my first answer," he says, apparently referring to a first trial, "no man stood with me, but all men forsook me. I pray God that it may not be laid to their charge. Notwithstanding the Lord stood with me, and strengthened me, that by me the preaching might be fully known, and that all the Gentiles might hear; and I was delivered out of the mouth of the lion." Being thus delivered, he spent some time in Crete, where he left Titus in charge; and some time at Ephesus, where he established Timothy, going thence to Macedonia. These journeys perplex scholars, and make many of them doubtful of the Pauline authorship of these epistles.

Further difficulties are raised by references to ecclesiastical and theological conditions which seem to be too organized and settled for the lifetime of St. Paul. There are bishops and deacons with their responsibilities rather distinctly defined. And faith which has before been synonymous with loyalty seems now to be synonymous with orthodoxy. The epistles speak of the faith, embodied in a "form of sound words."

There is general agreement, however, in ascribing to St. Paul himself the words in the Second Epistle to Timothy which contain his farewell message, the summary of his life and of his hope.

I am now ready to be offered, and the time of my departure is at hand. I have fought the good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith. Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at that day and not to me only, but unto all them also that love his appearing.

XX

THE FIVE SERMONS

T

HE epistles of St. Paul are followed by five pieces

of writing which are more or less in epistolary form, but rather less than more. These are Hebrews, James, First and Second Peter, and then, after the Johannine letters, Jude. They are like sermons.

The authorship of each of these pieces is doubtful, and in each case the doubts go back, far behind all modern criticism, to the fathers of the church. At the same time, in no case is the value of the book dependent on the author. Each stands on its own merits, and is no more affected by any decision as to the name which properly belongs at the top of the page than Hamlet is affected by the debate between the Shakespeareans and the Baconians.

I

We begin with James, because some scholars give to this writing a very early date, before Paul. The James thus intended was one of the Lord's brothers, one of the four brothers (Mk. 6:3) of whom the others were named Joseph and Judas and Simon. He had not been a disciple during the ministry of Jesus. His brethren, we are told, (Jn. 7:5) did not believe on him. The resurrection, however, brought him into the company

of the faithful (Acts 1:14), and after a while he became the leader of the Jerusalem Christians. Thus it was James who pronounced the decision of the conference at Jerusalem (Acts 15:13), over which he seems to have presided.

If James wrote this epistle he maintained a singular silence regarding his great relationship, and regarding not only his high place in Jerusalem but all the tradition of conservatism and continuance in the old Jewish ways which are associated with him. One theory is that this is a purely Jewish document (excepting 2:1) to which some copyist of the manuscript prefixed the first verse as his guess at the original writer. The theory serves at least to illustrate the proposition that this is a Hebrew rather than a Christian writing. On the other hand, there is a theory that this book though it barely mentions the name of Jesus is as full of his teaching as the Sermon on the Mount, which, in some places, it resembles. It is suggested that the author is quoting sentence after sentence from words of Christ nowhere else recorded. So far as this may be granted, the epistle represents the earlier phase of Christian teaching, before the gospel of Christ-the truths which he taught had been followed, and to some extent superseded, by the gospel about Christ.

In any case, the book belongs to that "literature of wisdom," of which Proverbs is the most familiar example. Much of it is in the form of detached sentences, each containing its own distinct word of good advice. Other parts deal with a subject about which such sentences are collected. The pearls are strung on a string.

'An illustration of the proverbial form is the famous definition of true religion.

If any man among you seem to be religious, and bridleth not his tongue, but deceiveth his own heart, this man's religion is vain. Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world.

More extended consideration is given to temptation (1:2-15), to the relation between faith and works (2:14-26), and to the offenses of the tongue (3:2-13). Characteristic of the writer is his strong condemnation of the rich.

My brethren, have not the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory, with respect of persons. For if there come unto your assembly a man with a gold ring, in goodly apparel, and there come in also a poor man in vile raiment; and ye have respect to him that weareth the gay clothing, and say unto him, Sit thou here in a good place; and say to the poor, Stand thou there, or sit here under my footstool: are ye not then partial in yourselves, and are become judges of evil thoughts? Hearken, my beloved brethren, Hath not God chosen the poor of this world rich in faith, and heirs of the kingdom which he hath promised to them that love him? But ye have despised the poor. Do not rich men oppress you, and draw you before the judgment seats? Do not they blaspheme that worthy name by the which ye are called?

And again.

Go to now, ye rich men, weep and howl for your miseries that shall come upon you. Your riches are corrupted, and your garments are moth-eaten. Your gold and silver is cankered; and the rust of them shall be a witness against you, and shall eat your flesh as it were

fire. Ye have heaped treasure together for the last days. Behold, the hire of the labourers who have reaped down your fields, which is of you kept back by fraud, crieth: and the cries of them which have reaped are entered into the ears of the Lord of sabaoth. Ye have lived in pleasure on the earth, and been wanton; ye have nourished your hearts as in a day of slaughter. Ye have condemned and killed the just; and he doth not resist you.

II

Concerning Jude, who calls himself the brother of James, nothing further is known. He says that he was about to write an ordinary letter when word was brought to him that the people to whom he intended to write were at that moment in peril of heresy. Thereupon he laid aside his first paper, and wrote this. The heresy against which this letter was directed is not so described that we are able to identify it. Neither are the readers of the epistle reinforced against it by any provision of sound reasoning. The writer offers neither criticism nor argument. What he does is to abuse the heretics, calling them names,-"filthy dreamers, "brute breasts," and the like,-and threatening them with such punishments as befell the most notorious sinners of antiquity, the rebel angels, the citizens of Sodom. The letter contributes nothing to religion but a bad example of ill-tempered and altogether unchristian controversy.

III

The fact that this letter is quoted, almost in full, with slight changes, in the Second Epistle of Peter