Leighton Pullan

“ The Gospel of St. John is none the less genuine for being of the nature of a treatise, intended to bring certain aspects of the life of our Lord to bear upon the intellectual life of Ephesus. Much has been made of the fact that he says nothing of the institution of the Eucharist. Nor does he record the command of Jesus to baptize. Are we to suppose that a writer who has told us how "the Word was made flesh" so shrank from believing material things to be connected with a spiritual efficacy that he rejected the sacraments? ”

“ Without Him, I should still be serving the Law of God with my conscience, and the law of sin with my body (vii. 25) .
Where the Law of Moses failed, Christ splendidly succeeds. He not only sets before men an ideal, but also helps them to attain it, and fulfil the righteous claims of the moral Law, by uniting Himself with them by the Spirit (viii. 1-10) . Men are now in a new relation to God: they call Him Father, He sees in them His sons. Though with all creation we wait still in fruitful pain for the fulness of redemption, we wait with confident hope. ”

“ The Epistle has the nature of a letter sent by a spiritual father to his children rather than of a doctrinal treatise with an argument carefully built up. Its value for us lies chiefly in the vivid reality with which it reflects the personality of the writer, his love for his converts, his intense conviction that his apostolic commission and power are entirely genuine—a conviction which is set off by his wish always to associate himself with the weakness and fragility of ordinary human nature. ”

“ As applied to the New Testament, the word "canon" means the books which fit the Church's rule of faith, and which themselves become a rule that measures forgeries and finds them wanting. The Church set these genuine books apart as having their origin in inspiration which came from God. They were all either written by the apostles or by men who were trained by the apostles, and thus they contain a unique account of the sayings of the Lord Jesus and the teaching of those who received their commission from Him. ”

“ When he tells Philemon to receive Onesimus "as a brother beloved," he is really saying that our estimate of men must not be based on their social class, but rather on their relation to God.
This letter has been compared with a letter written under similar circumstances by the younger Pliny, one of the best of the pagan gentlemen of Rome. But while the letter of Pliny is more elegant in language, the letter of St. Paul is a finer masterpiece of feeling. A Roman slave was still allowed no rights and no family relationship, and for the smallest offence he might be tortured and killed. ”

“ Several points in the literary style of the apostle have been noticed in dealing with the internal evidence which they afford to the authenticity of his Gospel. But it is necessary to add something more, for there is no writer to whom we can more fitly apply the profound saying that "the style is the man." The language of St. John is the result of a long and impassioned contemplation. Whether he writes down his own words, or records the words and deeds of our Lord, his language shows the result of careful reflection. ”

“ The Epistle, however, does contain some phrases and ideas which are not to be found in the Gospel. Such are "love perfected," "a sin unto death," "the lust of the eyes," "to come in the flesh," "to walk in the light," "to do lawlessness," "to be from above." Yet they fit quite naturally with the language and theology of the Gospel. Therefore there does not seem to be any sufficient reason for holding that it was the work of another writer. F. C. Baur and Hilgenfeld thought it to be the work of a second forger of that mysterious band to which they attributed such versatility and success. ”

“ Unlike Philo, the great Alexandrian Jew who tried to combine Greek philosophy with Jewish religion, St. John teaches that this divine Word is a Person, and took human flesh and revealed Himself as the Messiah. The whole Gospel shows how this revelation met with increasing faith on the part of some, and increasing unbelief and hatred on the part of others. The crises of this unbelief are represented chiefly in connection with our Lord's visits to Jerusalem, when He made His claims before the religious leaders of Judaism. His revelation is attended by various forms of witness. ”

“ Scripture shut up all mankind in the fold of sin, that they might look forward to the reign of faith as the only means of escape. To emphasize further the contrast between the Law and the promise, St. Paul asserts that the Law did not come direct from God to man. It came, as Jewish traditions said, from God and the angels to Moses, the mediator, and from him to the Hebrews. The Law had a mediator, therefore it involved two parties—God and the Hebrew people. But there was no such mediator in the case of the promise. God spoke directly to Abraham. ”

“ There is nothing in the New Testament equal to this Epistle in its power of bringing us close to the difficulties of the Church in an ancient city. We seem to see the men and women who composed it—their eagerness for religious novelties, their debased surroundings, their anarchic divisions, their frail sense of moral responsibility. And a modern reader will probably lay the letter down with a conviction that our great modern cities have much to learn from the words written by St. Paul to Corinth, "the light of Greece." ”

“ The truth is that it is only by doing violence to all the evidence which we possess, that anything can be done to support either the theory of Baur and his school that the apostles of the Church were divided with regard to the Law, or the more recent theory of Harnack and others that they were divided with regard to the Person of Christ. All the apostles believed that the gospel was for all men on equal terms, and that Christ was the divine Lord of all. ”

“ Righteousness was never attained before Christ came. The Gentiles neglected their conscience until they sank into abominable sins; future judgment will certainly come on all men without respect of persons; the Jews, too, have no right to criticize the Gentiles—they had the Law of Moses, while the Gentiles only had the unwritten law of conscience, yet they failed. The Jewish quibble that there was no good in being a Jew if God condemned him, is refuted. The witness of the Old Testament to the universality of sin is quoted (i. 18-iii. 20) . ”

“ Saul, who changed his name to Paul, was born at Tarsus in Cilicia, a city which prided itself upon its good education. The language of the city was Greek; Saul's father was a Jew and a Roman citizen. He was trained at Jerusalem by {119} Gamaliel, a renowned Pharisee. The future apostle was therefore born a member of the most religious race in the world, spoke the language of the most cultivated race in the world, and lived under the most masterly and fully organized government. All these three influences left their mark on a soul which was always impressible towards everything great and noble. ”

“ The main theme of the Epistle is not controversial. It is to show that in faith and love is the guarantee of our fellowship with God and of our salvation. Since this fellowship implies that He abides in us, it may be recognized by His Spirit being in us (iii. 24) . This Spirit is distinguished from the spirit of error by the confession of Christ; so to hear the apostle's teaching about Christ is a sign of the presence of God within us. The moral and the religious life are summed up in the words "God" and "Love," and those who love one another are born of God. ”

“ The manner in which he records our Lord's urgent warnings against going after false Jewish Messiahs at the time when the destruction of Jerusalem should draw near, is a witness to the depth of his convictions. Like the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews, who wrote shortly before him, he cannot endure the thought of any waverers or deserters. The Jewish Christian must be loyal to Jesus, even although the invasion of the holy land by Gentiles may sorely tempt him to throw in his lot with his patriotic but unbelieving kinsmen. ”

“ He wishes them to see plainly the working of God both in his own preaching of the gospel and their acceptance of it. On the one hand, he gladly recognizes the faith, charity, hope, and constancy under persecution: the story of their conversion, as it had been known everywhere, has won many friends for the Faith (i.) . On the other hand, St. Paul is aware that his own conduct has not been unworthy of an apostle. Probably to vindicate himself against Jewish calumnies, he declares that his ministry at Thessalonica was bold, pure, honest, and gentle. ”

“ Paul shows that the Jews are not in a worse case than the Gentiles. Both are under the dominion of sin, and Scripture says so. The whole system of Law is a failure. Law does nothing but give a clear knowledge of sin (iii. 9-20) .
St. Paul then brings forward his great remedy—the answer of God to the need which is represented by universal human sinfulness. Man has failed to correspond to the suggestions of conscience, he has failed to fulfil the requirements of the written Law, but now he may come into a right relation with God by identifying himself with Jesus Christ. ”

“ The Epistle opens with a brief introduction. Paul, the apostle of Christ, wishes to preach the gospel to those in Rome whom Christ has called. Then he begins at once to describe the set of circumstances which the gospel is intended to meet. The Gentiles have not been true to such knowledge as they had of God, and by an inevitable process they have passed on to unnatural and vicious excess (i. 18-32) . And when St. Paul turns to the Jews, he finds they are in no better case. With fuller knowledge they have sinned scarcely less. ”

“ Paul discusses the kind of body which we shall have at the Resurrection. He shows by analogies from nature (a) that God is able to effect the transformation of a seed-grain into a new product, and can therefore transform us while retaining a connection between our present and future body; (b) that God is able to create a variety of embodiments, and can therefore give us a higher embodiment than we now possess. There will be a spiritual body adapted to the spiritual world, as truly as our natural body is adapted to life in this world. ”

“ VII. Revelation of the New Jerusalem: xxi. i-xxii. 5.—From a mountain-top is seen the Church, the holy city, New Jerusalem, the Bride prepared for Jesus. Its luminary and structure are described. It rises on a vast rock of jewels. The throne of God is no longer remote from man, but in the midst of the city. From the throne pours the river of life through the very heart of the city. ”

“ In the next century the Emperor Hadrian first took away from masters the power of life and death over their slaves, and it was not until the time {179} of the Emperor Constantine, who established Christianity, that the laws affecting slavery pointed to the future triumph of emancipation. But the ancient conception of slavery was doomed as soon as "slave-girls like Blandina in Gaul, or Felicitas in Africa, having won for themselves the crown of martyrdom, were celebrated in the festivals of the Church with honours denied to the most powerful and noblest born of mankind." ”

“ We have only to read Acts to see that among the Gentiles it was the poor and ignorant rather than the rich who began the persecution of the Christians. On the other hand, if we turn to the Jews, we find that the rich were the leaders of persecution. It was the wealthy Sadducee party in union with the influential Pharisees which harried the Church. The Gospels and Acts give repeated evidence on this point, and the evidence of the Jewish historian Josephus supplies the keystone of that evidence. ”

“ Jews {161} of all classes were numerous, though the majority were as poor as those of East London. They made some converts, and Poppaea, the mistress of Nero in A.D. 58, dallied with Judaism as with a new sensation. Men and women of every race were included among the slaves of Rome, and the arts and elegance of Greek and Syrian slaves often proved a staircase by which new religions found a way into the chambers of the great and wealthy. In spite of some signs of moral vigour, society was cankered with pride of class and with self-indulgence. ”

“ CHAPTER XIX THE CATHOLIC EPISTLES The New Testament contains seven letters known as "Catholic," viz. that of James, 1 and 2 Peter, 1, 2, and 3 John, and that of Jude. These letters were added to the Canon of the New Testament later than the rest of its contents. In ancient manuscripts, versions, and catalogues their position in the New Testament varies, and for a long time they were often placed between Acts and St. Paul's Epistles. 1 Peter and 1 John were the first to be universally received. ”

“ John speaks of the possibility of committing a "sin unto death." This {260} is an old Jewish expression for a sin deserving natural death. But the apostle lifts the phrase to a higher level and slightly alters it. His words literally mean "a sin tending unto death." It is any sin which by its very nature excludes a man from fellowship with Christians. It is a sin which requires chastisement before forgiveness, and St. John does not enjoin, though he does not forbid, prayer for those whose sin makes them unable to share in the privileges of the common life of the Church. ”

“ Paul tells how his captivity has been a means of spreading the gospel in the praetorium and elsewhere. Even the malicious activity of his opponents has been a means of proclaiming Christ, and with true grandeur of soul the apostle rejoices in the fact. So far as he is concerned, death would be a more attractive prospect than life, for death would mean admission into the presence of Christ, but for the sake of the Philippians he is glad to live. ”

“ John was an ignorant and insignificant body of people mentioned by Irenaeus and Epiphanius. They were known as the Alogi, or "unbelievers in the Word." Their views in no wise undermine the tradition of the Catholic Church. For the Alogi asserted that this Gospel was written by Cerinthus, who lived at Ephesus where St. John lived, and was himself a contemporary of St. John. We have sufficient knowledge of the teaching of Cerinthus to be perfectly certain that he could not have written a Gospel which so completely contradicts his own theories. ”