Epaphras reports to him the attempt of some speculative teacher visiting Colosse to amalga- mate the gospel with Alexandrian theosophy, by ranging Christ amongst angelic mediators, and by prescribing Jewish ritual and ascetic regimen as means of salvation. This report elicits the great Christological deliverance of Col 14. The larger representation of the sich er ae 8 of Christ here made gives completeness to St. Paul’s system of thought, bringing the entire sum of things within its compass. The Lordship of the crucified and risen Saviour is based upon the universal Lord- ship of the Son of God; our redemption springs out of the ground of creation itself, and the new creation is evolved from the hidden root and rationale of the old. The Head of the Church is the centre of the universe, the depositary of ‘all the fulness of the Godhead,’ who ‘fills sini? above and beneath, with His plenitude and ‘gathers all things into one’ (Eph 19. 383 47-10, Col QP. 18), In Galatians and Romans the thought of salvation by Christ broke through Jewish limits and covered the field of humanity ; in Colossians and Ephesians the idea of life in Christ overleaps time and human existence, and subjects the entire cosmos to its sway. Ph 2*" puts the top-stone on the apostle’s doctrine of the person of Christ, and therefore upon all his doctrine.
The movement of thought which completed Paul’s Christological teaching gave a parallel ex- pansion to his idea of the Church, which attains at this epoch its full dimensions. The philosophical Judaism of Colossw, like the legal Judaism of
Galatia, bred caste-feeling and schism,—evils to be corrected only by a right sense of the greatness of the Christian society and the sacredness of its
fellowship, such as the apostle conveys in the Epistles of this period.
Rome was the very spot to stimulate thoughts of this nature, and to bring to its final shape St.
Paul's conception of Christ’s imperial dominion. The ampler prospect, both .t time and space, which | now opens out for the Church under his eyes,
| | ᾿
PAUL THE APOSTLE
PAUL THE APOSTLE
trial is past and he has already pleaded once at the bar of the emperor. before the trial ends, and he needs the cloak left at Troas when he last passed through that port, along with some valued books; but he craves above all the company of Timothy. have been sent off, probably at the time of his arrest, on various missions; Luke is his single companion ; at his public trial he was absolutely Quite otherwise than on his former trial, he counts upon his condemnation and death He had been, as it seems, at Troas earlier in the year, and probably at Miletus and Corinth (4%) upon the same round of visitation (following upon his return from Spain ἢ). 1 Ti dates, apparently, whither Paul has journeyed after meetin Timothy, to whom in this Ep. he gives instructions for his charge at Ephesus.
and Troas lie along the line of travel terminatin at Corinth. Ac 20” records a prediction of Pa that he would not see the and the language of 1 Til loc.), in view, moreover, of the detailed directions of this Ep. respecting Church affairs, indicates that Paul had not himself been present in Ephesus, but had held an interview wit Miletus; ef. Ac 9017) in (see Appendix to Eng. e
accounts also for the attention given in the prison Epistles to family and social relations, and for their fuller and more balanced ethical teaching. These years of martyrdom drew to the apostle the reverence of the whole Church. spends a word on his own defence. We mark in the prison Epistles a calm sense of authority, a stron assurance, blended with the deepest humility, o the perpetuity of his work and its universal import, such as are but partially to be observed in the Ep. As Nero’s prisoner at Rome and Christ’s bondman for the Gentiles, St. Paul rose to the full unassailable height of his doctrine and
ill be some time
to the Romans.
(f) From the conclusion of the Acts we infer that Paul was released, and his ministry extended to a sixth period. The Pastoral Epp. require this by their altered style and the changed doctrinal and ecclesiastical situation they present, b erson and place, and by the im- of inserting them within the scheme urnished by the Acts. If genuine (see the Articles on 1 and 2 TrmoTHy and Titus), they are later than Ac 28"; and even if not from Paul’s hand, they indicate the existence of a strong and detailed post-apostolic tradition relating to a missionary activity of Paul outside the scope of the Acts, and recording an imprisonment in from that disclosed in the third grou Most scholars who reject the Pastorals
mit a Pauline nucleus in them, including the personal and local references of 2 Ti and Tit; and these enable us to trace, though imperfectly, Paul’s movements in the last years of his ministry. To these slight but valuable data we may add what may be conjectured from the apostle’s intentions signified in earlier letters.
Approaching the end of the first Roman imprison- ment, Paul expected speedily to see his friends in hilippi (Philem # and Ph 1° 2%), His first business would be, especially after so long separation, to revisit his Churches extending from Greece to Syria—a dut siderable time.