where did silas go

7/31/2019 Where Did Silas Go

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66 JSNT 8 (1980) 66-70

WHERE DID SILAS GO?

(AND WHAT WAS HIS CONNECTION WITH GALATIANS/7) *'

Allan Wainwright

Lewes

Sussex.

One of the unsolved problems of New Testament history is

that of the date and destination o(Galatians.' > In the centurysince the classic restatement of the North Gala'tian view by

Lightfoot /!/, and the detailed advocacy of the South Galatian

theory by Ramsay /2/, no consensus has emerged; and the work of

these two giants still provides the fullest and most cogent

expositions of the alternatives in respect of destination. On

the question of date there are three groups of possibilities:

an 'early' date, after Acts 15:1 but before the meeting

described in Acts 15:6ff (e.g. Duncan in the Moffatt

Commentaries /3/) ; a 'middle' date, from either Corinth or

Antioch during the course of or at the end of the Second

Missionary Journey (e.g. Ramsay himself /4/, Zahn /5/, Bacon

/6/ and, more recently, Bornkamm /I/ and Filson /8/) ; and a

'late' date during the course of the Third Missionary Journey

and roughly contemporaneous with Romans. Such a 'late' date is

required if the North Galatian hypothesis is held, but is

linked with the South Galatian theory by, e.g., John Bligh /9/

and J.A.T. Robinson /IO/. In view of the wide division and

spread of opinion it would seem that the comment of Kirsopp

Lake in 1938 is equally valid today: "It is impossible to fixthe time when Galatians was written, or the persons to whom it

was addressed" /ll/.

It is, however, the purpose of this paper to draw

attention to an episode in the life of Paul which appears to

have been overlooked hitherto in discussions of the question,

and which may provide a clue suggesting that a 'middle'1 date is

to be preferred; and so supporting the South Galatian

hypothesis.

This episode is that referred to in Acts 17:14-16 and I

Thess 3:1 2 Paul had been forced to leave Beroea and had


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Wainwright: Where did Silas go? 67

to rejoin him as soon as possible. Their arrival is reported

in Acts 18:5, when Paul had left Athens and was active in

Corinth. I Thess 3:2, however shows that Timothy - and so,

presumably, Silas also - had joined him at Athens. Timothy had

been sent to Thessalonika, leaving Paul alone. Hence our

question, "Where did Silas go?".

The importance of this question becomes clearer when we

consider the position at Thessalonika. The church there was in

the middle of a grave crisis, both doctrinally and in its

everyday life, needing all the help and support that could be

given. Paul would have gone himself had not "Satan hindered"

/12/. In his stead he sent Timothy, young both in years and in

the faith - a clear case, we might think, of a boy being sentto do a man's job. Why not Silas, a "leading man" in the

Jerusalem church /13/, mature and older in Christian life and

experience, able and strong enough to be entrusted by the

church at Jerusalem with a mission requiring both tact and

force of character? The only rational explanation is that

Silas was needed for a mission even more urgent, which perhaps

only he could perform /14/. It is our suggestion that this

mission was to deal with the crisis in Galatia.

One of the stumbling blocks to all theories regardingGalatians has been its total lack of reference to the meetingand letter described in Acts 15 - so much so that the vastmajority of commentators accept that, even if it is notcompletely unhistorical. Acts 15 presents a greatly exaggeratedand idealised picture of what happened, or that in some way orother the narrative of Acts must be re-organised /15/. If weare to regard Acts 15 as reliable, it is hard to see a betterargument than that of Lightfoot /16/, which is, basically,

that the 'decrees' of the council were not relevant to thesituation in Galatia. Nevertheless, this is very much in thenature of special pleading /17/. The suggestion of an 'early'date is an attempt to cut the Gordian Knot by suggesting that,as the council had not yet taken place, no reference to itsresult was possible. But even this fails when we consider thesituation required by this hypothesis - that emissaries of theJerusalem church were unsettling the Galatians, and that Paulwas on the point of setting out for Jerusalem to get the mattersettled. In these circumstances, Paul could hardly but say,

in effect, "Hold hard: I'm going to get this matter sorted outwith the leaders at Jerusalem". But not merely does he not dothis he positively rejects the idea that a legal ruling from


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68 JSNT 8 (1980)

Diametrically opposed to this view is that put forward by

Ramsay /18/, that the major issue dealt with in Galatians was

the meaning of the Apostolic Decree, and in particular the word

("necessary things") /19/. One cogent interpretation

is that while only these basic things are necessary, more is

required for perfection: that while gentiles need not accept

circumcision and the law, they will be better equipped for

salvation if they do. In Ramsay's words "...this expression

can plausibly be interpreted to imply the ellipsis, 'but, if

you voluntarily undertake a heavier burden, we shall praise you

for your zeal in doing more than the necessary minimum'," /20/

and the corollary was that it was from jealousy that Paul was

keeping his converts at the lower stage, that when he told them

that the ceremonial law was unnecessary he had become their'enemy' /21/, and that he was trying to hold them back in the

spiritual stage while carrying forward to the perfect stage

only some special favourites such as Timothy. An argument such

as this could have been presented in very powerful terms by the

circumcision party: and we would hardly be surprised if the

Galatians, with all the fervour typical of new converts, were

to accept avidly the possibility of progressing further in the

faith which had, even at the level to which they had already

progressed, provided such inspiration.

If something like this was indeed the teaching of the

Judaisers, it will be obvious that to combat it required

(a) a refutation of the argument that "this is what the

decree really means" and

(b) a powerful counterblast to the general argument that

perfection can be obtained through the Law.

In other words, rebuttal was needed both on the basis of

authority and on the basis of theology. Galatians provides the

second in the clearest possible way, and Paul was uniquely able

to write it. On the question of the interpretation of the

Jerusalem decree, however, he had no more authority than the

Judaisers and would have appeared to have had less, since they

came from Jerusalem, claiming the as their mentors /22/.

Amongst Paul's circle, though, there was one man who more than

any other was fully able to provide what was needed. Silas had

been commissioned - indeed, mentioned in the Apostolic letter

by name - to deliver and explain what had been decided. Paul,

by himself, could not deal authoritatively with the

interpretation of the decree: Silas, so far as we know, hadneither the personal experience nor the theological depth to

deal with the profundities of the question itself But Silas


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Wainwright: Where did Silas go? 69

an overwhelming refutation of the arguments of the Judaisers.

Here then is the reason why Paul makes no mention of the

decree. Not merely was it unnecessary for him to do so: once an

authoritative interpretation of the decree had been given, to

raise the issue again would have suggested that after all there

was something left unresolved. Instead, he contents himself

with insisting that there was no opposition or contradiction

between himself and the leaders of the Jerusalem church, and he

omits altogether any mention of the council, since that would

have been a matter fully dealt with by Silas.

It is suggested, therefore, that the answer to the question

posed in the title of this paper is 'Galatia'. This explainswhy Luke makes no mention of Silas joining Paul at Athens - he

wishes to gloss over the whole incident as much as possible as

a battle won and best forgotten, mention of which was irrelevant

to his aims. This solution enables us to give the most natural

explanation to the events narrated in Gal. 2, and to the

expressions in Gal. 1:6 and in 4:13. We are

able to give a greater degree of credibility to the narrative

in Acts 15, and above all we see more clearly the basic message

of the letter, "So far from circumcision and the Law leading to

greater perfection, they negate true faith in Jesus Christ" -though the working out of this last point requires a full-scale

commentary rather than a single article.

NOTES

/I/ Lightfoot, J.B., St. Paul's Epistle to the Galatians /2/,London & Cambridge, 1866.

/2/ Ramsay, W.M., St. Paul the Traveller and Roman Citizen,1st edn London 1895, 4th edn, 1898; Historical Commentary onSt. Paul's Epistle to the Galatians, London, 1899./3/ Duncan, G.S., The Epistle of Paul to the Galatians,London, 1934 (Moffatt New Testament Commentaries).

/4/ St. Paul the Traveller... pp.l89ff./5/ Zahn, T. (ET), Introduction to the New Testament.Edinburgh, 1909, Vol.1, pp.l93ff.

/6/ Bacon, B.W., The Story of St. Paul, London, 1904, pp.229ffpp.229ff.

/!/ Bornkamm, G., Paulus, Stuttgart, 1969. (ET, Paul, NewYork & London, 1971.) Appendix I./8/ Filson F V A New Testament History London 1965


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70 JSNT 8 (1980)

/9/ Bligh, J., Galatians, London, 1969, who assigns the final

composition of the letter, using material formulated very much

earlier, to A.D.57.

/10/ Robinson, J.A.T., Re-dating the New Testament, London,

1976, pp.55ff; cf. also Jewett, R. Dating Paul's Life, London,

1979 pp.57 & note, 103.

/Il/ Lake, K. & S., An Introduction to the New Testament,

London, 1938, p.125.

/12/ I Thess. 2:18.

/13/ Acts 15:22.

/14/ Ramsay's suggestion (St. Paul the Traveller..., p.240)that Paul sent Silas to maintain communications with Philippi

does not meet the objection stated: nor does that of Kirsopp

Lake and Cadbury (Beginnings of Christianity IV p.224) that

Silas remained with Paul at Athens, on the evidence of in

I Thess 3:1.

/15/ E.G. Bornkamm, op.cit. c.4; Jewett, op.cit. pp.79ff; Lake,

K. The Beginnings of Christianity London, 1933. Vol.V pp.l95ff.

On the reliability of Acts generally see Jewett op.cit. passim.;

Haenchen, E., in Studies in Luke-Acts ed. Keck, L.E. & Martyn,

J.L., London, 1966, pp.270ff.; Haenchen, E.(ET), The Acts ofthe Apostles, Oxford, 1971.

/16/ Op.cit. pp.l26f.

/17/ Lightfoot's point that "There is no reason for supposing

that the decree was intended to be permanent and universal"

seems amply refuted by Gerhardsson, B. Memory and Manuscript,

Uppsala, 1961, pp.245ff.

/18/ Historical Commentary... pp.258f; cf. p.326.

/19/ Acts 15:28.

/20/ Historical Commentary... p.258.

/21/ Gal.4:16.

/22/ Gal.2:9.


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