_GAMALIEL AND HIS PRUDENT ADVICE._
"And now I say unto you, Refrain from these men, and let them
alone: for if this counsel or this work be of men, it will be
overthrown: but if it is of God, ye will not be able to overthrow
them; lest haply ye be found even to be fighting against God. And
to him they agreed: and when they had called the Apostles unto
them, they beat them and charged them not to speak in the name of
Jesus, and let them go."--ACTS v. 38-40.
We have set forth in these verses an incident in the second appearance
before the council of the Apostle Peter and the other Apostles,
conspicuous among whom must have been James the brother of John. It is
almost certain that James the son of Zebedee was at this time very
prominent in the public work of the Church, for we are told in the
opening of the twelfth chapter that when Herod would vex and harass
and specially weaken the Church, it was neither Peter nor John he
first arrested, but he laid hands on James, and placed on him the
honour of being the earliest martyr from amongst the sacred band of
the Apostles. Peter we may, however, be sure was the centre of
Sadducean hate at this period, and one of the most conspicuous members
of the Church. We should at the same time beware of exaggeration, and
strive to estimate the events of these earliest days of the Church,
not as we behold them now, but as they must have then appeared unto
the members of the Sanhedrin. The deaths of Ananias and Sapphira seem
now to us extraordinary and awe-inspiring, and sufficient to strike
terror into the hearts of all unbelievers; but probably the story of
them had never reached the ears of the authorities. Human life was but
little accounted of among the Romans who ruled Palestine. A Roman
master might slay or torture his slaves just as he pleased; and the
Romans, scorning the Jews as a conquered race, would trouble
themselves but little concerning quarrels or deaths among them, so
long as public order and the stated business of society were not
interfered with. The public miracles which St. Peter wrought, these
were the things which brought matters to a crisis, and called afresh
the attention of the Sanhedrin, charged as they were with all
religious authority, as the miracle of healing wrought upon the
impotent man had led to the arrest of the Apostles on a previous
occasion.[107] It is a mistake often made, in studying the history of
the past, to imagine that events which we now see to have been
important and epoch-making must have been so regarded by persons
living at the time when they happened. Men are never worse judges of
the true value of current history than when they are placed in the
midst of it. It is always the on-lookers who see most of the play. Our
minds are so limited, our thoughts are so completely filled up with
the present, that it is not till we have got away from the events, and
can view them in their due proportion and symmetry, surrounded with
all their circumstances, that we can hope to form a just appreciation
of their relative importance. I have often seen a hill of a few
hundred feet in height occupying a far more commanding position in
men's eyes than a really lofty mountain, simply because the one was
near, the other far off. The deaths of Ananias and Sapphira are
recorded therefore at full length, because they bring eternal lessons
of justice, judgment, and truth along with them. The numerous public
miracles wrought by Peter when "multitudes came together from the
cities round about Jerusalem, bringing sick folk and them that were
vexed with unclean spirits, and they were healed every one," seemed to
the Sanhedrin and the religious public of Jerusalem the all-important
topics, though they are passed wholly over in the Scriptures as
matters of no spiritual interest. If it requires a vast exercise of
patience and wisdom to estimate events aright in their mere worldly
aspect, it requires the operation and guidance of the Holy Ghost to
form a sound judgment upon the relative spiritual value of events
falling within the sphere of Church history; and there indeed it is
most true that matters which seem all-important and striking to man
are judged by God as insignificant and unworthy of notice. So
contradictory are ofttimes the ways of God and the opinions of man.
[107] Acts v. 12-16 states that St. Peter wrought many miracles,
and further that men sought to place their sick in such a position
that even his shadow might fall upon them, thinking that it
brought healing with it. This statement has been spoken of as a
demonstrative proof of legendary growth by Zeller in his work on
the Acts, and is weakly apologised for by Meyer. But the analogy
of hypnotism at the present time, when cures are wrought and
extraordinary influence exercised without corporeal contact, is
quite sufficient to vindicate St. Luke's account from the charge
of legend. If moderns can produce marvellous results without
immediate touch; if, for instance, hypnotised patients when
blindfolded can read a book by means of their stomachs or their
noses (Moll, p. 366, already quoted), or blisters can be raised by
a piece of white paper merely by suggestion, as stated by Moll,
pp. 114-22, surely the statement of St. Luke is no necessary proof
of legend and old wives' fables. See my remarks on p. 100 above.
The public miracles wrought by St. Peter had this effect,--the only
one noted at length by the sacred writer: they led to the fresh arrest
of Peter and the other Apostles by the High Priest and the sect of the
Sadducees, and to their incarceration in the public prison attached to
the temple. Thence they were delivered by an angel and sent to speak
publicly in the temple, where their adversaries officially assembled;
just as on a later occasion Peter, when imprisoned by himself, was
released by angelic interference. Men looking back upon the history of
the primitive Church, and judging of it as if it were the history of
an ordinary time and age, have objected to the angelic interventions
narrated here and in a few other places in the New Testament. They
object because they do not realize the circumstances of the time. Dr.
Jortin was a shrewd writer of the last century, now too much
neglected. He remarked in one place that, suppose we admit that a
special revelation of the good powers of the heavenly world was made
in Christ, it was natural and fair that a special manifestation of the
powers of evil should have been permitted at the time of Christ's
Incarnation, in order that the triumph of good might be the greater;
and thus he would account for the diabolical possessions which play
such an important part in the New Testament. The principle thus laid
down extends much farther indeed. The great miracle of the
Incarnation, the great manifestation of God in Christ, naturally
brought with it lesser heavenly manifestations in its train. The
Incarnation raises for a believer the whole level of the age when it
occurred, and makes it an exceptional time. The eternal gates were for
a moment lifted up, and angels went in and out for a little; and
therefore we accept without endeavouring to explain the words of the
narrative which tells us that an angel opened the prison doors for the
Apostles, bidding them go and speak in the temple all the words of
this life. And then from the temple, where they were teaching early in
the morning, about daybreak of the day following their arrest, they
are led by the officers before the Sanhedrin which was sitting in the
city. Here let us pause to note the marvellous accuracy of detail in
St. Luke's narrative. The Sanhedrin used to sit in the temple, but a
few years before the period at which we have arrived, four or five at
most, they removed from the temple into the city, a fact which is just
hinted at in the fifth verse of the fourth chapter, where we are told
that the rulers, and elders, and scribes were gathered together in
Jerusalem, that is, in the city, not in the temple; while again in
this passage we read that when the High Priest came and convened the
council and all the senate of the children of Israel, they sent their
officers to bring the prisoners before them. These officers after a
while returned with the information that the Apostles were preaching
in the temple. If the Sanhedrin were meeting in the temple, they would
doubtless have learned this fact as soon as they assembled, especially
as they did not sit till after the morning sacrifice, several hours
after the Apostles appeared in the temple.[108] When brought before
the council the Apostles boldly proclaimed their intention to
disregard all human threats, and persevere in preaching the death and
resurrection of Christ. The majority would then have proceeded to
extreme measures against the Apostles, and in doing so would only
have acted after their usual manner.
[108] See Dr. John Lightfoot, _Horæ Hebraicæ_, on the Acts, iv. 5.
_Cf._ his remarks on St. Mark xv. 1, where that learned Hebraist
seems to support this view, though admitting that there is
something to be said on the other side, viz., that the council met
in the temple as of old.
The greater part of the Sanhedrin were Sadducees, and they, as
Josephus tells us, were men of a bloodthirsty character, ever ready to
proceed to punish in the most cruel manner. The simple fact is this,
the Sadducees were materialists. They looked upon man as a mere
animated machine, and therefore, like the pagans of the same period,
they were utterly regardless of human sufferings or of the value of
human life. We little recognise, reared up as we have been in an
atmosphere saturated with Christian principles, how much of our
merciful spirit, of our tender care for human suffering, of our
reverent respect for human life, is owing to the spiritual ideas of
the New Testament, teaching as it does the awful importance of time,
the sanctity of the body, and the tremendous issues which depend upon
life. Sadducees and pagans knew nothing of these things, because they
knew nothing of the inestimable treasure lodged in every human form.
Life and time would have been very different for mankind had not the
spiritual principles inculcated by Pharisee and by Christian alike
triumphed over the cold stern creed which strove on this occasion to
stifle the religion of the Cross in its very infancy. When the
Sadducees would have adopted extreme measures, the words of one man
restrained them and saved the Apostles, and that one man was Gamaliel,
whose name and career will again come before us. Now let us apply
ourselves to the consideration of his address to the Sanhedrin.
Gamaliel saw that the large public gathering to whom he was speaking
were thoroughly excited and full of cruel purposes. He therefore, like
a true orator, adopts the historical method as the fittest one for
dealing with them. He points out how other pretenders had arisen,
trading on the Messianic expectations which then existed all over
Palestine, and specially in Galilee, and how they had been all
destroyed without any action on the part of the Sanhedrin. He
instances two cases: Judas, who lived in the days of Cyrenius and the
taxing under Augustus Cæsar; and Theudas, who some time previous to
that event had arisen, working upon the religious and national hopes
of the Jews, as the persons now accused before them seemed also to be
doing. He points to the fate of the pretenders he had mentioned, and
advises the Sanhedrin to leave the Apostles to the same test of Divine
Providence, confident that if mere impostors, like the others, they
will meet with the same death at the hands of the Romans, without any
interference on their part.
It is evident that Gamaliel must have had some special reason for
selecting the risings of Theudas and Judas, beyond the fact that they
were rebels against established authority. The closing years of the
kingdom of Herod the Great were times when numberless rebellions took
place. Josephus gives us the names of several leaders who took part in
them, but, as he tells us (_Antiqq._, XVII. x. 4), there were then
"ten thousand other disorders," into the details of which he did not
enter. All these risings had, however, these distinguishing features,
they were all unsuccessful, and they were all quenched in blood.
Gamaliel must have seen some feature common to the Christian movement
and to those headed by Theudas and Judas some thirty years earlier,
leading him to adduce these examples. That common feature was their
Messianic character. They all alike proclaimed new hopes for Israel,
and appealed to the religious expectations which then excited the
people, and still are embodied in works like the book of Enoch,
produced about that period; while all the other attempts were animated
by a mere spirit of plunder or of personal ambition. But here we are
met with a difficulty. The rationalistic commentators of Germany have
urged that St. Luke composed a fancy speech and put it into the mouth
of Gamaliel, and in doing so made a great historic mistake. They
appeal to Josephus as their authority. He states that a Theudas arose
about A.D. 44, some ten years later than this meeting of the
Sanhedrin, and drew a large number of adherents after him, but was
defeated by the Roman governor. On the other hand, the words of
Gamaliel refer to the case of a Theudas who lived half a century
earlier, and preceded Judas the Galilean. To put the matter plainly,
St. Luke is accused of having composed a speech for Gamaliel, and,
when doing so, of having committed a great blunder, representing
Gamaliel as appealing to an incident which did not happen till ten
years later.[109]
[109] See, for instance, Zeller on the Acts of the Apostles, vol.
i., p. 228 (Norgate and Williams: London, 1875), where he says:
"We must therefore maintain the possibility that our author, after
the fashion of ancient historians, freely invented Gamaliel's
speech; and it is a question how much of it belongs to history at
all, and especially whether Gamaliel delivered the discourse in
favour of the Christian cause;" with which statement the whole
context, pp. 223-32, should be compared. The report of Gamaliel's
speech is due of course to St. Paul, who was doubtless present
during its delivery.
This circumstance has long attracted the notice of commentators, and
has been explained in different ways. Some maintain that there was an
older Theudas, who headed an abortive Messianic rebellion previous to
the time of Cyrenius and the days of the taxing. This is a very
possible explanation, and the identity of names constitutes no valid
objection. The same names often occur in connection with the same
movements, political or religious. In the third century, for instance,
the Novatian heresy arose at Carthage, and thence was transferred to
Rome. It was headed by two men, Novatus and Novatian, the former a
Carthaginian, the latter a Roman presbyter. What a fine subject for a
mythical theory, were not the facts too indisputably historical! How a
German critic would revel in depicting the impossibility of two men
with names so like holding precisely the same office and supporting
exactly the same views in two cities so widely separated as Rome and
Carthage! Or let us take two modern instances. The Tractarian movement
is not yet quite sixty years old. It has not therefore yet passed out
of the sphere of personal experience. It started in Oxford during the
thirties, and there in Oxford we find at that very period two divines
named William Palmer, both favouring the Tractarian views, both
eminent writers and scholars, but yet tending finally in different
directions, for one William Palmer became a Roman Catholic, while the
other remained a devoted son of the Reformation. Or to come to still
more modern times. There was an Irish movement in 1848 which numbered
amongst its most prominent leaders a William Smith O'Brien, and there
is now an Irish movement of the same character, and it also numbers a
William O'Brien amongst its most prominent leaders. A Parnell leads
the movement for repeal of the Union in 1890. Ninety years earlier, a
Parnell resigned high office sooner than consent to the consummation
of the same legislative union of Great Britain and Ireland. We might
indeed produce parallel cases without number from the range of
history, specially of English history, showing how political and
religious tendencies run in families, and reproduce exactly the same
names, and that at no distant intervals. But the very passage before
us, the speech of Gamaliel and its historical argument, affords a
sufficient instance. Gamaliel adduced the case of Judas the Galilean
as an illustration of an unsuccessful religious movement. Every one
admits that here at least Josephus and the Acts of the Apostles are at
one. Judas the Gaulonite, as Josephus styles him in one place, or the
Galilean as he calls him in another place, was the founder of the sect
of the Zealots, who "have an inviolable attachment to liberty, and say
that God is to be their only ruler and Lord" (Josephus, _Antiqq._,
XVIII., i. 6). Judas was defeated at the time of the taxing under
Cyrenius, and yet more than forty-five years later we find his sons
Simon and James suffering crucifixion under the Romans because they
were following their father's example.[110]
[110] The family of Gamaliel himself illustrates the principle for
which we are contending, viz., that families have a tendency to
reproduce exactly the same political and religious tendencies.
Gamaliel himself was grandson of the Jewish patriarch Hillel I.,
who presided over the Sanhedrin long before the Christian era.
Gamaliel's grandson, Gamaliel II., was president of the Sanhedrin
during the first twenty years of the second century. He was
distinguished by the same liberal principles as characterised his
grandfather. Gamaliel II. was succeeded by his son Simon. So that
the presidency of the Sanhedrin continued in the same family for
nearly two centuries. It is a notable fact, and not without its
bearing on some modern controversies, that the Jewish canon of the
Old Testament was not finally closed till the time of the
presidency of Gamaliel II., that is, about the year 117 A.D. "Up
to this time the members of the Sanhedrin themselves, in whom was
vested the power to fix the canon, disputed the canonicity of
certain portions of the Hebrew Scriptures. Thus the school of
Shammai excluded Ecclesiastes and the Canticles from the text of
Holy Writ, declaring that they proceeded from Solomon's uninspired
wisdom. It was the Sanhedrin at Zabne which decided that these
books are inspired, and that they form part of the canon."--See
Mr. Ginsburg's article on Gamaliel II. in the _Dictionary of
Christian Biography_, vol. ii., p. 607.
Another explanation has also been offered. It has been suggested that
Theudas was simply another name for one of the many rebels whom
Josephus mentions,--for Simon, for instance, who had been a slave of
Herod the Great, and had upon his death headed a revolt against
authority. Either explanation is quite tenable, as opposed to the view
which represents St. Luke as committing a gross historical error. And
we are the more justified in offering these suggestions when we
reflect upon the numberless instances where modern research has
confirmed, and is every year confirming, the minute accuracy of this
writer, who doubtless derived his information concerning what passed
in the Sanhedrin, on this occasion, from St. Paul, who either as a
member of the council or a favourite pupil of Gamaliel may have been
present listening to the debates, or even sharing in the final
decisions.[111]
[111] Upon the question of the historical accuracy of the Acts of
the Apostles, the appendix to the late Bishop Lightfoot's
collected essays on _Supernatural Religion_ (London, 1889) should
be consulted. The opening paragraph bears directly upon our point.
"In a former volume M. Renan declared his opinion that the author
of the third Gospel and the Acts was verily and indeed (_bien
réellement_) a disciple of St. Paul.... Such an expression of
opinion, proceeding from a not too conservative critic, is
significant; and this view of the authorship, I cannot doubt, will
be the final verdict of the future, as it has been the unbroken
tradition of the past. But at a time when attacks on the
genuineness of the work have been renewed, it may not be out of
place to call attention to some illustrations of the narrative
which recent discoveries have brought to light. No ancient work
affords so many tests of veracity, for no other has such numerous
points of contact in all directions with contemporary history,
politics, topography, whether Jewish, or Greek, or Roman."
Let us now turn from the purely historical side of Gamaliel's speech,
and view it from a spiritual standpoint.
The address of Gamaliel was so favourable to the Apostles that it has
helped to surround his name and memory with much legendary lore. It
was the tradition of the ancient Greek Church from the fifth century
that he was converted to Christianity and baptized, along with his son
Abibus and Nicodemus, by St. Peter and St. John.[112] This story of
Gamaliel's secret adherence to Christianity goes even much farther
back. There is a curious Christian novel or romance, which dates back
to close upon the year 200, called the _Clementine Recognitions_. We
find the same tradition in the sixty-fifth chapter of the first book
of these _Recognitions_.[113] But the sacred narrative itself gives us
no hint of all this, contenting itself with setting forth the prudent
advice which Gamaliel gave to the assembled council. It was wise
advice, and well would it have been for the world if influential
religious and political teachers in all ages had given similar
counsel. Gamaliel was a man of large scholarship, combined with a wide
mind, and he had learned that time is a great solvent, and the
greatest of tests. Beneath its influence the most pretentious
schemes, the most promising of structures, fade away if built upon the
sand of human wisdom, while opposition only tends to consolidate and
develop those that are built upon the foundation of Divine strength
and power. The policy of patience recommended by Gamaliel is a wise
one, either for the Church or for the state, in things spiritual and
things secular alike. And yet it is one from which the natural man
recoils with an instinctive repugnance. It speaks well for the Jewish
Sanhedrin that on this occasion they yielded accord to the advice of
their president. We are glad to recognise this spirit in these men,
where we so often have to find matter for blame. Well would it have
been for the Church and for the credit of Christianity had the spirit
which moved even the Sadducean majority in the Jewish council been
allowed to prevail; and yet how little have the men of tolerant mind
been regarded in moments of temporary triumph such as the Sanhedrin
just then enjoyed. Gamaliel's advice, "Refrain from these men and let
them alone. If the work be of man it will be overthrown; if of God, ye
will not be able to overthrow them," strikes a blow at the policy of
persecution, which is essentially a policy of impatience. The
intolerant man is an impatient man, not willing to imitate the Divine
gentleness and long-suffering, which waits, endures, and bears with
the sins and ignorance of the children of men. And the Church of
Christ, when she became intolerant, as she did as soon as ever
Constantine placed within her reach the sword of human power, forgot
the lesson of the Divine patience, and reaped within herself, in a
shallow religion, in a poorer life, in a restrained intellectual and
spiritual grasp, the due reward of those who had fallen away from an
imitation of the Divine example to a mere human level. It is sad to
see, for instance, in the case of a man so thoroughly spiritual as St.
Augustine was, how easily he fell into this human infirmity, how
quickly he became intolerant when the secular arm was ranged on the
side of his own opinions. The Church in his own boyhood, during the
days of Julian, had to strive against the intolerance of the pagans;
the orthodox, who upheld the Catholic view of the nature of the
Godhead and the scriptural doctrine of the Holy Trinity, had to
struggle against the intolerance of the Arians. Yet as soon as power
was placed in St. Augustine's own hand he thought it right to exercise
compulsion against those who differed from him.
[112] We learn this from the _Bibliotheca_ of Photius, Cod. 171.
Photius was a very learned Greek patriarch of the ninth century.
He was a diligent student, and made an analysis of every book he
read. These extracts have been gathered into one volume called his
_Bibliotheca_ or _Library_, and can now be consulted in any
collection of the Greek fathers. Photius reports his story about
Gamaliel and Nicodemus from two earlier writers, Chrysippus and
Lucian, presbyters of Jerusalem.
[113] For an account of the Clementine _Recognitions_ see Dr.
Salmon's Introduction to the N. T., 4th ed., pp. 14-19, 373-75.
Translations, both of the _Recognitions_ and _Homilies_, can be
consulted in Clark's Ante-Nicene Library.
It was exactly the same in later days. Men may take up commentators of
the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, Protestant and Roman Catholic
alike. There they will find many remarks, acute, devout,
heart-searching, but very few of them will be found to have arrived at
the mental fairness and balance involved in those words, "Refrain from
these men, and let them alone." Cornelius a Lapide was a Jesuit
commentator of those times. He wrote many valuable expositions of Holy
Scripture, including one dealing with this book of the Acts, filled
with thoughts suggestive and stimulating. It is, however, almost
ludicrous to notice how he strives to evade the force of Gamaliel's
words, and to escape the application of them to his own Protestant
opponents. The Sanhedrin were quite right, he thinks, in adopting
Gamaliel's advice, and in showing themselves tolerant of the apostolic
preaching because the Apostles worked miracles; and so, though they
were unconvinced, still they had just reason to suspend their
judgment. But as for the Protestants of his time, they were heretics;
they were the opponents of the Church, the bride of Christ, and
therefore Gamaliel's words had no application to them; as if the very
question that was raised by the Protestants was not this--whether
Cornelius a Lapide himself and his Jesuit brethren did not represent
Antichrist, and whether the Protestants were not the true Church of
God, who therefore on his own principles were quite justified in
persecuting their Romish opponents. It is very difficult to get men to
acknowledge their own fallibility. Every party, when triumphant,
believes that it has a monopoly of truth, and has a Divine right of
persecution; and every party when downcast and in adversity sees and
admires the beauties of toleration. Verily societies, churches,
families, as well as individuals, have good right diligently to pray,
"In all time of our wealth, good Lord, deliver us," for never are men
in greater spiritual danger than when prosperity leads them to vote
themselves infallible, and to practise intolerance towards their
fellow-men on account of their intellectual or religious opinions.
The sentiment of Gamaliel on this occasion may however be pushed to a
mischievous extreme. He advised the Sanhedrin to exercise patience and
self-control, but he did not apparently go any farther. He did not
recommend them to adopt the noblest course, which would have been
unprejudiced examination into the claims put forward by the Christian
teachers. Gamaliel's advice was good, it was perhaps the best he could
have given, or at least which could have been expected under the
circumstances, but it was not the highest or noblest conceivable. It
was the kind of advice always given by men who do not wish to commit
themselves untimely, but who are waiters upon Providence, postponing
their decision as to which side they shall join until they first see
which side will win. Opportunists, the French call them; men who are
sitting upon the fence, we in homelier phrase designate them. It is
well to be prudent in our actions, because true prudence is only
Christian wisdom, and such wisdom will always lead us to take the most
effectual ways of doing good. But then prudence may be pushed to the
extreme of moral cowardice, or at least the name of prudence may be
used as a cloak for a contemptible desire to stand well with all
parties, and thereby advance our own selfish interests. Prudence
should be united with moral courage; it should be ready to take the
unpopular side, and to champion truth and righteousness even when in a
depressed and lowly condition. It was easy enough to side with Christ
when the multitude cried, "Hosanna in the Highest." But the test of
deepest love and unfailing devotion was when the women stood by the
cross, and when the Magdalen sought out the grave in the garden that
she might anoint the dead body of her loved Lord.
Finally, let us just notice the conduct of the Apostles under those
circumstances. The Apostles were freed from the pressing danger of
death, but they did not entirely escape. The Sanhedrin were logically
inconsistent. They refrained from putting the Apostles to death, as
Gamaliel advised, but they flogged them as Roman laws permitted; and a
Jewish disciplinary flogging, when forty stripes save one were
inflicted, was so severe that death sometimes resulted from it.[114]
Man is a curiously inconsistent being, and the Sanhedrin showed on
this occasion that they had their own share of this weakness. Gamaliel
advised not to kill the Apostles, but let time work out the Divine
purposes either of success or failure. They adopt the first part of
his advice, but are not willing to allow Providence to develop His
designs without their interference, and so by their stripes endeavour
to secure that failure shall attend the apostolic efforts. But it was
all in vain. The Apostles were living under a realized sense of
heavenly things. The love of Christ, and communion with Christ and the
Spirit of Christ, so raised them above all earthly surroundings that
what things seemed loss and shame and grief to others were by them
counted highest joy, because they looked at them from the side of God
and eternity. Human threats availed nothing with men animated by such
a spirit,--nay, rather as proofs of the opposition of the evil one,
they only quickened their zeal, so that "every day, in the temple and
at home, they ceased not to teach and to preach Jesus as the Christ."
How wondrously life would be transformed for us all did we view its
changes and chances, its sorrows and its pains, as the Apostles
regarded them. Poverty and disgrace, undeserved loss and suffering,
all alike would be transfigured into surpassing glory when endured for
Christ's sake, while our powers of labour and work, and our active
zeal in the holiest of causes, would be quickened, because, like them,
we should walk and live and toil in the loved presence of One who is
invisible.
[114] St. Paul, as he tells us in 2 Cor. xi. 24, was five times
flogged by the Jews. When the Jews inflicted this punishment the
culprit was tied to a pillar in the synagogue; the executioner,
armed with a scourge of three distinct lashes, inflicted the
punishment; while an official standing by read selected portions
of the law between each stroke. Thirteen strokes of the threefold
scourge was equivalent to the thirty-nine stripes. This was the
flogging the Apostles suffered on this occasion.