ONE SIMUS.*

THIS book is a picturesque and attractive exposition of the views which the author (whose identity with the writer of the article " Gospels," in the Encyclopaedia Britannica, is an open secret) has set forth elsewhere. Onesimus, attending his master Philemon in a journey, which this latter is making in search of health, comes to Antioch, and is brought into contact with the people who had been newly named " Christians " in that place.

• Onzaimus Memoirs of a Disciple of Paul. By the Author of " Philo- christus." London : Macmillan and Co. 183f. The experiences and impressions of that time he finds, when he comes to write his Memoirs, in later life, to be conveniently

recorded in a correspondence which he had carried on with the Epicurean philosopher, Artemidorns. The philosopher has asked him whether these Christians possessed any sacred books. The answer of Onesimus, who, it must be re- membered, is not yet a convert, is that they have none ; that they use in worship the sacred books of their country- men, that these books contained various prophecies with which the Christians were very anxious to make the life of their Master harmonise, and which were shaping their account of that Master's sayings and doings. Further, he tells him that there was a tradition, not yet written down, of these sayings and doings ; and another tradition, also unwritten, of his longer discourses and prophecies, besides many " additions and sup- plements concerning the birth and childhood and death of

Christus ;" and yet " although Christns died not a generation ago, and was born (it is thought) scarce more than two generations ago, already were there current many fables and stories which overshadow the things that he really did and the

doctrine that he really taught," this overshadowing being due to the influence of the Jewish sacred books. Questioned about marvels wrought by this Christus, he replies that in the Tradi- tion "almost all are works of healing, and are to be ex- plained according to nature, saving some four or five," these exceptions being due to figures of speech, hyperbole, or the like. To an inquiry about the alleged rising of Christ from the dead, he make a special reply. The Tradition was silent about it, but " divers manifestations were reported in divers Churches." The matter, however, perplexes him. These manifestations must surely have been phantasms of the mind, springing from memory and desire in his followers. But then how should he have been made known to so many at once, and how to an enemy, such as was Paulin ? Nor, indeed, do we find that when, in after years, he became a Christian, he reached much

more definite conclusions in this matter. Yet, if there was a point on which the Christians of the first age were agreed and held the firmest and clearest views, it was this,—that is, if we are to judge from all the evidence that we have of their speech and ways of thinking. In the locus classicus of I. Cor., xv., St.

Paul argues from the resurrection of Christ as an accepted fact on to the general resurrection of the dead. He presses his antagonists with this, as a premiss which they were obliged to receive, and of which he hopes to enforce upon them the con- clusion.

Another characteristic passage is to be found in the eighth book. Onesimus has been spending seven years in Britain, where he meets with the " beloved elder, Philochristus," and labours, with the encouragement of his companionship and teaching, in the Church of Londinium. Returning in the second year of Domitian to Rome, he finds a development of thought and belief among his brethren that much perplexes him .-

" For example, when I entered one of those places where the congregations commonly assemble themselves for worship—these are quarries, after the manner of galleries, hewn out of the rock under the earth beneath the city, commonly called catacombs, and used for entombments by the faithful—I perceive there the figure of a certain prophet, with a scroll in his hand, pointing to a woman which bare a child in her arms, and above the child was a star. And I questioned whether this was the Lord Jesus, the son of the Virgin Mother, and they said, Yes ;' but when I went on to speak of the Virgin as the Spiritual Sion, which is the Church of God, then they said, Nay ; but it showeth the mother of our Lord according to the flesh."

Similarly, the star is explained to him as the star of the Epiphany ; and " a picture of men supping at a table, and the food two fishes and some loaves," is interpreted as setting forth the Sacrament. A little afterwards, he hears from one Philo- logns what may be called a theory of development. There has been talk of comparing the miracles of Christ with those of the Old-Testament prophets, and Philologus delivers himself thus :-

"Nay, my brethren, say not, The Tradition containeth not these things,' but, rather, These things are not known to us at present,' for although it hath not yet been revealed to the Church in any tra- dition that the Lord Jesus bath produced water or wine, or raised np a dead man from the tomb, yet it is possible that he may have wrought these very works ; and in time they may be made known to the Church, even as the walking on the waves was not made known in the first tradition of the acts of the Lord, nor were other mighty works."

We may not unprofitably contrast with this theory, which makes St. Mark's Gospel the nucleus of historical Christianity, Dr.

Davidson's view of the same document, a view in which it ap- pears a somewhat late abridgment, which owes its picturesque details not to any nearness to the events described, but to the literary ability of the writer.

St. Paul is not so prominent nor so characteristic a figure as we should have expected. Onesimus sees him in his childhood at Lystra, when he heals " lame Xanthias." Here is the picture of him :- "At that time he was not yet bald, he had a clear complexion, a nose hooked and somewhat large ; he was short of stature, and as he walked, he bent his head a little forward, as if not able to discern things clearly ; his eyebrows were shaggy, and met together ; bat what most moved me was the glance of his eyes, which were of a pene- trating brightness, as though they would pierce through the outside of things, even to the innermost substance."

He encounters St. Paul again in Rome, just before his first answer before Nero, when he is himself a runaway from Philemon. This part of the narrative is told with singular force. A more striking and beautiful picture of the bringing of a soul from darkness into light we have never seen. Then, again, the seventh book is devoted to the Apostle. He is then in prison, "ready to be offered," and he tells to Onesimus the story of his life, a narrative tinged, indeed, with the author's views, especially when we come to the incident of the conversion, but in its way really admirable. Admirable, however, as it is, we do not find in it a fall portrayal of the Apostle's thoughts as he reveals them in his most characteristic epistles, the letters to the Churches of Rome and Galatia.

Apart from the theological purpose of the book, there is much that all will read with mach enjoyment and instruction. Onesimus himself is a most interesting personage. Ex- posed in infancy, with his twin-brother, Chrestus, on the steps of the Temple of Asclepius at Pergamus (why, if they were kidnapped, did the kidnapper leave on their necks tokens by which they might be identified ?) he becomes the property of a certain Menneas, and afterwards of his widow, Ammiane. All goes well with the two children till Ammiane dies intestate, and they are handed over to the heir-at-law. Here we have a picture, powerfully drawn, of Roman slavery as it was under the rule of a cruel master, in which the ergas- tuluna is the most prominent feature. From this, Onesimus is rescued by his skill in letters, and becomes the property of the kindly Philemon, " a wealthy citizen of Colossae, and a man of learning, devoted at that time to Greek literature." He becomes acquainted with various philosophical teachers, among them the Epicurean before mentioned, and the famous Epictetus. The life with Philemon, the visits to the cave of Trophonius, Athens, where he makes acquaintance with Molon, the rhetori- cian, and his daughter, Eucharis, the object of the young man's ill-fated love, are among the scenes which the writer's learning and literary ability combine to make very attractive. Still

more interesting are the pictures of Christian society as it was in those early days,—pietnres which, though they do not hide

the darker side, the bigotry, the narrowness, the ignorance, and the divisions of the young community, do full justice to the earnestness, the purity, the intense conviction of belief which fitted it for the stupendous task of making a new world. In reading a book of such interest, we naturally think little of the style. That this is felicitously adapted to the subject, those who remember Philochristus will readily believe.