The life and work of St. Paul

OHBONOLOOT OF THS LIFE OF ST. PAUL, 753
of entering into direct controversy, but to grade the general conduct of those on whom
that duty had devolved, and who were already aware of that fixed body of truth which
formed the staple of the apostolic teaching. (3) They abound in unusual expressions,
because new forms of error required new methods of stating truth. (4) Their unity ia
less marked and their style less logical, because they are the private and informal
letters of an elder, written with the waning powers of a life which was rapidly passing
beyond the sphere of earthly controversies. Pauline in much of their phraseology,
Pauline in their fundamental doctrines, Pauline in their dignity and holiness of tone,
Pauline alike in their tenderness and severity, Pauline in the digressions, the construc-
tions, and the personality of their style, we may accept two of them with an absolute
conviction of their authenticity, and the third the First Epistle to Timothy, which ia
more open to doubt than the others with at least a strong belief that in reading it we
are reading the words of the greatest of the 1
Apostles.
EXCURSUS XXVIII.
CHRONOLOGY OF THE LIFE AND EPISTLES OF ST.
To enter fully into the chronology of this period would require a separate volume, and
although there is now an increasing tendency to unanimity on the subject, yet some of
the dates can only be regarded as approximate. As few definite chronological indications
are furnished in the Acts or the Epistles, we can only frame our system by working
backwards and forwards, with the aid of data which are often vague, from the few points
where the sacred. narrative refers to some distinct event in secular history. These,
which furnish us with our pointt de repZre, are
The Death of Herod Agrippa I., A.D. 44.
The Expulsion of the Jews from Rome, A.D. 52.
The Arrival of Festus as Procurator, A.D. 60.
The Neronian Persecution, A.D. 64.
How widely different have been the schemes adopted by different chronologors may be
seen from the subjoined table, founded on that given by Meyer.
1 Even Usteri, Liicke, Neander, and Bleek are unconvinced of the authenticity of the First
Epistle. Otto, Wieseler, and Beuss have said all that is to be said in favour of a single captivity ;
but on the assumption that the Pastoral Epistles are genuine, such a theory forces us into a mass of
impossibilities. The conviction at which I have arrived may be summed up thus : If St. Paul was
put to death at the end of his first imprisonment, the Pastoral Epistles must certainly be spurious.
But there is the strongest possible evidence that two of them at least are genuine, and great
probability in favour of the other. They therefore furnish us with a proof of the current tradition
that his trial, as he had anticipated, ended in an acquittal, and that a period of about two yean
elapsed between his liberation and his subsequent arrest, imprisonment, and death.