And still more pointed : 'Tis some god who has put that bad sprite in thy mind, Yet afterwards the chorus admits : 'To us thy words seem worthy of belief.' We are thus enabled to discern that contemporary opinion was nearly as varied and uncertain with regard to the Pythian inspiration as is our own; and that the explanations of it embraced all the alternatives which different commentators have applied to the case of the Pythoness of Philippi. She also was a slave, for it is stated that she 'brought her masters much gain by soothsaying.' Anciently, and indeed at present in the countries where slavery exists, the money value of a slave was greatly affected by the profession or trade he had acquired, by the accomplishments he had been taught, or by his capacity in any way of earning money for his master. Some possessed such qualities when they fell into slavery (à large proportion of the slaves being prisoners of war), and some acquired them in slavery, the masters being watchful to cultivate for their own profit any special aptitudes their slaves manifested. Hence the ancient Greeks and Romans possessed slaves of all professions-not only men bred to the various mechanic arts, but philosophers, rhetoricians, grammarians, dramatists, physicians. Those also who made a trade of the arts of divination, were watchful after individuals who manifested qualities, aptitudes, or even infirmities, which might prove advantageous to them in their business, and sought to obtain them by purchase or otherwise. Those who, like this damsel, possessed the 'spirit of divination,' were doubtless rare, and their value correspondingly high. The value of the girl to her owners seems to be shown by the fact that she had a plurality of 'masters;' because her price had been either too great to be advanced by a single person, or such as no one person had cared to risk upon the uncertainty of her life. The deliverance of this damsel by Paul from the spirit that possessed her, at once divested her of this rare value as a slave, and deprived the masters of the current gains from her services. She was no longer of any more value for sale or service than any other female slave. They were not likely to regard this serious loss, the loss of their gains, with complacency. They were indeed greatly enraged. But as they could not well urge what had been done to their private loss as an offence against the public peace, and as they were doubtless unwilling to call attention to the real nature of the transaction, lest it should have redounded to the credit of the apostle, they found it convenient to assume a wondrous zeal for the public religion; and seizing Paul and Silas, who appeared as the leading persons of the missionary party, they hauled them before the magistrates, then sitting in the court or forum, held in the market-place, as the place of greatest concourse, just as in many of our own old towns the court-house is in or over the market. In a colony like this, the magistrates were chosen by the inhabitants, were necessarily Romans, holding generally military commands, and had a wholly independent jurisdiction, being in no way responsible even to the governor of the province, who could not come into the colony to exercise any authority in it. This peculiarity is, with his usual precision, indicated by Luke, by the use of the peculiar and proper title (orparnyós), not elsewhere used in Scripture except to denote a military command, being, in fact, the Greek for prætor. He uses the plural number, the magistrates being usually two, and hence also frequently called duumviri. Cicero mentions it as an innovation in his time that the duumviri of Capua had assumed the title of prætors, and had lictors going before them, not with sticks or staves, but with fasces, or bundled rods, like the prætors at Rome; and he thought that in a few years they might affect the title of consuls. The example did in fact spread; and these magistrates were everywhere called prætors, and had their fasces borne before them, in nearly all the Roman colonies. Dr. Kitto's remarks on the Pythoness might possibly leave an erroneous impression on the minds of some readers. That the 'damsel' was possessed by an evil spirit, there can be no doubt. That the spirit had, to some extent, superhuman knowledge, is likewise evident. On account of this, she was supposed by the idolatrous Greeks of Philippi to have been inspired of Apollo, who, under the name Python, was worshipped as the god of prophecy. According to ordinary heathen tradition, Apollo got the name from having slain the dragon Python, and taken possession of the celebrated cavern and oracle of Delphi, which Python had guarded. Dr. Kitto's observations might lead to the belief that the oracle at Delphi was real, that the presiding priestess was actually inspired, and that Apollo was able to inspire others besides. There can be no doubt that the whole worship of Apollo, including the Delphian and other so-called oracles, was a gigantic system of fraud and superstition. The story of the damsel of Philippi is a true story, but it lends no sanction to the Greek superstition. She was possessed of an evil spirit, similar in kind to those mentioned in the Gospels, and so often cast out by Christ; and she was therefore supposed by the Greeks to be inspired of the 'Pythian Apollo.' It is scarcely necessary to say, that the supposition of the ignorant Greeks was a mere delusion; and that the fact of the sacred historian adopting the popular epithet, 'spirit of Python,' gives no authority to the popular superstition. But, on the other hand, it will not do to attempt to explain away this story in a rationalistic manner, as if the damsel was a mere impostor, and the belief in her inspiration a popular delusion. The statement of the historian is too clear and matter-of-fact to admit of any such interpretation. The evil spirit was there, and manifested its presence in such a way as to convince, not the ignorant Greeks merely, but the apostles themselves. Then the spirit recognised Paul, just as the demons mentioned in Matt. viii. 29 recognised our Lord; and on being ordered by the apostle in the name of Jesus Christ, left the damsel. No sound exegesis can ever deprive this story of its real historic character. Fiftieth Week-Third Day. THE JAILER.-ACTS XVI. 20-40. THE offence of which Paul and Silas were accused before the prætors was that, being Jews, and as such merely tolerated themselves, and thereby bound to be the more guarded in their conduct, they had been there teaching a new religion, contrary to the law. We lately showed that the heathen of that day were very ready to adopt the religion of foreigners. But when they did so, it was merely some new and congenial form of idolatry, with its images and symbols; and this, among the Romans, could only be done with the sanction of the public authorities, without which it remained unlawful to adopt or recommend the worship of any gods but those already acknowledged, or to attempt to detach the people from the worship already established. Therefore this would have seemed unlawful, whatever the religion might have been, without a sanction previously obtained; but it was doubly so in the case of Judaism (and the apostles were regarded simply as Jews), seeing that it was known to be adverse to all subsisting idolatries, and that it refused to take any place with or beside them. This was the secret of the heathen hostility to Judaism, and to Christianity while regarded as a species of Judaism, and afterwards to Christianity for its own sake, when its principles came to be better understood. In the latter case it was more intense, because, to equal hostility against idolatry, as such, it added dogmas of its own, at which Pagan pride revolted. The magistrates, very sensitive to whatever might excite public disturbance, as it was insinuated this kind of teaching must do, and perceiving that the mere statement of the charge made a stir among the multitude, sought to allay the ferment by the infliction of summary punishment without the form of trial. They therefore directed the lictors to beat the apostles with their rods. The clothes of Paul and Silas were hastily pulled off, and their bared backs exposed to this severe infliction. The lictors unbound their fasces, and with the leathern thongs proceeded to bind the prisoners, to whose backs they then, with a strong hand, applied the rods of elm. This seems to have been reckoned a severer punishment than the scourging with thongs, as used among the Jews. Besides, in that case, the number of strokes was limited by law, not exceeding forty, and therefore in practice thirty-nine; whereas the blows with the rods were only limited by the discretion of the magistrates. This, therefore, was one of the occasions to which Paul refers when he tells the Corinthians, 'Thrice was I beaten with rods;' and to which also may be applied the declaration that he had suffered 'stripes above measure,' that is, probably, not limited in number, as among the Jews, from whom he had, he says, 'five times received forty stripes save one.'1 Having been thus chastised, Paul and Silas were sent to the town prison, with special injunctions to the jailer to keep them safely. Aware of the responsibility imposed upon him by such a charge, the jailer not only thrust them into the innermost and safest part of the prison, but 'made their feet fast in the stocks.' The instrument thus designated was ordinarily a wooden, or sometimes iron-bound machine, by which any member, and especially the neck, was so confined that it could not be raised; or into which the feet only were thrust and constrained, as in the present instance; or, finally, it was one in which the person was held-all the members, neck, hands, and feet-by means of five holes. But the painful constraint of the stocks, added to the smart of their torn backs, had no power over the undaunted spirit of the prisoners. The Lord, for whom it was 1 2 Cor. xi. 23-25. |