BOOKS.
PROFESSOR RAMSAY'S " CHURCH IN THE ROMAN EMPIRE."* AFTER telling us that for some time, with "much interest and zeal, but with little knowledge," he had followed the destructive critics, Professor Ramsay proceeds to make this remarkable declaration In recent years, as I came to un- derstand Roman history better, I have realised that, in the case of almost all the books of the New Testament, it is as gross an outrage on criticism to hold them for second-century forgeries, as it would be to class the works of Horace and Virgil as forgeries of the time of Nero." The New Testament books with which the present volume is concerned arc the Acts (the portion relating to the journeys of St. Paul in Asia Minor) and the Epistle to the Galatians. It must not be supposed, however, that Professor Ramsay holds ultra-conservative views as to the authorship of the Acts. He distinguishes two writers at least, one of them using more accurate language than the other. The author of what he calls the " Travel-Document" wrote, he supposes, under St. Paul's own influence, and produced, accordingly, what must be accepted as early (not later than A.D. 70) and trustworthy. His narrative begins with Acts xiii. Omitting the departure from the Syrian Antioch and the incidents in Cyprus, we find Paul and Barnabas in the Pisidian Antioch. It will be convenient to state at this point an important correction which Professor Ramsay makes in the commonly accepted geography of the Acts. Galatia, he thinks, is to be regarded as the Roman province of that name, including indeed Galatia, popularly so called, otherwise Gallo-GiTecia, the abode of the survivals of the great Celtic invasion of B.C. 826, but extending far beyond it, and taking in, with other regions, part of Phrygia, Isauria, and Lycaonia. A yet more important contention is that St. Paul never visited the country popularly called Galatia (the northern part of the Roman province), but laboured in the southern part, following therein his principle, as Professor Ramsay contends it to have been, of confining himself to regions dominated by Greek or Roman influences. If this be so, we shall have to abandon the commonly received belief as to the communities to which the Epistle was addressed. These were, if the new theory be accepted, the Churches founded in Antioch, Iconium, Derbe, and Lystra. It is certainly strange that no mention should be found in the narrative of the Acts of the planting of Churches with which the Apostle had relations so close and affectionate as he had with the " Galatians ;" and, conversely —supposing, of course, that we leave out the letters he wrote— that he should have sent no communication to communities where he spent so much time and went through such interesting experiences as he did in the cities of Southern Galatia. As Professor Ramsay puts it, the existence of these Churches among the Gallo-Gralei, of which we have heard elsewhere, is "assumed in order to explain the Epistle to the Gala- tians." St. Peter is appositely quoted for the larger application of the word Galatia. " Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia " in 1 Peter i. 1, "sums up the whole of Asia Minor north of the Taurus range," with exceptions easily accounted for. But it is doubtful whether the writer was at Romo when he used these terms. The order in which they occur suggest a locality to the East. The further suggestion that "he, toe, had the mind of an organiser, and had caught a glimpse of the great conception of Christianity as the religion of the Roman Empire," seems a little fanciful.
Later on in the volume we are again introduced to the same period in St. Paul's life in a chapter which bears the title of " The Acts of Paul and Thekla ; " Thekla is the heroine of a story which has, from very early times, attracted much atten- tion from ecclesiastical writers. It is criticised by Tertullian, writing before he became a Montanist, on the' ground that it sanctioned the practice of baptism administered by women. This throws back the date to somewhere • The Church in the Roman Empire before A.D. 170. By W. M. Eamsay, MA. London Hodder and Stoughton. 1893, • in the second half of the second century. Tertullian's language implying that the tale which he had before him was an altered form of a still earlier story. It is this earlier story that Professor Ramsay seeks to reconstruct. He believes the original document to have been a work of the first century, and to have related actual occurrences which may probably be assigned to St. Paul's first visit to Iconium and the Pisidian Antioch, i.e., to the year 46 or thereabouts. It shows a knowledge of facts which probably had been for- gotten before the end of the first century. Another note of a very early date is that Christian belief is not a recognised ground of accusation. To put in the very briefest outline the story as Professor Ramsay reconstructs it, we have the fol- lowing narrative. Thekla, a noble maiden of Iconium, over- hears Paul preaching in a private house which adjoined that of her parents. She is so wrought upon, that she refuses to share any longer the family life, and breaks-off an engage- ment of marriage. The Apostle, to whom this change is traced, is thrown into prison by the magistrates on the charges brought against him by the girl's relatives and lover, of employing magic to disturb the peace of families. There is no mention, it should be noted, of Christian belief, though a clumsy addition by some later hand represents two faith- less followers of St. Paul, Demas and Hermogenes (both navies unfavourably mentioned in the Epistles), as suggesting to the accuser that he should make this charge. Thekla bribes her mother's servants and the jailer to allow egress from her home and access to the prisoner, who instructs her in the faith. He is expelled from the city. Thekla follows him. After sundry adventures, she is tried on a charge of impiety (wholly unconnected, however, with any question of Christian belief). The Roman Governor, who has come to Antioch to be present at an exhibition of wild beasts, condemns her to be exposed. She arouses the interest of a certain Queen Tryphama, who is residing in the city. Tryphtena,, after trying in vain to save her from the beasts, is ultimately the cause of her deliverance, for, swooning with horror, she so alarms the Governor that he releases the prisoner. The Queen was a relative of the Emperor, whose dis- pleasure was to be dreaded if anything should happen to her. Who was Queen Tryphtena P one naturally asks. A well-known personage about the middle of the first century, but not likely to occur to a later romancer, She was the wife of a certain Cotys, King of Thrace, and mother of Polemon, King of Pontus. Dr. Gwynn, in his learned article on " Thekla," in the Dictionary of Christian Biography, finds a difficulty in the relationship of Tryplia3na and Pole- mon. He supposes her to have been his wife, and remarks that' the repudiation of her in order to make room in 48 for Berenice is not likely to have been so early as 46." It is interesting to know that further knowledge removes this difficulty. She was Polemon's mother; the coin on which the two heads appear masks the difference of age very plainly. And the date 46 suits the story very well ; Claudius was then Emperor, and Claudius, the grandson on the mother's side of the Triumvir Antony, was first cousin, once removed, to Tryphaina. Six years later, when Nero was on the throne, the relationship would have availed little. After Nero's fall (69), it would have ceased to exist. It must be allowed that these coincidences are striking, and they are only two out of a number which Professor Ramsay illustrates and explains in a most interesting way.
The chapters which precede that which we have just been con- sidering, contain a very careful consideration of the action of the Roman Emperors, from Nero downwards, with regard to the Christian Church. Professor Ramsay sees in this action a more settled and definite policy than historians have commonly dis- covered in it. The Neronian persecution, though suggested by the exigency of a particular:time, had a purpose; and this was carried out by the dynasty which took the place of the Julian Caesars. In the true account of the destruction of the Temple—an account which the ingenuity of Jacob Bernays extracted from the pages of Sulpicius Severus—the motive of Titus is seen to have been the destruction of what he con- ceived to be the head-quarters of the Christian superstition. The statement of Suetonius that Vespasian " justis suppliciis inlacrimavit etiam et ingerauit " is ingeniously referred to the carrying out of a persecuting policy. The execution of ordinary criminals would not have roused the pity of a veteran soldier, but the slaughter of harmless persons, who were suffering for an idea, might.well have done so. The persecution carried on by Domitian is a matter of certainty, though the details are obscure. In discussing the "Authorities for the Flavian Period," Professor Ramsay states a curious theory about the date of St. Peter and the facts of the Apostle's life. There has always been a difficulty in finding room for the traditional "twenty-five" years of the Apostle's sojourn in Rome before 68 A.D., when he is supposed to have suffered along with St. Paul. Our author's theory is that he wrote the Epistle about 80 A.D.
We have to thank Professor Ramsay for a book of unusual interest, which will do much, we think, to further the success of Christian Apologetic.
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