to strengthen the church in Corinth and had received a large collection
for Jerusalem and had gathered his friends around him, Paul said
farewell to Corinth and started on his return journey, accompanied by a
number of companions. He went back through Macedonia—Berœa,
Thessalonica, Philippi—and then across the Ægean to Troas where he had
first heard the call to go to Europe. There must have been a church
there on “the plains of windy Troy,” for Paul remained seven days and
held meetings far into the night, but we do not know very much about
this church by the Simois River—only that one of the young men there
went to sleep while the meeting was going on and fell out of a window in
the third story to the ground! Here at Troas Paul found again his old
friend, the writer of the Diary—“the We Narrative”—who joined the party
for the journey to Jerusalem. They went part of the way by land and part
of the way by sea, stopping at Assos and Mitylene, touching at the
famous island of Samos, and disembarking at Miletus. Here at Miletus,
the leaders of the church at Ephesus came down to see the man whom they
had learned to love, to hear his message and to say farewell to him. It
was probably not safe for Paul to go to Ephesus with its beasts. There
were too many dangers there for him. After all his years of work and his
perils in that city it was a joy to see the men and women with whom he
had lived and laboured and to have one more chance to speak to them
about the highest things in life. It was a very solemn time as they
gathered on the seashore and Paul told them of the troubles and dangers
that lay before them and before him. He then told them that they would
never see each other again. They loved him as though he had been a
father to each one and they all wept as he left them to go into the ship
to sail for Syria. As they went on their way Paul realised, from what he
heard at every port where the ship stopped, that it would be very
dangerous for him in Jerusalem. He had not been in the Holy City since
the great conference there with Peter and James and John. Since that
time tremendous things had happened across the world. Paul had
succeeded, but the more he succeeded the more the Jews hated him. They
had made trouble for him in every city. They had come to regard him as a
traitor and as the enemy of their race and they were eager to get rid of
him forever. He knew how they felt. He saw the danger ahead. He
understood that if he went to Jerusalem it would be like going into the
lion’s mouth. But he was determined to go, danger or no danger, for Paul
was a hero. He had a great gift to carry up to the poor and needy
Christians in Jerusalem and he must have thought that he could win them
over and make them see his truth at last. He believed that this was the
greatest opportunity of his life. Perhaps now, after all the wonderful
work around the Ægean Sea he might be able to make his own people see
the truth that had meant so much to the Greeks and to the Galatians.
Perhaps now he could join both branches together—those who were Jewish
Christians and those who were Gentile-Christians—and have one great
world church with no division in it. It was worth trying anyhow. It was
worth any kind of risk. The great gift would soften their hearts and he
would plead with them, and then it would be done! When prophets on the
way told Paul how dangerous the risk was, he said to them: “Do not talk
to me of danger. Do not try to change my course. I am _ready_, not only
to be bound in Jerusalem, but if necessary to die there for this
cause”—and on he went, like the hero he was.
He very soon found that he was in the midst of enemies. James told him
that there were many thousands of Christian-Jews who had heard serious
charges against him, how he no longer kept the law of Moses and how he
taught his converts that they did not need to become Jews, or to do the
things which all good Jews considered necessary and he showed Paul how
stern they were sure to be toward him.
He had hardly begun to live in Jerusalem when some Jews discovered him
in the city. They gave a cry and raised a mob and rushed at him and
seized him. They were so furious that they nearly killed him on the
spot, but a Roman captain with a troop of soldiers came up just in time
to rescue him and to carry him away to the military castle where the mob
could not get at him. But he could hear them cry and shout: “Away with
him! away with him!”
XIX
IN THE PRISON AT CÆSAREA
Standing on the steps of the castle, with the angry, surging people in
front of him Paul beckoned for silence and then spoke to the most
difficult audience he ever addressed. He calmly told them the story of
his life. He gave them an account of that great moment on the road to
Damascus when Jesus met him and called him to a new life and a new
mission. He explained to them how he tried to tell the good news to his
own people and how God sent him to the great world of Gentiles. Then,
all of a sudden, the people cried out in a fury: “Away with such a
fellow from the earth.” They threw off their garments and would have
ended his life in a moment if they could have reached him. It was
another scene like the one which occurred when Jesus was on his way to
Calvary, and when Stephen was being hurried out of the gates of
Jerusalem and Paul himself held the garments of the men who threw the
stones.
This time the crowd was powerless for they could not get their victim.
The soldiers guarded him and took him into the castle where he was to be
scourged, that is beaten with rods. The soldiers tied Paul up to the
wall with thongs and were ready to begin the terrible scourging when he
quietly asked the centurion if it was lawful to scourge a Roman citizen
who had not been found guilty of any crime. The centurion went out and
told the chief captain that Paul was a Roman, and he immediately stopped
the scourging. The next day Paul had an opportunity to address the great
council of the Jews in the presence of Ananias, the high-priest, but the
council divided in their opinion of Paul, some approving of him and some
disapproving, until they nearly tore him in pieces in their excitement.
Once more the soldiers saved him by rushing in and carrying him away to
the castle. Meantime, a band of men got together and formed a secret
plot to kill Paul and have done with him. This time it was not the Roman
soldiers who saved him. It was his nephew. Paul, we remember, had a
sister in Jerusalem. And in some way her son discovered this plot. He
got into the castle and told his uncle, who brought him to a centurion
and the centurion took the young man to the chief captain where he told
all he knew of the plot. The brave boy saved his uncle’s life, for the
chief captain, when he heard the boy’s story, ordered two hundred
soldiers and seventy horsemen and two hundred spearmen to take Paul by
night to Cæsarea, where the Roman governor had his home and headquarters
and where Paul would be safe until his trial was over. He was taken at
first to Herod’s palace, though we may be pretty sure that the part in
which Paul lived was more like a prison than a palace, but this
wonderful man had something in his soul which changed even prisons into
palaces.
Soon after his arrival, Ananias, the high-priest, with a lawyer named
Tertullus, came down to Cæsarea to lay before Felix, the Roman governor,
the charges against Paul. Tertullus made a speech charging Paul with
being “a pestilent fellow,” “a mover of insurrections” up and down the
empire wherever he travelled. He said Paul was “a ringleader of the
Nazarenes” and that he did things contrary to the laws and customs of
the Jews. Tertullus made out as bad a case as he could and the other
Jews who had come down with him added whatever they could think of
against the prisoner.
Then Felix made a sign that Paul might speak in his own defence. He
declared, in calm and persuasive words that he had never wilfully
stirred up the crowd, or encouraged a riot. He told the governor that
his whole business in the world was to live the way of life that God had
revealed as the true way. A little later Paul spoke again before
Drusilla, a Jewess, who was Felix’s wife. He spoke so powerfully this
time of righteousness and self-control and the perfect way of life and
of the future of joy and woe, that the old Roman governor trembled as he
listened. But he did not change his life. He was weak of will and he had
woven a chain of habits which he could not break. He had heard that Paul
had brought great sums of money to Jerusalem and he hoped that Paul
would offer a large bribe for his liberty so that Felix kept him in
prison two years. Felix saw him occasionally and gave him a chance to
offer a bribe, which never was offered! Thus two long years dragged by.
Paul was longing to go on with the work that had been changing the
world. He was eager to see his old friends and to help them in their
troubles, but all the time he was fast bound with chains in the strong
prison at Cæsarea. There is in the Second Epistle to Timothy a fragment
of a letter which Paul may have written from Cæsarea. He asks Timothy to
bring him the cloak which he left at Troas. The prison by the sea was a
cold place. And more touching still, he asks him to bring his books—I
wish we knew the titles of these books—and his pieces of parchment, so
that he could write letters to his churches and to his friends. After
two years had dragged by, there came a change of governors. Porcius
Festus succeeded Felix. The Jerusalem Jews made a great effort to
prejudice the new governor against Paul and he proposed to push the
trial through at once and have the case settled. It was evident that
Paul could hardly have a fair trial in Cæsarea. The Jews were full of
passion against him. They were ready to use all the ways known to them
to secure his condemnation and death. And Paul saw that he had little
chance of escape in the local court, so that as the crisis approached he
used his privilege as a Roman citizen and appealed to be tried before
Cæsar in Rome, and Festus immediately granted the appeal.
Before the time came for Paul to start on his momentous journey to Rome,
King Agrippa and his wife Bernice came to Cæsarea to bring greetings to
the new governor and they heard from Festus of the famous prisoner who
had appealed to Cæsar. King Agrippa very much desired to see Paul and to
hear him speak and Festus arranged for Agrippa to hear him. The king sat
on a throne with much splendour. All the distinguished persons of the
court were there. Soldiers with helmets and with the Roman eagles were
stationed round the hall. And into the midst Paul was led by his guard
and then was given permission to speak. It was a great moment for the
prisoner. His one thought was to make some of these people understand
his great message. Once more he told the story of his life and how the
light had shined upon him at Damascus and how he had obeyed the heavenly
message which came to him then. He thought he might make the king
Agrippa see that God always meant to send His Son to bring light and
life to the world and he was telling him about the great prophecies in
the Old Testament when suddenly Festus interrupted. He told Paul that he
was wild and deluded, that he had thought over these things until he had
lost his reason. Unmoved Paul answered and said “I am not deluded. I am
calm and sober. I am talking about things which are absolutely certain
and real. King Agrippa knows that these things are so.” Then turning to
the king, he said, “King Agrippa dost thou believe what our prophets
have said? I know that thou must believe.”
Then king Agrippa found it difficult to answer. It would not do to have
a prisoner go on talking that way to a king and yet this prisoner seemed
to be right. King Agrippa shrugged his shoulders and said: “With a very
little argument you seem to think you can make _me_ a Christian!” Paul
with dignity raised his chained hands and said: “Whether my argument is
little or great, I would to God that not only thou but everybody here
who hears me speak to-day might feel what I feel, and see what I see,
and have the kind of life I have and become such a person as I am—only
without these chains which are on my hands!”
After Paul had retired King Agrippa said to Festus: “If this man had not
appealed to Cæsar he might have been set free.”
XX
THE STORMY JOURNEY TO ROME
The journey from Cæsarea to Rome was at best a long and dangerous one.
Paul was accustomed to the sea, for he had taken sea voyages ever since
his early youth. He had already been shipwrecked three times and once he
had clung to a piece of the wreck for twenty-four hours before he was
rescued. But this was the first time he had gone on board ship as a
prisoner and it was a new experience to be at sea in the charge of
soldiers. The change from the prison in Cæsarea to the ship was,
however, a welcome one, and now at last he was going to Rome and, he
hoped, to freedom.
He was in the charge of the Augustan cohort, with Julius for centurion
and there were other prisoners besides himself. A little band of friends
attended him and among them was the writer of the famous “We-Diary” who
has given us a wonderful account of this journey. The ship touched first
at Sidon where the good-hearted centurion allowed Paul to go on shore,
to visit his friends and to have a good home meal, which must have been
a welcome change after the long tedious period of prison fare. Then they
sailed under the lee of Cyprus and skirted the shore of Paul’s beloved
Cilicia. There were the mountains of his childhood in the
distance—Amanus in the east, Taurus in the west. He could see the
gleaming of the Cydnus on its way to the sea and imagination pictured
the beautiful city on both banks of the river where he played and
dreamed as a boy—the city he would never see again. Next came Pamphylia
on whose shores he had landed years before and his mind ran on over the
hills to a precious group of churches in the cities of Galatia.
From the city of Myra in the province of Lycia they found an Alexandrian
ship sailing for Italy and the centurion transferred his prisoners to
it. They went far to the south of the Ægean, around whose shores the
great work of Paul’s life had been done and where now groups of friends
were praying for him. The ship took them to the south of the great
island of Crete and finally the wind forced them to put into Fair Havens
near the middle of the island. Paul warned the centurion not to go on
because of the certain danger of the voyage in the stormy season, but
the master of the vessel was determined to have the ship sail and as
soon as a favourable wind appeared they launched forth. But the ship had
not been long at sea when a Mediterranean hurricane struck it and drove
it on through the desperate waters. The ship was wrenched and twisted by
the fury of the storm and it leaked seriously so that the sailors were
compelled to put undergirding around it to tighten up the seams. In the
fearful danger they threw overboard the freight which the ship was
carrying and finally they threw out the tackling and furniture of the
ship to make it as light as possible. For fourteen days and nights they
floundered about in the Sea of Adria at the mercy of the wind and the
boisterous billows. No sun appeared by day and the nights were
appallingly dark. Fear lay on everybody except one and all hope was gone
in the minds of everybody but one. This one man had no fear and he was
full of hope and confidence. He had never seen battles such as the
centurion with his cohort had been through, but he had passed through
great experiences and he had learned to trust God absolutely. He had
received five terrible beatings from the Jews; three times he had been
given the Roman scourge. He had been in many prisons. He had faced death
again and again on his journeys. He had often been where no escape
seemed possible, when an unexpected door had opened and he had gone on
in safety. He was the man, then, for this dreadful hour. He had the hero
spirit and he could calm the others and kindle their courage.
Suddenly he stepped forth on deck and spoke to the men: “Be full of
cheer and hope. We shall come through. My God has told me so. And I
believe God. His I am. Him I serve and I know that He has given me all
who sail with me in the ship. Not a life shall be lost!”
Then when the sailors had sounded and had found the water growing
shallow they threw out four anchors and waited for morning to come. We
have just seen that Paul had four anchors, too—four anchors to his soul:
“I believe God”; “His I am”; “Him I serve”; “He has given me those who
sail with me.” In the morning they loosened the four anchors and let the
sea drive the ship toward the shore at a place where two seas met and
formed a cove, and there they beached it. The force of the waves broke
the ship to pieces and the soldiers were for killing all the prisoners
but the centurion had learned to respect Paul and was determined to save
him, so that he allowed everybody on board to swim or float to shore and
all were saved. The island turned out to be Malta, south of Sicily. Here
the ship’s crew and the soldiers and the prisoners spent three months.
Paul was able here once again to preach to the people and he worked
wonders among them. At the end of the three months they started out
again on the treacherous sea to complete the journey. The ship on which
they sailed from Malta bore the sign of “the Twins,” Castor and Pollux,
who were supposed by the Romans to be the guardians of sailors. The new
ship touched at Syracuse, the famous capital of Sicily, where Plato had
come with his wisdom, and, after two days, it brought its precious load
into port at Puteoli, near Naples, in sight of a beautiful, quiet
mountain peak, named Vesuvius, which, a few years later, was to spout
lava and cinders over the towns lying on the shores of this wonderful
blue bay. Here in the Italian port, Paul found a group of Christian
believers who greatly refreshed him, and his kind centurion allowed him
to stay there an entire week. These Christians at Puteoli were the first
people in Italy to hear the great teacher of the new way of life. Then
on foot or by horses, the strange troop wound up the glorious valley,
leading from Puteoli to Rome. At the Forum of Appius, about ten miles
out of the imperial city, a band of Roman Christians came to meet him as
though he were a hero coming in triumph to their city. They found a
prisoner kept by soldiers. When Paul saw these devoted Christian men
coming to share their love and fellowship with him he forgot all about
being a prisoner. Here were dear friends who loved him and that was
enough. The long and arduous journey of many months was over. Here in
front was Rome. Nero might be there, and his court and prison might be
waiting for him, but the most important thing was that there was a
church of Christ in Rome and Paul could see the members and make the
church grow larger!
XXI
THE TRIUMPH OF THE HERO
“I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ,” Paul had said in his letter
to Rome. “It is the _power_ of God.” Rome was the most powerful city the
world had ever seen up to that time. Its armies had gone everywhere and
this city on the Tiber had become the conqueror of all lands and
peoples. Out from the capital of the empire the roads ran like the
spokes of a wheel from the hub, and the soldiers marched forth from this
centre to subdue countries and to hold them wherever the emperor wished
to send them. Here was power which all eyes could see and which all men
could feel. Over against this visible power, Paul knew that he had
discovered a new kind of power. It could not be seen as armies could be
seen, but it changed lives and it remade cities and it upheld and
supported men and women in the hardest suffering and trial. Here was
this man now bound with chains, guarded by soldiers, a prisoner of the
emperor’s, weak, frail, alone, but in reality the bravest, strongest,
most powerful man in the whole empire. Nero is dead now. His empire has
passed away. But Paul is still a mighty power in the world. Eight
million copies of his letters are sold every year. Everybody reads what
he wrote and he still goes on working in the world as though he were yet
alive and speaking.
At first, when he came to Rome, he was treated kindly and was allowed to
have his own house, though of course he was under the care of Roman
soldiers. The guard was changed every day so that he constantly had new
soldiers by him. It gave him a splendid chance to preach his gospel to
the Roman army, for he would surely never let a soldier stay all day by
him without telling him of Christ. It must have _worked_, too, for, in
his letter to the church at Philippi, he writes that “the saints in
Cæsar’s household send greetings,” and he also says that he has been
able to spread the news of Christ through the whole prætorian guard.
Perhaps he did more as a prisoner than he could have done as a
travelling preacher. Paul was the kind of man that would appeal to
soldiers. They could see at once that he was as brave as they were, and
they could feel that he was in his way a hero, and they were ready to
listen to his story and we may be sure that many of them went back to
Cæsar’s palace changed into “saints.” Others went out with the army and
carried the truth about Christ into the lands where they were stationed.
“It has all happened right,” Paul wrote to his friends. “My chains have
helped to spread the gospel!”
During the first part of the time in Rome, Paul expected to be freed. He
thought his trial would come off favourably, and he was full of hope. In
this early period he wrote a beautiful letter to his friend Philemon,
who lived in Asia. He told this friend that he expected soon to be free
and he playfully added you can get me a lodging, for I shall be coming
to Asia before long. He had found in Rome a run-away slave that belonged
to Philemon. He had told the slave, who was named Onesimus, about Christ
and Onesimus had become a follower of Christ. Paul sent him back to his
master, changed from a slave to a brother and Paul calls him his “own
son in Christ.” This was the way Paul’s gospel worked for all kinds of
people. It made them new men, and it gave them a new relationship to
everybody. One day a poor, mean slave, the next day a brother and a son!
In this letter Paul calls himself an old man. He writes: “I am Paul the
aged.” He could not have been very old in years—probably not more than
fifty-five—but his years in prison and the terrible hardships, through
which he had been, had left their mark upon him and he seemed old before
he was old.
As time went on, and Paul had had two years in “his own hired house,” he
seems to have been taken to some imperial prison, perhaps to the famous
Mamertine prison, which was deep underground, and very dark, cold and
damp. It became more and more evident that the wonderful prisoner was
not to go free again. His friends in Philippi remembered him and sent
one of their number all the way to Rome to comfort him and to carry to
him the things he needed in his hard prison life. He was very deeply
touched by their love and kindness and he wrote an extraordinary letter
of thanks to his first Christian believers in Europe—those men of
Macedonia who called him to them. He told them that he did not know
whether the outcome of his trial was to be life or death, but that he
was “ready” for either event that might come. “I have learned” he wrote,
“how to be contented with what comes to me. I know how to be successful
and how to be defeated. I know how to be happy when I am full and I know
how to be happy when I am hungry. I can do everything with Christ’s
help.” “I want you,” he told his friends, “to learn the secret. I want
you to rejoice and again to _rejoice_, and evermore to REJOICE.”
What happened at last, we do not know. Nobody has written for us any
“We-Narrative” about the last prison days and about the trial in Cæsar’s
court. Some people think that the great prisoner got his freedom and
went on for many years doing missionary work across the world,
travelling with Timothy and Titus and the other helpers, and preaching
in new lands and in new cities. But I do not think so. I think that he
never left Rome again. The Jews who were opposed to him had a very
strong case against him. They could prove that in almost every city in
the empire where Paul had been there had been riots and uprisings and
they could make it seem that Paul was the cause of these things. He was
one lone man with a whole multitude of furious enemies and in Cæsar’s
court the testimony against him would count for very much, and would
weigh very heavily. It seems most likely that the trial ended with a
decision against the great missionary. If he was condemned, as I believe
he was, then he was soon after executed, and, as a Roman citizen, he
would be put to death with the sword. That is the steady tradition in
Rome that he was taken out to the place now called the Three Fountains
and there beheaded. We shall probably never know any more about the end
of our hero’s life.