MR. LEWIN'S ST. PAUL*
WE gave a brief notice of this work some months ago (December 12, 1874). Since then, we have had the opportunity of giving it a careful examination. The result has been to increase our admiration for the learning and industry of its author. It ap- peared in a first edition, we learn from Mr. Lewin's preface, more than twenty-four years ago, and had then the misfortune to be partially, at least, anticipated by the publication, under the same title, of Messrs. Conybeare and Howson's well-known work. The labour of not a few years had then been spent upon it, and the period that has since intervened has been largely employed in making it still more copious and complete. Pictorial illustrations, in which the first edition was entirely wanting, have been added with an unsparing band, and add much, it need hardly be said, to the utility as well as to the beauty of the book. Nothing but a careful inspection of the work itself can give the reader an ade- quate idea of the thoroughness with which Mr. Lewin has carried out his plan, a plan which may be described as the giving of all information possibly attainable about every, person or place connected directly or even indirectly with St. Paul. Such a work must necessarily be digressive, and its digressions, as the taste and judgment of readers will differ about such matters, will sometimes seem irrelevant. A very well-stored learning is apt to pour forth its wealth without regard to the wants or even the con- venience of readers. It will be like a rich man,—" careless how it gives." But such abundance and such liberality are not too com- mon, and it would be captious and ungrateful to object even when they seem to be somewhat in excess. A very considerable latitude is always allowed in illustration, and where the subject is of such a kind, and has, for many readers at least, an inexhaustible interest, it is almost impossible to draw a line between appropriate and inappropriate information. The almost universal interest felt in the minute exploration of the localities of Palestine indicates the feeling in which Mr. Lewin finds the justification for the copious detail with which he has crowded his volume. We may take an instance almost at random. In Acts xx. we are told, among other details of St. Paul's journeyings, that the Apostle went on foot from Troas to Assos. It is explained why he chose this method of travel- ling. The way by sea was roundabout, as the vessel had to double the promontOry of Lectum, while the direct route by land was less than twenty miles. All this is made plain to the reader by means of a map. A suggestion is added that there may have been the motive of avoiding a possible ambush, though it is evi- dent that an ambush would be more easily laid against a traveller by land than against a passenger in a ship. But would he save * The Mtn and EpistleJ of St. Paul. By Thomas Lewin, Esq., BA. 2 vols. London : George Bell and Bons. 1874. if he went "afoot," as our Authorised Version has it? Mr. Lewin points out with perfect truth that the word 1:-E06Ery means to travel by land, as opposed to travelling by sea. All readers of classical Greek will remember that the word 7.-*; is applied to a military force acting by land, whether composed of cavalry or infantry. It is probable, therefore, that St. Paul drove or rode. This gives occasion for a sketch of "a car in common use in the Troad." Then we have a view of the promontory of hectum, which St. Paul did not round ; and another, with greater appro- priateness, of a gateway in the outer wall of Assos, under which it may be considered certain that he did pass. It is in accordance with his usual custom that Mr. Lewin also gives us the two faces of a coin of Assos, a sketch of the place from the sea, and a plan of its buildings. The illustrations, in this instance, almost overpower the text, though here, too, the author is not wanting. It is interesting, whether the Apostle is supposed to have travelled in a carriage or on foot, to learn that the road was ex- ceedingly rugged and dangerous, so that the minstrel Stratonicus, as quoted by Strabo, applied to it the Homeric line, "'Acaoy el; no/ diacroy AeOpou Irift'occif ixiat," which in this connection is Englished by Mr. Lewin in the words, "Go to Assos and break your neck." The wit, it may be well to observe, consists in substituting 'Aaoom, the name of the place, for acoov, the adverb. It is impossible to repress a smile, which indeed Mr. Lewin probably means to excite, when we go on to read, "If the traveller chanced to verify the proverb, there was conveniently found in the neighbourhood the famous stone called Sarcophagus, which was reported to possess the incredible property of consuming the whole body entombed in it, except the teeth, in less than forty days."
It is easy, of course, to ridicule this profusion of knowledge, and there are times and places in which it is still even ludicrously inappropriate—a likeness of the courtesan Lais, for instance, is of doubtful propriety as an illustration of the Epistles to the Corinthians—yet it demands the respect which is accorded to genuine enthusiasm. When we consider the real value of this quality, and of the exhaustive labour which it suggests and carries out, we may well refuse to criticise this or that detail. At the same time, however, we feel bound in honesty to say that the writer does not entirely avoid the fault to which all specialists, whether in literature or elsewhere, are liable, of seeingwhat he wants to see where, to any unprejudiced vision, it is not apparent. The Roman citizenship of the Apostle, to take an, instance, is an interesting subject of inquiry. He tells us himself that it was inherited. "I was free-born," he said to the chief captain, Lysias, who had himself purchased the privilege for a large sum of money. But how did he come to be free-born ? Mr. Lewin regards apparently with some favour the suggestion that the father of the Apostle was among those citizens of Tarsus who. were sold into slavery when the city was captured by Cassius, B.C. 43, that he was manumitted when the cause of the Triumvirs was successful, and that with his manumission he received the gift of citizenship. To us the idea seems very far-fetched, and not with- out some chronological difficulty, if we accept the date which Mr. Lewin gives for the birth of St. Paul, viz., A.D. 2. Whether or no the counter-hypothesis that the father purchased the right be accepted, we cannot see where Mr. Lewin gets his argument against it. Augustus, he says, and probably with correctness, did not sell the privilege ; but Mark Antony, he allows, may have been "less scrupulous." "But," he continues, "even then the objec- tion arises how the father of Saul, who presents himself before us as a man of high honour and right feeling, could condescend to. employ means so irregular for the attainment of the privilege." But what do we know about the character of Saul's father? And how can we tell what the most high-minded man might have felt about the lawfulness of obtaining in any possible way this protection against the tyranny of his Roman masters ? In speaking of the Apostle's "keen relish for the beauties of the Greek poets and dramatists," our author follows his predecessors. Is there any real proof of any such feeling ? St. Paul quotes a few passages, it is true—one of them, it should be remarked, in a form, according to the best MSS.„ which destroys its rhythm—but the facts are not enough to warrant so large an inference,—an inference, too, scarcely in accordance with the general character of the man. There is more colour for the notion that be was acquainted with Greek philosophy, though philosophical terms had become current in Greek, as they have become current in English. Many persons who have never looked into a book of logic use familiarly such a term as " dia- metricall y opposite."
But the substantial merits of Mr. Lewin's work are not affected by such faults. It is impossible, for instance, to speak too highly of the general sketches of Roman and Jewish history with which he illustrates, and indeed makes intelligible, the Apostle's career. His contributions to the chronology of his subject are also invalu- able. Indeed he has, in this matter, an authority unrivalled among English scholars. Another excellent feature of his book is the practice of introducing in their proper place the various Epistles, presented in a translation judiciously revised, but not zubstantially altered from the Authorised Version. Lastly, an ex- cellent index—a good work, which a critic should never fail to acknowledge—renders easily accessible what is a singularly rich treasure of Biblical learning.
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