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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadGreater Men and Women of the Bible by James Hastings: 675. Tertius
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Literature
Deissmann, G. A., Bible Studies (1901), 21.
Farrar, F. W., The Life and Work of St. Paul (1897), 452.
Gregory, C. R., Canon and Text of the New Testament (1907), 300, 302.
Maclaren, A., Expositions: St. Paul's Epistle to the Romans (1909), 395.
Milligan, G., St. Paul's Epistles to the Thessalonians (1908).
Milligan, G., The New Testament Documents (1913), 241.
Moule, H. C. G., The Epistle of Paul the Apostle to the Romans (Cambridge Bible) (1881), 254.
Moule, H. C. G., The Epistle of St. Paul to the Romans (Expositor's Bible) (1894), 435.
Redlich, E. B., St. Paul and his Companions (1913), 58, 278.
Sanday, W., and A. C. Headlam, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans (International Critical Commentary) (1902), lx. 431.
Weiss, B., A Manual of Introduction to the New Testament, ii. (1888) 403.
Christian World Pulpit, xlvi. (1894) 230 (W. J. Henderson).
Contemporary Pulpit, 1st Ser., vi. (1886) 221 (A. Maclaren).
Homiletic Review, xx. (1890) 154 (H. J. Parker).
1. St. Paul on whom was laid as a daily burden, “anxiety for all the churches,” found quickly that he could keep in touch with the communities he had founded only by means of letters or epistles. And there can be little doubt that those writings of his which have come down to us are only part of a large correspondence which he carried on in order to confirm and develop the work that had been begun in the course of his missionary journeys.
He did not write his letters with his own hand. Thus history repeats itself. The older men of to-day grew up at a time at which most men wrote for themselves what they wished to entrust to paper. Today, however, everyone is eager to have an assistant with a writing machine, or to tell his thoughts to a gramophone and hand that over to his typewriting clerk. So was it in St. Paul's day. Even men who could write were in the habit of having scribes to do the drudgery of writing for them. If a man was not rich, he might have a young friend or a pupil who was ready to wield the pen for him. It comports less with the dignity of age in the East to write. St. Paul had a good reason for using another's hand, if his eyes were weak. It was Tertius who wrote the Epistle to the Romans, if the sixteenth chapter belongs to it. Timothy and Lucius, and Jason, and Sosipater were probably all sitting round Paul and Tertius, at Corinth, when Tertius wrote their greetings in Rom_16:21, and added his own before he went on to name Gaius.
The letters were written on papyrus. The costlier pergament, which was used for copies of the Old Testament books, was not only beyond the Apostle's slender means, but would have been out of keeping with the fugitive and occasional character he himself ascribed to his writings. And he would naturally fall back upon a material which was easily procurable, and whose use for the purposes of writing had already a long history behind it.
In itself papyrus is derived from the papyrus-plant (Cyperus papyrus, L.), and was prepared for the purposes of writing according to a well-established process, of which the elder Pliny (NH. 13:11-13) has left a classical account.1 [Note: G. Milligan, The Epistle to the Thessalonians, 122.]
2. In speaking of St. Paul's amanuensis, we must think, not of a professional scribe, but rather of some educated friend or companion who happened to be with the Apostle at the time (cf. Rom_16:21). The writing would then be of the ordinary, nonliterary character, though doubtless more than the usual care would be taken in view of the importance of the contents. The words, in accordance with general practice, would be closely joined together. Contractions, especially in the way of leaving out the last syllables of familiar words, would be frequent. And, as a rule, accents and breathings would be only sparingly employed. The bearing of these facts upon the various readings that crept later into the Paulino texts is at once obvious. But for our present purpose it is more important to ask, How much was St. Paul in the habit of leaving to his amanuensis? Did he dictate his letters word for word, his scribe perhaps taking them down in some form of shorthand? Or was he content to supply a rough draft, leaving the scribe to throw it into more formal and complete shape? it is true that to these questions no definite answer can be given. In all probability the Apostle's practice varied with the special circumstances of the case, or the person of the scribe whom he was employing. But, in any case, the very fact that such questions can be put at all shows how many of the difficulties regarding the varied style and phraseology of the different Epistles might be solved if only we had clearer knowledge of the exact conditions under which they were severally written.
What hired amanuensis can be equal to the scribe who loves the words that grow under his hand, and to whom an error or indistinctness in the text is more painful than a sudden darkness or obstacle across his path? And even these mechanical printers who threaten to make learning a base and vulgar thing-even they must depend on the manuscript over which we scholars have bent with that insight into the poet's meaning which is closely akin to the mens divinior of the poet himself; unless they would flood the world with grammatical falsities and inexplicable anomalies that would turn the very fountain of Parnassus into a deluge of poisonous mud.1 [Note: George Eliot, Romola.]
Dean Stanley's Commentary was crowded with typographical errors. For these anyone acquainted with Stanley's handwriting might be fully prepared. One instance is quoted by him in writing to Professor Jowett. “ ‘The Horn of the Burning Beast.' What Apocalyptic mystery do you conjecture is veiled beneath these words? ‘The thorn of the burning Bush.' ”2 [Note: R. E. Prothero, The Life of Dean Stanley, i. 475.]