polis? And that with the intention of passing the winter there? While his travelling companions go before him to Troas, can he have passed the winter at Nicopolis and yet have met them at Troas ? But according to Matthies, the apostle only passed some weeks of the winter at Nicopolis, and proceeded forwards on his journey earlier than he anticipated, when he wrote the epistle from Nicopolis or some place in the neighbourhood. He went then to Nicopolis with the intention of passing the winter there. And from thence he writes to Titus instructing him how he is to fulfil the commission given to him; so that he reckons on Titus' staying for some length of time in Crete. Then he purposes to send Artemas or Tychicus, and not till after their arrival is Titus to come to him at Nicopolis. The apostle then must have intended to remain at Nicopolis at least so long as was necessary for all this to be done, while his travelling companions are already on their way to Troas, where he is to meet them. How is this conceivable? And further, the apostle intends to send Tychicus to Crete; the same who, according to Matthies, is represented as having, along with several others, accompanied the apostle from Greece, and gone before him to Troas at his own suggestion, while the apostle, owing to the plots that were formed against him, goes to Nicopolis, and writes this epistle from Nicopolis or some place near it, after Tychicus had already set out on his journey to Troas before him, at the apostle's own suggestion. This is a manifest contradiction. In general, however, the statement in the Acts does not warrant the supposition that the apostle's companions set out before him, and Matthies must rather have recourse to the conjecture, that the whole company intended to pass the winter at Nicopolis. (Compare Meyer on the passage.) But the hypothesis under consideration is also chronologically untenable. The expression, I have determined to winter, Tit. iii. 12, if not unduly refined upon, must be regarded as having been written before the winter set in; comp. 1 Cor. xvi. 6. If now, as Matthies maintains, the apostle passed only a few weeks at Nicopolis, is it possible that, notwithstanding the haste with which he makes this journey to Jerusalem, he should not reach Philippi till Easter? (Acts xx. 6.) And leaving this out of view, can it be deemed probable that the apostle should prepare to journey from Corinth to Syria by sea at the setting in of winter? Does he not say in 1 Cor. xvi. 6, that he intends to spend the winter in Corinth ? And what hinders our supposing that he did this, as it does not appear that the plots of the Jews had given any cause for fear until he was about to set sail (uéλZorri áváуeo0a)? If this was the case, then we can understand how he should arrive at Philippi at Easter. But we need not lay stress on probabilities; we have already seen that this hypothesis is involved in impossibilities and contradictions. Böttger has put forth quite a

new view regarding the time of Paul's stay at Crete, and the date of this epistle a. a. Q. Abth. 4, p. 1-12. According to it the apostle was not once merely, but twice at Crete. First, in the period referred to in Acts xviii. 11, during the first stay in Achaia, then in that of Acts xix. 22, 23, during his from two to three years' stay at Ephesus; and he was even on the point of visiting Crete once more on his return from Greece to Jerusalem, when pirates hired by the Jews shewed themselves and compelled him to take another direction. Titus was dismissed in a boat or second ship (?) to Crete, with parting words to this effect, "Set in order what is still wanting in the churches at Crete: as soon as I effect my escape I will write to you." The apostle then went by Messenia and Elis to Epirus. From that place he writes to Titus, and remains there until Titus has set in order the churches in Crete, and comes to him to Nicopolis, although "his journey is towards Macedonia," and he is in great haste still to arrive at Jerusalem in proper time for the feast of Pentecost. This view unites in itself the difficulties of several others, and falls to pieces on Tit. i. 5, according to which the apostle was with Titus at Crete; nor does it agree any better than those before mentioned with the simple account in Acts xx. 3, 4. For μέλλοντι ἀνάγεσθαι does not surely mean: at the moment when the apostle was about to reach the high sea? And ¿yéveto yvúμŋ toŬ ὑποστρέφειν διὰ Μακεδονίας does not surely imply; the apostle had sailed to Epirus in order to pass the winter there, and afterwards to return through Macedonia; but, that he chose to perform the journey by land rather than by sea.

But against all these views, which would bring the apostle's visit to Crete and the date of the epistle within the period described by the Acts of the Apostles, might be urged, not merely the circumstance that it were strange to find in Acts xxvii. 7, seq., no mention made of Christians in Crete, if indeed the apostle had laboured there before and Titus had set churches in order. I lay no particular stress on that; but it appears to me that the close kindred relation which the Pastoral Epistles bear to one another in form and matter would remain unaccountable in spite of all that Hemsen says to the contrary, if the Epistle to Titus were separated from the others by any considerable period of time; as De Wette also admits. Comp. the General Introduction. And what special objection can be drawn from the epistle itself, against the supposition of its having been written during the period between the first and second imprisonment (the possibility of a second imprisonment being once granted)? In the personal references no contradiction can be discovered; the apostle had already been long acquainted with Apollos; and, with the manner in which Tychicus is mentioned, Ephes. vi. 21; Col. iv. 7, correspond. The apostle's return to the east is rendered

certain by Phil. i. 25; ii. 24; Philem. 22. The visit to Crete then finds a natural occasion in Acts xxvii. 7, seq. Matthies, a decided opponent of this view, thinks, that a journey comprehending such a circuit from east to west must have been fruitful in events; the period between the first and second imprisonment was that in which the distresses of the Christians were severer than ever; and yet no word of all this is found in the epistle. But the reason of this appears at once, if the apostle after he was liberated was with Titus in Crete. All that he had to communicate on these subjects would thus have been told to Titus before. If, however, as I am constrained to think, on the ground of the passages in the Epistle to the Philippians and in the Epistle to Philemon, the apostle went to Crete immediately after being liberated, and not first to Spain, he would then have nothing to tell about a journey extending from east to west. If the epistle, moreover, is from beginning to end purely an official communication designed to give the necessary instructions and hints to Titus in a concise form; what place is there in it for such accounts as those to which Matthies refers? Comp. here also what is said in the General Introduction. When, however, Matthies goes on to say, that the planting of the Cretan churches, the place from which the epistle was written, as well as the apostle's stay (in Nicopolis ?), must remain in deep obscurity, we would refer in reply to the General Introduction, where it has been shewn how fully on our hypothesis all the data of the Pastoral Epistles harmonize with each other.*

II. CRITICAL OBJECTIONS.

Those which are urged specially against this epistle, and in particular against its historical intimations, are the following (comp. De Wette, p. 1, seq., of his commentary).

1. The epistle can find no place in the history of the apostle's life; in reply to which all that is necessary has been said in the General Introduction.

2. It is said to have been written shortly after the planting of the churches in Crete, and before they were fully settled. But with this do not agree the complaints which we find in the epistle of the number of heretics in Crete, and their pernicious influence (i. 10, seq.), insomuch that even in the choice of a presbyter it was to be a question, whether he held fast the true doctrine (i. 9). "How could such a reaction be formed so speedily in the bosom of the Cretan Christianity? And if it be supposed that those heretics were strangers who had forced themselves in on the church, they must at * Compare the appendix at the conclusion of the epistle.

least have plied their disorderly course for some length of time, so that the epistle could not have been written shortly after the planting of Christianity in the island." To this we reply, that De Wette himself shews that Christianity cannot have been planted for the first time in Crete shortly before by the apostle. It is thus quite unnecessary to suppose that such a reaction was formed so speedily; it may have been formed long before. Hence the conjecture is also unnecessary, that strangers intruded themselves on the church, who yet must have pursued their disorderly course for some length of time, according to which the epistle cannot have been written shortly after the planting of Christianity in the island. It was, in fact, not written shortly after the planting of Christianity; for the apostle did not plant it, but found it already there. His epistle, which was written shortly after his departure from Crete, was not therefore written shortly after the planting of Christianity there, and the "heresy" did not first make its appearance after his departure; on the contrary, the apostle knows it from personal observation, from having seen it for some length of time, as even De Wette maintains, p. 2. Finally, nothing is said in the epistle of a heresy properly so called. It is evident then, that in order to the removal of these objections, the critics who urge them need only to give credit to the statements of the epistle itself, which they themselves acknowledge, against their supposition that it was the apostle who planted Christianity in Crete, for which there is no foundation in the epistle.

3. The great success which is said to have attended the apostle in Crete, implies such a measure of receptivity for the gospel on the part of the inhabitants, as gives an appearance of injustice to the charge brought against the Cretans in i. 12, seq., as to their depraved disposition, a charge too founded on foreign testimony. For the same reason the absence of all joyful and thankful acknowledgment on the part of the apostle seems strange. In the Epistle to the Galatians, although the first part is not written in a tone of grateful acknowledgment, there are still not wanting many kind and confidential expressions. To this we reply: that this epistle, unlike that to the Galatians, was not addressed to the church. If this had been the case, then doubtless it would have contained expressions of the same nature. Chiefly however: from what source do we learn of the great success which Paul had at Crete? The epistle says nothing of this: it does not represent the spread of the gospel there as the work of the apostle at all. On the contrary, the apostle had there observed grevious corruptions in the Christian life, as De Wette himself admits, and was not able entirely to put them down during his stay; wherefore he left Titus behind to set in order what was still wanting. The charge against the national

character of the Cretans may therefore have been well founded, a charge confirmed, too, from other sources. There appears the utmost propriety in the apostle's making this charge to rest on foreign testimony, that, namely, of a poet who was regarded by themselves as a prophet.

4. But the moral and ecclesiastical state of the Cretan Christians, implies that Christianity must have existed for a greater length of time there; in proof of which reference is most justly made to the words of i. 6, having believing children, and to the moral qualifications that are elsewhere laid down there. To this we have nothing to say, but to accept it as an acknowledgment of our assertion. The critics have not been able even in the remotest degree to prove that it cannot have been so, and that the apostle must have been the first who carried the news of the gospel to Crete; comp. Acts ii. 11, and on i. 5 of this epistle.

5. It is remarkable, as the epistle was written soon after the apostle had been in Crete, that we find in it not a single allusion to what he experienced and did there, etc. Quite different is the case in 1 Thess. To this objection also what has been already said applies, viz., that the apostle does not write to the Cretans. In that case, probably such allusions would not have been wanting. It was unnecessary for the apostle to speak of these things to Titus, who had been in Crete at the same time with himself, and had seen and heard everything along with him.

6. It is objected that the epistle does not answer its end, or correspond to the relation between the writer and the receiver. What is said as to the qualifications to be looked for in the choice of presbyters is self-evident. The same may be said of the other point, namely, the refutation of the heretics. As on the one hand, they themselves are indistinctly characterised, so on the other nothing is said in opposition to them which might serve as a suitable refutation. This end is not served by what is said in i. 15 on things pure and impure, or by the superficial moral rules in ii. 1-10, coupled with the reference to the practical spirit of Christianity ii. 11–14. Such are the objections made by the critics, who here and there also make trifling admissions. With regard to the charge that i 5-9, ii. 1-3, is too general and self-evident, we have endeavoured to reply to it in the exposition. Further, that the moral precepts in ii. 1, seq., are superficial, and not founded on any principle, is, when viewed in the light of vers. 11-14, altogether incorrect. In general it is a strange method, to aim at establishing conclusions regarding the genuineness of an epistle, on the ground of its containing what is otherwise known or unknown. That method alone can be the just one, which inquires whether the contents of the epistle correspond to the state of things with which it deals. If this state