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(ibc University of Chicago 
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GIFT OF 



Disciples' Divinity House 



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AND 



Companions of St. Paul. 



BY JOHN S. HOWSON, D. D., 

- 

DEAN OF CHESTER. 



INTRODUCTION 

BY PROF. H. B. HACKETT, D. D. 



TWO VOLUMES IN ONE. 



AMERICAN TRACT SOCIETY, 

150 NASSAU STREET, NEW YORK. 








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Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1871, by 

THE AMERICAN TRACT SOCIETT, 
In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington 



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rNTEODTJOTIOE". 






name of Dr. Howson, author of the tracts 
in this volume, needs no introduction to Amer- 
ican readers. His writings, especially his " Life and 
Epistles of Paul " and his " Hulsean Lectures on 
the Character of Paul," have made him as well 
known in this country as in England. Even in 
these more elaborate works he has shown a rare 
faculty of so treating his subjects as to interest and 
instruct readers of every class. 

The tracts here published are. an outgrowth of 
these more extended studies to which we have re- 
ferred. The one on the "Metaphors of Paul" con- 
sists of papers first published in the " Sunday 
Magazine" in England (1866-67), and republished 
at the instance of the present writer in the Amer- 
ican "Theological Eclectic" (1867-68). The pa- 
pers were subsequently brought together by the 
author himself in a book form and published in 
England in 1870. They are reprinted here from 
that edition. 

The contents are adapted to the wants of the 
general reader, as well as of the student and the 



IV INTR ODUCT1 ON. 

preacher. The " Metaphors " of Paul are a part of . 
his writings that specially need such illustration. 
The Apostle James derives his most expressive fig- 
ures from natural objects, or from permanent aspects 
of human life and experience ; * and hence they are 
readily understood without comment or explana- 
tion in every age and by every people. The Apos- 
tle Paul has taken his imagery largely from local 
customs and national usages which for us have 
passed away ; and hence the allusions to them can 
be fully understood only as the things themselves 
are explained and set before us by vivid represen- 
tation. This service Dr. Howson has performed 
for us in an admirable manner. He gives us no 
tedious archaeological details ; but just the requisite 
kind and amount of information concerning the mil- 
itary and agricultural usages of the Greeks and 
Romans, their style of architecture, and the con- 
tests of the gymnasium and stadium ; and thus we are 
enabled to see and feel almost as eye-witnesses the 
force of his illustrations ..drawn from such sources. 
The study of Paul's Metaphors as unfolded in these 
pages reveals a striking unity in his EpistlesV'^nd 
thus helps to confirm their genuineness. It should 
be mentioned, too, that our English Version often 
fails to bring out the full significance of these fig- 

i See, for example, the Epistle of James, i. 6, 10; iii. 4, 5, 7; iv 
14; v. 2, 3, 7, etc. 



INTRODUCTION. V 

ures. Dr. Howson has taken pains to correct these 
inaccuracies, and has thus restored to the reader 
some of the most expressive traits of Paul's imagery, 
otherwise lost to us. It is surprising to find how 
much new beauty and instructiveness are often given 
to the Apostle's language by such corrections. 

The crowning excellence of the work, after all, 
is its practical aim and earnest religious spirit. Its 
ample learning, its illustrations, its eloquence, are 
all subordinate to that end. It is adapted to stimu- 
late religious feeling, and to impress the truth, as 
well as guide us to a knowledge of it. 

In speaking of the other work, the " Sketches 
of Paul's Companions'," a brief word may suffice. 

The notices of the Apostle's co-laborers who ap- 
pear in the Acts and the Epistles, are so scattered 
and incidental that the ordinary reader seldom obtains 
a distinct idea of their number or of their character- 
istics and individuality. Dr. Howson has brought 
together these fugitive notices in his " Sketches " 
so as to present the actors in their separate fields 
of labor as well as in their coordination to the 
great Apostle : and has thus given us a juster im- 
pression both of the manifold labors of these Com- 
panions of Paul and of his own greater efficiency 
from his having had such coadjutors. Dr. How- 
son's familiarity with this branch of Scripture his- 
tory is shown here to great advantage, 

H 15 H 



THE METAPHORS OF 
ST. PAUL. 



CONTENTS. 



I. ROMAN SOLDIERS 1 

II. CLASSICAL ARCHITECTURE . . . . . 21 

III. ANCIENT AGRICULTURE .45 

IV. GREEK GAMES 65 



THE 

METAPHORS OF ST. PAUL. 

i. 

ROMAN SOLDIERS. 

Til VERY part of Holy Scripture has its own dis- 
-*-^ tinctive imagery ; and through the medium of 
this imagery its instruction is often conveyed. Thus, 
when we read the prophecies of Amos, "who was 
among the herdmen of Tekoa," himself a "herd- 
man " in a wild and pastoral district, the images 
are such as these : the fat " kine of Bashan, which 
say unto their masters, Bring and let us drink ; " 
" the lion roaring in the forest ; " " the seven stars of 
Orion, before the shadow of death is turned into the 
morning ; " " the basket of summer fruit ; " " the grass- 
hoppers in the shooting up of the latter growth." 
Unless we rightly apprehend the circumstances, the 
scenery, and the pursuits, in connection with which 
it was God's will that His prophet should speak, we 
cannot fully understand the meaning of His words ; 
and so far, to us, their force and instructiveness is 
diminished. 

The imagery of the Book of Amos is an emphatic 



2 THE METAPHORS OF ST. PAUL. 

and strongly marked instance of a principle which is 
applicable, in various degrees, to all parts of the 
Bible. The life of Joseph, the life of Moses, the life 
of Ruth, the life of Elijah, all have their appropriate 
atmosphere and coloring ; and if we look at them 
withoat reference to these, they fade away into some- 
thing abstract and dead. And so it is with the New 
Testament. But here, though the principle is the 
same, we feel that we are brought into a new world, 
and that the principle must be applied to very different 
details. Every part of the Old Testament has an orien- 
tal completion. We illustrate it by referring to what 
travellers tell us, of the tents of the Bedouin Arabs, of 
the courts of Eastern princes, of caravans and camels 
and palm trees. And so it is, no doubt, to some ex- 
tent, in the case of the New Testament. But still, on 
the whole, in passing from one to the other, we are 
conscious that a change has come over the scene, and 
that God has begun to speak to us now through simil- 
itudes of a different kind. "We find ourselves brought 
in contact with circumstances far more nearly resem- 
bling those which surround us in modern life. We 
are in fact, when the New Testament is our study, 
on the borders or in the heart of Greek civilization, 
and we are always hi the midst of the Roman Empire. 
It is no more possible fully to understand what the 
Apostles say to us, than what the Prophets say to us, 
if we dissever their words from the circumstances ot 
their lives. Tfte metaphors they use are drawn (as 
indeed they must have been drawn, to be intelligible 



ROHAN SOLDIERS. 3 

at all) from the things which were around them. My 
endeavor will be, in four sections, to illustrate certain 
groups of images which are common in one part 
of the New Testament, and, in the present section, 
while keeping in view especially one very notable 
passage in the Epistle to the Ephesians, to elucidate 
the military metaphors of St. Paul. 

It seldom occurs to us to consider how large' a 
portion of his time St. Paul spent in the close prox- 
imity of soldiers. He lived under the shadow of the 
greatest military monarchy which the world has seen. 
Englishmen are less able than others to realize all 
that is implied in this simple fact ; hence they are 
startled into the impression of novelty, when they 
first travel in France or Austria, and see troops filing 
through the streets of every city, and large barracks 
in every country town. But such sights were no 
novelty to St. Paul. JSTo doubt they were more fre- 
quent and conspicuous in some parts of the Empire 
than others. In Philippi, for instance, in Troas. and 
the . Pisidian Antioch, which were Roman colonies, 
we may well believe that the warlike symbols of 
Rome were more prominent than in other cities 
which he visited ; and the State of Syria, which was a 
very uneasy province, and was held by a standing 
army of 60,000 men, was very different from that of 
Achaia or Bithynia, which were comparatively quiet 
and settled districts. But, wherever he resided, mil- 
itary uniforms and military quarters were familiar 
objects ; wherever he travelled, he was liable to meet 



4 THE METAPHORS OF ST. PAUL. 

troops on their march from one province to another, 
or in the pursuit of banditti, or acting as an escort of 
prisoners. 

But we are not left to this general kind of illus- 
tration. We are well acquainted with several inci- 
dents of his life, which connected him, in a manner 
peculiarly intimate, with Roman soldiers and their 
officers and their armor. It is enough to make a sim- 
ple reference to his arrest in the court of the Temple, 
when the commandant of the garrison of Antonia with 
some of his subalterns and a body of troops, ran down 
and took him into custody, then to the time which 
the Apostle spent in the barracks within Antonia, 
and to the events which took place there, then 
to his night journey to Antipatris, under the charge 
of a guard almost as numerous as half an English 
regiment, besides a squadron of dragoons, then 
to his captivity of two years at Cassarea, the centre 
of the provincial military government, where he was. 
probably chained by the hand to a soldier, then to 
his adventurous voyage, when an officer of a distin- 
guished corps was his close companion, and when the 
swords of the soldiers under his command, which had 
cut the fastenings of the boat, were only just pre- 
vented from taking the Apostle's life and the lives of 
his fellow-prisoners, then to the delivering up of the 
prisoners to the commander of the Praetorian Guards, 
after which, though Paul was suffered to dwell by 
himself, yet it was not without " a soldier who kept 
him," and lastly, to the facts hinted at in passages 



ROMAN SOLDIERS. 5 

of the Epistles written at Rome, as when he says, in 
affixing his autograph to the Colossian letter, " the 
salutation by the hand of me Paul," and then, feeling 
the chain clank on his wrist as he writes, he adds, 
" remember my chains," or, in the Ephesian letter, 
when he describes himself as "an ambassador in 
bonds," an ambassador of the free Gospel, fastened 
to a soldier ; it is enough to enumerate these things, 
in order to see how natural it is that St. Paul should 
speak to us in military metaphors, nay, how unnat- 
ural it would be (if I may say so with reverence) 
were no such metaphors to be found in his writings. 

Our best mode of approaching the direct illustra- 
tion of our selected context is first to notice some of 
those other texts where imagery of the same kind is 
more lightly touched by St. Paul, and so to rise by 
successive steps to the allegory in which the Christian 
warrior is set before us in the full panoply of God. 
Then it will not be irrelevant if we turn in conclusion 
to some other passages, where similes from the same 
source are employed by the Apostle, less obviously 
but not less forcibly. 

The first of these passages is in the thirteenth 
chapter of the Romans. 1 That Epistle was written 
at Corinth, -which, both as the seat of local govern- 
ment, and because of its critical position on a strait 
between two seas, must have been garrisoned by a 
strong military force. The image which always rises 
before my mind when I read the passage, is this : I 

i Rom. xiii. 11-13. 



6 THE METAPHORS OF ST. PAUL. 

fancy St. Paul after a day spent in hard work, 
partly in tent-making and partly in preaching and in 
visitation among his converts writing far through 
the night to the Christians in Rome, and just at day- 
break, when the sentinels are changing guard, and the 
morning light glances on their armor, while at the 
same time the last sounds of debauched revelers in 
the street fall upon his ears, expressing himself hi 
the now familiar words, " The night is far spent, the 
day is at hand; let us therefore cast off the works of 
darkness, and let us put on the armor of light ; let 
us walk honestly as in the day, not in rioting and 
drunkenness." 

As. to the phrase "armor of light," it is evidently 
equivalent to the phrase " armor of righteousness" 
which he uses elsewhere, 1 i. e., spiritual armor for 
the contest against spiritual foes. But in the place 
where this last expression occurs, the idea is more 
fully developed than in the former case. Here it is 
" the armor of righteousness on the right hand and 
on the left." We have not simply armor in the ab- 
stract, as in the other instance, but armor specially 
described as of two kinds, " on the right hand and on 
the left)" i. e., offensive and defensive, represented 
generally by the sword and the shield. St. Paul 
is here describing himself, and his own attitude in 
regard to the resistance he had met with at Corinth 
in the progress of his apostolic work. This is not 
the only occasion in this severe Epistle (as we shall 

i 2 Cor. vi. 7. 



ROMAN SOLDIERS. 7 

see afterwards) where he uses military language in 
describing liis own position in reference to the enemies 
of the truth. 

We reach something still more definite and specific, 
when we come to the fifth chapter of the first letter 
to the Thessalonians. 1 " "We are not of the night 
. . . . therefore let us not sleep . . . They 
that be drunken, are drunken in the night. . . . Let 
us, who are of the day, be sober, putting on the 
breastplate of faith and love ; and for an helmet, the 
hope of salvation." The chief remarks to be made 
here, I think, are that this Epistle was written from 
Corinth, like that to the Romans, but on a previous 
visit ; that the whole context is very similar to that 
which has been quoted from the Romans ; and that 
while this passage contains many more details than 
that just adduced from the second Corinthian Epistle, 
yet it is entirely limited to defensive armor. As to 
any observations on two pieces of armor that are 
specified, " the breastplate of faith and love," and 
the " helmet of salvation," these belong more prop- 
erly to our discussion of the allegory in the sixth of 
Ephesians, 1 which claims from us now a more direct 
consideration. 

Enough has been quoted already to prove that the 
uso of military metaphors is a familiar thing to St. 
Paul. And in the passages hitherto adduced, these 
metaphors have one general type, which is quite in 
harmony with the longer extract before us. In ex- 

1 1 Thess. v. 5-8. 1 Eph. vi. 10-17. 

3 



8 THE METAPHORS, OF ST. PAUL. 

amining its different parts, I should wish to be guided 
by the reverent belief that each word has a meaning, 
that each word is the best that could be used, 
and at the same time, I should wish to be on my 
guard against that pedantry of interpretation which 
tortures the Bible into meanings which it was never 
intended to bear, and which, in this case, would de- 
prive the Apostle's imagery of all its freshness and 
elasticity. 

I have called the passage an allegory. But it can- 
not strictly be described by that term. It is a series 
of images with a running explanation. In a pure 
allegory the key of interpretation is to be derived 
from the context, or from the circumstances, or from 
analogy. But here the image and the interpretation 
are given side by side. We " wrestle " or engage in 
close conflict, but " not with flesh and blood," i. e., 
(as we see from a passage where the same phrase is 
used in the Galatians), not with man, but with spir- 
itual foes. We wear " armor," but it is the armor of 
light, the armor of righteousness, the panoply of God. 
We carry a " shield," but it is the shield of faith. 
We wield a " sword," but it is the sword of the Spirit, 
This is St. Paul's manner. He explains his meta- 
phors as he proceeds. We have, therefore, no need 
to waste our time discussing the principles of the in- 
terpretation of allegory. We may begin at once to 
go in order through the clauses of which the -passage 
is composed. 

One of the first thoughts which occur to us in look- 



ROMAN SOLDIERS. 9 

ing at the introductory words is this, that the armor 
is of no use to us unless we put it on. We are not 
to be passive in the matter. The opening words give 
a positive injunction ; and the only way to obey the 
injunction is to put on the armor, and to wear it and 
use it. Another obvious thought relates to the peril- 
ous condition of those who are destitute of this armor. 
Without it we are utterly defenseless. And it is no 
light matter to be defenseless in the presence of a foe, 
who is not only hostile 'but accomplished in strata- 
gem, and who commands an army such as that which 
is described in the verses before, us. There is a story 
of a Spartan soldier who went into battle without his 
armor, and who was fined by the Senate though he 
had been victorious. This anecdote supplies a very 
useful admonition to the Christian soldier. 

One word in this introductory portion is unfor- 
tunately translated in the Authorized Version. The 
phrase, " having done all," is by no means, in my 
opinion, an adequate rendering of the Greek. The 
marginal translation, "having overcome" is more 
correct. The original denotes that we are to beat 
down all opposition, and having done this to " stand," 
to hold our ground. And this word " stand" which 
occurs once and again, sets before us the true nature 
of the Christian's conflict. We have a defensive 
military position to hold for God, and we must hold 
it. Our duty is no light skirmish which might be 
half an amusement to those who enjoy a fray ; but it 
is a serious and momentous struggle to hold the field 



10 THE METAPHORS OF ST. PAUL. 

where we are posted, like the struggle of those who 
fought at Inkermann. 

I find in two of Chrysostom's sermons on this 
chapter some remarks on these introductory -verses 
so good and forcible that I think they deserve to be 
quoted. With reference to the wiles of the devil he 
expresses himself as follows : " The Apostle saith not, 
Against the fightiny, nor Against the hostilities, but 
Against the wiles. This enemy is at war with us, 

V-P *r * 

not simply, not openly, but by wiles : i. e., he tries to 
deceive us and to take us by artifice. He never pro- 
poses to us sins in their proper colors. Thus, he 
does not speak of idolatry, but he sets it off in another 
dress, making his discourse plausible, and employing 
disguises." In reference to the expression just al- 
luded to, " having subdued all," he adds : " That is, 
having subdued our passions and vile lusts, and all 
things else that trouble us. The Apostle speaks not 
merely of doing the deed, but of completing it, so as 
not only to slay, but to stand after we have slain ; for 
many who have gained this victory have failed again. 
Having subdued all, saith he, not Having subdued 
one and not another ; for even after the victory we 
must stand. An enemy may be struck, but things 
that are struck revive again." And once more, in 
reference to the word " stand," Chrysostom says : 
" The very first feature in tactics is to know how to 
stand well, and many things will depend upon that. 
In the case of mere athletic exercises the word of 
command which the trainer gives before any tiling 



ROMAN SOLDIERS. 11 

else is this,, to stand firm. Much more will it be the 
first thing in military matters. The man who, in a 
true sense, stands, is upright ; he stands not in a lazy 
attitude, not leaning upon anything. The luxurious 
man does not stand upright, but stoops ; so does the 
lewd man, so does the lover of money." 

This is enough concerning the attitude and posture 
of the Christian warrior. We come now to the ar- 
mor itself which he wears. As described to us here 
we observe that it consists of six pieces. A few 
words may be devoted to each of them. But first let 
us bear in mind how much reality and life are com- 
municated to the description when we recollect where 
St. Paul was when he wrote it. He was in the midst 
of the Praetorian Guards, the elite of the Roman 
army, a body of men raised far more conspicuously 
above the legions than our Guards, or even the 
French Imperial Guard, are above the regiments of 
the line. But not only was he in the midst of them, 
seeing them continually, and hearing daily all the 
sounds of barrack life, but he was fastened to one of 
these guardsmen while he dictated the letter, and he 
felt the, chain on his wrist while he affixed his signa- 
ture. 

First in order of enumeration we have the BELT 
" having your loins girt about with truth" By this 
we are not to understand a loose sword-belt like that 
which our own officers wear, nor any ornamented 
girdle, but a very strong girding apparatus, made of 
leather and covered with metal plates, and fastened 



12 THE METAPHORS OF ST. PAUL. 

firmly round the loins. The appearance and use of 
it are best seen in ancient statues in the British Mu- 
seum and elsewhere. It was the first part of the 
armor which the soldier would put on, and it was of 
essential use to him for the purpose of safety, and 
especially for the sake of standing firmly. It was to 
the Roman soldier exactly what Truth is to the sol- 
dier of Christ. Of Christ Himself it is said iii the 
prophecy, that " righteousness shall be the girdle of 
his loins, and faithfulness " (the word is truth in the 
Septuagint) " the girdle of his reins." 1 

The BREASTPLATE is next to be considered. It is 
described as the " breastplate of righteousness." A 
question might be raised here as to the meaning of 
the word " righteousness," whether it denotes the jus- 
tification which belongs to the believer by virtue of 
his union with Christ, or refers to that rectitude of 
character which cannot be wanting in a true Chris- 
tian. I feel little doubt that the latter is the true 
meaning of St. Paul ; and this for two or three rea- 
sons. In the first place Justification would seem to 
belong more naturally to the " shield of faith," which 
is mentioned below ; but, again, it appears to me that 
all. the parts of defensive armor mentioned here desig- 
nate graces of Christian character. Moreover, in the 
shorter allegory of the first Thessalonian letter the 
breastplate is described as made up of "faith and 
love," a perfect account of that principle in a Chris- 
tian which leads him to feel rightly", to think rightly, 

1 Isaiah xi. 5. 



ROMAN SOLDIERS. 13 

and to act rightly ; but hardly such a definition as we 
should expect of a sinner's state of pardon and accept- 
ance with God. But there is another reason which, 
to my mind, is almost decisive. St. Paul is here 
again using Greek words from the Old Testament 
(and it is important to observe this ; for there is sel- 
dom any long passage in St. Paul's writings without 
some quotation from the Septuagint), and there we' 
find it said of the Lord Himself that " He put on 
righteousness as a breastplate, and an helmet of sal- 
vation on his head." 1 The incongruity is obvious 
on the former interpretation. " It is God that justi- 
fied." 

This reference to Isaiah leads me to break the 
order of St. Paul's words, and to take " the helmet 
of salvation " next after the " breastplate of righteous- 
ness ; " for they are coupled together in the same 
clause by the prophet from whom he quotes. Clearly 
we might have some difficulty here in assigning a 
precise meaning to the Christian's helmet, were it 
not that the Apostle himself comes to our assistance ; 
for he says to the Thessalonians that it is " the hope 
of salvation " which we are to take for a HELMET. I 
conceive, then, that we are to see here a representa- 
tion of that cheerful and courageous hope which is so 
important an element in the Christian's warfare, and 
so bright an ornament and crowning point to all the 
other graces of his character. 

The helmet is perhaps the brightest and most con- 
1 Isaiah lix. 17. 



14 TEE .METAPHORS OF ST PAUL. 

spicuous part of a soldier's equipment ; but there are 
other parts less showy, but not less essential. A 
soldier badly shod can never last well through a cam- 
paign. Many of us have a vivid remembrance of 
what we read in the newspapers concerning some 
passages of the Crimean War. St. Paul does not 
leave his description of the Christian warrior incom- 
plete in this respect. " HAVE TOUR FEET SHOD," he 
says, " with the preparation (or with the prompt 
ready movement) of the gospel of peace" .It is 
needless to enter here into any details concerning the 
military equipment of the feet which enabled the Ro- 
man armies to inarch to the conquest of the world ; 
but we should observe the holy irony with which St. 
Paul gives an unexpected turn to his mention of this 
part of the Christian armor. The Roman soldiers 
were all on the alert in obeying orders to carry into 
every nation the miseries of War. The like alacrity 
ought to be shown by us in our obedience to our 
Captain ; and no slipshod indolence ought to make 
us slow in moving on this happy errand of Peace. 

The words in which the Authorized Version intro- 
duces the SHIELD are again (I conceive) inadequate, 
or, at least, obscure. " Above all " conveys the im- 
pression of " especially," as though the Apostle were 
now about to mention what is most important. And 
perhaps " the shield of faith " is, in fact, the most im- 
portant of all the defenses of the Christian soldier. 
But I think the Greek words mean simply " over 
all," " on the outside of all." The great Roman 



ROHAN SOLDIERS. 15 

shield referred to here was very different from the 
small bucklers which were used in some kinds of 
ancient warfare. Sculptured representations of it 
may be seen on Trajan's Column. It covered and 
protected the whole body ; and whatever weak points 
there misfit be in other parts of the armor, this sup- 
plied their deficiencies, as faith comes to the rescue 
when all other graces are failing. True faith is in- 
valuable and invulnerable. It is competent to quench 
even the " fiery arrows " of the Evil One. Here the 
image of the Christian conflict assumes all the anima- 
tion of a siege ; and one of the best illustrations I 
am acquainted with of the words used by the Apostle 
is in the history of one of the sieges of Rhodes, dur- 
ing which arrows charged with combustible materials 
were sent against the ships, and the very expression 
chosen here by St. Paul is employed by Diodorus 
Siculus in describing the defenses used for quenching 
the fire. 

One part of the armor remains THE SWORD 
" the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of 
God," i. e., the sword which the Spirit gives, and 
which is none other than God's revealed truth. This 
is the one offensive weapon. "We are not sanctioned 
in the use of any other ; all the rest of our armor 
is defensive ; and this is very instructive. Our con- 
flict is not with man, but with sin. We have no 
angry passions of our own to gratify. Our duty is 
steadfastly to resist ; and when we strike, we must 
strike only with the weapon which God puts into our 



16 THE METAPHORS OF ST. PAUL. 

hands. All tills is made more emphatic, if we observe 
that one weapon, the most characteristic weapon of 
the Roman soldier, the great pilum or pike, which 
Lord Macaulay has introduced with strict truth into 
one of his " Lays of Rome," this weapon is en- 
tirely omitted. Here the parallel is left incomplete. 
Can we doubt that this was done purposely ? The 
silence of Scripture has its meaning as well as its 
actual words. 

I abstain from further and closer practical com- 
ments. These would enter into the region of Chris- 
tian experience, and would belong to a treatise of a 
deeper kind. I will only now, through, a few remain- 
ing paragraphs, follow the same thread of thought, 
where it conducts us to one or two other places, in 
which (as I have said) military metaphors are em- 
ployed, less obviously at first sight, though not less 
forcibly. 

Some of these relate to the long operation of cam- 
paigning, rather than the mere putting on of armor. 
Thus, when Timotheus is admonished to " endure 
hardness as a good soldier of Jesus Christ," it is 
added by the Apostle : " No man that goeth on a 
campaign entangleth himself with the common affairs 
of life, that he may please him. who hath chosen him 
to be a soldier." x It is to be regretted that the ex- 
pression " this life " should have found a place in the 
English Version, inasmuch as it mixes the metaphor 
with the thing intended, besides stating what is not 

i 2 Tim. ii. 3, 4. 



ROMAN SOLDIERS. 17 

true. For if one -thing a.bove all others belongs 
peculiarly to this life, it is War. This, however, does 
not hinder war, in the form of a prolonged campaign, 
from furnishing most apt illustrations of three things 
which are expected from the Christian, patient en- 
durance, firm separation from those interests which 
are not compatible with his main purpose, and an 
earnest desire to please his Commander. 

There is again a passage in the early part of the 
Second Epistle to the Corinthians, 1 which involves 
no difficulty as to its general meaning, but great part 
of the vividness of which we lose by not . noticing 
how imagery, drawn from the conduct of a campaign, 
runs through the whole of the context. In the last 
passage the reference was to an individual soldier ; 
here it is to a commander. St. Paul is speaking in 
peremptory language .of his apostolic power and au- 
thority. The military phraseology starts suddenly 
to view in the third verse, " Though we walk in the 
flesh, we do not war after the flesh." This is clear 
enough. But in what follows it is not always re- 
marked that every phrase to the end of the sixth 
verse is appropriate to some part of a campaign, and 
drawn in fact from the familiar experience of those 
terrible Eoman wars which were well remembered 
in every region through which the Apostle travelled. 
No one will question this as regards the words 
" weapons," and " warfare." But the " strongholds " 
are the rock forts, such as those which once bristled 

2 Cor. x. 3-6. 



18 THE .METAPHORS OF ST. PAUL. 

along the coast of his native Cilicia, and of wliich he 
must often have heard, when his father told him how 
they were " pulled clown " by the Romans in their 
wars against the pirates. Those " high things that 
exalt themselves," those high eminences of the pride 
of nature, occupied in force by hostile troops, had 
been a familiar experience in many wars throughout 
Asia Minor, while one of the grandest of all was the 
Acropolis that towered over Corinth. But this is not 
all. Ancient warfare ended with the taking of pris- 
oners, who were carried into some safe place (such as 
this very Acropolis) where obedience would be se- 
cure. So the Apostle speaks of " bringing into cap- 
tivity every thought to (or rather into] the obedience 
of Christ." And then, further, if in a country that had 
been conquered on the whole, rebellions were here 
and there to break out again, it was not the habit of 
the Romans to desist till complete subordination was 
established. So the Apostle holds himself in readi- 
ness to " revenge all disobedience," even when on 
the whole (for this he will not doubt) the general 
"obedience" of the Corinthian Church is " fulfil" ed." 
Here then are a series of phrases which describe the 
vigorous prosecution of a campaign, and the deter- 
mined subjugation of the last symptom of rebellion. 
And who will say that we do not lose by failing to 
notice this character of the language ? Who will say 
that we do not gain by allowing it to have its natural 
and close association with what history tells of the 
course and the consolidation of Roman military con- 
quest ? 



ROMAN SOLDIERS. 19 

And more yet remains to be said concerning eves 
this portion of the subject. St. Pa.ul pursues the prog 
ress of the campaign till it reaches that which, in i 
Roman's eyes, was the most glorious of all consnm 
mations, the progress of the triumphal procession 
after final victory; and he introduces God Himself 
as the victor and the leader of the triumph. Twice 
we find this image expressed, with the technical and 
classical word which belongs to the subject : once 
when the great conquest effected through the death 
of Christ is the topic of the Apostle's enthusiastic 
sentences, 1 and once when the progressive advance 
of the Gospel of Christ is represented in language 
strictly suitable to the long procession of conqueror 
and captives by the Sacred Way to the Capitol. 2 
In the former case the words are brief and simple, 
which describe the " open display " of the defeat of 
" principalities and powers." In the latter the de- 
scription is prolonged and given in detail. The doc- 
trine preached by the Apostle "in everyplace" is 
compared to the fragrance which filled the streets 
from clouds of incense ; while the fatal doom of the 
captives contrasted with the exulting joy of the citi- 
zens, is a vivid representation of the awful alter- 
native which separates the hearers of the Gospel into 
" them that are saved," and " them that perish." 

And still the whole subject of the military meta- 
phors of St. Paul is not exhausted. There are other 
passages where the same expressive imagery occurs : 
l Col. ii. 15. 1 2 Cor. ii. 14-16. 



20 THE METAPHORS OF ST; PAUL. 

as when lie tells us that " without were Jig htings, 
within were fears," a description of his o.wn experi- 
ence which may well give encouragement to us ; l or 
as when he speaks of the " law in our members 
waging ivar against the law of the mind and taking 
us captive ; " and perhaps our own experience is 

enough to make us aware that no metaphor would be 
more suitable to the case than one derived from th< 
dreadful realities of war ; 2 or as when he assures his 
most consistent converts that "the peace of God, 
which passeth all understanding, shall garrison their 
hearts and minds through Christ Jesus." 3 This is 

o 

an unexpected almost an ironical turn, like that 
which we noticed before, when we saw that "the 
preparation of the Gospel of peace " was an essential 
part of the " armor of God." And the natural con- 
clusion of these remarks is an allusion to the Great 
Resurrection, when " the trumpet shall sound," 4 and 
every faithful Christian warrior shall have his place 
in his own " order " or " division" of the vast Army 
of the Lord of Hosts. 5 

i 2 Cor. vii. 5. 2 Rom. vii. 23. Phil. iv. 7. 

* 1 Cor. xr. 52; see xiv. 8. 6 1 Cor. xv. 23, 



H. 

CLASSICAL ARCHITECTTJBE. 

last section was on the military metaphors 
of St. Paul, with especial reference to the middle 
portion of the sixth .chapter of the Epistle to the 
Ephesians. The present will deal with the architec- 
tural metaphors of the same Apostle, with prominent 
but not by any means exclusive reference to a pas- 
sage in the third chapter of the Second Epistle to the 
Corinthians. 

The thought which lies at the basis of these essays 
is this : that in order to understand an ancient writer 
it is not enough to study his books, but necessary 
also to know something of the fashion of his times, 
not safe simply to work from the Dictionary, without 
some regard to the records of Monumental History, 
without some effort to reproduce and realize man- 
ners and customs, and the outward expression of the 
old social life. Even in order to understand the bare 
meaning of the words, we must know something of 
the life. Much more, when we desire to appreciate 
the nicer shades of meaning, and to enter into the 
full force of illustrative language. For this purpose 
we have need of Archaeology as much as of Philology. 
The t'vo cannot prudently be dissevered. And more 



22 THE METAPHORS OF ST. PAUL. 

than tliis. Unless our Archaeology is correct, our 
Philology, being connected with anachronisms, will 
lead us into positive errors. 

These observations, true of ancient writers in gen- 
eral, are quite as true of Sacred as Profane. Moses 
and Luke, Ezra and Paul, did not write independ"- 
ently of the circumstances with which they were sur- 
rounded, or of the tastes, pursuits, and habits of their 
time. If they had done so, they would have been 
unintelligible when they wrote. And they will only 
be approximately intelligible to us, unless we have 
the means of re-setting the words in their true asso- 
ciations. When a man has once seen a really Ori- 
ental city, and made himself familiar with the sights 
and smells of a bazaar, walked on the flat roofs, or 
stood among the camels, he has acquired a power 
of appreciating the Old Testament, such as no dead 
Lexicon could ever give him. And how great a help 
for the New Testament is gained, when, in some 
good museum, a man has taken into his hand a silver 
denarius, and looked at the fine features of Tibe- 
rius worthy of a nobler character, and turned 
the coin round, and read the Latin' inscription, and 
reflected on the possibility that this might have been 
the very piece of money that was shown to our 
Saviour, on the high probability that it was minted 
at the same time, and on the certainty that it was 
exactly like it, in size and material, in the " image 
and superscription ! " 

These are only superficial illustrations, but they 



CLASSICAL ARCHITECTURE. 23 

are illustrations of a principle ; and the application 
of the principle becomes important, exactly in pro- 
portion as the writer in question, whoever he may 
be, has some favorite classes of imagery drawn from 
the circumstances of his time ; and in proportion as 
those circumstances, from which the imagery is drawn, 
are in themselves peculiar and removed from the 
sphere of our own customary thoughts. 

Now thus much may be said, without any danger 
of dispute, concerning St. Paul's favorite illustrations, 
that they are drawn, not from the operations and uni- 
form phenomena of the natural world, but from the 
activities and outward exhibition of human society. 
from the life of soldiers, the life of slaves, from the 
market, from athletic exercises, from agriculture, from 
architecture. 

That there is a strong tendency to architectural 
metaphors in St. Paul's Epistles no one will dispute. 
But it is worth while to remark that this tendency to 
refer to buildings may be observed not only there, 
but in his speeches too. Let us call to mind two 
speeches, uttered in busy centres of population, and 
in the midst of those who had glorious architectural 
works every day before their eyes. At Athens how 
grandly does the Apostle point mentally, if not liter- 
ally, to the Parthenon and Propylsea and their asso- 
ciated statues on the Acropolis, telling his hearers 
that God, " seeing that He is Lord of heaven and 
earth, dwelleth not in temples made with hands," and 
that the Godhead is not " like unto gold, or silver, or 
5 



24 THE METAPHORS OF ST. PAUL. 

stone, graven by art or man's device!" 1 And at 
Miletus how significantly and strongly does lie con- 
clude his address to those who had come from Ephe- 
sns, where Diana's temple was the most magnificent 
and prominent object, " ISTow, brethren, I commend 
you to God, and to the word of his grace, which is 
able to build you up!" 2 How or why St. Paul's 
style had this tendency it is needless to determine. 
It might be a matter of temperament or of education. 
He might have a taste for architecture, natural or 
acquired. That he was a man of fine perceptions and 
strong social feelings cannot be doubted. And to 
such men it is natural to enter into the spirit of a 
great city and its outward expression as given in its 
buildings. Again we are told that Gamaliel, under 
whom, the Apostle was instructed, was a man of en- 
larged mind, and by no means destitute of sympathy 
with the culture of the Greeks. However this may 
be, St. Paul, writing under Divine inspiration, does 
use ideas drawn from, buildings, as vehicles of in- 
struction. Architectural phraseology is inwoven into 
the texture of his Epistles, and to a much larger ex- 
tent than would at first sight be supposed. 

Let us take, in the first place, in elucidation of this 
topic, a single word, the word " edify." This verb, 
or its substantive, " edification" occurs in some form 
or other about twenty times in the New Testament ; 
and in every instance, except one, it is used by St. 
Paul ; and that exception is in the Acts of the Apos- 
1 Acts xvii. 24, 29 ; see verses 16 and 23. 2 Acts xx. 32. 



CLASSICAL ARCHITECTURE. 25 

ties, 1 a book written almost certainly under St. Paul's 
superintendence. This fact is remarkable, and well 
adapted to arrest the attention. But it becomes still 
more marked, when we observe that, on proceeding 
to look for the Greek word of which " edify " is the 
English translation (or rather the Latin translation, 
introduced from the Vulgate by Wycliffe), we find 
that other passages must be added to the list, and all 
in the same Apostle's writings. To quote the places 
where " edify " and " edification " occur in the Eng- 
lish would be needless. They are all ready in our 
memories for use when occasion requires. But, in 
order to transfer our associations to the Greek word, 
which is actually St. Paul's word, and to which they 
more properly belong, I may observe that the lan- 
guage is precisely the same when he lays clown the 
principle of non-interference with another Apostle's 
work, "I will not build (edify) on another man's 
foundation ; " 2 that the same favorite image occurs 
when he expresses the utter inconsistency involved in 
a return from Christianity to Judaism, "If I pro- 
ceed to build up the edifice which I took so much 
pains to pull down, I make myself a transgressor ; " 3 
and that, with regard to moral practice, he uses " build 
up " in a bad sense as well as a good one, when he 
says, after laying down the truth that it is Christian 
love which "builds up," 4 that if the strong brother 
approaches too near association with idolatry, the 

1 Acts ix. 31. 2 R om . xv . 20. 

8 Gal. ii. 18. 4 i Cor. viii. 1. 



26 THE METAPHORS OF ST. PAUL. 

conscience of the weak brother may he " built up," 1 
so as to eat that which is sacrificed to idols, may 
become, in fact, a structure of sin. In this passage 
the Authorized Version has " edify " in the margin ; 
and this is the word in Wycliffe's version. The word 
is " build " in the other two passages which I have 
just quoted. It is evident that even then the words 
' ; edify " and " edification " were narrowing them- 
selves to their theological sense, while " edifice " has 
still continued to have its widest sense. Not that the 
narrowing process was completed for some consider- 
able time. Spenser uses " edify " in the sense of 
building ; and I find it said of the Castle of Corfu in 
Ilakluyt's travels (under the date 1553), " It is not 
only of situation the strongest I have seen, but also 
of edification." 

We might follow this disquisition on a single word 
into results of considerable interest. 

The question has a bearing on Christian Evidence. 
It is something that the same prevalent metaphor is 
used, and in the same kind of way, in several of the 
Epistles which bear the name of St. Paul. Unity of 
style tends to prove unity of authorship. If one man 
wrote all these Epistles, then all are authentic. So, 
again, it is always interesting to find a peculiarity 
which marks the Epistles marking also the speeches 
which are assigned' to this Apostle in the Acts. It 
helps to prove that the Paul of the letters is the Paul 
of the narrative ; and this, too, is something. Here 

1 1 Cor. viii. 10. 



CLASSICAL ARCHITECTURE. 27 

it must in candor be added, that this argument, if 
applied to the Epistie to the Hebrews, tends to sep- 
arate it from the Epistles which were undoubtedly 
written by St. Paul. On some grounds, I am strong- 
ly inclined to believe that he did write the Hebrews ; 
but this argument, so far as it goes, has a tendency 
the other way. In those passages, " He who hath 
builded the house hath more honor than the house : 
for every house is builded by some one ; but He that 
built all things is God," 1 and " a greater and more 
perfect tabernacle, not of this building," - and again, 
" Abraham looked for a city which hath foundations, 
whose builder and maker is God;" G in these pas- 
sages it is remarkable .that the original words are 
quite different from those which are customary with 
St. Paul when he speaks of building or edifying. 

But again, the topic before us has a bearing on 
Christian Doctrine. I have an impression that we 
have acquired the habit of using the word " edify " in 
a way slightly different from that of St. Paul, from 
whom we borrow it. We give it an individual ap- 
plication. We say that this or that a book read 
in private, a sentence from a sermon, a providential 
occurrence is edifying to the individual Christian, 
without reference to his social position in the Church. 
But " edify" with St. Paul is always a social word, 
having regard to the mutual improvement of mem- 
bers of the Church, and the growth of the whole 
body in faith and love. " The Churches in Judaea 

i Heb. iii. 3, 4. 2 Heb. ix. 11. 3 H e l>. ad. 10. 



28 TEE METAPHORS OF ST. PAUL. 

and Galilee and Samaria," it is said, " had rest, and 
were edified." 1 Paul says to the Corinthian Church, 
" We do all things for your edifying." " 2 He says to 
the members of the Thessalonian Church, " Edify 
one another." 3 And he tells the Ephesian Church 
that various ministrations are given, " for the edifying 
of the body of Christ 4 . . . . from Whom the whole 
niaketh increase of the body unto the edifying of 
itself in love." 5 So, too, he says that Christians are, 
collectively as well as individually, the Temple of 
God. There are two passages, 6 one in the First and 
one in the Second Epistle to the Corinthians, which 
may be instructively compared in reference to this 
point. ISTow, all this, if we consider the matter closely, 
is almost implied in the word, and in the metaphor 
which it represents. A building is an aggregate 
thing. And believers are not buildings, but parts of 
a building. St. Peter calls them " living stones." I 
think we are sometimes too apt to forget this, and to 
treat Christianity (if I may use the expression) as if 
it were monolithic. We may lose in precision by 
not attending to the metaphors which are involved in 
Scripture words, and thus the proportions of our 
doctrine may be disturbed. It is not too much to 
say that, with regard to the point before us, we 
might, out of St. Paul's use of the word " edify " or 
" build," get a whole commentary on that article of 
the Creed, " I believe in the Holy Catholic Church." 

1 Acts ix. 31. 2 2 Cor. xii. 19. 3 i Thess. v. 11. 

* Eph. iv. 12. 5 Eph. iv. 16. 6 1 Cor. vi. 1'J; 2 Cor. vi. 16. 



CLASSICAL ARCHITECTURE. 29 

However this may be, nearly all will agree that 
uch passages as these have a very important bearing 
on Christian Practice. " All things may be lawful 
for me, but all things do not edify." 1 " We ought 
not to please ourselves, but let every one try to 
please his neighbor for his good unto edification" 2 
" Let us follow after the tilings which make for peace, 
and things wherewith one may edify another." 3 The 
force of this last passage is much enhanced by the 
words which follow : " For the sake of meat do not 
run the risk of pulling to pieces the work the 
building of God." The word here translated " de- 
stroy " in the English version is not that which is so 
rendered a few verses above (" For meat destroy not 
him for whom Christ died "), but it is the contrasted 
word opposed to "build," just as in that phrase, 
quoted before from another Epistle (again an instance 
of the unity of St. Paul's style), " If I build up again 
what once I pulled down " or " pulled to pieces." 
How vividly do we see this momentous duty of re- 
specting scruples and prejudices, of forbearance in 
social intercourse, of controlling our vehemence and 
censoriousness, when we think of those. around its as 
parts with ourselves of a building, which ought to be 
advancing in beauty and solidity ! Those disorderly 
tempers disturb the proportion, that selfishness of 
ours mars the unity, those hasty words, those careless 
acts, are the pickaxes which loosen the mortar. And 
so with regard to public ministrations : " He that 
1 1. Cor. x. 23. 2 Rom. xv. 1, 2. 3 R 031 . x i v . 19, 20. 



30 THE METAPHORS OF ST. PAUL. 

speaketh in a tongue buildeth up himself: he that 
prophesieth, buildeth up the church ; " l " Foras- 
much as ye are zealous of spiritual gifts, seek that ye 
may excel to the building up of the church ; " 2 
" Verily thou givest thanks well, but the other is not 
built tip." 3 If we neglect the principle involved in 
such a context as this, if we are bent on display 
and power and self-advancement, well may the 
Church be dilapidated instead of built. So, again, 
of the contrast of knowledge and love : " Knowledge 
inflates ; " it only produces a bubble that will burst ; 
but "love edifies," it constructs what is solid; its 
work is to be patiently building a noble and enduring 
palace. 

But it is time that we advance from words to sen- 
tences. Let us examine a few passages where the 
architectural metaphor is more fully developed. We 
will follow a natural order, and take first the founda- 
tion, then the step, and then the furniture of the house. 

"We have seen that St. Paul says he will not " build 
on another man's foundation," when he means to say 
that he will not trespass on another man's missionary 
province. But he uses the same image in a deeper 
sense in various emphatic passages. In two of them 
there is the same juxtaposition of what is agricultural 
and what is architectural, which we have in this third 
chapter of the First Epistle to the Corinthians : " Ye 
are God's husbandry, ye are God's building." 4 Just 

1 1 Cor. xiv. 3-5. 2 1 Cor. xiv. 12. 

* 1 Cor. xiv. 17. 4 1 Cor. iii. 9. 



CLASSICAL ARCHITECTURE. 31 

BO, on turning to the Ephesians and Colossians (again 
an illustration of the unity of authorship), we find in 
one, "That ye, having your root and your founda- 
tion in love your root as a tree, your foundation 
as a building, 1 may be able to know what is the 
love of Christ ; " and in the other, " As ye have re- 
ceived Christ so walk in Him, having your root 
struck down deep into Him, and raising up the build- 
ing on Him as your foundation." 2 A glance at the 
Greek shows that the language is the same in both 
passages. The only difference is, that in the former 
the Ephesians are addressed as having been set on a 
safe foundation, the Colossians are reminded of the 
duty of raising up the structure so founded. Nor is 
this the only place in the Epistle to the Colossians 
where reference is made to the foundation. 3 

But let us turn to two other passages, where the 
imagery is presented to us in detail. Both are good 
illustrations of what Paley calls St. Paul's peculiarity 
of " going off at a word." In the nineteenth verse 
of the second chapter of the Ephesians, after he has 
happened to use the word " household," it seems as 
if the whole house rose before him, from foundation 
to roof, and transformed itself into a temple. The 
chapter concludes thus : " Ye are built upon the foun- 
dation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ 
Himself being the chief corner-stone ; in Whom all 
the building fitly framed together groweth unto an 
holy temple in the Lord: in Whom ye also are 
1 Eph. iii. 17. 2 Col. ii. 6, 7. 3 See Col. i. 23. 

6 



32 THE METAPHORS OF ST. PAUL. 

builded together for an habitation of God through 
the Spirit." a Now, all I will observe on this quota- 
tion is this : that I do not believe that the apostles and 
prophets are the foundation of which St. Paul speaks ; 
but that Jesus Christ is foundation-stone and corner- 
stone in one. I would render it thus : " Built on 
the apostolic and prophetic foundation-stone " the 
stone which apostles and prophets laid, and on which 
they themselves rest, for " other foundation can no 
man lay, than that is laid," namely, Christ, The 
other passage is in the Second Epistle to Timothy. 
Having spoken of the overthrowing of the faith of 
some, the Apostle adds : " Nevertheless, the founda- 
tion of God standeth sure, having this seal, The Lord 
knoweth them that are his : and, Let every one that 
nanieth the name of Christ depart from iniquity." 2 
What two grand inscriptions! Two eternal prin- 
ciples, one expressing the immutability of God, to 
drive away despair ; the other describing the charac- 
ter of God's people, to drive away presumption. "Well 
may they be indelibly cut on the apostolic and pro- 
phetic foundation. 3 

I said I would pass from the foundation to the 
step. The text to which I refer is again in one of 
the Pastoral Epistles : " They that have used the 
office of a deacon well purchase to themselves a good 
degree." 4 This is an interesting passage, and I 
hardly think it is to be understood as it is commonly 

1 Eph. ii. 20-22. 2 2 Tim. ii. 19. 

8 See Rev. xxi. 14. * 1 Tim. iii. 13. 



CLASSICAL ARCHITECTURE. 33 

explained. The English word " degree " is correctly 
used in the sense of a step for further progress, as 
it is used in Shakespeare's " Julius Caesar " of the 
climber up ambition's ladder : 

" But when he once attains the utmost round, 
He then unto the ladder turns his back, 
Looks in the clouds, scorning the base degrees 
By which he did ascend." 

I do not say that the words just quoted from St. 
Paul are generally interpreted in the spirit of this 
speech of Brutus ; but the popular interpretation in- 
volves some risk of taking this direction. I cannot 
but hesitate to believe that St. Paul urges deacons to 
a discharge of duty either by the prospect of promo- 
tion, or by the charm of a higher position in the 
esteem of men. I should rather suppose that he al- 
ludes to their making sure of a firm spiritual stand- 
ing, as before God and in prospect of the great day. 
This is more in harmony with the context. The 
" good degree " is coupled with " great boldness in 
the faith." All this they secure "to themselves." 
Besides doing service to the Church, they advance 
more and more in the confidence of their own spirit- 
ual life. With this expression it may be useful to 
compare what is said at the end of this Epistle 
(though there perhaps the metaphor is mixed), of 
the " laying up in store for ourselves a good founda- 
tion against the time to come, that we may lay hold 
on eternal life." * And it is certainly a coincidence of 

1 Tim. vi. 19. 



34 THE METAPHORS OF ST. PAUL. 

some interest that all the passages which I have just 
been adducing in reference to the foundation and 
basement of buildings, are from Epistles addressed 
to Ephesus, where that celebrated Temple was, on 
the substructions of .which immense labor and ex- 
pense had been lavished, that Temple which was 
full in sight when the mob cried out for two hours, 
" Great is Diana of the Ephesians." 

But let us enter the house under the Apostle's 
guidance, and see what spiritual application he makes 
of the furniture which we find there. I follow the 
context of a passage which has already been partially 
quoted. In the Second Epistle to Timothy, in the 
second chapter, having described the foundation, he 
passes on to say : " But in a great house there are 
not only vessels of gold and of silver, but also of 
wood and of earth ; and some to honor and some to 
dishonor. If a man therefore purge himself from 
these, he shall be a vessel unto honor, sanctified, and 
meet for the Master's use, and prepared unto every 
good work." l In the nineteenth verse he seems to 
set before us the Church in its essential character, as 
resting on an exclusive basis and marked by eternal 
principles ; here, in what follows, the Church is ex- 
hibited to us in its mixed and outward character, lest 
erroneous conclusions should be drawn from the pre- 
ceding. We have here a parable like the parable of 
the net ; but we have something more than in the 
parable of the net. Not only are there two classes, 

i 2 Tim. ii. 20, 21. 



CLASSICAL ARCHITECTURE. 35 

vessels of rich material to honor, and vessels of 
mean material to dishonor, but there are gradations 
in each class ; gold and silver in the one, wood and 
earth in the other ; not all among the good equally 
good, not all among the bad equally bad. A great 
house has a vast variety of furniture. In the twen- 
tieth verse we have the duty and the responsibility 
which arise from the consideration of this fact. 

Our thoughts are carried, by natural association, 
from this passage to another of still more solemn im- 
port, where the same imagery is employed. I mean 
those verses in the ninth of the Romans, avowedly 
difficult even to the sternest Predestinarian, where 
the vessels of wrath are contrasted with the vessels 
of mercy : the former fitted (not by God) to de- 
struction, the latter expressly prepared (by God) 
unto glory. 1 I think we gain something, in the expo- 
sition of this passage, by following the line of St. 
Paul's metaphorical language, and by putting the 
words in the Romans side by side with the other 
more explicit words addressed, to Timothy. In that 
place we see that the Apostle does not urge his illus- 
tration beyond the point of contrast and classification. 
He does not say that because the furniture in a great 
house is separated into great classes, with subordi- 
nate gradations in each, therefore the members of 
the Church on earth are irrevocably so divided. He 
adds, that if a man keeps himself clear from associa- 
tion with the meaner vessels, he will himself become 

i Rom. ix. 21-23. 



86 TILE METAPHORS OF ST. PAUL. 

one of the nobler. So in the Romans we have the 
two classes set before us : the sure tendency of the 
one to destruction, unless there is a recovery ; the 
great truth that the glorious condition of the other 
is due to God only. All else is left open and un- 
touched. The language is not so much argumenta- 
tive as illustrative. It is of great importance, in the 
interpretation of Scripture, not to press a metaphor 
beyond the point which it was intended to elucidate, 
and not to deal with allegory as though it were 
logic. 

Now, in drawing toward the conclusion of this sec- 
tion, I wish to revert to a remark which I made at 
the outset, namely, that a careful notice of the signif- 
icance of imagery is all the more incumbent on us, 
in proportion as the circumstances from which that 
imagery is drawn may be peculiar. We ought to 
keep in mind the distinctive character of Classical 
Architecture, and to remember that it was from this 
architecture that St. Paul drew his illustrations. We 
are apt to give too Oriental a coloring to the New 
Testament, and this for an obvious reason. The 
Classical world has passed away. We must repro- 
duce it, if we wish to see it as it was. But, to real- 
ize the outward circumstances of the Old Testament, 
we need only read the books of travellers, and study 
the pictures of modern artists. We see Abraham in 
every sheik ; Rebecca is at the well near every village ; 
the climate and the seasons are in the main unal- 
tered But the colonial lictors at Philippi, the Prae- 



CLASSICAL ARCHITECTURE. 37 

torium at Rome, Pilate with his official chair on the 
piece of tesselated pavement, these must be rein- 
stated in the scene, if we are to see them at all. The 
materials for reproducing the life exist in abundance 
in literature and museums, but the life itself does not 
exist ; and the work of reproducing it requires 'the 
union of exact scholarship rightly applied, with a 
lively imagination under the control of judgment. 
Now, the illustrations which St. Paul connects with 
human habitations are not drawn from the wilder- 
ness, not from the transient dwellings of nomadic 
life, but from the solid cities of the Greeks and 
Romans. We might quote, in elucidation of this, a 
verse where he uses that very contrast to heighten 
the emphasis which he wishes to give to a forcible 
passage : " I know that if this earthly dwelling, which 
is only a tent, is taken to pieces, I have a building 
of God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the 
heavens." 1 Nor is it from any Eastern kind of 
architecture, but from Classical Architecture, that St. 
Paul draws his metaphors of this class. There is 
one passage which might at first sight be thought an 
exception ; but it is not really such. I allude to that 
place in the Ephesians where he says that Christ has 
" broken down the middle wall of partition, that He 
might reconcile both Jews and Gentiles unto God in 
one body." 2 I imagine there is a tacit reference to 
that partition wall in the Jewish Temple, on which 
notices were put up, forbidding Gentiles to enter the 
1 2 Cor. v. 1. 2 Epb. ii. 14, 16. 



38 THE METAPHORS OF ST. PAUL. 

Inner court. But then Herod's Temple was of Class- 
ical Architecture, like the great structures in Athens 
and Ephesus, not, as Solomon's may have been, of 
some Eastern Phoenician style, like the buildings of 
Tyre. Josephus gives us a full description of the 
Corinthian columns. Even the notices on the parti- 
tion wall were in Latin and Greek. The complexion 
of Palestine 'in St. Paul's day was probably Euro- 
pean rather than Asiatic ; and we should be quite in 
error if we were to imagine the monotony of a mod- 
ern Eastern town to be the type of what he habitu- 
ally saw in Csesarea, or even in Jerusalem. 

Now, are there any peculiarities of Classical Archi- 
tecture which we ought to take into account when we 
comment on any of the illustrations which, for our 
instruction, St. Paul was inspired to draw from that 
source ? It seems to me that there are two. One is 
this, that all conspicuous Greek buildings, and most 
of the conspicuous Roman buildings, of his time, were 
characterized by vertical columns, supporting a hori- 
zontal entablature. 

The significant application of this peculiarity is 
seen at once in that passage, where, in a time of con- 
troversy, he adduces the support of James and Cephas 
and John, who had the recognized reputation of being 
" pillars " in the Church. 1 Here the Church is evi- 
dently treated as a building, a palace, or temple, or 
the like; and these three men are spoken of, not 
simply as stones in the building, just as ordinary 

i Gai. ii. 9. 



CLASSICAL ARCHITECTURE. 39 

Christians might be, but as characteristic ami essen- 
tial parts, as both ornaments and supports. 1 Now, 
apply this to another context, concerning which some 
dispute has almost always existed : " These things I 
write, that thou rnayest know how thou oughtest to 
bohave thyself in the house of God, which is the 
Church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the 
truth." 2 I hold" it to be an indefensible 'distortion of 
the passage, from polemical reasons, to take these last 
words and connect them with what follows, thus : 
"The pillar and ground of the truth, and without con- 
troversy great, is the mystery of godliness." I see no 
reason why the Church should not be called a pillar 
and support of the truth. What, indeed, would be- 
come of the light without the candlestick ? But I am 
very much disposed, notwithstanding, to think that 
this is. not the meaning of the passage. I am inclined 
to believe that Paul says this to Timothy : " I write 
to thee, seeing that thou hast a prominent and respon- 
sible place in the house of God, in order that thou 
mayest fill that place aright, and be thyself indeed a 
pillar and support of the truth." In favor of this 
view, we have the analogy of the passage just adduced 
from the Galatians. "We have also this consideration, 
that the Church is a building, not a pillar, while a 
pillar is a partial support of a classical building, and 
one ornament out of many. It is in the criticism of 
just such a passage as this that I would claim for 
Archeology its right to be combined with Philology 

l See Rev. iii. 12. 2 1 Tim. Hi. 14, 15. 

7 



40 THE METAPHORS OF ST. PAUL. 

Not that there is any grammatical objection to the 
interpretation I am advocating; nor is the sanction 
wanting of early commentators, whose instinctive 
sense in a case of this kind is of considerable moment. 
The other architectural feature of ancient cities, to 
which I desire to invite attention, brings us at once 
to the passage from that third chapter of the First 
Epistle to the Corinthians, to which reference was 
made at the outset. I believe that in such cities as 
Ephesus, where the letter was written, or Corinth, to 
which it was addressed, there was a signal difference 
(far greater than in modern European cities) between 
the gorgeous splendor of the great public buildings, 
and the meanness and squalor of those streets where 
the poor and profligate resided. The former were 
constructed of marble and granite ; the capitals of 
their columns and their roofs were richly decorated 
with silver and gold ; the latter were mean structures, 
run up with boards for walls, with straw in the inter- 
stices, and thatch on the top. This is the contrast on 
which St. Paul seizes slabs and pillars of marble 
and granite, and gold and silver, on one hand; 
wood, hay, stubble, on the other, to set forth two 
very different results of the spiritual edification (I use 
the word in its neutral sense) which goes on in the 
Church. Sometimes the passage is treated as though 
the picture presented were that of a dunghill of straw 
and sticks, with jewels, such as diamonds and emer- 
alds, among the rubbish. But such an image would 
be utterly improbable in itself, and out of harmony 



CLASSICAL ARCHITECTURE. 41 

with all the context. The whole allegory is strictly 
and consistently architectural. 1 

In order to enter into the full significance of the 
allegory, we should look at the context. St. Paul is 
addressing those who were addicted to the spirit of 
party, and is speaking of the right estimate of Chris- 
tian ministers. He first uses an agricultural meta- 
phor, and then he passes to an architectural. Our 
approach to the architectural structure lies, as it were, 
through a garden or orchard. Here Paul has planted 
the precious trees. Apollos, and probably others 
with him, as subordinates and successors to Paul, are 
watering them. Suddenly the image changes to a 
new one, more capable of being turned to what the 
Apostle wishes to enforce. A building in progress 
rises before us. Paul has laid the foundation, laid 
it once for all, and laid it well. He has no objection 
to say this, for it has been done by the grace of God. 
On this foundation Apollos and others are building. 
As to building on another foundation, this is set aside 
at once. The work is going on, and will go on in- 
definitely in the future ; but it will be tested. A day 
will come when the fire will burn up those wretched 
edifices of wood and straw, and leave unharmed in 
their glorious beauty those that were raised of marble 
and granite, and decorated with silver and gold. The 
men who raised such structures as these shall not 
only be safe, but rewarded ; the men who lost their 
tune on the others shall just escape out of the confla- 

i See pp. 65-67. 



42 THE METAPHORS OF ST. PAUL. 

gration, because they built on the right foundation, 
but their escape shall be barely an escape. 

It is a most serious admonition to the minister of 
the Gospel " to take heed how he buildeth," that is, 
with what materials, what kind of teaching, what 
kind of parochial arrangements, what kind of pro- 
vision for the young, what kind of care for tender 
consciences or for desperate guilt. He should con- 
sider, too, what his materials have cost him. If they 
are cheap and worthless, the first that came to hand, 
what fate can he expect for his building in the day 
of trial ? Is it not well worth his while to see that 
the quarry is worked for the stone, and the mine ex- 
plored deep for the silver and the gold, that all his 
materials may be precious, solid, and good, and may 
survive the fire, as the temples of Corinth itself sur- 
vived the conflagration of Mummius, which burnt the 
hovels around ? 

It will be gathered that I think the building itself 
in this passage is not simply the development of doc- 
trine and the promotion of sound practical truth. 
These I look on as the materials of building. The 
building itself I should regard, in analogy with all 
that has preceded, as the persons, or rather I ought 
to say the characters, which result from this good or 
bad edification. 

But still the passage may be lawfully applied to 
remind us of the importance of regular and system- 
atic instruction in religious truth. And hence a 
lesson may be drawn, which has reference to the re- 



CLASSICAL ARCHITECTURE. 43 

sponsibility of the recipients, not the givers, of in- 
struction. And. we may conclude with an extract 
from the first of the Catechetical Lectures of St. Cyril, 
which he delivered about the year 347 A. D. in the 
grand Basilica erected by Constantine the Great : 
" Abide thou in the catechisings," he says. " Though 
our discourse be long, let not thy mind be wearied out 
For thou art receiving thine armor against the an- 
tagonist power : against heresies, against Jews, and 
Samaritans, and Gentiles. Thou hast many enemies. 
Take to thee many darts." He uses here the military 
imagery, which was the subject of the first of these 
essays. Presently he uses the agricultural imagery, 
which will be the subject of the next of the series. 
" Study the things that are spoken, and keep them for- 
ever, considering this to be the planting season. 
Unless we dig, and that deeply, how shall that after- 
wards be planted rightly which has once been planted 
ill ? " And then quite in St. Paul's own manner 
he passes to the simile with the consideration of 
which we have been occupied in the present essay, 
- " Or consider catechising to be a kind of building. 
Unless we dig deep, and lay the foundation ; unless 
by successive fastenings in the masonry we bind the 
framework of the house together, that no opening be 
detected, nor the work be left unsound, nought avails 
all our former labor. But stone must succeed stone 
in course, and corner must follow corner, and, ine- 
qualities being smoothed away, the masonry must 
rise regular. In like manner, we are ? ringing to 



4:4 THE METAPHORS OF ST. PAUL. 

tliee stones, as it were, of knowledge. Thou must 
near concerning the living God; concerning the Judg- 
ment; concerning Christ; concerning the Resurrec- 
tion ; and many things are made to follow one the 
other, which, though now dropped one by one, at 
length are presented in harmonious connection. But 
if thou wilt not connect them into one whole, and re- 
member what is first, and what is second, the builder 
indeed buildeth, but the building will be unstable." 



m. 

ANCIENT AGRICULTURE. 

'I3APID transitions from one metaphor to anothel 
-*- * are characteristic of St. Paul. 

One transition of this kind is to be found in the 
eighth verse of the tenth chapter of the Second 
Epistle to the Corinthians. St. Paul has been using 
language drawn from the incidents of a campaign to 
describe the course which he himself might be forced 
to adopt, if those to whom he writes, or others, were 
to persist in their disobedience. In such a case he 
might be compelled to put all his spiritual power into 
action, and to " pull down " their " strongholds " of 
arrogance and pride, just as the rock-forts of his 
native Cilicia were destroyed in the Roman wars with 
the pirates. Such a course of procedure would be a 
cause of deep regret to him ; for, as he says in the 
verse before us, " the authority " which " the Lord 
had given," was intended for purposes of " edifica- 
tion," or building up, not for purposes of " destruc- 
tion," or pulling down. This is the last echo of the 
military image, or rather not the very last echo, 
for the identical phrase is found again at the very 
close of the Epistle, 1 but it is an echo of the mil- 

1 See 2 Cor. xiii. 10. 



46 TEE METAPHORS OF ST. PAUL. 

itary image, though in the English version it is 
muffled, as it were, so as to be almost inaudible ; and 
the fact to which attention is invited is the close jux- 
taposition in one sentence of the military and the 
architectural metaphor. 

Another instance of rapid transition may introduce 
us directly to the subject of the present section. The 
agricultural metaphors of St. Paul are not by any 
means the most prominent, but they constitute a suf- 
ficient topic for one essay. " Ye are God's husbandry, 
ye are God's . building," he says to the Corinthians, 
in the ninth verse of the third chapter of his First 
Epistle. The agricultural and the architectural image 
are here side by side, as, in the last case, the archi- 
tectural and the military. "We have already given our 
attention to the architectural allegory which follows 
this point of transition. Our subject now is the 
agricultural allegory which precedes it: "I have 
planted, Apollos watered ; but God gave the increase. 
So then neither is he that planteth anything, neither 
he that watereth : but God that giveth the increase". 
Now he that planteth and he that watereth are one ; 
and every man shall receive his own reward accord- 
ing to his own labor. For we are laborers together 
with God : ye are God's husbandry." a 

Paley points out very acutely the delicate yet per- 
fectly unconscious harmony of this passage with what 
we read in the Acts, and uses it as an argument for 
the authenticity of both the Epistle and the History, 
i 1 Cor. iii. 6-9. 



ANCIENT AGRICULTURE. 47 

Not only must Paul have been at Corinth before 
Apollos, but Apollos must have been there in the 
interval between the Apostle's visit and the writing 
of this letter. This is not our subject now, except so 
far as this, that it leads us to mark more closely the 
Providential sequence of one teacher after another in 
God's gracious work of preparing and maturing his 
Church. 

This image of a large cultivated garden, in which 
many are employed, is indeed a most apt, a most 
copious illustration of nearly all the main character- 
istics of the Christian Ministry. There is first the 
succession of which I have spoken, the tasks as- 
signed now to one and now to another, according to 
the law of the seasons and the will of the great Mas- 
ter of the garden, one beginning when another has 
left off; one completing what another has prepared. 
At the same time there is justice to each : " Every 
man shall receive his own reward according to his 
own labor." And yet all the work is one. Though 
many hands are employed, according to their aptitude 
and the time when they are required, the progress is 
one through the advancing year to one result : " He 
that planteth and he that watereth are one." All, 
too, is entirely dependent on an unseen power : 
"Neither is he that planteth anything, neither he that 
watereth : but God that giveth the increase." Then 
there are the lessons of cheerfulness, hopefulness, and 
patience ; the habit of not looking for immediate 
results, but at the same time the confident expecta- 
8 



48 THE METAPHORS OF ST. PAUL. 

tion that in spite of adverse weather the flower and 
fruit will come at last, which all are necessarily 
associated .with the very thought of a garden, and 
which should be diligently fostered by every Christian 
minister in" his own heart and mind. ~ "And "lastly, 
there is the duty of giving diligent heed 'to the young 
plants. How much may be expected, if they are 
vigilantly and carefully tended at first, one by one ! 
" Let us get up early to the vineyards ; let us see if 
the vine flourish, whether the tender grape appear, 
and the pomegranates bud forth." x 

It has been said before, that the references to 
nature in St. Paul's writings are almost entirely to 
nature in connection with human labor ; not to its 
beauty and to the impressions which the mind pas- 
sively receives from it, but to its useful and beneficent 
processes under the work of cultivation. There is 
hardly any mere natural imagery in his Epistles. 
"We find more of this kind of illustration in the one 
short Epistle of St. James, than in all the writings of 
St. Paul. What we read in the fifteenth chapter of 
the first letter to the Corinthians, " There is one 
glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, 
and another glory of the stars : for one star differeth 
from another star in glory," 2 is no real exception 
to this. This is not an outburst of adoring admira- 
tion, like those of the Psalmist " when he considered 
the heavens, the work of God's fingers, the moon 
and the stars, which He had ordained." 3 It is really 

1 Cant. vii. 12. 2 i Cor. xv. 41. 3 Ps. viii. 3. 



ANCIENT AGRICULTURE. 49 

the continuance of the preceding argument, and a 
new illustration arising out of that which he had 
used before. He had been speaking of the difference 
between " bodies terrestrial," or the organization of 
beings ^like^mirselves -Adapted - to an existence on 
earth ; and " bodies celestial," or the organization of 
beings like the angels, adapted to a heavenly res- 
idence. And nothing is more natural (if I may so 
speak) than that this contrast should suggest another 
connected with the heavens themselves. The sun, 
the moon, and the stars, though they all give light, 
are very different among themselves, and each is 
suited to its own place and its own function. So 
above he had said that among the organisms of ani- 
mal life on the earth there are great varieties, each 
according to its office in the economy of God's world : 
"All flesh is not the same flesh; but there is one 
kind of flesh of men, another flesh of beasts, another 
of fishes, and another of birds." Now, going back- 
wards again along the line of the Apostle's illustra- 
tions, we have the passage which I am aiming at : 
" But some man will say, How are the dead raised 
up ? and with what body do they come ? Thou fool, 
that which thou sowest is not quickened except it 
die : and that which thou sowest, thou sowest not 
that body that shall be, but bare grain, it may chance 
of wheat, or of some other grain : but God giveth it 
a body as it hath pleased Hun, and to every seed his 
own body." l Here we have that reference to nature 

1 1 Cor. xv. 35-38. 



50 THE METAPHORS OF ST. PAUL. 

in its connection with human labor and its produc- 
tive operations rather than its mere phenomena, to 
which allusion was made just now.. As, in speak- 
ing to the uneducated Lystrians, St. Paul had urged 
" the rains from heaven and the fruitful seasons " as 
an argument for gratitude and a lesson against idol- 
atry, so here he presses on the speculative Corin- 
thians the facts with which they were familiar in the 
sowing and reaping of every year, as one reason for 
casting aside all theoretical objections to a resurrec- 
tion of the body. The grain and the corn-plant, the 
seed and the harvest, are the same, and yet not the 
same. They are so connected as to be identical, and 
yet a wonderful change of form and organization has 
taken place under the operation of mysterious laws. 
Why should it be otherwise with our own frames ? 
He returns to this illustration again, after deviating 
just rapidly to touch the other illustrations : '' So also 
is the resurrection of the dead. It is sown in corrup- 
tion, it is raised in incorruption ; it is sown in dishonor, 
it is raised in glory ; it is sown in weakness, it is raised 
in power ; it is sown a natural body, it is raised a 
spiritual body. There is a natural body, and there is 
a spiritual body." 1 We have here, then, what I think 
may truly be termed an agricultural allegory. The 
appeal is to the universal experience cf man in the 
work of husbandry. And if there is just one Jewish 
touch where the subject is first approached in this 
chapter, " Christ the first-fruits, afterwards they 

1 1 Cor. xv. 42-44. 



ANCIENT AGRICULTURE. 51 

that are Christ's it his coming," this is quite 
what we should expect. 1 

This image of tb<i harvest, in various applications, 
as we know, pervade* the whole of Scripture from 
its very earliest porters, from the dreams of Joseph 
or of Pharaoh, and the gleaning of Ruth and- her 
mother. But St. Paul ues it so pointedly, and so 
much in a way of his own-, tfiat I think it may be in- 
cluded as an element in his characteristic style. The 
progressive change of org-an? nation, along with ab- 
solute identity of being, has uigt been adduced as a 
type of the Resurrection. Hov solemnly is this 
thought (in the sixth chapter of the Galatians) con- 
nected with the ultimate results to ourselves in eter- 
nity of the life which we lead in the moments of our 
time ! " Be not deceived ; God is not mocked ; for 
whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also re*p. 
For he that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh rear* 
corruption ; but he that soweth to the Spirit shall of 
the Spirit reap life everlasting." 2 Here is the prin 
ciple of inevitable retribution, the growing and grow 
ing, according to irresistible laws ; the moral organis#- 
passing into new forms without losing its identity 
just as the rich waving harvest is developed from the 
poor shriveled grain. And clearly here the humap 
side of the subject, the actual agricultural process, is 
a very prominent part of the image and the lesson, 
whether it be viewed in the aspect of warning or 01 
encouragement. And tiiie same train of thought meeta 
1 Cor. xv. 20, 23. 2 Gal. vi. 7, 8. 



52 THE METAPHORS OF ST. PAUL. 

us in a nearly contemporary Epistle, in reference to 
another subject, namely, the blessing, " twice blest," 
of generous giving : " He which soweth sparingly shall 
reap also sparingly ; and he which soweth bountifully 
shall reap also bountifully ; " " God loveth a cheerful 
giver.' 5 It is written of such a man that he " disperses 
abroad ; he gives to the poor ; " and yet he is no loser ; 
his " righteousness " or rather it ought to be, his 
liberality and beneficence, his power of doing good 
r- " endureth " still. 1 A man is no loser by sowing 
his grain, La faith, with an open hand ; he secures the 
harvest, and he secures a larger supply of grain than 
ever, for sowing in future over wider fields. In the 
encouraging verses which conclude the passage, I 
will not stay to inquire whether the true reading 
gives the Apostle's words in the form of a promise 
or a prayer ; for indeed promises and prayers in the 
Apostolic writings run into one another, so that we 
can hardly distinguish them, even as the readings of 
the manuscripts do in such passages. " Now He 
that ministereth seed to the sower," in the world of 
nature and in the work of agriculture, "may He 
multiply (or, He shall multiply) your seed sown, and 
increase the fruits of your righteousness," or rather, 
as before, " your liberality and beneficence," 
"being enriched in everything unto all bountiful' 
ness, which causeth through us. thanksgiving to 
God."' 1 No imagery could set before us more viv- 
idly the rich and increasing reward which waits upon 
1 2 Cor. ix. 6-9. 2 2 Cor. ix. 10, 11. 



ANCIENT AGRICULTURE. 5S 

faithful and generous service on our side, or the 
overflowing blessing on God's side, which gives life 
and abundance and growth to all honest spiritual 
husbandry. 

This passage leads me to single out a word which 
is certainly very characteristic of St. Paul. The 
word " riches " has often been noticed as marking his 
style ; and the same is true of the word "fruit ; " 
and not merely is this a verbal, but also a moral 
characteristic. It seems to me to express that kind 
of exuberance, so to speak, which will never allow 
him to hope and believe by halves. * The former 
word is a metaphor from the market, the latter from 
the corn-field or the orchard. He desires to visit the 
Romans, that he may "have some fruit among them 
also, as among other Gentiles." * Writing to the 
Philippians of the precariousness of his life, he says 
(so I understand him), that he valued tliis continu- 
ance " in the flesh " as the condition of bringing 
forth u fruit " in his work. 2 Writing to the Colos- 
sians, his expression concerning the Gospel is, that in 
all the world it is ever " growing," and ever " bring- 
ing forth fruit" 3 And this I notice (unless I am 
mistaken) as a mark of St. Paul's way of using (his 
word, that he always applies it to what is good. And 
that this should be so seems to us very appropriate 
and very beautiful. The blessedness of the right- 
eous man is that, planted as he is " by the water side," 
he " bringeth forth his fruit in due season," whereas 
1 Rom. i. 13. 2 Phil. i. 22. 3 Col. i. 6. 



54 THE METAPHORS OF ST. PAUL. 

the ungodly is " like the chaff which the wind 'driveth 
away." * The passage which most naturally occurs 
to us here is that in the Galatians, where the fruit of 
the Spirit is contrasted in detail with the icorks of 
the flesh. 2 It is a contrast very similar to that which 
we find elsewhere between the wages of sin and the 
gift of God. 3 Nor is that passage in the Galatians a 
solitary instance. We find the same in the Ephe- 
siaiis, " Walk as children of the light ; for the 
fruit of light is in all goodness and righteousness 
and truth," 4 the force of which is very much en- 
hanced by our observing what follows : " Have no 
fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness." 
And similar language is found in the Epistle to the 
Romans, ^ f "WbsA, fruit had ye then in those "things 
whereof ye are now ashamed ? " but " now, being 
emancipated " from that dreadful master, sin, and 
" become servants to God, ye have your fruit unto 
holiness, and the end everlasting life." 5 Sometimes 
-ihe-ph-rase- is applied, generally, as (not to repeat 
again that passage concerning " the fruits of right- 
eousness " addressed to the Corinthians) when ho 
desires that the Philippians may be "filled" with 
those "fruits of righteousness which are by Jesus 
Christ to the glory and praise of God," T or that the 
Colossians may be "fruitful in every good work, and 
increase in the knowledge of God." 8 Sometimes 

l Ps. i. 3, 4. 2 Gal. v. 19-23. 3 See Rom. vi. 23. 

* Eph. v. 8, 9, 11. 5 R om . vi. 21, 22. 6 3 Cor. ix. 10. 
T Phil. i. 11. s Col. i. 10. 



ANCIENT AGRICULTURE. 55 

the reference is specific, as when he says that he is 
going to Jerusalem to deliver and lay up safely in 
store, and to seal, " the fruit " of the liberality of 
the Christians in Macedonia and Achaia ; l or when 
he says afterwards of similar generosity which came 
to himself from Macedonia, " Not because I desire a 
gift, but I desire fruit that may abound to your ac- 
count ; " 2 or when he urges in one of the Pastoral 
Epistles, that they who profess Christ's religion must 
learn to maintain good works, and contribute to those 
wants of others which must of necessity be brought 
before them, in order that with all this profession 
they " be not unfruitful." 3 But in all these cases, 
whether they are general or specific, the reference is 
to -what is good.- - One apparent -exception-may very 
naturally here come into the mind, namely, that pas- 
sage in which two consecutive verses end, the former 
with the phrase " bring forth fruit unto God," the lat- 
ter with the phrase, " bring forth fruit unto death." 4 
But these verses occur in the seventh of the Romans, 
and even if the image were the same, T think it 
would be natural ~ to call the passage an oxymor&n-, 
and so it would really be an instance of the rule, 
and not an exception. I conceive, however, that the 
image is different, and that the reference is to fruit as 
the offspring of marriage. I believe it will be found 
true, that when St. Paul applies to moral subjects 
the word " fruit," as derived from the corn-field or 



1 Rom. xv. 28. 2 Phn. i v . 17. 

8 Tit. iii. 14. * R m. vii. 4, 5. 

' 9 



56 THE METAPHORS OF ST. PAUL. 

the orchard, he applies it to what is good. I say 
nothing of the other parts of Scripture. But it is as 
if he thought the term too honorable expressing as 
it does the result of man's honest, useful labor, in 
subordination to and in dependence on the bounteous 
and life-giving influences of Heaven, too honorable 
and too cheerful to be applied to what is bad. " The 
root of the righteous yieldeth fruit." l "He shall be 
as a tree planted by the waters, neither shall cease 
from yielding fruit." 2 

One particular passage a remarkable and diffi- 
cult passage in that Epistle to the Romans, now 
claims a moment of close attention. 3 I allude, of 
course, to the allegory drawn in the eleventh chapter 
from the grafting of the olive-tree. The image first 
appears in the sixteenth verse, and (as we have seen 
in other instances) in close combination with another 
image, " If the first-fruit be holy, the lump is also 
holy ; and if the root be holy, so are the branches ; " 
and then it is rapidly developed with varied and 
pointed application up to the end of the twenty-fourth 
verse. With all the great doctrinal and historical 
questions arising from this passage, we have on the 
present occasion nothing to do ; our concern is with 
the outward imagery, and in it there is this very 
strange circumstance, that the lesson is drawn from 
the grafting of branches of a wild olive-tree on the 
stock of a good olive-tree the grafting of branches 
of a wild fruit-tree on the stock of a good fruit-tree, 

i Prov. xii. 12. 2 j er . xvii. 8. 3 Rom. xi. 16-24- 



ANCIENT AGRICULTURE. 57 

x 
a process unheard of among gardeners. Com 

mentators have tortured themselves with this diffi- 
culty, and some of them have adduced instances of 
this process with certain supposed good results as 
regards the productiveness of the olive. I confess I 
am very skeptical on this point, and the explanation 
which I suggest is very simple, though I am not 
aware of having seen it previously suggested else- 
where. I believe that here partly is the very point 
of the parable, that the grafting was contrary to the 
law of nature. So strange a grafting as that which 
had taken place in the case of the Gentiles made the 
lesson far more emphatic to them. It was the very 
contrary to the grafting which took place in the 
olive-grounds to which all readers of the Epistle 
were accustomed. This work of artificial cultivation 
is indeed the basis of the parable, but it is the basis 
by way of contrast rather than of comparison. So 
our Lord, in St. Luke's Gospel, compares God to a 
selfish man and an unjust judge, and makes the ar- 
gument for the answering of prayer all the stronger. 1 
Or let us take another illustration. St. James says 
to the rich tyrants of his day, " Your gold and silver 
is rusted, and the rust of them shall be a witness 
against you." 2 Now gold does not rust. St. James 
was quite aware of this. But herein, I apprehend, is 
one part of the point of the image. Their very gold 
should become mysteriously their curse. So in the 
case before us. St. Paul knew very well the pro- 
1 See Luke xi. 8 ; xviii. 6. 2 James v. 3. 



58 THE METAPHORS OF ST. PAUL. 

cesses which took place in the olive-grounds which 
were abundant then, as they are now, in all parts of 
the Levant. He must have seen them often when he 
was a boy at Tarsus. Boys notice all such things ; 
and the experience of early life becomes, even in an 
Apostle, the basis of religious teaching. To find 
fault with him for inexactness, seems to me very like 
finding fault with him (as some critics do hi these 
days) for inaccurate applications of the Old Testa- 
ment. He knew the Old Testament, and so did his 
Jewish readers, far better than we do. But we must 
not leave our proper subject. 

And one other side of the subject must be touched 
before it has been handled completely. Agriculture 
has to do with the animal as well as the vegetable 
world ; and something within this province, too, in 
the writings of St. Paul, will reward our careful at- 
tention. 

I have sometimes been impressed with the fact, 
while thinking of this topic, that the critical words 
addressed to the Apostle from heaven at the thresh- 
old of his Christian career, were in truth an agricul- 
tural metaphor, " Saul ! Saul ! it is hard for thee " 
Who knows I write it with reverence whether 
at that moment the operations of ploughing might 
not be going on within sight of the road along which 
the persecutor was travelling? At all events, the 
image is certainly drawn from those operations, as 
certainly as the images in the Sermon on the Mount 
were drawn from the lilies which grew in the field, or 



ANCIENT AGRICULTURE. 59 

the birds which, flew over it. All who have journeyed 
in the East, or even in the South of Europe, are 
familiar with that ox-goad, the resistance to which only 
increases the suffering of the restive animal, and in 
allusion to which the force of conscience, sharpened 
by God's Spirit, is depicted in the words, " It is hard 
for thee to kick against the pricks." * And it seems 
to me interesting to notice, on the one hand, that our 
blessed Lord's words, spoken on this occasion from 
heaven, were a parable, like the parables which He 
graciously uttered on earth, and, on the other hand, 
that they are in harmony with, and might almost be 
fancied to have given a holy suggestion of, one class 
of the Apostle's own habitual imagery. 

I may remark that what was said in the earlier 
part of this section in reference to orchards, vine- 
yards, and corn-fields, has its counterpart here in ref- 
erence to flocks and oxen. St. Paul's illustrative lan- 
guage deals with human labor and its useful results, 
rather than with nature viewed poetically on the side 
of beauty and mere expressiveness. Accordingly, 
the animals under the care of man are presented to 
us more on the industrial side than the contemplative. 
It is the farmer near the large town, rather than the 
shepherd in the wilderness, who comes before us in 
the pages of this Apostle. It is remarkable that no- 
where, in all his unquestioned Epistles, 2 is Jesus Christ 
set forth as the Good Shepherd. I do not forget 
those touching words in the address at Miletus, " Take 
i Acts xxvi. 14. 2 See Heb. xiii. 20. 



60 THE METAPHORS OF ST. PAUL.. 

heed to the flock ; feed the Church which God hath 
purchased with his own blood ; for grievous wolves 
shall enter in, not sparing the flock." l And perhaps 
it would be strange if no one instance were found in 
SL Paul of the employment of an image which is 
almost universal throughout the rest of Scripture. 
But still it is not characteristic of his style. It is 
very different with regard to St. Peter, in whose First 
Epistle these words, " Feed the flock; be examples 
to the flock," 2 are a true echo of the words at the 
end of the Gospels, " Feed my sheep, feed my 
lambs." 3 

With St. Paul's habit of illustration the concourse 
of men, where business goes on and buying and sell- 
ing, is more in harmony than the solitary mountain- 
side, where the sheep are following their shepherd 
and diligently cropping the thin herbage on the rocky 
slopes. We see this in that passage of his Epistles 
when he does mention the flock, " Who goeth a war- 
fare any time at his own charges ? Who planteth a 
vineyard, and eateth not of the fruit thereof? or who 
feedeth a flock, and eateth not of the milk of the 
flock ? " 4 the real meaning of which is this, " Who 
keeps a vineyard or a flock of sheep without living 
by the profits of the grapes and the milk, when they 
are brought into the market ? " In this case, as in 
so many others, three metaphors one military and 
two agricultural are rapidly thrown together. The 

i Acts xx. 28, 29. 2 1 Pet. v. 2, 3. 

3 John xxi. 15-17. 4 1 Cor. ix. 7. 




o 



a 



ANCIENT AGRICULTURE. 61 

point on which they are brought to bear is the claim 
which Christian ministers have on the support of the 
people, whether or not they may find it necessary or 
politic to urge that claim. With this it seems natu- 
ral to combine another passage in another Epistle 
(remarkable also for the heaping up of metaphors), 
though there the duty of the minister to labor among 
his people is urged, his support being assumed, while 
here it is their duty to support him which is pressed, 
his labor being assumed. " No man that enters on a 
soldier's career mixes himself up with the common 
business of life ; no man, striving in the games will 
obtain the prize unless he has kept the rules ; the 
husbandman that laboreth must be first partaker of 
the fruits ; " * i. e., it is the farmer that works who 
has the first claim to the profits of the produce of 
the farm. The idle farmer, the idle clergyman, de- 
serves to starve. Perhaps the word " fruits " might 
more naturally seem to connect this sentence with the 
earlier part of this section ; but it is better to have 
taken it in its present connection, because of the com- 
mon bearing of both these passages on one subject 
the Christian ministry which also is the subject of 
the one remaining passage with which I am now about 
to conclude. 

" Thou shalt not muzzle the mouth of the ox that 
treadeth out the corn.''' When a sentence from the 
Old Testament is more than once quoted in the New 
Testament, it always seems to have a peculiar claim 

1 2 Tim. ii. 4-6. 



62 TEE METAPHORS OF ST. PAUL. 

on our reverent attention. And St. Paul quotes this 
sentence from Deuteronomy l twice, in two Epistles 
written at very different periods, and each time brings 
it to bear on the same topic. "It is written in the 
law of Moses, Thou shalt not muzzle the mouth of 
the ox that treadeth out the corn. Doth God take 
care for oxen ? or saith He it altogether for our sakes ? 
For our sakes, no doubt, this is written : that he that 
plougheth should plough in the hope of a harvest, 
and he that thresheth should do this in the hope of 
partaking of the harvest " 2 (for so I conceive the 
true meaning of the latter words would be given). 
The eye ranges here over the whole agricultural pro- 
cess, from the ploughing and sowing to the reaping 
and threshing, and all this ought to be conducted in 
hope ; otherwise all the cheerfulness, all the elasticity 
of the work is gone. The Christian people ought to 
be very careful that their clergy are not weighed 
down by the perpetual harassing care of the mainte- 
nance of their families and the education of their 
children. When they see all the harvest of wealth 
around them, they ought, if they labor patiently, at 
least to have - some small share of it. There may 
possibly, as Chrysostom says, be a hint to them, to 
this effect, that they do labor diligently, that they be 
not impatient under the irksome monotony of routine, 
and that they be content with, it may be, a very scanty 
portion of all this profusion of wealth. But the main 
lesson is to the Christian people, that they support 
i Deut. xxv. 4. 2 1 Cor. ix. 9, 10. 



ANCIENT AGRICULTURE. G3 

the hearts and the strength of their clergy by en. 
dowments, and gifts, and liberal payments, and still 
more by sympathy, and respect, and large coopera- 
tion. The lesson is riveted forever on the Church, 
in strong words, by the other passage, " Let the elders 
that rule well be counted worthy of double honor, 
especially they who labor in the word and doctrine ; 
for the Scripture saith, Thou shalt not muzzle the ox 
that treadeth out the corn." l How beautifully is this 
large lesson of charity and justice developed out of 
what might seem a very trivial and unimportant pre- 
cept ! " Doth God take care for oxen ? " Certainly 
He does, but Pie takes care for man much more. 
When He tells us that it is a duty to be considerate 
of the former, He reminds us that it is a still more 
urgent duty to feel sympathy for the latter. It is our 
Lord's argument, " Not a sparrow falls to the ground 
without your Father : ye are of more value than 
many sparrows ; " 2 and again, " Which of you shall 
have a sheep fallen into a pit on the Sabbath and will 
not lift it out ? How much is a man better than a 
sheep ? " 3 By thus inculcating the duty of consider- 
ately caring for dumb animals, the Jewish Law really 
enforces the general principle, the wider duty, which 
embraces all things, "both great and small." Our 
poet's words come here irresistibly into the mind, 

" The dear God who loveth us 
He made and loveth all." 

And indeed this considerate care in the minor instance 
1 1 Tim. v. 17, 18. 2 Matt. x. 29, 31. 3 Matt. xii. 11, 12. 

10 



64 THE METAPHORS OF ST. PAUL. 

is itself a training for humanity and kindness in refer- 
ence to the greater. Such a suggestion as that of 
this little precept in the Pentateuch, furnished to a 
thoughtful, devout, and feeling mind, spreads out into 
a thousand instances, and finds its opportunities in 
all the relations of life, and especially those relations 
where service on our behalf has established a claim 
to our gratitude. 



IV. 

GREEK GAMES. 

n HE four short essays in which I am inviting at- 
-*- tention to four of St. Paul's favorite metaphors, 
do not by any means exhaust the characteristic im- 
agery of that Apostle ; and in order to give a better 
completeness to the series, it may be useful to prefix 
to this last essay a few general remarks on the whole 
subject. 

A single example, selected out of those which have 
previously been given, may (though at the risk of 
some repetition) conveniently introduce these general 
remarks. St. Paul, in writing his First Epistle to the 
Corinthians, says to them, as we have seen, 1 " Ye are 
God's building." These simple words are like the 
striking of a key-note. There follows immediately 
the full swell of a familiar passage, 2 with all its melo- 
dious rhythm, and its intricate verbal and moral har- 
monies. There is no need to occupy ourselves again 
with the religious meanings of the passage. Atten- 
tion is simply directed to the characteristic nature of 
the allegory. If we place ourselves at Ephesus, 
where the letter was written, or at Corinth, where 
the letter was received, and mark the evident and 

l See p. 40. 2 i Cor. iii. 9-15. 



66 THE METAPHORS OF ST. PAUL.. 

outward characteristics of such places, we see at onca 
the significance of the language. Conspicuous in 
these cities were vast public buildings, such as the 
Temple of Diana at Ephesus, 1 and similar edifices at 
Corinth ; strong, firm, ana magnificent, with columns 
and slabs of marble, porphyry, and granite " pre- 
cious stones " and richly completed with .metallic 
decorations, " gold and silver." But close beside them 
were the hovels of the poor, with a sharpness of con- 
trast to which we are not accustomed, but which we 
can in some degree set before our minds by imagin- 
ing some of our great public edifices to be densely 
surrounded by an accumulation of wretched villages, 
with huts hastily run up with " wood," the interstices 
filled with "hay," and the roof thatched with '"'stub- 
ble." And now suppose a fire to take place in such 
a scene, and you have immediately the simple out- 
ward image on which the Apostle's manifold parable 
rests. All these wretched hovels, so cheaply, so 
carelessly built, would be burnt up; and all that 
could be hoped for to the poor man himself, in any 
one of them, would be a bare personal escape through 
the fiames. The great building, on the other hand, 
might be scorched and blackened, but it would stand 
steady and erect, and exhibit still all the proofs of 
patient working in the quarry, of good and solid ma- 
sonry, and of rich and elaborate ornament. In listen- 
ing to expositions of this passage, we often find that 
this plain and simple way of looking at it has never 

1 See Acts xix. 27. 



GREEK GAMES. G7 

occurred to the expositor, and we are presented with 
the unreal and grotesque image of a rubbish-heap, 
consisting of sticks and straw, and containing also 
some contents of a jeweler's shop, diamonds, rubies, 
and garnets. This is not the style in which St. Paul 
would be likely to write to educated men. And mia- 
conceptions of such a kind arise from this, that men, 
in interpreting Scripture, so often look only at the 
words and not at the things; so often forget that 
every writer in the Bible drew his illustrations from 
the circumstances with which he was surrounded, and 
especially those circumstances which were most in 
harmony with the temperament of mind which the 
Holy Ghost, in that particular case, consecrated and 
employed. 

The general notion, then, of these essays is this, that 
in order to enter into the full force of St. Paul's writ- 
ings it is needful to have, not only that clear appre- 
hension of the meaning of his words, which we obtain 
through our exact study of Greek literature, but also 
that apprehension of the familiar sights and sounds, 
customs and institutions, surrounding him, which is 
furnished by our knowledge of history and antiqui- 
ties, science and art ; and further, to consider care- 
fully what portions of that outward environment he 
most employs by preference or habit in the inculca^ 
tion of religious truth. In studying the Bible, the 
dictionary of things is almost as important as the dic- 
tionary of words ; and St. Paul's writings are no 
exception to this rule, but one of its best exemplifi- 
cations. 



68 THE METAPHORS OF ST. PAUL. 

As to Iiis own temperament and predilection, we 
may again revert to a remark which was made be- 
fore, 1 that his metaphors are usually drawn, not from 
the operations and phenomena of the natural world, 
but from the activities and the outward manifestations 
of human life. In this respect St. Paul's illustrative 
language has already been contrasted with that of 
St. James : " The vapor, the fierce wind, the foun- 
tain, beasts and birds and serpents, the flower of the 
grass, the wave of the sea, the early and latter rain, 
the sun risen with a burning heat," 2 these are like 
the figures of the ancient prophets. There is more 
imagery of this kind, I think, in the one short Epistle 
of St. James than in all the speeches and letters of 
St. Paul put together. The add*ress to the idolaters 
of Lystra, 3 country people as they were in a rude and 
remote district, if it is an exception at all, is exactly 
that kind of exception which makes the general rule 
more palpably evident. 

St. Paul's favorite figures are undoubtedly taken 
from the midst of the busiest human society. Four of 
these have been selected for careful examination, and 
we are now proceeding to consider the fourth. But 
others of the same general type might easily have 
been added to the list; and again, for the sake of 
completeness it may be desirable to name two or 
three instances. Thus, first, how large a portion of 
St. Paul's attention is given to money-matters ! How 

48. 2 James iv. 14; iii. 4, T, 11, 12 ; i. 6, 10, 11; v. 7 

3 Acts xiv. 15-17. 



GREEK GAMES. 69 

often are his images drawn from the market ! To 
take only three instances : " Owe no man anything, 
but to love one another." l It would be impossi- 
ble, perhaps, by the use of any other illustration, to 
express with equal force all that this sentence im- 
plies. Again, in the phrase, " Redeem the time," 2 
what is really said is this, " Buy out of the market 
what you may never bay so cheap again; use the 
opportunity while you have it, and use it thoroughly." 
So again, his reference to the laio courts and the ad- 
ministration of justice, even when he is arguing 
points of theology, is an instance which strikes us 
forcibly. An interesting question arises, whether in 
such passages he refers mainly to Jewish law or to 
Roman law, especially when the allusion is to mar- 
riage 3 and the making of wills ; 4 but in either case 
his consistency is preserved as regards the character- 
istic nature of his imagery. A third instance is that 
of slavery, as was almost inevitable for such a writer 
at this period of history. In the ancient world, war 
and slavery ran into one another ; and throughout 
the Roman empire the whole of society was made up 
of the contrasts of " bond " and " free," 5 with tho 
freedmen (and such, probably, were St. Paul's own 
ancestors) intermediate between the two. Hence, 
when speaking of the most momentous alternatives 
in the condition of the soul, his language is drawn 

1 Bom. xiii. 8. 2 Eph. v. 16 ; Col. iv. 5. 

a Rom. vii. 3, 4. .4 Qal. iii. 15 ; iv. 1. 

1 Cor. xii. 13; Gal. iii. 28; Col. iii. 11. 



70 THE METAPHORS OF ST. PAUL. 

from the experience of slaves. The great and de- 
cisive change is expressed thus : " Being emanci- 
pated from that cruel master, Sin, ye are now the 
happy slaves of a good master, God. 1 But it is time 
to proceed without delay to our proper subject. The 
imagery to which our special consideration is to be 
given now is the most animated of all, being derived 
from the lively and exciting games of the Greeks. 

There is an obvious reason why images of this 
kind should have been very familiar to St. Paul's 
thoughts, and why, when made the vehicles of instruc- 
tion, they should have been very helpful to his con- 
verts. V/herever he was residing, at Corinth, at Ath- 
ens, and in all places where a Greek population was 
predominant (and this was, in fact, over the whole of 
the Levant), the athletic games of the Greeks came 
before his notice, as a subject which caused the most 
engrossing and universal interest. The Gymnasium, 
or place of training, and the Stadium, or ground for 
running, were among the most conspicuous and most 
frequented spots in the architecture and embellish- 
ment of the cities. Of many of them the remains 
can still be traced. Wrestling, boxing, and especially 
foot-races, with all the preliminary training, with the 
assembled and applauding multitudes while the con- 
test was going on, with the formality of the heralds 
and the strict observance of the rules, with the um- 
pires and prizes and eager congratulations at the close, 
with the poems which perpetuated great victories like 
i Rom. vi. 18, 22. See vii. 23 ; viii. 21. 



GREEK GAMES. 71 

heir-looms through successive generations, these 
things were almost a religion among the Greeks, and 
they caused an enthusiasm which we ourselves can 
hardly understand, though it does happen that in our 
day athletic sports are a fancy and a fashion, and 
really in some cases, it would seem, almost a religion. 
I said, especially the foot-race. This was pre- 
eminently the struggle which caused the most eager 
interest in that age and in those countries. And this 
is preeminently the image which seems to come ob- 
viously to the Apostle, when he employs comparisons 
of this kind. We find instances in the book of Acts. 
Thus when he is preaching one of his great mis- 
sionary sermons at Antioch in Pisidia, and has occa- 
sion to mention John the Baptist, he speaks of Mm as 
"fulfilling his course" 1 which literally means, " run- 
ning the race he had to run ; " and this lively expres- 
sion is evidently a fitting representation of that career, 
which did not last very long, but was very energetic 
while it lasted. So in addressing the elders at Mile- 
tus, and speaking of himself, and alluding with deep 
feeling to the " bonds and afilictions " which awaited 
him, he says : " None of these things move me, 
neither count I my life dear unto myself, that I may 
finish my course with joy." 2 He knows that his 
course requires a vigorous effort ; he feels that there 
are many things to dissuade him from it and to cause 
him to turn aside ; but he braces himself up, like a 
runner, for the struggle, throws himself into it with 
1 Acts xiii. 25. 2 Acts xx. 24> 

11 



72 THE METAPHORS OF ST. PAUL. 

all his force and spirit, and thinks of the joy and 
exultation which await him at the close. 

Similar, and very frequently, is his language in 
the Epistles. It is well worth our while to observe 
how generally and variously this figure is distributed 
through them. Some phrases of this kind must ap- 
pear strange to those who do not consider the con- 
text of circumstances by which the Apostle was sur- 
rounded. Thus, to take as our guide the same Eng- 
lish word which we have observed in the Acts : 
" Pray for us," he says to the Thessalonians, " that 
the word of the Lord may have free course and be 
glorified." 1 Here the Gospel itself is the runner, 
for which he desires a race that shall be vigorous, 
rapid, free from obstacles, and triumphant at the end. 
Again, to turn to most pathetic language having 
reference to himself, he writes to Timothy, " I have 
fought the good fight ; I have finished my course ; 
I have kept the faith; henceforth there is laid up 
for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, 
the righteous Judge, shall give me at that day." 2 We 
must be careful here to give the right meaning to 
the word " fight." This term has nothing to do with 
war. It denotes an athletic contest. And the par- 
ticular kind of athletic contest, which he specifies in 
his customary way, is the foot-race. But now he is 
writing near the close of life. The race is nearly 
run, the struggle is all but over ; he is weary, as it 
were, and panting with the effort ; but he is success- 
1 2 Thess. iii. 1. 22 Tim. iv. 7, 8. 



GREEK GAMES. 73 

fill ; the crown is in sight, and the Judge, the " right- 
eous " Judge, who cannot make a mistake, is there, 
ready to place that bright wreath upon his head. 

And as with the word " course," so with the verb 
that corresponds with it. 1 " It is not of him that 
willeth, nor of him that runneth" says St. Paul in 
an argument, 2 which turns all our confidence toward 
Him who " hath compassion " and " showeth mercy." 
His anxiety regarding the success of his own apos- 
tolic work is expressed by the same image in two 
very different Epistles, written at widely separated 
points "of time, lie tells the Galatians that at an 
early period he negotiated very carefully at Jerusa- 
lem, " lest by any means he should run or had run 
in vain ; " 3 and writing long afterwards from Rome 
to the Philippians, he expresses his desire that they 
may be consistent, in order that he himself " may 
rejoice in the day of Christ, that he has not run in 
vain." 4 And the metaphor which he applies to the 
progress of the Gospel committed to him, he applies 
also to the practical consistency and progress of those 
who had learnt the trutli from him. "Ye did run 
well," he says to some, who had grievously failed 
and fallen ; " who hath hindered you, that ye should 
not obey the truth ? " 5 " Ye were running the Cliris- 

1 In 2 Thess. iii. 1, the margin has "run." No use is here made 
of Heb. xii. 1, simply because in these essaj-s it is not desirable 
absolutely to assume the Pauline authorship of that Epistle. 

2 Rom. ix. 15, 16. * Qal. ii. 2. 
4 Phil. ii. 16. 5 Gal. T. 7. 



74 THE METAPHORS OF ST. PAUL. 

tian race successfully and well; who put these ob- 
stacles in your way, which have thrown you down, 
and brought you to sharne ? " The whole language, 
as read in the original Greek, is far more easily rec- 
ognized as applicable to the foot-race, than can pos- 
sibly be perceived in the English version. 

Thus we see that both direct and indirect advan- 
tages may be gained, by pursuing a narrow line of 
thought suggested by mere words. We here perceive 
the harmony of St. Paul's language in his speeches 
and his letters, and lay hold on one of the small 
collateral proofs of the genuine and honest character 
both of the Acts and the Epistles. We are very far, 
however, as yet from having mentioned all instances 
of the use of such metaphors in these latter docu- 
ments ; and perhaps their use, in fact, strikes us all 
the more, when the actual words, to which our at- 
tention has hitherto been given, are not employed. 
Thus, when St. Paul says to Timothy, " Exercise 
thyself unto godliness," * the word he employs is 
most distinctly taken from the training and practic- 
ing for gymnastic contests. And then he adds : 
" Bodily exercise profiteth little, but godliness is prof- 
itable unto all things, having the promise of the life 
that now is, and of that which is to come," 2 a pas- 
sage often misinterpreted. It is, in fact, frequently 
distorted in two ways. The "bodily exercise" is 
taken to mean religious asceticism, and the contrast 
is understood to lie between this and some supposed 
1 1 Tim. iv. 7. 2 Ver. 8. 



GREEK GAMES. 75 

" godliness " not connected with bodily self-denial ; 
whereas the comparison is simply between the train- 
ing of the body for the games, and the training of the 
whole man, body, soul, and spirit, in the life of relig- 
ion. And this helps us to avoid the other mistake, 
which is often committed in the interpretation of the 
passage. It would be a strange thing, if St. Paul 
were to urge his disciple to the practice of a strict 
religious training of his character, by any promise 
relating chiefly to this life. He does nothing of the 
kind. He points out that, if the athletes will do so 
much for a reward which is merely of this world, we 
ought to do much under the influence of a promise 
which relates not merely to this world, but also to 
the next. God has indeed a blessing for this world, 
as the blessing of Esau ; but his highest blessing is 
for the next world, even as the blessing of Jacob. 
It is as if St. Paul said to Timothy (and we could 
well imagine that such recollections of the past were 
in his mind as he wrote), "My son Timothy, thou 
rememberest how, when we were at Corinth, 1 with 
our' brother Silas, and Crispus, the ruler of the syn- 
agogue, we watched the athletes training for the 
games ; young men of noble forms, eager and active 
patient and persevering. It was a foolish toil, for a 
worthless reward. But we may learn a serviceable 
lesson from them. The children of this world are in 
thoir generation more diligent than the children ot 
light. Train thyself thy religious character with 

1 Acts xviii. 5, 8. 



76 THE METAPHORS OF ST. PAUL. 

the like eagerness and activity, patience and perse- 
verance. . Thy reward is not only earthly, but heav- 
enly." And similar trains of thought might be fol- 
lowed in reference to other phrases, where not ob- 
viously at first sight, but still really, images from the 
games are imbedded in the context of the Epistles. 
Thus, when he says that he himself has spoken the 
Gospel of God " with much contention," l or that 
others have been " striving fervently " 2 in inter- 
cessory prayer, or when he tells Timothy to " fight 
the good fight of faith," 3 the metaphor is really ago- 
nistic, though the variations in the English version 
conceal the fact. But we must turn now to more 
copious passages, where the agonistic allegory is pre- 
sented in its most animated form. 

In the Epistle to the Philippians St. Paul writes 
thus : " Not as though I had already attained, either 
were already perfect, but J. follow after. This one 
tiling I do, forgetting those things which are behind, 
and reaching forth unto those things which are before, 
I press' toward the mark for the prize of the high 
calling of God in Christ Jesus." 4 Was there ever a 
more vigorous picture of a runner in earnest ? Here 
is the eager pressing toward a definite end in view, 
the feeling that nothing else is to be thought of 
for the present, the determination that nothing shall 
interfere with the matter in hand ; and at the same 
time, with this strong effort of the will, there is the . 

1 1 Thess. ii. 2. 2 Col. iv. 12. 

8 1 Tim. vi. 12. * Phil. iii. 12-14, 



GREEK GAMES. 77 

Utmost alacrity and activity of movement. Here is 
no looking back, no thought of giving up the strug- 
gle. The whole energy of mind and body is bent 
upon success ; and till success is achieved, nothing is 
done. It would be easy to dwell on these points at 
greater length ; but really the best commentary on 
the passage is supplied by the familiar facts of a well 
contested, foot-race. 

And there is yet a still more copious and lively 
instance of the same kind of illustration. As in the 
discussions of the other metaphors, some one passage 
was selected as furnishing the best sample, and as 
containing in fact the main basis for the discussion, 
so here we turn naturally to some verses in the ninth 
chapter of the First Epistle to the Corinthians: 
" Know ye not that they which run in a race, run all, 
but one receiveth the prize ? So run, that ye may 
obtain. And every man that striveth for the mastery 
is temperate in all things. Now they do it that they 
may obtain a fading crown ; but we an unfading. I 
therefore so run, not as uncertainly ; so fight I, not 
as one that beateth the air : but I keep under my 
body, and bring it into subjection ; lest that by any 
means, when I have preached to others, I myself 
should be a castaway." 1 It may perhaps be a help 
toward our entering fully into the spiritual meaning 
of this passage, if we try to associate one practical 
topic with each one of the four verses. 

And the topic which we may associate with the first 
1 1 Cor. ix. 24-27. 



78 THE METAPHORS OF ST. PAUL. 

of tlie verses is this : the earnestness of purpose that 
is essential to the Christian's career. " Know ye not 
that they which run in a race, run all, but one receiv- 
eth the prize? So run, that ye may obtain." St. 
Paul appeals to the experience of the Corinthians. 
There was nothing with which they were better ac- 
quainted than these famous foot-races. Their own 
games near their own city were among the most cele- 
brated in the world. They " knew " well that each 
race was eagerly contested, and that " one " obtained 
the prize. But at this point we must mark a differ- 
ence. In that race there was competition ; and be- 
cause there was competition, each runner was in ear- 
nest. In the Christian race there is no competition. 
The prize is within the reach of all. But then each 
runner must be as much in earnest as though there 
were competition and only one prize. And this is 
what the Apostle expresses. He does not say (as I 
understand his words) "run so in such a way as 
to obtain," but, " run so as those runners run 
in order that ye may obtain." In their case there is 
rivalry, and therefore they are in earnest. In your 
case there is no rivalry ; but their earnestness of pur- 
pose is an example to you. 

And certainly no pattern of earnestness can be a 
more forcible example than the earnestness that 
arises from eager competition. " Run in the Chris- 
tian race as the athlete in the foot-race runs." All 
bis nerves and sinews are strung up for the effort he 
is making. Nothing else is thought of ; and as the 



GREEK GAMES. 79 

distance between his feet and the winning-post dimin- 
ishes, he does not flag, but throws more and more 
exertion into the movement of his limbs. "Whatever 
strength and elasticity he can summon up, whatever 
struggling remainder of his short and failing breath 
he can muster, all may be wanted at the very last 
moment. And what a contrast this is to our dull and 
languid Christianity ! We go and take our place in 
the course as though the prize could be won without 
any running at all, or as if there were no prize worth 
running for. We dream and loiter and fold our arms ; 
we turn aside to look at every object of passing inter- 
est ; or if we did begin with some vigor, all the zest 
and warmth of the struggle grows feebler and fainter 
when it ought to become more animated, and, like 
the Galatians, we care little what hindrances occur 
to stop our course, and to risk a dishonorable fall. 
Earnestness of purpose is what we want, and there 
is no picture of earnestness more forcible than that 
which is drawn from the ardor of competition. 

But now we pass to the next verse, " Every man 
that striveth for the mastery is temperate in all 
things;" and the lesson is pointed by a contrast, 
" They do it to obtain a corruptible crown, but we an 
incorruptible." The successful athlete in the Greek 
foot-race received for his prize a crown of green 
leaves, placed by the judge upon his head. In itself 
it was of no value ; but it was the mark of victory. 
The winning of this crown was sung in poetry ; it 
was the subject of pride and congratulation to the 
12 



80 THE METAPHORS OF ST. PAUL. 

city from which the successful runner came ; and it 
was the ground of boasting for long generations af- 
terwards in his family. For the winning of this, ex- 
ertions were made involving the utmost patience and 
self-denial, and no waste of strength and activity was 
thought too great if only it could be secured. And 
yet it was only a corruptible, a fading crown. Its 
beauty passed away sooner than the beauty of those 
leaves which are stripped off from our trees by the 
winds of November. And indeed all human glory is 
a fading crown. It must wither and die in the end. 
Yet what trouble men take to obtain it ! Ajad what 
an example in this respect is the eager lover of glory 
to the Christian ! His crown can never fade. To 
lose that crown, as it certainly may be lost, by neg- 
lect, by indolence, by turning out of the right course, 
by felling headlong over temptations that lie before 
our very feet, this is surely the strangest and most 
unaccountable folly; while to win it is worth far 
more, ten thousand times, than all the toil of the most 
faithful servant of Christ, all the torture of the most 
suffering martyr. 

This verse, however, points not to suffering, but to 
self-restraint, which self-restraint is itself a blessing ; 
and the topic which we may associate with these 
words in the Apostle's comparison might be ex- 
pressed thus, self-restraint inspired by hope. It is 
often worth a man's while to give up something which 
he values for the sake of some higher good in pros- 
pect. This is what was done in the Greek athletic 



GREEK GAMES. 81 

Bports \vhen the competitors were under training ; 
and so indeed it is now, sometimes to an absurd ex- 
tent, in English athletic sports. Classical authors 
furnish us with materials, by help of which we might, 
if it were necessary, describe the strict discipline to 
which these young Greeks were subjected under the 
trainer, the diet, the exercise, the hard life, the fixed 
hours, the peremptory abstinence from everything 
likely to hinder the end in view. It is the example 
to the Christian presented by this discipline which 
is- the point before ns. Nor is tins the only place 
where the same Apostle makes a similar reference. 
In writing another of his Epistles, he says, " If a 
man also strive for masteries, yet is he not crowned, 
except he strive lawfully ; " x i. e., he cannot obtain 
the prize unless he complies with the regulations ; 
and these regulations included, among other things, 
very strict and systematic methods of discipline and 
training. And the gospel strife with earthly sin for 
a heavenly prize has likewise its strict regulations. 
There is a preparatory discipline and training to 
which the Christian must be subjected before he can 
be fit to enter on his reward. The discipline, how- 
ever, is, as was said before, itself a blessing. The 
training is a training for happiness. The Apostle 
expresses it thus : " Temperance in all things ; " the 
habit of self-restraint running through the whole life ; 
a check placed, not only on the passions, but on the 
words ; moderation strictly practiced in food and in 

i 2 Tim. ii. 5. 



82 THE METAPHORS OF ST. PAUL. 

sleep ; those eager desires for amusement and novelty 
kept in control ; so that the man is always master of 
himself. Thus under God's grace that character is 
formed, which commands respect and exerts influence 
in this life, and is prepared to enter on the future life, 
where no sin and folly disturb the balance of the pu- 
rified soul. It is the hope of that life which furnishes 
the motive for self-restraint, just as the hope of vic- 
tory in the foot-race gives the athlete patience to 
submit to all the discipline and training required by 
the rules. 

" I therefore so run, not as uncertainly ; so fight I, 
not as one that beateth the air," is the next of the 
Apostle's sentences. Definiteness of aim, then, in 
the Christian's race and contest, is our next topic. 
And it will be observed, that St. Paul presents this 
subject under two images : one drawn from running, 
the other from boxing. The foot-race was as I have 
said, the most popular athletic contest .among the 
Greeks ; and it supplied to the Apostle his favor- 
ite comparison, in connection with subjects of this 
class. But the pugilistic contest was also constant 
and familiar at the public games, and he combines 
this contest with the other in illustration of the point 
which is now before us. Not only does the Christian 
act with earnestness of purpose, not only is he en- 
couraged to practice self-restraint, but he is definite 
in his aims. And in two ways he is definite. He 
has a distinct view of the objects of his desire, and a 
distinct view of the enemies against which he must 
contend. 



GREEK GAMES. 83 

" I so run, not as uncertainly." A man who does 
aot know his own mind is seldom successful. That 
is a very unhappy temperament which is easily turned 
this way and that, and which always yields to the 
latest influence, is always persuaded by the last new 
argument. Such a man is continually in the hands 
of others. He is never his own master. He never 
does anything well. And there is another very un- 
happy habit of mind : when a man does not go direct 
to his point, when he tries experiments on the right 
and on the lefb ; when he loses time by hesitation, 
or follows circuitous methods, whereas the straight- 
forward course is always the best. They are both 
opposed to the true dignity of Christian principle. 
The disciple of Christ should he known as a simple- 
hearted man. His eye is single. He has one great 
object before him. His desire is to be like Christ, to 
prepare for spending eternity with that Blessed Mas- 
ter, and meanwhile to honor Him by doing good to 
all around him. And nothing could express this in 
a more lively manner than the comparison with the 
runner in a race. Direct; with the goal straight 
before him ; with his whole frame vigorously mov- 
ing that way ; moving, too, by the shortest path, 
such is his course. Let such be our course. " For- 
getting the things that are behind, and reaching for- 
ward to the things that are before, let us press to- 
ward the mark of the prize of our high calling." 

But still, while we have a course to run, we have 
also enemies to fight ; and, to express this, another 



84 THE JfETAPIIO.'tS OF ST PAUL. 

metaphor is appropriate : " So light I, not as one 
that beateth the air." St. Paul passes here from the 
runner to the boxer, and, drawing a comparison from 
this source, he points out that the Christian has very 
definite antagonists. With the pugilist it is no mere 
striking for striking 's sake, no mere pastime, no deal- 
ing of blows in the air for the exercise of the muscles. 
When the Corinthians or Athenians or Ephesians 
came in crowds to see their favorite athlete engaged 
in this contest, it was no showy and immeaning atti- 
tudes that they came to witness, but the vigilant and 
most active employment of hand and eye for the pur- 
pose of victory over an opponent equally active and 
vigilant. And the best application which we can 
make for ourselves of this apostolic comparison is 
this : that we must be on the alert against our beset- 
ting sins ; that we must keep our attention fixed upon 
them, and deal our blows steadily against them. 
Now, in order to do this, we must first know what 
our besetting sins really, are. This is a most serious 
subject. It is not sin in general that we have to con- 
tend against, not the sins of our neighbors, not the 
sins which we have no temptation to commit, but 
" the sin which doth so easily beset us." l What is 
that sin? Has the reader discovered his besetting 
sin ? If not, this is not the place for dogmatizing on 
spiritual things ; but it may well be doubted whether 
it is possible for us to be saved at all, unless we 
have found out our besetting sin. 

1 Heb. xii. 1. 



GREEK GAMES. 85 

Now let us consider the last of these four em- 
phatic verses : " I keep under my body, and bring 
it into subjection : lest that by any means, when 1 
have preached unto others, I myself should be a cast- 
away." The image of the pugilist is still continued 
here ; and we have to observe, first, what the Apostle 
does, and, secondly, why he does it. He resists his 
carnal nature, systematically attacks it, and perseveres 
till he has subdued it ; and this he does under the 
influence of a salutary fear, lest, whilst he has been 
made a blessing to others, he himself .should fail to 
obtain the reward. The topic then suggested by 
this part of the passage might be expressed thus: 
persevering effort inspired by fear. 

The simple fact of St. Paul using this image at all 
is a very grave fact. This pugilistic encounter was 
no mere light and languid amusement. Very often 
it was a matter of life and death. And certainly 
there is something very revolting in the thought of 
such a combat (whether in Ancient Greece or in 
Modern England) being made an entertainment for 
a crowd of spectators. But these Corinthians, Ephe- 
sians, and Athenians were heathens, and whatever 
we may feel on this subject does not affect the strong 
significance of the Apostle's comparison.. It is the 
intense reality of the struggle which constitutes the 
point of* resemblance. Those heavy blows, dealt by 
one combatant with tremendous force upon the other, 
are taken to signify the resolute and incessant war- 
fere which the Christian maintains with whatever 



86 THE METAPHORS OF ST. PAUL. 

is sinful in Ms human nature. These fleshly inclina- 
tions are determined to give him no rest, and he is 
determined to give them no rest ; and he perseveres 
till the blows of this opponent become weak and 
faint, and he is master of the field. This is a very 
serious picture of the Christian life in one of its as- 
pects ; and it shows it to be very different from what 
it is sometimes supposed to be, a mere habit of 
passive acquiescence in certain opinions ; a mere dec- 
orous compliance with certain rules of society ; a mere 
receiving of impressions from without, unaccompa- 
nied by any spring of resolute energy from within. 

But it is quite as important, and even more impor- 
tant, to observe the motive of the Apostle in this 
energetic and vigilant resistance. His persevering 
effort is inspired by fear : " I keep under my body, 
and bring it into subjection : lest that by any means, 
when I have preached unto others, I myself should 
be a castaway." " Lest " never was a little word 
more weighty in any sentence ; and the writer makes 
it more emphatic, by the addition of " by any means" 
Could there be a more solemn admonition of danger ? 
Here is this great Apostle, to whom the establish- 
ment of Christianity in the world is due more than 
to any one else, telling us that he carried on a watch- 
ful and vigorous warfare against his fleshly nature, 
for fear lest, in the midst of all these ministrations, 
he himself should lose his reward. Well, then, may 
we fear for ourselves; and, most of all, those 
amongst us who are actively endeavoring to do spir- 



GREEK GAMES. 87 

itual good to others. What thought can go with 
greater power into the very depths of the conscience 
than this : " God may be using me for the spiritual 
good of others, and yet my own heart may not be 
right; my own soul may not be safe, through the 
mysterious power of sin in my fleshly nature : I may 
be falling away farther from God, even while I am 
drawing others nearer to Him ? " It is of course 
obvious that we are here brought into contact with 
the doctrines of predestination and election, and that 
a difficulty arises when such a passage as this is com- 
pared with passages supporting these doctrines. It 
is easy to range texts on both sides of such a contro- 
versy as that, and not easy to reconcile them, except 
by making one set of texts give way to another. 
And this we have no right to do. With other parts 
of Scripture before us, we might meditate with ad- 
vantage on the sweet comfort which is derived from 
the conviction that those who have placed their souls 
in the care of Christ are safe, and that no one can 
pluck them out of that Saviour's hands. But that is 
not our subject now. We must take the Bible as we 
find it. St. Paul does most distinctly tell us in this 
place that with him the fear of being " a' castaway " 
was a commanding motive. Hope and fear are the 
two poles of the Christian's life ; and certainly fear 
has a very conspicuous place in Holy Scriptures. 
" Be not high-minded, but fear" " Pass the time 
of your sojourning here in fear." " Let him that 
thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall." x 
1 Rom. xi. 20; 1 Pet. i. 17 ; 1 Cor. x. 12. 

13 



88 THE METAPHORS OF ST. PAUL. 

The general subject of St. Paul's habit of taking 
metaphorical language from the athletic games is by 
no means yet exhausted. Even in the context 
which we have been examining at considerable 
length, there is at least one other agonistic allusion, 
which might easily escape notice. When St. Paul 
speaks in this passage of " having preached to oth- 
ers," the true rendering is, "having been a herald to 
others." And the reference is to that officer in the 
concourse at the games, whose business it was, with 
his voice, or with a trumpet, to summon the competi- 
tors to the exciting struggle. Much more, too, might 
be said on various points of detail, which have been 
only lightly touched, such as the training, 1 the rules, 2 
the judge, 3 the prize, 4 the attending spectators, 6 and 
the jubilant joy 6 with which the victor was received 
at the close of the race. But it is now time to lay 
the subject aside ; and this short series of papers on 
St. Paul's illustrative language may be briefly con- 
cluded by two reflections, one of which has refer- 
ence to the Apostle himself, the other to the Bible at 
large. 

It is impossible not to feel, in pursuing such studies 
as these, that we have not merely St. Paul's instruc- 
tion and exhortation, but his personal example, be- 
fore us. We always feel that we should like to know 
something of the character of a man who produced 
such wonderful effects in the world as the Apostle 

1 1 Cor. ix. 25 ; 1 Tim. iv. 7, 8. 2 2 Tim. ii. 5. 2 Tim. iv. 8. 
* 1 Cor. ix. 24; Phil. iii. 14. 5 i Cor. iv. 9. Acts xx. 24, 



GREEK GAMES. 89 

Paul. And certainly, we have no lack of materials 
for forming a judgment on this subject. Among 
other things, we have his customary language. A 
man's customary language (at least if he is a man of 
mark) generally shows something of his character ; 
and perhaps especially the language which he uses 
in his letters. For in letter-writing we are free from 
the disturbing influences of conversation, while yet 
the personal element is strongly present. Four 
groups of St. Paul's favorite similes have been before 
our attention, and perhaps each of them might fur- 
nish a suggestion in regard to his character. Thus, 
in his architectural imagery we might be reminded 
of his steady adherence to first principles, and of his 
constructive ability (under God's Spirit) in regard 
both to doctrine and the Church; while his illustra- 
tions drawn from agriculture seem to present him 
before us in his sympathizing care for the spiritual 
growth of his converts and Ms reliance on the exer- 
cise of God's beneficent power. But perhaps it is 
more easy to make this use of the metaphors which 
he draws from Roman Soldiers and Greek Games. 
We can hardly be mistaken in believing that by 
combining them together we obtain an approximate 
picture of the man. In both cases his references 
to such subjects are copious, natural, and customary. 
From this we should conclude that there was some- 
thing of the Soldier and the Athlete in his moral 
and religious constitution. And so in truth it was. 
He had much of what we should call tenacity of 



90 THE METAPHORS OF ST. 'PAUL. 

character, a great power of elastic recovery when 
he was beaten back by opposition, a strong will, not 
deterred by difficulties, and at the same time a re- 
markable alacrity and versatility and readiness of 
resource. We know this to have been the case, from 
the facts of his life ; but we see it also in the imag- 
ery which he is in the habit of borrowing from the 
Roman Soldiers and the Greek Games. 

As to Scripture in general, the remark which sug- 
gests itself in conclusion is this, that the careful stu- 
dent can in every part of it enter upon large and 
precious trains of thought, and can find a germinat- 
ing power even in what seem to be its secondary 
portions. In these short essays we have been follow- 
ing very narrow paths through a very limited portion 
of God's Word ; and yet we have found a good deal 
to interest and instruct us. It is a great proof of 
the endless variety and richness of the Bible, if we 
can .gain so much by merely pursuing the course of 
a peculiar word or a characteristic metaphor. God's 
Word is like God's World, very varied, very rich, 
very beautiful. You never know when you have 
exhausted all its secrets. The Bible, like Nature, 
has something for every class of mind. As in the 
phenomena around us there are resources and invita- 
tions both for science and for poetry, so does God's 
Revelation furnish materials both for exact theolog- 
ical definition and for the free play of devout thought 
and feeling. Look at the Bible in a new light, and 
you straightway see some new charm. This is true, 



GREEK GAMES. 91 

even in regard to very minute particulars. The view 
from a commanding Alpine summit, which -has been 
climbed by great labor, and where half a kingdom is 
spread before you, is very glorious and not to be for- 
gotten ; but the quiet footpath along the slopes of 
the lower eminences may also be full of beauty at 
every turn. And such has been our modest course 
in these essays. It is something to have obtained a 
deeper conviction than before -of the inexhaustible 
charms and advantages of even the by-ways of 
Scripture. 



THE COMPANIONS OF 
ST. PAUL. 



PREFACE. 



T HAVE long cherished the hope of writing a 
book on Scripture Characters. The biographical 
form in which a large part of the Bible is given 
to us is an invitation to this study ; and there can be 
no doubt that, of all studies, it is one of the most 
instructive. 

Yet the books are very few which supply any- 
thing like an exhaustive treatment of this subject. 
Sermons and essays, no doubt, there are in abun- 
dance on special characters of Holy Writ ; but I know 
nothing which has any claim to completeness, except 
Niemeyer's " Charakteristik cler Bibel," which first 
appeared in 1775, and the three volumes of "Scrip- 
ture Biography," published between 1832 and 1848, 
by my revered friend Archdeacon Evans. The 
former work is very unequal ; and on other grounds 
it may be questioned whether a mere translation of 
it would be the best mode of presenting the whole 
subject to English readers. The latter work, too, 
excellent as it is, leaves much to be done in the same 
field by others. 



IV PREFACE, 

It seems very unlikely that leisure will ever be 
granted to me for the accomplishing of what I have 
desired ; but I may hope, if life is prolonged, to pub- 
lish some slight volumes in illustration of Bible Bi- 
ography. These papers, which originally appeared 
in the " Sunday Magazine," and are now republished 
after revision, are obviously quite superficial, and 
aim almost exclusively at the promotion of practical 
religious life. The 1st, 2d, 3d, 7th, and 8th were 
in substance preached in Chester Cathedral. They 
will be followed by a new edition of the Hulsean 
Lectures for 1862, on the " Character of St. Paul," 
and by some Sermons on Scripture Characters, which 
have been preached on public occasions. 

J. S. 

CHESTER, December 30, 1870. 



CONTENTS 



PAGE 
I. ST. BARNABAS ....... 7 

II. I/JTDIA . . . . . . , .28 

III. ST. LUKE .... ... 44 

IV. APOLLOS . CO 

V. TITUS ... .... 78 

VI. PHCEBE .95 

VII. FELIX 109 

VIII. JULIUS . 125 

IX. OJTESIMUS 144 

X. EPAPHRODITUS 161 

XI. AQUILA AND PRISCILLA 178 

XII. TIMOTpEUS . . . 194 



THE 

COMPANIONS OF ST. PAUL. 

-- 

I. 

ST. BARNABAS. 

" A good man, and full of the Holy Ghost and of faith." ACTS 

xi. 24. 

TN order to study intelligently the character of any 
-*- man, it is essential to take into account, not only 
the distinguishing features of his own mind and dis- 
position, but also the circumstances of every kind by 
which he was surrounded. Those circumstances limit 
and direct the action of his personality ; and they 
very often make him, in the lapse of time, to be dif- 
ferent from what he was at the first. The place where 
he was born, the scenes that environed his childhood, 
the occupations in which his faculties have been 
engaged, all such things have much to do with our 
estimate "of the man himself. And if we suppose 
that, in later years, he finds a home in a new country, 
that his health is impaired by climate or other causes, 
that employments different from the former have 
begun to occupy his attention, it is evident that the 
course of his biography must vary accordingly. 



8 TEE COMPANIONS OF ST. PAUL. 

Of all the circumstances which surround a man, 
those which determine his relation to other men are 
by far the most important. The companions even of 
the greatest man may almost be said to be constitu- 
ent parts of his character. They must certainly be 
known and appreciated, before we can give a truthful 
and complete account of his career. A man's com- 
panions receive his influence and reflect his feelings ; 
through them he necessarily acts on society at large ; 
and, again, they react powerfully upon his own senti- 
ments, and frequently modify the form of his work. 
We cannot isolate him from them without the risk of 
distorting, and either dwarfing or exaggerating, his 
proportions. 

These remarks are preeminently true of such a 
person as the Apostle Paul, whose temperament was 
preeminently social. This feature of his mind and 
heart is conspicuous everywhere, whether we study 
him hi his own Epistles, or in the narrative written 
by his friend St. Luke. The human environment, so 
to speak, which surrounds St. Paul, is the very atmos- 
phere of his life. "We cannot separate him from his 
companions. By seeing his power over them we see 
what he was. In his relations to them, on the one 
hand, we trace the delicate shades of his fine feeling. 
On the other hand, they were the instruments by 
which he acted' on large communities. It is true like- 
wise, that, charged though he was with a Divine com- 
mission and empowered inwardly with supernatural 
Btrength, yet his companions had a reflex action upon 



ST. BARNABAS. 9 



his feelings and habits of thought. In contact witli 
them his human characteristics were developed, as 
literally as might be the case with any of ourselves ; 
and they frequently determined the course of his con- 
duct and shaped the results of his life. 

A series of papers, then, on the " Companions of 
St. Paul," may be of some little value as contributing 
toward the illustration of the Great Apostle's own 
biography, independently of the utility of studying 
these men and women themselves. Such a series, in 
an unpretending form, I now propose to offer to the 
reader ; and in doing this my aim will be, not simply 
to bring out to view the characteristics of St. Paul's 
associates, one by one, but also to make some useful 
applications of them, so as to put various parts of our 
own experience, in succession, side by side with their 
examples. 

There are two very obvious reasons why we should 
begin with Barnabas. 

In the first place this course is chronologically 
correct. The intimate associations of St. Paul with 
this friend began at the very outset of his active 
career. No earlier companionship is recorded in con- 
nection with the Apostle's influence over the minds 
of others, or the progress of his Missionary work. 
Moreover, it is more than probable that they were 
well acquainted with one another before either of 
them was a Christian. One came from Cyprus ; the 
other from Cilicia; 1 and these two provinces were 

1 Acts iv. 36 ; xxi. 39 ; xxii. 3. 



10 THE COMPANIONS OF ST. PAUL. 

closely connected with one another by mercantile 
intercourse. Paul, too, and Barnabas were both of 
pure Israelitish descent. 1 Thus not only the geo- 
graphical circumstances of the case, but the affinities 
of feeling which would naturally subsist between men, 
who, while Jews of the Greek dispersion, were yet 
loyal to the old hereditary Judaism, point to the 
probability of an early friendship ; and certainly the 
supposition of such a friendship explains much of 
what is recorded hi the Bible concerning the relations 
of the two men. 

But, further, the selection of Barnabas for our first 
subject is made natural in another way. His kindly 
disposition, and the service which he rendered to St. 
Paul, constitute him, .above all others in this group, a 
good representative of personal friendship. If in any 
one, among the associates of our Apostle, the idea of 
companionship is, as it were, personified, that one is 
Barnabas. Something of this characteristic is made 
known to us in the designation which the earlier 
Apostles gave to him, when they styled him the " Son 
of Consolation." 2 It is probable, indeed, that this 
title had reference chiefly to his power of warm and 
instructive " exhortation ; " but, even if thus inter- 
preted, it reveals to us social qualities of high value ; 
and certainly his actions are in harmony with this 
power of giving encouragement by his words. And 
this, too, must be added, as we shall presently see, 
that Barnabas displays the defective and weak side, 
i Acts iv. 36; Phil, iii. 5. " Acts iv. 36. 



ST. BARNABAS. 11 

as well as the cheering and consoling side, of an 
ardent and affectionate disposition. 

There are four passages in the New Testament, 
all connected with St. Paul, which bring before us . 
definite features of the character of Barnabas, two 
exhibiting his high excellences, and two revealing his 
faults. But before we turn to them, we must glance 
at an earlier passage, which has no reference to the 
Apostle of the Gentiles, but is valuable to us here as 
striking the key-note, so to speak, of the character 
of his friend. 

In those happy earliest days of the Church, when 
"the multitude of them that believed were of one 
heart and one soul," when none of them said " that 
aught of the things which he possessed was his own," 
and consequently " none among them lacked," 
Barnabas, " a Levite, of the island of Cyprus," is the 
one among the disciples who is specified as " selling 
his land, and laying the price at the Apostles' feet," 
for the general good of the Christian community. 1 
Either the amount which he gave was peculiarly 
large, or there was something in his manner of giv- 
ing, which causes him to be singled out in this descrip- 
tion of self-denying generosity; and we may pause 
here for a moment, to note the example which would 
be afforded to us, even if we were to proceed no 
farther. 

Generosity, we shall find that this word, better 
than any other, describes the character of Barnabas, 

i Acts iv. 37. 

15 



12 THE COMPANIONS OF ST. PAUL. 

This first incident from his life exhibits to us gen- 
erosity in its literal sense of the free surrendering of 
private property for the public benefit. But this is 
by no means the main point on which we should lay 
hold, in striving to learn something from the example. 
Mere giving may arise from various motives. But the 
deep inward principle of generosity applies to all the 
conduct of life, and finds its exercise even when we 
have no property to give. A generous man is a man 
whose heart goes out freely and warmly toward 
others, who is not always thinking of himself; not 
calculating nicely how this or that will affect his own 
comfort, his own credit, his own position. Such a 
man is always ready for kind and neighborly acts. 
And such a man, too, can easily throw himself into 
mutual understanding and combination with others 
for the general good ; whereas a man who is cen- 
tered in himself is always liable to be mistaken and 
to mistake those around him. Let me illustrate this 
by a homely comparison. 

There is a characteristic difference between houses 
in the East and houses in the West. Our dwellings 
have their windows on the outside, from which we 
can look on the open country and see freely what is 
passing elsewhere. A domestic dwelling in the East, 
on the contrary, opens into an inner court, which 
presents the only view, while all around is the dull 
dead wall. There is something of the same kind of 
difference between one man and another. Some can 
easily begin frank and open communication with 



ST.. J%XAAS. " 13 

their neighbors other men cannot or will not. 
Barnabas is an example of the former ; and he was 
all the happier in consequence, and all the more 
useful. 

And there is another mark of generosity, suggested 
by the passage before us, which should not be over- 
looked. A generous man, acting on warm impulses, 
does, not delay in doing good, but acts promptly and' 
on the moment. The help wanted by the Christian 
community in Jerusalem was wanted then, and Bar- 
nabas gave it then. He might very naturally have 
considered the various reasons there were for delay. 
For instance, it was probable that similar need for 
assistance might occur on some future occasion. Be- 
sides this, many other persons were giving liberally 
at that time. But Barnabas did not reason in this 
way. Probably he did not reason at all. And this 
at least we may learn from him, that, when un- 
doubted good is to be done, it is best to do it heartily, 
and to do it now. 

But it is time that we should turn to the first of 
the four passages, which describes circumstances in 
the life of Barnabas directly connected with St. 
Paul. Generosity is here again manifest, but in an- 
other and a more winning aspect. 

It was a most critical moment in St. Paul's life, 
and in the history of the Church. On his return to 
Jerusalem, after his sudden conversion at Damascus, 
he was naturally suspected. "He assayed to join 
himself to the disciples ; but they were all afraid of 



II THE COMPANIONS OF ST. PAUL. 

him, and believed not that he was a disciple." 1 It is 
difficult to blame them. For what could they have 
thought of him? Here was a man who had been 
their unscrupulous enemy, " breathing out slaughter 
and threatenings," dragging " both men and women 
into prison," 2 ready to undergo any toil and travel 
to any distance, if only he might extirpate the Chris- 
tians ; and now this man was in Jerusalem again, 
professing to be their friend and wishing to be asso- 
ciated with them. They must have thought it was 
some contrivance, some stratagem arranged for their 
harm. It must be remembered that they were not 
then a powerful body, but very weak, with no protec- 
tion from, the authorities. They were like a flock of 
sheep ; and they might well say of this son of Benja- 
min, in the words applied to his great ancestor: c> He 
ravins like a wolf; in the morning he devoured the 
prey ; and now at night he is dividing the spoil." 3 

If we consider the crisis, we see how much harm 
would have come both to St. Paul's personal comfort 
and happiness, and to his power of extending and 
consolidating the Church, if this most natural and 
most serious misunderstanding had not been removed. 
The happy instrument of removing it was Barna- 
bas. " He took him, and brought him to the Apos- 
tles, and declared unto them how he had seen the 
Lord in the way, and that He had spoken to him, 
and how he had preached boldly at Damascus in 
the name of Jesus. ? ' The result was entire confidence 
I Acts ix. 26. 2 Acts ix. 1, 2 : xxii. 4. 8 Gen. xlix. 27 



ST. BARNABAS. 15 

and work heartily combined in the cause of Christ. 
He who had been a persecutor was now with the 
Apostles at Jerusalem, as a trusted friend and fellow- 
laborer, ." coming in and going out " and " speaking 
boldly." 

Now I spoke above of putting our experience side 
by side with the example of Barnabas. Misunder- 
standings are very common in this poor world of 
ours. People will differ without reason ; will take 
unfavorable views of one another ; will think they 
are on opposite sides, when really they are not on 
Opposite sides. When such a state of things is seen 
to arise, this is the great opportunity for those (and 
they are very numerous) who occupy themselves in 
gossip and making mischief. But this is also the 
Christian's opportunity for making peace and pro- 
mo ting 'combination in good and useful works. Let 
the reader ask himself what he is in the habit of doing 
in such a case. A very common habit with us is 
simply to look on, under such circumstances, and to be 
passive, possibly even to. take a sort of pleasure in 
the infirmities of our neighbors. " These people," we 
say, "will look upon one another as enemies, when 
they ought to be friends ; they are very foolish ; but 
we cannot help it " ; and we do nothing. Such was 
not the view or the practice of Barnabas. And this 
system of letting things grow crooked, when we 
might do something toward putting them straight, is 
really moral cowardice or moral laziness ; and we 
must remember that we are responsible, not only for 



16 THE COMPANIONS OF ST. PAUL. 

the harm which we positively cause, but also, in a 
great measure, for the evil which we might have 
prevented. 

Only it must be recollected that whatever good 
we do in this way must be done, not by harshness 
and rebuke, but by sympathy and persuasion. This 
is a principle of almost universal application, and to 
nothing is it more applicable than to cases of relig- 
ious misunderstanding. But, most strangely, we are 
in the habit of forgetting this. We live in a time of 
much religious debate. And this, indeed, is by no 
means an unmixed evil. Anything is better than 
stagnant indifference ; and debate has a tendency to 
bring out truth more clearly into view. If others 
hold wrong opinions, our wish must be to induce 
them to adopt right opinions. But is it wise to at- 
tempt to secure this end by the method of attack ? 
Let us ask any man to refer to his own experience. 
"Were you ever convinced yourself by being attacked ? 
When you were assailed, was not your first impulse 
to resist, and to shelter yourself as closely as possible 
within your old defenses ? You have heard the fable 
of the Traveller, the Wind, and the Sun. The Trav- 
eller was enveloped in a thick cloak. The Wind 
and the Sun contended which of them could most 
easily induce him to lay the cloak aside. The Wind 
made the attempt first. A furious storm came over 
the heavens, the trees were broken, the cattle were 
terrified, the cold sleet drove angrily across the plain. 
But the Traveller drew his cloak more closely to 



ST. BARNAJ3AS. 17 

Mm, and folded it round and round. And now the 
weather cleared. The landscape grew bright again. 
The Sun's turn was now come to make the attempt. 
As the warmth of the rays increased, the Traveller 
gradually relaxed his hold. Each step made him feel 
that the cloak was more and more a burden ; he laid 
it aside ; and the Sun had succeeded, where the 
Wind had failed. What could never have been done 
by violent attack, was easily accomplished by gentle 
persuasion. Barnabas, at a critical time, not by 
harsh discussion, but by genial warmth, removed a 
prejudice ; and we, following in his steps, may per- 
haps find many opportunities of doing the same. 

Nor is it merely the satisfaction and happiness of 
religious fellow-workmen which is to be considered 
in such a case. Simple offices of Christian kindness 
may be of far greater moment to the community at 
large than can be calculated at the time. This inci- 
dent in the life of Barnabas is of peculiar value, be- 
cause it shows us what great results may follow to 
the progress of the Gospel from a single act of timely 
generosity. 

The second passage, which sets Barnabas before us 
in close companionship with the Apostle, leads us to 
give him a very great place in the Apostolic history, 
both for a far-seeing and enlightened intelligence, and 
for a noble and generous nature. News came from 
Jerusalem that the reception of the Gospel was pro- 
ceeding with unexampled success in the northern 



18 THE COMPANIONS OF ST. PAUL. 

parts of Syria, especially at Antioch. 1 The author- 
ities of the Church felt instinctively that Barnabas 
was the fittest man to send on a mission of inquiry 
and encouragement. The account of his feeling and 
conduct on his arrival at Antioch is replete with in- 
formation concerning his mind and character. " "When 
he came and had seen the grace of God, he was glad." 
We recognize here immediately one of those sure in- 
dications which are prominent in St. Paul's descrip- 
tion of true Christian charity, 2 namely, that it " re- 
joiceth in the truth." And then follow words which 
exhibit Barnabas as a " Son of Exhortation." " He 
exhorted them all, that with purpose of heart they 
would cleave unto the Lord." In all this there are 
the clear tokens of a genial, friendly, and zealous dis- 
position. Then, immediately below, it is added, " For 
he was a good man, and full of the Holy Ghost and 
of Faith," a sentence which is placed at the head 
of this paper, because it seems to concentrate in it- 
self the full description of the man. Those who 
unite thus the inward power of Divine grace with 
natural aptitude for persuasion, are commonly suc- 
cessful. And the success of Barnabas at Antioch 
was great. " Much people was added unto the Lord." 
Such occurrences, taking place in a city so popu 
lous, and so eminent both in political and mercantile 
life, were of peculiar moment to the future history 
of the Church. Barnabas evidently felt the critical 
value of the opportunity ; for he decided to stay at 
l Acts xi. 22. 2 1 Cor. xiii. 6. 



ST. BARNABAS. 19 

Antioch. But something of still greater importance 
follows. He knew of St. Paul's special mission to 
the Gentiles. He felt how desirable it was that his 
friend should be brought to labor in the midst of this 
movement of active thought and serious conviction at 
Antioch. Accordingly, he " went to Tarsus to seek 
Saul : and when he had found him he broxight him 
unto AntiSch. And it came to pass that a whole 
year they assembled themselves with the Church, and 
taught much people." 

We cannot dwell too carefully on this transaction, 
whether we wish to estimate the impulse thus given 
to the progress of Christianity, or to appreciate the 
distinctive features of the character of Barnabas. It 
was at Antioch, under the joint ministry of these two 
men, that the Church of Christ first became conscious 
of itself, so to speak, as a great self-existent commu- 
nity, and received its proper designation. 1 From 
Antioch, too, proceeded the first great missionary ex- 
pedition of the Church in the persons of these two 
men. 2 It is, however, rather the individual part 
played by Barnabas at this time, on which we are 
here to dwell. His friend, since their last meeting, 
though fully recognized as a true disciple by the 
Christians at Jerusalem 3 (and this recognition -was 
due to Barnabas), had been driven away by persecu- 
tion., and had been living and working in the shade 
at Tarsus. Certainly we cannot suppose him to have 
been idle. But it was Barnabas who gave him the 

1 Acts xi. 26. 2 Acf.s xiii. 4. 3 Gal. i. 22-24. 

16 



20 THE COMPANIONS OF ST. PAUL. 

great opportunity, which was now open before him. 
Barnabas may be said, in a certain sense, -to have 
made Paul what he afterwards became. He brought 
him out of obscurity. He put him in the fore-front, 
though lie must have been well aware that he was 
likely to become more distinguished and powerful 
than himself. This is that peculiar mark of a gen- 
erous disposition which was mentioned above, the ab- 
sence of anxiety for personal credit, the readiness for 
friendly combination in useful undertakings without 
any selfish end in view. There are some men who 
have no heart for any enterprise, unless they can have 
the first place in it. This is, perhaps a prevalent 
temptation with most energetic characters. But this 
habit of mind is not according to the law laid down 
by Christ. " Whosoever will be chief among you, 
let him be your servant." * And Barnabas is a good 
example to show us how such temptation can be 
overcome. " 

We do not wonder at the confidence which he in- 
spired on various occasions, and in reference to very 
different subjects. Thus, when charitable contribu- 
tions were soon afterwards sent from Antioch to the 
poor Christians in Judasa, he was chosen with St. 
Paul, to convey the gift. 2 At another time, when the 
two men were engaged in missionary work, and gar- 
lands and sacrifices were brought out with the inten- 
tion of doing worship to the Apostles, the title which 
_ these poor idolaters of Lystra gave to' Barnabas 
1 Matt. xx. 27. 2 Acts xi. 30. 



ST. BARNABAS. 21 

seems like a recognition of his benignity. 1 And 
afterwards, when a very serious religions question 
required to be settled, affecting the whole future con- 
dition of Gentile converts, he again was chosen, with 
three others, to convey the decisive letter from Jeru- 
salem to Antioch ; and it is said, in the very phrase 
which is the translation of his name, that, when the 
letter was read, " they rejoiced for the Consolation." 2 

But such a character has its defects and its dan- 
gers. And now, more briefly, we must take notice 
of two instances where Barnabas failed in his duty, 
under the pressure, apparently, of temptations inci- 
dent to his natural disposition. It would not be fair 
to the Scriptures, or to Barnabas, or to ourselves, to 
pass over his failings in silence ; not fair to the Scrip- 
tures, for they never present to us any biography, 
except ONE, as absolutely perfect ; not fair to Barna- 
bas, for the saints of God are deeply conscious of in- 
firmity and sin, and would not wish to wear a false 
gloss upon their character ; not fair to ourselves, for 
one of our great encouragements is to know that the 
Scripture Saints, in whom grace was victorious, were 
naturally men " of like passions " with us. 3 

The first missionary journey had been happily ac- 
complished ; but soon after the close of it a sharp 
quarrel took place between the two men who had 
labored so well together. Their companion on the 
journey, John Mark, a near relative of Barnabas, 
had been unfaithful in Pamphylia, had shrunk from 
lActsxiv. 12. 2 Acts xv. 31. 3 Acts xiv. 15. 



22 TEE COMPANIONS OF ST. PAUL. 

the difficulties and dangers of the enterprise, nd had 
returned to his borne. 1 We are told, near the end of 
the fifteenth chapter, that Paul and Barnabas again 
proposed to " go and visit their brethren in every 
city where they had preached the word of the Lord, 
to see how they fared." The strong desire, anc 7 ., 
indeed, determination of Barnabas, was to take his 
young relative along with them once more. " But 
Paul thought not good to take him with them, who 
departed from them in Pamphylia, and went not with 
them to the work ; and the contention was so sharp 
between them, that they departed asunder one from 
the other," and took different routes. 2 

Thus the friendship which had not been disturbed 
by selfishness on either side, or by difference of dis- 
position, now gave way before the sensitiveness 
caused by family relationships. The expression seems 
to imply that temper was lost on both sides. There- 
fore, both were to blame. St. Paul's part in the 
transaction we need not now pause to examine. But 
we may take occasion to remark that warm-hearted 
and generous men, like Barnabas, should beware of 
too much partiality toward relatives, in any case 
where posts of responsibility are in question. Even 
religious men are apt to take a very false view of this 
matter ; and ever since the quarrel of these two good 
men at Antioch, this kind of domestic management 
has, again and again, both in public appointments and 
in private matters, brought great discredit on relig- 
i Acts xiii. 13. 2 A. ts xv. 36-40. 



ST. BARNABAS. 23 

ious profession. Many are the occasions when such 
an appeal as the following might most properly be 
made : " You may think your relative a very good 
man for such a post. But your thinking so does not 
make the fact really so. On the contrary, your judg- 
ment in this case is very likely to be under the influ- 
ence of your feelings. And, after all, the question 
is, not who is a good man, but who is the best man." 
It will be observed here, that nothing has been said 
against promoting the progress in life of the younger 
members of our families, watching over their inter- 
ests, and using every effort to start them well, and to 
encourage them in the path of duty. We know on 
the highest aiithority, that " if any provide not for his 
own house," he is worse than one who has never 
heard of Christianity. 1 Attention is merely drawn 
to a distinction which is constantly forgotten in all 
ranks of life. A post of public trust is not created 
for the benefit of the man who holds it, but the bene- 
fit of those whom he is to serve in that post. . There- 
fore our conduct in such cases should be guided, not 
by our affections and our preferences, but by our de- 
sire for the public good. There 'is little doubt that 
St. Paul was right on the whole ; though certainly 
he ought to have kept his temper. And perhaps his 
firmness on this occasion had a most beneficial effect 
on the young man himself, who is declared, many 
"years afterwards, to have then become " profitable for 
the ministry." 2 

1 1 Tim. v. 8. 22 Tim. iv. 11. 



2-1 THE COMPANIONS OF ST. PAUL. 

But another instance of weakness on the part of 
Barnabas is recorded in Holy Scripture. The last 
passage to which reference has been made is found in 
one of the Epistles. He and St. Paul had at least 
one other meeting in the same famous city of Anti- 
och. There is every reason to believe that the old 
quarrel had entirely passed away, and that the un- 
flinching Apostle of the Gentiles and the generous- 
hearted kinsman of Mark x were firm friends again. 
But once more, and at the same place, a painful oc- 
currence brought the two friends into open collision. 
We need not inquire here into the precise date of the 
event, or describe the circumstances out of which it 
arose. We are merely considering Barnabas in his 
relation to St. Paul. It is in the Epistle to the Ga- 
latians that the transaction is recorded. 2 St. Paul is 
alluding to an occasion when St. Peter was very 
much to blame, and seriously in danger of promot- 
ing wide-spread corruption of the truth. This too 
was a critical time. It was of peculiar importance 
just then to maintain the principles of the Gospel 
clearly, and without any chance of mistake ; and St. 
Peter had wrongly given apparent sanction to those 
who were mixing Jewish error with the truth. This 
had a disastrous effect on those who were within 
reach of his influence. " The other Jews dissembled 
likewise with him ; insomuch that Barnabas also was 
carried away, with their dissimulation." 

It is apparently not difficult to trace here the char- 
iCol.iv. 10. * GaLii. 11. 



ST. BARNABAS. 25 

acteristic temperament of Barnabas again on its weak 
side. His was just that kind of disposition which 
makes it easy to become a partisan, to flow on with 
the general current, to take the complexion of sur- 
rounding opinion, and to sanction by acquiescence 
many things which ought to be resisted. It is not 
pleasant for a warm-hearted and generous man to 
tell his neighbors that they are all in the wrong. 
When there is ready facility for giving and winning 
confidence and for securing cooperation, there must 
also be the danger of easy yielding, in order to 
please. But we may carry this trustful and uninquir- 
ing acquiescence so far, that it becomes unfaithful- 
ness; and then harm results instead of good. The 
desire to make everything smooth with everybody is 
a temptation to be most resolutely resisted. It is 
quite true that St. Paul tells us that he himself 
" pleased all men in all things ; " 1 but this was in 
opposition to pleasing himself ; and he adds that he 
pleased them for their " profit, that they might be 
saved." The pleasing was not the end, but the 
means. It is true also that he " was made all things 
to all men ; " 2 but the conclusion of the sentence 
must be examined too, that we may see the correct 
meaning of these words. It was in order that " by 
all means he might save some." If our end is the 
saving of men's souls, we shall find that resistance is 
sometimes a duty as well as acquiescence. And cer- 
tainly the tolerating of erroneous human admixtures 
i 1 Cor. x. 33. 2 1 Cor. ix. 22. 



26 THE COMPANIONS OF ST. PAUL. 

with Revealed Truth is not the way to save men's 
souls. St. Paul felt this very deeply, and therefore 
he gave a severe rebuke to St. Peter, and indirectly 
gave a salutary admonition to Barnabas, and to all 
who, like Barnabas, are tempted, even by -generous 
and unselfish feelings, to join with those who are un- 
faithful to the cause of Christ. 

Now we have been looking at the faults of Barna- 
bas. We have not disguised those faults, but have 
honestly followed the record of the New Testament 
in exposing them to view. But let not this be the 
last impression left on our minds. Let our thoughts 
go back, at the close of these remarks, and rest upon 
his good qualities ; his generosity in giving whatever 
he could give to increase the happiness and comfort 
of those around him, and in giving it heartily and 
without delay ; his generosity in taking trouble to re- 
move misunderstandings, to promote cooperation, and 
to establish friendship among those who were in dan- 
ger of becoming enemies ; his generosity in rejoicing 
over the spiritual attainments of others, in the ab- 
sence of envy and jealousy, and in willingness to 
take the lowest place, if only he might be useful. Let 
this example be taken into our hearts, so that we may 
strive, by God's grace, to imitate it, and thus become, 
among those who surround us, " Sons of Consolation, 
with messages of love ; Daughters of Consolation, 
on loving errands, too." l 

1 See Hymn for St. Barnabas' Day, in the Church's Tear, by the 
Bishop of Lincoln. 



ST. BARNABAS. 27 

" Sons of Consolation," " Daughters of Consola- 
tion." It is. a Hebrew form of expression, and de- 
notes that the wish to give consolation is close to the 
heart, and that efforts to give consolation are the 
habit of the life. None of us, however, can be the 
real fountain-head of consolation. " Christ the Con- 
soler " is seated alone in the midst of suffering Hu- 
manity. 1 In order to bring true consolation, we must 
point to Him. Before his gracious countenance the 
chains of the captive fall off. In his tender sympa- 
thy, the heart that has been wounded by sorrow 
finds relief. In his strengthening presence the dis- 
tracted mind recovers its balance. Through Him sin 
is forgiven. May God enable us all to " flee for ref- 
uge to lay hold upon the hope set before us ; " for 
here only whatever alleviations there may be for a 
time, here only, for time and for eternity is 
" Strong Consolation." 2 

1 The allusion ia to Ary Scheffer's well-known picture, " Christua 
Consolator." 

2 Heb. vi. 18. 



17 



n. 

LTDIA. 

" Whose heart the Lord opened, that she attended unto the tbmga 
which were spoken of Paul." ACTS xvi. 14. 



is always a peculiar interest in examin- 
-*- ing the first beginnings of an enterprise which, 
has resulted in great success. While contemplat- 
ing the results with satisfaction, and looking over the 
wide range of all that has been accomplished, we 
find our thoughts inevitably suggesting the question, 
What were the characteristics of the first steps in 
that which has made such remarkable progress ? 

There is no doubt that one of the greatest and 
most successful enterprises of the world has been the 
extending of Christianity over Europe. For centu- 
ries, with one small exception, every country in this 
Continent has been, at least nominally, Christian. 
And with its Christianity have grown up that civili- 
zation and that power of Europe which are too often 
made the occasions of foolish boasting. But all this 
state of things had once a beginning. When St. 
Paul was in that part of his history which corre- 
sponds with this sixteenth chapter of the Acts, i. e., 
about twenty years after the death and resurrection 
of Christ, there was no Christianity at all hi Europe, 



LYDIA. 29 

except so far as a few scattered Jews, travelling for 
purposes of trade, or here and there a Greek sailor 
or Roman soldier, might have in their hearts the 
seeds of Divine truth, sown there by the words and 
work of Christ in Judtea, or elsewhere by some fol- 
lowers of Christ. No doubt in this way some prepa- 
ration was going on for the great Christian commu- 
nity of Rprne ; but still, on the whole, it may be said 
with truth that Europe at this moment was Heathen 
from one end to the other. 

The circumstances, therefore, of the first passing 
of our religion from Asia into Europe, invest this 
portion of Sacred History with surpassing interest. 
In reading it, we find ourselves in the midst of the 
first days of an enterprise which grew continually 
from that point, and which has resulted in an aston- 
ishing success. And this we may say at once of the 
characteristics of these earliest days of European 
Christianity, that they come before us in Scripture 
with an impression of peculiar cheerfulness. This 
can be made evident in more ways than one. It 
strikes us forcibly, in the first place, if we compare 
the circumstances of this time with those of the time 
immediately preceding. 

St. Paul had been travelling through Galatia. "We 
see this from the sixth verse. There it seems that he 
was struck down and delayed by an attack of illness. 
He mentions this afterwards in writing to the Gala- 
tians, " Ye know how through infirmity of the flesh 
T preached the Gospel to you at the first ; " or, more 



30 THE COMPANIONS OF ST. PAUL. 

correctly and more fully, " Ye remember that I was 
in weak health when I was among you preaching the 
Gospel at the first, and, in fact, that weak health was 
the cause of my stay among you ; " and then he pro- 
ceeds to remind them of their sympathy with his suf- 
ferings. 1 The tone in which he writes this shows 
that he felt the trial very deeply. Now, in coming 
down from Galatia to the coast of Troas, he met St. 
Luke. This we know beyond any doubt, from the 
form of the narrative. Again, in another of his 
Epistles we find him describing St. Luke as " the be- 
loved physician." 2 And it always seems to me that 
we . ought to connect together this sickness and this 
meeting with the physician. However this may be, 
the Apostle did meet at Troas, at this particular 
time, a congenial spirit and an honest friend, who 
thenceforward shared his toil and cheered him with 
his society. But to this subject we shall return in 
the next of this series of papers on " The Compan- 
ions of St. Paul." 

And in another way, if we read the narrative cor- 
rectly, we see how cheerful circumstances attended 
this crossing over into Europe, as compared with 
what had occurred immediately before. On leaving 
Galatia there had been much perplexity and disap- 
pointment. They attempted to preach the Gospel in 
one district, and were prevented. They " assayed " 
to go into another district, " but the Spirit suffered 
them not." 3 In what particular form these hin- 
1 Gal. iv. 13. 2 Col. iv. 14. 3 Acts xvi. 6, 7. 



LYDIA. 31 

drances presented themselves we are not informed, 
but the effect must have been great discouragement ; 
and to a man of St. Paul's temperament, especially 
after recent illness, it must have been peculiarly try- 
ing to make no progress. But on reaching the sea- 
coast at Troas, an express vision made everything 
clear. There appeared to the Apostle, in the night, 
a man of Macedonia, saying, " Come over " into 
Europe ' : and help us." So the clouds, which had 
hung over their path, now rolled away. The course, 
which had been obscure, now became distinctly visi- 
ble. " Immediately," said St. Luke, " we endeavored 
to go into Macedonia, assuredly gathering that the 
Lord had called us to preach the Gospel there." * 
We endeavored, it must be observed, is the expres- 
sion used. The " we " is not employed in de-scribing 
what happened in Galatia, or on the way from thence 
to Troas. This is the proof, which was referred to 
above, that St. Luke became St. Paul's companion 
at this particular point. 

Even the short description of the voyage leaves a 
most cheerful impression upon the mind. " Loosing 
from Troas, we came with a straight course to Samo- 
thracia, and the next day to Neapolis, and from thence 
to Philippi." There was no delay. If they sailed 
with a straight course, the wind must have been favor- 
able. And as to the time spent on the passage, we 
have a subsequent account of the same voyage occu* 
pying five days, whereas on this occasion it took only 

1 Acts xvi. 10. 



32 THE COMPANIONS OF ST. PAUL. 

parts of two. 1 Those who remember how various 
the intervals of time used to be in the early part of 
this century, according to the weather, in the crossing 
over between Holyhead and Dublin, can judge how 
well worth while it is to allude to all sucn circum- 
stances. 

But now we are brought to Philippi, where a flour- 
ishing and admirable Church was speedily founded. 
This was the beginning of Christianity in Europe. 
We were to examine more particularly the character- 
istics of the first steps in an enterprise so great and 
successful. 

The facts are given very simply thus (vers. 13 
15) : " We were in that city " Philippi " abid- 
ing certain days. And on the Sabbath we went out 
of the city by a river side, where prayer was wont 
to be made ; and we sat down, and spake iinto 
the women which resorted thither. And a certain 
woman named Lydia, a seller of purple, of the city of 
Thyatira, which worshipped God, heard us : whose 
heart the Lord opened, that she attended unto the 
things which were spoken of Paul. And when she 
was baptized, and her household, she besought us 
saying, If ye have judged me to be faithful to the 
Lord, come into my house, and abide there. And 
she constrained us." 

(1.) First, then, I notice that the whole of this 
great success began with prayer. Just as at the begin- 
ning of what we may call Asiatic Christianity in Je- 
rusalem, immediately, after our Lord's ascension, the 
1 Compare Acts xvi. 11 with xx. 6. 



LYDIA. S3 

Apostles, " with the women, continued with one accord 
in prayer and supplication," so here, at the begin- 
ning of European Christianity, prayer is the prelim- 
inary step, before any true progress is made. And 
it is not merely the act of prayer that attracts our 
attention at this point, but the habit of prayer. 
Lydia and her friends gathered together in the place 
" where prayer was wont to be made." Provision was 
carefully made for a serious employment ; a place was 
fixed for the purpose ; an engagement was kept. 'It 
is a most instructive example ; and the more closely 
we look at it, the more we see how applicable it is 
to ourselves in regard to all our undertakings. In 
every missionary enterprise, in every effort to improve 
and extend religious work around us, in the education 
of the young, in our common daily employments, in 
our time of adversity, in our time of prosperity, if 
we are to hope for God's blessing we must begin 
with prayer. 

(2.) A further point should now be remarked, 
namely, the day on which these meetings for prayer 
took place. I have observed that arrangements were 
made for a fixed day, and the rule punctually kept. 
And the day from which all this missionary success 
spread forth was the Sabbath. From this I draw an 
inference as to the blessing which comes from a relig- 
ious observance of our English Sunday. It is true 
that, in this narrative, we have merely to do with the 
Jewish Sabbath. It was on Saturday, as we should 
say, that Lydia and the other women met by the river 



34 THE COMPANIONS OF ST. PAUL. 

side for prayer at Philippi, just as other Jews met in 
tlieir synagogues on Saturday at Tliessalonica or at 
Corinth. The Easter sun had not yet risen upon 
Europe. But the principle which actuated them is 
the same principle which should influence our conduct. 
It was the keeping of an appointed day holy. It was 
the conscientious use of a well-known opportunity for 
religious benefit. 

Now, it is possible that among the readers of these 
essays there may be some and let me single out 
especially young men who, either at the present 
time or at some future time, may be under circum 
stances which tempt them to disregard God's Holy 
Day. There may be ridicule to be feared, or there 
may be the enticements of pleasure or of business. 
The example of these godly women is good for such 
cases. . They had moral courage to do what they felt 
to be right and good for their souls. The day ap- 
pointed for religious rest was not neglected. And 
the example, too, is full of encouragement as well 
as warning. For the great Christian harvest which 
began in the flourishing Church of Philippi, grew 
from the seeds sown on these Sabbath days. 

(3.) But the text now calls us to lay stress on 
another point ; and here the example becomes more 
personal and individual. At these meetings there 
was " a certain woman named Lydia, whose heart the 
Lord opened, so that she attended unto the things 
which were spoken of Paul." Here is the operation 
of grace, of the Divine grace which comes in 



LTDIA. 35 

answer to prayer and in the use of appointed means. 
The inward power of religion can be derived only 
from this source. By preaching an earnest sermon 
we can produce an impression on the ear ; by writing 
a religious book we can produce an impression on 
the eye ; but the effectual reception of the truth in 
the mind, the warm action of the truth upon the 
heart, this is due to God alone. " The Lord opened 
the heart of Lydia, that she attended unto the things 
which were spoken of Paul." We cannot lay too 
much stress upon the manner in which Lydia's change 
is described to us. It is from this living spring alone 
that the fertilizing stream of true Christianity flows. 
When we read in the ^Scriptures the history of the 
outward growth of the Church, this is the under- 
thought which is always present. When we ourselves 
are discussing the means and methods of doing good, 
we must never forget that all true progress is urged 
on, through us, by the Divine hand. It is well, and, 
indeed, quite necessary, that we should spend diligent 
efforts in the increase and strengthening of religious 
ministrations all around us. But let such efforts al- 
ways be associated with prayer, that Divine grace, as 
in the instance of Lydia, may accompany such min- 
istrations, and make them powerful in saving souls. 

(4.) And now let us observe further how quiet 
this beginning was. This is a fourth and a very 
instructive characteristic. " The kingdom of God 
cometh hot with observation." l Here, in the first 

1 Luke xvii. 20. 

18 



36 THE COMPANIONS OF ST. PAUL. 

steps of the Christian religion on the Continent of 
Europe, is no great conspicuous movement, no osten- 
tatious parade. Here is not even a great assembly 
gathered together, so that a public appeal might be 
made, and an impression produced on a whole com- 
munity. That little assembly by the river side was 
as simple and unobtrusive as possible, more like a 
small prayer-meeting, or a Bible class, or a cottage 
lecture, as we might say, than anything else. There 
had been great and conspicuous movements on those 
shores. Conquering armies had passed this way, and 
history records proudly all the particulars. The con- 
trast is great with what we read here. St. Luke's 
simple record tells us of something altogether modest 
and unpretending. These few women, meeting thus 
for prayer at the river side, were probably almost less 
regarded than any other inhabitants of Philippi. On 
these Sabbath days, the occupations of the city went 
on as usual, Roman soldiers on parade, women 
coming in from the country to market, shopkeepers 
at their business, the magistrates administering jus- 
tice ; and then, as the evening came on, general, and 
not very innocent amusement. Meantime these godly 
women sought out a quite place, retired from all the 
distractions of the town, and prayed ; and in this un- 
pretending scene the Conversion of Europe began. 

There is much encouragement in this. Only few 
of us can fill any great place in the world ; and if 
more of us could fill such a place, possibly the re- 
ligious results might be very small. But here is 



LTDIA. 37 

something very modest in its beginning, very large 
in its results. This ^ reminds us that, not parade and 
display, but godly simplicity, is the sure guarantee of 
success. All of us, however humble in position, can 
reproduce in our own life an experience like that of 
Lydia and her companions at Philippi ; and in so do- 
ing we may be the precursors of blessing on a far 
greater scale than we imagine. The brightest light 
may begin in a spark. The largest tree grows from 
a seed. In " quietness and confidence " is " strength." * 

(5.) But observe further and this, too, is a very 
practical point for our modern English life that all 
who assembled thus for prayer and became the first 
European disciples of St. Paul, were women. At 
least, no men are mentioned. " We went out," says 
St. Luke, " where prayer was wont to be made : and 
we sat down, and spake to the women which resorted 
thither." And the one who is specified as having her 
" heart opened " by the Lord, in consequence of what 
was spoken, is a woman. 

It would seem also that the Christian work of 
women was characteristic of this Church at Philippi. 
In the Epistle addressed to it long afterwards, we 
find St. Paul saying, " Help those women who labored 
with me in the Gospel ; " and an observable message 
is sent in that letter to two of the Christian women 
in this place. " I beseech Euodia and beseech Syn- 
tyche, that they be of the same mind in the Lord." 2 
How similar this hint is to what is very often required 
i Is. xxx. 15. 2 phn. iv. 2. 



38 THE COMPANIONS OF ST. PAUL. 

among ourselves! Here are two good women, en- 
gaged, no doubt, in works of religious usefulness; 
but they cannot agree. Some family misunderstand- 
ing - some silly party spirit some infirmity, of tem- 
per has spoilt their cooperation and diminished the 
usefulness of their lives. Thus does the Bible min- 
gle for us here, as elsewhere, admonition with its en- 
couragement. 

I think we may go further, and say that this help 
of women seems to have been characteristic of the 
Churches founded in Europe. At Antioch in Pisidia, 
indeed, the leading women of the city are conspicu- 
ous, but as hinderers and persecutors, not as promo- 
ters of St. Paul's work. 1 But in every one of the 
great European Churches women are in the forefront 
as helpers of the Gospel. From Philippi .the Apostle 
went to Thessalonica. There we find " the chief 
women not a few " among the true and active believ- 
ers. 2 From thence to Athens. There of two con- 
verts who are specified by name, one was a woman. 3 
From Athens to Corinth; and there, and in its neigh- 
borhood, we encounter the familiar names of Chloe, 
Priscilla, and Phoebe, two of whom, at least, must 
come more particularly before our notice hereafter ; 4 
while in the great Epistle to Eome, written from Cor- 
inth, the enumeration of female converts mentioned, 
too, in terms which show that they were active labor- 
ers in the good cause is very remarkable. 5 

1 Acts xiii. 50. 2 Acts xvii. 4. 8 Acts xvii. 34. 

4 Kom. xvi. 1; 1 Cor. i, 11; xvi. 19. .6 Kom. xvi. 3-15. 



LJDIA. 39 

Why do I lay stress -on this fact ? It is that I may 
make the example of Lydia all the stronger, by show- 
ing that it is not an isolated one, that I may use 
the whole case as an argument addressed to women, 
and that I may say to them, " See what you can do 
for the Gospel, if you try. Do you wish to promote 
its acceptance and its influence ? If you do, you can. 
Probably you can really do even more than men." In 
the state of society of which we read in the Acts of the 
Apostles, women were, in the very nature of the case, 
the best Missionaries. And the same thing will be 
felt now to be true in regard to the Mohammedan 
world, if we are to convert it at all. But at home 
also the same thing is true. The phrase " Home 
Missions " expresses very well what we are contin- 
ually wanting, even in our families. The Church is, 
in a great measure, only nominally converted : it 
needs missionary effort thrown continually in upon 
itself ; and the best workers in its field must still be 
such as these godly women of the New Testament. 

(6.) We are thus brought to another point, which 
is also conspicuous as one of the characteristic feat- 
ures of this early European Church, namely, that it 
was preeminently the religion of household life. It 
is, in. fact, here first that the conversion of households 
is mentioned in the Acts of the Apostles. But it is 
mentioned here very emphatically The narrative 
proceeds to inform us, immediately after the text, that 
Lydia "was baptized, and her household." The 
blessing which came to her diffused itself over the 



40 THE COMPANIONS OF ST. PAUL. 

whole circle of her domestic life. And the same fact 
is made equally prominent in the account of the next 
great conversion of Philippi, which in its general cir- 
cumstances was as different as possible. When the 
terrified jailer asked the question, " "What must I do 
to be saved ? " the answer was, " Believe on the Lord 
Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house : " 
and the history proceeds to say that "he and all 
his " were baptized, and that he " rejoiced, believing 
in God with all his house!' I need not proceed fur- 
ther, or I might adduce " the household of Stepha- 
nas " at Corinth, 1 and other instances. What I de- 
sire to urge is this, that Christian life in the Church 
is based on Christian life in the Family ; that within 
our homes is the mainspring of that machinery which 
benefits society at large, and that in this history of 
the foundation of the European Church are lessons, 
to every one of us, of commonplace domestic duties. 
(7.) One other brief remark concludes all that is 
possible here, in illustration of the conversion of 
Lydia, considered as an example to our own times 
and to ourselves. When she received the Gospel 
into her heart, she immediately supplied help to the 
Ministers of that Gospel. She gave them a home. 
She furnished them with a starting-point for their 
work. She promoted that union with kindred spir- 
its which furthers the good progress of Religion. 
When she and her household had been baptized, St. 
Luke adds : " She besought us, saying, If ye have 

1 1 Cor. i. 16. 



LTD I A. 41 

judged me to be faithful to the Lord, come into my 
house, and abide there : and she constrained us." 

Not that they were unwilling; but the narrative 
is so given as to bring out prominently to view, not 
only her humility, but her zeal, and her determina- 
tion to show her gratitude by doing good. And 
there is another verse at the end of the chapter 
which might pass unobserved, but which it is very 
important to notice in this connection. After Paul 
and Silas had suffered " shameful " treatment at 
Philippi, 1 their bodies lacerated with rods, their 
limbs tortured in the rack, on being set free, we 
read that " they went out of the prison, and entered 
into the house of Lydia," and there " saw the breth- 
ren." 2 This shows that her service had not been the 
result of a mere fitful impulse, but that she had given 
them continuous help ; that they were*at home in her 
house, and that they could confidently count on her 
effectual aid in promoting the work to which they 
were devoted. Lydia is certainly worthy of high 
honor as the first in Europe who gave a home to 
the Ministers of the Gospel, and as the precursor of 
all those who, by endowments, by subscriptions, by 
sympathy, by cooperation, have made their minis- 
trations easier and more effective than they would 
otherwise- have been, and more commensurate with 
the wants of the world. 

This remark would bring us, by an easy transi- 
tion, from the simple example of Lydia into the 

1 1 Thess. ii. 2. ' 2 Acts xvi. 40. 



12 THE COMPANIONS OF ST. PAUL. 

midst of those great church questions which happily 
are the subjects of eager debate just now : such as 
the part which lay people ought to take in church- 
vvork ; the best way of organizing the religious ser- 
vices of women ; the various methods of securing 
and increasing resources for spreading the Gospel at 
home and abroad. I say it is a happy circumstance 
that these subjects are eagerly debated. For debate 
leads to improvement, and diversity of opinion is far 
better than indifference. 

But into such matters we cannot enter now. We 
may just recur to one remark which was made at 
the outset concerning the cheerfulness which char- 
acterized this early introduction of Christianity into 
Europe. It is a very bright place in the history of 
the world ; and it is always good policy to dwell on 
anything that is cheerful, and to make the most of 
it. Prosperity does not last long. It would not-be 
good for us if it did. Prosperity does not last long 
in the Church. And doubtless a long absence of 
trouble would not be good for the Church. At 
Philippi the clouds came very soon over that bright 
sky, as we see when we leave this quiet scene by the 
river side to pursue the history. 

And yet there is even a permanent cheerfulness 
connected with the Church of that place. Read the 
letter written afterwards by St. Paul to that Church. 
No other Epistle is so free from blame. He calls 
the Philippians his " joy and his crown." l He 

i Phil. iv. 1. 



LTD1A. 43 

speaks with gratitude of their faithfulness and gen- 
erosity. And in harmony with all this he tells them 
to be happy. " Rejoice in the Lord alway : and 
again I say, Rejoice." 1 Compare this with the 
modest beginning which has been before our atten- 
tion. Does not the comparison encourage us to 
hope that even our small efforts may lead to some 
permanent good? If we begin with prayer; if we 
are diligent in the use of appointed means; if we 
.refer everything to God's grace ; if we " study to be 
quiet " ; 2 if we are attentive to home duties ; if we 
help those who are laboring for Christ, then, be- 
yond any doubt, we are bearing fruit unto God, and 
" our fruit will remain." 3 

iPhfl. iv. 4. 2iThtess.iv.il. John xv. 18. 



m. 

ST. LUKE. 
* Lute, the beloved Physician." COL. iv. 14. 

preceding paper, in the course of some re- 
-*- marks on the cheerful aspect which was worn by 
Christianity on its transition from Asia to Europe, 
called attention to the fact that at this moment St. 
Luke was enrolled among St. Paul's companions. 
We ascertain this beyond the reach of doubt by the 
change of a pronoun. In describing the journey 
from Galatia where the Apostle had been detained 
by sickness l to the sea-coast at Troas where he 
received his summons into Macedonia the narra- 
tive uses the word " they " of the missionary party. 2 
But on the departure from Troas the phraseology is 
changed, and St. Luke says, " Immediately ive en- 
deavored to go into Macedonia." 3 The same lan- 
guage, too, is continued in the narrative of what 
took place at Philippi. Thus far, then, St. Luke is 
very pointedly associated in Holy Scripture with this 
neighborhood. 

But again, we lose sight of this mode of expres- 
sion from the time when St. Paul quits Macedonia on 
this particular missionary circuit, and we do not dis- 
1 Gal. iv. 13. 2 Acts xvL 6. 3 Acts xvi. 10. 



ST. LUKE. 45 

cern any further trace of it till, on the next mis- 
sionary circuit, several years afterwards, we find him 
in this region, once more. His visits to Thessalonica, 

o ' 

Athens, and Corinth, on the former journey, and his 
visit to Ephesus on the latter, have been recorded. 
Then follows a brief notice, of a visit to Greece, and 
of a return eastwards through Macedonia. Here it is 
that suddenly we detect the presence of St. Luke in 
the same neighborhood and in the same way as be- 
fore, by the change of a pronoun. " These, going 
before, tarried for us at Troas : and ^oe sailed away 
from Philippi and came unto them to Troas." l 

From this tune he appears to have been in close 
companionship with the Apostle till the end of the 
events which are recorded in the Acts. He cer- 
tainly went with him to Rome. 2 And now we have 
to observe further, in Epistles written during the 
first imprisonment in that city, that " Luke, the 
fellow-laborer," "Luke, the beloved physician," are 
among those who send salutations to Philemon and 
the Colossians. 3 In the Epistle to the Philippians, 
which was written during the same imprisonment, no 
such salutation is sent by him ; but there is a high 
probability that this Epistle was written later than 
the others ; and this leads to the presumption that 
the " true yokefellow," who is instructed to " help 
those women which labored with Paul in the Gos- 
pel," is no other than St. Luke, who may be pre- 

1 Acts.xx. 5,6. 2 Acts xxviii. 16. 

sPhilem. 24 : Col. iv. 14. 



46 THE COMPANIONS OF ST. PAUL. 

sumed to have returned to Macedonia. 1 Thus, again, 
we associate him with the neighborhood of Philippi, 
and possibly with Lydia, who furnished the subject 
for our last meditation. Hence, in every way, this 
appears a very natural and suitable position for turn- 
ing our thoughts to St. Luke. 

The subject would be very large, if we were to 
take .into account all the characteristics of his Gos- 
pel, as well as the contents, the style, and the special 
value of the Acts of the Apostles. Tradition, too, 
has been busy with St. Luke, and in a full account . 
of him it could hardly be disregarded. It is evi- 
dently necessary to narrow our view within a small 
compass, bearing carefully in mind also that we are 
considering him in the light of one of St. Paul's com- 
panions. 

Tradition says that St. Luke was a painter. This 
opinion rests on no true foundation ; it is, moreover, 
comparatively modern ; and it has been the fruitful 
source of many superstitions. And yet in one sense 
it is most true that he was a painter. 2 In the Book 
of the Acts, besides many minor portraits, we have a 
full-length picture of the Great Apostle of the Gen- 
tiles. TVe ought ever gratefully to remember how 
much all the ages owe to St. Luke for this. Without 
his aid we could not have fully known St. Paul. The 
portrait, too, is drawn, not merely by the hand of a 
master, but by the hand of a friend. St. Luke knew 

1 Phil. iv. 3. 

2 See De Pressens^, Les Trois Premiers Siecles, vol. ii. p. 10. 



ST. LUKE. 47 

St. Paul by familiar companionship ; and it is quite 
evident that his attachment to him was most devoted 
and warm. We see how thoroughly the biographer 
though in one sense he is writing an autobiogra- 
phy at the same time sinks and forgets himself. 
Thus indirectly he tells us something of his own 
character. In what he says of St. Paul, and in what 
lie abstains from saying about himself, he reveals to 
us both his ardent and steady friendship, and, at the 
same time, his modesty and humility. 

But much more is made known to us concerning 
St. Luke through what is said of him by St. Paul. 
He speaks of him, as we have seen, not merely as his 
'' fellow-laborer," but also as " the beloved physician." 
There is more meaning in the latter phrase than ap- 
pears at first sight ; and we shall do well to take it 
as the thread to guide us, from this point, in our 
present reflections. 

The mere fact that his profession and occupation 
in life are specified is full of interest. There are only 
two other such cases in the record which we have of 
the companions of our Apostle. " Demetrius, the 
silversmith," * though his conduct had much to do 
with a very important passage of St. Paul's career, 
can hardly be said to have been one of his compan- 
ions ; and of " Alexander the coppersmith," or 
" Zenas the lawyer," 2 we know too little to be justi- 
fied in building anything on the mention of their 
names. Lydia, " the seller of purple," 3 was proba- 
1 Acts xix. 24. 2 2 Tim. iv. 14; Tit. iii. 13. 3 Acts xvi. 14. 



48 THE COMPANIONS OF ST. PAUL. 

bly brought to P.hilippi, and thus within the sacred 
circle of Apostolic companionship, by the exigencies 
of her trade ; while of Aquila and Priscilla, who 
were " tent-makers," we are distinctly told that Paul 
" abode with them, because he was of the same 
craft." i Similarly, we are quite justified in believing 
that St. Luke's professional life was the occasion of 
his coming into close contact with St. Paul. The 
mere specifying of his profession in the saluta- 
tion implies a great deal. It must be remembered, 
too, that physicians were men of high culture, and 
that this would establish an easy link of connection 
with one who, besides other great qualifications for 
his work, was a man of literary culture. But there 
is a strong probability, as was hinted in the last essay, 
that a deeper union between the two men subsisted 
than any which would be supplied by mere commu- 
nity of intellectual tastes. St. Paul had been suffer- 
ing from serious illness in Galatia, 2 and very soon af- 
terwards St. Luke appears with him, side by side, at 
Troas. During subsequent years they were fre- 
quently associated together in the closest manner ; 
and we have the best reasons for believing ' that the 
Apostle's health was always delicate. What so natu- 
ral as to suppose that the first acquaintance at Troas 
was marked by the exercise of St. Luke's profes- 
sional skill, and that the same skill was on many 
subsequent occasions available for the alleviation of 
suffering and fatigue v How entirely this explains 
1 Acts xviii. 3. 2 Qal. iv. 13. 



ST. LUKE. . 49 

the peculiar warmth, and definite ness of the allusion 
in the Epistle to the Colossians ! We must carefully 
observe, too, that it is not merely St. Luke's medical 
knowledge which St. Paul mentions, but that he calls 
him " beloved " in connection with this characteristic. 
There seems to be evidently here the sense of per- 
sonal gratitude for benefits received. 

Proceeding now from this train of thought, it is 
natural to attempt Jo trace out some indications in 
St. Luke's writings of the fact that he was a phy- 
sician. This can be done here only in the slightest 
manner ; but the task will not be difficult. 

It is no fancy which detects in St. Luke's Gospel 
the traces of a professional feeling in various inciden- 
tal passages, as well as in allusions to subjects which 
may be properly called medical. Thus it is in this 
Gospel alone, in the record of that first sermon at 
Nazareth, that we find the prominent mention of the 
" healing " of both mind and body as a characteristic 
of the Saviour's mission; and here only, at the close 
of that sermon, have we the quoting of that pointed 
proverb, " Physician, heal thyself." * With this may 
be classed a phrase which is unique in this Gospel, in 
the account of what took place soon afterwards, 
" The power of the Lord was present to heal them." 2 
So again, we have, twice repeated, in this Gospel, a 
peculiar phrase having reference to recovery from 
sickness : " There went virtue out of Him and healed 
them all ; " " Somebody hath touched me ; for I per- 
1 Luke iv. 18, 23. 2 Luke v. 17. 



50 THE COMPANIONS OF ST. PAUL. 

ceive that virtue is gone out of me." l But, above 
all, we must notice (if we may, without irreverence, 
use such an expression) what is almost an amusing 
corroboration of the view which has been expressed 
concerning the existence of this professional feeling 
in St. Luke's Gospel. In the account which another 
Evangelist gives of the woman healed by the way, it 
is said that " she had suffered many things of many 
physicians, and had spent all that she had, and was 
nothing bettered, but rather greV worse," 2 so that a 
reflection seems to be thrown on the skill of the phy- 
sicians ; whereas St. Luke states the fact simply thus: 
" She had spent all her living upon physicians, neither 
could be healed of any," 3 thus casting no imputation 
on the skill of those who belonged to his own profes- 
sion. 4 

Similarly we trace indications of the physician's 
mind in the mention of technical details and in the 
use of appropriate medical terms. To elucidate this 
fully, it would be necessary .to compare St. Luke's 
Greek in these cases with the terminology of Greek 
writers on medical science. It may suffice to give a 
few illustrations. Two are furnished by the account 
of the healing of Peter's wife's mother. When St. 
Luke describes the fever as a "great" fever, and 
speaks of Jesus as " standing over " the patient, he is 
really using as can be proved by reference to the 

l Luke vi. 19 ; viii. 46. 2 Mark v. 26. 

8 Luke viii. 43. 

4 See Smith of Jordanhill, Diss. on the Gospels, p. 291. 



ST. LUKE. 51 

proper authors technical forms of expression , 
while still by the words, " He rebuked the fever," he 
is careful to mark the miraculous nature of the cure. 1 
The Acts of the Apostles may supply our other ex- 
amples ; and it is important to show that the charac- 
teristic, which is now under consideration, is common 
to both books. In the account of miracles of heal- 
ing, the writer of the Acts has an evident tendency 
to dwell on symptoms ; and this is a true mark of the 
medical mind. Thus, in relating the case of the lame 
man at the Temple gate, it is not merely the fact of 
the recovery which is stated, but it is said that " the 
feet and ankle bones received strength ; " and it is 
added further, as if to mark the stages of the recov- 
ery, that " he stood and walked." 2 So the stages of 
the blindness of Elymas at Paphos are indicated, and 
the symptoms of the case, as well as the mere fact of 
the loss of sight, when it is said that, on the utter- 
ance of St. Paul's stern anathema, " there fell on 
him a mist and a darkness, and he went about seek- 
ing some to lead him by the hand." 3 The last in- 
stance may be furnished by the record of St. Paul's 
stay in Malta, after the shipwreck. A miraculous 
cure was worked there on the father of Publius, " the 
chief man of the island," who was suffering from 
dysentery in an aggravated form ; and the language 
which St. Luke applies to the patient is as exact and 
appropriate as if he himself had been called in to 
treat the case professionally. 4 

1 Luke iv. 38, 39. 2 Acts "il. 7, 8. 

8 Acts xiii. II. 4 Acts xxviii. 8. 

20 



52 THE COMPANIONS OF ST. PAUL. 

The Collect for St. Luke's Day is one of the most 
beautiful in the Prayer-book. The very form of the 
petition "May it please thee" has a soothing 
sound, which gives to the whole prayer a character of 
its own. But the main feature of the Collect is that 
it lays hold of that fact concerning St. Luke, which 
has been dwelt on above, and turns it to a spiritual 
use ; that it sets before us this Evangelist and his- 
torian as a " physician of the soul," and offers up the 
supplication that " by the wholesome medicines of 
the doctrine delivered by him all the diseases of our 
souls may be healed." We could hardly occupy the 
remainder of our space more suitably or more usefully, 
than by briefly considering how St. Luke's writings 
may truly and distinctively be viewed as medicine 
for the soul. Of course, his writings have several 
characteristics of their own. Here the view must be 
narrowed to those particulars which may justly be 
termed medicinal and remedial for sorrow and sin. I 
believe those who are suffering deeply from sorrow 
or sin do often find in St. Luke's Gospel a special 
consolation. The purpose of these remarks is to sug- 
gest a probable reason. 

The Lord's Prayer, as given in St. Matthew, speaks 
of de^ts : in St. Luke it speaks of sins. 1 This may 
serve to indicate, in a pointed way, one of the differ- 
ences between the two Gospels. The characteristic 
Parables of the Pharisee and Publican, and of the 
Prodigal Son, will at once occur to the mind in con- 
1 Matt. vi. 12; Luke xi. 4. 



ST LUKE. 53 

nection with this subject. Again, while St. Matthew's 
Gospel always leads the mind up to the establishment 
of Christ's kingdom, St. Luke's Gospel diffuses itself, 
as it were, over the whole range of the needs of hu- 
manity, This general statement can be justified by 
a reference to two distinctive particulars. 

This Gospel penetrates, as has often been remarked, 
with peculiar closeness into our domestic life ; it also 
makes special mention of the poor, and special men- 
tion of children. All this sympathetic tendency may 
be summed up in a brief compass by noting how St. 
Luke is led to give a prominent place to widows, 
and to enlist our feelings on their behalf. Here only 
does any notice occur of that " widow of fourscore 
and four years," Anna, of the tribe of Aser, " which 
departed not from the Temple, but served God with 
fastings and prayers night and day." l Here only 
have we that touching allusion to the most pathetic 
part of Elijah's career : " I tell you of a truth, many 
widows were in Israel in the days of Elias, when 
great famine was throughout the land; but unto none 
of them was Elias sent, save unto Sarepta, a city of 
Sidon, unto a woman that was a widow." 2 Above all, 
it is in this Gospel only that we have the miracle at 
the gate of Nain ; and in regard to that occurrence it 
is to be observed, not merely that she, whose son was 
restored to her from the bier, was " a widow," but 
that it was her " only son," and that the Lord ar- 
rested the funeral procession, because He had " coni- 
i Luke ii. 36, 37. 2 Luke iv. 25, 26. 



54 THE COMPANIONS OF ST. PAUL. 

passion." l By such assurances of Divine sympathy 
the Evangelist, like the good Samaritan in his own 
parable, " pours oil and wine " into our wounds. 
Who can hesitate to say that a biography of Christ 
which presents the distinguishing features, here most 
slightly sketched out, is full of healing medicine for 
the sorrows of human life ? 

With the subject just considered above we might 
naturally associate that parable in St. Luke's Gospel, 
and in his Gospel only, which exhibits to us a widow 
seeking in vain for justice from an unjust judge. 2 
But it will be best to use it for the purpose of il- 
lustrating our second , point ; and indeed with this 
end in view, we can combine it, not less naturally, 
with another parable, which also is found only in this 
Gospel. A traveller at midnight is in need of re- 
freshment after his journey, and though at first he is 
rudely and selfishly repulsed, at length importunity 
wins the granting of the request, 3 just as, at length, 
the widow obtains her desire by incessant asking. 
A peculiar kind of parable is, in fact, given by St. 
Luke to persuade us that persevering prayer must be 
granted. The argument is, that if importunity suc- 
ceeds with bad and selfish men, it must succeed with 
the good and merciful God. 

And this characteristic of the Gospel is in harmony 

with what we read throughout its pages concerning 

Prayer. The effect on the mind is very great, when 

we trace out patiently in these pages all the instances 

i Luke vii. 12, 13. 2 Luke xviii. 3. 3 Luke xi. 8. 



ST. LURE. . 55 

in which our Lord invites us to the habit of prayer 
by his own holy example. At his baptism He was 
" praying " when " the heaven was opened and the 
Holy Ghost descended upon Him." l When the rec- 
ord is given of some of his early miracles, " great 
multitudes coming together to hear and to be healed 
of their infirmities," it is added that " He withdrew 
Himself into the wilderness, and prayed." 2 And as 
at the close of his own wonder-working, so, before 
the appointment of those who were to do wonders in 
his name, " it came to pass in those days, that He 
went out into a mountain to pray, and continued all 
night in prayer to God ; and when it was day He 
called unto Him his disciples, and of them He chose 
twelve." 3 Just before his transfiguration He had 
gone " up into a mountain to pray ; " and it was " as 
He prayed " that the fashion of his countenance was 
altered, and that his garment became white and 
glistering. 4 It was after He had been " praying," 
that, at the instance of his disciples, He gave them 
the Lord's Prayer, proceeding to enforce it by the 
parable of the Midnight Traveller, and by the argu- 
ment which has been adduced above. 3 And we may 
conclude this remarkable catalogue by the words 
addressed to St. Peter at the time of the Passion. 
Nothing could more clearly indicate a constant habit 
of prayer, or more solemnly inculcate on us the duty 
of forming this habit, than the reference to the ter- 

* Luke iii 21, 22. 2 Luke v. 15, 16. 8 Luke vi. 12, 13. 
4 Luke ix. 28, 29. 5 Luke xi. 1. 



56 THE COMPANIONS OF ST. PAUL. 

rible " sifting " which all the disciples were destined 
to experience, with the addition, " I have prayed for 
thee ; and when thou art converted, strengthen thy 
brethren." 1 Nor could we find anywhere a more 
" wholesome medicine," in all times of sin and weak- 
ness and temptation, than in these passages concer.o 
ing prayer, which St. Luke's Gospel contains for us. 
If in other places the " doctrine delivered by him " 
is soothing and consoling in sorrow, these passages 
are medicinal and remedial for the worst " diseases of 
the soul." 

But now, though St. Luke's Gospel comes very 
close to those who are suffering under sorrow and sin, 
it is by no means sombre or depressing in its char- 
acter. On the contrary, it is marked by peculiar 
cheerfulness. I believe that any one, taking a Con- 
cordance into his hand, and examining the words that 
are expressive of joy and exultation, might test this 
satisfactorily for himself. It. is, again, in this Gos- 
pel only that those jubilant hymns are found which 
mark our Lord's Nativity, and have obtained a per- 
manent place in our Church Services. Such cheer- 
ful encouragement may well be classed among the 
remedies which our souls need for thorough spiritual 
health. 

Perhaps, however, we shall conclude the subject 

more fitly by turning to the Acts of the Apostles for 

specimens of the encouraging nature of St. Luke's 

writing ; and all the more, because we thus observe 

1 Luke xxii. 31, 32. 



ST. LUKE. 57 

him again in the character of a companion of St. 
Paul. There is certainly no lack of tenderness and 
pathos in this later " treatise." It would be difficult 
to find anywhere a passage more touching, more ex- 
pressive of deep sorrow and suffering, than the ad- 
dress to the Ephesian elders at Miletus. Again, as 
to Prayer, this is brought before us on two occasions 
in the most emphatic mariner incidentally, too, 
through St. Paul's example, as in " the former trea- 
tise " through the example of his Master both when 
the Apostle "kneeled down and prayed with them 
all " on the shore at Miletus after that address ; l and 
again at the close of the voyage, when they " kneeled 
down on the shore and prayed " at Tyre. 2 All that 
is involved in such descriptions is truly medicinal to 
the soul. But for the full convalescence of the soul, 
if the comparison may. be carried so far, there is 
needed also the " wholesome doctrine " of warm en- 
couragement : and this is certainly supplied in the 
Acts of the Apostles. 

The whole tone and tenor of the book has this 
tendency. The cheering and strengthening com- 
munications to St. Paul as when it was said to 
him in Corinth at a troublous time, " Be not afraid, 
but speak, and hold not thy peace : for I am with 
thee, and no man shall set on thee to hurt thee ; " 3 or 
when the assurance came in the castle at Jerusalem, 
" Be of good cheer, Paul ; for as thou hast testified 
of me here, so must thou bear witness also at 

l Acts xx. 36. 2 A c t s xxj. 5. 8 Acts xviii. 9, 10. 



58 THE COMPANIONS OF ST. PAUL. 

Rome ; " l or on board the ship, in the midst of the 
raging storm, when he was enabled to exhort the crew 
to " be of good cheer,*' through the confidence given 
to himself, " Fear not, Paul ; lo ! God hath given 
thee all them that sail with thee " 2 such cheering 
and strengthening communications to him. ought not 
to be without their effect on us. And yet perhaps 
even more hope, with a greater trust in God's good 
providence, is derived to us, in our daily trials, from 
some of the more commonplace encouragements in 
this narrative : as when we find, at the beginning of 
the voyage to Borne, that " Julius courteously en- 
treated Paul at Sidon, and gave him liberty to go 
unto his friends to refresh himself ; " 3 or when, at the 
close of the voyage, he was greeted by the brethren, 
who "came to meet him at Appii Forum and the 
Three Taverns, whom when Paul saw, he thanked 
God and took courage." 4 At these times, too, St. 
Luke was with him, to watch over his health, and to 
cheer him with companionship. So we return to the 
topic from which our meditations began "Luke, 
the beloved physician " faithful and assiduous in all 
these journeys faithful also to the very end: for 
we find him with the Apostle not only in the first 
Roman imprisonment, during which the Epistle to 
the Colossians was written, but in the last imprison- 
ment of all, when others had forsaken him, and he 
writes with deep feeling, " Only Luke is with me." 5 

1 Acts xxiii. 11. 2 Acts xxvii. 22, 24. 8 Acts xxvii. 3. 
4 Acts xxviii. 15. 5 2 Tim. iv. 11. 



ST. LUKE. 59 

It now remains, as a consequence of what has here 
been elucidated, that we should thankfully discharge 
two duties, one having reference to ourselves, the 
other to those around us. The remedial power of 
those parts of Holy Scripture, which St. Luke was 
inspired to write, should be drawn into our hearts ; 
and having made it our own, we should endeavor to 
dispense it, as God may enable us, for the healing of 
the diseases of a sick world. 



21 



IT. 

APOLLOS. 

'*An eloquent man, and mighty in the Scriptures." ACTS 

xviii. 24. 

A S we pursue the course of St. Paul's biography, 
* * we see his character and work on very various 
sides ; and, as we might naturally expect, liis Com- 
panions reflect this variety. In estimating his powers 
of active administration, for instance, we consider him 
in reference to such men as Timotheus and Titus. 
His warm personal friendship is illustrated hy Barna- 
bas and Epaphroditus. Or, again, his influence on 
the mind of his Heathen associates may be in some 
degree appreciated by what we read of his contact 
with Felix and Julius. The subject of our present 
thoughts reminds us of another side of this varied 
and unceasing activity. Apollos brings us within the 
sphere of theology and controversy, and shows us 
St. Paul in his contact with religious party, and in 
his mode of dealing with it : whilst in studying this 
relation between the two men we shall certainly find 
copious instruction for our own times, and for each 
one among ourselves. 

Apollos was, for a while at least, in close communi- 
cation with St. Paul, and himself played no inconsid- 
erable part in one of the great Churches which the 



APOLLOS 61 

Apostle founded. Our information on these points, 
and on the character of Apollos, is derived almost 
entirely from the Acts of the Apostles and from the 
First Epistle to the Corinthians. There is indeed a 
slight allusion to him in one of the latest Epistles ; 
but it is too casual to furnish in itself any materials 
for our description and understanding of the man, 
though, if added to what we obtain elsewhere, it forms 
a fit termination to our thoughts on the subject. 

The passage from the Acts of the Apostles may 
be given at length. "A certain Jew, named Apollos, 
born at Alexandria, an eloquent man, and mighty in 
the Scriptures, came to Ephesus. This man was in- 
structed in the way of the Lord ; and, being fervent 
in the Spirit, he spake and taught diligently the 
things of the Lord, knowing only the baptism of John. 
And he began to speak boldly in the synagogue : 
whom when Aquila and Priscilla had heard, they took 
him imto them, and expounded unto him the way of 
God more perfectly. And when he was disposed to 
pass into Achaia, the. 4 brethren wrote, exhorting the 
disciples to receive him : who, when lie was come, 
helped them much which had believed through grace : 
for he mightily convinced the Jews, and that publicly, 
showing by the Scriptures that Jesus was Christ." 1 
Now here several things come to view which ought 
to be well considered when we wish to appreciate 
fully the work and the character of Apollos. 

The first thing to be taken into account in estimat- 

1 Acts xviii. 24-28. 



62 THE COMPANIONS OF ST. PAUL. 

ing any man who has played an important part in 
life is the influence to which he was exposed in his 
early days. The associations of his youth ; the place 
of his* training ; the manner of his education, these 
things have usually much to do with the career which 
follows. 

Now we know what Alexandria was. Even in the 
Acts of the Apostles we see it in its relations to the 
religious life of the Jews in Jerusalem, 1 and to the 
world-wide commerce of Heathen Italy. 2 This city 
was a most remarkable meeting-place of East and 
West, and was characterized alike by mercantile and 
mental activity. Even the memory of Alexander, 
its great founder, would tend to produce breadth of 
view among the Alexandrians, to make them tolerant 
and less disposed than others to lay stress on national 
distinctions. Here, too the Hebrew Scriptures were 
translated into Greek ; and here a famous school of 
Biblical interpretation grew up side by side with 
schools of Greek philosophy. Such mutual relations 
of Jews and Gentiles in this place were among the 
providential preparations for the spread of Christian- 
ity. In the midst of these influences Apollos was 
brought up ; and the accomplishments thus acquired 
were of essential service to him in his future work. 
Even if we consider Alexandria only as a school of 
high education, a resort of learned men, and a place 
affording opportunities, if rightly used, for the training 
of the mind, it is instructive to observe how God made 
1 Acts vi. 9. 2 Acts xxvii. 6 ; xviii. 11. 



APOLLO S. 63 



use of such opportunities in preparing his servant for 
his appointed task. And this thought leads us to the 
homely but very useful remark, that we ought to 
set a high value on early training, even as regards 
this world's studies. "We cannot tell to what benefi- 
cial and religious purposes a good education may be 
made subservient. 

Another thought, too, is suggested by thus viewing 
Alexandria as the starting-point of one of St. Paul's 
Companions. It is interesting to mark how God 
draws from different sources what is meant ultimately 
to flow together in one beneficent stream. The con- 
trast between St. Paul's training and that of Apollos 
was probably very great. The latter was nurtured 
in Greek scholarship at Alexandria. The former 
was " brought up " in Rabbinical learning " at the 
feet of Gamaliel' 1 in Jerusalem. 1 Yet afterwards 
they met, and became fellow-workers in the cause of 
the Gospel. It is an example full of instruction and 
encouragement to ourselves, inviting us, in regard to 
our own experience a.nd oitr own cooperation with 
others, to consider and admire God's providential or- 
dering of the early steps of our lives. 

Hitherto we have been looking rather on the secu- 
lar side now we must turn to the more directly re- 
ligious side of the preparation of Apollos for the 
work that was appointed him. And this we see com- 
prised in two particulars. First, we find, as indeed 
we should expect from the circumstances of the case, 

1 Acts xx ii. 3. 



64 THE COMPANIONS OF ST. PAUL. 

that lie was learned in the Old Testament Scriptures. 
Next we are told that he had received some instruc- 
tion only elementary, it is true, but still very im- 
portant in the facts and doctrines of Christianity. 

We cannot dwell too carefully on this, that it was 
through being " mighty in the Scriptures " that Apol- 
los became mighty in other respects. This knowledge 
of the Jewish Bible, this apprehension of its meaning, 
this power of explaining and illustrating its contents, 
became the basis of all his subsequent usefulness. It 
requires the exercise of but little thought to draw 
out all the benefit of this example for ourselves. 
With him this sacred possession was limited to the 
Old Testament. We have, in addition, the still higher 
blessing of the New. So that whatever argument 
there was in his case for the acquisition of rich stores 
of Biblical knowledge is immensely strengthened in 
ours. 

But, though the Scriptures, with which Apollos 
was familiar, were simply the books of the Old Tes- 
tament, he had obtained, before he came to Ephesus, 
some knowledge and good knowledge, too, though 
imperfect of the Christian Revelation. He had 
been Ci instructed in the way of the Lord," so as to 
be able to " teach diligently the things of the Lord," 
knowing, however, only the baptism of John. 
Whether he had come in contact with John the Bap- 
tist personally, or acquired his knowledge through 
some of those who had heard John's preaching in 
Judasa, and who had gone from thence to Alexandria, 



APOLLOS. 65 

we cannot tell. The latter supposition is the more 
probable. However this may be, he knew the Gospel 
system up to the level of John's teaching, and no 
higher. 

Now here a remark may be made, which is worthy 
of some attention. If Apollos knew all that John 
the Baptist had taught, he knew the most important 
part of Christianity ; for John had said of Jesus, 
" Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the 
sin of the world." 1 The Gospel system, indeed, con- 
tains much more than this. In due time Sacraments 
were instituted ; a Ministry was set apart ; a great 
system of Morals was given, applicable to all the cir- 
cumstances of our lives ; above all, the teaching and 
strengthening power of the Holy Ghost was made 
known and promised. 2 But in these words of John 
the Baptist by the bank of Jordan we have the main 
point. This is the life-giving part of the Gospel sys- 
tem. However far our religious attainments may 
ultimately reach,' it is here in the Redemption 
wrought out by Christ for sin that we have the 
fresh well-spring from which all the rest flows out. 
Let us never lose this thought from our mind. In 
all our study, in all our work, let the great central 
principle never be overlaid or forgotten. 

But now we begin to enter upon considerations 
which relate not so much to the advantages and op- 
portunities that Apollos possessed, as to features of 
his personal character. 

1 John i. 29. 2 See Acts xix. 2, 3. 



66 THE COMPANIONS OF ST. PAUL. 

It is said here that he was " eloquent." Now on 
this I do not dwell, except so far as to note that God 
chooses Plis instruments suitably. Eloquence is a 
gift bestowed only on a few. We may be very use- 
ful without eloquence. We may be very mischievous 
with eloquence. The point of real moment to all of 
us here is, that in the case of Apollos this gift was 
sanctified and turned to a religious use. 

A similar remark, too, might perhaps, with justice, 
be made regarding his " fervency of spirit." Apol- 
los was evidently a man of warm temperament ; and 
temperaments vary. Some are naturally warmer 
than others. And yet is it not evident that there 
must be warmth wherever the true love of Christ is 
present ? There must be enthusiasm where Christ 
has been received fully into the heart; and enthu- 
siasm in ourselves is God's instrument for kindling 
enthusiasm in others. So that in this respect, too, 
there is something for every one of us to learn from 
Apollos, and to make the ground-work of self-exam- 
ination. 

But the same sentence presents to us another fea- 
ture, which might not at first sight attract our no- 
tice. " This man was instructed in the way of the 
Lord ; " " he taught diligently the things of the Lord ; " 
he learnt the way of God " more perfectly." From 
these phrases, especially as read in the original Greek, 
I should infer that he had that habit of mind which 
we call accuracy ; and it is a most important habit 
far more important than is commonly supposed. The 



APOLLOS. 67 

difference between one man and another in regard 
to real influence in the world relates not so much 
to amount of knowledge as accuracy of knowledge. 
Moreover, progressive advance in religious knowl- 
edge depends, at each step, upon accuracy. And now 
we ask the further question : On what does accuracy 
depend ? The answer is easy. For the most part It 
depends on attention. An inattentive learner never 
becomes an accurate scholar. Justly then do we lay 
great stress on attention, in the teaching of the 
young. The exercise, too, of this faculty depends in 
a great measure upon ourselves ; so that here again 
Apollos is brought face to face with our own experi- 
ence, and gives to us in his example a most useful ad- 
monition. 

But at this point in the mode of his coming in 
contact with Aquila and Priscilla, and so indirectly 
with St. Paul we begin to note a moral and relig- 
ious feature of Apollos, which merits our special at- 
tention, because it is singularly characteristic of him, 
as well as full of beneficial suggestions to ourselves. 
When Aquila and Priscilla had heard Apollos in the 
synagogue, " they took him unto them and expounded 
unto him the way of God more perfectly." These 
two Jewish Christians, as we learn from the early 
part of the chapter, 1 were " tent-makers," with whom 
St. Paul had made acquaintance at Corinth, and 
whom he had left at Ephesus a short time previous 
to the arrival of Apollos. They became the religious 

1 Acts xviii. 3. 

22 



68 THE COMPANIONS OF ST. PAUL. 

instructors of this Alexandrian stranger, who in their 
hands was a most willing learner. Thus here we 
have an eloquent man, a learned man, a fervent man, 
not unwilling to be taught, and taught too by plain 
and homely people, who were engaged in busine, ?. 
One of these teachers, moreover, was a woman. It 
was not from a Theological College that Apollos ob- 
tained his advanced religious instruction. In making 
this observation we are certainly not justified in sug- 
gesting that Scripture throws any contempt on learn- 
ing or scholarship. "We have seen the very contrary 
above, in the cases both of this Jew of Alexandria and 
of St. Paul himself. Still the fact is as stated here. 
The secular training of Apollos came from a very dis- 
tinguished source, his high religious training from a 
very lowly one. How frequently has this been the 
case since ! Those who have been eminent in Uni- 
versity honors have often learnt their best lessons of 
religion even from the poor, and often from women, in 
the retired hours of domestic life. By such methods 
God's Providence brings all parts of a man's experi- 
ence into harmony, and causes all to bear upon the 
one point of active service. Those men who produce 
great "religious results on the minds of others have 
usually drawn their own teaching from very various 
sources. Many things are made tributary to that 
stream of wide influence, which in the end flows full 
and strong. There must, however, be a teachable 
spirit, if the benefits are to be fully realized. "We 
must become children, if we are to be high in the 



APOLLOS. 69 

kingdom of heaven. This was exemplified in the in- 
stance of Apollos. Let it be our honest desire that 
it may be exemplified in ours. 

Next we turn to notice the active career of useful- 
ness on which he now entered. Equipped, as we 
have seen, with varied knowledge, he was filled with 
a noble zeal to make that knowledge fruitful. His 
desires turned with characteristic energy to a distant 
scene of labor ; nor is it difficult to conjecture the 
reasons which attracted his thoughts towards Corinth. 
The name and importance of the place were very 
familiar to him. Alexandria, Ephesus, and Corinth 
were connected together by the intercourse of constant 
trade. But especially his friends Aquila and Priscilla 
would, in their conversation, be constantly speaking of 
St. Paul's work in Achaia, where they first had met 
him. The names of his chief converts, too, would be 
frequently mentioned, with the difficulties and troubles 
of the young Christian community in that district. 
Thus Apollos was seized with the desire of doing 
public service on the fi^eld which was prepared to his 
hand, and of continuing the work which St. Paul had 
already begun ; and Aquila and Priscilla were in no- 
wise loth to encourage him in the enterprise. They 
evidently rejoiced in the prospect of such aid being 
given to their Corinthian friends, whom they knew 
to be in the midst of perilous temptations. " The 
brethren " in Ephesus shared these feelings, " and 
wrote, exhorting the disciples to receive" Apollos. 
The mention of this fa^t is full of interest, for it is 



70 THE COMPANIONS OF ST. PAUL. 

the first recorded instance of commendatory letters, 
a kind of correspondence which became, in the times 
that immediately succeeded, an instrument of the ut- 
most value for binding together the separated parts 
of the growing Church. Armed with such letters, 
Apollos crossed the sea from Ephesus to Corinth ; 
and the result is told in forcible though simple lan- 
guage : " When he was come to Corinth, he helped 
them much which had believed through grace ; for 
he mightily convinced the Jews, and that publicly, 
showing by the Scriptures that Jesus was Christ." 

What a great position was this, and what an en- 
viable position, to be the organ of friendly commu- 
nication between two Churches, to bind together two 
parts of the Christian community, and to communi- 
cate strength where strength was needed ! And let 
it not be forgotten that helping work of this kind, 
on a smaller or larger scale, is within the power of 
us all. 

Here it is that we see the exertions of St. Paul 
and Apollos in the cause of the Gospel, though start- 
ing from two different points, brought harmoniously 
into one focus. Attempts indeed were made, too suc- 
cessfully, to separate the Church of Corinth into 
antagonistic sections, connected with the names of 
these two men. But in heart and intention their 
work was one. Just at this moment of St. Paul's 
life it is that the First Epistle to the Corinthians 
comes in, to enable us to continue the biography of 
Apollos, and to obtain from it fresh lessons very 
useful for our times. 



APOLLO 8. 71 

The Epistle, soon after its opening, makes very 
pointed allusions to Apollos. After introductory sal- 
utations, thanksgiving, and advice, the Apostle be- 
gins his rebuke suddenly : " It hath been declared 
unto me of you, my brethren, by them which are of 
the house of Chloe, that there are contentions among 
you. Now this I say, that every one of you saith, I 
am of Paul ; and I of Apollos ; and I of Cephas ; 
and I of Christ ; " - 1 and, again, after an interval, he 
returns to the same subject thus : " "Whereas there is 
among you envying, and strife, and divisions, are ye 
not carnal, and walk as men ? For while one saith, 
I am of Paul ; and another, I am of Apollos ; are ye 
not carnal ? Who then is Paul, and who is Apollos, 
but ministers by whom ye believed, even as the 
Lord gave to every man ? I have planted, Apollos 
watered ; but God gave the increase." 2 At this point 
it is worth while to notice in passing how exactly yet 
how unconsciously, so to speak, the facts here im- 
plied harmonize with the history which we find in the 
Acts. The Corinthians are reminded that Apollos 
continued among them the work which Paul had 
begun. Paul arrived first at 'Corinth, Apollos after- 
wards. But this is not all. It is implied that Apollos 
had been there in the interval between St. Paul's 
personal visit on the Second Missionary Journey, 
and the writing of this letter, which we know to 
have taken place at Ephesus on the Third Missionary 
Journey. 3 It is not, however, any corroborations of 1 

1 1 Cor. i. 11, 12. 2 1 Cor. iii. 3-6. 

s See Acts xix. 1: 1 Cor. xvi iQ 



72 THE COMPANIONS OF ST. PAUL. 

the mere accuracy of Scripture, however interesting 
they may be, to which our attention is to be turned 
at present. We are following the career of one of 
St. Paul's Companions, with the view of learning 
from his life and work something useful for our- 
selves. 

The arrival of this learned and eloquent man, 
though intended for the spreading and deepening of 
practical religion, had been followed, as we see, by 
the formation of religious parties.. Some of these 
Corinthian Christians had a preference for St. Paul, 
some for Apollos. So they ranged themselves in 
different sections, and called themselves by different 
names. All this was very natural, though very 
wrong. Each of these two Missionaries of Christ 
had his own peculiar gifts and means of influence. 
In all that we usually sum up under the term popu- 
larity Apollos was probably far superior. On the 
other hand, St. Paul had been first in the field, had 
founded the Church in Corinth, and came with su- 
preme authority. Besides this, individual hearts and 
minds had been relatively brought more closely into 
contact with the one or" the other. Thus that deplor- 
able growth of party spirit took place at Corinth, 
which has had its counterpart ever since in all ages 
of the Church, which is bearing its mischievous fruits 
even now, too plentifully, in England. 

It is not needful here to attempt any discrimina- 
tion of the exact characteristics of these parties in 
Corinth ; nor indeed is this an easy task. It is m ure 



AfOLLOS. 73 

important for us to ascertain the cure for this evil 
tendency among ourselves. The true remedy is to 
be found in those general principles which St. Paul 
enunciates in this Epistle. We are to look up to 
that one common Divine source from whence all 
gifts and graces proceed. Pie reminds the Corin- 
thians that they are to think even of their greatest 
teachers whether they were Apollos or Paul him- 
self as " ministers " through whom God works in 
them spiritual good. They are not to exalt one at 
the expense of another. They are to view all the 
spiritual benefit that comes to them by human in- 
strumentality as sent by God. " Let no man glory 
hi men," he says ; " for all things are yours 
whether Paul or Apollos, or things present, or things 
to come all are yours." l 

Now the question arises and in estimating his 
character it is quite essential to answer the question 
whether this party spirit, which was developed at 
Corinth, was in any way the fault of Apollos, and 
whether, when it was .developed, he encouraged it at 
all. Here another passage from the latter part of the 
same Epistle presents itself to our attention, and 
supplies the answer. The Apostle writes: "As 
touching our brother Apollos, I greatly desired him 
to come unto you with the brethren ; bnt his wil] 
was not at all to come at this time ; but he will come 
when he shall have convenient time." 2 We perceive 
from this that Apollos had now left Corinth and 
1 1 Cor. iii. 21, 22. 2 ] Cor. xvi. 12. 



74 TEE COMPANIONS OF ST. PAUL. 

returned to Ephesus, and that he and St. Paul were 
in personal companionship together. It is the first 
record which we possess of their actual meeting, 
though indirectly, as we have seen, they had been in 
diligent cooperation. At Ephesus they had abundant 
opportunity of conversing together concerning the 
state of things in Corinth ; and, viewed in the light 
of this fact, the verse before us is very instructive. 
There is no doubt that, with so much zeal, so much 
learning, so much eloquence, so much popularity, 
Apollos might have made himself eminent as a party 
leader. In most ages of the Church such gifts have 
been used, too willingly, for such purposes. But this 
Apollos would not do. There are good reasons, as 
we have seen, for believing that in some attractive 
qualities he was far superior to St. Paul. But he 
preferred the safety and welfare of the Church to 
his own self-aggrandizement. And how considerate 
is his conduct, as made known to us on this occasion ! 
St. Paul wished him to go to Corinth at this time. 
But for the present he firmly declined. His ap- 
pearance there would only have been the signal for a 
new outbreak of this party spirit. 

And indeed how admirable is the conduct of these 
two apostolic men one towards another ! We are 
considering them as Companions ; and their mutual 
relation, with the personal feeling exhibited on each 
side at a critical time, must be specially observed. 
Nor is there any difficulty in seeing, on the part of 
St. Paul, the greatest generosity, with the most per- 



APOLLOS. 75 

feet confidence that Apollos would not abuse an op- 
portunity ; and, on the other side, the most delicate 
and thoughtful respect for St. Paul, and the utmost 
reluctance on the part of Apollos to run any risk of 
exalting himself at the expense of another. What an 
example of self -restraint and mutual consideration is 
presented to us here ! Such an example ought to be 
carefully followed. It is this kind of forbearance 
which maintains and strengthens friendship, and se- 
cures the continuance of associated Christian work. 

Friendships thus cemented last long and bear 
many strains. We are not surprised by the anxiety 
shown by St. Paul long afterwards for the comfort 
of Apollos in the prospect of a fatiguing journey. In 
his Epistle to Titus we find this message : " Bring 
Zenas the lawyer and Apollos on their journey dili- 
gently, that nothing be wanting unto them." 1 Of 
Zenas we know nothing, but of Apollos we know 
much ; and we might reasonably conjecture from this 
passage that he and the Apostle had been brought 
into continually nearer^companionship, and that they 
had often travelled together. In itself, as was re- 
marked at the outset, it is too casual to give us much 
information ; but it is in harmony with, and a fitting 
conclusion to, all the rest. 

This meditation on the life and work of Apollos, 
imperfect as it is, may at least serve as an illustration 
of the large amount of religious instruction which we 
may secure to ourselves from the study of a Scripture 

1 Titus iii. 13 

23 



70 THE COMPANIONS OF ST. PAUL. 

Character. Recognition of God's hand in our early 
training, a good and conscientious use of opportuni- 
ties, a ready zeal for Christ's service, humility in 
learning from those who are further advanced in the 
Christian course than ourselves, a cheerful rendering 
of timely help to those around us, a firm discounte- 
nancing of factious party spirit, a considerate care 
for the reputation and comfort of others ; can we not 
all, through the Holy Spirit's aid, form such habits 
of mind as these ? The example of Apollos is not 
above the standard at which we ought to aim. Some- 
times the characters of Scripture seem to be far re- 
moved from our own experience, and almost to be- 
long to another world. Not so here. The pattern 
is quite on our own level, and singularly suitable for 
our own times. 

This is just the kind of life which, if we are true 
Christians, we must desire to lead. And we may re- 
vert, as we end, to one encouraging thought to which 
expression was given- in the earlier part of this paper. 
The providential guiding of Apollos in connection 
with St. Paul was very remarkable. His early knowl- 
edge of Christianity began at Alexandria ; his mature 
training was received, and his active work began, at 
Ephesus ; his distinguished public career was run at 
Corinth. Thus three great cities saw the three 
stages of his religious progress. Or we may set be- 
fore our minds this fact of providential guidance in 
another way. St. Paul, apparently by accident, 
meets Aquila and Priscilla at Corinth. There, 



APOLLOS. 77 

through intercourse with him, they become fitted for 
influence on a large scale. At Ephesus, Apollos is 
brought under this beneficial influence. And finally 
he is laboring at Corinth on the foundation laid by 
St. Paul, while the Apostle is again cooperating with 
Aquila and Priscilla in Ephesus. We may justly put 
all this side by side with our own experience in re- 
gard to changes of home, of occupation, of companion- 
ship ; and may draw from it the comfortable assur- 
ance that, wherever we are, if we have a true desire 
to serve God, He will provide for us suitable work, 
and, so far as we need, Christian sympathy. 



V. 

TITUS. 
My partner and fellow-helper concerning you." 2 COR. viii. 23. 



rTlHE word " companionship " is very far from 
-*- summing up St. Paul's whole relation to those 
who were closely associated with him during his 
varied and eventful life. Of course, even his friend- 
ships are fall of interest, because they illustrate 
features of his character and display the principles on 
which he acted. But each of these friendships be- 
came also the basis of cooperation. They were not 
merely occasions for the interchange of kindly per- 
sonal feeling, but were turned into efficient helps of 
active and sustained work in the cause of Christ. 

Nor, again, does the word " cooperation " -by any 
means sum up all the remainder of what was in- 
volved in these relationships. In St. Paul were 
found a large capacity and a pressing zeal for admin- 
istration. He used his friends without losing their 
affections. He sent them on suitable errands. He 
combined their services in fitting proportions. He 
posted them in places where, in his judgment, they 
had appropriate work to do. He corresponded with 
them by letter when he could not see them person- 
ally. In fact, during his short life, a considerable 



TITUS. 79 

part of the Levant was covered with the net-work of 
his organization. 

"We might connect this organizing and governing 
faculty of St. Paul with various friends whose names 
are known to, us. The most obvious of all would be 
Timotheus, whom we can trace through a long period 
in the most intimate communication with the Apos- 
tle, acting under his orders, strengthened by his sym- 
pathy, sent by him on various errands, till at last we 
see him placed by his authority at Ephesus, to or- 
dain, to govern, to teach, to exercise discipline. But 
this eminent friend of St. Paul being above all others 
associated with him " as a son with his father," l and 
having labored together with him through a long 
range of time up to the very close of his life, 2 may 
with advantage be reserved for the conclusion of our 
series. Or, again, we might have selected Silas, who, 
partly in conjunction with Timotheus, became St. 
Paul's associate and fellow-laborer, when he separated 
from Barnabas ; 3 but that Second Missionary Jour- 
ney, to which this conjunction belongs, has already 
been illustrated, so far as our limits allow, by Lydia, 
Luke, and Apollos. Or, again, we might take for 
the basis of some remarks on St. Paul's administra- 
tive powers, Tychicus and Trophimus, who are prom- 
inently named as his companions on the Third Mis- 
Bionary Journey, 4 and who appear afterwards in close 

1 Phil. ii. 22. 2 2 Tim. iv. 6, 21. 

8 Acts xv. 40; xvii. 14; xviii. 5. See 1 Thess. i. 1 
4 Acts xx. iv. 



80 THE COMPANIONS OF ST. PAUL. 

communication with him : the latter in Jerusalem, 
in the midst of very eventful circumstances ; * the 
former in connection with the sending of the Epistles 
to the Ephesians and Colossians during the first Ro- 
man imprisonment, 2 as well as at a still later period. 3 
But on the whole they come to view less distinctively 
and prominently than Titus, who also suits chrono- 
logically the place at which we are now arrived, and 
to whom, moreover, as well as to Timotheus, a letter 
was addressed by the Apostle, which has both a per- 
sonal and an official character, and which is preserved 
to us in the canonical Scriptures. 

The notices of Titus in the New Testament are 
not very copious ; but they are sufficient for our 
present purpose, which is to contemplate him as a 
specimen and sample of the Companions used by St. 
Paul for the spreading of truth, the promotion of 
charity, and the refuting of error ; and perhaps our 
end will . best be accomplished by considering, first, 
the general methods on which St. Paul acted as an 
administrator, and, secondly, certain characteristics of 
Titus himself, so far as they can be ascertained. 

I. It is not difficult to enumerate the qualities which 
make a man powerful in acting on the minds and 
hearts of others, in using and regulating their services, 
and in winning and maintaining their confidence. 
Nor are the proofs wanting that these qualities were 

1 Acts xxi. 29. See 2 Tim. iv. 20. 

2 Eph.vi. 21, 22; Col. iv. 7. 

3 See Tit. iii. 12; and 2 Tim. iv. 12. 



TITUS. 81 

combined, to a high, degree of perfection, in the Apos- 
tle Paul. 

The first of these qualities, which I should be dis- 
posed to specify, is the possession of a iv ell-understood 
line of policy, and. the pursuance of it with a clear 
vision and a strong will. Mastery over the minds of 
others is never obtained by those who do not know 
their own mind. But where a fixed end is kept 
distinctly in view and steadily and firmly sought, this 
always gives confidence to weaker natures, and sup- 
plies direction to subordinate help. When men are 
so led, they follow easily and instinctively. Now cer- 
tainly there was never any doubt as to the tendency 
of St. Paul's chief thoughts and warmest feelings. 
The one point on which his eye was habitually fixed, 
and to which he turned again after every discourage- 
ment, was the securing in the hearts of all men a re- 
ception for Christ and his salvation. His speeches, 
his letters, his whole course of conduct, all declare 
this as clearly as possible. 

Next to this may be mentioned the habit of never 
sparing himself. Sometimes it happens that there is 
latent self-indulgence in the leaders of other men. 
Such leadership, however, is apt to break down in the 
end, and at least it must fail in exciting enthusiasm. 
St. Paul was always ready to do more himself than 
he expected from others. No general with mutinous 
soldiers ever threw himself more heartily and person- 
ally into the work of his campaign, than did this 
Apostle with his army of willing and loyal followers. 



82 THE COMPANIONS OF ST. PAUL. 

At all points we find the same habit of indefatigable 
exertion : as at Lystra, when he rose from what 
appeared to be his deathblow, and turned at once to 
new missionary work ; l or at Troas, when, in the 
midst of a fatiguing voyage, he spent the whole night 
in exhortation and teaching ; 2 or at Miletus, when, 
having a few hours to spare, he sent for the Ephesian 
presbyters, that he might strengthen them for the 
discharge of their duties ; 3 or in Rome, when, im- 
mediately on his arrival, he " called the chief of the 
Jews together,"- that he might " see them and speak 
with them concerning Christ and his salvation." 4 

But for consummate leadership other qualities are 
wanted, besides the clear pursuance of a settled line 
of policy and a ready willingness to undertake hard 
work. The power of facile adaptation is an impor- 
tant element in the composition of such a character ; 
and this was eminently conspicuous in St. Paul. He 
could easily bend to circumstances, while keeping his 
main end resolutely in view and never relaxing his 
active exertions. If he cannot preach the Gospel in 
Asia, he will make the attempt in Bithynia. 5 If he 
refuses to circumcise Titus under conditions of one 
kind, he is willing to circumcise Timotheus under 
circumstances of another kind. 6 If he is in prison 
and precluded from travelling, he can write letters, 
and thus pursue his old work in a new way. He can 

i Acts xiv. 19-21. 2 Acts xx. 7, 11. 

8 Acts xx. 15-17. 4 Acts xxviii. 17, 20. 

6 Acts xvi. 7. Acts xvi. 3; Gal. ii. 3. 



TITUS. 83 

be a Jew to the Jew a Gentile to the Gentile 
" all things to all men, that by all means he may save 
some." l Such versatility, when it is united with 
consistency and self-denial, is sure to win varied ad- 
herents and to retain them, whereas the stiffness of 
mere obstinacy repels or alienates many, whose active 
assistance would otherwise be willingly given. 

A still deeper point of character must now be 
mentioned, on which the real force of administrative 
ability very largely depends. St. Paul had an un- 
affected sympathy with- the sorrows and joys, the 
difficulties and successes, of those with whom he was 
associated. They could always reckon on his personal 
interest hi everything that concerned them, as, on the 
other hand, they knew that he always took for granted 
a similar interest on their part in regard to all his 
concerns. And this mutual affection extended, not 
merely to progress or discouragement in the great 
cause of religion, but to questions of health and of 
minute personal comfort. It is needless to give 
examples to illustrate either the power of such feel- 
ings, or the fact that they had a large influence in St. 
Paul's administrative career. Two such instances 
will come before us in order, when we turn our 
thoughts to Onesimus and Epaphroditus. 

With this deep inward affection must be united 
that easy habit of giving outward expression to con- 
siderate feelings, in manner, in words, in writing, 
which we call courtesy, before we have enumerated 

l 1 Cor. ix. 22. 

24 



84 TEE COMPANIONS OF ST. PAUL. 

all St. Paul's capabilities for exercising influence on 
others and commanding their services. Rudeness of 
behavior and want of tact forfeit much cooperation, 
even when higher qualities are present, that deserve 
to retain it. St. Paul was singularly accomplished 
in regard to the finer points of social intercourse ; and 
the great cause of Christianity gained much in his 
hands from this circumstance. We see this in his ad- 
dress to Agrippa, and in his letter to Philemon ; nor 
can we doubt that his daily conduct among his com- 
panions and fellow-laborers was marked by this fea- 
ture. 

Our enumeration may conclude with the mention 
of his discriminating judgment. This faculty is es- 
sential for a successful leader of other men. Un- 
less he can distinguish among their characters, so as 
to see what duties are best suited for each, and so as 
to treat them according to their several temperaments, 
confusions and misunderstandings must result, and the 
best work must be impeded and retarded. That St. 
Paul possessed this power of discrimination to an 
unusual degree is very evident. While dealing with 
the progress of the Gospel on the broadest scale, he 
had a remarkable capacity of singling out individuals 
for distinct observation and recollection. We see this 
in the specific prayers which he offered up according 
to the emergencies which came before his attention. 
We see it in the appropriate variety of the messages 
sent, in the course of his Epistles, to different persons. 
We see it, too, in the assigning to his companions 



TITUS. . 85 

separate missions, suitable to the disposition and ca- 
pabilities of each. A marked instance of this is to 
be found by means of comparing Timotheus and 
Titus. 

This brings us back to the point from which we 
started. And now, leaving these general remarks on 
St. Paul's administrative power, we may turn our at- 
tention to Titus, as furnishing in his career an illus- 
tration of the exercise of this power, besides afford- 
ing to us in his own personal character some very 
useful suggestions for our conduct. 

II. Most persons, reading the Epistles to Timothy 
and the Epistle to Titus carefully, and then compar- 
ing them, will be conscious of a difference in tone, 
which leads to an impression that there was a marked 
difference of character in the two men. This method 
of drawing the distinction may be somewhat fine 
and delicate. It does not, however, follow from this 
that the distinction itself is fanciful. Moreover, it 
bears the test of a close examination. In the Epistles 
to Timothy no one can fail to observe a peculiar 
tenderness of feeling. The allusions to the child- 
hood of Timothy; 1 to his mother and his grand- 
mother ; 2 to his tears ; 3 to his delicate health ; 4 to 
his companionship with St. Paul in time of suffering, 5 
as well as the strong injunctions not to show 
weakness in the discharge of his duties, 6 lead ua 

1 2 Tim. iii. 15. 2 3 Tim. i. 5. s 3 Tim. i. 4. 

4 1 Tim. v. 23. 62 Tim. iii. 10, 11. 

6 1 Tim. i. 18 ; vi. 13, 14 ; 2 Tim. ii. 1. 



86 THE COMPANIONS OF ST. PAUL. 

to infer the existence of something like a feminine 
softness in the character of Timothy. 1 No such fea- 
tures are conspicuous in the Epistle addressed to 
Titus. Its tone is altogether more abrupt and severe. 
This may arise partly from the character of that 
rough Cretan population among whom the duties of 
Titus were to be discharged ; but it is natural to con- 
nect it also with the character of Titus himself. St. 
Paul writes as if he did not fear any weakness on 
his part, and as if he expected him to be fully com- 
petent for the hard task assigned to him. 

With this introductory remark, suggested by the 
comparison of two men whose names almost neces- 
sarily present themselves as parallel words, we may 
proceed to follow the Scriptural notices of Titus 
in their chronological order. He is not mentioned 
in the Acts at all. The requisite information must be 
derived from the Epistle to the Galatians, the Second 
Epistle to the Corinthians, and the Pastoral Epistles. 

Our series of slight biographical notices has 
brought us now to the Third Missionary Journey of 
St. Paul. On this circuit, as on the former, the ear- 
lier part of his progress was through the district of 
Galatia. We have seen that on the first of these oc- 
casions he was detained there by illness, and joined 
soon afterwards by St. Luke. Shortly after the sec- 
ond visit he heard of a very rapid declension of his 
converts into serious errors ; and this caused him to 
write the Epistle to the Galatians. It is here that 
1 See art. i: Timotheus," in the Dictionnry of the Bible. 



TITUS. '' 87 

the first. notice of Titu-s occurs ; and it is observable 
that he is mentioned in such a way as to convey the 
impression that he was well known to the Galatian 
Christians. From this we should infer that he was 
among St. Paul's Companions on this part of his 
missionary travels. Certainly he was with him, as 
we shall see, and in active service under his orders, 
very soon afterwards. 

The facts mentioned in this Epistle concerning 
Titus carry us back to an earlier time. St. Paul, 
in the course of his argument on the freedom of the 
Church from the necessity of Jewish practices, has 
occasion to mention the important journey under- 
taken by himself and Barnabas from Antioch to Je- 
rusalem. Among " certain others," l who were with 
him, was Titus ; 2 and it is added that " he, being 
a Greek, was not compelled to be circumcised." 3 
Great efforts were evidently made to exercise com- 
pulsion ; but they were most firmly resisted, and the 
resistance was enforced, as we perceive in the con- 
text, by vehement arguments. Now here we see that 
Titus was a true Gentile, not, like Timotheus, of 
half- Jewish descent. 4 He was, in fact, a represent- 
ative of the Gentile Church on this occasion, as 
Barnabas was of the Jewish. We see also that Titus 
had been at Antioch with Paul and Barnabas during 
the time of their active and united work in that 
place. A very natural inference is, that he had been < 

i Acts xv. 2. 2 Gal. ii. 1. 

8 Gal. ii. 3. 4 Acts xvi. 1, 3. 



88 THE COMPANIONS Of ST. PAUL. 

converted then and there. In the Epistle addressed 

* 

afterwards to himself he is entitled St. Paul's " own 
son after the common faith," * which associates him 
with this Apostle by the closest of ties, both per- 
sonal and religious. Of the occupation of Titus in 
the interval between this conference at Jerusalem 
and St. Paul's second visit to Galatia, a period of 
several years, we know nothing. Of the occurrence 
which is recorded in connection with that conference 
this is worth observing, that Titus appears there in 
connection with the firm and uncompromising side 
of St. Paul's character, just as the circumcision of 
Timotheus, on the other hand, exhibits him on the 
side of conciliation. 

Soon after writing the Epistle to the Galatians, on 
this Third Missionary Journey, St. Paul had occasion 
to write the First Epistle to the Corinthians. This 
letter was elicited from him by very serious abuses 
affecting morality, as those in Galatia had affected 
doctrine. It can be shown by very satisfactory argu- 
ments 2 that Titus was one of the bearers of this 
letter from Ephesus to Corinth. And now again he 
appears in parallelism and in contrast with Timo- 
theus. That disciple, too, was sent on a mission to 
Corinth about the same time. But he certainly did 
not take the letter. And at this point it occurs to 
make the observation, that the missions of the two 

1 Tit. i. 4. 

2 1 Cor. xvi. 11, 12. See a compact statement of the case in 
art. " Titus," in the Dictionary of the Bible. 



TITDS. 89 

men appear to have been very different, and in har- 
mony with their respective dispositions. The words 
concerning Timotheus are : " If he come, see that he 
may be with you without fear ; for he worketh the 
work of the Lord, as I also do. Let no man there- 
fore despise him : but conduct him forth in peace, 
that he may come unto me ; for I look for him with 
the brethren." 1 The impression derived from this 
is, not that Timotheus was a robust controversialist, 
but rather that he was sent on some message of con- 
ciliation. Titus, on the other hand, as one of " the 
brethren " who conveyed the letter, was the bearer of 
very stern rebukes ; and this collision with the abuses 
at Corinth would make a considerable demand on 
him for firmness and decision, to say nothing of the 
promptitude and energy which were required about 
this time, as we shall see, by the business of the 
collection now in progress for "the poor saints in 
Judaea." 

With the Second Epistle to the Corinthians, which 
followed the First at a short interval, we come upon 
a clear view of Titus. The materials for describing 
his character are no longer conjectural, or derived 
from minute arguments. St. Paul speaks of him and 
of his mission warmly and openly to the Corin- 
thians. And, first, his intense anxiety to meet Titus 
on his return from Corinth, in the interval between 
the first and second letters, and to hear the news he 
brought of the Church in that place, must be mada 
the subject of remark. 

1 1 Cor. xvi. 10, 11. 



90 THE COMPANIONS OF ST. PAUL. 

While Titus was still absent, St. Paul proceeded 
from Ephesus to Troas " to preach Christ's Gospel ; " 
and he adds that there " a door was opened to him 
of the Lord." Still he says he had " no rest in his 
spirit, because he found not Titus his brother," but 
" taking his leave of them, went forth from thence 
into .Macedonia." 1 There, to his great joy, he met 
Titus, and received from him good intelligence re- 
specting the converts who had made him so anxious. 
Nowhere in St. Paul's Epistles is a warmer expres- 
sion to be found of exuberant thanksgiving and hap- 
piness ; and we can see very plainly that this feel- 
ing is connected with certain personal qualifications 
in Titus himself. He was " filled with comfort ; he 
was exceeding joyful in all his tribulation." On his 
arrival in Macedonia, " his flesh had no rest, but he 
was troubled on every side : without were fightings, 
within were fears. Nevertheless God, that comfort- 
eth those that are cast down comforted him by 
the coming of Titus." It was something to enjoy 
the sympathy of a congenial companion ; but far 
more than this : " not by his coming only " was the 
Apostle comforted, "but by the consolation where- 
with Titus had been comforted in the Corinthians." 
He was able to tell the Apostle of their earnest re- 
pentance, of their fervent mind towards himself, of 
their sorrow for their sin, of their vehement indignant 
efforts for the clearing of themselves. 2 Now the point 
of interest for us here is, that Titus shared all the 
i 2 Cor. ii. 12, 13. 2 2 Cor. vii. 4-11. 



TITUS. 91 

feelings of St. Paul. Whatever joy and comfort the 
Apostle experienced in the recovery of these erring 
Corinthians was reflected, and, indeed had been an- 
ticipated, in the messenger. It was not simply Si. 
Paul that was " comforted by the consolation ; " but 
Titus, who brought the news, also felt the consola- 
tion. And all this is brought to view below -still 
more explicitly : " We were comforted in your com- 
fort ; yea, and exceedingly the more joyed we for the 
joy of Titus, because his spirit was refreshed by you 
all. His inward affection is more abundant towards 
you, whilst he remembereth the obedience of you all, 
how with fear and trembling you received him." l 
Nothing could display more clearly, both the affec- 
tionate and loyal nature of Titus, and also his 
thorough abhorrence of evil, and hearty rejoicing in 
the truth. 

But this is not all that the Epistle before us en- 
ables us to ascertain in regard to the mission and the 
character of Titus. The question of the collection, 
in which St. Paul took so warm an interest, was in- 
volved in some embarrassment at Corinth. In this 
place there had evidently been much profession of 
alacrity at first, and some considerable abatement of 
zeal afterwards. It is very possible that the party 
spirit, which had grown up to so disastrous a height 
in this Church, had produced its usual injurious 
effect on practical works of charity. However this 
might be, the messenger, who was authorized to deal 

1 2 Cor. vii. 13, 15. 

25 



92 THE COMPANIONS OF ST. PAUL. 

with this question, was required to have firmness and 
tact, as well as strict integrity ; and, in both respects, 
Titus receives the strongest testimony from the Apos- 
tle. As to the latter point, while indignantly repel- 
ling an imputation which had been cast on his own 
honor and unselfishness, he says, " Did I make a gain 
of you by any of them whom I sent unto you ? Did 
Titus make a gain of you ? Walked we not in the 
same spirit ? walked we not in -the same steps ? " l 
As to the former, we have the utmost commendation 
both of the zeal he showed in animating them at the 
outset, and of his moral courage afterwards in kin- 
dling their flagging generosity. 2 The sentences which 
are used on this subject by the Apostle imply the ex- 
istence in Titus of very high qualities, which, added 
to what has been mentioned above, show him to have 
been a character well worthy to be admired and imi- 
tated. The mere fact of his being sent on such a 
mission is high praise ; and nothing can exceed the 
confidence expressed in the words, " Whether any do 
inquire of Titus, he is my partner and fellow-helper 
concerning you." 3 

Again there is a considerable space, during which 
his biography is a blank. Titus does not appear in 
companionship with St. Paul on any subsequent jour- 
ney ; nor does his name occur in connection with any 
event at Jerusalem, or the imprisonment in Rome. 
Neither is this the place for inquiring and deciding 
where and at what time the Epistle to Titus him* 
1 2 Cor. xii. 17, 18. 2 2 Cor. viii. 6, 16, 17. 3 2 Cor. viii. 2& 



TITUS. OS 

tf 

self was written. The general strain of the letter 
has been spoken of above, as affording some insight 
into the characteristic disposition and ability of Titus. 
The Cretans, among whom he is placed, are described 
in most unfavorable terms ; a and under these circum- 
stances, he is to " set in order the things that are 
wanting," to "exhort and convince gainsayers," to 
" stop the mouths of unruly and vain talkers," to " re- 
buke sharply," to " speak the things that become 
sound doctrine," to " show himself a pattern of good 
works," to preach " obedience to magistrates," to " re- 
ject heretics." 2 He to whom such a commission was 
confidently intrusted by St. Paul, could not have been 
wanting in energy, firmness, judgment, and force of 
character. 

One sentence in this Epistle forms an apparent 
link of connection with the latest notice of the name 
of Titus. St. Paul says to him : " Be diligent to 
come unto me to Nicopolis : for I have determined 
there to whiter." 3 Now we find it stated in the last 
of the Pastoral Epistles, written shortly before St. 
Paul's death, that " Titus was gone to Dalmatia." 4 
This was a wild and rugged district, with a rough 
population, not far from Nicopolis ; and there may 
have been some connection between the two journeys. 
Neither tradition nor history helps us to any details. 
It is just worth while to observe, that this mention of 
a difficult mission and an inclement season is in har- 

1 Tit. i. 12. 2 Tit. i. 5, 9, 11, 13; ii. 1, 7; Hi. 1, 10. 

Tit. iii. 12. 4 2 Tim. iv. 10. 



94 THE COMPANIONS OF ST. PAUL. 

mony with the temperament and capabilities of Titus 
and the work which the Apostle was in the habit of 
assigning to him. 

It is, however, with the island of Crete that this 
companion of St. Paul must be closely and perma- 
nently associated. And such an association is well 
adapted to attract the imagination and to fix itself in 
the memory. The commanding geographical posi- 
tion of Candia, in advance, of the Archipelago, and 
hi the line of seafarers on their voyages from Syria 
to Italy ; the grand outline and solid masses of its 
mountains ; the fame of its mythological traditions ; 
the hereditary turbulence of its inhabitants ; the 
rough vicissitudes of its history, combine to make 
it memorable among islands. The Biblical student, 
too, can never forget that one of the most remarkable 
passages in St. Paul's history was connected with its 
southern coast. 1 Nor has the memory of Titus, in 
the midst of many superstitions, ever been lost in the 
island. When the Venetians occupied it, they gave 
to " St. Titus " a place side by side with their own 
" St. Mark." We may conclude with an extract from 
a panegyric pronounced by one of his successors in 
the episcopal superintendence of Crete. Andreas 
Cretensis says that Titus " laid the foundation of the 
Church in Crete, was himself there the pillar of the 
Truth and the strong support of the Faith, the un- 
wearied trumpet of the proclamation of the Gospel, 
and the clear utterance of the tongue of St. Paul." 
1 Acts xxvii 7-16. See art. " Crete," in the Dictionary of the Bible. 



VL 

PH(EBE. 
"A succorer of many, and of myself also." ROM. xvi. 2. 

"T"N the second of these papers, when attention was 
turned to the first coming of Christianity with St. 
Paul into Europe, and to the Scripture notices of 
Lydia, as illustrating the methods by which the Gos- 
pel made progress on its new field, some remarks 
were made on the religious service of women as 
apparently characteristic of the Church in Philippi. 1 
The scope of these remarks might very easily and 
justly have been extended ; and we have now reached 
a point where it ought to be extended. It may be 
said with perfect truth that the religious service of 
women is characteristic of Christianity itself, and that 
w-e see this most clearly in connection with St. Paul 
and his Companions. 

That the Gospel has raised "woman to a higher 
point than any which she ever occupied before, we 
all admit. Not only is this seen to be true on com- 
paring the Christian world with all parts and all ages 
of the Heathen world ; but it is found to be true 
too when we institute a careful comparison between 
Christianity and Judaism. In reading the Old Tes- 
1 Acts xvi. 14, 15, 40 ; Phil. iv. 2, 3. 



96 THE COMPANIONS OF ST. PAUL. 

tament and the New we are conscious -of a difference 
between the two, in regard to the relative part played 
by women, though it may not be easy to express this 
consciousness in definite words- For the sake of 
marking the contrast, so far as this can be done in 
a single sentence, let us take the case of the widow. 
Who is so much honored now as the Christian widow ? 
What a respectful recognition we pay to her sorrow 
and her experience ! What a great place she has in 
the Christian Church, for influence, for advice, for 
the promotion of good works. Such is the spirit in 
which she is spoken of in the New Testament. 1 But 
it is not exactly so in the Old. The tone in which 
she is mentioned there is different. There she is 
rather the object of compassion ; and if we turn, 
beyond the pages of Scripture, to other early Jewish 
writings, they seem to place her almost in a position 
of contempt. This may suffice as a glance at a mere 
corner of a large subject, namely, the elevation of 
women through the coming of Him, who, Himself, 
" born of woman " 2 has left with them henceforward a 
peculiar power of efficient ministration. 

Such ministrations began even in the earliest Gos- 
pel days, during the sojourn of our Saviour on earth. 
In fact all the great principles of Christian Life and 
the Christian Church, and this principle among the 
rest, were foreshadowed in the records of that Biog- 

1 See especially St. Luke's Gospel (ii. 37 ; iv. 25 ; vii. 12 ; 
jtviii. 3), with Acts vi. 1; ix. 39, and 1 Tim. v. 9. 

2 Gal- iv. 4. 



PHCEBE. 97 

raphy. We may omit, if we will, the mention of 
Anna, the pious prophetess " of the tribe of Aser/' 
as belonging rather to the end of the Olcl Dispensa- 
tion than the beginning of the New ; l and also of St. 
Mary, the mother of our Lord, " and her cousin Eliz- 
abeth," as standing apart in a sphere of their own. 2 
But when we turn beyond the period of Christ's in- 
fancy and youth, to the beginning of his active work, 
we find Mm punctually aided by the devoted sympa- 
thy and service of women. They followed Him from 
place to place ; they practiced self-denial for his sake ; 
they found their happiness in diminishing his toil and 
supplying his wants. When St Luke describes our 
Lord as " going throughout every city and village, 
preaching and showing the glad tidings of the king- 
dom of God," he proceeds to say not merely that 
" the twelve were with him," but likewise " certain 
women." Then three are specified ; and it is added 
that there were " many others," who, with those three, 
" ministered to him of their substance." 3 This was in 
Galilee, the scene of numerous journeys and of much 
active work. From thence some of them "many 
of them " followed him into Judaea, at a time when 
the Apostles were full of fear ; 4 and still the descrip- 
tion given of them at the Cross is that they were 
" ministering." 5 They held themselves in readiness 
to do anything that they might be able to do for 
Christ ; and this waiting in readiness is most truly the 

1 Luke ii. 36-38. 2 Luke i. 5-58. 3 Luke viii. 1-3. 

4 Mark xv. 41. 5 Matt, xxvii. 55. 



98 THE COMPANIONS OF ST. PAUL. 

spirit of serving. From the Cross to the Grave thej 
" followed " Him. still. 1 and even at the Grave itself 
we see in them the same spirit of serving. It might 
have been supposed when the great stone was placed 
at the door of the sepulchre, and when evening came 
on, that all occasion, all possibility, of " ministering " 
was over. But such was not the view of these 
women. When they went away from the sepulchre, 
it was still to do Him honor. They bought and pre- 
pared sweet spices for the embalmment of the body. 2 
Can we fail to see in this an anticipation and proph- 
ecy of that feminine service which became a distin- 
guishing mark of the Christian Church ? 

If we turn to the Book of Acts, with the illustra- 
tions of it supplied by the Epistles, we find this ser- 
vice appearing in a more systematic form. As re- 
gards the women mentioned above, even they are 
seen once more, just after the Ascension, hi company 
with the Apostles. 3 And when they are lost to view, 
others of the same sex become prominent in efficient 
ministrations. We need not lay undue stress on the 
"widows" to whom our attention is turned in the 
account of the appointment of the first deacons. 4 or 
on the " widows " who surrounded Dorcas ; 5 though 
in both cases we seem to perceive the germs of the 
organization of charity. It is of course, as has been 
said, in connection with the life of St. Paul that we 
should expect the fullest notices of such feminine 

1 Luke xxiii. 55. 3 Mark xvi. 1. 3 Acts i. 14. 

4 Acts v'i. 1. 5 Acts is. 39, 41. 



PHCEBE. 99 

ministrations as were characteristic of the earliest 
Church. 

"With St. Paul everything takes a wider range; 
and we begin now to see more clearly the place which 
women are destined to occupy in relation to the so- 
cial life of Christendom. Lydia has already furnished 
occasion for some remarks at length. Priscilla, with 
her husband, will be the subject of one of these 
papers, before the series is closed. But besides these, 
other women are mentioned in the Acts, though in 
a slight, yet in a significant way. Damaris l might 
fairly be adduced as an example of bold confession, 
of the faith, such as women have often made, when 
men have faltered. The daughters of Philip, 2 who 
had the gift of prophecy, can hardly be thought to 
have resided as unmarried women in their father's 
house, without doing useful service to the Church. 
But when we turn to .the Epistles, we find a profuse 
number of instances, which tend to prove our point. 
Chloe 8 and Appia, 4 Euodia and Syntyche, 5 are men- 
tioned by name among the women who were directly 
or indirectly associated with St. Paul in promoting 
the cause of the Gospel at places as widely separated 
as Corinth, Colossse, and Philippi. And especially it 
is in the Epistle to the Romans that we find a cata- 
logue of female names which almost startles us, when 
we think of the early period to which this document 
belongs. The salutations in the sixteenth chapter, in- 

i Acts xvii. 34. 2 Acts xxi. 9. s 1 Cor. i. 11. 

4 Philemon 2. Phil. iv. 2. 

26 



100 THE COMPANIONS OF ST. PAUL. 

cidental as they are, give us much information as to 
the facts of the case. The number of female fellow- 
workers, who are mentioned there by name, and with 
a distinct reference to their Christian cooperation, is 
remarkable. Priscilla appears here, as elsewhere; 
and we find, among other women, the following spe- 
cified also, with an allusion to their service : " Mary, 
who bestowed much labor on us ; " " Tryphena and 
Tryphosa, who labor in the Lord ; " " Persis, which 
labored much in the Lord." * Such phrases imply a 
system, of wide-spread sympathy and service in the 
Christian cause. 

It is, however, in the name and description of 
Phoebe that the whole case is most completely summed 
up. As regards both her direct association with St. 
Paul, and the exact account of her character and 
work, she must always demand our special attention 
in connection with this general subject. St. Paul 
says, at the beginning of this sixteenth chapter : " I 
commend unto you Phoebe our sister, which is a 
servant (a deaconess) of the church which is at 
Cenchrese ; that ye receive her in the Lord, as be- 
cometh saints, and that ye assist her in whatsoever 
business she hath need of you : for she hath been a 
succorer of many, and of myself also." Each of the 
particulars named in these verses may be made tho 
subject of a few remarks in order. 

(1.) We may, in the first instance, pause with ad- 
vantage on the name of the place with which tho 

1 Rom. xvi. 6, 12. 



PHOEBE. 101 

name of Phoebe is thus connected in the Epistle to 
the Romans. Cenchrecs, from whence she came, was 
the eastern seaport of Corinth, and distant from that 
city about nine miles. Corinth was as remarkable in 
its situation as memorable in its history ; and every 
part of St. Paul's connection with its neighborhood 
is full of interest. He was twice there. His first 
visit was on the Second Missionary Circuit ; on his 
return from which we find him sailing from this very 
harbor of Cenchrese. 1 The second residence at 
Corinth was in the Third Missionary Circuit ; during 
which he wrote the Epistle to the Romans. It is 
not unlikely that he wrote the letter immediately be- 
fore his return to the East ; and it is almost certain 
that Phoebe conveyed it. Thus, on both occasions, 
the Apostle is very definitely associated with Cen- 
chreae ; and in the mention of " the church that was 
at" this place, we seem to have an indication of a 
rapid and wide-spread advance of Christianity at 
the Isthmus. It may be inferred, that in connection 
with the central church in Corinth there were organ- 

O 

ized suburban churches, with their systematic agencies 
for charitable and religious work. 

(2.) An official position is evidently indicated by 
the statement that Phoebe was a "servant of" a 
local church. She was clearly no mere volunteer, 
acting outside of all ecclesiastical arrangements. 
This, however, is not the place for discussing the 
charitable and religious ministry of women on its 

1 Acts xviii. 18. 



102 THE COMPANIONS OF ST. PAUL. 

strictly ecclesiastical side : it is enough to make a re 
mark, in passing, on its importance. What is passing 
in nearly all parts of Protestant Christendom, includ- 
ing the United States of America, makes it evident 
that a new sense of the urgency of this question has 
grown up in many minds. It is felt that we^ require 
something more in this direction than we have been 
accustomed to possess since the Reformation. " Noth- 
ing, indeed, could be more undesirable than that 
charitable work should be regarded as the employ- 
ment of a distinct and professional class, instead of 
being the duty of the whole Church, and therefore of 
each member of it, according to the opportunities 
presented in his or her course of life. But it is pre- 
cisely work of this kind which has led to the recogni- 
tion of the fact, that there are forms of evil and suf- 
fering with which it is unable to cope, which demand 
the complete devotion of time and strength from 
those who are able to give it. 1 And it is certainly a 
fact of some moment that we find the woman-deacon, 2 
as well as the man-deacon, in the Apostolic Church, 
and thus possess all the sanction which we require 
for what is felt to be very needful in the Modern 
Church. 

(3.) We pass on to the account which is given of 

1 Preface to the Life of Pastor Fliedner (translated by Catherine 
Winkworth), p. xviii. It is truly said (p. vi.) that this story 
" places before us a courageous and hard-working life, concentrated 
with unusual constancy and good sense on one aim, and achieving 
it with rave success." 

2 This is the true meaning of 1 Tim. iii. 11. 



PHCEBK 103 

Phoebe's past services. She had been " a succorer 
of many." This phrase is very beautiful : and. even 
in the English, it means a great deal. Yet it fails to 
express the whole sense of the original. " Succor " 
may be given in various ways ; but the term here 
employed would seem, to indicate one who had stood 
forth as the patroness of the unprotected and de- 
spised. There is no doubt that the Christians were 
objects of contempt at this time in Achaia ; and even 
if this were not the case, the Greek word would in 
itself imply moral courage, generous bounty, and 
large sympathy ; and the points of importance to us 
here are that these qualities are exhibited by a woman, 
and in such a way as to promote the progress and 
strength of the New Religion. There seems good 
reason for supposing that Phoebe was a person of 
some rank and substance. We might place her in 
comparison with the " great woman " of Shunein, 
dwelling " among her own people," who showed hos- 
pitality to Elisha ; and certainly the Apostle's feeling 
finds expression in language very similar in tone to 
that used by the Prophet : " Behold, thon hast been 
careful for us with all this care ; what is to be done 
for thee ? " 1 There is this interest too in the com- 
parison, that one of these scenes is eminently char- 
acteristic of the Old Testament, the other eminently 
characteristic of the New. The state of society in 
the Greek cities of the Levant, during St. Paid's day, 
was of such a kind as to give peculiar emphasis to 

1 2 Kings iv. 8, 13. 



104 THE COMPANIONS OF ST. PAUL. 

the attitude taken by Phoebe. Nor was her help af- 
forded merely to St. Paul. She had been a succorer 
of "many" A large amount of brave and active 
service is revea*led to us in this phrase. Phoebe is a 
worthy follower of the women of the Gospels, and a 
useful example to all those of her sex who desire to 
employ fully the special power which God has given 
them for promoting the cause of Christ. 

(4.) But St. Paul adds : " and of myself also." 
Here we encounter that warm personal feeling, which 
gives .so great a charm to St. Paul's intercourse with 
his friends, whether recorded in the narrative of the 
Acts, or exhibited in his letters. Gratitude is one of 
the marked features of his character ; and the mani- 
festations of it break out at every turn. He remem- 
bers how affectionately the Galatians received him, 
when he " preached the Gospel to them at the first." 1 
He remembers how generously the Philippians aided 
him " in the beginning of the Gospel " on the Euro- 
pean continent, by sending him funds to Thessalon- 
ica. 2 In writing to the Colossians, he specifies those 
who were " a comfort to him." 3 In writing to Timo- 
theus, he mentions Onesiphorus, who " oft refreshed 
him, sought him out in prison, and was not ashamed 
of his chain." 4 Even this very chapter which fur- 
nishes our present contribution to the series of St. 
Paul's Companions,. has several instances of the same 
kind. Aqiiila and Priscilla are stated to have " laid 

1 Gal. iv. 13-15. 2 Phil. i v . ^ is. 

Col. iv. 11. 42 Tim. i. 16-18. 



PHCEBE. 105 

down their necks for his sake." Mary has " be- 
stowed much labor on him." Urban has been " his 
helper." Gams has been " his host." Thus it is with 
regard to Phoebe. It is no mere formal and official 
errand on which she goes to Rome ; but he follows 
her with his gratitude. The letter which she carries 
is a record of what he owes to her ; and this obliga- 
tion is made the ground of an appeal to the Roman 
Christians, to enforce the duty of their receiving her 
with confidence and respect, and of aiding her to the 
utmost of their power. 

(5.) This brings' us to our last point. The Chris- 
tians are to " receive Phoebe in the Lord, as becometh 
saints," and to "assist her in whatsoever business 
she hath need." Each of these clauses merits a sepa- 
rate and careful attention. " In the Lord " is a cus- 
tomary phrase with St. Paul. It denotes in such a 
passage as this community of interest under Christ, 
and points to the fact that all the persons in question, 
and all their concerns, belong to Him. But it means 
even more than this. It suggests the thought of 
cooperation in the same kind of religious work. We 
might compare what is said here to the Romans of 
Phoebe with what is said to the Corinthians of Tirno- 
theus : * "If he come, see that he may be with you 
without fear ; for he worketh the work of the Lord, 
as I also do ; " or with what is said to the Philippians 
of Epaphroditus : 2 " Receive him in the Lord with all 
gladness ; and hold such in reputation : because for 

1 1 Cor. xvi. 10. 2 phil. ii. 29, 30. 



106 THE COMPANIONS OF ST. PAUL. 

the work of Christ he was nigh unto death." As to 
the phrase, " worthy of the saints," it may he difficult 
to decide whether the meaning is that Phoebe is to be 
received in such a manner as she herself deserves, or 
in such a manner as would be a matter of course with 
the Eoman Christians if they were what they pro- 
fessed to be. We may be quite content to leave this 
point indeterminate, and to consider that the phrase 
includes both meanings. But, further, they were not 
only to give her a friendly and worthy reception, but 
to furnish her with all the assistance she needed for 
the errands on which she was sent. Such a request 
was clearly most reasonable. St. Paul is here ask- 
ing help for one who herself had been a helper of 
" many." "We must add the additional claim arising 
from her venturing on the risk and toil of a long voy- 
age by sea, which was then a far more formidable un- 
dertaking than it is now. 

Here the remark may be made, that if Phoebe is 
herself an example and a pattern, this injunction to 
the Romans is equally an injunction to Christian peo- 
ple of all times, that they give aid to those who hon- 
estly follow in her steps. When women are ear- 
nestly devoting their lives to the service of Christ, in 
active exertion and generous self-sacrifice, they ought 
to be helped and reinforced by sympathy and respect, 
and by "whatsoever they have need of" to make 
their work effectual. Better than all mere church- 
organization is this free and willing help ; and, in- 
deed, without such help, organization is very apt to 
degenerate into dead machinery. 



PHCEBE. 107 

But whilst urging the peculiar claims of faithful 
feminine service on the respect, assistance, and en- 
couragement of the Christian community at large, we 
must not forget that there is another side of the sub- 
ject which closely and seriously concerns a great num- 
ber, perhaps the greater number, of the readers of this 
paper. If Christianity owes much to women, let it be 
recollected how much women owe to Christianity. We 
have seen above ho\v they have been elevated, and 
what new powers they have received, through the com- 
ing of Christ. They ought then unceasingly to bear in 
mind the corresponding demand which this fact has 
established upon them for devotion and service. They 
cannot be too forcibly reminded that thenceforward 
there rests on them a peculiar responsibility, a peculiar 
call to gratitude and to enthusiasm for Christ. Let 
them not fall below the position in which He has placed 
them. Let them cast aside their besetting tempta- 
tions, and do the work which it is appointed to them 
to do remembering the women in Judasa and in 
Galilee, at the Cross and at the Grave remember- 
ing also the women who aided the Apostles, and, in 
what has been well called the " private ministry of 
the Word," became the best missionaries of domestic 
life. 

There is good reason too why men, especially in 
these uneasy times of ours, should keep well in mind 
the peculiar benediction which rests on godly women, 
and their peculiar aptitude for efficient service under 
the Gospel. We ought to recognize those special ca- 

27 



108 THE COMPANIONS OF ST. PAUL. 

pabilities ; we ought to make the most of them, and 
devise methodical plans for that end by the exercise 
of our best wisdom. No effort could be more in har- 
mony with the will of Christ and the practice of his 
Apostles. Jesus Christ accepted the ministry of the 
Galileean women ; and the Apostle of Jesus Christ 
has messages of special earnestness and significance 
for the " women which labored with him in the 
Gospel." 1 

i Phil. iv. 3. 



VII. 

FELIX. 

" And Felix, willing .to show the Jews a pleasure, left Paul 
bound." ACTS xxiv. 27. 



earliest points of contact between Christian- 
ity and Heathenism must of necessity possess 
for us a permanent interest, and may be expected to 
supply us with instruction of peculiar value. In our 
own day, indeed, Christianity has its points of contact 
with Heathenism ; and each siich instance is full of 
interest for every serious mind, and full of instruction 
even for us at home. This is found to be the case by 
all who care to study with attention the modern rec- 
ords of Missionary progress. But we must expect 
to find a peculiar freshness and a forcible reality in 
all instances of this kind which are recorded in Scrip- 
ture concerning that time when Christianity was new, 
and when Heathenism was only beginning to be dis- 
lodged from its ancient strongholds. 

Such points of contact are, of course, mainly to be 
found hi the history of the life of that Apostle who 
was especially designated to the office of evangelizing 
the Gentiles. Undoubtedly we must not forget Cor- 
nelius, whose conversion in one sense overshadowed 
all other Gentile conversions. But still St. Peter, 



110 THE COMPANIONS OF ST. PAUL. 

when he had thus opened wide the doors of the Uni- 
versal Church, fell back into the position of the 
Apostle of the Jews, and, as regards the heathen 
world, made way for St. Paul. 

Four marked instances of contact with Heathenism 
'*n connection with his life, as recorded in the Acts, 
will at once recur to the reader's memory, two hav- 
ing reference to Heathenism in its rude and uncivilized 
form ; two bringing before us states of society where 
both culture and business had reached a high standard. 
The two former are the scenes at Lystra, where the 
people first sought to worship St. Paul as a god, and 
then endeavored to stone him to death ; x and at 
Melita, when the process was inverted, and when, 
after supposing him to be a murderer, they said that 
he was a god. 2 Here we see Christianity face to face 
with ignorance, superstition, prejudice, and fanaticism. 
The other two are the discourse on Mars' Hill at 
Athens, 3 and the tumult among the silversmiths at 
Ephesus. 4 Here we see how the Gospel of Christ is 
called to encounter both the sneers of supercilious 
philosophy and the unscrupulous intrigues of self-in- 
terest. And still, is it not too true that our Holy 
Religion has the same enemies to meet, ignorance, 
superstition, self-conceit, selfishness, and that not 
only in the heathen world outside, but at home among 
ourselves ? 

These four instances, however, show to us the con 

l Acts xiv. 11-19. 2 Acts xxvJii. 2-6. 

Acts xvii. 22. * Acts xix. 24. 



FELTS. Ill 

tact of Christianity with Heathenism on the great 
scale, and in reference to general truths with their 
opposing errors. We may expect to obtain instruc- 
tion for ourselves, still more pointedly and directly, 
through such contact with the individual consciences 
of heathen men. In observing what moral phe- 
nomena are exhibited on such occasions in seeing 
how St. Paul, on the one hand, deals with such 
persons ; and how, on the other hand, they act under 
his influence, receiving the truth, or resisting it we 
are prepared to find that principles of great impor- 
tance come to view, with permanent admonition or en- 
couragement for our own conduct. There are various 
such instances in St. Paul's life. Such names as those 
of Sergius Paulus, of Gallic, Claudius Lysias, and 
Festus, will at once occur to us. 1 I select, however, 
those two which seem to me the best, partly because 
they represent, more than any others, a close personal 
intimacy with St. Paul, and partly because they are 
very different in character from one another. I take 
Felix the Governor for my present subject, and for 
our next subject I propose Julius the Centurion. 

"We are to examine the character of Felix, the 
manner in which the Gospel was presented to him by 
St. Paul, and the manner in which he acted when 
God providentially granted him this great opportunity. 
In order to appreciate these things no long introduc- 
tion will be necessary. 

Felix was the Roman Governor of Judsea, and re- 
1 Acts xiii. 7; xviii. 12,; xxiii. 26; xxiv. 27. 



112 THE COMPANIONS OF ST. PAUL. 

sided, as was the custom, not in Jerusalem, but in the 
government-house at Csesarea on the coast. The 
Apostle was first brought face to face with him when 
he was conveyed to this place as a prisoner from 
Jerusalem. On his return from that visit to Greece, 
during which we last saw him sending Phoebe with 
the Epistle to the Romans, he had been violently at- 
tacked by a Jewish mob in the Temple court ; x and 
Claudius Lysias, with some soldiers from the garrison, 
had rescued him, but was much perplexed by the 
case, besides becoming aware of a conspiracy among 
the Jews to take away his life. 2 Accordingly he sent 
him, under a strong escort, to Cassarea with a letter 
to the Governor ; and the twenty-third chapter ends 
with -these words: "When they came to Ceesarea, 
and delivered the Epistle to the Governor, they 
presented Paul also before him ; and when the Gov- 
ernor had read the letter, he asked of what province 
the prisoner was," and having ascertained this, he 
said to him, " I will hear thee when thine accusers 
are also come." 3 

In this there was evidently nothing to blame. 
Felix acted like a clear-sighted man of business, and 
apparently with a due sense of the responsibility of 
office. So far our first impression is favorable. But 
as we pursue the narrative we begin to see beneath 
the surface. And here the remark is suggested, that 
we must not judge of men by their public official 

1 Acts xxi. 31, 32. 2 Acts xxiii. 12, 21, 23. 

8 Acts xxiii. 33-35. 



FELIX. 113 

appearances. A bad man may be a very equitable 
magistrate. ,NoT are lay people only to be included 
within a sentence which invites to serious self-ex- 
amination. A clergyman too may preach well and 
forcibly - may discharge his general clerical duties 
in a very faultless manner while yet he is not truly 
in his heart a religious man. This example of Felix 
even at the first glance is full of searching and 
penetrating questions for every one of us. 

On the trial which took place at Cassarea, when 
Tertullus, who held a brief for the Jews, made an 
ingenious and complimentary speech, and St. Paul 
made an honest and manly defense for himself, we 
heed not dwell. Felix appears again at the close of 
the proceedings in what we must pronounce, upon the 
whole, a favorable aspect. " Having more perfect 
knowledge of that way," the narrative says, "he 
deferred them, and said, When Lysias the chief cap- 
tain shall come down, I will know the uttermost of 
your matter." In these words, knowing Felix as we 
do from other circumstances, we can, indeed, see very 
clearly the working of interested motives ; and we 
feel that he ought to have set St. Paul at liberty. 
Still, on looking at the matter merely by itself, it 
might very fairly be argued that he wished to main- 
tain a strict observance of the Roman law, to exer- 
cise due caution, and to act fairly. 

What follows, too, might be taken to indicate a 
kind-hearted disposition, as well as a desire to act 
legally and justly. " Felix commanded a centurion 



114 THE COMPANIONS OF ST. PAUL. 

. to keep Paul, and to let him have liberty, and that 
he should forbid none of his acquaintance to minis ter 
or come to him." In the case of a state prisoner like 
St. Paul, who was also a Roman citizen, 1 there was 
always the power of giving great alleviation to the 
imprisonment ; and this power Felix freely used for 
his benefit. The Apostle was allowed to be com- 
paratively "at liberty." This did not, indeed, in- 
volve so much freedom as what we call in England 
being allowed to go on bail. He was always under 
the eye of an officer of the army. Still he was not 
thrown into a dismal dungeon, as he had been at 
Philippi. 2 There was perfect freedom to see his 
friends, to converse with them, and to receive their 
help. We are well aware how great a difference this 
must have made to St. Paul, when we remember his 
sociable and loving disposition. But more than this. 
In thus being allowed freely to converse with " his 
acquaintance," he had the opportunity of prosecuting 
his work. Those who were Christians already would, 
to use his own words elsewhere, " wax confident by 
his bonds." 3 Those who were not Christians could 
see, better than they could under other circumstances, 
what strength and elasticity there is in the principles 
of the Gospel. All this suggests to our minds even 
a feeling of gratitude to Felix for the liberty which 
he accorded to our Great Apostle. 

But, further, the way in which this was done seems 
to argue considerate care and deliberation. We have 
1 Acts xvi. 37 ; xxii. 25. Acts xvi 24. Phil. i. 14, 



FELIX. 115 

evidently here the very words of the order which he 
gave. The centurion was not only to let Paid " have 
liberty," but to " forbid none of his acquaintance to 
minister or come to him." There is the impression 
here of his entertaining a favorable opinion of St. 
Paul, and of something like personal regard. Either 
the report of Claudius Lysias, or his own recent in- 
terview with the prisoner, may have produced an 
influence on the mind of Felix. However this may 
be, we see that he gave a very kind and considerate 
treatment to St. Paul. And at this point the remark 
may -be permitted, that even such conduct as this is 
not always a true indication of character. Various 
inferior motives may persuade a bad and selfish man 
to act in such a way that he is praised and admired 
for his kindness. There may be in such a case the 
carelessness of weak good-nature ; there may be the 
calm calculation of sagacious policy. We have no 
right, indeed, to assert the presence of such motives 
in any instance which comes in contact with our own 
experience in society ; but sometimes other features 
of character come to view which force us to such a 
judgment which lift the veil, and enable us to see 
a selfish, cowardly, unjust, time-serving man under 
an exterior show of benevolence and fairness. So it 
was in the case of Felix. 

" After certain days, when Felix came with his 

wife Drusilla, which was a Jewess, he sent for Paul 

and heard him concerning the faith in Christ ; and 

as he reasoned of righteousness, temperance, and 

28 



116 THE COMPANIONS OF ST. PAUL. 

judgment to come, Felix trembled, and answered, 
Go thy way for this time ; when I have a convenient 
season, I will call for thee.'' Here we suddenly dis- 
cover a totally different aspect of the man j and one 
singularly in harmony with what we know of him 
from other sources. We have, in fact, a great deal 
of independent information concerning the life and 
character of this Governor of Judasa, They are 
described to us by an eminent Jewish and an emi- 
nent Heathen historian. From these authorities we 
learn that he had once been a slave, and that, with 
his brother, he obtained his freedom and rose to 
power through sordid flattery and by making him- 
self the useful instrument of the crimes of great 
men. When thus raised to unenviable eminence, 
arid installed in his place of power at Csesarea, he 
was cruel, unscrupulous, and mercenary. Having 
bought his position by base subserviency, he used it 
for selfish tyranny. The Heathen historian, to whom 
I have referred, expresses this in a terrible sentence 
by saying that, " in the practice of all kinds of lust 
and cruelty he exercised the power of a king with 
the temper of a slave." He was the cause of a great 
amount of tumult and bloodshed in Judaea ; he en- 
couraged and profited by plunder and extortion ; and 7 
as the Jewish historian tells us, he procured the 
murder of the High-priest, at a sacred festival, and 
by the hand of a friend of the High-priest himself, 
who had been bribed for the purpose. His private 
life, too, was profligate and licentious. This verjf 



FELIX. 117 

woman Drusilla had been enticed from her husband 
by help of a fortune-teller. On the whole, the pri- 
vate character and public administration of Felix were 
so bad and exasperating, that they were spoken of 
among the causes which hastened on the ruin of the 
Jewish nation. It was before this specimen of Hea- 
thenism that St. Paul, as the representative of Christ- 
ianity, now stood at Caesarea. 

This interview was not part of the Apostle's trial 
before Felix as Governor. It was rather a conver- 
sation than a trial ; and one motive which led to 
the interview was clearly curiosity. Drusilla was a 
Jewish princess, a sister of Herod Agrippa II., who 
is mentioned soon afterwards in connection with 
Festus, the successor of Felix. It might almost seem 
as though idle religious curiosity was hereditary in 
the Herodian family. We recollect how one member 
of that family, at an earlier date, had, without any 
trace of real religious earnestness, desired to see 
Jesus Christ. 1 So, after this date, we find the Second 
Agrippa with Bernice face to face with St. Paul in 
a spirit not very different from that of Felix and 
Drusilla. 2 She must have heard of Christianity and 
its celebrated Apostle. The preaching and the mir- 
acles of the Gospel had not been " done in a corner." 
Felix seems to have shared her curiosity, or to have 
yielded to it; and thus it came to pass that Felix 
" heard Paul concerning the faith in Christ." 

It is 'worth while to pause here, if this was one of 
1 Luke ix. 9 ; xxiii. 8. 2 Acts xxr. 22. 



118 THE COMPANIONS OF ST. PAUL. 

the motives that led to the interview. There was a 
full opportunity of learning the whole truth of the 
Gospel and of becoming a Christian ; but no benefit 
resulted. The motive was curiosity. Are there not 
similar instances very" many in our own day, 
and with a similar absence of any beneficial result ? 
Love of variety, love of novelty, love of excitement 
in matters of religion, is only a form of dissipation. 
Running after favorite preachers, going in crowds to 
attractive services, this, in itself, has nothing what- 
ever to do with religion in the heart. If this is all, 
as you come, so you go away, with only this dif- 
ference, that your heart is more frivolous and more 
careless, because you have succeeded in coming in 
contact with a serious subject without carrying away 
any permanently serious impression. 

But what did St. Paul say to Felix ? He was 
really serious. He was really in earnest. He said 
nothing to gratify curiosity. His purpose was not to 
please, not to amuse, but, if possible, to do good. He 
aimed directly at the conscience. He said, not what 
Felix wished to know, but what it was very good 
for Felix to hear. He " reasoned of righteousness, 
temperance, and judgment." Such topics so exactly 
suited the case of Felix, that we might truly say 
that the Governor's own life and character formed 
the dark background on which these subjects were 
placed in clear relief. As to righteoiisness, he him-' 
self was acting unrighteously at this time in retain- 
ing St. Paul in prison, when no case had been 



FELIX. 119 

proved against him. As to temperance or self- 
restraint, Drusilla was there to witness against him. 
As to judgment, Felix was about this time under 
accusation, and was before long summoned to take 
his trial in Rome. It is not, indeed, at all likely 
that St. Paul preached on these subjects in any rude 
or offensive manner. JSFo doubt he spoke with all 
his usual tact, so as to win the respect of his hearers. 
Nor was any offense really taken. And yet the 
words went home. " Felix trembled." He had good 
reason for trembling; and he did tremble. So far 
an impression was made. But, after all, it was only 
the impression of terror' on a slavish mind. As it 
has been quaintly expressed, " his early fears in child- 
hood had been kept alive, and notions of punish- 
ment practically quickened, by the lashes of his 
master's whip," and now "he recognized his old 
familiar terrors, and the Gospel which could not 
reach him as a man, came rudely home to him as a 
slave, and whipped this gilded image of royalty upon 
his throne." * 

Here, in passing, it is important that we should 
make another remark on the language used by St. 
Paul to Felix. " He reasoned of righteousness, tem- 
perance, and judgment to come." It might be asked, 
Did not St. Paul preach Christ ? St. Paul always 
preached Christ. "Who will presume to say that he 
ever failed in this ? But we cannot preach the Gos- 
pel without preaching the Law. Unless there is a 

1 Archdeacon Erans' Scripture Biography, vol. i. p. 311. 



120 THE COMPANIONS OF ST. PAUL. 

sense of the Law broken, we cannot value the Gos- 
pel which heals and saves. Hence, just as at Athens, 
in speaking to a large number of Heathens, he said 
that God had " appointed a day in the which He will 
judge the world in righteousness," l so here, in ad- 
dressing an individual Heathen, he uses the terrors 
of the Law, that lie may awake the sense of sin, and 
the consciousness that a Saviour is needed. 

" Felix trembled." But the impression did not 
last. He had not sought the interview with any high 
motive, and hence no blessing followed. He put the 
matter off to a " convenient season ; " and, so far as 
we know, the impression never returned. How dif- 
ferent was it with another eminent Roman, in this 
same city of Cajsarea, in the case of an interview 
with another Apostle ! The allusion, of course, is to 
what was mentioned above, the history of Cornelius 
and St. Peter. Then all was pious, humble, and 
godly preparation for the truth of God. The words of 
Cornelius on the arrival of Peter were, "Now there- 
fore are we all here present before God, to hear all 
things that are commanded thee of God." 2 Differ- 
ent indeed was this state of mind from that of Felix ! 
and how different the result ! 

But as we come near to the end of the chapter, 
we obtain a further insight into the mean and con- 
temptible character of Felix. " He hoped also that 
money should have been given him of Paul, that he 
might loose him; wherefore he sent for him the 
l Acts xvii. 31 2 Acts x. 33. 



FELIX. 121 

oftener, and communed with him." There could not 
be a greater condemnation of a magistrate. If St. 
Paul was wrongly imprisoned, he ought to have been 
set free without money. If he was rightly impris- 
oned, he ought to have been kept in prison, whether 
money was paid to the magistrate or not. Bribery 
was strictly forbidden by the Roman law. We see 
here the inveterate slavishness of the man ; and we 
seem to see this all the more clearly, if we look still 
more closely into the history. It might be asked 
how Felix could expect such a prisoner as St. Paul 
to be able to find money, even if he was willing to 
give a bribe. But we find above that the Apostle 
told Felix in his defense, that he had come to Judaea, 
" to bring alms to his nation, and offerings." * So that 
he might easily imagine that St. Paul had large funds 
at his command. Not that these funds belonged to 
St. Paul. But when a man feels no scruple in prac- 
ticing fraud for his own interest, he readily believes 
that another man will practice fraud, if he has some- 
thing to gain by it. It is very difficult for a dishonest 
man to believe in the integrity of other men ; very 
difficult for a selfish man to believe that any one will 
do good simply from the love of doing good. 

But, to return to the words that were just now 
quoted, it is impossible not to wish that we could 
have heard the conversations of these two men. We 
should then have been able to appreciate the signifi- 
cance of that companionship which did hi truth sub* 

1 Acts xxiv. 17. 



122 THE COMPANIONS OF ST. PAUL. 

sist between Paul and Felix. "We should, indeed; 
then have seen Christianity and Heathenism face to 
face, and each with its true and full expression. This 
verse, however, tells us quite enough in general terms 
to give point to the instruction we are to obtain here. 
As regards St. Paul, we observe that he was quite 
immovable. He could probably have obtained funds 
from his friends for a lawful purpose without touch- 
ing any money that was intrusted to him for the 
poor ; and by means of a bribe he might easily have 
obtained his liberty, for he had not yet appealed to 
the Emperor. And, again, by so doing he would 
have obtained new opportunities for travelling far 
and wide and preaching the Gospel. But he who 
taught obedience to the law would not break the law, 
even for the purpose of saving souls. 

The chapter ends with the words which are placed 
at the head of this paper ; " After two years Portius 
Festus came into Felix's room ; and Felix, willing to 
show the Jews a pleasure, left Paul bound." On this 
I will only remark that the contemptible and servile 
meanness of Felix is visible to the end. His official 
dignity is only skin-deep ; he is still a slave. After 
all these conversations with Sfc. Paul, after all these 
golden opportunities (golden, indeed, for such oppor- 
tunities were hardly ever given to any one else in the 
world), he left Paul in prison, not because it was just 
to do so, but because he wished to have the favor of 
the Jews. History supplies the explanation. Felix 
was summoned to Rome to give an account of his con- 



FELIX. 123 

fluct ; and the favorable testimony of the Jews was 
just then of great importance to him. For this he 
sacrificed St. Paul, and sacrificed his own soul. 

Now, as we quit the subject, one thought very nat- 
urally occurs to us. If Felix had yielded to the im- 
pression which his first interview with the Apostle of 
Christ had made upon him ; if, when he " trembled " 
under the sense of his guilt and the fear of coming 
judgment, he had followed on to make acquaintance 
with the Saviour Christ, whom Paul was even then 
preaching to him, the result would have been very 
different. However seared his life was by bad and 
degrading habits, Divine grace could have made him 
a new man. But he procrastinated, and the oppor- 
tunity was lost. 

" When I have a convenient season, I will call for 
thee." This sentence suggests a very serious appeal 
to the reader. It may not have been "convenient" 
to you hitherto to begin in earnest the solemn work 
of saving your soul. Sin has held you in its strong 
grasp up to the present moment; or business has 
been so engrossing, that you have not been able to 
forget it ; or a gay and giddy world has perpetually 
run away with all your graver thoughts. You do 
not indeed intend to quit this life without having se- 
cured the salvation of your soul ; but you wait for a 
" convenient season." Now it is quite certain that 
you will never have a more convenient season than 
the present. You look forward to the beneficial re- 
sults of some affliction. But what guarantee can you 
29 



124 THE COMPANIONS OF ST. PAUL. 

Imve that affliction will produce upon your mind the 
precise effect. which you anticipate ? Or you expect 
that sickness and the threatening nearness to death 
will convert you. But where do you obtain any 
promise regarding the manner of the sickness or the 
accident which is to be the precursor of your death ? 
Or you wait till the attraction of those things which 
now absorb you ceases to be all-powerful. But how 
do you propose to overcome the habits which will 
have been formed under the influence of this attrac- 
tion, and which will continue after the attraction has 
ceased ? No. All such calculations are quite delu- 
sive. The vain world and your weak heart are always 
saying to you, like Felix, " To-morrow, not To-day." 
Christ says, and Reason says, and Heaven and Hell 
say, " To-day, not To-morrow." 



VIII. 

JULIUS. 

'* The centurion, willing to save Paul, kept them from then 
purpose." ACTS xxvii. 43. 

A S we study the well-defined and instructive char- 
*-*- acters which the New Testament in abundance 
presents to us, nothing is more remarkable than the 
favorable impression which the officers of the Roman 
army leave upon the mind. It may be that the mili- 
tary career is favorable to some attractive virtues. It 
may be, on the other hand, that the Scripture would 
remind us by these instances that eminent virtues may 
be formed in spite of adverse circumstances in the 
military life. We need not attempt to determine that 
point. Probably there is some truth in each of these 
suppositions ; but, however we may settle that ques- 
tion, the above-mentioned fact is undoubted. 

In the centurion at Capernaum we have the ex- 
hibition of a very high type of character well sustained 
throughout. He was tolerant and generous ; for he 
built the Jews their synagogue. He was full of warm- 
hearted sympathy ; for the illness and approaching 
death of his slave filled him with utter distress. His 
humility was remarkable ; for he did not regard him- 
self worthy to receive the Saviour under his roof. 



126 THE COMPANIONS OF ST. PAUL. 

Yet lie was no weak man, but had very correct and 
strict notions of discipline. He recognized the obedi- 
ence due to the military powers above him, and ex- 
pected those beneath him to obey. " I am a man 
under authority," he said, " and I say to this man, Go, 
and he goeth, and to another, Come, and he cometh, 
and to my servant, Do this, and he doeth it ; " and, 
arguing from Ms own p.osition in these respects to the 
Saviour's power, he exhibited an example of faith 
which caused Jesus to " marvel." l 

And there is another centurion in the Gospels who 
merits our admiration and respect. " Certainly this 
was a righteous man. Truly this man was the Son 
of God." 2 These words, spoken at the Cross, draw 
a sharp line of distinction between the speaker and 
the general company of the soldiers around. Others 
were mocking and blaspheming. Here was an honest 
yielding to conviction, and a candid confession of the 
truth. It is a startling fact that the first visible 
beneficial effect of the death of Christ was upon the 
mind of a soldier and a heathen ; so that we recognize 
some force, as well as beauty, in the words of a 
French writer, who says, " This centurion's faith and 
confession are the first-fruits of the faith of the Gen- 
tiles, and the prophetic sign that the nations are now 
to take the place of the Jews. Jesus all his life long 
devoted Himself to the Jews. Instantly after his 
death He begins to declare Himself for the Gentiles 

1 Mark viii. 10 ; Luke vii. 9. 

2 Mark xv. 39 ; Luke xxiii. 47. 



JULIUS. 127 

by this first act of grace. The first results of his 
death are not for a Priest, not for a Doctor of the 
Law, not for a Pharisee, not for any Jew, but for a 
Gentile and a man of war, who was simply there on 
military duty." l 

Now, if we turn from the Gospels to the Book of 
the Acts, and examine the varied gallery of portraits 
which that book contains, we find there also two 
centurions, on whom we are constrained to look with 
feelings of sincere respect and warm regard. 

Whatever we may say of the centurion at the Cross 
as a prophecy and anticipation of the bringing-in of 
the Gentiles, the main interest of that great change 
is concentrated, and intended to be concentrated, in 
the case of Cornelius. All the circumstances combine 
to draw our attention to it in the most pom ted manner. 
That with which we are concerned here is the char- 
acter of the man. It is not merely that the great 
act of conversion, through the instrumentality of St. 
Peter, is brought before us as the introduction to that 
blessing which is now come to all nations ; but the 
example of Cornelius is itself a pattern. This might 
have been otherwise. The conversion would not have 
been less real, if a vile and cowardly profligate like 
Felix had been suddenly turned into a Christian. 
But it has pleased God to make Cornelius not only 
the sample and precursor of a great religious revolu- 
tion, but also a model for our imitation. The various 
particulars which we learn of him can only be enu- 
1 Quesnel on Mark xv. 39, and Luke xxiii. 47. 



128 THE COMPANIONS OF ST. PAUL.' 

m crated here in the briefest way. But when we 
remember that he was a man most regular in his 
private prayers that he exercised a religious influ- 
ence over his household ; that he was generous and 
liberal, and had the high esteem of the Jews who 
surrounded him, and that he listened most reverently 
and earnestly to the instructions of St. Peter ; not, 
like Felix, when he heard the word of St. Paul, 
putting the matter off to a more "convenient sea- 
son," we see at once that there is quite enough to 
justify the strong expressions used above. 1 

St. Paul came frequently in contact with the Ro- 
man army, especially in the latter part of his career 
Five centurions are mentioned hi connection with the 
arrest at Jerusalem and the imprisonment at Cossarea, 
besides those who took part in rescuing him from the 
mob. 2 Of course, some of them may have been the 
same officers, appearing at different times on different 
duties ; and this probably was the case. But it is in- 
teresting, in connection with the train of thought with 
which we began, to mark these circumstances. One 
of these centurions was the officer the captain, as 
we should say who stood by when St. Paul was 
being bound with thongs, in order to be beaten, and 
on learning that he was a .Roman citizen, informed 
his commanding officer the colonel, as we should 
say of the danger he was incurring. 3 The next 
was the centurion whom St. Paul discreetly called, 
when he learned from, his nephew of the conspiracy 
I Acts x. 1 ; xi. 18. 2 Acts xxi. 32. 3 Acts xxii. 25, 26. 



JULIUS. 129 

which had been formed against him, and whom St. 
Paul requested to take the young man to the com- 
manding officer, Claudius Lysias. 1 Two others were 
those whom Claudius Lysias sent in command of the 
escort that conveyed St. Paul to Ciesarea. 2 Nothing 
is said to give any indication of their characters. We 
simply know that they discharged their duty very 
promptly and methodically. But when we come to 
the close of the imprisonment at Cassarea, and the 
tune of the voyage to Rome, then we meet another 
centurion, who quite deserves our very careful at- 
tention. 3 

Our last subject was Felix ; the character now be- 
fore our attention is that of Julius. Both are taken 
as specimens of that early contact of Christianity with 
Heathenism, of which the life of St. Paul furnishes 
the best illustrations. And, as was remarked in the 
preceding paper, these two men present to us this 
contact in two very different points of view, and 
with two very different kinds of instructions for our- 
selves. 

We saw that " after two years," during which the 
Apostle was in detention at Cassarea, Felix was sum- 
moned to Koine to give an account of serious charges 
that were made against him, and that " willing," for 
his own interest, " to show the Jews a pleasure, he left 
Paul bound." 4 Festus, who succeeded Felix, was in 
great perplexity in regard to this prisoner, besides 

1 Acts xxiii. 17 2 Acts xxiii. 23. 

3 Acts xxvii. 1. 4 Acts xxiv. 27. 



130 THE COMPANIONS OF ST. PAUL. 

being very anxious to begin his new work without 
incurring unpopularity. He proposed that St. Paul 
should go to take his trial in Jerusalem. The Apostle 
saw the danger in which this would involve him ; and 
instantly, with great tact, made iise of the privilege 
which his Roman citizenship gave him, and appealed 
to the Emperor. 1 This made it necessary to send 
him to Rome. Some delays took place which need 
not be referred to here. In due time a convenient 
opportunity came ; and, as we read in the first verse 
of the twenty-seventh chapter, " When it was deter- 
mined that we," that is, St. Luke and St. Paul, with 
Aristarchus, " should sail into Italy, they delivered 
Paul and certain other prisoners unto one named 
Julius, a Centurion of Augustus' band." 

The specifying of the military corps to which Ju- 
lius belonged, singles him out at once as an officer of 
rank. He seems to have held a commission in the 
most distinguished part of the Roman army, and that 
which was the most closely connected with the Em- 
peror and his court. For some time he had been on 
foreign duty at Csesarea. Now he was about to re- 
turn to head-quarters. 

There are six places where he is referred to during 
the subsequent narrative. We will take them, very 
briefly, in order, with the view of learning what the 
Scripture teaches us concerning him. 

(1.) After they set sail, " the next day they touch- 
ed at Sidon ; " 2 and it is added that Julius " courte- 
1 Acts xxv. 11. 2 Acts xxvii. 3. 



JULIUS. 131 

oasly entreated Paul, and gave him liberty to go unto 
his friends to refresh himself." Here we pause ; for 
we have before us distinct features of the character 
of Julius. We must remember that he was a Hea- 
then. This enhances the favorable impression pro- 
duced on us by his courtesy and kindness. Whether 
this courtesy and kindness arose from his own natural 
disposition, or from some influence which St. Paul 
had already gained over him, or from what he may 
have observed and heard when the Apostle was 
brought before Festus and Agrippa (for it is highly 
probable that he was present on that memorable oc- 
casion), we cannot tell. In any case we admire and 
respect Julius for the treatment which he gave to the 
Apostle. We must observe that it was not a mere 
hard dry permission to go on shore and see his friends 
that was accorded. There was something, indeed, even 
in this. He might have insisted on his staying on board 
while the vessel was in the harbor. He might have 
said that this was the only guarantee he could have that 
the prisoner would not escape. Even his placing con- 
fidence in St. Paul implies a large and rapid growth of 
good-will between the Christian and the Heathen ; and 
we are not surprised that St. Luke notes the circum- 
stance. But there was a remarkable display of con- 
siderate feeling in the manner in which this was done. 
As it has been rather quaintly expressed by an old 
and well-known commentator, " Julius treated St. Paul 
like a scholar, a gentleman, and a friend." And then 
let all that is implied by two of the prominent words 
30 



132 THE COMPANIONS OF ST. PAUL. 

of this verse be considered : " Julius courteously en- 
treated Paul, and gave him liberty to go unto his 
friends to refresh himself." He must have needed 
refreshment for his bodily health and for his spirits. 
We know that lie was of a delicate constitution ; and, 
after enduring many hardships, and going through 
scenes of great excitement, he had been kept " two 
years " a prisoner at Cassarea, hindered from prose- 
cuting the work on which his heart was bent, and 
harassed by the persecution of the Jews and the un- 
fair dealing of the Roman governor. We all suffer 
from toil and excitement from alternations between 
exposure to inclement weather at one time and con- 
finement to close quarters at another from conflict 
of mind and ill-treatment; nor were the Apostles 
any exception to this rule. And of all refreshments, 
the most consoling would be the congenial society of 
Christian friends. The Apostles had all our human 
feelings. And in St. Paul the feelings of friendship 
and sympathy were found in the utmost intensity. 
Putting all these things together, we see good reason, 
for looking on Julius, at this point of the narrative, 
with admiration, respect, and gratitude. 1 

(2.) The next point at which we pause, but only 
for a moment, is Myra. 2 Here the centurion with 
his prisoners changed ships. The vessel in which 

1 When Ignatius was on his voyage from Antioch to his martyr- 
dom in Rome, the brutality of the soldiers who guarded him wag 
such that he compared them to wild beasts. 

2 Ver. 5. 



JULIUS. 133 

they had come from Cassarea was not going much 
further in the right direction ; but in the harbor of 
Myra they found an Alexandrian vessel bound for 
Italy. The centurion made a bargain with the cap- 
tain, and "put" his prisoners "therein." On this 
we need not dwell, except just to remark that Julius 
is expressly mentioned. All through this narrative- 
he is the prominent person in connection with St. 
Paul. The new ship, as we learn afterwards, had 
altogether two hundred and seventy-six persons on 
board. 1 Our business is simply with the centurion, 
wherever he is mentioned, and with any features of 
his character that we can discover. 

(3.) In this large ship they set sail from Myra, hi 
very bad weather. The gale drove them to Crete, 
and they came to anchor in a roadstead on the south 
of that island, called Fair Havens. 2 There they 
stayed for some time, hi the hope that the storm 
would abate. It would have been wise if they had 
stayed there longer. St. Paul recommended this 
course. He warned them that if they continued 
their voyage at that season, there would be much 
risk to the ship, to the cargo, and to their lives. 
" Nevertheless, the centurion believed the master and 
the owner of the ship, more than those things 
which were spoken by Paul." "We cannot wonder at 
this. Any one of us, under the like circumstances, 
would probably have done the same; especially as, 
besides the master and the owner, " the more part 
1 Ver. 37. 2 Ver. 8. 



134 THE COMPANIONS OF ST. PAUL. 

advised " to leave Fair Havens. The master had ex- 
perience of the sea : the'owner had the best possible 
reasons for consulting for the safety of the ship ; and 
there was that argument from the majority of voices 
which so often leads us wrong. We certainly cannot 
blame Julius. Perhaps we ought rather to give him 
credit for good sense. He could not be aware of the 
communications which God had made to the mind of 
St. Paul ; and he was not in a condition to understand, 
or to be persuaded by, any such communications. 
Nor, indeed, is it certain that St. Paul spoke at this 
time with any prophetical or supernatural insight. 
Still St. Paul was right, and Julius was wrong. This 
came to view clearly afterwards, and was one of the 
circumstances which gradually raised the Apostle to 
a position of commanding influence over all on board. 
Julius apparently felt this influence above all others ; 
and it is just worth while to remark here, in pursuing 
our slight biographical thread, that Julius evidently 
took no offense because St. Paul honestly opposed 
him in a debate on an important subject. 

(4.) We must pass over a time of great trouble 
and danger, before we come to the next mention of 
the centurion. The gale, which overtook the ship 
after leaving Fair Havens, lasted a fortnight ; and at 
the close of that period the vessel was wrecked. 
Before the wreck actually took place, there was a 
night of fearful anxiety. The ship was at anchor ; 
but the storm was still raging, and there was the 
most imminent risk of her going on the rocks. 1 In 

1 Ver. 29. 



JULIUS. 135 

these circumstances the sailors, tinder the pretense of 
doing something to anchor the ship more firmly, were 
preparing to lower the boat, to secure their own 
safety, and to leave the passengers to their fate. St. 
Paul understood the treacherous and cowardly design 
saw the danger but acted with consummate 
judgment. He said nothing to the sailors, but spoke 
at once to his friend the centurion and to the soldiers. 
He appealed, too, to their own instinct of self-preser- 
vation : " Except these " the sailors " abide in the 
ship, ye " ye soldiers " cannot be saved." The 
centurion and his men had now implicit confidence in 
the Apostle, and they dealt with the matter promptly 
" They cut off the ropes of the boat and let her fall 
off." Thus the sailors were kept on board to do what 
was necessary and what they alone could do 
when the daylight should come : and we see how the 
lives of nearly three hundred people were saved 
through the good understanding established between 
Paul the Apostle and Julius the Centurion through 
the contact of friendly feeling between a Christian 
and a Heathen. 

(5.) When the daylight came, this good under- 
standing this friendly feeling led, in a still more 
remarkable way, to similar results ; and this brings 
us to the passage which was selected at the outset as 
expressing most fully the main point of the whole 
subject. When the vessel struck, she did not go to 
pieces immediately. " The fore-part stuck fast, and 
remained unmovable, but the hinder part was broken 



136 THE COMPANIONS OF ST. PAUL. 

with the violence of the waves: and the soldiers* 
counsel was to kill the prisoners, lest any of them 
should swim out and escape: but the centurion, 
willing to save Paul, kept them from their purpose." l 
The advice given by the soldiers is easily understood. 
They were answerable with their own lives for the 
prisoners ; and it was better for them to be able to 
show that they had put the prsioners to death on an 
emergency than to be called to account for carelessly 
allowing them to escape. They forgot, indeed, that 
they owed their own lives to St. Paul ; but we cannot 
be surprised to find Koman soldiers selfish and cruel. 
And now, in this moment of imminent danger not 
only to St. Paul but to all his fellow-passengers, 
comes out conspicuously to view the peculiar feeling 
of Julius towards him. " The centurion, willing to 
save Paul, kept them from their purpose." -Had 
Paul not been of the party had Julius been a man 
of a different disposition all the other prisoners 
would have been killed. In the end all were saved : 
but this was entirely due to the influence gained by 
St. Paul over Julius to the friendship felt by the 
Heathen Centurion for the Christian Apostle. 

(6.) The last mention of this centurion is in Rome 
itself. After the whiter had been spent in Malta, 
another Alexandrian vessel was employed to carry on 
all the shipwrecked people. Nothing occurred to 
hinder this part of the voyage. The centurion and 
his prisoners landed at Puteoli they went up to 

1 Vers. 42, 43. 



JULIUS. 137 wt 

Its 

Rome by the great south, road and "when 'hey 
came to Rome, the centurion delivered the prisoners 
to the captain of the guard." l His duty was done. 
He proceeds to obey whatever new military orders 
are laid upon him. St. Paul is " allowed to dwell in 
his own hired house, with the soldier that keeps him ; " 
and, while waiting for his trial, has opportunities of 
preaching the Gospel to those who come to him, and 
of writing Epistles to distant Churches. 

A thought here occurs to the mind, which opens 
out into other very serious thoughts. It seems highly 
probable that St. Paul, Felix, and Julius were, for 
some considerable time, in Rome together. But, 
even if this was the case, it is very likely that the 
Apostle never met either of these two men again. A 
large city is like a large forest, where different paths 
may be pursued again and again without any chance 
of meeting. Each man, however, in such a city has 
his own history, and carries about with him the 
results of his past experience and opportunities. Felix 
was what he became after he had trembled at the 
reasoning of "temperance, righteousness, and judg- 
ment " after he had procrastinated to a " convenient 
season " after he had treated St. Paul unjustly, and, 
" to please the Jews," left him in prison. Julius was 
what he became after close companionship on ship- 
board (and where could companionship be more 
close ?) with the Apostle after treating him kindly 
after owing his own life to him, and after saving 
his life in return. 

1 Acts xxviii. 16. 



138 THE COMPANIONS OF ST. PAUL. 

Whether this intercourse ripened into an accept' 
ance of the Gospel and the new life in Christ Jesus, 
we do not know. But, without endeavoring to pene- 
trate that secret, there is permanent instruction for us 
even in this slight biographical sketch which has been 
drawn by help of the last two chapters of the Acts. 

What is this instruction ? 

We have followed the biographical thread, through 
a series of incidents, with very little mention of Re- 
ligion. This course is in harmony with the character 
of the chapter itself. It is by no means one of the 
shortest in the book : yet no mention of Christ occurs 
in it from the beginning to the end. The duty of an 
expositor of the Bible is to deal fairly with the Sacred 
Volume, to take it as he finds it to try to catch its 
true spirit to study and to explain its various parts 
in succession feeling sure that there is everywhere 
in it some Christian lesson, even where Christ is not 
named. 

And is it not most instructive to find such variety 
of teaching, as we go through the parts of Scripture 
in order ? Here we have been considering in two 
successive papers two of the early points of contact 
between Christianity and Heathenism, as exhibited 
in the intercourse of St. Paul with Felix and with 
Julius : and there could not well be a greater differ- 
ence than between the impressions which these two 
parts of the record leave on the mind. In the one 
case there is the most searching appeal, in reference 
to the salvation of the soul, shaking the conscience 



JULIUS. 139 

to its very foundations. In the other case are the 
incidents of friendly intercourse, with its happy results 
as regards the affairs of this world. And is it not an 
indication of the Divinity of the Bible, that while it 
penetrates the depths of the soul, sets before us, in 
words of fire, the horrible misery of sin, and draws 
us, with the most intense persuasion, to the mercy of 
Christ, it also takes us by the hand where we are, and 
leads us along the path of our daily life, so that we 
may be happy in ourselves and a blessing to all around 
us ? 

"We might say that the subject of the last essay 
contained warning for the unconverted, and that the 
subject of this paper contains advice for the converted. 
The instruction we are to draw from the account of 
this centurion relates to the duty and the advantages 
of courtesy. And let it be remembered, as was said 
above, that the force of the example is very much in- 
creased by the fact that Julius was a Heathen. When 
our Lord would inculcate the duty of active benev- 
olence, He exhibits a Samaritan showing kindness to 
a wounded Jew. When we are admonished of the 
sin of ingratitude, we are reminded that the one man 
who returned thanks after the healing of the leprosy 
was a Samaritan. So it is here. The example of 
courtesy is shown on that side which the Christian \ 

mind would naturally and instinctively regard with - 

suspicion. 

We can hardly fail to read the lesson. And as to 
the place in Christian character which ought to be 
31 



140 THE COMPANIONS OF ST. PAUL. 

occupied by courtesy that is, by kind consideration, 
polite behavior, friendly treatment it is enough 
here to quote a string of texts ; and perhaps it would 
be hardly possible to strengthen the argument de- 
rived from their simple juxtaposition. In the Sermon 
on the Mount we find this : " Blessed are the meek ; 
blessed are the merciful; blessed are the peace- 
makers ; " and also this : " Whosoever shall compel 
thee to go a mile, go with him twain." l In the First 
Epistle of St. Peter we find this : " Honor all men : 
be ye all of one mind, having compassion one of 
another; be pitiful, be courteous." 2 In the Epistle 
to the Eph'esians this : " Let all bitterness and clamor 
be put away from you ; and be ye kind one to another, 
tender-hearted." 3 In the Epistle to the Romans 
this : " Be kindly affectioned one to another with 
brotherly love ; in honor preferring one another." 4 
Whilst in the Epistle to the Philippians written at 
the very period to which we are now come in our 
course of biographical sketches, and in the midst of 
those very soldiers of the Roman army, to which our 
attention has just been especially directed we have 
the whole case summed up thus : " Let nothing be 
done through strife or vainglory ; but in lowliness of 
mind let each esteem other better than themselves. 
Look not every man on his own things, but every 
man also on the things of others. Let this mind be 
in you, which was also in Christ Jesus." 5 

i Matt. v. 5, 7, 9, 41. 2 i p e ter ii. 17; Hi. 8. 

3 Eph. iv. 31, 32. * R om . x jj. JQ. 5 Phil. ii. 3-5. 



JULIUS. Ml 

And let it not be said, in the midst of our boasted 
civilization, that injunctions to courtesy are obsolete. 
It is as needful as ever it was that the lesson should 
be carefully studied and well learnt; and this, too, 
in very various sections of our social life. Those, 
for instance, who have had much to do with educa- 
tion are well aware that rudeness in the time of 
boyhood is sometimes almost held as a point of 
honor ; and it is highly desirable to point out that 
such behavior is not really manly, and is attended 
by no good consequences. Rudeness, too, both of 
language and manner, is still prevalent among the 
uneducated classes. There is no reason, however, 
why hands hard with labor should not accompany a 
perfectly gentle and polite mind ; and in proportion 
as this change is effected, there will result a clear 
gain to the social comfort of life, and even to Re- 
ligion. 

Nor let those who regard themselves as belong- 
ing to the higher ranks of society claim any exemp- 
tion from the admonition with which this subject 
pursues us all. There may be much discourtesy 
without rudeness. The presence of a certain amount 
of refinement may, in fact, indicate a worse violation 
of the Christian law, because such a state of mind 
contains the element of supercilious contempt. There 
must, indeed, be gradations in the community corre- 
sponding with varieties of employment ; but the feel- 
ing which separates them in this country, if closely 
analyzed, would often be found to deviate far from 



142 THE COMPANIONS OF ST. PAUL. 

the Gospel standard. Two young men, perhaps, 
have started from the same point in the career of 
life, and in the course of a few years one is earning 
his bread by the sweat of his brow, the other by some 
routine work of the pen : once they were companions 
on equal terms, but now the latter begins to look 
down on the former, as though belonging to an in- 
ferior race. Or two mothers, with their families, are 
brought into close neighborhood, and through some 
accidental distinction, which it is hardly possible to 
define, they discover that even ordinary civility is 
impossible. It is surely not difficult to decide that 
such states of feeling are out of harmony with the 
mind of Christ, and very injurious to the progress 
of his cause in the world. 

Nor do such instances by any means exhaust the 
applications of the lesson which we have been con- 
sidering. How unjustifiable, for example, are the 
alienations and animosities often engendered by 
political partisanship ! and how injurious to that 
sacred " bond of peace " which ought to unite to- 
gether all those who bear the Christian name ! The 
vast difference between Christianity and Heathenism 
did not hinder the interchange of courtesy and mu- 
tual regard between Julius the Centurion and Paul 
the Apostle. Too often our parties seem to divide 
us into absolutely opposite religions. It is, above all, 
when we consider the suspicion and distrust, the 
rule recriminations, the unfair arguments, which 
separate different sections of the so-called religious 



JULIUS. 143 



world, it is here that we begin to appreciate most 
fully the value of the Christian lesson furnished to 
us, at the close of the Book of Acts, by a Heathen 
example. 



IX. 

ONESIMUS. 

' In time past to thee unprofitable, but now profitable to thee and 
to me. 1 ' PHILEJI. 11. 

nnHE Acts of the Apostles end by informing us 
-*- that, on his arrival in Rome, St. Paul " dwelt 
two whole years in his own hired house, and received 
all that came in unto him, preaching the kingdom 
of God, and teaching those things which concern 
the Lord Jesus Christ, with all confidence, no man 
forbidding him." l 

The cheerful tone of these words is remarkable. 
We cannot indeed help instinctively wishing that the 
narrative had been prolonged. We should have 
been glad to have read histories of the Apostle's 
conversations in Rome, and of the persons whom he 
met there, as copious and full as those which give 
so much varied interest to all the later chapters of 
this Book. But though the termination is abrupt, it 
is confident and sanguine. And this is the more 
worthy of note, if we consider carefully all the cir- 
cumstances of the case. There were many things in 
St. Paul's condition at this time which might nat- 
urally have been disheartening and dispiriting. But 

i Acts xxviii. 30, 31. 



ONESIMUS. 145 

our last glance at the Great Apostle and his work, 
as afforded us by this Book, enables us to see them 
on the bright side. Either his own energetic and 
unyielding spirit communicated itself to his biog- 
rapher, or St. Luke, cheering St. Paul by his com- 
panionship, wrote as he felt and as he enabled others 
to feel. 

" Two whole years " in mature life is a large part 
of a laborious career. We must be careful, indeed, 
to lay stress on these two conditions mature life, 
and a laborious career. In childhood two years 
would not be reckoned long, because, though such 
a period seems longer to the child than it does to 
older persons, it produces no evident results for the 
benefit of society at large. And, with an idle man, 
it is of very little moment whether he lives two years 
or twenty. In fact, the shorter period is perhaps to 
be preferred, because he has wasted less time, and 
his example has been less mischievous. But when 
life is in its mature strength, and when active useful- 
ness is the habit of the life, then " two whole years " 
is a very long time. 

JNb one will dispute that St. Paul's career was one 
of unceasing activity and toil ; and at the moment 
of which we read here, there seemed to be a singular 
value in his life. There had been no cessation of his 
activity from the time of his being first sent out on 
his Missionary course with Barnabas from Antioch. 1 
He was now, so far as we can ascertain, a little over 

1 Acts xiii. 3. 



146 TEE COMPANIONS OF ST. PAUL. 

sixty years old. His health, too, was delicate ; and it 
was evident that a few years would begin to make a 
great difference in his power of enduring fatigue and 
resisting the effects of sickness or privation. Thus 
there is a peculiar interest in what he did and what 
he suffered at this period of his life. 

He was at this time a prisoner in Rome. And 
though he was far from having absolutely lost his 
freedom of speech and action, it is evident that such 
restraint must have involved much trial, with serious 
hindrances of the work to which he was devoted. 
His mode of employment in the midst of this com- 
bined bondage and liberty cannot fail to be peculiarly 
instructive ; and though, as has been said, the nar- 
rative in the Acts ends abruptly, we are not with- 
out materials for obtaining large information on this 
subject. We shall however be better able to appre- 
ciate the full significance of the " two whole years " 
in Rome, if we revert for a moment to the circum- 
stances which had preceded. 

On looking back to the close of an earlier chapter, 
and to the last character but one that was under our 
consideration, we are reminded of another period of 
" two years." l St. Paul had been apprehended at 
Jerusalem, in the midst of a tumult, and sent to 
Ctesarea, where the Governor Felix resided : and 
here, too, he was a prisoner for this space -of time, 
shut out from the active employments in which he 
always longed to be engaged. This condition of 

1 Acts xxiv. 27. 



ONES1MUS. 147 

restraint had indeed its alleviations. Felix, as wo 
recollect, did not treat him harshly. He gave orders 
to the centurion that he should allow St. Paul to have 
a considerable amount of liberty, " and forbid none 
of his acquaintance to minister or come unto him." l 
Still he was restricted to one place : and to a man of 
his temperament this must have been no slight trial. 
He saw how the companies of soldiers went and 
came along the great Roman, roads which were con- 
nected with this city ; but no such journeys were 
possible to him. He looked out over the sea, and 
saw the white sails of the ships, which kept up a busy 
traffic between this harbor and the far-off coasts ; but 
he was not able to cross the water which separated 
him from Ephesus, or Corinth, or Rome. Whatever 
opportunities he might have of acting on the minds 
of others in conversation or by correspondence, this 
taking out of " two years " from the midst of his 
active career was a disappointment to which he would 
not easily submit, except by remembering that it was 
God's wiU. 

At length the time came for his departure. " After 
two years " another governor succeeded. " Porcius 
Festus came into Felix's room ; and Felix, willing to 
show the Jews a pleasure, left Paul bound." The 
events which followed under the governorship of 
Festus are told at length in the twenty-fifth and 
twenty-sixth chapters, though perhaps they occupied 
no very long period. The time was come when St. 

l Acts xxiv. 23. 
32 



148 THE COMPANIONS OF ST. PAUL. 

Paul was to cross this sea towards Rome, and, as we 
have seen, under the charge of one of these very 
soldiers. And now the voyage itself must he taken 
into account in connection with our present tram of 
thought. It must be remembered that a ship is very 
often practically a prison, especially when it is crowded 
with people and the weather is stormy. Now we 
know that there were nearly three hundred people 
on board the vessel in which the Apostle Paul was 
wrecked. 1 The storm, too, had been so violent and 
prolonged, that great privations had been suffered by 
the whole crew. 2 There was also considerable deten- 
tion at more places than one; and, on the whole, we 
cannot put the time spent between Caesarea and Rome 
at less than half a year. Thus, with the two im- 
prisonments, we have four years and a half to be 
taken out of a laborious career in mature life. When 
we wish to appreciate the exertions and the success 
of St. Paul, it behooves us to take into careful con- 
sideration all these sufferings and hindrances, and the 
probable effect of these things upon his health. 

The Roman imprisonment, indeed, seems to have 
allowed even larger liberty and more alleviation than 
the former one at Csesarea. Either the favorable re- 
port of Festus the Governor, who was much per- 
plexed by the case, or the influence of Julius the 
Centurion, who evidently had a true affection and 
respect for St. Paul, or other circumstances of which 
we know nothing, caused him to have some of the 
1 Acts xxvii. 3T. 2 Acts xxvii. 18-21, 33, 34. 



ONES IM US. 149 

fullest privileges permitted to a prisoner. On liis 
arrival in Rome, when delivered up to the Captain of 
the Guard, he was not forced into a dismal dungeon 
with a crowd of malefactors, "but " suffered to dwell 
by himself with a soldier that kept him." 1 Some 
soldier was always his companion, with his own arm 
chained to St. Paul's arm. Such was the custom. 
He alludes to this when he addresses the Jews, whom, 
immediately on his arrival, he invited to visit him : 
" It is for the hope of Israel that I am bound with 
this chain." 2 Further on we are told that there was 
a large meeting of Jews " at his lodging." And then 
it seems that he changed his quarters, and, though 
still a prisoner, lived in a commodious house, of which, 
either by subscriptions in Rome or through the help 
of distant churches, 3 he was enabled to defray the 
cost ; and the two last verses of the book are in the 
.cheerful words which were quoted above. 

Now, though a direct and detailed history is not 
given to us, we have both in the passage itself and 
elsewhere, very full materials for enabling us to ap- 
preciate the manner and results of St. Paul's em- 
ployment during these " two whole years." . We see, 
from the very wording of the passage, that large 
numbers of persons came to him. Besides this, 
the soldier who kept guard over him was frequently 
changed, and thus he must have made, acquaintance 
with a considerable number of members of the army. 
But moreover, however much he was hindered from 
* Acts xxviii. 16. 2 Ver. 20. See Col. 5v. 18. 3 See Phil. iv. 14 



150 THE COMPANIONS OF ST. PAUL. 

travelling, he was not hindered from writing. We 
know what the letters were which he wrote at this 
time. They were the Epistles to the Philippians, to 
the Ephesians, to the Colossians, and to Philemon. 
Thus we have the most authentic resources, partly in 
the concluding words of the Book, of Acts, partly in 
these four Epistles, for picturing to ourselves the 
employments and the companions of St. Paul during 
these " two whole years," and the opportunities which 
he possessed even then, and diligently used, for spread- 
ing the Gospel of Christ. 

The mere fact of his writing these letters should 
be dwelt upon with attention. A time of imprison- 
ment was favorable to this occupation. And what a 
powerful method of doing good was here within his 
reach ! - He could instruct distant churches, console 
them in their difficulties, rehuke their errors ; and all 
that he thus set before them with such ends, being in 
writing, was their perpetual possession. They could 
refer to the words of their great teacher, consider 
them well, read them aloud, copy them down, study 
them in private, learn them by heart, place them side 
by side with their conduct, " for reproof, for correc- 
tion, for instruction in righteousness." * But not only 
so : in writing thus he communicated with all future 
ages. As it has been truly and well said, " the re- 
straint on St. Paul's liberty proved the means of 
opening to him a sphere of activity which has given 
him access to all nations, which makes him the con- 

1 2 Tim. iii. 16. 



ONESIMUS. 151 

temporary of every age." In writing to the Ephesians 
and Colossians concerning great doctrines ; in writing 
to the Philippians concerning the example of Christ ; 
in writing to Philemon concerning justice and mercy, 
he is speaking to us, if we will but listen to him 
without let or hindrance, just as in Rome he per 
sonally " received all that came in unto him, preach- 
ing the kingdom of God, and teaching those tilings 
which concern the Lord Jesus Christ, no man for- 
bidding him." 

But we know, moreover, from these Epistles, much 
of his personal intercourse, and of the large effects 
which followed it. I say nothing at present of all 
those Christians who were in the Great City itself 
before St. Paul came there, and to whom messages 
had been conveyed by Phoebe in the Epistle to the 
Romans. 1 With most of these he doubtless made 
acquaintance. But I confine myself to the letters 
written at this period from Rome itself. Here, for 
instance, at the close of the letters to the Colossians 
and Philemon, are the names of Luke and Aris- 
tarchus, whom we know to have been his companions 
on the voyage from Caesarea. 2 Here is Dernas, up to 
the present time his " fellow-laborer," though after- 
wards he fell away, through that love of the world 
which is still the great enemy of the love of Christ. 8 
Here is Mark, described now as a " fellow-worker 

1 Kom. xvi. 1-16. 

2 Col. iv. 10, 14; Philem. 24. See Actsxxvii. 2. 
8 2 Tim. iv. 10. 



152 THE COMPANIONS OF ST. PAUL. 

unto ihe kingdom of God," and a " comfort " to the 
Apostle, though some years before he had been faith- 
less, had " departed " from Paul, and " not gone with 
him to the work." 1 And, if we turn from these 
Epistles to that which was written, apparently some- 
what later, to the Philippians, we seem to see that 
Luke has now left him, while Timotheus is with him. 2 
. Both are names very familiarly known in connection 
with the Church of Philippi. 3 Perhaps Luke had 
been sent to the Philippians. Paul certainly hopes 
to send Timothy soon. This large circle of friends 
at Rome is fall of interest. It is a mark of the 
Apostle's great influence and power over the minds of 
others. And it is to be remembered that it is not 
merely friendship, to sustain and console, with which 
we are concerned here. But these names represent 
a large system of concurrent effort. He was the 
heart. He gave the pulsations from which strength 
and warmth and force came to them: so that they 
labored under him, and labored successfully. Thus 
we find him saying, in reference to those who were 
with him in Rome, "Many of the brethren in the 
Lord, waxing confident by my bonds, are much more 
bold to speak the word without fear." 4 

"We may even pursue this train of thought fur- 
ther, so as to come to still more definite results, and 
from each of these four Epistles we may single out 
one friend and fellow-laborer of St. Paul, concerning 

l Acts xiii. 13 ; xv. 38. 2 Phil. i. 1 ii. 19. 

8 Acts xvi. 12 ; xvii. 15 ; xviii. 5 ; xx. 6. 4 Phil. i. 14. 



ONESIMUS. 153 

whom, at this period, we really have very full infor- 
mation. And in thus singling out individuals, and 
observing their personal relation with the Apostle, 
we see more of the inner working of his mind and 
heart of the real principles on which he acted 
than we could possibly see by the mere study of any 
general statements. We open the Epistle to the 
Colossians, and there we find, near the beginning, 
this said concerning Epaphras, that he is the Apos- 
tle's "dear fellow-servant," that he is "for them a 
faithful minister of Christ," and that he had also de- 
clared to St. Paul " their love in the Spirit ; " but es- 
pecially, near the end, we find this : " Epaphras, who 
is one of you, a servant of Christ, saluteth you, al- 
ways laboring for you fervently in prayers, that ye 
may stand perfect and complete in all the will of 
God ; for I bear him record that he hath a great 
zeal for you, and them that are in Laodicsea, and 
them in Hierapolis." * Now what a large amount of 
Christian love and cooperation comes to view from a 
careful examination of such a passage as this ! What 
a consolidation and strengthening of scattered Chris- 
tian communities it represents ! And if Epaphras is 
the living link of connection between the Apostle 
and Colossse with its neighboring cities, Tychicus 
holds the same relation towards the great community 
of Ephesus. The words concerning him are these. 
After asking the Ephesians to pray for him, and re- 
minding them that he is " an ambassador in bonds.'* 
idol. i. 7,8; iv. 12,13. 



154 TEE COMPANIONS OF ST. PAUL. 

he says, "That ye may also know my affairs, and 
how I do, Tychicus, a beloved brother and faithful 
minister in the Lord, shall make known to you all 
things, whom I am sending to you for the same pur- 
pose, that ye might know our affairs, and that he 
might comfort your hearts." * Here is the same un- 
ceasing activity in a time of bondage ; the same un- 
controllable sympathy ; the same features of personal 
intercourse; the same employment of a friend and 
companion for the strengthening of those who are 
far removed. But in illustration of all these points, 
perhaps the best examples are Epaphroditus, who is 
conspicuous in the Epistle to the Philippians, and 
Onesimus, whose fault and repentance gave occasion 
to the exquisite letter addressed to Philemon. At- 
tention is first invited .to the second of these two ; 
and there is one special fact which invests his case 
with peculiar importance. 

In the Roman Empire were a class of persons ex- 
tremely numerous and universally diffused, of which 
we in England have happily no experience. In the 
city of Rome itself, probably half the population 
consisted of slaves : the greater part of the industrial 
labor, both in the metropolis and in the provinces, 
was in their hands ; and very often they were highly 
educated. Thus, deplorable as their condition really 
was, they were very important members of society ; 
and, of course, they were met at every turn. Now 
if Christianity is a beneficent system, coextensive in 

1 Eph. vi. 21, 22. 



ONESIMVS. 155 

its remedial power with the evils which afflict human- 
ity, one of its assigned functions must have been to 
ameliorate the condition of slaves, and to put an end 
to the system under which they suffered. The mode 
in which this has been gradually effected in the course 
of ages supplies material for one of the most in- 
structive of all studies ; and it receives a signal illus- 
tration from the short story of Onesimus. 

The story is soon told. Onesimus was the slave 
of Philemon at Colossse : he had robbed his master 
and run away; and, in the end, found his way to 
Borne. There, by some strange chance, as we should 
say, this runaway slave met with St. Paul, and under 
his teaching became a Christian. And now he was 
to be reconciled to his master. Such was the occa- 
sion of this most courteous and beautiful letter. The 
Apostle has to deal with a delicate subject ; and he 
does this with consummate skill, and with the most 
delicate Christian tact. We might dwell upon this 
feature of it hi detail. Or we might adduce this cor- 
respondence as a specimen of St. Paul's varied activ- 
ity under circumstances when most men would have 
been discouraged, and tempted to relax their efforts. 
Or we might use it to illustrate another point. Not 
only, while a prisoner, is he unceasingly occupied in 
the diffusion of great doctrinal truths, but he can give 
his time and thought to a case of domestic discom- 
fort, and to the interest -of a fugitive thief. The 
point, however, selected for the present occasion, 
and that to which our thoughts have been tending, is 
33 



156 THE COMPANIONS OF ST. PAUL. 

this, that the short apostolic letter now before us 
elucidates the principle upon which a yast amount of 
human suffering has been alleviated, and a large pro- 
portion of the human race elevated from a degraded 
position to equal brotherhood with the rest. 

Of the character of Onesinras, when converted to 
Christianity, we may just say this, that he became 
altogether a different man. " Begotten " to a new 
and spiritual life by St. Paul " in his bonds " at 
Rome, he is become the brother both of the Apostle 
himself and of the master who had been wronged. 
We find these new relationships briefly and strongly 
expressed in an Epistle which Onesimus himself con- 
veyed ; an Epistle which, with this subject before us, 
it is most instructive to compare with that to Phile- 
mon. In writing to the Colossians, St. Paul says he 
is sending Tychicus " with Onesimus, a faithful and 
beloved brother ; " and then he adds, not without a 
most suggestive hint to the Christian residents at 
Colossas : " who is one of you." * He who had been 
the slave of Philemon is now made the " brother" of 
the saints. He who had been a runaway thief is now 
worthy of the highest trust. To the Apostle himself 
in Rome he is so dear, that he speaks of him as " his 
very heart," as " his very self." 2 Onesimus shows, 
too, such capability of useful service, that he might 
take Philemon's own place in helping the Apostle, if 
only it were right to retain' him without permission. 3 
As regards Philemon, Onesimus is now, though still 
i Col. iv. 9. 2 Philem. 12, 17. 3 y er . 14. 



ONESIMU8. 157 

bound to him by the tie of earthly service, a true 
spiritual brother. To him he is even more than he is 
to St. Paul. It is assumed that he is doubly dear to 
him, " both in the flesh and in the Lord." * The 
whole is summed up in the words that were quoted 
at the head of these remarks, words characterized 
even by a certain playfulness which is lost to the 
English reader. The Greek word " Onesimus " means 
" profitable ; " and, knowing this, we detect a singu- 
lar cheerfulness of confidence expressed in the saying 
that he who was " in time past unprofitable " to Phil- 
emon is now " profitable " to him as well as to St. 
Paid. 

This change in the poor slave, and in the feelings 
that now surrounded him, is a sample of the influence 
which in time undermined the system of slavery. 
Let us see for a moment what this slave-system was 
in the Roman world. Bondmen at this period might 
be purchased, or might be taken as captives in war, 
or might, be born of slave-parents in the household 
of their masters. To which of these sources the 
bondage of Onesimus is to be traced, we are not able 
to say. But this may be remarked, by the way, that 
Phrygia, in which the city of Colossaa was situated, 
was preeminently and proverbially a slave-producing 
region ; so that even in this respect the case before 
us is a typical instance. Whatever the origin of the 
bondage in any particular case might have been, its 
condition was always most miserable. A slave had 

i Ver. 16. 



158 THE COMPANIONS OF ST. PAUL. 

no legal personality. He was merely a living ma- 
chine,, and was viewed almost as belonging to the 
same class as the cattle on the farm or the furniture 
in the house. It is evidently natural that such a state 
of things should not only have marred the comfort 
of domestic life, but fostered the commission of crime 
and^endangered the peace of society. The inevitable 
characteristics of slaves in the Roman Empire were 
theft and falsehood, and, when it was possible, con- 
spiracy. Seneca, a contemporary of St. Paul in 
" Rome, says : " Show me how many slaves there are, 
and I will show you how many enemies we have." 
Perhaps the saddest of all the circumstances con- 
nected with the system of ancient slavery was, that 
even the highest minds regarded it as a matter of 
course. They could hardly conceive of society as 
existing without it. We in England can hardly im- 
agine the toleration of such an evil. 

Now, one great office of Christianity has been the 
emancipating of the slave. But how ? Not by ve- 
hemently telling him of his rights. Not by inflaming 
his indignation against ids oppressors. This would 
have made Christ's kingdom " a kingdom of this 
world ; " x would have sanctioned insurrection ; would 
have excited tinder the Emperors a " Servile War ; " 
like that which made havoc previously in the Repub- 
lic ; a war, too, which would have led to a reaction,) 
of still greater oppression and cruelty. The true 
solvent for this hard and bitter evil was charity, such 

1 John xviii. 36. 



ONES1MUS. 159 

as was felt by the centurion of Capernaum, 1 such as 
was encouraged by St. Paul in Rome. The altering 
of the heart both of the master and the slave, the 
purifying of their motives, the softening of the affec- 
tions of the master and the creating in him a spirit 
of justice, the raising of the slave up to a sense of 
duty, and the giving to him a hope which throws the 
accidents of our earthly condition into the shade, 
this was the true Act of Emancipation. Thus the 
slave lost his vices ; became loyal, truthful, honest ; 
and the master, on the other hand, became consider- 
ate, kind, and just. Thus Slavery died, as it were, a 
natural death. The sentiments created by Christian- 
ity in due time pervaded the Christian commonwealth, 
and ultimately passed into usage and law. 

We should observe, too, that this particular in- 
stance exemplifies what St. Paul says, in general 
terms, of the duties of masters and slaves. In that 
Epistle which has been referred to as intrusted to 
Onesimus, these duties are laid down. 3 In proportion 
as they were discharged in the right spirit, an ap- 
proximation would take place between two naturally 
hostile sections of the community ; and just as al- 
ready " Jew and Greek " were made one, so, to quote 
again the same Epistle to the Colossians, 3 " bond and 
free " were made one. Onesimus stands, in fact, to 
one subject almost in the same relation in which Cor- 
nelius Stands to the other. We cannot too carefully 
observe St. Paul's consistency with himself. He does 

1 Luke vii. 2. 2 Col. iii. 22; iv. 1. 3 Col. iii. 11. 



160 THE COMPANIONS OP ST. PAUL. 

not urge Onesimus to insist on separation from his 
master, or even to demand his freedom. On the con- 
trary, he sends him back, fie may give a sugges- 
tion to Philemon, and may confidently express a 
hope that he will do " even more " than the Apostle 
says. 1 But the duty of Onesimus is clear. All is to 
be left to the operation of true Christian principle in 
the two men, according to the circumstances in which 
they are respectively placed. This is in strict har- 
mony with what is enjoined in one of the Epistles to 
the Corinthians, that each man is willingly to abide 
in that calling where Christianity has found him 
Nay, " is he called, being a slave ? " He is " to use 
this servile condition all the more readily," that in it 
he may do all the more honor to Christ : 2 for such, 
whether he considers the context or the Greek, the 
careful student will perceive to be the true meaning 
of the passage. And Onesimus seems to have caught 
the true spirit of this great lesson. He has a full 
sense of the wrong done to Philemon, and is in no 
wise unwilling to return to Colossas. It is instructive 
to see here how a great principle is involved in what 
seems at first sight a casual circumstance ; and when 
we consider that by such methods as this Slavery has 
been gradually ceasing to exist, we feel that we have 
in the story of Onesimus a signal proof of the rich- 
ness and expansiveness of Scripture. 

i Philem. 21. 21 Cor. vii. 21. 



EPAPHRODITUS. 

: 'My brother, and companion in labor, and fellow-soldier, but you* 
messenger, and he that ministered to my wants." PHIL. ii. 25. 

A UTHENTIC materials for obtaining a clear 
* *" view of St. Paul's employments during his 
captivity in Rome, and for appreciating the use which 
he made there of his facilities for spreading the Gos- 
pel, are supplied by no Epistle so well as by that 
which was written to the Philippians ; and of all 
those companions who surrounded him at that time, 
and became helpful, both in Rome itself and in re- 
gard to communication with distant churches, the 
best to select as a representative of the whole num- 
ber is Epaphroditus, the bearer of this letter to 
Philippi. 

As regards the Epistle, it is worth while, in the 
first place, to observe that, while it contains no slight 
or obscure indications of suffering and struggle, it 
gives the impression of great vigor and of success in 
conducting the apostolic work. St. Paul tells the 
Philippians that "he would have them understand 
that the things which had happened unto him had 
fallen out rather unto the furtherance of the Gospel." x 

i Phil. i. 12. 



162 THE COMPANIONS OF ST. PAUL. 

His imprisonment, and the manner in which he had 
been able to bear his afflictions and to use his oppor- 
tunities, had infused courage and zeal into the great 
majority of the Christian community in Rome. Some, 
indeed, he adds, were under the influence of inferior 
motives ; but still, on the whole, there was marked 
progress. 1 And in the course of the Epistle there 
occurs the mention of two classes of persons with 
whom he was specially associated, and through whom 
the Gospel obtained a wide diffusion. These 'were 
the Imperial troops and the members of the Imperial 
household. What is called " the palace " 2 must really 
be understood as denoting the 'general body of sol- 
diers in Rome, whether quartered on the Palatine or 
in the other parts of the city ; and in the phrase 
" Cassar's household " 3 all those are comprised, 
whether slaves, or freedmen, or officials of various 
ranks, who stood in some sort of personal relation to 
the Emperor. It is evident that in carefully attending 
to the two methods thus supplied for spreading the 
Truth of Christ, we are closely considering St. Paul's 
Companions. 

As regards the Imperial household, from the Chris- 
tian members of which salutations were sent with 
peculiar warmth to the Christians at Philippi, it is 
obvious, even at first sight, that any religious impres- 
sion made here was likely to have great results. 
Officials of all kinds, touching every rank and condi- 
tion of life, were in connection with that vast estab- 

i Vers. 15-18. -' Ver. 13. * Phil. iv. 22. 



EPAPHRODITUS. 163 

lishment. Moreover, that establishment was in the 
very centre of the civilized world, and had drawn into 
itself and assimilated very various national elements 
from all parts of the empire. Doubtless, too, Chris- 
tianity had penetrated into this household before St. 
Paul himself arrived in Rome. This might almost 
be taken for granted from the very existence of the 
Epistle to the Romans, which had been sent from 
Corinth more than two years before the voyage from 
Cgesarea began. 1 

But we need not be limited to these general ex- 
pressions. We are able to supply details from some- 
thing more than mere conjecture, and to name with a 
high degree of probability some of the persons with, 
whom St. Paul was brought in contact in the close 
neighborhood of the Court. In endeavoring to elu- 
cidate this point we naturally turn to that list of 
names, which is found in the last chapter of the Epis- 
tle to the Romans, and of which no use was made 
when Onesimus was our subject. Now it is a cir- 
cumstance of very singular interest that some rest- 
ing places of the dead, undoubtedly appertaining to 
members of Caesar's household, and undoubtedly also 
belonging to the very time of St. Paul's sojourn in 
Rome, exhibit in connection with sepulchral ashes a 
large number of the very names which occur in this 
chapter. The writer of this paper can never forget 
the start of pleasure with which he saw the name of 
Tryphaena in one of these cells underground, and 
1 See Rom. xv. 25,31; xvi. 1,2. 

34 



164 THE COMPANIONS OF ST. PAUL. 

then that of Tryphosa among the foliage in another 
part of the same vineyard. . But many others of the 
identical names in the Epistle occur among these in- 
scriptions. Some, indeed, such as Urban and Hermes, 
are common names, so as to cause no surprise. Others, 
such as Stachys and Patrobas, are comparatively rare, 
so as to arrest the attention more ; while such a com- 
bination as that of Philologus and Julia deserves 
special observation, the former word appearing among 
these monuments, and the latter in itself indicating a 
connection with the Imperial family. 1 On the whole, 
though nothing can be absolutely proved, it is difficult 
not to believe that we have here in Modern Rome 
the ashes of some of those in the midst of whose 
companionship St. Paul preached the Gospel in An- 
cient Rome. 

From the Imperial household to the Imperial 
troops the transition is easy and obvious. The 
word " palace " in our English Version itself supplies 
the natural link of connection. A large number of 
soldiers were quartered in the palace itself on the 
Palatine Hill; and among the most interesting re- 
mains of Imperial Rome are rude inscriptions scrawled 
by these rough soldiers on the plaster, at the very 
period when Christianity was young. Some have 
thought that St. Paul himself had his residence in 
one of these chambers. Others, perhaps with more 

1 See the Bishop of Lincoln's Tour in Italy, vol. ii. p. 173, and 
especially Professor Lightfoot's Commentary on the Philippians, -[p. 
169-176. 



EPAPHRODITUS. 165 

probability, have imagined his dwelling to have been 
within the great Prgetorian Camp, the position of 
which is still conspicuously marked by a great square 
inclosure on the north of the city. The most proba- 
ble view of all is that the expression in the Epistle 
refers not to any exact place, but to the body of Prae- 
torian guards, wherever they were stationed. The 
position of St. Paul's " hired house," * may be left 
indeterminate, as of no moment in regard to our 
present subject. The point of importance is his con- 
tinuous communication with the soldiers. 

We know that the Apostle was freely allowed to 
see "all that came in unto him." 2 His conversations, 
then, were incessant ; and they must have led to much 
subsequent discussion, resulting in the gradual diffu- 
sion of Christian faith and love. But a companion 
of one particular class, though the individuals were 
not the same, was with him night and day. A soldier 
was always by his side, with his own hand chained 
to the Apostle's hand. This circumstance furnished 
to him a remarkable^ opportunity for spreading the 
Gospel. The soldier who kept guard over him was 
frequently changed ; and thus, in the course of the 
" two whole years," he must have made the intimate 
acquaintance of a considerable number of members of 
the army. As first one and then another relieved 
guard in this military duty, each of these rough men, 
in this intimate relation, would observe and wonder at 
the earnestness and zeal of this prisoner; would sea 
1 Acts xxviii. 30. 2 Acts xxviii. 31. 



166 THE COMPANIONS .OF ST. PAUL. 

and hear him in his appeals to those " that came in 
unto him; "he would marvel at his intense earnest- 
ness in argument and in persuasion ; at other tunes 
would see him studying such "books " as those which 
are mentioned in reference to a later imprisonment, 
and " especially the parchments," 1 if we are to view 
them as denoting the Old Testament Scriptures; 
would watch that process of dictation, under which 
one part of the New Testament Scriptures came grad- 
ually into existence, and, above all, would watch him 
at his prayers, those prayers, to which he alludes 
so constantly in the opening parts of his Epistles, 
and nowhere more emphatically than in those four 
Epistles which were written at this time in Rome. 2 

Each such soldier, when his duty was done, would 
go back to tell his comrades of this wonderful pris- 
oner. Nothing like it had ever been known. It 
would be the talk of all the barracks. And, of course, 
it is obvious that the quarters of the soldiers were, 
more or less, in relation with all the city. Thus, by 
the exercise of a little careful^ thought, we begin to 
see the full meaning of the juxtaposition of the two 
sentences which St. Paul places together in the early 
part of what he writes to the Philippians : " I would 
that you should understand, brethren, that the things 
which happened unto me have fallen out rather unto 
the furtherance of the Gospel ; so that my bonds in 
Christ are manifest to all the Prastorian troops and to 

1 2 Tim. iv. 13. 

2 See Eph. i. 16 ; Phil i. 4 ; Col. i. 3 ; Philem. 4. 



EPAPHRODITUS. 167 

all others elsewhere." It seems strange that a power 
of spreading the Gospel, which was denied to him in 
Jerusalem, the Holy City of Revealed Truth, should 
have been given to him in Rome, the profligate and 
cruel centre of the Heathen World ; stranger still that 
this liberty of evangelization should have been exer- 
cised through the very soldier.-? who caused him to be 
perpetually a prisoner. 

But again, the work done at the centre not only 
produced results in Rome, but affected a much wider 
circumference through the medium of the soldiers. 
These members of the Roman army were recruited 
from many barbarous nations on all the frontiers of 
the empire. They came from Britain, from Germany, 
from Africa, from the Danube, from the East. And, 
in turn, they were liable to be sent out to various 
and far distant places on foreign duty. An illustration 
of this is supplied by the case of the Centurion Julius, 
who has recently been under our direct consideration. 1 
These troops in Rome were in organic connection 
with all the provinces . Thus .the army itself became 
a kind of missionary organization ; and there is little 
doubt that the ultimate establishment of Christianity 
in the empire owed a great deal to the spread of 
Christian thoughts and Christian feelings by these 
methods. Campaigns or civil wars took place fre- 
quently during this period ; and in each great move- 
ment of Roman soldiers we can justly see a prep- 
aration for the receiving of the Gospel. Our own 
1 Acts sxvii. 1 ; xxviii. 16. 



168 THE COMPANIONS OF ST. PAUL. 

country, for instance, was just then in the process of 
being conquered ; and as the victorious army pressed 
on afterwards, and established itself firmly in such 
places as London, Chester, and York, they would 
bring with them reminiscences of St. Paul ; and thus 
the words spoken and the work done by this prisoner 
at Rome were among the causes that led to the found- 
ing of the early British Church. We have good rea- 
son to look back with thankfulness to what he was 
able to do in those " two years, no man forbidding 
him." 1 

Thus, through the medium of the soldiery, prog- 
ress was made in the diffusion of the Gospel over 
the world, though the great Apostle of the Gentiles 
was stationary in his prison-house. But, in another 
and more emphatic sense, it is true, to use his own 
expression, that " the Word of God was not bound " 2 
while he himself was in bondage. 3 " The care of all 
the churches " still pressed incessantly upon his ac- 
tive mind ; and from this Imperial centre, whence 
troops, and governors,* and judges were continually 
sent to all the provinces, St. Paul too dispatched 
his messengers with letters which have survived to 
our day, while military and political dispatches have 
been forgotten. We cannot too carefully bear in 
mind that the Companions of St. Paul stood to him 
in the place of postal arrangements. In the case of 
several of his Epistles, we can name the persons who 
conveyed them. For instance, Onesimus took,- along 
i Acts xxviii. 30, 31. 2 2 Tim. ii. 9. 32 Cor. xi. 28, 



EPAPHRODITDS. 169 

with the private communication to Philemon, those 
documents which are associated with the names of 
Ephesus and Colossse ; Phoebe was the bearer of the 
great letter from Corinth to Koine ; and at an earlier 
period we find Titus engaged in the same way in 
connection with the Epistles to the Corinthians. 

The correspondence of St. Paul with Philippi 
possesses an interest which is unique. No church 
was so dear to him ; no church so thoroughly de- 
served, or so copiously received, his approval. In 
the midst of his thought of all the various Christian 
communities which he had founded, the remembrance 
of none was so pleasing to him as of this. He calls 
it " his joy and his crown." The circumstances under 
which the first converts were made at Philippi (and 
it must be regarded as highly probable that among 
these early converts was Epaphroditus) were of such 
a character as to leave an indelible impression on 
his memory. All his communications, too, with this 
church, since that first introduction of Christianity 
into Europe, had been satisfactory and cheering. 
The notices, indeed, of his two subsequent visits to 
Philippi, are but scantily given in the Acts. 1 But the 
Epistles reveal an intercourse, which indicates warm 
feeling and watchful thought towards the Apostle. 
This church, though not wealthy, as other churches 
were, 2 and though much tried by conflict and suf- 
fering, had supplied St. Paul's wants by generous 
contributions, both in Thessalonica, very soon after 
1 Acts xx. 3, 6. 2 See 2 Cor. viii. 2. 



170 TEE COMPANIONS OF ST. PAUL. 

his departure from Philippi, and, at a later time, in 
Corinth. 1 Thus, by the recollection of his own suffer- 
ings, by the joy with which he beheld their victory 
over persecution, and by a sense of personal kind- 
ness shown to himself, St. Paul was specially bound 
in affection to the Philippians. 

The occasion which brought Epaphroditus to Rome, 
and caused the writing of this Epistle, was a recur- 
rence of their old generosity. They heard that he 
was in prison and in want. Thus, " now at the last 
their care of him flourished again." 2 The original 
expression, which is thus translated, is very beauti- 
ful. It reminds us of a tree, which, though it may 
have suffered in hard winters, and though it may 
have been severely handled by the axe, still lives and 
sends out fresh and vigorous shoots. Their wish, too, 
was not simply to send a certain sum of money safely 
to Rome, but to supply as much sympathy and com- 
fort as possible to the Apostle in his time of diffi- 
culty and trial; and as the best representative of 
their own feelings, and the most "likely person to 
make the gift acceptable, they chose Epaphroditus. 

Now, to aid us in estimating aright the character 
of Epaphroditus, and his association with St. Paul 
in relation to the spread of the Gospel, we have a 
passage very copious in detailed information, while 
it is full of the tenderest feeling. St. Paul is now 
sending back Epaphroditus, of whom he gives this, 
description : he is " my brother, and companion in 
1 2 Cor. xi. 9. 2 Phil. i v . 10. 



EPAPHRODITUS. 171 

labor, and fellow-soldier, but your messenger, and 
lie that ministered to my wants." Then he adds the 
reason why he is now sending him : " for he longed 
after you all, and was full of heaviness, because that 
ye had heard that he had been sick ; for, indeed, he 
was sick nigh unto death ; but God had mercy on 
him; and not on him only, but on me also, lest I 
should have sorrow upon sorrow : I am sending him, 
therefore, the more carefully, that, when ye see him 
again, ye may rejoice, and that I may be the less 
sorrowful." And further and most interesting in- 
formation is supplied in the concluding words of the 
passage, where, after urging that Epaphroditus ought 
to be received " with all gladness," he gives this addi- 
tional reason why he ought to be held in high 
honor, "because, for the work of Christ, he was 
nigh unto death, not regarding his life, to supply 
their lack of service towards him." By this last ex- 
pression we are not to understand that there was 
any reluctance on the part of the Philippians in gen- 
eral to do service to St. Paul, but that Epaphroditus 
had done what those who were absent could not do, 
and what they would have done if they could. The 
words invite us to consider at length what Epaph- 
roditus was to St. Paul, what he was to the Phi- 
lippians, how he became a bond of closer union 
between the Apostle and this Macedonian Church, 
what his sufferings and feelings had been in time of 
sickness, and, further, what the actual cause of this 
sickness had been. Some very brief remarks on 
35 



172 THE COMPANIONS OF ST. PAUL. 

each, of these five points are all that is 
here. 

(1.) As to the estimate which St. Paul set on 
Epaphroditus, it is evident, in the first place, that 
sufficient time had elapsed since his arrival in Rome 
for the Apostle to know him well and to speak of him 
confidently. He was no mere casual acquaintance ; 
and certainly St. Paul was not in the habit of using 
words at random. But we find him here accumulat- 
ing the most honorable epithets in describing his 
friend. Epaphroditus is his " brother," his " com- 
panion in labor" his "fellow-soldier" The descrip- 
tion is given in an ascending scale. Here are brought 
before us common sympathies in feeling, labors un- 
dertaken in common, and community in suffering 
and struggle. May we not also add community 
in victory? It is clear that Epaphroditus has not 
been content with simply being the messenger of the 
Philippian Church, however prompt and faithful, and 
then stopping with the discharge of his errand. He 
has entered into St. Paul's case with much feeling ; 
has thrown himself heartily into his work ; has 
stood by his side in conflict. Other parts of the 
Epistle reveal to us that St. Paul had many oppo- 
nents in Borne, and that some things involved to 
him a peculiar harassing of the mind. We cannot 
wonder, then, that he speaks warmly of Epaphro- 
ditus. We must mark, too, the personal gratitude 
expressed in the last phrase of the verse, " he that 
ministered to my wants." It is very evident from 



EPAPHRODITUS. 173 

this language tliat the Philippian " messenger " had 
not simply presented the money which he brought, 
but had contributed also his own thoughtful solici- 
tude and encouragement. All this explains the deep 
emotion with which St. Paul asks that Epaphrodi- 
tus, on his return to Philippi, may be " received in 
the Lord with all gladness," and with which he 
thanks God for his mercy in having restored his 
friend to health, after a dangerous sickness, lest, 
as he says, he himself should have had " sorrow upon 



sorrow." 



(2.) Turning now, in the second place, to the re- 
lation of Epaphroditus with the Philippian Church, 
we see in him their willing and zealous messenger. 
He is the representative of their liberality. Evi- 
dently, too, he is no commonplace member of that 
community. His generous character corresponds 
with the errand on which he has been sent. And 
now he is about to be placed in a new relation to 
the Church in Philippi. Now he is taking back to 
them this Epistle, which is to fortify them and cheer 
them for whatever conflicts are still in store. Having 
" sown worldly things " in sending Epaphroditus to 
Italy, they are now, in his return, reaping " spiritual 
things" 1 for themselves and for all future ages. 
Among the journeys which come before our notice in 
the apostolic history, hardly any are more worthy of 
our attention and sympathy than those which Epaph- 
roditus took from and to Philippi. And it is quite 

1 See 1 Cor. ix. It. 



174 T-EE COMPANIONS OF ST. PAUL. 

worth our while to bear iii mind that we are now, 
through the most modern arrangements for travelling, 
better able to realize the route than formerly. From 
Rome he would travel, as we should say, by Brindisi ; 
and then, after crossing the Adriatic, would follow the 
great Roman road, which then intersected the moun- 
tainous country which we call Albania. Everything 
which gives freshness of outward circumstances to 
the ever-fresh lessons of the earliest Christian times 
has a value which ought not to be despised ; and 
certainly Epaphroditus has a claim on our minute 
attention, as "the worthy representative of a noble 
church. 

(3.) We are thus brought to observe, thirdly, how 
Epaphroditus became a link of personal feeling be- 
tween St. Paul and the Christians of Philippi, bind- 
ing together more closely than ever the Apostle and 
his converts. The mere arrival of Epaphroditus in 
Rome must have made old memories more vivid, and 
kindled warm affections to a greater warmth. Ques- 
tions innumerable would be asked concerning well- 
known friends of former days, concerning new acces- 
sions to the faith, concerning those who were gone to 
their rest. The gift, too, which Epaphroditus brought 
was made far more precious, and touched the Apos- 
tle's heart more tenderly, in being conveyed by such 
a man. Meanwhile, the anxiety which was felt in 
Philippi, through the news of their messenger's seri- 
ous illness, became known to St. Paul. Thus an ear- 
nest wish was awakened in his mind to alleviate their 



EPAPUROD1TUS. ' 175 

sorrow. Great as was his own loss in seeing Epaph- 
roditus depart, he was anxious that he should return 
at once, that when they " saw him again " they might 
"rejoice," and that, as he most generously adds, he 
himself might be " the less sorrowful." It would be 
difficult to find anywhere a more affecting interchange 
of affectionate feeling. It is a most forcible illustra- 
tion of the truth that the " ivhole body is joined to- 
gether and compacted by that lohich every joint sicp- 
plieth." x And in pursuing such reflections we see 
the advantage of studying the New Testament ac- 
cording to the biographical method. We. thus learn 
how Christian feeling may be strengthened, and 
Christian hearts united, through individual exertion. 
This, too, is within the power of every one of us, if 
we use our opportunities aright, by putting ourselves 
in ready sympathy with those around us and with all 
whom we can help. 

(4.) What has just been said suggests a fourth 
point, well worthy of distinct attention. Epaphrodi- 
tus had been dangerously ill, causing much anxiety to 
St. Paul; and the news of this illness had reached 
the Philippians, causing distress to them. This feel- 
ing on their part was a sure indication that he was- 
worthy of their love and esteem. But the point to 
which attention is here asked is this, that Epaphrodi- 
'us was himself unsettled and unhinged, when he 
heard of this feeling among the Philippians. " He 
longed after them all, and was full of heaviness, be- 

l Eph. iv. 16. 



176 THE COMPANIONS OF ST. PAUL. 

cause that they had heard that he had been sick." ' We 
like Epaphroditus none the less on this account. It 
brings him very near to ourselves. It is just what 
many of us have experienced, in times of nervous ill- 
ness, when we know that friends are anxious, and 
when we think of home. 

(5.) But one thing more must be noticed before we 
close. The origin of this serious and dangerous ill- 
ness is made known to us. It was in the cause of the 
Gospel that this risk had been incurred. " For the 
work of Christ he was nigh unto death, not regard- 
ing his life." And the original Greek conveys the 
impression that there had been in Epaphroditus an 
imprudent zeal, a disregard of proper precautions, an 
overtaxing of his strength. The same causes have 
often since brought faithful ministers of the Gospel 
into jeopardy of their lives ; and, though there is 
always something to regret in such imprudence, still 
enthusiasm and self-forge tfulness are admirable feat- 
ures of character, and such men ought to be " held in 
reputation." 

As we leave the subject, there is a temptation to 
pause for a moment on a thought which is suggested 
by the sending forth from Rome such letters as those 
which were conveyed by Onesimus and Epaphroditus. 
Every eye is now turned with new and intense inter- 
est to what is taking place there. 1 May we not say 

1 This was written in the early part of the present year; and the 
substance of this paper was preached in a sermon at that time in 
the English Church at Nice. 



EPAPHRODITUS. 177 

that Paul is still bound in Rome ? Nothing indeed 
can be more out of harmony with the spirit of these 
papers than harsh judgments on those who do not 
agree with the writer. Stern controversy has its 
place elsewhere, but not here. But even some Roman 
Catholics are now saying that one of the things most 
needed throughout the Roman Catholic communion, 
in seminaries for the education of the clergy, in par- 
ishes for the reading of the laity, is a thorough 
knowledge and intelligent appreciation of the doc- 
trine and character of St. Paul. This, however, 
is, under present circumstances, quite impracticable. 
The course of history has been such that the Council 
of Trent, like Felix, " left Paul bound." l If only 
we could pour through the whole Roman Commu- 
nion a flood of St. Paul's doctrine, well understood, 
vast benefits would follow to Christendom at large. 
But the fountain of this stream is frozen at Rome. 
"While there every detached text which is supposed 
to reflect honor on St. Peter receives a colossal exag- 
geration, it is no breach of justice or charity to say 
that the whole continuous and elaborate teaching of 
St. Paul is thrown into the shade. Once, when he 
was literally a prisoner in Rome, his Epistles went 
forth freely from thence, to be the possession of the 



whole Christian people. Now this part of " the 
Word of God " is itself " bound " in Rome. Is not 
this contrast one of the most startling in history ? 

1 Acts xxiv. 27. 



XL 

AQUILA AND PRISCILLA. 

"Aquila and Priscilla, with the church that is in their house."- 

1 COR. xvi. 19. 

religious book is less symmetrical and system- 
atic than the Bible in its arrangement of doc- 
trines and precepts ; yet in no book is there so com- 
plete a code of faith and duty for all the varied cir- 
cumstances of life. Broad and fearless in its state- 
ment of principles, it is also if only there be that 
due exercise of judgment and of the individual con- 
science, which gives half its value to the observance 
of a religious rule found to be really minute in its 
directions for conduct. In whatever condition we 
may be placed, light and guidance are always pro- 
vided for us in the pages of Scripture. But these 
statements of principles, these directions for conduct, 
are not always obvious on the surface, and are often 
supplied where we should least expect to find them. 
Sometimes through the indirect teaching of an exam- 
ple, sometimes through words dropped incidentally, 
and by the way ; sometimes by the relation of casual 
circumstances, which unexpectedly reveal great truths ; 
it is thus, in regard to very important matters, that 
vre learn to " understand what the will of the Lord 



AQU1LA AND P RISC ILL A. 179 

is." * Hence the full benefit of the Scriptures is not 
to be got except by patient search and close compari- 
son. The careless reader misses much. The diligent 
and well-equipped student is often surprised when he 
finds how parts of the Bible, which seemed intended 
for no such purpose, are " profitable for doctrine, for 
reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteous- 
ness." 2 In this, as in all things, it is discovered in 
the end that " Wisdom is justified of her children." 3 
The truth of these general remarks has already re- 
ceived some elucidation through two of the present 
series of slight biographies. In the case of Onesi- 
mus we have been brought face to face with the great 
problem of Slavery, and we have there seen how 
Christianity deals with it ; not by violence, not by 
fomenting insurrection and war, but by gentleness, by 
forbearance, by mutual trust, by the sense of justice 
in every relation of life ; and we have seen how this 
instance encourages us to believe that these methods 
must hi the end have their sure result in the abolition 
of Slavery. Yet who would have expected our in- 
struction regarding so great a question to have been 
found in so casual and incidental a part of the Bible 
as the Epistle to Philemon ? 4 Again, it is in the 
same indirect manner that we receive one of our most 
instructive lessons regarding the value and the duty 
of Courtesy. Julius, the Heathen Centurion, reminds 
as that this commonplace, but often neglected virtue, 

1 Eph. v. 17. 2 2 Tim. iii. 16. 

8 Matt. xi. 19 4 Philera. 16, 21. 

36 



180 THE COMPANIONS OF ST. PAUL. 

is not only: the best policy, but also an imperative 
rule of Christian .life. 1 And- to turn to a third in- 
stance when we close this series, in the last paper, 
with a notice of Timotheus, we shall see how a sub- 
ject which we feel to be a vital matter, and which is 
just now under the most serious discussion in all 
parts of our country, is spread before us only after 
close examination of a context, which at first sight 
appears intended for another purpose. The neces- 
sity of a religious education for our children might 
be expected to be one of the primary duties urged 
upon us in a revelation from heaven ; yet nowhere 
in the New Testament do we find this laid down in 
any formal and precise manner. The case, however, 
is presented to us, in its whole breadth and its happy 
results, and with far greater force and encouragement 
than any mere enactment could have supplied, in 
what we are told of the early childhood of Timo- 
theus, and of those holy influences which passed into 
his character and prepared him for his coming du- 
ties. 2 

Another topic is now before us. The true unit of 
social life in the Church is found in the life of those 
who are joined together in marriage. Nothing can 
be of more vital consequence than the manner in 
which this subject is presented to us in Scripture. 
We should of course expect the duties of husband 
and wife to be laid before us there in very clear and 
copious language. And this we do find. Two Apos- 
1 Acts xxvii. 3, 31, 43. 2 2 Tim. i. 5 ; iii. 14, 15. 



AQUILA AND PRISCILLA. 181 

ties devote a definite and a very emphatic part of 
their writings to this topic. What St. Peter says in 
his First Epistle, 1 added to what we read in St. Paul's 
Epistles to the Ephesians and Colossians, 2 supplies a 
most complete and most sacred code for married life. 
And yet there are some things to be learned in regard 
to this state in its relation to the well-being of the 
Church, which no mere catalogue of duties, however 
authoritative and earnest, could ever have taught ; and 
it is remarkable that in connection with the history of 
each of these Apostles there is the notice of a mar- 
ried couple, such as in one case to supply a most 
awful warning, in the other a most cheering and most 
useful example. 

In connection with the life of St. Peter " himself 
a married man," as we are pointedly reminded in our 
Service for Holy Matrimony, 3 we have Ananias 
and Sapphira teaching, and teaching for our solemn 
admonition, by example. In accounts of great crimes 
nothing shocks us so much as conspiracy and delib- 
erate compact in 'evil. To be alone in the commis- 
sion of willful sin is dreadful ; but a far deeper guilt 
is incurred when there has been a calm mutual under- 
standing preparatory to the perpetration of the wrong. 
And when those who are united together in the most 
sacred of bonds have joined together in the commis- 
sion of crime, then, indeed, we have an illustration 
of the true proverb, that the worst thing in the world 

1 1 Peter iii. 1-7. 2 Eph. v. 22-33 Col. iii. 18, 19. 

See Matt. viii. 14: 1 Cor. ix. 5. 



182 THE COMPANIONS OF ST. PAUL. 

is the corruption of the best. The history of Ananias 
and Sapphira must stand out in awful prominence, to 
warn us that a curse instead of a blessing may enter 
within the circle which was intended to be the holiest 
and happiest on earth, and that the husband and the 
wife, instead of strengthening one another in doing 
and suffering God's will, may make one another strong 
and fearless in sin and shame. 

St. Paul was himself unmarried, and held strongly 
to the view that it was an advantage to his work 
that he should so remain. 1 And this circumstance 
tends to throw out into stronger relief the married 
life of Aquila and Priscilla, which is to be the subject 
of our present thoughts. We are to view them, not 
in their relation to one another, but as his Compan- 
ions, and as through that Companionship doing good 
service to the Church. If, with this thought in our 
minds, we take in succession the five passages where 
this wedded pair is mentioned, we shall not find it 
difficult to deduce from them useful instruction, quite 
as applicable to our own times as to those of the 
Apostles. 

(1.) The meeting of St. Paul with Aquila and 
Priscilla is, in the first place, an illustration of the 
providential opportunities of life. He had recently, 
when travelling on his Second Missionary Journey, 
" departed from Athens and come to Corinth." Just 
then it happened that the Emperor " Claudius had 
commanded all Jews to depart from Rome." We 
1 I Cor. vii. 7, 8, 40 ; is. 5. See Matt. xix. 12. 



AQUILA AND PR1SC1LLA. 183 

need not enter here into any speculation concern- 
ing the reason for this harsh edict. Among these 
Jews, " lately come from Italy," was one of 'Pontus, 
"named Aquila, with his wife Priscilla." In them 
the Apostle found congenial companions : " and be- 
cause he was of the same craft, he abode with them 
and wrought ; for by their occupation they were tent- 
makers." * Now who would have expected such com- 
panionship to have been provided at this time and 
place ? Pontus known to us otherwise through 
St. Peter's first Epistle, but at a later period, as the 
home of certain Christians 2 was very remote alike 
from Jerusalem and from Rome. Aquila and Pris-^ 
cilia had been brought to Rome through some of the 
exigencies of trade. Thence, in consequence of the 
Emperor's edict, they had moved eastward, possibly 
intending to return to Pontus, and meanwhile exer- 
cising their craft in the great mercantile city of 
Corinth, which lay on the route. At that moment 
St. Paul was moving southwards to the same place. 
The synagogue would of course be a bond of union 
between himself and these strangers. But another 
and very close bond was found in the trade in which 
both he and they had been trained. It was a wise 
Jewish maxim that every man, however wealthy 
might be the family to which he belonged, ought to 
learn a trade. Here we see the unexpected blessing 
which came to Saul of Tarsus through having learnt 
the business of tent-making ; for it secured to him, it 
1 Acts xviii. 1-3. 2 i p e t. i. 1. 



184 THE COMPANIONS OF ST. PAUL. 

this critical time, a close friendship, with all its op- 
portunities for furthering religious work, and all its 
cheerful solace to himself. Such a meeting was very 
remarkable. Yet it occurred quite, as we say, in the 
natural order of events. And God provides for us, 
in the natural order of events, meetings quite as re- 
markable. One of our greatest responsibilities con- 
sists in our using aright such providential oppor- 
tunities. 

Let it now be remarked that the friendship thus 
formed at Corinth is an illustration of the right use 
of providential opportunities. We need not give any 
attention here to the question whether Aquila and 
Priscilla had been converted to Christianity before 
they met St. Paul. That point does not affect what 
is here so strongly urged. In due time, if not from 
the first, these friends became hearty Christians to- 
gether, helping each other to do God's work more 
effectually than they could have done separately. We 
shall see, as we pursue the history, how very far this 
union of kindred spirits was a mere friendship, valued 
for its own sake and ending in itself. 

Still it is quite to our purpose to observe that this 
companionship provided solace for St. Paul at a time 
when it was much needed. He had been "left at 
Athens" alone; and the manner in which this cir- 
cumstance is mentioned by himself x seems evidently 
to imply that the time which he spent in that frivolous 
city, as well as the early part of his visit to Corinth, 

i 1 Thess. iii. 1. 



AQUJLA AND P RISC ILL A. 185 

was a time of depression and discouragement. This 
inference, too, is confirmed by the strong language 
used in the Acts l of the new impulse which his spirit 
received when Timotheus and Silas, on coming from 
Macedonia, rejoined him. To this we must add what 
he himself says of the " fear and trembling " and the 
sense of " weakness " which took possession of him 
during his early days at Corinth 2 a statement 
which again is confirmed by a vision recorded in So. 
Luke's narrative, where the Lord is described as 
saying to him by night, " Be not afraid, but speak, 
and hold not thy peace ; for I am with thee, and no 
man shall set on thee to hurt thee ; for I have much 
people in this city." 3 It is evident, too, that the 
utter profligacy of Corinth must have been a perpet- 
ual distress to St. Paul, and that all the associations 
of the place must have been alien from his sympa- 
thies. Putting all these things together, we learn to 
appreciate the value of the home he unexpectedly 
found here at this time. Though sternly separated 
from any domestic life of his own, Divine Providence 
had prepared for him, not only " an open door " for 
his missionary work, but*the soothing refreshment of 
domestic society. The married life of Aquila and 
Priscilla was made helpful to him without placing him 
under any restraint. This is a point to which we are 
invited to give special attention in this part of St. 
Paul's life. Devoted missionary though he was, his 

1 Acts xvii. 15 ; xviii. 5. 2 1 Cor. ii. 3. 

8 Acts xviii. 9, 10. 



186 THE COMPANIONS OF ST. PAUL. 

disposition was removed as far as possible from morose- 
ness. The society of this godly and intelligent matron 
is to be taken into account among the circumstances 
which strengthened and cheered him in his work ; and 
those who have the happiness of ruling over settled 
Christian homes may learn here that one of the high- 
est forms of hospitality is to provide religious sympathy 
and cheerful intercourse for those who might other- 
wise be depressed in their solitary round of service. 
(2.) We now follow St. Paul, and Aquila and 
Priscilla along with him, from Corinth to Ephesus. x 
Possibly his movements in some degree determined 
theirs. Or, on the contrary, the exigencies of business 
may have taken them across the -ZEgean, and thus 
afforded to him a convenient opportunity for accom- 
plishing part of his return-journey. He had deter- 
mined to spend an approaching festival at Jerusalem. 
Meanwhile they remained at Ephesus, with the 
promise and expectation of the Apostle's return. 2 
It cannot be doubted that one definite purpose in 
these arrangements was that they should continue 
the work which, even in this short stay at Ephesus, 
had been begun by St. Paul*, and should prepare the 
way for future and more systematic work on his 
return. And an occasion speedily presented itself 
for doing signal service in this way. Doubtless the 
case of Apollos was only one of many cases in which 
then: help was exerted ; but it is singled out as an in- 
structive specimen for our attention. 

1 Acts xviii. 18. 2 Acts xviii. 21. 



AQ.UILA AND PRISCILLA. 187 

It is needless to repeat here what was said in an 
earlier paper concerning Apollos. We then considered 
some part of what may be learnt on his side of this 
meeting with Aquila and Priscilla. His willingness 
to learn, and to learn from a woman, notwithstanding 
his eager zeal and the admiration which his high tal- 
ents excited, was noted as an example worthy and yefc 
difficult of imitation. Now it is our part to observe 
their side, and especially hers. Their zeal for Christ 
made them quick-sighted in discovering the capabili- 
ties of Apollos ; and they at once devoted themselves 
to the task of equipping him more completely for his 
high service. Their sound judgment and mature 
character fitted them for this task; and they were 
enabled to communicate to him that full Christian 
teaching which they themselves had received from 
St. Paul. In the office which this wedded pair per- 
formed for Apollos and the Church, a great part must 
obviously be assigned to the ready sympathy and 
tact of Priscilla. From the very fact that her name 
is always mentioned with her husband's we might in- 
fer that she possessed high qualities, if not that her 
character was the more energetic of the two ; and it 
is worthy of notice, in connection with this view, 
that in three of the five places where the names oc- 
cur, Priscilla, according to the true reading of tin 
text, is mentioned before Aquila. 1 And at least we 
may trace in this occurrence at Ephesus a signal illus- 
tration of the truth that in Christ's active service, as 
1 Acts xviii. 26 ; Rom. xvi. 3 ; 2 Tim. iv. 19. 

37 



188 THE COMPANIONS OF ST. PAUL. 

well as in tlie blessings of his salvation, there is 
" neither, male nor female," l and that women as well 
as men have their responsible and efficient part to 
play in advancing God's kingdom. 

Nor ought we to fail in noticing how the warm- 
hearted and painstaking efforts of Aquila and Priscilla 
at Ephesus reacted on the place where they had 
originally made acquaintance with St. Paul. When 
Apollos was " disposed to pass into Achaia," 2 they 
encouraged him to do this ; letters of commendation 
were supplied to him ; and when he came to Corinth, 
he "helped them much which had believed through 
grace.'" St. Paul had instructed Aquila and Priscilla 
at Corinth ; they instruct Apollos at Ephesus ; and 
he then, passes on to Corinth to " water " where the 
Apostle had " planted." 3 So true it is that the 
streams of God's providence move hither and thither, 
anid often turn back to the place from which they 
originarly moved. 

(3.) Whilst Aquila and Priscilla remain at Ephe- 
sus, St. Paul now arrives,, according to his promise, 
and rejoins them. We discover this by the salutation 
from these friends transmitted by him in the First 
Kpistle to the Corinthians, which was written in 
. phesus ; and here it is that we first encounter that 
oeautiful expression, 4 " the church that is in their 
house" Again we are invited, as we follow the 
notices of this godly pair, to look at Christianity on 

l Gal. iii. 28. 2 Acts xviii. 27. 8 1 Cor. iii. 6. 

4 1 Cor. xvi. 19. See Rom. xvi. 5 ; Col. iv. 15 ; Philem. 2. 



AQVTLA AND. PRISCILLA. 189 

its domestic side. No side of our religion is more 
important ; and first let a word be said, in passing, on 
the subject of Family Prayer. 

Amid much that is cause for regret in the religion 
of modern England, we trace one bright feature of it 
in the institution of Domestic Worship. Other ages 
of the Church, and other countries of Christendom, 
have not been equally marked by this excellent prac- 
tice ; and it is earnestly to be hoped that no relaxa- 
tion of the habit will take place amongst us. The 
family is thus recognized as the real unit of Church 
life ; a sacred fire is kept burning upon the domestic 
hearth ; and members of the same household are 
taught to consider themselves joined together by a 
higher bond than that which belongs to mere nature. 

But if we turn back from our own times to those 
in which Aquila and Priscilla lived, we see a different, 
if not a higher, significance in the phrase which is 
before us. Those were times of peril and rebuke. 
We see here hospitality on what may truly be called 
its heroic side. The " house " of Aquila and Priscilla 
was devoted to something very different from that 
mere domestic comfort, the overvaluing of which is 
one of the weak points of modern English society 
Their home was the acknowledged place of meeting 
to the disciples of Christ, for instruction, for worship, 
and for mutual help ; and this involved ridicule, and 
might at any time involve violence, and even death. 
We see still the same characteristic in this household 
as before, when it provided a home for St. Paul at 



190 THE COMPANIONS OF ST. PAUL. 

Corinth. Still the husband and the wife are men- 
tioned side by side, as cooperating, and, indeed, as 
being one, in the same good work. But now the 
home is provided for others besides St. Paul. The 
followers of Christ were all welcome there. It might 
truly be said that, in acting thus, they gave a home to 
Christ Himself. In his persecuted followers "He 
was a stranger, and they took Him in ; " and the prom- 
ised blessing was theirs ; inasmuch as they did it 
" to one of these his brethren, they did it unto 
Him." 1 

(4.) No very long interval elapsed between the 
writing of the First Epistle to the Corinthians from 
Ephesus, and the writing of the Epistle to the Romans. 
But in this interval, for reasons which we are not 
able to supply, Aquila and Priscilla had returned to 
Rome, whence originally they had been exiled by the 
Emperor. They naturally have the first place in the 
lonff list of Christians resident in Rome, to whom the 

O ' 

Apostle sends salutations ; 2 and their characteristics 
remain the same. Once more their hospitality is 
prominent. " The church in their house " is named 
here again. As in Corinth, as in Ephesus, so in the 
great metropolis of the empire, they have the high 
distinction of making their home a. shelter for those 
who professed the name of Christ, and a means for 
consolidating and extending his Church. They 
share, indeed, this distinction with others, with 
Nymphas, for instance, at Colossse ; 3 and the case of 
. l Matt xxv. 35, 40. 2 Rom. xvi. 3-5. 3 Col. iv. 15. 



AQUILA AND PRISCILLA. 191 

Philemon ther.'e is still more closely similar., because 
in the mention of Appia 1 we can hardly fail to rec- 
ognize the name of his wife. But Aquila and Pris- 
cilla must always be the typical examples of domestic 
Christianity and of hospitality in its highest form. 

The very occurrence of their names here, in this 
part of the Epistle to the Romans, gives a wide range 
to their example, and seems to connect them with the 
whole world. But the context makes some additions, 
which tend further to raise them to a position of high 
eminence. They are said by the Apostle not only to 
have been "his helpers in Christ Jesus" which, 
indeed, the passages already quoted show that they 
were, but to have " laid doivn their own necks for 
his sake" This points to some heroic facing of 
danger on his behalf. It is not of importance here 
to determine where this took place. The probability 
is that it was at Ephesus, where, according to the 
Acts of the Apostles, 2 circumstances of great peril 
occurred to the Apostle at the time when Aquila and 
Priscilla were with him in that city. The personal 
gratitude of the Apostle breaks out warmly in this 
passage, " To whom not only I give thanks, but all 
the churches of the Gentiles" 

Here it is well worth while to refer to the apt, and 
yet incidental, correspondence of this expression with 
the history. Even at Corinth, where we first see 
these disciples with St. Paul, there had been great 
opposition on the part of the Jews. Aquila and 
1 Philera. 2. 2 Acts xix. 21; xx. 1. 



192 THE COMPANIONS OF ST. PAUL. 

Priscilla adhered to St. Paul ; hence they would be 
viewed as deserters from the Jewish cause, and would 
share his persecution. They were " Jeios taking part 
with Gentiles, and in that which was the great 
controversy of the day, the admission of the Gentiles 
to a parity of religious situation with Jews." * The 
accord, however, of the history and the Epistles, 
though full of interest and highly important, is not 
our present subject. It is the character of Aquila 
and Priscilla, in companionship with St. Paul, which 
now occupies our attention. And may we not say 
that we, too, as " Gentiles," have reason to give them 
" thanks," both for their aid in the first spread of the 
Gospel, and for the example which they have left to 
our homes ? 

(5.) Our limit of space being reached, no other 
use shall be made of the one remaining allusion to 
these friends of St. Paul, in his latest Epistle, 2 ex- 
cept to remark that the friendship, tried and strength- 
ened through such variety of experience, continued 
to the end. Shortly before his martyrdom, he sends 
to them a loving salutation the only salutation in 
this affecting letter, the sharers of it with Aquila 
and Priscilla being " the household of Onesiphorus ; " 
so that the domestic aspect of Christian life is doubly 
made conspicuous and charming at the very close of 
the Apostle's career. 

There is another side of the biography of Aquila 
and Priscilla which might have been employed for 
1 Palsy's fforce, Paulinse, ii. 2. 2 Tim- iv. 19. 



AQUJLA.AND PR IS GILL A. 193 

a very instructive lesson. They were .examples of 
the combination of active Christianity with indus- 
trial life ; and no combination is of greater impor- 
tance in our own times. But it seemed best to follow 
one principal train of thought in this short paper. 
Wedded life in combination with active Christianity 
is the very central point of the safety and happiness 
of society. Domestic duties within the household are 
of course the most important of all. But the mar- 
ried state has opportunities for exerting powerful 
influence far beyond its direct and immediate re- 
sponsibilities. This has been taken as our present 
subject ; and the manner hi which it is exhibited to 
us in these incidental passages of the New Testament 
illustrates well what was said at the outset concerning 
the completeness of the Bible in regard to all moral 
teaching, though without careful and minute study 
that completeness cannot be fully known. 



xrr. 

TIMOTHEUS. 

* As a son with the father, he hath served with me in the Gospel." 

PHIL. ii. 22. 

IN our little gallery of " The Companions of St. 
Paul," the last panel must be filled with a slight 
sketch of Timotheus. For many reasons it is evi- 
dent that he is the fittest to conclude the series. 
This disciple was associated with the Apostle through 
a longer range of time than any other of whom we 
have record. Joining him at an early period of Ms 
missionary enterprise, he remained in close com- 
munication with him till near the very time of his 
martyrdom. As a personal witness, he u had fully 
known " the sufferings of the Apostle ; in fact and 
this is the literal meaning of the Greek word in the 
passage, 1 he had followed these sufferings step by 
step. He had been actively employed by his master, 
on responsible errands, in various places, through 
many years. In Epistles written on several occasions 
at wide intervals, from Corinth, from Ephesus, from 
Rome, 2 his name is coupled with St. Paul's so closely 

1 2 Tim. iii. 10, 11. 

2 1 Thess. i. 1; 2 Thess. i. 1. Compare 2 Cor. i. 1; also, Phil, i, 
1; Col. i. 1; Philem. 1. 



TIMOTHEUS. 195 

in the opening sentence, that he seems almost iden- 
tified rather than associated with him. To Timotheus 
alone are two extant letters personally addressed; 
and letters, too, marked with so peculiar a tenderness 
of feeling, and so minute a mention of details, as to 
single him out very strongly and definitely as the 
friend for whom St. Paul's personal preference was 
the greatest. Whatever of intimacy, confidence, and 
sympathy is implied in the word "companionship," 
is in this case the most intense. 

Our best course "is to follow the life of Timotheus 
chronologically, making such reflections from point 
to point as naturally suggest themselves. Thus, too, 
we shall see what he was successively in relation to 
the other Companions of St. Paul, we shall join 
together some links which as yet are unfastened, and 
shall obtain a view over this whole cycle of apostolic 
friends. The Epistles enable us to begin this survey 
from an earlier point than any which is presented to 
us in the Acts of the Apostles, and show us some- 
thing of the training of Timotheus even in his child- 
hood, and therefore something of his preparation for 
that subsquent usefulness which marked his career 
when it became connected with that of the Apostle 
of the Gentiles. 

The first actual mention of Timotheus in St. 
Luke's narrative is in the sixteenth chapter of the 
Acts, where he is described as the son of a Jewess 
who had become a Christian. 1 This prominent men- 

1 Acts xvi. 1. 

38 



196 THE COMPANIONS OF ST. PAUL. 

tion of his mother is somewhat remarkable; and 
from another source we learn her actual name, and 
something, too, of her character. St. Paul, in his 
latest letter, when writing of the " unfeigned faith " 
that was in Tirnotheus, adds that such faith had 
" dwelt first in his grandmother Lois, and his mother 
Eunice ; " 1 and in another part of the same docu- 
ment he charges him " to continue in the things 
which he had learned, knowing of whom he had 
learned them ; and that from a child he had known 
the Holy Scriptures." 2 Thus we see that on the 
woman's side of this family there had been, for two 
generations at least, the inestimable blessing of hered- 
itary piety. 

It is not a little remarkable that a character which 
is among the most faultless and charming in the 
Bible, should be the character of that one person 
whose domestic relations and early training are thus 
described. And this circumstance is the more observ- 
able, if we can trace, as we can almost certainly, some- 
thing of a feminine softness in Timotheus, as though 
his mother's gentle influence had passed into his 
mind and disposition. The method, too, of his early 
training is very important for us to notice. It was 
the method of Biblical instruction. " From a child 
he knew the Holy Scriptures." Those Scriptures, of 
course, in his case were the Old Testament. We are 
richer than the Jews by reason of possessing the 
New Testament in addition. This does not diminish, 
1 2 Tim. i. 5. 22 Tim. iii. 14, 15. 



TIMOTHEUS. 197 

but rather infinitely increases, the weight we should 
attach to the Bible as an instrument of instruction. 
But again, not only the method, but the spiritual 
principle, which was at work in this process, should 
be noticed. Even in the Acts of the Apostles the 
faith of Eunice is made prominent ; and here we 
see that it was the ruling power of life both in her 
case and in that of Lois. This passage of Holy Writ 
is full of admonition to Christian households as to 
the training of the young, and full of encourage- 
ment as to the happy results which may be expected 
from such training. 

In tracing now this biography onward, we are able 
still to insert another stage of it before we reach the 
point where the first mention of Timotheus occurs in 
the Acts. St. Paul had been at Lystra previously to 
the time when this young disciple actually joined him 
there as his travelling companion. 1 Moreover, the 
Apostle speaks of him as " his own son in the faith," 2 
which seems to imply beyond a doubt that he him- 
self was the instrument of his conversion. On the 
occasion, too, of this second visit Eunice is described 
as already a believer. All these circumstances point 
to the conclusion that Timotheus was converted on 
the occasion of the first visit. And this derives a 
strong confirmation from a passage, already noticed, 
in the Second Epistle to Timothy. 3 There it is said 
that he had fully known and closely followed " the 
persecutions and afflictions " which came to St. Paul 
1 Acts xiv. 6 2 1 Tim. i. 2. 3 2 Tim. iii. 11. 



193 THE COMPANIONS OF ST. PAUL. 

" at Antiocli, at Iconium, at Lystra." Now, these 
sufferings occurred to St. Paul on the first visit ; and 
the order in which the places are mentioned is the 
exact geographical order in which he was exposed to 
these trials. And this again leads to another thought. 
Such sufferings and ill-treatment incurred by one 
who is beloved and respected, make a deep impres- 
sion upon a young mind ; and we see in this earliest 
acquaintance of St. Paul and Tirnotheus the founda- 
tions deeply laid of a warm attachment and alle- 
giance of the latter to the former, as well as an ad- 
mirable preparation for arduous work and strong 
endurance. Nor must we forget that the circumstances 
thus related would bring Timotheus into personal 
acquaintance with St. Paul's earliest missionary com- 
panions; and we cannot well doubt that at this, time 
he became familiar with the noble countenance of 
him whom the rude Lycamiians instinctively " called 
Jupiter/' as well as with the voice of him whom 
they named " Mercuriusu because he was the chief 
speaker.'' * 

Barnabas ceased to be Sk Paul's missionary com- 
panion, and Silas was taken in his place, 2 We have 
now passed from the First Missionary Journey to the 
Second, and are brought to the association of Tim- 
otheus with St. Paul in the actual work of evangeli- 
zation. This point in the apostolic history is care- 
fully marked by St. Luke ; and it is full of instruc- 
tion for us as to the duty of requiring in those who 

l Acts xiv. 12. - Acts xv. 36-41.' 



TIMOTHEUS. 199 

are to be placed in high ministerial offices the qualifi- 
cation of ascertained fitness. We should also set the 
passage side by side with sentences in each of the 
two Epistles to Timotheus. Just as St. Paul urged 
the memory of this disciple's mother and grandmother 
to stimulate him to consistency and progress in piety, 
so he urges him. to "stir up the gift of God," l which 
manifestly had been bestowed upon him at the time 
of the " laying on of hands " by the Apostles and the 
general body of the presbyters. Evidence was fully 
supplied as to his personal character at this time. 
" He was well reported of by all the brethren that 
were at Lystra and Iconium." A further reason 
also for the choice is to be discovered in the words 
which follow : " Him would Paul have to go forth 
with him." It is not obscurely intimated here that 
there was something in Timotheus which won the 
Apostle's personal affection. He seems to have per- 
ceived from the very first to quote the phrase which 
he used long afterwards of this friend that he was 
"like-minded" with himself; 2 and great must have 
been his joy to have found such a companion in the 
very neighborhood which, a few years before, had 
been the scene of so much injustice and suffering, at 
a time, too, when he had been mourning over the 
defection of Mark. 3 And a further point of fitness 
for this moment of missionary work remains to be 
noted. It was a crisis in the history of the Church, 

i 1 Tim. iv. 14; 2 Tim. i. 6. 2 puil. ii. 20." 

3 Actsxiii. 13; xv. 38. 



200 THE COMPANIONS OF ST. PAUL. 

in regard to the relation between Judaism and Chris- 
tianity. More need not be said in order to show that 
in the choice of a fellow-worker for Paul's future 
labors there was peculiar wisdom in selecting one 
whose mother was a Jewess, while " his father was a 
Greek." 

The devotion of Timotheus, and the devotion of 
his mother also, were shown by his willingness to 
leave her for Christ's service ; and the blessing was 
theirs which the Lord Himself promised to such 
" forsaking " of home " for his name's sake." 1 We 
now pass to the active employment of Timotheus in 
missionary work, on this Second Apostolic Journey, 
in conjunction with St. Paul and his other compan- 
ions. One such companion has already been named ; 
and presently, at the moment of passing over into 
Europe, he became associated with St. Luke also. 2 
From this point he took part in the whole Macedo- 
nian round, and became one of the founders of the 
great churches of Philippi and Thessalonica. His 
name, indeed, is not mentioned by St. Luke in con- 
nection with either place. But we have the Apostle's 
weighty words in testimony of his faithful service at 
the former city : " Ye know the proof of him, that 
as a son with his father, he served with me in the 
Gospel." 3 That he was not imprisoned there with 
Paul and Silas, is easily accounted for by his compai- 
ative youth and subordination. There might, indeed, 
be some timidity in his conduct ; but we trace his 
1 Matt. xix. 29. 2 Acts xvi. 10-13. 3 Phil. ii. 22. 



TIMOTHEUS. 201 

subordination by the order of the three names in the 
Epistles written soon afterwards to Thessalonica ; a 
and it should be remarked, by the way, that these 
Epistles imply a familiar knowledge of him in that 
city also. Passing on from Thessalonica to Beroea, 
we find him brought into contact with earnest discus- 
sions on the meaning of those Scriptures, 2 with which 
he had been made so well acquainted in his childhood 
at home ; and here his name reappears in the text of 
the narrative. It is stated that he and Silas were 
left behind in Macedonia with instructions to rejoin 
the Apostle as soon as their errand should be dis- 
charged ; and they did rejoin him when he was es- 
tablished in Corinth. 3 

It was arranged in the course of God's providence 
that St. Paul should have no companion with him 
in Athens; and the fact that he was "alone" 4 in 
that city, enhances the force of the unique impression 
we receive from that most remarkable passage of his 
life. But what we read of the effect produced upon 
his mind and work, when Timotheus, with Silas, re- 
joined him, tends to show us how much his happiness 
was increased by the presence of his friends, and what 
a reserve of true religious force resided for him in the 
mere fact of companionship. Some are too ready to 
throw upon others the work which they ought to do 
themselves; but he increased in zeal and activity 
when he could obtain others to help him. The literal 

1 1 Thess. i. 1; 2 Thess. i. 1. 2 Acts xvii. 11. 

8 Acts xvii. 14, 15; xviii. 5. 4 1 Thess. iii. 1. 



202 THE COMPANIONS OF ST. PAUL. 

meaning of the passage is, that on their coming he 
was "engrossed" or "absorbed" in "the Word." 1 
The Epistles to Thessalonica, the writing of which 
followed close upon the arrival of Timotheus, show 
the high estimate which St. Paul had formed of him. 
In allusion to the mission with which he had been 
recently charged, he describes him as " his brother," 
as " the minister of God" and as " his fellow-laborer 
in the Gospel of Christ." Nor ought we to fail to 
notice the confidence implied in the mission itself. 
Serious troubles had occurred in Thessalonica; and 
this young disciple was sent to " establish " them and 
to " comfort them concerning their faith," so that they 
" should not be moved by these afflictions." 2 Even 
this slight notice of what took .place during the 
Apostle's journey in Macedonia and Achaia, affords 
a testimony to many excellent and remarkable quali- 
ties in one so young, and so lately introduced into the 
work of missionary life. It is evident also that the 
journey afforded opportunities for gaming invaluable 
experience. 

We have no means of supplying any information 
concerning Timotheus in the interval between the 
residence at Corinth, and the time when the Third 
Missionary Journey was well begun. He and Silas 
were, as we have seen, together with the Apostle at 
Corinth. There is every reason to believe that they 
travelled with him thence, touching at Ephesus on 
the way, to " the feast in Jerusalem." s Possibly 
1 Acts xviii. 5. 2 1 Thess. iii. 2, 3. * Acts xviii. 21 



TIMOTHEUS. 203 

Silas remained in Jerusalem. At all events, we do 
not trace him in company with St. Paul on the sub- 
sequent journey. But Timotheus is with him still. 
And when the Apostle is at Ephesus, we find him 
going over once more, in compliance with his desire, 
on an errand into Macedonia. Here his name is as- 
sociated with that of Erastus, as formerly with that 
of Silas. " Paul purposed in the spirit, when he had 
passed through Macedonia and Achaia, to go to Jeru- 
salem : so he sent into Macedonia two of them that 
ministered to him, Timotheus and Erastus." 1 In this 
we see the same obedience and alacrity on the part of 
Timotheus ; the same confidence on the part of St. 
Paul. The mode of expression shows that they were 
intended to prepare his way. If Timotheus was to 
occupy himself with the details of the^collection which 
St. Paul was at this time busily promoting, even that 
implied a character well known to be honorable, dis- 
creet, and trustworthy. But if he was commissioned 
to endeavor to assuage the party spirit and to cor- 
rect the abuses at Corinth, qualities were implied of 
a yet higher and rarer kind. That he was directed 
to proceed to Corinth we have good proof; and the 
terms in which he is spoken of in the first Epistle 
to that place, written soon after his departure, de- 
serve attention. St. Paul says in one passage : " I 
have sent unto you Timotheus, who is my beloved 
son, and faithful in the Lord, who shall bring you 
into remembrance of my ways which be^ in Christ, as 
I teach everywhere in every church" 2 Nothing can 
1 Acts xix. 21, 22. 21 Cor. iv. 17. 

39 



204 THE COMPANIONS OF ST. PAUL. 

be more expressive of deep affection and confidential 
trust ; and it may be added by the way, that if Timo- 
theus knew so well what the Apostle taught " every- 
where in every church," it seems natural to infer 
that he had been with him in many places, where no 
mention occurs of his name. We are not surprised 
to read what he says in another part of the same 
letter, " If Timotheus come, see that he may be with 
you without fear, for he worketh the work of the 
Lord, as I also do." 1 Much time had now elapsed 
since those two friends had been associated together 
in this " work of the Lord ; " many new circumstances 
must have occurred to put the character of Timotheus 
to a severe trial; the confidence, however, of the 
Apostle had not been diminished, but rather increased. 
The relationship remained the same as it had been 
when they were formerly together at Corinth, and 
when the Gospel was preached among the Corin- 
thians to use his own words in the second Epistle 
" by me and Silvanus and Timotheus. " 2 And if 
in this anxious wish that his friend should be exposed 
to no fear there is an indication of some timidity 
of temperament in Timotheus, such a circumstance 
brings us nearer to him in sympathy, while it helps 
7is to appreciate more fully the affection which was 
felt towards him by St. Paul. 

We have seen that the Epistles to the Corinthians 
enable us . to trace a considerable amount of the oc- 
cupation of Timotheus on this journey, while St. 
1 1 Cor. xvi. 10. 2 2 Cor. i. 19. 



TIM THE US. 205 

Paul was outward bound. "We can also detect Ms 
presence with the Apostle at Corinth, the farthest 
point of the journey ; for in the Epistle to the Romans, 
written there, we find, " Timotheus my work-fellow 
saluteth you." 1 We have no means of similarly 
illustrating the homeward route ; but at Ephesus, or 
in Macedonia, or at Corinth, we feel almost sure that 
he must iiave met Apollos and Titus, as well as 
Aquila and Priscilla ; 2 and when we see the Apostle 
moving eastward, we find him expressly associated 
with a large group of companions. ." There accom- 
panied him into Asia Sopater of Beroea ; and of the 
Thessalonians, Aristarchus and Secundus ; and Gaius 
of Derbe, and Timotheus ; and of Asia, Tychicus and 
Trophimus." 3 How long this large apostolic com- 
pany continued to travel together we do not know. 
Some of them were probably trustees for the col- 
lection which St. Paul had been gathering for ' the 
poor saints at Jerusalem." 4 Sopater of Beroea, or 
Aristarchus and Secundus of Thessalonica, may have 
returned back to Macedonia from the neighborhood 
of Ephesus. It is very likely that Tychicus remained 
there, and possible that Timotheus with Gaius went 
together to their native neighborhoods of Derbe and 
Lystra. We have no means of deciding the question. 
All that we know is that he is not mentioned at any 
subsequent part of the voyage. Nor is he speci- 
fied in the account of that commotion which took 

1 Rom. xvi. 21. 2 See 2 Tim. iv. 19. 

8 Acts xx. 4. 4 Rom. xy . 26. 



206 THE COMPANIONS OF ST. PAUL. 

place at Jerusalem immediately after the Apostle's 
arrival. Trophimus, who had been one of the com- 
pany at Troas, is named ; he was the innocent cause 
of St. Paul's trouble and suffering ; 1 but the name of 
Timotheus appears nowhere; Nor is he spoken of 
during the time of the imprisonment at Csesarea. So 
that we are not able in any way to associate him in 
our thoughts with Felix or with Festus. 

Again, on the voyage from Palestine to Rome, it 
appears almost certain that Timotheus cannot have 
-been with St. Paul, though Aristarchus, another of 
the Troas party, was with him. 2 Neither on the slow 
progress from Caesarea to Myra, nor in the haven on 
the south coast of Crete, nor on board the ship during 
the storm, nor in the shipwreck, nor during the three 
months in Malta, nor on the fine and rapid sail from 
Malta to the west of Italy, does St. Luke find any 
occasion for mentioning Timotheus. It is natural to 
conclude that he was not present. But we know 
from the Epistles that he soon rejoined his friend in 
Eome. In the opening of the letters to the Colos- 
sians and Philemon, the two names appear linked to- 
gether, 8 just as had been the case in those earliest 
letters sent from Corinth to Thessalonica. Then it 
was " Paul and Silvanus and Timotheus." Now it is 
" Paul and Timotheus." Silas is not associated with 
St. Paul as formerly ; but the close link between him 

1 Acts xxi. 29. 

2 Acts xxvii. 2. See Col. iv. 10 5 PWlem. 24. 
Col. i. 1; Philem. I. 



TIM THE US. 207 

and Timotheus subsists unbroken by lapse of years 
and by change of circumstances. And may we not 
say that the union of these names in the beginning 
of these letters denotes not only similarity of senti- 
ment, but community of action, if not a certain kind 
of official connection ? Other companions are men- 
tioned in the letters, Demas for instance, and Luke 
himself ; but they only send a message of Christian 
love near the close ;- 1 their signatures are not prefixed 
to the writing in the formal sending of " grace and 
peace." So preeminent is the confidence placed in 
Timotheus by St. Paul. 

The same remark applies to the Epistle to the 
Philippians, which belongs to the same imprisonment. 
But here a passage occurs of so much importance, 
that it must be quoted at length. "I trust in the 
Lord Jesus," says the writer, " to send Timotheus 
shortly unto you, that I also may be of good comfort, 
when I know your state. For I have no man like- 
minded, who will naturally care for your state. For 
all seek their own, not the things. which are Jesus 
Christ's. But ye know the proof of him, that as a 
son with the father, he hath served with me in the 
Gospel. Him therefore I hope to send presently, so 
soon as I shall see how it will go with me." 2 Very 
full and varied information regarding the character 
of Timotheus is given to us in this passage. He is 
contrasted with others, as being thoroughly like- 
minded with the Apostle, as having a true and 
i Col. iv. 14. 2 Phil. ii. 19-23. 



208 THE COMPANIONS OF ST. PAUL. 

entire sympathy, with him, and as being one who 
could take an honest and genuine interest in the best 
prosperity of the Philippians. It is implied, too, that 
he is very different from others, who seek their own 
advantage, and not the honor of Christ ; and it is as- 
serted that he had always shown the utmost obedience 
to the Apostle in all that related to the Gospel, being 
to him as a son to a father : and the Philippians are 
directly appealed to, as knowing, by what they had 
seen themselves, that this was perfectly true. 

Such is the character which we can read in the 
Epistles written during St. Paul's first imprisonment, 
and sent by Onesimus and Epaphroditus, with whom 
we are sure that Timotheus must have conversed 
often and earnestly. There remain the Epistles writ- 
ten to Timotheus himself in a subsequent period, of 
which we need not attempt to furnish the details. 
"Whatever journeys by land or voyages by sea filled 
up this concluding space of the great Apostle's life ; 
whatever privations or difficulties Timotheus himself 
may have then incurred, 1 one thing is very plain, that 
he was always at his master's service, ready to stay 
wherever he might be stationed, ready to go wherever 
he might be sent. " I besought thee to abide at 
Ephesus, when I went into Macedonia ; " this is the 
language of the first Epistle. " Do thy diligence to 
come shortly unto me ; do thy diligence to come before 
winter ; " this is the language of the second. 2 Still it 
is the same relationship, of a son to a father. Still 

1 See Heb. xiii. 23. 2 i Tim. i. 3 ; 2 Tim. iv. 9, 21. 



TIMOTHEUS, 209. 

there is the same obedience on one side, still the 
same confidence on the other. " My beloved son," 
is the phrase of one Epistle. " My own son in the 
faith," is the phrase of the other. 1 How great was 
the trust reposed in Timotheus is evident from the 
commissions which these letters convey. He is to 
repress false doctrine, to regulate public worship, to 
ordain faithful ministers, -and, above all, to be an 
example " in word, in conversation, in charity, in 
spirit, in faith, in purity." 2 

And as, in all records of friendship, it is not any- 
thing connected with the discharge of public or ofn- 
cial responsibilities which leaves the most abiding 
and definite impression on the mind, but usually 
some slight incidental circumstances that indicate the 
presence of a deep undercurrent of personal feeling, 
so, in the present instance, the mention of common 
details, such as might occur in the correspondence of 
any two friends, comes to our aid, enabling us quite 
easily and naturally to give the last and most charac- 
teristic touch to our picture. " The cloak that I left 
at Troas with Carpus, when thou comest, bring with 
thee, and the books, but especially the parchments." 3 
Even in this there is something which seizes strongly 
on the imagination. We should be glad to know 
what those books, what those parchments were. But 
another passage of the same kind attracts us still 

1 1 Tiin. i. 2 ; 2 Tim. i. 2. 21 Tim. iv. 12. 

3 2 Tim. iv. 13. 



210 TEE COMPANIONS OF ST. PAUL. 

more. In the midst of very serious injunctions, the 
thought of the delicate health of Timotheus and of 
the danger into which he might fall of neglecting 
one of his means of usefulness, seems to occur to the., 
affectionate Apostle, and he says, " Drink no longer 
water, but use a little wine for thy stomach's sake 
and thine often infirmities." a We might with benefit 
use this passage as an indication of the temperance 
of Timotheus, and thus as an example to ourselves. 
Though of a delicate constitution, inherited, perhaps, 
from his mother, and though liable to weakness, and 
suffering often from fatigue, he was strictly abste- 
mious. But here the quotation is adduced simply to 
illustrate the personal intimacy which subsisted to 
the end between the Great Apostle and the dearest 
of his Companions. 

At the close of this survey of St. Paul's Com- 
panions, one thought remains in the mind, which is 
well worthy to keep its place there, as an incitement 
to self-examination and an exhortation to duty. No- 
where in the whole range of Biography do we find 
friendship and companionship employed, on so large 
a scale, for the highest ends, without the alloy of 
selfishness or ambition. Some serious questions, such 
as the following, are suggested regarding our own 
Companions. " "Who are these Companions ? How 
and why have they been chosen ? What is the link 
which binds us to them? What benefits do we 

1 1 Tim. v. 23. 



TIMOTEEUS. 211 

gain from them, and what benefits, through them, do 
we confer on others ? And, whatever be the linkg 
which unite us to them, is loyal allegiance to CHRIST 
the one commanding bond which gives strength and 
sacred meaning to the whole of this Companion- 
ship?" 



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