fi2 HURM PAULINiS. 



IX. Chap. 16 : 11 : "Now, if Timotheus como, let no 

 man despise him." Why desjnse him ? This charge is not 

 given concerning any other messenger whom St. Paul sent ; 

 and, in the different epistles, many such messengers are 

 mentioned. Turn to 1 Timothy, chap. 4:12, and you wil3 

 of the Acts. AVhen the Jews at Corinth had brought Paul before 

 Gallio, and Gallio had dismissed their complaint as unworthy of his 

 interference, and had driven them from the judgment-seat, "then all 

 the Greeks," says the historian, " took Sosthenes, the chief ruler of the 

 tjynagogue, and beat him before the judgment-seat." The Sosthenes 

 here spoken of was a Corinthian ; and, if he was a Christian, and with 

 St. Paul when he wrote this epistle, was likely enough to be joined 

 with him in the salutation of the Corinthian church. But here occurfi 

 a difficulty. If Sosthenes was a Christian at the time of this uproar, 

 why should the Greeks beat him ? The assault upon the Christians 

 was made by the Jcivs. It was the Jews who had brought Paul before 

 the magistrate. If it had been the Jews also who had beaten Sosthe- 

 nes, I should not have doubted but that he had been a favorer of St. 

 Paul, and the same person who is joined with him in the epistle. Let 

 us see, therefore, whether there be not some error in our present text. 

 The Alexandrian manuscript gives navre^ alone, without ol "WJirjVEg^ 

 and it is followed in this reading by the Coptic version, by the Arabian 

 version, published by Erpenius, by the Vulgate, and by Bede's Latin 

 version. The Greek manuscripts, again, as well as Chrysostom, give 

 oi 'lotifJaiOi, in the place of ol '''E.TJ'.rjvEg. A great plurality of manu- 

 scripts authorize the reading which is retained in our copies. In this 

 variety it appears to me extremely pi'obable that the historian origi- 

 nally wrote TTUvref alone, and that ol "^Xkrjveg and ol 'lavdaloL have been 

 respectively added as explanatory of what the word navreg was sup- 

 posed to mean. The satitence, without the addition of either name, 

 would run very perspicuously thus : " mt (mrfKaatv avTOvq (ztto toxi 

 BfffiaTog- eTrt?Mfi6fievoi de ttuvtec 'Zucdevrjv rbv upxtavvayoyov, Itvktov 

 e/nrpoGT^tv Tov (S7j[j.aT0c,^' — "and he drove them away from the judgment- 

 seat ; and they all," namely, the crowd of Jews whom the judge had bid 

 begone, " took Sosthenes, and beat him before the judgment-seat." It 

 is certain, that as the whole body of the people were Greeks, the ap- 

 plication of all to them was unusual and hard. If I were describing 

 an insurrection at Paris, I might say all the Jews, all the Protestants, 

 or all the English, acted so and so ; but I should scarcely say all the 

 French, when the whole mass of the community were of that descrip- 

 tion. As what is here offered is founded upon a various readmg, and 

 that in opposition to the greater part of the manuscripts that- ^ro 

 extant, I have not given it a place in the text. 



