The Epistles of 2 Corinthians and 1 Peter E-Book

J. B. Lightfoot

• Herausgeber: IVP Academic
• Kategorie: Religion und Spiritualität
• Serie: The Lightfoot Legacy Set
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 785

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2016

Beschreibung

InterVarsity Press is proud to present The Lightfoot Legacy, a three-volume set of previously unpublished material from J. B. Lightfoot, one of the great biblical scholars of the modern era. In the spring of 2013, Ben Witherington III discovered hundreds of pages of biblical commentary by Lightfoot in the Durham Cathedral Library. While incomplete, these commentaries represent a goldmine for historians and biblical scholars, as well as for the many people who have found Lightfoot's work both informative and edifying, deeply learned and pastorally sensitive. In addition to the material on the Acts of the Apostles and the Gospel of St. John, published in volumes one and two, respectively, there were fragments on 2 Corinthians and 1 Peter. Lightfoot was well known as a Pauline expert given his commentaries on Galatians, Philippians, Colossians and Philemon, and fragments of his work on Romans, 1 Corinthians, Ephesians, and 1 and 2 Thessalonians were published posthumously. It is therefore a delight to have his notes on 2 Corinthians available for the first time. Lightfoot was also interested in the life and work of Peter. The introduction to his commentary on 1 Peter provides insightful analysis of the chronology and context of the epistle. Lightfoot seeks to demonstrate that Peter knew Paul's work and that these two great apostles were in harmony regarding theology and ethics.Now complete, these three commentary volumes reveal a scholar well ahead of his time, one of the great minds of his or any generation.

Leseprobe

J. B. LIGHTFOOT

THE LIGHTFOOT LEGACY SET

Volume 3

Edited by

BEN WITHERINGTON III and

TODD D. STILL

Assisted by

JEANETTE M. HAGEN

Figure 1. J. B. Lightfoot

Rightly understood . . . Joseph Barber Lightfoot, historian and theologian, Christian and bishop, can still become our tutor today.

Martin Hengel, “Bishop Lightfoot and the Tübingen School on the Gospel of John in the Second Century”

There was a peculiar fitness in the time that was selected for the revelation of Messiah to his people. But can we venture a step beyond, and say that we see in the popular mind of the day the germ of a natural development of the Christian scheme? The voice of prophecy had been silent for four centuries, but it was felt to be as the death-like stillness that precedes the hurricane. Hence, men with busy whisperings were anxiously looking for the coming of that great Terrible Day of the Lord which, amidst many horrors, was yet to bring their deliverance.

J. B. Lightfoot, “Lessons of History from the Cradle of Christianity”

For there is a testimony which it is not in the power of historical criticism to grasp, the testimony of the heart which finds in Christianity its deepest aspirations realized and its fondest hopes fulfilled, the testimony of a conscience smitten and pierced, as by a sharp two-edged sword, by the record of His words ‘who spake as no man spake,’ the testimony of experience which reminds the Christian that in proportion as he has cultivated his best faculties and highest feelings of his nature, the clouds of doubt and difficulty have been dispersed before the ‘light of the Spirit which bears witness to his spirit,’ and have only gathered again when he has been betrayed into spiritual carelessness or moral ambiguity.

J. B. Lightfoot, “Lessons of History from the Cradle of Christianity”

In an even earlier lecture than that on Lightfoot, to which I have already referred, I described the way in which Lightfoot, Westcott, and Hort divided up the New Testament with a view to writing commentaries on the whole. . . . The Chapter Library at Durham contains a quantity of [unpublished] manuscript material which is interesting in that it shows both how probably the most popular teacher of theology at Cambridge in his time prepared and presented his material, and also how the finished commentaries took shape.

C. K. Barrett

Contents

Foreword

Abbreviations

Editors’ Introduction: J. B. Lightfoot as Biblical Commentator

Part One: Pauline Prolegomena: Of Chronology and Context

Part Two:The Commentary on 2 Corinthians

The Salutation and the Supplication (2 Corinthians 1:1-14)

Why a Further Visit Failed to Happen (2 Corinthians 1:23–2:17)

Excursus: On the Use of the First Person Plural in St. Paul’s Epistles

The Ministry of Death, and the Ministry of Life (2 Corinthians 3)

Eternal Treasures in Earthen Vessels (2 Corinthians 4)

Of Temporary Tents and Eternal Houses (2 Corinthians 5)

The Ministry of Suffering and Reconciliation (2 Corinthians 6)

Frank Speech and Fresh Hope (2 Corinthians 6:11–7:16)

2 Corinthians 7

About the Collection (2 Corinthians 8)

2 Corinthians 9

2 Corinthians 10

2 Corinthians 11

Part Three: Introduction to the Commentary on 1 Peter

Part Four: Commentary on 1 Peter

A Living Hope, a Call to Holy Living (1 Peter 1)

The Living Stone and the Living Stones (1 Peter 2)

Heirs of Life, Followers of Christ’s Example of Suffering (1 Peter 3)

Appendix A: The Mission of Titus to the Corinthians

Appendix B: St. Paul’s Preparation for Ministry

Appendix C: ‘The Letter Killeth, but the Spirit Giveth Life’

Appendix D: Lessons of History from the Cradle of Christianity

Appendix E: The Christian Ministry

Appendix F: J. B. Lightfoot as Biblical Commentator: C. K. Barrett

Appendix G: Lightfoot in Retrospect: J. D. G. Dunn

Published Works by Lightfoot in Chronological Sequence

Monographs on Lightfoot or His Works

Articles or Essays on Lightfoot or His Works

Notes

Author Index

Scripture Index

Praise for The Epistles of 2 Corinthians and 1 Peter

About the Author

The Lightfoot Legacy Set

More Titles from InterVarsity Press

Copyright

Foreword

In 1978, I (BW3) was in the Durham Cathedral cloister visiting the Monk’s Dormitory that then, as now, served as a display room for important artifacts and manuscripts. It was also something of an archival library. I was a young doctoral student of Charles Kingsley Barrett and had already come across the name of J. B. Lightfoot on various occasions. Indeed, I had bought a reprint of his classic Philippians commentary while I was still in seminary in Massachusetts several years earlier. While perusing the various display cases, I came across an open notebook that displayed Lightfoot’s comments on a notoriously difficult passage in Acts 15, and I wondered whether there were more of this sort of meticulous exegetical material, written in Lightfoot’s own hand, somewhere else in that library.

Naturally, I was interested, since there were no publications by Lightfoot that directly dealt with Acts, and certainly no commentaries by Lightfoot on Acts. I mentioned this discovery to Professor Barrett, who himself was an admirer of J. B. Lightfoot. In fact, in the early 1970s he had written a Durham University Journal article in which he praised Lightfoot as arguably the foremost scholar of the New Testament of his era.1 Somehow, however, nothing more happened in regard to this matter, and in truth, I forgot about it.

I mentioned in passing seeing this material some years later to Professor J. D. G. Dunn, who was then serving as the Lightfoot Professor of Divinity at Durham University. Still, nothing more came of it. Yes, there was a celebration of the centennial of Lightfoot’s death in 1989, planned and organized by the tireless efforts of Professor Dunn, that produced a fine special issue of the Durham University Journal, published in 1990, with various articles about the legacy of Lightfoot.2 There was even a fine monograph done by G. R. Treloar on Lightfoot as a historian.3 Although it was clear that Treloar had read and studied some of Lightfoot’s unpublished work on Acts, the primary sources had not been completely read or studied, much less published.

On my sabbatical in the spring of 2013, when I was scholar-in-residence in St. John’s College at Durham University, I decided to try to see just what Lightfoot materials might still be gathering dust in the cathedral library. I must confess, I was not prepared for what I found. There, in the Monk’s Dormitory in a tall bookcase—whose lower compartment was crammed with Lightfoot files, folders, letters, pictures, inkwells and more—sat not only three brown notebooks of Lightfoot’s detailed exegetical lectures on Acts numbering over 140 pages, but also a further gigantic blue box full of hundreds of pages of additional Acts materials, including a lengthy excursus on the authenticity of the Stephen speech. But even that was not all.

There was also a whole blue box full of hundreds of pages of Lightfoot’s exegetical studies on the Gospel of John, two notebooks on 1 Peter, lectures on 2 Corinthians and finally a further notebook of Lightfoot’s reflections on early Judaism. All were in Lightfoot’s own hand, all done in great detail and none of it, except the first four or five pages of the introduction to Galatians contained in the first Acts notebook (which Kaye and Treloar excerpted and published in a Durham University Journal article in 19904), had ever been published—until now.5

It is important to say at this juncture that this material would still be unpublished were it not for (1) the capable help of the Durham Cathedral Library staff, especially Catherine Turner (now retired) and Gabrielle Sewell; (2) the hard work of Jeanette Hagen, a recently minted PhD graduate in New Testament from the University of Durham, who did much of the painstaking work reading and transcribing this material; (3) the generosity of Asbury Seminary, Baylor University (through an Arts and Humanities Faculty Development Program Grant administered by the office of the vice provost of research) and Willard J. Still, who helped to pay for the digitalization and transcription of these materials; and (4) our friends at InterVarsity Press, in particular Andy Le Peau, Jim Hoover, Dan Reid and David Congdon, who saw the value of letting this material see the light of day so it might provide valuable help for our understanding of the New Testament, help from an unexpected quarter.6

From where exactly did this material come? The answer is from Lightfoot’s lecture notebooks. When Lightfoot served as fellow (1851), tutor (1857), Hulsean Professor of Divinity (1861) and Lady Margaret’s Professor (1875) at Cambridge University, he gave several series of lectures on Acts, the Gospel of John, 1 Peter and 2 Corinthians (among other subjects). The first Acts notebook, which also includes notes on Galatians, begins with these words—“Lenten Term, 1855.” Over time, as he continued to lecture on these great New Testament texts, Lightfoot would revise his lectures, further annotate them, change his mind on a few things and add things.

When Lightfoot became bishop of Durham in 1879, he brought all of his Cambridge work on the New Testament, and much else, with him. This is how these materials eventually came into the possession of the Durham Cathedral Library. Lightfoot had been lecturing on Acts and John and other parts of the New Testament for more than twenty years when he left Cambridge for Durham, and the impression one gets from these unpublished manuscripts is that, having already published commentaries on Galatians (1865), Philippians (1868), and Colossians and Philemon (1875), Lightfoot’s views on Acts, John, 2 Corinthians and 1 Peter were mostly formed by the time he came to Durham. Indeed, one finds in these same Acts notebooks some of the materials that went into Lightfoot’s Galatians commentary and his fragmentary commentaries on certain Pauline letters (namely, Romans, the Corinthian and Thessalonian correspondences, and Ephesians).7

In his own lifetime, Lightfoot was a widely recognized expert in the Pauline corpus, having published landmark commentaries on Galatians, Philippians, and Colossians and Philemon before beginning his tasks as bishop of Durham in 1879. It is then something of a surprise that his very interesting work on 2 Corinthians was never found and published, when in fact fragments of his work on Romans, 1 Corinthians, Ephesians, and 1 and 2 Thessalonians were published posthumously in a volume titled Notes on Epistles of St. Paul from Unpublished Commentaries.8 It is thus a true windfall that we can now bring to the light of day Lightfoot’s work on 2 Corinthians, though sadly it too is fragmentary. What is especially ­evident in this commentary is its contradiction of the suggestion that Lightfoot was almost entirely a historian and not a theologian. While one may be forgiven for thinking that when reading the first volume in this series, on the Acts of the Apostles, there can be no excuse after reading the second and third ones.

But, of course, this was stressed some time ago by C. K. Barrett. Consider this quote from Barrett’s well-known essay “J. B. Lightfoot as Biblical Commentator.” After saying that Lightfoot is a master of historical-critical exegesis, he adds:

Thus historical exegesis has not only the negative function of saying to the modern theologian or moralist, “No, you may not base your proposition on that text,” but the positive function of providing solid ground for inferences relevant to ages long after the original truth was stated. Lightfoot assumes—and if the assumption is valid he may be vindicated not only as a philologist and a historian but also as a theologian—that the language and the historical circumstances of Scripture have a quality of universality that gives them a perennial applicability. . . . There remains for him however an absolute qualitative distinction between the words of Scripture and all other words, and it is this, together of course with his splendid scholarly equipment, that places him securely in the line of great biblical expositors, from Origen and Chrysostom to Calvin to Bengel.9

We are also very happy to be able to present Lightfoot’s work on a very different epistle indeed, and a non-Pauline one, namely 1 Peter. Lightfoot believed that the two great apostles were indeed Peter and Paul, the former for the Jews, the latter for the Gentiles. He also thought that these two documents upon which he offers commentary in this volume well represented the two great leaders of early Christianity. After presenting some of Lightfoot’s necessary prologomena to 2 Corinthians, we set forth his commentary itself. We follow the same protocol with the materials on 1 Peter.

The commentary on 1 Peter takes us up to 1 Peter 3:21. It is in many ways richer and fuller throughout than the 2 Corinthians commentary. This is the case for at least two reasons: (1) Lightfoot basically eschews detailed attention to text criticism, except where needed, and focuses instead on verse-by-verse exegesis of the text, and (2) he forgoes the interesting paraphrases we find at points in the 2 Corinthians manuscript and deals more deeply with theological and ethical matters raised by 1 Peter. Nevertheless, Lightfoot is interested in showing that Peter knew and drew on the work of St. Paul, including his Romans and Ephesians letters, as well as using a great deal of material from the LXX to make his points about suffering, atonement and Christology. He sees the two apostles as in essential harmony when it come to matters of theology and ethics, and there can be little doubt that he has one eye on the offspring of the Tübingen school in some of his pointed remarks and refutations on this score.

In the appendixes there are two essays of relevance to the commentary on 2 Corinthians and a third that is a protracted theological reflection that shows how the lessons of the early church, the suffering church of which Peter and Paul both speak, and the lessons from the history of Judaism may still instruct us today. This large, long essay was beautifully handwritten and is page after page of closely packed argument. On the back of the last page Lightfoot apologizes that due to the time constraints it ended somewhat abruptly. In other words, this is surely the original form of Lightfoot’s prize-winning essay (wrongly identified by some during Lightfoot’s day as perhaps on the Stephen speech). He was given a certain amount of time during a few days to do it, and he did not finish it on time.

Picture a youngish Lightfoot, already a brilliant scholar, sitting at a big wooden table with books stacked all around him, his ink pen and his notebook in hand. And in an amazingly short span of time he writes a detailed essay with full references that goes on for about fifty of our pages! Lightfoot was a churchman through and through, and he always did his scholarship in the service of both his Lord and the Christian church, believing that historical knowledge and vital piety belonged together, not hermetically sealed off from each other. This volume demonstrates both the character of the man and the quality of his scholarship time and again.

Full marks must go to G. R. Treloar and B. N. Kaye for finding this early essay in more than one form and publishing the more polished later form of it,10 which is in part a response to D. F. Strauss and indeed focuses on early Jewish literature and early Jewish messianic hopes. I (BW3) have had now extensive exchanges during the summer of 2014 with Professor Treloar about the source history of this important essay, and he agrees we are publishing the earliest form of this prize-winning essay.

The source history of this material as I would reconstruct it is as follows: (1) Treloar and Kaye found both the earlier and later forms of Lightfoot’s prize-winning essay in the 1980s and published in the 1987 article cited below the later form of the essay, which actually has a proper ending. But they also stated clearly on page 166 of the article that “an earlier and in some places fuller draft” had been found by them as well. It is this latter that is published for the first time in an appendix to this volume.

(2) Treloar and Kaye deserve the credit for figuring out that the Strauss and Philo essay was the one he originally wrote for the Cambridge prize. It is important to remember, however, as the abrupt end of the original form of the essay indicates, that this was a timed essay. There was no time originally for Lightfoot to revise this manuscript during the contest, and in the unrevised form, he refused to put it out. Only later did he return to the essay, polishing up the ending and editing out some materials. We do not know for sure how much later the revision was done.

(3) The later revision of the original essay may have been in response to those that Martin Hengel calls the “Essayists.” If so, Lightfoot did this revision long after the original 1850s essay and under some provocation. He did not really want to publish his early essay, but he felt it necessary to do a little light editing, produce a proper ending and contemplate putting it out without fuller research. We need to remember that the book Supernatural Religion, as well as the attacks on his friend Hort, put Lightfoot in something of a bind as an English Christian gentleman. He felt a response was required, and certainly his essays on Supernatural Religion are his most polemical essays ever. It seems, however, he did not think that this was enough. The earlier Strauss and early Judaism essay suited the purpose of answering others who kept touting the Tübingers and their take on the Gospels and other Scripture. Hence we have two somewhat different versions of the earliest publishable essay Lightfoot ever wrote. It says something about Lightfoot’s meticulousness and care, however, that even after revising the essay, and intending to put it out, in the end he demurred, and even the revised essay did not see the light of day until thankfully Kaye and Treloar saw to it.

Finally, we are very honored to be able to reprint two key essays on Lightfoot by C. K. Barrett and J. D. G. Dunn that were given at the centennial celebration of the passing of Lightfoot in 1989. These essays first appeared in a special issue of the Durham University Journal that came out in the early 1990s but have long since gone out of print. We reprint these essays with minor editing with the blessing and encouragement of Professor Dunn, and the permission of Durham University itself. I am certain as well that C. K. Barrett, my Doktorvater of blessed memory, would be glad that his essay was given a further life by its being republished here.

To close this introduction we would like to express our sincere and abiding appreciation to Jeanette M. Hagen for her assistance in coordinating, transcribing and editing the three volumes that constitute the Lightfoot Legacy. Thanks are also due to Andrew Stubblefield and Gehard Stübben for their help in editing and compiling the abbreviations and indexes in this volume. Finally, we would convey our profound gratitude to Benjamin Snyder for offering readers an expansive bibliography on works by and about the inimitable Joseph Barber Lightfoot.

Ben Witherington III

Asbury Theological Seminary

Todd D. Still

Baylor University, Truett Theological Seminary

Lent 2016

Abbreviations

BIBLICAL VERSIONS

A/al.

Codex Alexandrinus

A.V.

Authorized Version

arm

Armenian

B

Codex Vaticanus

B.M.T.

Byzantine Majority Text

C

Codex Ephraemi Syri Rescriptus

cop

Coptic

D

Codex Claromontanus

E

Codex Basilensis

Ethiop.

Ethiopian

E.V.

English version

F

Codex Augiensis

G

Codex Seidelianus I/Codex Harleianus

it

Old Latin

Harcl.

Harclean Syriac

K

Codex Cyprius

L

Codex Regius

Lat.

Latin

P

Papyrus manuscripts

Peshit.

Peshitta

S

Codex Sinaiticus

Syr.

Syriac

T.R.

Textus Receptus

Vulg.

Vulgate

Ψ

Codex Athous Laurae

ANCIENT AUTHORS AND WORKS

Act. Perpet. et Felic

.

The Acts of Perpetua and Felicitas

Aeschylus

Agam.

Agamemnon

Prom.

Prometheus Bound

Theb.

Seven Against Thebes

Apostl. Constitut

.

Apostolic Constitutions

Athan.

Athanasius

Apol. c. Arian.

Apologia secunda (Apologia contra Arianos)

Augustine

Quaest. Vet. et Novi Test.

Quaestiones Veteris et Novi Testamenti

Retract.

Retractationum Libri II

B.T.

Babylonian Talmud

Barnab.

Barnabas

Chr.

Chrysostom

Hom.

Homilies

Cicero

ad Atticus

Epistulae ad Atticum

de. offic.

De Officiis

pro Balb.

Pro Balbo

Ver./Verr.

In Verrem

Clem. Alex.

Clement of Alexandria

Paed.

Paedagogus

Quis div. salv.

Quis dives salvetur

Strom.

Stromata

Clem. Hom.

Clementine Homilies

Clem. of Rom.

Clement of Rome (1 Clement)

Clement. Recogn.

Clementine Recognitions

Cyprian

De Unit. Eccl.

De catholicae ecclesiae unitate

Cyr. of Alex.

Cyril of Alexandria

Demosth.

Demosthenes

Timocr.

In Timocratem

Denys

Pseudo-Dionysus the Areopagite

Cor.

Corpus Areopagiticum

Ep. Petr.

The Epistle of Peter to James

Epiphanius

ad Haeres.

Adversus haereses

Epistle Clem. Ad Jac.

The Epistle of Clement to James

Eur.

Euripides

Rhes.

Rhesus

Eusebius

H.E.

Historia ecclesiastica

Prop. Ev.

Praeparatio evangelica

Eutych.

Eutychius of Alexandria

Ann.

Eutychii Annales

Evang. Thomas

Gospel of Thomas

Hippol.

Hippolytus

Haer./adv. Haers.

Refutatio omnium haeresium

Hist. Man.

Petrus Siculus,

Historia Manichaeorum qui Pauliciani dicuntur

Horace

Sat.

Satirae

Ignatius

Ephes.

Epistle to the Ephesians

Magn./Magnes.

Epistle to the Magnesians

Phil./Philad./Philadel.

Epistle to the Philadelphians

Polyc.

Epistle to Polycarp

Rom.

Epistle to the Romans

Smyrn.

Epistle to the Smyrnaeans

Trall.

Epistle to the Trallians

Il.

Iliad

Jerome

Vir. Ill.

De viris illustribus

Josephus

Ant.

Antiquitates judaicae

Bell. Jud.

Bellum judaicum

Vit. Jos.

Vita

Justin

Apol.

Apology

Lact.

Lactantius

Inst. Div.

Divinarum institutionum

M. Fragm.

Commentariorum in Matthaeum

Martyr. Ignat. Ant.

Martyrdom of Ignatius of Antioch

Martyr. Polyc.

Martyrdom of Polycarp

Offic.

Cicero,

De Officiis

Origen

Comm. Matt.

Commentarium in evangelium Matthae

de Orat.

De oratione

Hom. in Lev.

Homiliae in Leviticum

In Joan

Commentarii in evangelium Joannis

Philo

Cherub.

De cherubim

de Agric

.

De agricultura

de confus. Ling.

De confusione linguarum

de Migrat. Abr.

De migratione Abrahami

de Mund Opif.

De opificio mundi

de Post.

De posteritate Caini

de Prob./Quod Omn. Prob. Lib.

Quod omnis probus liber sit

de somn.

De somnis

de Vita Mos.

De vita Mosis

Leg. Alleg.

Legum allegoriae

Plato

Axioch

.

Axiochus

Tim.

Timaeus

Pliny

Nat. Hist.

Naturalis historia

Plutarch

Cim.

Cimon

Polycarp

Phil.

Epistle to the Philippians

Seneca

Dialog.

Dialogi

Shepherd of Hermas

Mand.

Mandates

Sim.

Similitudes

Vis.

Visions

Soph.

Phil

.

Sophocles,

Philoctetes

Sym.

Symmachus

Tacitus

Annal.

Annales

Tertullian

ad omnes. haers.

Pseudo-Tertullian,

Adversus Omnes Haereses

ad Uxor.

Ad uxorem

adv. Jud.

Adversus Judaeos

adv. Marc.

Adversus Marcionem

de Cult. Fem.

de cultu feminarum

de Exh. Cast.

De exhortation castitatis

de Monog.

De monogamia

de Pall.

De pallio

de Praesc./Prescrip.

De praescriptione haeriticorum

de Pudic.

De pudicitia

de Spectac.

De spectaculis

de Virg. Vel.

De virginibus velandis

Test. XII Patr.

Testament of the Twelve Patriarchs

Theod.

Theodotion

Theoph./Theophyl.

Theophylact

Thuc./Thucy.

Thucydides

Vopiscus

Vit. Saturn.

Vita Saturnini

Xenophon

Mem.

Memorabilia

MODERN SOURCES AND PERSONS

Alford

Henry Alford,

The New Testament for English Readers

, 4 vols. (London: Rivingtons, 1866)

Baumgarten,

Acts

Michael Baumgarten,

The Acts of the Apostles

, trans. A. J. W. Morrison, 3 vols. (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1854)

Baur,

Ursprung des Episcopats

Ferdinand Christian Baur,

Ueber den Ursprung des Episcopats in der christlichen Kirche

(Tübingen: Fues, 1838)

Bengel

Johannes Bengel

Bingham,

Antiq

.

Joseph Bingham,

Origines ecclesiasticæ. The antiquities of the Christian church

(London: William Straker, 1834)

Blass

Friedrich Blass

Blunt,

First Three Centuries

John James Blunt,

A History of the Christian Church During the First Three Centuries

(London: J. Murray, 1856)

Böhner,

Diss. Jur. Eccl

.

Henning Böhner,

Dissertationes juris ecclesiastici antiqui ad Plinium secundum et Tertullianum

Bunsen,

Hippolyt.

C. J. Bunsen,

Hippolytus and His Age

(1852)

Casar Morgan,

Tim. of Plato

Caesar Morgan,

An investigation of the Trinity of

Plato

and of

Philo Judaeus

, and of the effects which an attachment to their writings had upon the principles and reasonings of the Fathers of the Christian Church

(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1853)

Clinton

Henry Fynes Clinton

Conybeare and Howson

W. J. Conybeare and J. S. Howson,

The Life and Epistles of St. Paul

, 2nd ed., 2 vols. (London: Longman, Brown, Green, Longmans, & Roberts, 1856)

Davidson,

Intro.

Samuel Davidson,

Introduction to the Study of the New Testament

(London: Longman, Green, and Co., 1868)

de Rossi,

Sotterr.

Giovanni Battista de Rossi,

La Roma sotterranea cristiana

(Rome: Litographia Pontificia, 1864)

De Wette

W. M. L. de Wette,

Einleitung in das Neue Testament

(1826)

Dorner,

Lehre

Isaak Dorner,

Entwicklungsgeschichte der Lehre von der Person Christi von den ältesten Zeiten bis auf die neuesten

(Stuttgart: S. G. Leisching, 1839; revised and expanded, 1845–1856)

Dupin,

Optat. Milev

.

Louis Ellies Dupin, ed.,

Sancti Optati Afri Milevitani episcopi De schismate donatistarum libri septem : ad manuscriptos codices et veteres editiones collati et innumeris in locis emendati; quibus accessere historia Donatistarum una cum monumentis veteribus ad eam spectandibus

(Paris: G. Gallet, 1702)

Ewald,

Gesch. des V.

Heinrich Ewald,

Geschichte des Volkes Israel bis Christus

(Göttingen: Dieterich’schen Buchhandlung, 1843)

Fields,

Hex.

Frederick Field,

Prolegomena to Origenis Hexaplorum Quae Supersunt, Sive Veterum Interpretum Graecorum in Totum Vetus Testamentum Fragmenta

(Oxford: Clarendon, 1875)

Giesler

J. C. I. Giesler,

Text-Book of Ecclesiastical History

(Philadelphia: Carey, Lea, and Blanchard, 1836)

Gesenius

W. Gesenius,

Hebräisches und Chaldäisches Handwörterbuch

(1812)

Gfrörer,

Das Jahrhundert des Heils

August Friedrich Gfrörer,

Das Jahrhundert des Heils

(Stuttgart: Schweizerbart, 1838)

Gildemeister,

Sextus Sententiae

Johann Gildemeister,

Sexti Sententiarum: Recensiones

(Bonn: Adolphus Marcus, 1873)

Gött. Gel. Anz.

Göttingische gelehrte Anzeigen

Greek Anthol.

The Greek Anthology

Greenwood,

Cathedra Petri

Thomas Greenwood,

Cathedra Petri: A Political History of the Great Latin Patriarchate

(London: William Macintosh, 1865)

Gregorovius,

Kaiser Hadrian

Ferdinand Gregorovius,

Der Kaiser Hadrian:

Gemälde der römisch-hellenischen Welt zu seiner Zeit

(1884)

Hefele,

Consiliengesch.

Karl Joseph von Hefele,

Conciliengeschichte

(Freiburg im Breisgau: Herder, 1869)

Hilgenfeld,

Zeitschrift

A. Hilgenfeld,

Zeitschrift für wissenschaftliche Theologie

(Leipzig: Fues’s Verlag, 1878)

Hort

F. J. A. Hort

Hug

Johann Leonhard Hug

Kaye,

Clement of Alexandria

John Kaye,

Some Account of the Writings and Opinions of Clement of Alexandria

(London: J. G. & F. Rivington, 1835)

Lachmann

Karl Lachmann

Lange,

Apost. Zeit.

Johann Peter Lange,

Das apostolische Zeitalter

(Braunschweig: C. A. Schwetschke, 1853)

Le Quien,

Oriens Christianus

Michel Le Quien,

Oriens christianus in quatuor patriarchatus digestus, in quo exhibentur Ecclesiae patriarchae caeterique praesules totius Orientis

(Paris: Typographia Regia, 1740)

Lipsius,

Chronologie

Richard Adelbert Lipsius,

Chronologie der römischen Bischöfe bis zur Mitte des vierten Jahrhunderts

(Kiel: Schwers’sche Buchhandlung, 1869)

Lobeck, on Phys.

Christian August Lobeck,

Phrynichi eclogae nominum et verborum Atticorum

(Lipsiae, 1820)

Maurice,

Kingdom of Christ

Frederick Denison Maurice,

The Kingdom of Christ

(London: Darton and Clark, 1838)

Maurice,

Moral and Metaphysical Phil.

Frederick Denison Maurice,

Moral and Metaphysical Philosophy

(London: R. Griffin, 1854)

Meyer

H. A. W. Meyer

Migne,

Patrolog. Graec.

Patrologia Cursus Completus: Series Graeca

. Edited by Jacques-Paul Migne. 162 vols. (Paris: 1857–1886)

Mommsen

Theodor Mommsen

Mosheim,

de Reb. Christ.

Johann Lorenz von Mosheim,

De rebus christianorum ante Constantinum commentarii

(Helmstad: Christianum Fredericum Weygand, 1853)

Munter,

Primord. Eccl.

Afric.

Frederich Christian Carl Henrick Münter,

Primordia Ecclesiae Africanae

(Copenhagen: Prostant in Libraria Schubothania, 1829)

Neander,

Ch. Hist.

Johann August Wilhelm Neander,

General History of the Christian Religion and Church

(London: Henry G. Bohn, 1851)

Neander,

Hist. of Pla.

Johann August Wilhelm Neander,

History of the Planting and Training of the Christian Church by the Apostles

(London: G. Bell & Sons, 1889-1898)

Neander,

Life of Christ

Johann August Wilhelm Neander,

Life of Jesus Christ in Its Historical Connexion and Historical Development

(London: H.G. Bohn, 1852).

Neander,

Plant.

Johann August Wilhelm Neander,

History of the Planting and Training of the Christian Church by the Apostles

(London: G. Bell & Sons, 1889-1898)

Paley,

Hora. Paul

.

William Paley,

Horae Paulina

Redepenning,

Origenes

Ernst Rudolph Redepenning,

Origenes de Principiis

(Lipsiae: In Bibliopolio Dykiano, 1836)

Renan,

Les Apotres

Ernest Renan,

Les apôtres

(Paris: Calmann-Lévy, 1880)

Ritschl

Albrecht Ritschl

Ritter and Preller,

Hist. Phil. Graeco-Rom

Heinrich Ludwig Ritter and Preller,

Historia Philosophiae Graecae et Romanae

(Gothae: F. A. Perthes, 1838)

Rothe,

Anfange

Richard Rothe,

Die Anfänge der christlichen Kirche und ihrer Verfassung

(Wittenberg : Zimmermann, 1837)

Routh,

Rel. Sacr

.

Martin Routh,

Reliquiæ sacræ sive auctorum fere jam perditorum secundi tertiique seculi post Christum natum quæ supersunt

(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1846)

Ruinart,

Victor Vitensis

Thierry Ruinart, translation of

Historia persecutionis Africanae provinciae

by Victor Vitensis (Paris 1699)

Sänger,

Judische Zeitschrift

Max Sänger,

Maleachi. Eine exegetische Studie über die Eigenthümlichkeiten seiner Redweise

(Jena: W. Ratz, 1867)

Schaff,

Hist. of Apost.

Philip Schaff,

History of the Apostolic Church

(New York: Schribner, Armstrong, & Co., 1874)

Schliemann,

Die Clement

.

Adolph Schliemann,

Die Clementinen

(Hamburg: Friedrich Berthes, 1844)

Smith’s

Dictionary

William Smith,

Dictionary of the Bible

Steph.

Thes.

Henri Estienne (Henricus Stephanus),

Thesaurus Graecae Linguae

(1854)

Strauss,

Life of Jesus

David Friedrich Strauss,

Das Leben Jesu, kritisch bearbeitet

(Tübingen: C. F. Osiander, 1835)

Thiersch,

Gesch. der Apost. Kirche

Heinrich W. J. Thiersch,

Die Geschichte der christlichen Kirche im Alterthum: Die Kirche im apostolischen Zeitalter und die Entstehung der neutestamentlichen Schriften

(Frankfurt and Erlangen: Heyder and Zimmer, 1852)

Thiersch,

Versuch

Heinrich W. J. Thiersch,

Versuch zur Herstellung des historischen Standpuncts für die Kritik der neutestamentlichen Schriften

(Erlangen: Carl Heyder, 1845)

Tillemont,

Hist, des Emp

.

Louis-Sébastien Le Nain de Tillemont,

Histoire des empereurs

(Paris: Charles Robustel, 1690)

Tillemont

Louis-Sébastien Le Nain de Tillemont,

Mémoires pour servir à l’histoire ecclésiastique des six premiers siècles

(Paris: C. Robustel, 1701)

Tisch./Tischendorf

Constantin von Tischendorf

Tregelles

S. P. Tregelles,

Account of the Printed Text of the Greek New Testament

(1854)

Trench,

Epistles to the Seven Churches

Richard Chenevix Trench,

Epistles to the Seven Churches in Asia

(London: Parker, Son, & Bourn, 1861).

Trench,

Study of Words

Richard Chenevix Trench,

On the Study of Words

(London: John W. Parker and Son, 1853).

Trench’s

Synon.

/

Synonyms

R. C. Trench,

Synonyms of the New Testament

, 9th ed. (London: Macmillan, 1880)

Vitringa,

de Synag

.

Campeius Vitringa the Elder,

De Synagoga Vetere Libri Tres

(Franeker, 1685)

W+H

Westcott and Hort

Wahl, Classical

C. Abraham Wahl,

Clavis Novi Testamenti Philologica usibis Scholarum et Juvenum Theologiae studiosorum accommadata

Westcott,

Canon

B. F. Westcott,

A General Survey of the History of the Canon of the New Testament

(1855; revised 1875)

Wettstein

J. J. Wettstein,

Novum Testamentum Graecum editionis receptae cum lectionibus variantibus codicum manuscript

(1751)

Wieseler,

Chron. Der ap. Zeitalt

.

Karl Georg Wieseler,

Chronologie des apostolischen Zeitalters bis zum Tode der Apostel Paulus und Petrus: Ein Versuch

ü

ber die Chronologie und Abfassungszeit der Apostelgeschichte und der paulinischen Briefe

(Göttingen: Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, 1848)

Wilson,

New Testament

William Wilson,

An Illustration of the Method of Explaining the New Testament by the Early Opinions of Jews and Christians Concerning Christ

(Cambridge: J. W. Parker, 1838)

Winer

Georg Benedict Winer,

Grammatik des neutestamentlichen Sprachidioms

, 7th ed. (Leipzig: F. C. W. Vogel, 1867)

Winer,

Real.

Georg Benedict Winer,

Biblisches Realwörterbuch zum Handgebrauch für Studirende, Kandidaten, Gymnasiallehrer und Prediger

, 2 vols. (Leipzig: C. H. Reclam, 1833)

Wordsworth,

Theop. Angl.

Christopher Wordsworth,

Theophilus Anglicanus

(London: F. & J. Rivington, 1850)

Zahn,

Hermas

Theodor Zahn,

Der Hirt des Hermas untersucht

(Gotha: Friedrich Andreas Berthes, 1868)

Zeller,

Philos. der Griechen

Eduard Gottlob Zeller,

Die Philosophie der Griechen in ihrer geschichtlichen Entwicklung dargestellt von Eduard Zeller die nacharistotelische Philosophie zweite Halfte

(Leipzig: Fues’s Verlag, 1868)

MISCELLANEOUS

act.

active

l.c.

loco citato

LXX

Septuagint

med.

medium (middle)

sq./sqq.

the following one(s)

v.l.

varias lectiones

Editors’ Introduction

J. B. Lightfoot as Biblical Commentator

No one could match Lightfoot for “exactness of scholarship, width of erudition, scientific method, sobriety of judgment and lucidity of style.”1

William Sanday

No one ever loitered so late in the Great Court that he did not see Lightfoot’s lamp burning in his study window, though not many either was so regularly present in morning Chapel at seven o’clock that he did not find Lightfoot always there with him.2

Bishop Handley C. G. Moule

Joseph Barber Lightfoot (1828–1889) was in many ways ideally suited to be a commentator on the New Testament. He had mastery of at least seven ancient and modern languages (German, French, Spanish, Italian, Latin, Classical Greek, Koine Greek, and the Greek of the church fathers) and a good working knowledge of many others, including Hebrew, Aramaic, Syriac, Armenian, Ethiopic and Coptic. Some of these languages he taught himself. It was clear enough from early on that Lightfoot had a gift for languages. He once asked a friend whether he did not find it to be the case that one forgets what language one is reading when one becomes absorbed in a text!3 There have been precious few biblical scholars over time that could have candidly made such a remark about so many different languages.

Lightfoot also had a keen interest in history and understood its importance for the study of a historical religion like Christianity. He was a critical and perspicuous thinker and writer with few peers in any age of Christian history. Furthermore, Lightfoot was able to devote himself to the study of the New Testament in ways and to a degree that few scholars before or since his time have been able to do, not least because he never married and had no family for whom to care.4 Yet when we look at the list of his publications, we may be somewhat surprised that there are not more works of biblical exegesis. Here is a list of his works that were first published in the nineteenth century.

Saint Paul’s Epistle to the Galatians (London: Macmillan, 1865)Saint Paul’s Epistle to the Philippians (London: Macmillan, 1868)S. Clement of Rome (London: Macmillan, 1869)Fresh Revision of the English New Testament (London: Macmillan, 1871)Saint Paul’s Epistles to the Colossians and Philemon (London: Macmillan, 1875)Primary Charge (London: Macmillan, 1882)The Apostolic Fathers, Part 2, S. Ignatius, S. Polycarp, 3 vols. (London: Macmillan, 1885–1889)Essays on Supernatural Religion (London: Macmillan, 1889)The Apostolic Fathers, Part 1, S. Clement of Rome, 2 vols. (London: Macmillan, 1890)Cambridge Sermons (London: Macmillan, 1890)Leaders in the Northern Church (London: Macmillan, 1890)Ordination Addresses (London: Macmillan, 1890)Apostolic Fathers Abridged (London: Macmillan, 1891)Sermons Preached in St. Paul’s (London: Macmillan 1891)Special Sermons (London: Macmillan, 1891)The Contemporary Pulpit Library: Sermons by Bishop Lightfoot (London: Swan Sonnenschein, 1892)Dissertations on the Apostolic Age (London: Macmillan, 1892)Biblical Essays (London: Macmillan, 1893)Historical Essays (London: Macmillan, 1895)Notes on the Epistles of St. Paul from Unpublished Commentaries (London: Macmillan, 1895)

Compare this to the inventory created by B. N. Kaye after inspecting everything the Durham Cathedral Library had in handwritten script by Lightfoot:

Lecture notes on ActsLecture notes on EphesiansScript on the destination of Ephesians (published in Biblical Essays)Lecture notes on 1 Corinthians 1:1–15:54Lecture notes on 1 PeterInternal evidence for the authencity and genuineness of St. John’s Gospel (printed in Biblical Essays)External evidence for the authenticity and genuineness of St. John’s Gospel (printed in Biblical Essays)External testimony for St. John’s Gospel (rough notes worked up in Biblical Essays)Second set of notes on internal evidence (printed in The Expositor [1890])Notes on introduction to John and John 1:1–12:2Notes on introduction to Romans and Romans 1:1–9:6 and a separate set of incomplete notes briefly covering Romans 4–13Notes on ThessaloniansPreliminary text for William Smith’s Dictionary of the Bible articleChronology of St. Paul’s life and epistlesThe text of St. Paul’s epistlesSt. Paul’s preparation for the ministryChronology of St. Paul’s life and epistles (printed in Biblical Essays)The churches of Madedonia (printed in Biblical Essays)The church of Thessalonica (printed in Biblical Essays)Notes on the genuineness of 1 and 2 ThessaloniansUnlabeled notes on the text of 1 and 2 Thessalonians

From even a cursory comparison of these two lists, several things become apparent: (1) There is a good deal of material on Acts, John, Paul and 1 Peter that never saw the light of day; and (2) Lightfoot wrote as much, and as often, for the sake of the church and its ministry and about the church and its ministry as he did on subjects of historical or exegetical interest. But where had Lightfoot gained all his knowledge and erudition? What sort of education and what teachers produced such a scholar and churchman?

The Grooming of a Scholar

C. K. Barrett reminds us that Lightfoot in the first instance gained his skills as a commentator on the Bible from studying at King Edward’s School in Birmingham under James Lee Prince. Such study gave him a thoroughgoing training in both Greek and Latin, with wide reading in classical literature and history. When Lightfoot went to study at Trinity College, Cambridge, he worked with B. F. Westcott, who was three years his senior. In 1851 he took the Classical Tripos and came out as a Senior Classic.5 Barrett relates the well-known story that Lightfoot wrote his tripos exam without a single mistake, which Barrett thinks refers to his work on the language parts of the exam. Afterward, Lightfoot was elected to a fellowship at Trinity and went on to teach languages to other students at Trinity. In his “spare” time he was learning theology and reading the apostolic fathers.6

At the tender age of thirty-three, Lightfoot was named Hulsean Professor of Divinity and was the mainstay of the faculty there, even with the addition of Westcott and Hort. Of his lectures in Cambridge, F. J. A. Hort reports,

They consisted chiefly, if not wholly, of expositions of parts of books of the New Testament, and especially of St. Paul’s Epistles, with discussions and leading topics usually included in “Introductions” to these books. Their value and interest were soon widely recognized in the university, and before long no lecture-room then available sufficed to contain the hearers, both candidates for holy orders and older residents; so that leave had to be obtained for the use of the hall of Trinity.7

His commentaries on what we now call the later Pauline letters (Philippians, Colossians and Philemon) as well as on Galatians began to come out in the 1860s, but it is clear that already in the 1850s, based on his Cambridge lecture notes, which we can now inspect, Lightfoot had already sorted out his view of Acts and its relationship to the Pauline corpus as well as Pauline chronology. He had also done extensive work on the Gospel of John and 1 Peter. Indeed, we find some of his Galatians commentary in the same notebook as his lecture notes on Acts. In other words, Lightfoot’s previously unpublished work on Acts, John, 1 Peter and some of Paul’s letters was produced when he was at the height of his powers and commentary-writing ability. These heretofore unpublished notes are often as detailed as the published commentaries and are from the same period of Lightfoot’s life.

If we ask why some of this material was not published during Lightfoot’s lifetime, the answer is ready to hand—it is incomplete. None of these unpublished manuscripts were full commentaries on the books in question. But there are further reasons why Lightfoot did not publish his voluminous materials on Acts and John. As Barrett notes, Lightfoot, Westcott and Hort had agreed to divide up the New Testament among them and to write commentaries on each book.8 Lightfoot was tasked with treating the Pauline corpus, not the Gospels, Acts or 1 Peter.9 Furthermore, the last of his published commentaries (on Colossians and Philemon) came out less than four years before Lightfoot became bishop of Durham in 1879, a work in which he became almost totally absorbed for the rest of his life, which proved to be ten years.10 Regarding Lightfoot’s commentary work, Hort remarks:

Technical language is as far as possible avoided and exposition, essentially scientific, is clothed in simple and transparent language. The natural meaning of each verse is set forth without polemical matter. The prevailing characteristic is . . . good sense unaccompanied by either the insight or delusion of subtlety. Introductions, which precede the commentaries, handle the subject-matter with freshness and reality, almost every section being in effect a bright little historical essay. To each commentary is appended a dissertation, which includes some of Lightfoot’s most careful and thorough work.11

There was one gargantuan academic project Lightfoot continued to work on even after he became bishop—his monumental and groundbreaking studies on the apostolic fathers, though he mostly only found time to work on this project during holidays and while traveling.

There are vivid descriptions of Lightfoot being found in a boat or railway carriage with an Armenian or Coptic grammar in hand or calmly correcting proofs while being driven down precipitous paths in Norway. . . . But above all the secret lay in his ability to switch off, giving himself totally to what was before him. As his chaplain [J. R. Harmer] put it . . . “His power of detachment and concentration was extraordinary. I have seen him break off from an incomplete sentence for a momentous interview with one of his clergy, give him his undivided and sympathetic attention followed by the wisest counsel and final decision, and almost before the door was closed upon his visitor become once more absorbed in his literary work.”12

Lest we worry that in later life Lightfoot went off the boil as he labored away on the apostolic fathers, Stephen Neill assuages such concern. “If I had my way,” Neill maintains, “at least five hundred pages of Lightfoot’s Apostolic Fathers would be required reading for every theological student in his first year. I cannot imagine any better introduction to critical method, or a better preparation for facing some of the difficult problems of New Testament interpretation that yet remain unsolved.”13

There was probably, however, another reason why Lightfoot never published his work on John and Acts. His friend, colleague and original Cambridge mentor B. F. Westcott was producing a commentary on John. Lightfoot would likely have regarded it as bad form to publish something that competed with his colleague’s work, especially when they had already agreed regarding the division of labor when it came to the New Testament. Furthermore, his other colleague F. J. A. Hort was scheduled to do Acts.

Turning to another academic matter, we learn early on what kind of man Lightfoot was when it came to collegiality. Having become Hulsean Professor of Divinity at Cambridge at the remarkably young age of thirty-three, when the Regius Professorship of Divinity became open in 1870, it was assumed that he would take it. But when Lightfoot learned that Westcott would be returning to Cambridge after fulfilling an ecclesiastical assignment, he turned down the post so that it might be given to Westcott.

Lightfoot used all his influence to induce his friend Westcott to become a candidate and resolutely declined to stand himself. After Lightfoot’s death, Dr. Westcott wrote, “He called me to Cambridge to occupy a place which was his own by right; and having done this he spared no pains to secure for his colleague favorable opportunities for action, while he himself withdrew from the position which he had so long virtually occupied.”14

This speaks volumes about the character of the man.

Instead of becoming Regius Professor, five years later Lightfoot accepted the Lady Margaret’s chair. As such, Lightfoot focused on his exegetical work, work that went into his lectures. These labors remained largely unknown after he died, since they were mostly unpublished. In fact, Lightfoot never fully revised any non-Pauline materials into commentary form since there was neither time nor opportunity to do so once he became bishop of Durham. Then, he died prematurely.

So it was that these invaluable Cambridge New Testament notes of Lightfoot remained unpublished. They were presumably first moved to Bishop Auckland Palace (the residence of the bishop of Durham) when Lightfoot moved to Durham. Following his death, they were transported to the Durham Cathedral Library.15 There, they have barely seen the light of day since 1889, with only a handful of scholars and clerics even reading a small part of these materials over the last 150 years.16 We trust that these Lightfoot volumes will remedy this regrettable neglect.

Lightfoot’s Method

Lightfoot learned early on about the value of writing out one’s thoughts about the Scriptures. He once advised: “Begin to write as soon as you possibly can. That was what Prince Lee [his headmaster at King Edward’s, Birmingham] always said to us. This is the way to learn. Almost all I have learnt has come from writing books. If you write a book on a subject, you have to read everything that has been written about it.”17

As John A. T. Robinson stresses, “One turns back with relief to his patient, inductive method after so many of the pre-judgments and unexamined assumptions of form- and redaction-criticism. . . . Lightfoot would have been horrified to think that serious scholarship could by-pass the historical questions or suppose they could be settled a priori by the theological.”18This is because Lightfoot believed wholeheartedly that nothing could be theologically true that was historically false when it comes to matters involving a historical religion like Christianity.

If we ask about Lightfoot’s particular modus operandi with respect to commentary writing, his approach is basically the same inductive method: (1) Establish the text by dealing with the text-critical issues, including the textual variants. (2) Offer necessary grammatical and syntactical notes and discussions. (3) Proceed with exegesis proper. For Lightfoot, this sometimes entailed long excursuses on special topics and more exegetically problematic matters as well as translations of key phrases into English. (4) Deal with theological issues and larger topics that might involve several New Testament documents.

Lightfoot assumed that his audience would know enough Greek and scholia to be able to figure out his elliptical references to parallels in other Greek texts and the like as well as his brief (and sometimes infrequent) footnotes referencing the work of other scholars. “The permanent value of Lightfoot’s historical work depends on his sagacity in dealing with the materials out of which history has to be constructed. He was invariably faithful to a rigorous philological discipline, and was preserved by native candor from distorting influences.”19

It may be asked at this juncture, What is the value of this material today, since many good commentaries on Acts, John, 2 Corinthians and 1 Peter have been written since the time of Lightfoot? The answer to this question is twofold. First, there is Lightfoot’s encyclopedic knowledge of early Greek literature, a knowledge that is probably unequaled to this day by any subsequent commentator on the New Testament.20 As Barrett points out, Lightfoot did not have, nor did he need, a lexicon to find parallels to New Testament Greek usage. As a close look at his Galatians commentary shows: “He knows Origen, Ephraem Syrus, Eusebius of Emesa, Chrysostom, Severianus, Theodore of Mopsuestia, Theodoret, Euthalius, Gennadius, Photius, Victorinus, Hilary, Jerome, Augustine, Pelagius, Cassiodorus, John of Damascus,” not to mention all the pagan Greek literature and later catenae of Greek and Latin sources.21 Lightfoot was a walking lexicon of Greek literature of all sorts, and not infrequently he was able to cite definitive parallels to New Testament usage that decided the issue of the meaning of a word or a phrase.

Second, as Dunn notes, time and again Lightfoot “clearly demonstrates the importance of reading a historical text within its historical context, that the meaning of a text does not arise out of the text alone, but out of the text read in context and that the original context and intention of the author is a determinative and controlling factor in what may be read or heard from such a text. . . . Lightfoot would certainly have approved a referential theory of meaning: that that to which the language of the text refers determines and controls the meaning of the text.”22

This approach is sorely needed today as commentators increasingly dismiss or ignore the importance of original-language study and of the original historical context of a document, or who try to do “theological interpretation” of the text without first having done their historical homework to determine the original contextual meaning of the text, whether theological in character or not. It may be hoped that this series of volumes will revive an interest in the full gamut of subjects relevant to the study of the New Testament, not least ancient history, including social history; the classics; a precise knowledge of Greek, including its grammar and syntax and rhetoric; and, of course, the theology and ethics of the material itself. Doubtless Lightfoot himself would be pleased if this were one outcome of the publication of his long-lost exegetical studies on the New Testament.23

Finally, these commentaries show exactly the way Lightfoot approached his study of the New Testament—carefully, prayerfully and, in his own words, with “the highest reason and the fullest faith.” Not one or the other, but both. Time and again Lightfoot’s intellect and his piety shine through in these lost manuscripts. He shows us repeatedly that faith and reason need not be at odds with one another, especially if it is fides quaerens intellectum (“faith seeking understanding”). Honesty about early Christianity and its Lord need not be feared by a person of Christian faith, whether then or now. Taken for what they are, Lightfoot’s notes will not merely “tease the mind into active thought” (a phrase made famous by C. H. Dodd, a Cambridge man like Lightfoot)24 but also nourish the soul.

Commentary on Peter’s name

Lightfoot’s notes on Peter’s martyrdom

Lightfoot’s remarks regarding the “Dispersion” spoken of in 1 Peter 1:1

Comments on 1 Peter 2:6-7

Lightfoot’s notes on 1 Peter conclude with his reflections on the “disobedient” referred to in 1 Peter 3:20

The start of the introduction to Lightfoot’s beautifully written essay on early Judaism, complete with a quote from the prologue of Alfred, Lord Tennyson’s poem “In Memoriam AHH”

The beginning of Lightfoot’s treatment of “The Messiah” in his essay that was granted the Norrisian Prize

The abrupt conclusion of Lightfoot’s award-winning essay

Part One

Pauline Prolegomena

Of Chronology and Context

Chronology of Paul’s Christian Life

Surprisingly enough, there are in fact only two fixed points in the history of the Acts, and indeed only two that have a bearing on Pauline chronology: 1) the death of Herod Agrippa in A.D. 44; 2) the removal of Felix and the installing of Festus as procurator of Judaea. Even this is not directly related but can be made out with tolerable accuracy, searching for a terminus ad quem. In fact we will find that the terminus ad quem and the terminus a quo [the latest and earliest dates that something could have happened], in this case coincide. Felix was brother of Claudius’ favorite, Pellas, and after he had been removed to make room for Festus, he was only saved from a lawsuit with the Jews by the intercession of his brother. Now Pellas was poisoned in A.D. 62 (cf. Tacitus, Annals xiv.65). And in any case these events must have transpired before the removal of Pellas from power in A.D. 55 (Tacitus, Annals xiii.14).1 Thus the removal and the intercession must have been before this last event. 3) Again, Paul preaches for two whole years unmolested in Rome (Acts 28:30, 31). Rome was burnt and the persecution of the Christians broke out in July 64 A.D., in fact after July 19th 64 A.D. The apostle Paul then must have been in Rome by the Spring of the year A.D. 62. Therefore, Felix must have been recalled in the summer of 61 at the latest. This is confirmed by another consideration. 4) The Jews who preferred the charges against Felix are said by Josephus to have obtained certain privileges from the Syrian inhabitants of Caesarea by means of Burrus. Now Burrus died in February A.D. 62 at the latest, perhaps even in January. Therefore, Felix was recalled in A.D. 61 at the latest (see Ant. 20.8.9). In Acts 28:16 Paul’s fellow prisoners are given up παρέδωκεν τοὺς δεσμίους τῷ στρατοπεδάρχῃ, i.e. by the prefectus praetorio. Now Burrus was the sole prefectus praetorio, but after his death, the office was shared by two persons, as it had been before. The singular then points to only one prefectus, hence Burrus was still living.

But Paul cannot have arrived in Rome so early in the year as February. The νηστεία had already passed when he was at the harbor in Crete. He is shipwrecked off of Malta after a voyage of fourteen days from Crete. He stays at Malta for three months and then he proceeds. The νηστεία was on the tenth day of Tishri, (sometime in October), so that Paul could not have arrived in Rome before March. It must have been not later than in year 61 when he arrived, but not earlier than 60 when Felix was recalled. Thus much on the terminus ad quem, what of the terminus a quo?

Paul was imprisoned after Pentecost and remained two years in prison before Festus’ arrival. Therefore Festus arrived after Pentecost. At the νηστεία (Acts 24:27) Paul was as far as Crete on his way to Rome, between Pentecost then and October. Festus must have entered into his procuratorship, probably in the summer. What is the earliest possible year? 1) Josephus mentions several acts of Felix after the accession of Nero in October A.D. 54. Therefore, he was still procurator in A.D. 55; 2) in Acts 21:38 there is an allusion to the rebellion headed by the Egyptian as having happened πρὸ τούτων τῶν ἡμερῶν. We know that this rebellion took place in Nero’s reign, allowing sufficient time for the events themselves, and taking πρὸ τούτων τῶν ἡμερῶν into account. Perhaps then the earliest for Paul’s two year imprisonment in Caesarea is Pentecost A.D. 58 and therefore 60 for the arrival of Festus.

Again, St. Paul says (Acts 24:10) that Felix Ἐκ πολλῶν ἐτῶν ὄντα σε κριτὴντῷ ἔθνει. Felix entered into his procuratorship in A.D. 52-53. We cannot well allow less than five years for πολλῶν ἐτῶν, and this will be sufficient when we remember how frequently the office changed hands. Further, the events which happened during Felix’s procuratorship took time. Five years would be πολλῶν ἐτῶν, compared to the time it was generally held by one man. Therefore, the terminus a quo for Festus’ arrival is the summer of A.D. 60, and this was also found to be the terminus ad quem.

We have thus two dates given. There are other events which may be employed to verify the chronology, but only to confirm results, as being uncertain in themselves, e.g. the edict of Claudius and the ethnarchy of Aretas in Damascus and the proconsulship of Gallio in Corinth. The chronology has to be determined for these events by relative chronology given in the Acts and in Galatians. The most convenient way is to work backwards from the arrival of Festus in Judaea in A.D. 60. By this means (see Davidson Intro. Vol. ii. p. 110) we arrive at these results:

PAUL’S CONVERSION—A.D. 38? (Gal 2:1—Paul went up to Jerusalem fourteen years after his conversion). Probably however, Meyer is right in insisting that διὰ δεκατεσσάρων ἐτῶν must denote ‘after an interval of fourteen years’ from the visit narrated in Gal 1. In this case the date would be

PAUL’S CONVERSION—A.D. 35 with the first visit to Jerusalem in A.D. 38?2

FIRST VISIT TO JERUSALEM—A.D. 41 (Gal 1:18, three years after the conversion).

TARSUS, ANTIOCH

SECOND VISIT TO JERUSALEM—44 or 45?3 The same years as the death of Herod Agrippa. His death seems to have transpired between Paul’s arrival in Jerusalem and his departure (Acts 11:30–12:25).

FIRST MISSIONARY JOURNEY—After the death of Herod and before

A.D.

51.

THIRD VISIT TO JERUSALEM

SECOND MISSIONARY JOURNEY—

A.D.

51 (this date and those hereafter are determined by the date of Festus’ procuratorship and from notices of their relative chronology)

ARRIVAL AT CORINTH—A.D. 52

FOURTH VISIT TO JERUSALEM—A.D. 53

THIRD MISSIONARY JOURNEY—

A.D.

54

RESIDENCE IN EPHESUS—A.D. 54–57

IMPRISONMENT—A.D. 58

DEPARTURE FROM CAESAREA TO ROME—A.D. 60

ARRIVAL IN ROME—A.D. 61

CLOSE OF THE NARRATIVE IN ACTS—A.D. 63.

Chronology of Paul’s Epistles

The letters may be divided into two classes: 1) those written before the Apostle’s arrival in Rome—Romans, 1, 2 Corinthians, Galatians, 1, 2 Thessalonians and; 2) those written after his arrival in Rome—Colossians, Ephesians, Philippians, 1, 2 Timothy and Titus (though several critics remove one or more of these and place them in the first division e.g. Torischer [?] places 1 Timothy and Titus before Paul’s last imprisonment). We are only concerned here with the letters in this first division, and none of the letters included in this division present any difficulty except perhaps Galatians. The order seems to be this:

SECOND MISSIONARY JOURNEY—1 Thessalonians soon after his visit to Thessalonike. Written from Corinth A.D. 52. 2 Thessalonians, also from Corinth (not long after the first letter), towards the end of his stay there so—53–54.

THIRD MISSIONARY JOURNEY—Galatians perhaps written from Ephesus perhaps in 55 at the beginning of Paul’s stay there (though perhaps in 57–58).

1 Corinthians at Ephesus in A.D. 57 toward the close of Paul’s Ephesian stay.

2 Corinthians in Macedonia A.D. 57–58 on his way to Greece.

Romans during his last (2nd or 3rd) stay at Corinth, before the journey to Jerusalem and Rome. This is seen from the allusion to Priscilla and Aquila and from the information with regard to the collection of alms in Macedonia and Achaia and from the names mentioned in the salutations (see Paley’s Hora. Paul.).

How many epistles did St. Paul write to the Corinthians? In other words, had he written one before the one that bears the name of First Corinthians (N.B. with the speculations of critics who have a faculty for multiplying things, we have no concern)? 1) 1 Cor 5:8 says—