns to Antioch (Acts 13, 14). The Epistle of James (variously dated from 44 to 62). The apostolic council of Jerusalem; conflict between Jewish and Gentile Christianity (Acts 15; Gal. 2:1-10). Paul’s third visit to Jerusalem. Temporary collision with Peter and Barnabas at Antioch (Gal. 2:11-14). |
|
| 51 | Paul sets out on his second missionary journey to Asia Minor and Greece, beginning the Christianization of Europe (Acts 15:36–18:22). | Antonius Felix, Procurator. |
| 52–53 | Paul at Corinth for a year and a half. Writes First and Second Epistles to the Thessalonians from Corinth. |
The Tetrarchy of Trachonitis given to Herod Agrippa II. Decree of Claudius banishing Jews from Rome. |
| 54 | Paul’s fourth visit to Jerusalem. Begins his third missionary journey (autumn). Paul at Ephesus (54–57) (Acts 19). |
Nero, Emperor (54-68). |
| 55 | Revolt of the Sicarii, headed by an Egyptian (Acts 21:38). | |
| 56 | Paul writes Epistle to the Galatians (?) from Ephesus or Greece (Acts 20). | |
| 57 | Paul writes First Epistle to the Corinthians from Ephesus. Writes Second Epistle to the Corinthians from Macedonia. |
|
| 58 | Writes Epistle to the Romans from Corinth. Visits Jerusalem (fifth time); is apprehended and imprisoned at Caesarea for two years (Acts 21:37–26:31). |
|
| 60 | Paul appears before Festus, appeals to Caesar, and is sent to Italy (autumn). Shipwreck at Malta (Acts 27, 28). |
Porcius Festus, Procurator. |
| 61 | Paul arrives as a prisoner in Rome (spring). | Embassy from Jerusalem to Rome. War with Boadicea in Britain. Apollonius of Tyana at the Olympic games. |
| 61–63 | Paul writes Philippians, Ephesians, Colossians, and Philemon from prison in Rome. | |
| 62 | Martyrdom of James, the Lord’s brother, at Jerusalem. | Josephus at Rome. |
| 63 | Paul is supposed to have been released (Acts 28:30). | Albinus, Procurator. |
| 64 | Epistle to the Hebrews written from Italy. | Gessius Florus, Procurator. Great fire at Rome (July); first imperial persecution of Christians. |
| 64–67 | First Epistle of Peter, Epistle of Jude (?), and Second Epistle of Peter written. Paul visits Crete and Macedonia; writes First Epistle to Timothy and Epistle to Titus (?)(27). Paul writes Second Epistle to Timothy (?). |
|
| 60–70 | The Synoptical Gospels and Acts are written. | |
| 65 | Seneca and Lucan put to death by Nero. | |
| 66 | Beginning of the great war between the Romans and the Jews. | |
| 67 | Paul’s and Peter’s martyrdom in Rome (?). | Vespasian becomes General in Palestine. |
| 68 | Galba, Emperor. | |
| 68–69 | The Revelation of John written (?). | |
| 69 | Otho and Vitellius, Emperors. Vespasian, Emperor. |
|
| 70 | Destruction of Jerusalem by Titus. (Josephus released.) |
|
| 76 | Coliseum construction begins. | |
| 79 | Destruction of Pompeii and Herculaneum. Titus, Emperor. |
|
| 80–90 | John writes his Gospel and Epistles (?). | |
| 91 | Domitian, Emperor. | |
| 95 | John writes the Revelation (?). | Persecution of Christians. |
| 96 | Nerva, Emperor. | |
| 97 | Death of Apollonius. | |
| 98–100 | Death of John. | Trajan, Emperor (from 98). |
Footnotes
(1): Acts 8:27.
(2): Rom. 15:19.
(3): Rom. 15:24. Comp. Clement of Rome, Ad Cor. c.5, ejpiV toV tevrma th~§` duvsew§ ejlqwvn. This passage, however, does not necessarily mean Spain, and Paul’s journey to Spain stands or falls with the hypothesis of his second Roman captivity.
(4): Unless we find allusions to it in the Revelation of John, 6:9-11; 17:6; 18:24, comp. 18:20 (“ye holy apostles and prophets”). See Bleek, Vorlesungen über die Apokalypse,Berlin, 1862, p. 120.
(5): Acts 2:41.
(6): Tacitus, Anal. XV. 44, speaks of a “multitudo ingens“who were convicted of the “odium generis humani,” i.e. of Christianity (regarded as a Jewish sect), and cruelly executed under Nero in 64.
(7): Gal. 2:1 sqq.; 1 Cor. 3:3 sqq.
(8): 1Cor. 1:26-29.
(9): On the typical import of apostolic Christianity compare the concluding section of my History of the Apostolic Church, pp. 674 sqq.
(10): Matt. 22:23; Acts 12:2.
(11): Gal. 2:9. James is even named before Cephas and John, and throughout the Acts from the Council of Jerusalem, at which he presided, he appears as the most prominent man in the churches of Palestine. In the Ebionite tradition he figures as the first universal bishop or pope.
(12): The apocryphal tradition of the second and later centuries assigns to Peter, Andrew, Matthew, and Bartholomew, as their field of missionary labor, the regions north and northwest of Palestine (Syria, Galatia, Pontus, Scythia, and the coasts of the Black Sea); to Thaddaeus, Thomas, and Simon Cananites the eastern countries (Mesopotamia, Parthia, especially Edessa and Babylon, and even as far as India); to John and Philip Asia Minor (Ephesus and Hierapolis). Comp. the Acta Sanctorum; Tischendorf’s Acta Apostolorum Apocrylpha (1851); and for a brief summary my History of the Apost. Church, § 97, pp. 385 sqq.
(13): Gal. 1:18, 19. The eijmhv in this connection rather excludes James from the number of the Twelve, but implies that he was an apostle in a wider sense, and a leader of apostolic dignity and authority. Comp. the eijmhv (sed tantum) Luke 4:26, 27; Rom. 14:14; Gal. 2:16.
(14): Acts 15; Gal 2:1-10.
(15): Gal. 2:11-21.
(16): 1 Cor. 9:5; Comp. Matt. 8:14.
(17): 2 Pet. 3:15, 16, dusnovvav tina. This passage, and the equally significant remark of Peter (2 Pet.1:20) that “no prophecy of Scripture is of private interpretation,” or solution, have often been abused by the popes as a pretext for withholding the Scriptures from the people and insisting on the necessity of an authoritative interpretation. The passage refers to the prophecies of the Old Testament, which are not the productions of the human mind, but inspired by the Holy Ghost (1:21), and cannot be properly understood except as divinely inspired.
(18): John 21:15-23. The last word of the Lord about Peter and John is very mysterious.
(19): In this respect Baur differs from the standpoint of Strauss, who in his first Leben Jesu(1835) bad represented the gospel history as an innocent and unconscious myth or poem of the religious imagination of the second generation of Christians; but in his second Leben Jesu(1864) he somewhat modified his view, and at last (1873) he gave up the whole problem as a bad job. A tendency writing implies more or less conscious fiction and falsification of history. The Tübingen critics, however, try to relieve this fictitious literature of the odious feature by referring us to the Jewish and Christian apocryphal literature which was passed off under honored names without giving any special offence on that score.
(20): Comp. here a valuable article of J. Oswald Dykes, in the “Brit. and For. Evang. Review,” Lond. 1880, pp. 51 sqq.
(21): It is amusing to read Renan’s account of this dispute (St. Paul, ch. x.). He sympathizes rather with Peter, whom he calls a “man profoundly kind and upright and desiring peace above all things,” though he admits him to have been amiably weak and inconsistent on that as on other occasions; while he charges Paul with stubbornness and rudeness; but what is the most important point, he denies the Tübingen exegesis when he says: “Modern critics who infer from certain passages of the Epistle to the Galatians that the rupture between Peter and Paul was absolute, put themselves in contradiction not only to the Acts, but to other passages of the Epistle to the Galatians (1:18; 2:2). Fervent men pass their lives disputing together without ever falling out. We must not judge these characters after the manner of things which take place in our day between people well-bred and susceptible in a point of honor. This last word especially never had much significance with the Jews!”
(22): See Hist. Apost. Ch. § 63, p. 235, and § 67, p. 265. The allusion to the governorship of Aretas in Damascus, 2 Cor. 11:32, 33, furnishes no certain date, owing to the defects of our knowledge of that period; but other indications combined lead to the year 37. Wieseler puts Paul’s conversion in the year 40, but this follows from his erroneous view of the journey mentioned in Gal. 2:1, which he identifies with Paul’s fourth journey to Jerusalem in 54, instead of his third journey to the Council four years earlier.
(23): Rom. 1:13, 15, 22; 15:23-28; comp. Acts 19:21; 20:16; 23:11; 1 Cor. 16:3.
(24): Rom. 15:25-27; 1 Cor. 16:1, 2; 2 Cor. 8 and 9; Acts 24:17.
(25): Rom. 16:1, 23; comp. Acts 19:22; 2 Tim. 4:20; 1 Cor. 1:14.
(26): See Wieseler, l. c., pp. 67 sqq.
(27): Those who deny a second imprisonment of Paul assign these Epistles to the period of Paul’s residence in Ephesus, A.D. 54-57, and 2 Timothy to A.D. 63 or 64.
脚注
- 徒 8:27。 ↩
- 罗 15:19。 ↩
- 罗 15:24。参考罗马的克莱门，《致哥林多人书》，第5章，εἰς τὴν Σπανίαν ἐλπίζω γάρ ὑφ’ ὑμῶν προπεμφθῆναι。然而，这段话不一定指西班牙，保罗的西班牙之行取决于他第二次在罗马被囚的假设。 ↩
- 除非我们在约翰的《启示录》6:9-11; 17:6; 18:24，参考18:20（“你们众圣徒、众使徒、众先知啊”）中找到暗示。见布莱克（Bleek），《启示录讲座》，柏林，1862年，第120页。 ↩
- 徒 2:41。 ↩
- 塔西佗，《编年史》XV. 44，提到一个“庞大的人群”(“multitudo ingens”)，他们因“对人类的仇恨”(“odium generis humani”)，即基督教（被视为一个犹太教派），而被定罪，并于64年在尼禄治下被残酷处决。 ↩
- 加 2:1及后；林前 3:3及后。 ↩
- 林前 1:26-29。 ↩
- 关于使徒时代基督教的典型意义，请参阅我《使徒教会史》的结论部分，第674页起。 ↩
- 太 22:23; 徒 12:2。 ↩
- 加 2:9。雅各甚至被排在矶法和约翰之前，并且从耶路撒冷会议开始，在整个《使徒行传》中，他都以巴勒斯坦教会中最突出的人物形象出现。在以便尼派的传统中，他被描绘为第一位普世主教或教皇。 ↩
- 二世纪及以后的伪经传统将彼得、安得烈、马太和巴多罗买的宣教工场定在巴勒斯坦北部和西北部的地区（叙利亚、加拉太、本都、西古提，以及黑海沿岸）；将达太、多马和奋锐党的西门的工场定在东方国家（美索不达米亚、帕提亚，特别是埃德萨和巴比伦，甚至远至印度）；将约翰和腓力的工场定在小亚细亚（以弗所和希拉波利斯）。参阅《圣徒行传》（Acta Sanctorum）；蒂申多夫的《伪经使徒行传》（Acta Apostolorum Apocrylpha，1851年）；以及简要总结见我的《使徒教会史》，§ 97，第385页起。 ↩
- 加 1:18, 19。在此语境中，εἰ μὴ 更倾向于将雅各排除在十二使徒之外，但暗示他是在更广泛意义上的使徒，是一位具有使徒尊严和权威的领袖。参阅路 4:26, 27; 罗 14:14; 加 2:16 中的 εἰ μὴ (sed tantum)。 ↩
- 徒 15; 加 2:1-10。 ↩
- 加 2:11-21。 ↩
- 林前 9:5; 参 太 8:14。 ↩
- 彼后 3:15, 16, δυσνοήσατά τινα.。这段经文，以及彼得同样重要的评论（彼后1:20），即“经上所有的预言没有可随私意解说（或解决）的”，常被教皇滥用为借口，不让民众接触圣经，并坚持需要有权威的解释。这段经文指的是旧约的预言，它们不是人思想的产物，而是由圣灵启示的（1:21），除非被理解为神圣启示，否则无法正确理解。 ↩
- 约 21:15-23。主关于彼得和约翰的最后一句话非常神秘。 ↩
- 在这方面，鲍尔的立场与施特劳斯不同。施特劳斯在他的第一部《耶稣生平》（1835年）中，将福音历史描绘成第二代基督徒宗教想象力的一个天真无意识的神话或诗歌；但在他的第二部《耶稣生平》（1864年）中，他稍作修改，并最终（1873年）将整个问题作为一个糟糕的差事放弃了。一部有倾向性的作品或多或少地意味着有意识地虚构和伪造历史。然而，图宾根的批评家们试图通过引用犹太和基督教伪经文学来减轻这种虚构文学的恶劣特征，这些伪经以尊贵的名字流传，却并未因此引起特别的冒犯。 ↩
- 此处可参考J. Oswald Dykes的一篇有价值的文章，载于《不列颠与外国福音评论》，伦敦，1880年，第51页起。 ↩
- 读雷南对这场争论的描述（《圣保罗》，第十章）很有趣。他更同情彼得，称他为“一个心地极其善良正直，最渴望和平的人”，尽管他承认彼得在那次以及其他场合都表现出可爱的软弱和不一致；而他指责保罗固执和粗鲁；但最重要的一点是，他否认了图宾根的解释，他说：“现代批评家根据《加拉太书》的某些段落推断彼得和保罗之间的决裂是绝对的，这不仅与《使徒行传》相矛盾，也与《加拉太书》的其他段落（1:18; 2:2）相矛盾。热情的人一生都在争论，却从未真正闹翻。我们不能用今天那些彬彬有礼、在荣誉点上敏感的人之间发生的事情的方式来判断这些人物。特别是最后一个词，对犹太人来说从来没有多大意义！” ↩
- 见《使徒教会史》§ 63, 第235页，及§ 67, 第265页。林后 11:32, 33 中提到大马士革的亚哩达王执政一事，由于我们对那个时期了解不足，无法提供确切日期；但其他线索综合指向37年。维泽勒将保罗的归信定在40年，但这源于他对加 2:1 所提旅程的错误看法，他将其等同于保罗在54年的第四次耶路撒冷之行，而不是四年前他参加会议的第三次旅程。 ↩
- 罗 1:13, 15, 22; 15:23-28; 参 徒 19:21; 20:16; 23:11; 林前 16:3。 ↩
- 罗 15:25-27; 林前 16:1, 2; 林后 8 和 9; 徒 24:17。 ↩
- 罗 16:1, 23; 参 徒 19:22; 提后 4:20; 林前 1:14。 ↩
- 见维泽勒, l. c., 第67页起。 ↩
- 那些否认保罗有第二次监禁的人，将这些书信定于保罗在以弗所居住的时期，即公元54-57年，而《提摩太后书》则定于公元63或64年。 ↩