el us, from which it cannot be separated without harshness, and repov carries róvároo róAov with it. It seems then that St James is here called an Apostle, though it does not therefore follow that he was one of the Twelve (see the detached note, p. 95). The plural in the corresponding account Acts iz. 27, ‘He brought (Paul) to the Apostles, is also in favour of this sense, but this argument must not be pressed. 20. ièow ovariov rod esow) A form of asseveration equivalent to ‘I call you to witness,’ and so followed by ori. See 2 Tim. ii. 14, iv. I Šuapuapripeo:6al évémov too esos. For ièot elsewhere in the New Testament is an interjection or adverb, never a verb, so that there is an objection to making it govern Gri here. Perhaps however the occurrence of toe 3rt in the Lxx, Ps. cxix. 159, Lam. i. 20, may justify such a construction here. The strength of St Paul's language is to be explained by the unscrupulous calumnies cast upon him by his enemies. See the note I Thess. v. 27. 21. In the corresponding narrative of St Luke it is related that the brethren at Jerusalem, discovering the plot against St Paul's life, ‘took him down to Caesarea and despatched him to Tarsus’ (Acts ix. 30); and later on, that Barnabas went to Tarsus and sought out Saul, and having found him brought him to Antioch, where they taught for a whole year before returning to Jerusalem (xi. 25–30). The Caesarea mentioned there is doubtless Stratomis, and not Philippi, as some maintain. Not only was this the more probable route for him to take, but St Luke's language requires it; for (1) The words karīyayov, Šćat éorrei)\av, imply a seaport and an embarkation: and (2) Caesarea, without any addition to distinguish it, is always the principal city of the name. It appears therefore that St Luke represents St Paul as sailing from Caesarea on his way to Tarsus; and comparing this account with the notice here, we must suppose either (1) That St Paul did not go direct to Tarsus but visited Syria on the way; or (2) That he visited Syria from Tarsus, and after preaching there returned again to Tarsus where he was found by Barnabas; St Luke having, on either of these hypotheses, omitted to record this visit to Syria; or (3) That St Paul's words here ‘Syria and Cilicia’ are not intended to describe the order in which he visited the two countries. This last is the most probable supposition. Cilicia has geographically a greater affinity with Syria than with Asia Minor. See Conybeare and Howson, I. p. 130. The less important country is here named after the more important. ‘Cilicia,” says Ewald, “was constantly little better than an appendage of Syria,” Gesch. des V. Isr. vi. p. 406. At this time however it was under a separate administration. The words rà k\tuara seem to show that ‘Syria and Cilicia’ are here mentioned under one general expression, and not as two distinct districts. rå k\iuaraj Rom. xv. 23, 2 Cor. xi. Io. A comparatively late word, see Lobeck Paral. p. 418. It is found in Pseudo-Aristot. de Mundo c. x, and several times in Polybius. 22. İumv dyvoo'suevos K.T.A.] ‘I remained personally unknown. A strong form of the imperfect, as drowovres joav “they kept hearing’ (ver. 23); see Winer, Ś Xlv. 5, p. 437 sq. rais exk\mortals K.T.A..] ‘ unknown to the Churches of Judaea’ generally, as distinguished from that of Jerusalem; comp. John iii. 22. To the latter he could not have failed to be known, as might be inferred from the account here, even without the narrative of his energetic preaching in the Acts. From Jerusalem he was hurried off to Caesarea, and there embarking he left the shores of Palestine. The other churches of Judaea therefore had no opportunity of knowing him. Judaea is here distinguished from Jerusalem, as Italy is frequently distinguished from Rome, e.g. probably Hebr. xiii. 24. The addition rais v Xplorró was necessary when speaking of the Christian brotherhoods of Judaea; for the unconverted Jewish communities might still be called ‘the Churches of Judaea.’ See the note on I Thess. ii. 14, rôv čkk\matáv row eeoo róv odorów Śv rs, 'Iověata čv Xpt a rö 'In or ot. 23. 3rt] introduces an abrupt change from the oblique to the direct mode of speaking, e.g. Acts xiv. 22, xxiii. 22. St Paul's sojourn in Arabia. A veil of thick darkness hangs over St Paul's visit to Arabia. Of Obscurity the scenes among which he moved, of the thoughts and occupations which of the inengaged him while there, of all the circumstances of a crisis which must cident. have shaped the whole tenour of his after life, absolutely nothing is known. “Immediately, says St Paul, “I went away into Arabia.’ The historian passes over the incident without a mention. It is a mysterious pause, a moment of suspense in the Apostle's history, a breathless calm which ushers in the tumultuous storm of his active missionary life. Yet it may be useful to review the speculations to which this incident has given rise, even though we cannot hope to arrive at any definite result; for, if such a review bears no other fruit, it will at least bring out more clearly the significance of the incident itself. Of the place of the Apostle's sojourn various opinions have been held. Conjec Arabia is a vague term, and affords scope for much conjecture. #. to 1. The Arabic translator", whose language gives him a fictitious claim o:É.i. to a hearing on such a point, renders the passage “Immediately I went ka. * The Arabic version of the Polyglotts, which was made directly from the Greek. The translator not unfrequently gives geographical comments. See Hug Einleit. § cix, i. p. 431. The other Arabic version, the Erpenian, translated from the Syriac, retains ‘Arabia.” * See Burckhardt Trav. in Syria App. III, Ritter Erdkunde xII. p. 426 sq, Stanley's Sinai and Palestine pp. (2) The 2. Arabia, in the widest use of the term, might extend to the gates country of Damascus, and even include that city itself. “You cannot any of you ** deny, says Justin, arguing against his Jew as to the interpretation of mascus, a passage in one of the prophets, “that Damascus belongs and did belong to Arabia, though now it has been assigned to Syrophoenicial.' Thus no very distant journey would be necessary to reach Arabia. A retirement in the immediate neighbourhood of Damascus would suffice, and such a visit, especially if it were brief, might well be passed over by the historian as a merely temporary interruption of the Apostle's long residence in that city, which was unknown to him, or which knowing, he did not care to record. Into these wild regions then, beyond the sway of Roman dominion, beyond the reach of civilization, far away from all his old haunts and associations, it is thought that the Apostle plunged himself in the first tumult of his newly-acquired experiences”. This explanation however is open to objection. It gives to ‘Arabia’ an extension, which at all events seems not to have been common, and which even the passage of Justin shows to have required some sort of justification. It separates the Arabia of the first chapter from the Arabia of the fourth. And lastly, it deprives this visit of a significance which, on a more probable hypothesis, it possesses in relation to this crisis of St Paul's life. 3. For if we suppose that the Apostle at this critical moment betook himself to the Sinaitic peninsula, the scene of the giving of the law, then his visit to Arabia becomes full of meaning. He was attracted thither by a spirit akin to that which formerly had driven Elijah to the same region”. Standing on the threshold of the new covenant, he was anxious to look upon the birthplace of the old: that dwelling for a while in seclusion in the presence of ‘the mount that burned with fire,’ he might ponder over the transient glories of the ‘ministration of death,’ and apprehend its real purpose in relation to the more glorious covenant which 3) Mount inai. country’ is a corrupt reading of U.J; Amrau roi Xupopoulon Xeyouévy seem to was now to supplant it. Here, surrounded by the children of the desert, the descendants of Hagar the bondwoman, he read the true meaning and power of the law". In the rugged and barren region, whence it issued, Signifihe saw a fit type of that bleak desolation which it created and was in-gance of tended to create in the soul of man. In the midst of such scenes and .* associations, his spirit was attuned to harmony with his divine mission, and fitted to receive fresh “visions and revelations of the Lord.” Thus in the wilderness of Sinai, as on the Mount of the transfiguration, the three dispensations met in one. Here Moses had received the tables of the law amid fire and tempest and thick darkness. Here again Elijah, the typical prophet, listened to the voice of God, and sped forth refreshed on his mission of righteousness. And here lastly, in the fulness of time, St Paul, the greatest preacher of Him of whom both the law and the prophets spoke, was strengthened and sanctified for his great work, was taught the breadth as well as the depth of the riches of God's wisdom, and transformed from the champion of a bigoted and narrow tradition into the large-hearted Apostle of the Gentiles”. What was the length of this sojourn we can only conjecture. The Its durainterval between his conversion and his first visit to Jerusalem, St Paul tion. here states to have been three years. The notices of time in St Luke are vague, but not contradictory to this statement”. From Damascus St Paul tells us he went away into Arabia, whence he returned to Damascus. St Luke represents him as preaching actively in this city after his conversion, not mentioning and apparently not aware of any interruption, though his narrative is not inconsistent with such. It seems probable then that St Paul's visit to Arabia took place early in this period before he 1 A stronger argument for St Paul's Acts ir. 43, xviii. 18, xxvii. 7. Cer visit to Sinai might be drawn from his tainly the idea connected with travös |