Joseph Priestley’s Notes on All the Books of Scripture is a running commentary on the Bible by one of the eighteenth century’s most restless minds — chemist, dissenting minister, and controversialist. The volume gathered here works through the New Testament Epistles, pairing a short introduction to each letter with a verse-by-verse paraphrase and explanatory notes. Priestley writes as a historian and a rational Protestant, treating Scripture as evidence to be weighed rather than mystery to be adored.
At the centre of the project stands a single claim about what Christianity actually is. Everything essential, Priestley insists, is contained in the four Gospels and the Acts: that Jesus was commissioned by God to preach the doctrine of a resurrection to a future life, confirmed it by miracles, died, and actually rose from the dead. The Epistles are useful but of lesser consequence — and he means to read them accordingly, as the letters of plain, sensible men written on pressing occasions, not as oracles delivered in a state of inspiration.
Reading the Apostles as Men, Not Oracles
Priestley’s governing move is to deny that the apostles wrote under inspiration. The Epistles, he observes, bear no trace of it, and in places Paul expressly disclaims it. This is not a debunking gesture but a defence: the apostles were perfectly capable of writing about what they had seen and done, and it could never have been the intention of the Divine Being to supersede men’s natural faculties without need. Once the apostles are seen as men in peculiar circumstances, objections from small inaccuracies in their reasoning lose their force — what else could be expected from men not infallible? What the candid reader receives instead is the unmistakable impression of zeal without enthusiasm or imposture, of integrity that spared no labour and avoided no risk.
The same instinct shapes his treatment of particular texts. Where Paul says we are reconciled to God by Christ, Priestley notes that the word rendered “atonement” in the King James version is elsewhere translated “reconciliation,” and ought to have been so here: God was always disposed to peace with men whenever they repented, and the gospel’s work is to bring them to repentance. Where Paul contrasts Adam and Christ, Priestley follows the antithesis closely and concludes that justification means the reversing of the sentence of mortality passed on Adam — the life lost by the one recovered by the other. Christ, he notes with some relish, is everywhere spoken of as a man, and had his nature been different from Adam’s, Paul’s fondness for antithesis would surely have led him to say so.
What the Letters Reveal About Their Writers
Because the Epistles were written to particular people about particular circumstances, Priestley prizes them as evidence. He compares them to Cicero’s letters confirming Roman history: no attentive reader can doubt that there was such a person as Paul, that he wrote these letters, or that the facts he refers to were known to his correspondents — any more than he can doubt there were such places as Ephesus, Corinth, and Rome. The minute particulars, the cloak left at Troas, the salutations from named individuals, the quarrel with Peter at Antioch, the collection for the poor — all of this, far from needing inspiration to explain it, is exactly what makes the documents credible. A letter that could not be accounted for without supposing the leading facts of the gospel history is, for Priestley, an argument in itself.
He is equally alert to what the letters reveal about the church’s first years. Paul probably appointed no regular officers at Ephesus, leaving that to Timothy; the Jewish synagogue plan of elders assisted by deacons was the model, and only toward the close of the apostolic age was the title of bishop appropriated to one man. The notion of an indelible spiritual character conferred by ordination he calls superstition: clergy means chosen people, a title belonging to all Christians, and officers have no peculiar character but what the people gave them. The plea for clerical celibacy he dismisses as groundless, since Peter at least had a wife who accompanied him. And the vices Paul has to correct among converts show that conversion did not immediately reform conduct — opinion and profession changed first, and the change of heart followed over time.
The Jewish Question and the Shape of the Argument
Much of the commentary turns on the same controversy Paul fought: the attempt by judaizing teachers to impose the law of Moses on Gentile converts. Priestley follows the argument through Galatians and Romans with real attention to its steps — Abraham justified before the law, the law a schoolmaster until men should be grown, the promise to Abraham extending to all who imitate his faith. He is candid about the weaknesses. The reasoning is much of a piece with the epistles to the Romans and Galatians, and perfect correctness is not to be expected; the Jews, having no other books, were always meditating on their scriptures and drew arguments that will not always bear strict examination. This was perfectly natural in their circumstances, and had it been otherwise we should have wanted a valuable argument for the genuineness of these writings, as not suiting the men or the times.
The same historical eye governs his account of the epistles’ occasions. First Thessalonians, written from Corinth around A.D. 52, is the oldest Christian writing of any kind, and Priestley begins there because he means to take the letters in probable order of time. Ephesians, written from Roman custody, carries a peculiar dignity and sublimity — the energy of a man giving his last admonitions to those he loves. Philippians, sent from the same imprisonment, acknowledges a contribution brought by Epaphroditus and reveals an apostle for whom it was a matter of perfect indifference whether he lived or died, provided his dying served the gospel.
An Argument Addressed to Unbelievers
The notes are not neutral scholarship; they are written to persuade. Priestley urges the reader who feels prejudiced against Christianity to suspect and examine himself, and especially warns young persons against anything that indisposes the mind for embracing it. If such a reader is apprized what Christianity truly is — the revelation of a future life by the resurrection of the dead, everything else being of little moment or a corruption of the genuine thing — and expects only the sort of evidence he admits for other histories, he will no more doubt the facts of Christianity than any others relating to remote countries and times.
This is why the notes keep returning to the future life as the heart of the matter. Paul’s expected reward, Priestley observes, was to be conferred only at the general resurrection — “that day” — and had he expected any reward immediately after death, he could not have overlooked it. The doctrine of Christ’s divinity he treats as a later corruption, seeded by Gnostic speculation and grown in the church of Rome; the pre-existence of Christ, the corporeal nature of the body, the soul as a superior principle — these he traces to the same source. Even the epistle to the Hebrews, whose authorship he doubts, is read for its great object: to lessen the excessive regard of Jewish Christians for the institutions of Moses, and to show the superiority of the Christian dispensation.
The Place of These Notes
What Priestley offers is a Bible read the way an eighteenth-century natural philosopher read nature: patiently, suspiciously of system, and with an eye always on the evidence. The Epistles emerge as documents of a movement — written under pressure, full of temporary occasions and human feeling, and all the more credible for it. His confidence that the whole story hangs together, and his willingness to say plainly where an apostle’s argument is weak or a received reading spurious, belong to the same temper. The reader who follows him through Thessalonians and Galatians, through the long argument of Romans and the prison letters, is invited not to admire the text but to judge it — and to find, as Priestley did, that the judgment falls in its favour.
The Epistles as Historical Evidence
Priestley opens by explaining why he turns from the Gospels and Acts to the letters of the apostles, which he values highly though he ranks them below the historical books. What is essential to Christianity, he holds, is the knowledge that God commissioned Jesus to preach a resurrection to future life, confirmed it by miracles, and that Jesus died and actually rose again—and this is learned from the four gospels, with the first preaching of the gospel confirmed in Acts. These books carry every mark of authenticity: published while the events were fresh, never contradicted by friend or enemy, quoted early by both sides, and copied and translated into many languages from the start.
The Epistles, equally genuine, add indirect evidence, since they show how the chief actors thought and felt in their circumstances, letting a reader compare them with human nature as it is now observed—much as Cicero’s letters confirm Roman history. Letters are in fact easier to authenticate than general history, because they allude to particular persons, times, and places; Paul’s especially put the reader inside his situation. Because they mattered to whole churches, they were carefully preserved until many copies existed, placing their genuineness beyond doubt. No attentive unbeliever, Priestley insists, could deny that Paul existed, wrote the letters, or that the facts he assumes were known to his correspondents—any more than he could deny there were cities called Ephesus, Corinth, or Rome.
Why the Letters Read as They Do
Most of the Epistles, Priestley notes, were written long before any gospel was published, making them the oldest records of Christianity; he treats them in probable order of time, starting with 1 Thessalonians, which all agree came first. They were written for pressing, seemingly temporary occasions, with no sign of being meant for all ages—yet providence must have intended them for lasting use, precisely because the writers, having no distant views, expressed their present feelings without reserve, as people do in confidential letters. Still less do the writers imagine themselves inspired; Paul in places expressly disclaims it. That mistaken idea, Priestley says, has done great injury to the proper evidence of Christianity: the apostles were naturally capable of reporting what they saw and did, and God would never needlessly supersede human faculties.
Read as men writing in their own circumstances, the apostles’ small imperfections and slips in reasoning embarrass no one—what else could be expected of men not infallible? Such flaws matter little. Any discerning reader must be struck by their undisputed zeal and by the marks that they were neither enthusiasts nor impostors but plain, sensible men of genuine piety, sparing no labour and avoiding no risk. A reader who feels otherwise is already prejudiced, has some reason for wishing Christianity untrue, and in that state the best evidence cannot work. Priestley urges such people—young people especially—to suspect and examine themselves. If they understand what Christianity truly is, the revelation of a future life by the resurrection of the dead, and expect only the kind of evidence they accept for other histories, stronger and more definite but of the same kind, they will believe its facts as readily as any others, and its influence cannot but be salutary.
The Occasion of First Thessalonians
Acts 17 supplies the setting. On his second apostolic journey Paul, with Silas and Timothy, visited the churches of Asia Minor, preached in Galatia, crossed to Macedonia, and preached at Philippi; imprisoned and ill-treated there, he moved on to Thessalonica, preaching first to the Jews for three Sabbaths and then to the Gentiles. Jewish persecution grew so violent that he left by Berea for Athens, from where, anxious about the new converts, he sent Timothy, who brought back a deeply satisfying account. Paul went on to Corinth and, still anxious, wrote this letter—encouraging the Thessalonians to stand firm despite opposition from Jews and their own countrymen, and correcting their misunderstanding of the resurrection. Written in A.D. 52, it is the oldest Christian writing, undoubtedly authentic and composed while the events it describes were still unfolding.
Paul, Peter, and the Law in Galatians
The notes then move to Galatians. Paul denies acknowledging any superiority in Peter, and at Antioch censured his conduct: before judaizing teachers arrived claiming instructions from James, Peter mixed freely with Gentile Christians, but afterward withdrew for fear of offending zealous observers of the law, and others—even Barnabas—followed this unworthy course. Seeing the liberty of the gospel endangered, Paul told Peter before the whole church that a Jew who does not think conformity to the Pharisees’ rules necessary should not enforce them on Gentiles. Jews do not expect justification from Moses’ law; to make law-observance necessary to salvation makes Christ the occasion of condemnation. Paul counts himself condemned by the law, dead to it yet alive to God, conformed to Christ, so that Christ lives in him; the gospel and Christ’s death would be vain if justification came only through the law.
The Galatians received the gifts of the Spirit and had miracles before hearing of the law; Abraham was justified before it; all under the law lie under a curse; faith, not works of the law, obtains eternal life; the promise to Abraham and his seed reaches all justified without the law, which was only an introduction to the gospel, making all mankind Abraham’s seed and heirs. Conformity to the law was no improvement—like beginning in the spirit and ending in the flesh. The law curses all transgression since perfect obedience is impossible; Christ became the curse for us when crucified, for the law says the hanged man is accursed—though its meaning was that only wilful, impenitent offenders were so subjected, and executed criminals were buried before sunset because they were reckoned a pollution. The promise given to Abraham in person differs from the law given through Moses as mediator; the later institution could not set aside the earlier, and the law, insufficient in itself, prepared men for the gospel, suited a more advanced age, and is called a shadow of good things to come. The gospel magnifies itself by abolishing the Jews’ invidious distinction and bringing all mankind into one family of God with Abraham.
The paraphrase presses the same points: the Galatians began well yet end in the flesh; those imitating Abraham’s faith are his children and heirs; the law allows nothing to faith but demands perfect obedience; the covenant made 430 years earlier could not be set aside; the law was a check on transgressors and a schoolmaster until men should be grown; being baptized, Christians have put on Christ, and there is no material difference between Jew and Gentile, slave or master, male or female.
Sons, Heirs, and the Allegory of Hagar
Chapter IV compares the law to a schoolmaster or guardian; those in tuition are little more than servants, and Christ, having been under the law himself, emancipates us to the privileges of sons. The apostle does not explain how his being under the law effects this—a person may pay another’s debt or suffer his punishment, but cannot acquire knowledge for him. Christians are proved sons by having the Spirit and addressing God as Father, and as sons they are heirs.
Reconciliation and the New Creation
The commentary on 2 Corinthians 5 opens with a pointed correction: God was reconciling the world to himself through Christ, not the reverse. God never needed persuading toward peace with repentant men; the work of the gospel is to bring men to repentance, after which reconciliation follows of course. Christ, though innocent, was suffered to die as a sinner so that sinners might become righteous—the death and resurrection confirming the gospel’s great object, the reformation of the world. Paul’s preaching, knowing the judgments to come, aims at persuading men to escape them; he calls God as witness of his sincerity and explains that he boasts only to arm the Corinthians against teachers who glory in externals rather than in the heart. Since Christ died for all, all stood in need of that religion; all may be counted as having been in death, and Christ died that they might live to him. Christianity respects all men equally, so Paul no longer confines the Messiah to Jews and proselytes. The proof of a true Christian is the new man—changed disposition and conduct—fulfilling the prophet’s word, “behold I make all things new.” This new creation is of God, who has appointed Paul his minister of reconciliation, an ambassador entreating men in Christ’s place to be reconciled to God by repentance and good works.
Paul’s Appeal and Unequal Yoke
Chapter 6 continues Paul’s account of his disinterested services and sufferings, indirectly reproving the Corinthians for their cold affection and hinting at the danger of new connections with unbelievers. The annotator pauses to call this a noble appeal, one that should encourage all who suffer from enemies while labouring for truth. If Paul’s zeal and patience could not shield him from opposition—even from professing Christians—why should later believers wonder at the same, when Christians are far more divided and offences more plentiful? It ought to satisfy any man, as it did Paul, to acquit himself to his own conscience and to God, with abundant recompense at a future day. On the verses: the Corinthians have much room in Paul’s heart but make no proper return; they should give him, as their father, the same room in theirs. The warning against unequal yoking probably concerns marriage with unbelievers, whose worship was a snare. Every Christian should regard himself as the temple of God and keep himself holy; the closing promise, though not found word for word in the Old Testament, expresses its general sense.
Abraham’s Faith and the Fruits of the Gospel
Turning to Romans 4–5, the notes argue that the law can only produce wrath by making transgressors liable to punishment; the promise was therefore made the reward of Abraham’s faith, a matter of favour, descending to all who imitate his faith—Gentiles as well as Jews. Scripture calls him father of many nations because of his firm faith in a promised child when nature forbade one. That approbation was recorded as an example to us, who are equally favoured if we believe the gospel, trusting in the resurrection of Christ, who died as our example of dying unto sin and rose as an emblem of our rising to a new life. Chapter 5 extends the commendation of the gospel: it assures pardon and enables men to bear persecution with joy. Christ’s superlative merit lay in dying for men while they were sinners, and the benefit of his obedience far exceeds the injury of Adam’s sin. Among the particular notes: the gifts of the Spirit were tokens of God’s favour; the word “atonement” occurs only here in the New Testament and should be rendered “reconciliation”—we are reconciled to God by believing and obeying the gospel, not by Christ’s making atonement by his death. The passage from verse 12 to 18 is a kind of parenthesis proving that mortality is owing to Adam’s sin; the annotator grants the apostle’s conclusion true on the Mosaic history, though the medium of proof is weak, since brutes die and men died before the law. Paul’s fondness for antithesis often sacrificed perspicuity, yet he plainly regards Christ as a man as much as Adam: as by one man came death, so by one man the resurrection. Justification means reversing Adam’s sentence; being “made sinners” means being made subject to death, and “made righteous” the restoration to life. The law aggravated offences, and the more aggravated the sin, the more valuable the gospel that restores us by repentance.
Salutations, Tertius, and the Mystery
The Roman epistle’s long list of salutations never mentions Peter, who, the Catholics say, was then bishop there—reasonably inferred to have been absent, and probably never properly resident in the city, though tradition has him and Paul martyred there together. The kiss of charity came from Jewish custom, men and women saluting apart, as they sat apart in the synagogues—a practice still observed in many places of worship, given before the Lord’s supper. Verse 17 likely targets the Jewish teachers, some holding Gnostic opinions, whose moral character was often indifferent, their object popularity and gain; not all, for some suffered hardship. “Satan” most interpreters take for the Jews, with a view to Jerusalem’s destruction, though it is perhaps more probable that Paul meant evil in general, this world being a state of trial. Tertius is the same as Silas—both names mean “third,” one Latin, one Hebrew—Paul using the Latin term for Roman readers; he generally employed an amanuensis, perhaps from unfamiliarity with the Greek character. The greetings show persons of note among early Christians, especially Gentiles. “Mystery” means the long-hidden design of favour to the Gentile world. Here, as everywhere, God is distinguished from Christ: God the author of all good, Christ his servant in publishing the gospel, glory ascribed to God through Christ.
From Jerusalem to Rome, and the Epistle to the Ephesians
After Romans, Paul went by Macedonia and Ephesus to Jerusalem, arriving at Pentecost, A.D. 53. A tumult led to his arrest; he was held until 60, when, appealing to the emperor as a Roman citizen, he was sent to Rome, shipwrecked on Malta, and arrived in spring 61. Remarkably, no epistle survives from his five years at Jerusalem and Caesarea, but from Rome he wrote several, Ephesians first—aimed at establishing his converts in the pure faith and countering judaizing teachers, with perhaps a view to Gnostic tenets. The epistle has a peculiar dignity and sublimity, like all he wrote from Rome; he probably knew his life was near its close and wrote with the energy of last admonitions. “Saints” means chosen people, a title given to Christians to repress Jewish pride. The apostle constantly distinguishes God from Christ; indeed no passage in the New Testament calls Christ God, though in an inferior sense.
Last Words to Timothy
On 2 Timothy, the author observes that the rewards Paul expected were to be conferred only at the general resurrection—”that day,” the appearing of Christ to raise the dead and judge the world. Had he expected reward immediately after death, he could not have overlooked it.
Authorship and Authority of Hebrews
The notes on Hebrews open with a candid admission: nobody can say with certainty who wrote it, and several centuries passed before the whole church accepted it as canonical, so it does not carry the same weight as the undisputed epistles. The case against Paul is laid out plainly—no name in the greeting, a style markedly unlike his other letters (as the ancients themselves conceded), and arguments that are sometimes manifestly weak. Still, the writer leans toward Paul, composing it after his release from Rome around A.D. 63, before he left Italy. Why he suppressed his name is unclear; his name offended Jewish Christians, yet the letter hardly hides him, since he mentions his plan to visit the readers and sends greetings exactly in his manner. Perhaps it was never meant as a letter to one congregation but as a treatise for general circulation, which would explain the departure from his usual opening. The mention of Timothy, the notes add, fits Paul and no one else.
The reasoning, we are told, resembles that of Romans and Galatians on the same themes, and perfect correctness is not to be expected. Jews, having no other books, meditated endlessly on their scriptures and applied passages to every occasion, proper and improper, drawing arguments that will not always bear strict examination. This was natural in their circumstances; had it been otherwise, we should have lacked a valuable argument for the genuineness of these writings, since they suit the men and the times.
Christ Superior to Moses, Angels, and the Old Dispensation
The epistle’s great object, almost proving Paul the author, is to lessen the excessive regard Jewish Christians felt for the institutions of Moses and their urge to impose them on Gentile converts. The writer labours to show Christ’s superiority to Moses and to the angels through whom God spoke to the patriarchs and prophets, and the superiority of the Christian dispensation generally—finding a high priest, a sacrifice, and a temple in the gospel to match what the Jews boasted. Here imagination can fancy resemblances where appearances are slight, so such arguments deserve limited stress; this mode of reasoning was common among Jews and by no means peculiar to the apostle. A few allusions to Gnostic doctrine appear, to which the judaizing teachers of the age leaned.
On the opening chapter, the notes insist that the long-held notion that Christ spoke to the patriarchs and appeared to Moses in the bush has no scriptural foundation—this very verse declares the contrary: God spoke to the fathers by angels only, and by his Son not until the last days. The related opinion that Christ made the world fares no better. The word rendered “worlds” properly means periods or ages, and should read “by whom he constituted the ages”—probably meaning the future state of things will be regulated with a view to Christ, now appointed heir of all things since his resurrection. Christ bearing the likeness of God implies no more than a likeness; he is not himself God. Adam too was in the form of God, and any man may become so in a higher sense by divine powers given or withheld at God’s pleasure. The upholding by “the word of his power” means God’s power, not Christ’s, and “all things” means the new creation, the change wrought by Christianity, which depends on Christ as its founder under God. Ascribing the purging of sin to Christ’s death is figure only, comparing it to a sacrifice; Christianity puts away sin by reforming the world, and nothing implies Christ died to appease God’s wrath.
James on Faith, Works, and the Tongue
Turning to James, the notes argue that wilful transgression of known commands proves a deficiency in the principles of obedience; one who forms his own rule makes himself his own master, and distinguishing among God’s commands to keep only some effectively renounces obedience. Obedience must be impartial, not perfect, and wrongdoing repented of and reformed. The golden rule and the Lord’s prayer’s petition on forgiveness underlie verses 12 and 13. Some Jews blamed God for temptations; others stressed knowledge of the law over practice, whose absurdity James exposes. Readers of Paul may have taken “faith without works” as mere belief, supposing orthodox faith atones for immoral practice; verse 18 means “show thy faith from thy works,” and verse 19 cites the doctrine of one God, which demons believe without obeying. Abraham is cited by Paul for faith alone and by James against faith alone—both meant the same thing—and Rahab’s faith led her to befriend the spies. Mere faith is a lifeless body; faith with works, a living man.
Chapter 3 concerns faction among Jews and Jewish Christians: the tongue must be governed, but chiefly the temper. Church offices were dangerous yet desired; James notes that the more distinguished a man, the more answerable. “Perfect” signifies full-grown manhood, and intemperate language marks childhood. The tongue’s mischief is compared to fire; the Syriac reads “the tongue is a fire, and the world of iniquity is wood.” The editor finds verse 8 too rhetorical and verse 12’s comparisons of limited use. The Gnostics’ boast of superior wisdom is best shown by meek conduct; their wisdom was earthly, even from the devil. Verse 17 may read “without nice distinction”; verse 18, “the peaceable fruits of righteousness are sown for the makers of peace.”
James on Covetousness, the Rich, and Healing
Chapter 4’s vices suggest unbelieving Jews, wicked in the extreme per Josephus. Lusts war within a man; verses 2–3 concern coveting freedom from Roman subjection and praying amiss; friendship with the world is enmity with God; verse 5 reads as an interrogation about the indwelling spirit; God promises favour to the humble; verse 7 urges resisting temptation, not God; reviling one another judges the law, and judging the law sets oneself above God; verse 13 censures neglect of life’s uncertainty; boasting of knowledge makes them inexcusable.
Chapter 5 addresses rich, luxurious, oppressive unbelievers—leading Jews who, stung, might have sought revenge by James’s death. Verse 1 came with a prophetic spirit; Christians, warned by Christ’s prophecies, fled Jerusalem before the Roman siege, settling in Syria. Ancient treasures—gold, silver, precious stones, rich garments—fall to moth and rust; “latter days” means the Jewish state’s last days; God is called “Lord of Sabaoth”; the “just one” is probably Jesus Christ; verse 7 should read “early and latter fruits.” The Lord’s coming drew nigh; apostles may have imagined it nearer than it was, though Thessalonians shows they did not expect it in their lifetime. Verse 12 repeats Jesus’s prohibition of swearing. The gift of healing, anointing with oil, and the prayer of faith occupy verses 14–15; Elijah’s example is a real miracle not suited to the editor’s age. Turning a sinner from error is most meritorious.
First Peter: Exhortation to Persevere
Peter, though first to open the door of faith to Gentiles, never went on mission to them and at Antioch joined the Judaizers, for which Paul reproved him.
