2.

Why, then, not being a teacher of the Jews, does he send an Epistle to them? And where were those to whom he sent it? It seems to me in Jerusalem and Palestine. How then does he send them an Epistle? Just as he baptized, though he was not commanded to baptize. For, he says, "I was not sent to baptize": ¹ not, however, that he was forbidden, but he does it as a subordinate matter. And how could he fail to write to those, for whom he was willing even to become accursed? ² Accordingly he said, ³ "Know ye that our brother Timothy is set at liberty; with whom, if he come shortly, I will see you." ⁴

For as yet he was not arrested. Two years then he passed bound, in Rome; then he was set free; then, having gone into Spain, he saw Jews ⁵ also in like manner; and then he returned to Rome, where also he was slain by Nero. The Epistle to Timothy then was later ⁶ than this Epistle. For there he says, "For I am now ready to be offered" ⁷ ; there also he says, "In my first answer no man stood with me." ⁸ In many places they [the Hebrew Christians] had to contend ⁹ with persecution, as also he says, writing to the Thessalonians, "Ye became followers of the churches of Judaea": ¹⁰ and writing to these very persons he says, "Ye took joyfully the spoiling of your goods." ¹¹ Dost thou see them contending? And if men had thus treated the Apostles, not only in Judaea, but also wherever they were among the Gentiles, what would they not have done to the believers? On this account, thou seest, he was very careful for them. For when he says, "I go unto Jerusalem to minister unto the saints"; ¹² and again, when he exhorts the Corinthians to beneficence, and says that the Macedonians had already made their contribution, ¹³ and says, "If it be meet that I go also," ¹⁴ --he means this. And when he says, "Only that we should remember the poor; the same which I also was forward to do," ¹⁵ --he declares this. And when he says, "They gave to me and Barnabas the right hands of fellowship; that we should go unto the heathen, and they unto the circumcision," ¹⁶ --he declares this.

But this was ¹⁷ not for the sake of the poor who were there, but that by this we might be partakers in the beneficence. For not as the preaching did we apportion the care for the poor to each other (we indeed to the Gentiles, but they to the circumcision). And everywhere thou seest him using great care for them: as was reasonable.

Among the other nations indeed, when there were both Jews and Greeks, such was not the case; but then, while they still seemed to have authority and independence and to order many things by their own laws, the government not being yet established nor brought perfectly under the Romans, they naturally exercised great tyranny. For if in other cities, as in Corinth, they beat the Ruler of the synagogue before the Deputy's judgment seat, and Gallio "cared for none of these things," ¹⁸ but it was not so in Judaea. ¹⁹ Thou seest indeed, that while in other cities they bring them to the magistrates, and need help from them and from the Gentiles, here they took no thought of this, but assemble a Sanhedrim themselves and slay whom they please. Thus in fact they put Stephen to death, thus they beat the Apostles, not taking them before rulers. Thus also they were about to put Paul to death, had not the chief captain thrown himself ²⁰ [upon them]. For this took place while the priests, while the temple, while the ritual, the sacrifices were yet standing. Look indeed at Paul himself being tried before the High Priest, and saying,"I wist not that he was the High Priest," ²¹ and this in the presence of the Ruler. ²² For they had then great power. Consider then what things they were likely to suffer who dwelt in Jerusalem and Judaea.