PAUL
804
PAUL
these twelve " disciples" was concerning the character and work of Jesus, we have no means of knowing; but we slather that it was wanting in a recognition of the full lordship of Jesus and of the gift of the Holy Ghost. The Pentecostal faith was communicated to Apollos by Aquila and Priscilla, to the other disciples of the Baptist by Paul.
The apostle now entered upon his usual work. He went into the synagogue, and for three months he spoke openly, disputing and persuading concerning "the kingdom of God." At the end of that time the ob- stinacy and opposition of some of the Jews led him to give up frequenting the sj'nagogue, and he established the believers as a separate society, meeting "in the school of Tyrannus." This continued (so closely as not to allow any considerable absence of Paul) for two years. During this time occurred the triumph over magical arts, and the great disturbance raised by the silversmiths who made shrines for Artemis ; also the ■writing of the First Epistle to the Corinthians.
"God wrought special miracles" {cvva^ut(; ov raq rvxov(Tac), we are tuld, " by the hands of Paul." " It is evident that the arts of sorcery and magic — all those arts which betoken the belief in the presence of a spirit, but not of a Holy Spirit — were flourishing here in great luxuriance. Everything in the history of the Old or New Testament would suggest the thought that the exhibitions of Divine power took a more start- ling form where superstitions grounded mainly on the reverence for diabolical power were prevalent ; that they were the proclamations of a beneficent and orderly government, which had been manifested to counteract and overcome one that was irregular and malevolent" (Maurice, Unity of the New Testament, p. 515). The powers of the new kingdom took a form more nearly resembling the wonders of the kingdom of darkness than was usually adopted, when handker- chiefs and aprons from the body of Paul (like the shadow of Peter, Acts v, 15), were allowed to be used for the healing of the sick and the casting out of demons. But it was to be clearly seen that all was done by the healing power of the Lord Jesus himself. Certain Jews, and among them the seven sons of one Sceva (not unlike Simon Magus in Samaria), fancied that the effect was due to a magic formula, an tTrojSi). The}' therefore attempted to exorcise, by saying, "We ad- jure 3'ou by Jesus whom Paul preacheth." But the evil spirit, having a voice given to it, cried out, "Je- sus I know, and Paul I know, but who are ye ?" And the man who was possessed fell furiously upon the exorcists and drove them forth. The result of this testimony was that fear fell upon all the inhabitants of Ephesus, and the name of the Lord Jesus was mag- nified. The impression produced bore striking prac- tical fruits. The city was well known for its 'Ecpima ■ypamiaTa, forms of incantation, which were sold at a high price. Man}' of those who had these books brought them together and burned them before all men, and when the cost of them was computed it was found to be 50,000 drachmae = $8850. "So mightily grew the word of the Lord, and prevailed."
While Paul was at Ephesus his communications ■with the Church in Achaia were not altogether sus- pended. There is no good reason, however, to believe that a personal visit to Corinth was made by him, nor any lost letter sent, of which there is no mention in the Acts. (See below.) The first of the extant epis- tles to that place, however, dates at this time. Wheth- er the First Epistle to the Corinthians was written be- fore or after the tumult excited by Demetrius cannot be positively asserted. He makes an allusion in that Epistle to "a battle with wild beasts" fought at Eph- esus (tO>ifitoi^iax>](Ta kv 'E(pi(T(i), 1 Cor. xv, ,S2), which it is usual to understand figuratively, and which is by many connected with that tumult. But such a con- nection is arbitrary, and without much reason. As it ■would seem from Acts xx, 1, that Paul departed im-
mediately after the tumult, it is probable that the Epistle was written before, though not long before, the raising of this disturbance. Here then, while the apostle is so earnestly occupied with the teaching of believers and inquirers at Ephesus and from the neigh- boring parts of "Asia," we find him throwing all his heart and soul into the concerns of the Church at Cor- inth.
There were two external inducements for writing this Epistle. (1.) Paul had received information from members of Chloe's household {iSijXwh] fioi inro twv XXotjc, i, 11) concerning the state of the Church at Corinth. (2.) That Church had written him a letter, of which the bearers were Stephanas and Fortunatus and Achaicus, to ask his judgment upon various points wliich were submitted to him (vii, 1 ; xvi, 17). He had learned that there were divisions in the Church; that parties had been formed whicli took the names of Paul, of Apollos, of Cephas, and of Christ (i, 11, 12) ; and also that moral and social irregularities had be- gun to prevail, of ■which the most conspicuous and scandalous example was that a believer had taken his father's wife, without being publicly condemned by the Church (v, 1 ; vi, 7 ; xi, 17-22 ; xiv, 33-40). To these evils we must add one doctrinal error, of those who said "that there was no resurrection of the dead" (xv, 12). It is probable that the teaching of Apollos the Alexandrian, which had been characteristic and highly successful (Acts xviii, 27, 28), had been the first occasion of the "divisions" in the Church. We may take it for granted that his adherents did not form themselves into a party until he had left Corinth, and therefore that he had been some time with Paul at Ephesus. But after he was gone, the special Alexan- drian features of his teaching were remembered by those who had delighted to hear him. Their Grecian intellect was captivated by his broader and more spir- itual interpretation of the Jewish Scriptures. The connection which he taught them to perceive between the revelation made to Hebrew rulers and prophets and the wisdom by which other nations, and especially their own, had been enlightened, dwelt in their minds. That which especially occupied the Apollos school must have been a phil^soph'j of the Scriptures. It was the tendency of this party which seemed to the apostle particularly dangerous among the Greeks. He hardly seems to refer specially in his fetter to the other par- ties, but we can scarcely doubt that in what he says about "the wisdom which the Greeks sought" (i, 22), he is referring not only to the general tendency of the Greek mind, but to that tendency as it had been caught and influenced by the teaching of Apollos. It gives him an occasion of delivering his most characteristic testimony. He recognises wisdom, but it is the wis- dom of God ; and that wisdom was not only a Eo(pia o" a Aiiyoc through which God had always spoken to all men ; it had been perfectly manifested in Jesus the Crucified. Christ crucified was both the Power of God and the Wisdom of God. To receive him re- quired a spiritual discernment unlike the wisdom of the great men of the world ; a discernment given by the Holy Spirit of God, and manifesting itself in sym- pathy with huiuiliation and in love.