Full Text for Paul as Citizen (Text)

, ' arnurnr~ttt wqrnlngtrttl flnut41y Continuing Lehre und Wehre (Vol. LXXVI) Magazin fuer Ev.-Luth. Homiletik (Vol. LIV) Theol. Quarterly (1897-1920)-Theol. Monthly (Vol. X) Vol. II October, 1931 No. 10 CONTENTS Page FUERBRINGER, L.: Dr. F. Pieper als Theolog. 721 DAU, W. H. T.: Dr. Francis Pieper the Churchman ...... 729 ARNDT, W.: Paul as Citizen ... '" .. . ...... '" ... " .. 736 KRETZMANN, P. E.: Wann und wie kam Luther ZUl' Er- kenntnis del' Wahrheit? .......... . 747 KRETZMANN, P. E.: The Inspiration of the New Testa- ment ........ . 754 LAETSCH, TH.: Dr. Pieper als Prediger .................. 761 Dispositionen ueber die von del' Synodalkonferenz ange- nommene Serie alttestamentlicher Texte............... 771 Theological Observer. - Kirchlich-Zeitgeschichtliches. . . . .. 777 Book Review. - Literatur. . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . .. 793 Ein Prediger muss nicht allein weide1lJ also dass er die Schate unterweise, wie sie rechte Christen sollen sein, Bondern auch daneben den Woelfen wehren, dass Bie die Schafe nieht angreifen und mit falscher Lehre verfuehren und Irrtum ein· fuehren. - Luther. Es ist kein Ding, daB die Leute mehr bei der Rirche ber..a::;lt d~nn die g'.lte Predigt. - Apologie, Art. !4. If the trumpet give an uncertain sound, who shall prepare himself to the battle? 1 Oor. 4,8. Published for the Ev. Luth. Synod of Missouri, Ohio, and Other States CONCORDIA PUBLISHING HOUSE, St. Louis, Mo. 736 Paul as Citizen. hybrid theology have stamped him a churchman of exceptional valor to his age. The labor which he performed directly for the Missouri Synod, and indirectly for the entire Ohurch, is a perennial task for loyal churchmen. How much we in the Missouri Synod really love Dr. Pieper will have to be shown in the years to come by the use we shall make of the literary heritage which he and his theological fore- bears have left us. Valparaiso, Ind. W.H.T.DAu. Paul as Citizen. Does the subject need an apology? Paul stands before us as the evangelizer of the Greco-Roman world, the greatest missionary that ever lived, as the preacher of righteousness by faith, as the great champion of the doctrine of grace, as the inspired penman of a great part of our New Testament, and to treat of him in the role of citizen might seem a descent from the sublime to the commonplace. But there are passages in the Bible in which he is depicted in this role. You cannot ignore them; they are there for a purpose and certainly must receive some attention. Besides, there is the important con- sideration that a study of Paul's life from this particular point of view may help to throw some light on the New Testament and aid in grasping its full import. Some of Paul's letters are intensely personal. To understand them, you must know something about the man. The better you are informed on all the various relations he sustained to the outside world, the world about him, the more will you be able to uncover fully the intended sense of his statements, and frequently by much study you will be led to see shades of mean- ing, niceties of thought, and indirect allusions which had escaped you before. And, finally, we ourselves are citizens and as such have our problems and perplexities. Whatever light we can obtain to guide us in the performance of our civic duties, we shall be grateful for. Paul as citizen - some people may think that this subject will lead us to speculate whether Paul, if he were living to-day, would be in favor of a strong centralized government, so that he might be classed as a first-century Republican, or whether he would be in !>ympathy rather with the theory 01 local self-government, with the idea of States' rights and freedom from restraint by a central govern- ment, an attitude which all good Democrats are supposed to defend. What would he think of the injection of moral and religious issues into a political campaign? What would be his view of our Prohibi- tion tangle? Would he vote for a Oatholic as President of the United States? etc. Some of these questions are pertinent, while others border on the absurd, and the less said about them, the better. Paul as Citizen. 737 Prof. A. T. Robertson of Louisville, Ky., contributed a worth- while study to the literature on Paul in his volume entitled Paul the Interpreter of Ghrist. In this book he has a chapter on "Paul and Patriotism." The chapter was written amid dramatic circum- stances, namely, when America had entered the World War and our young men were drafted to fight the so-called Oentral Powers. Pro- fessor Robertson was aware of the intimate relation existing between his subject and the world situation. He writes: "We have millions of men of German birth or descent who must decide what they are to do. There is but one thing to do, to be loyal to the land of adoption. So real Americans all feel, so the great mass of the German-Americans feel and will act. They are now Americans, not German-Americans." Then he goes on to say: "The case of Paul is worth our study in the present situation. He was caught in the maelstrom of world politics; for Rome, like the United States, was the melting-pot of the nations, though not in quite the same sense," etc. I shall have occasion to mention Professor Robertson's treatment of our subject again. For the moment let us merely note that he found in Paul's career and utterances, suggestions and les- sons of importance for American citizens in one of the most trying crises of our national history. In looking at Paul the citizen, we are at once confronted with the interesting and, to all jingoes, startling fact that he was a so- called hyphenated citizen. We remember that during the last war our citizens of German extraction who called themselves German- Americans or refused to abandon entirely the use of the German language were called hyphenated Americans or hyphenated citizens. The hyphen, innocent little thing that it is, was subjected to a good deal of criticism and abuse at the time, and having a strong in- feriority complex, it went into hiding and has been but little seen of late. But Paul was a hyphenated citizen. No matter how one may abhor the hyphen, here it is. In fact, there are even two hyphens in the designation of his status as a citizen: he was a J ewish-Greek- Roman. At the blood-curdling scene in Jerusalem when the Jews were endeavoring to lynch Paul and his life was saved by the inter- vention of the Roman soldiers, he gave this account of himself in reply to a question of the Roman officer: "I am a man which am a Jew of Tarsus, a city of Oilicia, a citizen of no mean city." And to this he, a short time afterwards, added some more information about his person, the chief item of which was that he was a Roman citizen. Of. Acts 22,23-29. Here you have the various elements that made up Paul's civic status. He was a Jew, a Tarsian citizen, and hence a Greek, and besides a Roman. So, to understand Paul's re- lations to the body politic, we have to look at him from three sides, as it were. 47 738 Paul as Citizen. To get the proper background for our discussion, we shall have to look a little at Tarsus, the city where Paul was born. All who would like to inform themselves on this city as well as can be done at second hand, that is, by means of books, ought to read the volume by Sir Wm. Ramsay, which is entitled Oities of St. Paul. Ramsay made a number of trips to Asia Minor and studied what remains of ancient Tarsus on the spot, and being an eminent classical scholar, he knows how to make his discoveries available for a better under- standing of the ancient world. We turn to Oilicia in Asia Minor. About ten miles from the Mediterranean Sea, in a vast maritime plain, on the river Oydnus, with the strikingly beautiful background of the snow-capped Taurus Mountains about thirty miles distant, near the Oilician Gates, the famous pass through the mountains, where the commerce from the East to the West, and vice versa, flowed in an unceasing stream, there lay Tarsus, ever memorable as the native city of the Apostle to the Gentiles. The river Oydnus, a cool mountain stream, had been made navigable up to the city, and on its banks there were many wharves, where ships from all parts of the oikoumene, the then known world, loaded and unloaded. We may think here of the geographical location of Los Angeles. Those who have seen it, lying on its river, about ten miles away from the Pacific Ocean, with Mount Lowe and the majestic Mount Wilson forming a protecting wall in the rear, can visualize quite well the location of Tarsus. The city numbered about half a million inhabitants around 50 A. D. and, owing to its favored situation in a place where the East and the West met, must have been quite cosmopolitan in character. But even apart from this circumstance it had a mixed population, three distinct elements living side by side - native Oilicians, who were oriental in their ideas and in their way of living, Greek immigrants and their de- scendants, and a Jewish colony. The largest industry was weaving, the material being supplied by the immense herds of goats that were grazing on the Taurus Mountains. The hair of these goats was used to make ropes, tents, and garments, which immediately reminds us of the fact that Paul had learned the trade of tent-making and found that this accomplishment stood him in very good stead many a time in his life. To complete our picture of the city, it must be mentioned that Tarsus had a large school, usually called the University of Tarsus. According to Strabo, the old geographer and traveler, the school had some able and experienced teachers and could boast an enthusiastic student-body. Ramsay says: "From the analogy of other Greek and Greco-Asiatic cities we may infer with confidence that the state exercised some authority over education and that systematic arrange- ments were made to insure that a proper supply of teachers and lec- Paul as Citizen. 739 turers was ready to meet the requirements of the people. The in- tention was to provide public instruction by qualified lecturers in all the branches of science and literature recognized at the time." We know precious little about that university. It had especially one renowned teacher at the time of Paul, Athenodorus, a Stoic philos- opher, who had been the teacher, and was an intimate friend, of the Emperor Augustus. One thing is certain - there was a stimulating intellectual atmosphere in Tarsus, whose influence on the youthful Paul may have been considerable. And then we have to think of the history of Tarsus. The history of a city or country is a part of that city or country, just as much as its sky-scrapers and boulevards, and lakes and rivers, if it has such features. It is one of the great influences that mold the char- acter and the lives of its citizens. Tarsus had had a diversified past, which in parts was interesting and not without some glamor. I here have to be very brief. 171 B. 0., Tarsus being then already an old city, became a red-letter year for the place. Antiochus Epiph- anes, the wicked king who tried to exterminate the worship of Jehovah in Jerusalem and was resisted by the Maccabees, did something hand- some for the city. He gave it the status of an autonomous town, which meant that it might make its own laws and elect its own magistrates. (Ramsay, Oities, p. 165.) In the same year a body of Jewish citizens was settled there (Ramsay, Oities, p.1S0), all being given the status of citizens of Tarsus. It was not long till the voracious giant of the West stretched out his greedy hands toward the rich, but age-worn and tottering East and appropriated one city and country after the other - the city on the seven hills, Rome. Oilicia, and with it Tarsus, by and by came into the grasp of this Goliath, or Polyphemus, if one prefers, among states. But the Tarsians, it seems, did not regret it. The rule of Rome gave them peace; it brought stability and order; it suppressed the dreadful plague of piracy which had been so rampant on the Mediterranean; it inaugurated an era of prosperity and plenty. The Romans, we must not forget, in the main, were wise conquerors and colonial or provincial rulers, interfering as little as possible with the internal affairs of a newly subjugated state and accommodating themselves readily to the views and customs of their new subjects as far as their own interests permitted. The boys of Tarsus, curious and adventurous, undoubtedly, like the youth of all times, were treated to many a glittering, stirring spectacle. Pompey sojourned there, Julius Oaesar visited the city, Oassius, the man of the lean and hungry look, according to Shakespeare, came there with his soldiers, and here occurred the famous meeting between Antony and Oleopatra, where the former wished to show himself lord and con- queror and finally turned out to be the conquered. There comes to 740 Paul as Citizen. mind Shakespeare's celebrated description of the pomp with which Cleopatra came up the river to Tarsus:- When she first met Mark Antony, She pursed up his heart upon the river Cydnus. The barge she sat in, like a burnished throne, Burned on the water; the poop was beaten gold, Purple the sails, and so perfumed that The winds were love-sick with them; the oars were silver, Which to the tune of :Ilutes kept stroke and made The water which they beat to follow faster, As amorous of their strokes. Yes, and thus the doughty warrior succumbed and became the spine- less slave of an unscrupulous woman. In the following years the Emperor Augustus treated the city with marked consideration; he made it a "free" city, which gave it the privilege of making its own laws, and granted it freedom from the payment of duty in its export and import trade. It is a long recital, but we can all see that in the schools of Tarsus there must have been declamations and compositions and speeches treating of the glory of Tarsus, and a wide-awake lad living there about the year 10 or 15 of our era cannot have failed to listen to some of these productions with glow- ing eyes and beating heart. To return to our subject proper, Paul, born in Tarsus not far from the year 1 of our era, was a Jew. There is nothing strange about it that he, being a Jew, should have claimed Tarsus, and not Jerusalem or some other city in Palestine, as his birthplace. Scholars are agreed that there were far more Jews outside than within the borders of the Holy Land at this time. In all the cities of the Roman Empire they were found. And Tarsus, as we heard before, had been given a strong Jewish colony by Antiochus Epiph- anes, and from it in all likelihood Paul was descended. - The Jewish lad we are speaking of had, at his circumcision on the eighth day, received the name Saul. Did he ever feel ashamed of his Jewish descenH Never. From a long list of strong passages bearing on this point but one need be referred to, a passage written in defense against his opponents and detractors who were disturbing the Corinthian Christians (2 Cor. 11, 22): "Are they Hebrews ~ So am I. Are they Israelites ~ So am I. Are they the seed of Abraham ~ So am I." Here a word of explanation is in place. Paul does not merely call himself a Jew, but a Hebrew. What is the difference ~ Anybody descended from Jacob was called a Jew, whether he spoke the Aramaic language or not. But the term Hebrew was reserved for those Israelites who spoke the Aramaic. We may put it this way. Every Hebrew was a Jew, but not every Jew was a Hebrew. We see that Paul belonged to· the class of those who had learned the Aramaic tongue, undoubtedly having acquired it at home together Paul as Citizen. 741 with the Hebrew. Yes, he was a Hebrew of the Hebrews, as he himself puts it. But on our subject the Jewish descent of Paul has little, if any, bearing. What is important to note is that it did not bar him from citizenship in Tarsus nor from the Roman franchise. The situation is similar to-day in our own country. We have many Jews in the United States, and their Jewish descent does not keep them from being or becoming American citizens. A person cannot of course at the same time be a citizen of two countries; that is an axiom accepted and followed by all governments. But being a Jew does not determine anything with respect to your status as a citizen. The term Jew is merely a designation of descent or race, not of political connection. This was the situation in the days of Paul also. A per- son might be a Jew and still a citizen of Rome or Tarsus or Alexandria. - The Jews, it ought to be added, were not prominent in politics at this time, because political activities usually involved participation in heathen religious ceremonies, which they quite properly abhorred. So their energy did not turn to the civic sphere or public life. Then as now they largely asserted their superiority by plundering, in genteel and unobtrusive fashion, the Gojim of their money. This, by the way, is no humorous exaggeration. Listen to what Strabo, the geographer whom I quoted before and who lived at the time of Oaesar Augustus, says. Speaking of the Jews, he complains: "It is not easy to find a place in the world that has not admitted this race and is not mastered by it." Josephus quotes this statement of Strabo in a discussion of the enormous treasures which the Jews had accumulated. Even in those days they mastered the world, not politically, but financially. - Now, while they were not given to the holding of political offices, the Jews, with the excep- tion of the stern, unbending, uncompromising Nationalists, were favorably disposed toward the Roman Empire. They had been warmly attached to Julius Oaesar, who had shown them favors, and Suetonius tells us that, when Oaesar had been assassinated, the Jews in Rome mourned vehemently at his tomb for a number of nights. Naturally they entertained friendly feelings toward Augustus, the nephew and heir of Oaesar, and toward the other emperors of the Julian line. To what extent Paul shared these views we do not know. But if he felt toward Rome as most of his fellow-Israelites did, the prospect of making extensive journeys in the Roman Empire must have been less terrifying and obnoxious to him than would have been the case if he had been accustomed to regard the empire with feelings of loathing and abhorrence. Paul, furthermore, was a Greek; for Tarsus, in which he claimed citizenship, was considered a Greek city. It is true that Paul, being a Jew, would not be called a Greek, a Hellene, but a Hellenist, which 742 Paul as Citizen. term was used to designate Greek-speaking Jews and in our Author- ized Version is translated Grecian. Paul, it seems, was a Tarsian citizen by birth. Birth in an ancient city did not, as is the case here in America, automatically make one a citizen of the city or state where the birth occurred. But if the father was a citizen, then the son had that status, too, and as far as we can determine, this is the manner in which Paul was invested with the Tarsian franchise. It is very interesting to follow the argument of Ramsay and Schuerer on this point. If Paul was a citizen of Tarsus, he could have become such, so they say, only through membership in one of the tribes into which the Hellenic colonies were always divided. But membership in one of the Greek tribes was out of the question for a Jew because at their festivals these tribes practised idolatrous religious rites, which were an abomination to every pious Jew. There must have been a special Jewish citizen tribe in Tarsus, dating back in all probability to the settlement under Antiochus Epiphanes which was mentioned before, and to this tribe the family of Paul, so it is plausibly conjectured, belonged. The sons were enrolled in this tribe at an appointed time, and thus they were acknowledged as citizens of their native town. There in Tarsus, on the streets and perhaps in the schools, Paul learned the Greek language. Here he, like other boys, we can be sure, wandered about admiring the shops and docks and big and small ships and the picturesque figures from strange lands, Egyp- tians, Arabs, and probably now and then some fair-haired, blue-eyed Teutonic giants, employed as Roman soldiers. And occasionally a man would sweep past him, enrobed in the mantle of the philos- ophers, the personification of Greek wisdom, looking with proud dis- dain upon the common herd, the little creatures about him. By his Greek playmates he would in all likelihood not be called Saul, as his parents called him when at home, but Paul, the name given him for use in the Greek world in which he had to move. Luke, the sacred historian, observes the distinction very carefully. When he speaks of Paul's life and activities among the Jews where he would be called Saul, he brings him before us under that name, but when the apostle enters the Greek and Roman world in his great missionary undertaking, the name Paul is used. "Saul, who is also called Paul" - in these brief words Luke makes the transi- tion from one name to the other, Acts 13, 9. The question has fre- quently been asked, Why was Saul given the particular name Paul? Why not some other Greek or Latin name? It may simply be be- cause Saul and Paul, Saulus and Paulus, . are so much alike that they might be called brother names. On the question, Why did he have two names? Ramsay writes (Oities, p. 211): "Even in Greek times, however, it is probable that most of the Jews of Anatolia Paul as Citizen. 743 had a Hebrew name, which they used in their private life at home and in the circle of the synagog. The Hebrew name was an alter- native name, not an additional or second name. The bearer was called by one or the other, according to the occasion, but not by both: to use one of the few certain examples, the Jew was 'Paul, otherwise Saul,' 'Paul, alias Saul.' In Greek surroundings he bore the one name, in Hebrew surroundings the other." In Tarsus, Paul not only spent the years of infancy and probably his boyhood, but there he lived again for about eight years after his conversion to Ohristianity, eight silent years, over which hangs the veil of deep, almost impenetrable mystery. But can we not now understand that Tarsus was near and dear to his heart? When asked who he was, he replied, as mentioned before: "I am a Jew of Tarsus, a city of Oilicia, a citizen of no mean city." Tarsus "no mean city" - there we have the voice of warm, genuine patriotism. Paul certainly endorsed the sentiments expressed for modern people in the famous lines of Walter Scott:- Breathes there a man with soul so dead Who never to himself hath said, This is my own, my native land; Whose heart hath ne'er within him hurned When home his footsteps he hath turned From wandering on a foreign strand? To what extent Paul, in those eight years when he, as a mature man, was living in Tarsus, joined in the civic life of the community, took part in the ekklesia, the town meeting, helped to elect officials and to frame laws, we do not know. If idolatry entered into these matters, as it quite probably did, then we may be sure that Paul, in spite of feelings of patriotism, rather chose to forego the exercise of his civic prerogatives. We have to leave Paul the Tarsian and turn to that aspect of his civic status which is most celebrated and which proved of such immense importance and value to him, namely, his Roman citizen- ship. Yes, Paul was a Roman citizen and thus possessed that dis- tinction which Claudius Lysias, commander of the Roman garrison in Jerusalem, professes to have bought with a large sum of money. Oivis Romanus S1Lm, that was a proud boast, and in a city like Tarsus would put a man at once into the ranks of the aristocrasy. Roman citizenship, of course, primarily meant that a person was an in- habitant of the city of Rome and enjoyed its protection and the other privileges which it offered to its citizens. But when the ter- ritory controlled by Rome grew, then by and by people who did not live in Rome, but in Roman provinces and who had shown them- selves reliable, loyal and worthy, were granted the Roman franchise. Many of my readers have read the speech which Oicero delivered 744 Paul as Citizen. in behalf of the poet Archias. The question at issue in the trial was whether Archias had obtained the Roman citizenship in the proper way or not. The charge against him was that he had gotten it by crooked means. We see from this celebrated oration of Oicero that people of foreign birth - Archias hailed from Antioch, but had become the citizen of a city in Southern Italy - could receive the Roman franchise; furthermore, that this privilege was highly prized, and finally, that it was watched over with some care. While at the time of the trial of Archias this boon could be granted to no for- eigners except to those who were citizens of an allied city in Italy, the .circle was soon extended to admit people living outside of Italy. A few more pertinent points will be brought out as we look at the case of Paul. He was a Roman citizen by birth, as he himself states emphatically. Was it because his birth had occurred in Tarsus ? Was every citizen of Tarsus likewise a Roman citizen? No. Paul told the Roman co=ander in Jerusalem that he was a Tarsian citizen, and that information did not imply that he was a Roman citizen; on the contrary, the Roman officer is altogether amazed and confounded when he learns, after a brief space, that this Tarsian citizen has the Roman franchise. So we see, Tarsian citizenship did not include Roman citizenship. If a town was a municipium or a colonia, then local citizenship implied the Roman franchise. But Tarsus was not a municipium or a colonia. Hence we have to look somewhere else for the origin of Paul's standing as a Roman citizen. Since he was a Roman citizen by birth, his father must have had this status. Ooncerning his acquisition of it there are various possibilities. One of Paul's ancestors may have bought that privilege, or he may have rendered valuable services to Pompey, Antony, or Augustus and been rewarded with the Roman franchise. History is silent on this point, and we cannot go beyond the nebulous field of guesses. And now let us think of what it meant to have that franchise. A Roman citizen could be sure of the protection of the Roman Empire as long as he followed the paths of law and order. When he was accused, it was unlawful to punish him without trial. It was un- lawful to have him scourged; if found guilty of a capital offense, he could not be crucified; the form of execution prescribed for such cases was beheading. If he had been condemned in a provincial or lower court, he had the right of appeal to the emperor. No wonder that Oicero says: "How often has this exclamation, 'I am a Roman citizen,' brought aid and safety even among barbarians in the re- motest parts of the earth I" We are reminded here of what it means to be an American citizen and to enjoy the protection of our great Government. Once upon a time, so we read, an American was un- justly condemned to be put to death by a firing-squad in one of the Paul as Citizen. 745 little states south of us. The American consul had pleaded for him, but in vain. The hour for the execution had come, the soldiers were ready to shoot, when in a last attempt to save the man's life the American consul came with the American flag, the Stars and Stripes, wrapped the body of the condemned man in it, and then said, "Now shoot if you dare I" We are told that the man's life was saved. Do not here several remarkable scenes from the New Testament come to our mind - how with many apologies the authorities of Philippi conducted Paul out of the jail after they had learned that the man whom they had mistreated was a Roman; how in Jerusalem the attitude of Olaudius Lysias toward Paul changed instantly when he discovered the civic status of his prisoner; how Paul's appeal to Oaesar was granted at once when he stood before Festus, the procu- rator, and the latter unwittingly was planning to jeopardize the life of Paul by taking him back to Jerusalem; how in Rome Paul was not treated as a vile criminal, but permitted to live in a house he himself had rented, no restraint being placed upon him except that of the constant presence of a soldier ~ And then think of the £Ual scene. Paul was brought to Rome as a prisoner for the second time, and in the trial which now ensued he was condemned to die, probably as a disturber of the peace or as a leader of the hated sect of the Ohristians. When the day of execution came, he was not led to the cross, as was done in the case of Peter, but, being a Roman citizen, no special torments could be inflicted on him, and he was granted the mercy of a speedy death by beheading. Paul, in his letters, stands before us as a loyal citizen. He took a far higher view of the government than most people do to-day. "The powers that be are ordained of God." That statement refers to the imperial government as well as to the local authorities. We cannot think of him plotting to overthrow the government or as evading the laws where it could be done with impunity and his own interests seemed to dictate it. It has been pointed out that at the time when Paul in his Epistle to the Romans wrote those matchless words about obedience to the authorities the monster Nero, one of the most despicable monarchs history knows, was ruling the Roman Empire; and still Paul inculcates willing subjection to the higher powers. It will be asked whether Paul as a Roman citizen ever voted in the elections. Alas! elections by Roman citizens were a thing of the past ever since Tiberius had become emperor. Even before that time, that is, under Julius Oaesar and Augustus, they were a very emaciated affair, and when Tiberius ascended the throne, he gave them the coup de grace. The emperor and the senate attended to all appointments and to the making of all laws. As far as voting was concerned, the Roman citizens who lived in the provinces never 746 Paul as Citizen. had an opportunity to avail themselves of this part of their franchise unless they went to Rome at election time, because that was the only place where one could vote as a Roman citizen. Of course, people in the provinces who held the Roman franchise could vote in the local elections if they were citizens of the community where they lived. If the citizens of St. Louis could vote merely on questions pertaining to their city and whenever they wished to vote on matters pertaining to the whole country had to travel to Washington, we should have a similar situation to the one just described. If Paul were living to-day and were a United States citizen, we need not doubt that he would vote; he would take this duty, which is also a privilege, very seriously; he would vote with discrimina- tion; he would not be a blind party man. We can be sure that he would insist on the separation of Ohurch and State. On the Pro- hibition question he would state that all who say God's Word altogether forbids the use of alcoholic beverages are wrong. But I think he would add, If you believe that Prohibition promotes the public welfare, I am not opposed to giving it a trial. Another thing which we can be certain about is that Paul, if he were one of us to-day, would not be a jingo. He would not despise non-citizens. What was his aim in life ? Not this, to persuade people that they must by all means obtain the Roman franchise. No, his passion was to make them citizens in the kingdom of Ohrist. Every- thing else, even if it might be important in its place, was subordinate by comparison. Listen to these glowing words of his: "Unto the Jews I became as a Jew that I might gain the Jews; to them that are under the Law, as under the Law, that I might gain them that are under the Law; to them that are without Law, as without Law (being not without law to God, but under the law to Ohrist), that I might gain them that are without Law. To the weak became I as weak that I might gain the weak. I am made all things to all men that I might by all means save some." There you have the words of one who was not blinded by narrow, nationalistic prejudice nor puffed up with the thought of his great civic privileges, but who, though a true patriot, nevertheless did not harbor feelings of arrogant superiority and proud disdain toward those less favored that he was. A full-fledged jingo can never be a true missionary, because he places too much emphasis on something that is earthly, outward, passing. Paul was not such. Above everything else, let us not forget a point which Robertson so beautifully brings out in the essay which was quoted before. He says (p. 90): "Paul met the fate of a martyr at the hand of Nero rather than renounce the Lord Jesus. Ten thousand Ohinese Ohris- tians laid down their lives at the feet of Jesus rather than renounce Him at the demand of the Boxer leaders and the empress dowager. lffiann nub tvie tam 'lutf)er 3llt ~tfeuutniS bet m:laf)tf)eit 7 747 So, then, with Paul patriotism is not the highest virtue, though it is very high. Loyalty to one's land is secondary to loyalty to one's God. To be sure, it is high treason or rebellion to refuse to obey the command of one's government. One who takes that position must be willing to pay the price. That price is one's life. But the price is not too high when the alternative is to disobey the clear will of God." These are golden words, and they reflect accurately the attitude of Paul. Paul says in his letter to the Philippians, accord- ing to the original Greek: "Our citizenship is in heaven." That is, first and foremost we are citizens in the kingdom of Ohrist. So he died a martyr's death, loyal to his government, but loyal most of all to his Lord and Savior. In both respects let us follow him. W. ARNDT. ~ann uub wie lam £ut~et ~ur ~rfenlttlti~ bet ?roaijrijeit? :I'laf3 2u±fjer in feiner ~ugenb unb ttJiifjrenb feiner miindj£ljafjre ttJeit babon enifernt ttJar, bie llliafjrfjeit be£l @bangeIium£l boIl unb ganil ilu edennen unb au iuiirbigen, if± aur ®eniige au£l feinen eigenen @5djriften unb au£l ben 2eugniffen feiner 2eitgenoflen befann±. @r fjat±e aIlerbing£l bon ber 2eit an, ba er in ber llnibetfitiigbibIio±fjd au @rfur± ein @!;em,pTar ber l8uIga±a fanb, unb befonber£l nadjbem er im SHof±er ttJieber 2ugang aur ganaen Q3ibeI bdommen fjaite, fidj mit l80tIiebe bem @5±Ubium ber @5djrift gettJibme±, unb fonbetIidj nadjbem er am 9. miiril 1509 feinen baccalaureus ad Biblia gemadjt fjatie, ttJar ifjm bie Q3efdjiiftigung mit bet Q3iber fefjt ttJeri gettJotben, ttJie bas ia audj fein ttJeiierer lJorifdjrit± aUf ber afabemifdjen 2aufbafjn aeig±, ber in ber l8erIeifjung bet licentia magistrandi in theologia am 4. ()Uober 1512 unb in ber ~tomotion aum :I'loUor am 18. unb 19. be£lfeIben monag feinen ®ipfeIpunU erreidjie. llliiifjtenb biefer ~afjte ttJar e£l ia faum anber£l miigIidj, aI£l baf3 bieIe ~unfte ber @5djriftttJafjrfjeit, be~ fonber£l foldje, in benen feine 2iebHng£lauioten, Occam unb b'~iII1), ®erfon unb Q3ieI, Q3etnfjarb bon trlairbau!; unb Q3onaben±ura, ~ofjann mauburnu£l unb ®erfjarb bon 2iit,pfjen, ridjiig f±anben, bei 2utfjer mefjr aI£i eine blof3e l8etf±anbe£ledenn±ni£l bettJid±en. @r edenn± nodj in feinen fpii±eren ~afjren mit :I'lanf an, ttJa£l er in ben Q3iidjern Mefer fjerborragenben ®elefjr±en unb 5tfjeologen gelefen unb au£l ifjnen ge~ Iern± fjatie. ~ber e£l fefjr±e bem jungen miindj£lprofelf or ber inn ere ~ar±, ttJeiI er eben ba£l ~era be£l trfjrif±en±um£l, bie 2efjre bon ber D'tedj±feriigung aIlein au£l ®naben, nodj nidj± betf±anben, fie nodj nidj± in fein ~era auf~ genommen fjaite. :I'liefe£l grof3e :I'lefiait in feinem ®eif±e£l~ unb @5eeren~ Ieben fja± 2uifjer ia f,pii±et immer iuieber beUag±. @r fdjreib± il. Q3. in feiner ~u£lIegung bon ~faIm 132 (~u£lIegung ber 15 2ieber im fjiifjeren trfjor, 1531-33; 4, 2126f.): ,,~dj bin ein miindj gettJefen unb fjabe in