THE END
Paragraphs 163-189.
163, 164. RETURN TO JERUSALEM. Prophecy of
Approaching Imprisonment.
165-168. ARREST. 166. Tumult in Temple; 167. Paul
before the Sanhedrim; 168. Plot of Zealots.
169-172. IMPRISONMENT AT CAESAREA. 170.
Providential Reason for this Confinement. 171.
Paul's later Gospel. 172. His Ethics.
173-176. JOURNEY TO ROME. 173. Appeal to
Caesar. 174. Voyage to Italy. 175. Arrival in
Rome.
176-182. FIRST IMPRISONMENT AT ROME. 176.
Trial delayed. 177-182. Occupations of a Prisoner.
178. His Guards Converted; 180. Visits of Apostolic
Helpers; 181. Messengers from his Churches; 182.
His Writings.
183-188. LAST SCENES. 185. Release from Prison;
New Journeys. 186. Second Imprisonment at Rome.
187, 188. Trial and Death.
189. EPILOGUE.
163. Return to Jerusalem.--After completing his brief visit to Greece
at the close of his third missionary journey, Paul returned to
Jerusalem. He must by this time have been nearly sixty years of age;
and for twenty years he had been engaged in almost superhuman labors.
He had been traveling and preaching incessantly, and carrying on his
heart a crushing weight of cares. His body had been worn with disease
and mangled with punishments and abuse; and his hair must have been
whitened, and his face furrowed with the lines of age. As yet,
however, there were no signs of his body breaking down, and his spirit
was still as keen as ever in its enthusiasm for the service of Christ.
His eye was specially directed to Rome, and, before leaving Greece, he
sent word to the Romans that they might expect to see him soon. But,
as he was hurrying toward Jerusalem along the shores of Greece and
Asia, the signal sounded that his work was nearly done, and the shadow
of approaching death fell across his path. In city after city the
persons in the Christian communities who were endowed with the gift of
prophecy foretold that bonds and imprisonment were awaiting him, and,
as he came nearer to the close of his journey, these warnings became
more loud and frequent. He felt their solemnity; his was a brave
heart, but it was too humble and reverent not to be overawed with the
thought of death and judgment. He had several companions with him, but
he sought opportunities of being alone. He parted from his converts as
a dying man, telling them that they would see his face no more. But,
when they entreated him to turn back and avoid the threatened danger,
he gently pushed aside their loving arms, and said, "What mean ye to
weep and to break my heart? for I am ready not to be bound only, but
also to die at Jerusalem for the name of the Lord Jesus."
164. We do not know what business he had on hand which so peremptorily
demanded his presence in Jerusalem. He had to deliver up to the
apostles a collection on behalf of their poor saints, which he had been
exerting himself to gather in the Gentile churches; and it may have
been of importance that he should discharge this service in person. Or
he may have been solicitous to procure from the apostles a message for
his Gentile churches, giving an authoritative contradiction to the
insinuations of his enemies as to the unapostolic character of his
gospel. At all events there was some imperative call of duty summoning
him, and, in spite of the fear of death and the tears of friends, he
went forward to his fate.
165. Paul's Arrest.--It was the feast of Pentecost when he arrived in
the city of his fathers, and, as usual at such seasons, Jerusalem was
crowded with hundreds of thousands of pilgrim Jews from all parts of
the world. Among these there could not but be many who had seen him at
the work of evangelization in the cities of the heathen and come into
collision with him there. Their rage against him had been checked in
foreign lands by the interposition of Gentile authority; but might they
not, if they met with him in the Jewish capital, wreak on him their
vengeance with the support of the whole population?
166. This was actually the danger into which he fell. Certain Jews
from Ephesus, the principal scene of his labors during his third
journey, recognized him in the temple and, crying out that here was the
heretic who blasphemed the Jewish nation, law and temple, brought about
him in an instant a raging sea of fanaticism. It is a wonder he was
not torn limb from limb on the spot; but superstition prevented his
assailants from defiling with blood the court of the Jews, in which he
was caught, and, before they got him hustled into the court of the
Gentiles, where they would soon have despatched him, the Roman guard,
whose sentries were pacing the castle-ramparts which overlooked the
temple-courts, rushed down and took him under their protection; and,
when their captain learned that he was a Roman citizen, his safety was
secured.
167. But the fanaticism of Jerusalem was now thoroughly aroused, and
it raged against the protection which surrounded Paul like an angry
sea. The Roman captain on the day after the apprehension took him down
to the Sanhedrin in order to ascertain the charge against him; but the
sight of the prisoner created such an uproar that he had to hurry him
away, lest he should be torn in pieces. Strange city and strange
people! There was never a nation which produced sons more richly
dowered with gifts to make her name immortal; there was never a city
whose children clung to her with a more passionate affection; yet, like
a mad mother, she tore the very goodliest of them in pieces and dashed
them mangled from her breast. Jerusalem was now within a few years of
her destruction; here was the last of her inspired and prophetic sons
come to visit her for the last time, with boundless love to her in his
heart; but she would have murdered him; and only the shields of the
Gentiles saved him from her fury.
168. Forty zealots banded themselves together under a curse to snatch
Paul even from the midst of the Roman swords; and the Roman captain was
only able to foil their plot by sending him under a heavy escort down
to Caesarea. This was a Roman city on the Mediterranean coast; it was
the residence of the Roman governor of Palestine and the headquarters
of the Roman garrison; and in it the apostle was perfectly safe from
Jewish violence.
169. Imprisonment at Caesarea.--Here he remained in prison for two
years. The Jewish authorities attempted again and again either to
procure his condemnation by the governor or to get him delivered up to
themselves, to be tried as an ecclesiastical offender; but they failed
to convince the governor that Paul had been guilty of any crime of
which he could take cognizance or to persuade him to hand over a Roman
citizen to their tender mercies. The prisoner ought to have been
released, but his enemies were so vehement in asserting that he was a
criminal of the deepest dye that he was detained on the chance of new
evidence turning up against him. Besides, his release was prevented by
the expectation of the corrupt governor, Felix, that the life of the
leader of a religious sect might be purchased from him with a bribe.
Felix was interested in his prisoner and even heard him gladly, as
Herod had listened to the Baptist.
170. Paul was not kept in close confinement; he had at least the range
of the barracks in which he was detained. There we can imagine him
pacing the ramparts on the edge of the Mediterranean, and gazing
wistfully across the blue waters in the direction of Macedonia, Achaia
and Ephesus, where his spiritual children were pining for him or
perhaps encountering dangers in which they sorely needed his presence.
It was a mysterious providence which thus arrested his energies and
condemned the ardent worker to inactivity. Yet we can see now the
reason for it. Paul was needing rest. After twenty years of incessant
evangelization he required leisure to garner the harvest of experience.
During all that time he had been preaching that view of the gospel
which at the beginning of his Christian career he had thought out,
under the influence of the revealing Spirit, in the solitudes of
Arabia. But he had now reached a stage when, with leisure to think, he
might penetrate into more recondite regions of the truth as it is in
Jesus. And it was so important that he should have this leisure that,
in order to secure it. God even permitted him to be shut up in prison.
171. Paul's Later Gospel.--During these two years he wrote nothing; it
was a time of internal mental activity and silent progress. But, when
he began to write again, the results of it were at once discernible.
The Epistles written after this imprisonment have a mellower tone and
set forth a profounder view of doctrine than his earlier writings.
There is no contradiction, indeed, or inconsistency between his earlier
and later views: in Ephesians and Colossians he builds on the broad
foundations laid in Romans and Galatians. But the superstructure is
loftier and more imposing. He dwells less on the work of Christ and
more on His person; less on the justification of the sinner and more on
the sanctification of the saint.
In the gospel revealed to him in Arabia he had set Christ forth as
dominating mundane history, and shown His first coming to be the point
toward which the destinies of Jews and Gentiles had been tending. In
the gospel revealed to him at Caesarea the point of view is
extra-mundane: Christ is represented as the reason for the creation of
all things, and as the Lord of angels and of worlds, to whose second
coming the vast procession of the universe is moving forward--of whom,
and through whom, and to whom are all things.
In the earlier Epistles the initial act of the Christian life--the
justification of the soul--is explained with exhaustive elaboration:
but in the later Epistles it is on the subsequent relations to Christ
of the person who has been already justified that the apostle chiefly
dwells. According to his teaching, the whole spectacle of the
Christian life is due to a union between Christ and the soul; and for
the description of this relationship he has invented a vocabulary of
phrases and illustrations: believers are in Christ, and Christ is in
them: they have the same relation to Him as the stones of a building to
the foundation-stone, as the branches to the tree, as the members to
the head, as a wife to her husband. This union is ideal, for the
divine mind in eternity made the destiny of Christ and the believer
one; it is legal, for their debts and merits are common property; it is
vital, for the connection with Christ supplies the power of a holy and
progressive life; it is moral, for, in mind and heart, in character and
conduct, Christians are constantly becoming more and more identical
with Christ.
172. His Ethics.--Another feature of these later Epistles is the
balance between their theological and their moral teaching. This is
visible even in the external structure of the greatest of them, for
they are nearly equally divided into two parts, the first of which is
occupied with doctrinal statements and the second with moral
exhortations. The ethical teaching of Paul spreads itself over all
parts of the Christian life; but it is not distinguished by a
systematic arrangement of the various kinds of duties, although the
domestic duties are pretty fully treated. Its chief characteristic
lies in the motives which it brings to bear upon conduct.
To Paul Christian morality was emphatically a morality of motives. The
whole history of Christ, not in the details of His earthly life, but in
the great features of his redemptive journey from heaven to earth and
from earth back to heaven again, as seen from the extramundane
standpoint of these Epistles, is a series of examples to be copied by
Christians in their daily conduct. No duty is too small to illustrate
one or other of the principles which inspired the divinest acts of
Christ. The commonest acts of humility and beneficence are to be
imitations of the condescension which brought Him from the position of
equality with God to the obedience of the cross; and the ruling motive
of the love and kindness practised by Christians to one another is to
be the recollection of their common connection with Him.
173. Appeal to Caesar.--After Paul's imprisonment had lasted for two
years, Felix was succeeded in the governorship of Palestine by Festus.
The Jews had never ceased to intrigue to get Paul into their hands, and
they at once assailed the new ruler with further importunities. As
Festus seemed to be wavering, Paul availed himself of his privilege of
appeal as a Roman citizen and demanded to be sent to Rome and tried at
the bar of the emperor. This could not be refused him; and a prisoner
had to be sent to Rome at once after such an appeal was taken. Very
soon, therefore, Paul was shipped off under the charge of Roman
soldiers and in the company of many other prisoners on their way to the
same destination.
174. Voyage to Italy.--The journal of the voyage has been preserved in
the Acts of the Apostles and is acknowledged to be the most valuable
document in existence concerning the seamanship of ancient times. It
is also a precious document of Paul's life; for it shows how his
character shone out in a novel situation. A ship is a kind of
miniature of the world. It is a floating island, in which there are
the government and the governed. But the government is, like that of
states, liable to sudden social upheavals, in which the ablest man is
thrown to the top. This was a voyage of extreme perils, which required
the utmost presence of mind and power of winning the confidence and
obedience of those on board. Before it was ended Paul was virtually
both the captain of the ship and the general of the soldiers; and all
on board owed to him their lives.
175. Arrival in Rome.--At length the dangers of the deep were left
behind; and Paul found himself approaching the capital of the Roman
world by the Appian Road, the great highway by which Rome was entered
by travelers from the East. The bustle and noise increased as he
neared the city, and the signs of Roman grandeur and renown multiplied
at every step. For many years he had been looking forward to seeing
Rome, but he had always thought of entering it in a very different
guise from that which now he wore. He had always thought of Rome as a
successful general thinks of the central stronghold of the country he
is subduing, who looks eagerly forward to the day when he will direct
the charge against its gates. Paul was engaged in the conquest of the
world for Christ, and Rome was the final position he had hoped to carry
in his Master's name. Years ago he had sent to it the famous
challenge, "I am ready to preach the gospel to you that are at Rome
also; for I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power
of God unto salvation to every one that believeth." But now, when he
found himself actually at its gates and thought of the abject condition
in which he was--an old, gray-haired, broken man, a chained prisoner
just escaped from shipwreck--his heart sank within him, and he felt
dreadfully alone.
At the right moment, however, a little incident took place which
restored him to himself: at a small town forty miles out of Rome he was
met by a little band of Christian brethren, who, hearing of his
approach, had come out to welcome him; and, ten miles farther on, he
came upon another group, who had come out for the same purpose.
Self-reliant as he was, he was exceedingly sensitive to human sympathy,
and the sight of these brethren and their interest in him completely
revived him. He thanked God and took courage; his old feelings came
back in their wonted strength; and, when, in the company of these
friends, he reached that shoulder of the Alban Hills from which the
first view of the city is obtained, his heart swelled with the
anticipation of victory; for he knew he carried in his breast the force
which would yet lead captive that proud capital.
It was not with the step of a prisoner, but with that of a conqueror,
that he passed at length beneath the city gate. His road lay along
that very Sacred Way by which many a Roman general had passed in
triumph to the Capitol, seated on a car of victory, followed by the
prisoners and spoils of the enemy, and surrounded with the plaudits of
rejoicing Rome. Paul looked little like such a hero: no car of victory
carried him, he trode the causewayed road with wayworn foot; no medals
or ornaments adorned his person, a chain of iron dangled from his
wrist; no applauding crowds welcomed his approach, a few humble friends
formed all his escort; yet never did a more truly conquering footstep
fall on the pavement of Rome or a heart more confident of victory pass
within her gates.
176. Imprisonment.--Meanwhile, however, it was not to the Capitol his
steps were bent, but to a prison; and he was destined to lie in prison
long, for his trial did not come on for two years. The law's delays
have been proverbial in all countries and at all eras; and the law of
imperial Rome was not likely to be free from this reproach during the
reign of Nero, a man of such frivolity that any engagement of pleasure
or freak of caprice was sufficient to make him put off the most
important call of business. The imprisonment, it is true, was of the
mildest description. It may have been that the officer who brought him
to Rome spoke a good word for the man who had saved his life during the
voyage, or the officer to whom he was handed over, and who is known in
profane history as a man of justice and humanity, may have inquired
into his case and formed a favorable opinion of his character; but at
all events Paul was permitted to hire a house of his own and live in it
in perfect freedom, with the single exception that a soldier, who was
responsible for his person, was his constant attendant.
177. Occupation in Prison.--This was far from the condition which such
an active spirit would have coveted. He would have liked to be moving
from synagogue to synagogue in the immense city, preaching in its
streets and squares, and founding congregation after congregation among
the masses of its population. Another man, thus arrested in a career
of ceaseless movement and immured within prison walls, might have
allowed his mind to stagnate in sloth and despair. But Paul behaved
very differently. Availing himself of every possibility of the
situation, he converted his one room into a center of far-reaching
activity and beneficence. On the few square feet of space allowed him
he erected a fulcrum with which he moved the world, establishing within
the walls of Nero's capital a sovereignty more extensive than his own.
178. Even the most irksome circumstance of his lot was turned to good
account. This was the soldier by whom he was watched. To a man of
Paul's eager temperament and restlessness of mood this must often have
been an intolerable annoyance; and, indeed, in the letters written
during this imprisonment he is constantly referring to his chain, as if
it were never out of his mind. But he did not suffer this irritation
to blind him to the opportunity of doing good presented by the
situation. Of course his attendant was changed every few hours, as one
soldier relieved another upon guard. In this way there might be six or
eight with him every four-and-twenty hours. They belonged to the
imperial guard, the flower of the Roman army.
Paul could not sit for hours beside another man without speaking of the
subject which lay nearest his heart. He spoke to these soldiers about
their immortal souls and the faith of Christ. To men accustomed to the
horrors of Roman warfare and the manners of Roman barracks nothing
could be more striking than a life and character like his; and the
result of these conversations was that many of them became changed men,
and a revival spread through the barracks and penetrated into the
imperial household itself. His room was sometimes crowded with these
stern, bronzed faces, glad to see him at other times than those when
duty required them to be there. He sympathized with them and entered
into the spirit of their occupation; indeed, he was full of the spirit
of the warrior himself.
We have an imperishable relic of these visits in an outburst of
inspired eloquence which he dictated at this period: "Put on the whole
armor of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the
devil; for we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against
principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of
this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places. Wherefore
take unto you the whole armor of God, that ye may be able to withstand
in the evil day and, having done all, to stand. Stand therefore,
having your loins girt about with truth, and having on the breastplate
of righteousness, and your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel
of peace; above all, taking the shield of faith, wherewith ye shall be
able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked. And take the helmet
of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God."
That picture was drawn from the life, from the armor of the soldiers in
his room; and perhaps these ringing sentences were first poured into
the ears of his warlike auditors before they were transferred to the
Epistle in which they have been preserved.
179. Visitors.--But he had other visitors. All who took an interest
in Christianity in Rome, both Jews and Gentiles, gathered to him.
Perhaps there was not a day of the two years of his imprisonment but he
had such visitors. The Roman Christians learned to go to that room as
to an oracle or shrine. Many a Christian teacher got his sword
sharpened there; and new energy began to diffuse itself through the
Christian circles of the city. Many an anxious father brought his son,
many a friend his friend, hoping that a word from the apostle's lips
might waken the sleeping conscience. Many a wanderer, stumbling in
there by chance, came out a new man. Such an one was Onesimus, a slave
from Colossae, who arrived in Rome as a runaway, but was sent back to
his Christian master, Philemon, no longer as a slave, but as a brother
beloved.
180. Still more interesting visitors came. At all periods of his life
he exercised a strong fascination over young men. They were attracted
by the manly soul within him, in which they found sympathy with their
aspirations and inspiration for the noblest work. These youthful
friends, who were scattered over the world in the work of Christ,
flocked to him at Rome. Timothy and Luke, Mark and Aristarchus,
Tychicus and Epaphras, and many more came, to drink afresh at the well
of his ever-springing wisdom and earnestness. And he sent them forth
again, to carry messages to his churches or bring him news of their
condition.
181. Of his spiritual children in the distance he never ceased to
think. Daily he was wandering in imagination among the glens of
Galatia and along the shores of Asia and Greece; every night he was
praying for the Christians of Antioch and Ephesus, of Philippi and
Thessalonica and Corinth. Nor were gratifying proofs awanting that
they were remembering him. Now and then there would appear in his
lodging a deputy from some distant church, bringing the greetings of
his converts or, perhaps, a contribution to meet his temporal wants, or
craving his decision on some point of doctrine or practice about which
difficulty had arisen. These messengers were not sent empty away: they
carried warm-hearted messages of golden words of counsel from their
apostolic friend.
Some of them carried far more. When Epaphroditus, a deputy from the
church at Philippi, which had sent to their dear father in Christ an
offering of love, was returning home, Paul sent with him, in
acknowledgment of their kindness, the Epistle to the Philippians, the
most beautiful of all his letters, in which he lays bare his very heart
and every sentence glows with love more tender than a woman's. When
the slave Onesimus was sent back to Colossae, he received, as the
branch of peace to offer to his master, the exquisite little Epistle to
Philemon, a priceless monument of Christian courtesy. He carried, too,
a letter addressed to the church of the town in which his master lived,
the Epistle to the Colossians.
The composition of these Epistles was by far the most important part of
Paul's varied prison activity; and he crowned this labor with the
writing of the Epistle to the Ephesians, which is perhaps the
profoundest and sublimest book in the world. The Church of Christ has
derived many benefits from the imprisonment of the servants of God; the
greatest book of uninspired religious genius, the Pilgrim's Progress,
was written in a jail; but never did there come to the Church a greater
mercy in the disguise of misfortune than when the arrest of Paul's
bodily activities at Caesarea and Rome supplied him with the leisure
needed to reach the depths of truth sounded in the Epistle to the
Ephesians.
182. His Writings.--It may have seemed a dark dispensation of
providence to Paul himself that the course of life he had pursued so
long was so completely changed; but God's thoughts are higher than
man's thoughts and His ways than man's ways; and He gave Paul grace to
overcome the temptations of his situation and do far more in his
enforced inactivity for the welfare of the world and the permanence of
his own influence than he could have done by twenty years of wandering
missionary work. Sitting in his room, he gathered within the sounding
cavity of his sympathetic heart the sighs and cries of thousands far
away, and diffused courage and help in every direction from his own
inexhaustible resources. He sank his mind deeper and deeper in
solitary thought, till, smiting the rock in the dim depth to which he
had descended, he caused streams to gush forth which are still
gladdening the city of God.
183. Release from Prison.--The book of Acts suddenly breaks off with a
brief summary of Paul's two years' imprisonment at Rome. Is this
because there was no more to tell? When his trial came on, did it
issue in his condemnation and death? Or did he get out of prison and
resume his old occupations? Where Luke's lucid narrative so suddenly
deserts us, tradition comes in proffering its doubtful aid. It tells
us that he was acquitted on his trial and let out of prison; that he
resumed his travels, visiting Spain among other places; but that before
long he was arrested again and sent back to Rome, where he died a
martyr's death at the cruel hands of Nero.
184. New Journeys.--Happily, however, we are not altogether dependent
on the precarious aid of tradition. We have writings of Paul's own
undoubtedly subsequent to the two years of his first imprisonment.
These are what are called the Pastoral Epistles--the Epistles to
Timothy and Titus. In these we see that he regained his liberty and
resumed his employment of revisiting his old churches and founding new
ones. His footsteps cannot, indeed, be any longer traced with
certainty. We find him back at Ephesus and Troas; we find him in
Crete, an island at which he touched on his voyage to Rome and in which
he may then have become interested; we find him exploring new territory
in the northern parts of Greece. We see him once more, like the
commander of an army who sends his aides-de-camp all over the field of
battle, sending out his young assistants to organize and watch over the
churches.
185. But this was not to last long. An event had happened immediately
after his release from prison which could not but influence his fate.
This was the burning of Rome--an appalling disaster, the glare of which
even at this distance makes the heart shudder. It was probably a mad
freak of the malicious monster who then wore the imperial purple. But
Nero saw fit to attribute it to the Christians, and instantly the most
atrocious persecution broke out against them. Of course the fame of
this soon spread over the Roman world; and it was not likely that the
foremost apostle of Christianity could long escape. Every Roman
governor knew that he could not do the emperor a more pleasing service
than by sending to him Paul in chains.
186. Second Imprisonment.--It was not long, accordingly, before Paul
was lying once more in prison at Rome; and it was no mild imprisonment
this time, but the worst known to the law. No troops of friends now
filled his room; for the Christians of Rome had been massacred or
scattered, and it was dangerous for any one to avow himself a
Christian. We have a letter written from his dungeon, the last he ever
wrote, the Second Epistle to Timothy, which affords us a glimpse of
unspeakable pathos into the circumstances of the prisoner. He tells us
that one part of his trial is already over. Not a friend stood by him
as he faced the bloodthirsty tyrant who sat on the judgment-seat. But
the Lord stood by him and enabled him to make the emperor and the
spectators in the crowded basilica hear the sound of the gospel. The
charge against him had broken down. But he had no hope of escape.
Other stages of the trial had yet to come, and he knew that evidence to
condemn him would either be discovered or manufactured.
The letter betrays the miseries of his dungeon. He prays Timothy to
bring a cloak he had left at Troas, to defend him from the damp of the
cell and the cold of the winter. He asks for his books and parchments,
that he may relieve the tedium of his solitary hours with the studies
he had always loved. But, above all, he beseeches Timothy to come
himself; for he was longing to feel the touch of a friendly hand and
see the face of a friend yet once again before he died.
Was the brave heart then conquered at last? Read the Epistle and see.
How does it begin? "I also suffer these things; nevertheless I am not
ashamed; for I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that He is
able to keep that which I have committed unto Him against that day."
How does it end? "I am now ready to be offered, and the time of my
departure is at hand. I have fought a good fight, I have finished my
course, I have kept the faith. Henceforth there is laid up for me a
crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, shall give
me at that day; and not to me only, but unto all them that love His
appearing." That is not the strain of the vanquished.
187. Trial.--There can be little doubt that he appeared again at
Nero's bar, and this time the charge did not break down. In all
history there is not a more startling illustration of the irony of
human life than this scene of Paul at the bar of Nero. On the
judgment-seat, clad in the imperial purple, sat a man who in a bad
world had attained the eminence of being the very worst and meanest
being in it--a man stained with every crime, the murderer of his own
mother, of his wives and of his best benefactors; a man whose whole
being was so steeped in every namable and unnamable vice that body and
soul of him were, as some one said at the time, nothing but a compound
of mud and blood; and in the prisoner's dock stood the best man the
world contained, his hair whitened with labors for the good of men and
the glory of God. Such was the occupant of the seat of justice, and
such the man who stood in the place of the criminal.
188. Death.--The trial ended, Paul was condemned and delivered over to
the executioner. He was led out of the city with a crowd of the lowest
rabble at his heels. The fatal spot was reached; he knelt beside the
block; the headsman's axe gleamed in the sun and fell; and the head of
the apostle of the world rolled down in the dust.
189. So sin did its uttermost and its worst. Yet how poor and empty
was its triumph! The blow of the axe only smote off the lock of the
prison and let the spirit go forth to its home and to its crown. The
city falsely called eternal dismissed him with execration from her
gates; but ten thousand times ten thousand welcomed him in the same
hour at the gates of the city which is really eternal. Even on earth
Paul could not die. He lives among us to-day with a life a hundredfold
more influential than that which throbbed in his brain whilst the
earthly form which made him visible still lingered on the earth.
Wherever the feet of them who publish the glad tidings go forth
beautiful upon the mountains, he walks by their side as an inspirer and
a guide; in ten thousand churches every Sabbath and on a thousand
thousand hearths every day his eloquent lips still teach that gospel of
which he was never ashamed; and, wherever there are human souls
searching for the white flower of holiness or climbing the difficult
heights of self-denial, there he whose life was so pure, whose devotion
to Christ was so entire, and whose pursuit of a single purpose was so
unceasing, is welcomed as the best of friends.
HINTS TO TEACHERS AND QUESTIONS FOR PUPILS
Teacher's Apparatus.--English theology has no juster cause for pride
than the books it has produced on the Life of Paul. Perhaps there is
no other subject in which it has so outdistanced all rivals. Conybeare
and Howson's _Life and Epistles of St. Paul_ will probably always keep
the foremost place; in many respects it is nearly perfect; and a
teacher who has mastered it will be sufficiently equipped for his work
and require no other help. The works of Lewin and Farrar are written
on the same lines; the former is rich in maps of countries and plans of
towns; and the strong point of the latter is the analysis of Paul's
writings--the exposition of the mind of Paul. Sir William Ramsay has
made the whole subject peculiarly his own by the enthusiasm and labors
of a lifetime. The German books are not nearly so valuable.
Hausrath's _The Apostle Paul_ is a brilliant performance, but it is as
weak in handling the deeper things as it is strong in coloring up the
external and picturesque features of the subject. Baur's work is an
amazingly clever _tour de force_, but it is not so much a
well-proportioned picture of the apostle as a prolonged paradox thrown
down as a challenge to the learned. The latest large German work,
Clemen's _Paulus_, proceeds on the principle that the miracle is
untrue, and the effect may be sufficiently seen in the account it gives
of the first visit to Philippi. In Weinal's _Paulus_, pp. 312, 313,
there appears a forbidding picture of the effects produced by the
teaching of the subject in the author's country; in our country, on the
contrary, it has long been among the most attractive subjects for both
teachers and students. Adolphe Monod's _Saint Paul_, a series of five
discourses, is an inquiry into the secret of the apostle's life,
written with deep sympathy and glowing eloquence; and Renan's work,
with the same title, gives, with unrivaled brilliance, a picture of the
world in which the apostle lived, if not of the apostle himself. There
are books on the subject which do honor to American scholarship from
the pens of Cone, Gilbert, Bacon and A. T. Robertson, the last
mentioned with a valuable bibliography. But the best help is to be
found in the original sources themselves--the cameolike pictures of
Luke and the self-revelations of Paul's Epistles. The latter
especially, read in the fresh translation of Conybeare, will show the
apostle to any one who has eyes to see. Johnstone's wall-map of Paul's
journey is indispensable in the class-room.
CHAPTER I
Paragraph 2. Subject of class essay--Paul and the other Apostles:
Points of Connection and Contrast.
5. Subject of class essay--Relation of Christianity to Learning and
Intellectual Gifts: its Use of them and its Independence of them.
9. _Quote passages of Scripture in which Paul's destination to be the
missionary of the Gentiles is expressed._
CHAPTER II
On the external features of the period embraced in this chapter compare
the corresponding pages of Hausrath; on the internal features see
Principal Rainy's lecture on Paul in _The Evangelical Succession
Lectures_, vol. i.
14. On the chronology of Paul's life see the notes at the end of
Conybeare and Howson, and Farrar, ii. 623.
The principal dates may be given at this stage from Conybeare and
Howson, for reference throughout:
A.D.
36. Conversion.
38. Flight to Tarsus.
44. Brought to Antioch by Barnabas.
48. First Missionary Journey.
50. Council at Jerusalem.
51-54. Second Missionary Journey. 1 and 2 _Thessalonians_
written at Corinth.
54-58. Third Missionary Journey.
57. 1 _Corinthians_ written at Ephesus; 2 _Corinthians_, in
Macedonia; _Galatians_, at Corinth.
58. _Romans_ written at Corinth. Arrest at Jerusalem.
59. In prison at Caesarea.
60. Voyage to Rome.
62. _Philemon, Colossians, Ephesians, Philippians_,
written at Rome.
63. Release from prison.
67. 1 _Timothy_ and _Titus_ written.
68. In prison again at Rome. 2 _Timothy_. Death.
With these may be compared some of Ramsay's dates--the conversion, 33;
First Missionary Journey, 47-49; Second, 50-53; Third, 53-57; Voyage to
Rome, 59, 60; Trial and Acquittal, 61; Second Trial, 67.
Whereas Conybeare and Howson consider Galatians to have been written,
in close conjunction with Romans, at Corinth during the Fourth
Missionary Journey, Ramsay believes it to have been written at Antioch
before this journey commenced; and, whereas the older authorities
suppose it to be addressed to Galatians evangelized by Paul during the
Second Missionary Journey, though no details of such a conquest are
found in Acts, Ramsay holds the recipients of the Epistle to have been
the churches in the interior of Asia Minor evangelized during the First
Missionary Journey, the regions of Phrygia and Lycaonia in which these
were situated forming at that time part of the Province of Galatia, the
boundaries of which had been extended. This is the South Galatian
theory, the fullest statement and defence of which will be found in
Hastings' _Dictionary of the Bible_, vol. v.
15. The goat's-hair cloth was called "cilicium," from the name of the
province.
16. Dean Howson's _Metaphors of St. Paul_. Also Hausrath, p. 15.
18. Compare the long lists of sins frequent in the Epistle.
23. Subject for class essay: Paul's First Sight of Jerusalem.
27. A startling picture of the state of society in Jerusalem might be
constructed from the materials supplied in Matt. xxiii.
28. Detailed comparison of the experience of Paul with that of Luther:
their early religious ideas; the state of religion around them; their
failure to find peace and their sufferings of conscience; their
discovery of the righteousness of God.
On the religious associations of Paul's early life see the first 100
pages of Reuss' _Christian Theology in the Apostolic Age_.
31. On the history of Christianity between the death of Christ and the
conversion of St. Paul see Dykes' _From Jerusalem to Antioch_.
34. The question whether Paul was married. His views on the place of
woman.
35. Perhaps Acts xxvi. 11 may not imply that any of the Christians
yielded to his endeavors to make them blaspheme.
15. _What was the Latin name for a town enjoying the political
privileges possessed by Tarsus?_
16. _What are Paul's principal metaphors?_
17. _Where does he make this boast?_
19. _What was the Latin name for the Roman citizenship, and what
privileges did it include? On what occasions is Paul recorded to have
used it? On what occasions might he have been expected to use it, when
he omitted to do so? What reasons may be given for the omission?_
20. _Name friends of Paul who were engaged in the same trade as he._
21. _Give Paul's quotations from the Greek poets. Do you know the
authors he quoted from? Explain Septuagint and Diaspora._
22. _Where does Paul refer to the sophists and rhetoricians?_
26. _Make a collection of Paul's quotations from the Old Testament,
showing whence each of them was taken._
28. _What does Paul mean by the Law?_
32. _Trace out the points of contact between the language and views of
Stephen's speech and those of Paul. Explain--_
"_Si Stephanus non orasset_,
_Ecclesia Paulum non haberet._"
34. _Where is it said that Paul voted in the Sanhedrim?_
45. _Collect Paul's references to the persecution and bring out how
severe it was._
CHAPTER III
On Paul's mental processes before and at the time of his conversion see
Principal Rainy's lecture, already quoted.
The conversion of Paul is one of the strong apologetic positions of
Christianity. See this worked out in Lyttelton's _Conversion of St.
Paul_. But it might be worked out afresh on more modern lines.
40. Principal Rainy, in the lecture above referred to, says that he
sees no evidence of such a conflict as this in Paul's mind; but what,
then, is the meaning of "It is hard for thee to kick against the
pricks"?
41. The general tenor of the earliest Christian apologetic, as it is
to be found in the speeches of the Acts of the Apostles.
44. Nothing could be more alien to the spirit of the New Testament
than to turn this round the other way, and, assuming that what Paul saw
was only a vision, argue that the other appearances of Christ, because
they are put on the same level, may have been only visions too. This
is a mere stroke of dialectical cleverness, which shows no regard to
the obvious intention of the writers.
_There are three accounts of the conversion of Paul in the Acts. What
is the significance of this reduplication in so small a book?
Enumerate the differences between these accounts, and explain them._
38. _Prove that the first Christians called Christianity_ THE WAY,
_and explain the signification of this name._
CHAPTER IV
On the subject of this chapter see the works on Pauline Theology by
Pfleiderer, Bruce, Du Bose, Titius and Stevens, also the relevant
portions of any of the Handbooks of New Testament Theology--Weiss,
Reuss, Schmid, van Oosterzee, Beyschlag, Holtzmann, and Stevens.
Weiss' exposition is among the most solid and trustworthy. He divides
Paulinism into four sections:--
I. THE EARLIEST GOSPEL OF PAUL DURING THE HEATHEN MISSION (gathered
from Thessalonians). One chapter--the Gospel as the Way of Deliverance
from Judgment.
II. THE DOCTRINAL SYSTEM OF THE FOUR GREAT DOCTRINAL AND CONTROVERSIAL
EPISTLES (Corinthians, Romans, Galatians). Ch. i. Universal Sinfulness
of Man; ch. ii. Heathenism and Judaism; ch. iii. Prophecy and
Fulfilment; ch. iv. Christology; ch. v. Redemption and Justification;
ch. vi. The New Life; ch. vii. The Doctrine of Predestination; ch.
viii. The Doctrine of the Church; ch. ix. The Last Things.
III. THE DEVELOPMENT OP THE DOCTRINE IN THE EPISTLES WRITTEN IN PRISON
(Colossians, Ephesians, Philippians, Philemon). Ch. i. The Pauline
Foundations; ch. ii. Further Development of Doctrine.
IV. THE TEACHING OF THE PASTORAL EPISTLES. One chapter--Christianity
as Doctrine.
51. Subject for class essay. The Sources of St. Paul's Theology.
52. Luther in the Wartburg.
54-65. As these paragraphs are nothing but a paraphrase of Rom.
i.-viii., pupils ought to be asked to compare with them the
corresponding paragraphs of the Epistle.
56. Compare Tholuck, The Moral Character of Heathendom.
65. On Paul's Psychology see the monograph of Simon and the Handbooks
of Biblical Psychology by Delitzsch and Beck: also Heard, _The
Tripartite Nature of Man_, Laidlaw, _The Bible Doctrine of Man_, and
Dickson, _St. Paul's Use of the Terms Flesh and Spirit_.
67. Compare Somerville, _St. Paul's Conception of Christ_, and
Knowling, _The Testimony of St. Paul to Christ_.
51. _Where does Paul mention his journey to Arabia?_
56. _What is the connection between moral and intellectual degeneracy?_
62. _Where does Paul speak of the Gospel as a "mystery," and what does
he mean by this word?_
65. _Does Paul divide human nature into two or into three sections?
Do you know the theological names for these alternatives? Does Paul
regard the unregenerate man as possessing the part of human nature
which he calls "spirit"?_
67. _Enumerate the incidents of Christ's earthly life referred to by
Paul._
CHAPTER V
On this subject see the first two chapters of Conybeare and Howson;
_New Testament Times_ of Hausrath or Schürer; Fairweather, _From the
Exile to the Advent_, Moss, _From Malachi to Matthew_.
72. Subject of class essay: The Origin and Significance of the name
"Christian."
72. _By what other names were the Christians called in New Testament
times, among themselves or among their enemies?_
78. _What did the Greeks, the Romans, and the Jews severally
contribute to Christianity?_
CHAPTER VI
The aim of this Handbook, as of _The Life of Jesus Christ_ in the same
series, being to show at a single glance the general course of the life
and the principal objects it touched, a good many details have been
omitted. This is especially the case in this chapter and in chapter x.
The omissions cause those great features to stand out more prominently
which details are apt to obscure. In this chapter an endeavor has been
made to show in this way what were the different regions into which the
apostle traveled, and what the peculiarities and the extent of the work
he did in each. But in an extended Bible Class course the lessons will
naturally go more into detail, and perhaps the incidents which took
place in each town may generally form a lesson. Here, therefore, and
at the beginning of chap. x., a few hints may be given of the
viewpoints for the lessons, in so far as these are not already supplied
in the text.
Acts xiii. 1-12. First Footsteps of Christian Missions.
" " 14-52. _Antioch_. Paul's Missionary Method.
" xiv. 1-6. _Iconium_. Among the Jews.
" " 6-20. _Lystra_. Among the Heathens.
" " 21-28. Paul as a Pastor.
" xv. Paul as an Ecclesiastic.
Acts xvi. 1-6. The New Companion.
" " 6-10. Opening up Virgin Soil.
" " 12-40. _Philippi_. Transfiguration and Disfiguration
of Humanity.
" xvii. 1-9. _Thessalonica_. An Honorable Reproach.
" " 10-14. _Beroea_. Rare Freedom from Prejudice.
" " 15-34. _Athens_. The Gospel and Intellectual
Curiosity.
" xviii. 1-3. _Corinth_. Paul's earthly Home.
" " 4-17. The Missionary's Discouragements
and Encouragements.
" " 23-28. A polished Shaft in God's Quiver.
" xix. _Ephesus_. See the text. Also, Conflict of
Christianity with Vested Interests and
Mob Violence.
79. Howson's _Companions of St. Paul_.
81. A minute inspection of Acts xiii. 9 will confirm the view here
given of the change of name, though it is difficult to get rid of the
idea that the conversion of the governor, who bore the same name, had
something to do with it.
84. On the worship of the synagogue see Farrar's _Life of Christ_, i.
220.
89. On the Council of Jerusalem, which took place between the first
and second journeys, see ch. ix.
93. What is here said of the plan of the Acts explains still more
strikingly the meagerness of the record of the third journey.
97. Beroea was to the south of the Via Egnatia.
99. Subject of class essay: The Influence of Christianity on the Lot
of Woman.
103. Subject of class essay: Paul at Athens.
104. Subject of class essay: Paul and Socrates.
113. A strong argument against the mythical theory of the miracles of
our Lord may be constructed from the paucity of the miracles attributed
to Paul. If that age naturally wove miraculous legends round great
names, why did it not encircle Paul with a continuous web of miracle?
and why does the New Testament admit that the Baptist worked no miracle?
114. See Ramsay, _Letters to the Seven Churches_.
79. _Give a list of Paul's companions and friends mentioned in the New
Testament._
84. _What were the charges generally brought against him before the
authorities?_
91. _Where in his writings does he mention Barnabas and Mark?_
93. _Give the places in Acts where the items of this catalogue are
recorded._
94. _Mention other classical associations of this region._
98. _What two kings of Macedonia are famous in history?_
102. _Expand these allusions to Greek history._
103. _Give a number of the names associated with the golden age of
Athens and mention what they were famous for._
108. _Find out all the visions mentioned in Paul's life, and prove
that they were given him at the crises of his history._
110. _Distinguish our Asia and Asia Minor from the Asia of the New
Testament._
CHAPTER VII
In the chronological table, p. 138, the dates of the Epistles have
already been given and the points of the history indicated where they
come in. It is a pity the Epistles are not arranged in chronological
order in our Bibles. Their characteristics may be mentioned:
1 and 2 _Thessalonians_. Simple beginnings. Attitude
to Christ's second coming.
1 _Corinthians_. Picture of an apostolic church.
2 _Corinthians_. Paul's portrait of himself.
_Galatians_. Vehement polemic against Judaizers.
_Romans_. Paul's gospel.
_Philemon_. Example of Christian courtesy.
_Colossians_ and _Ephesians_. Paul's later gospel.
_Philippians_. Picture of Roman imprisonment.
1 _Timothy_ and _Titus_. Form of the church.
2 _Timothy_. The last scenes.
Ramsay places _Galatians_ before 1 and 2 _Corinthians_; compare p. 139
above.
116. Compare Shaw, _The Pauline Epistles_.
118. On Paul's style see Farrar's Excursus at the close of vol. i.
The comparison of it to that of Thucydides is more dignified than that
of the text, but less true.
119. Inspiration did not interfere with natural characteristics of
style. It made the writer not less but more himself, while of course
it imparted to the products of his pen a divine value and authority.
120-127. Howson's _Character of St. Paul_; Speer, _The Man Paul_;
Hausrath, 45-57; Baur's remarks (ii. 294 ff.) on his intellectual
character are very good. But the principal sources are 2 Corinthians
and Acts xx.
122. Farrar's treatment of Paul's bodily infirmities is a serious blot
on his book; for these are obtruded with a frequency and exaggeration
which produce an impression quite different from that made by the
references to them in Scripture. This is still truer of Baring-Gould's
_Study of St. Paul_. For a treatment of the same subject, realistic,
but full of sympathy and delicacy, see Monod. Ramsay is of opinion
that the "thorn in the flesh" was chronic malarial fever.
122 ff. _Illustrate these paragraphs fully from Scripture._
128. _Compare Paul with Livingstone and other missionaries._
CHAPTER VIII
On this subject compare Neander's _Planting of Christianity_, Book ii.,
ch. 7, and Schaff's _Church History_; also Bannerman's _Church of
Christ_. This chapter is only a piecing together of the information
scattered through 1 Corinthians. It would be well to get pupils to
seek out the passages of the Epistle which correspond to the different
paragraphs. A picture of a Pauline church of a later date might be
compiled in the same way from the Pastoral Epistles.
136. The doctrine of the Holy Spirit was revealed "at sundry times and
in divers manners," and the complete doctrine is to be obtained by
uniting the representations of the various writers of Scripture. In
the New Testament there are four phases--1. In the Synoptical Gospels
the Holy Spirit is set forth in His influence on the human nature of
Christ; 2. in the Acts and Paul, as the power for founding the Church
and converting the world; 3. in Paul as the principle of the new life
of Christians; 4. in John as the Comforter.
138. Compare the irregularities of other periods of vast change,
_e.g._, the Reformation.
144. On the extent to which an authoritative ecclesiastical system is
given in the New Testament compare _Jus Divinum Presbyterii_ and
Hooker's _Ecclesiastical Polity_.
130. _Give the names of the principal games of ancient times, derived
from the places where they were held._
131. _Where are churches mentioned as meeting in the houses of
individuals?_
132. _Explain the words "barbarian," "Scythian," in Col. iii. 11._
135. _What modern divine endeavored to revive these phenomena, and
what is the name of the church he founded? What is the meaning of the
word "charism"? Were the tongues of Pentecost the same as those of 1
Corinthians? Give instances in which New Testament prophets did
predict future events._
CHAPTER IX
The criticism which seeks to disintegrate the New Testament writings
and set the apostles against one another is founded on a revival of the
claim of the Judaizers that their propaganda had the sanction of Peter
and the other original apostles. In a Handbook like this it is
impossible to discuss at any length the Tübingen Theory. But some of
its points are silently met in the text; and the whole theory is
answered by an attempt to give a view of the course of the controversy
which covers all the facts. The distinction drawn in paragraphs 159
ff. between the central question in dispute and a subordinate aspect of
the controversy will be found to clear up many intricacies. Compare
Sorley's _Jewish Christians and Judaism_.
This chapter is full of references to passages in Acts and Galatians,
which pupils ought to be asked to produce.
CHAPTER X
Viewpoints for lessons on details omitted or only lightly referred to
in the text:
Acts xx. 4-16. Paul the Hirer of Laborers for Christ's
Vineyard: the Unwearied Preacher (_Troas_).
" " 17-38. The Man of Heart (_Miletus_).
" xxii. Final Effort to save his Country.
" xxiii. 1-10. In the Dock where he had placed others.
" xxiii. 22-27. The Preacher of Righteousness.
" xxvi. The Inspired Student.
" xxvii. Paul as a Ruler of Men.
" xxviii. The benevolence of Nature and that of Grace (_Malta_).
171. See notes on ch. iv., p. 141.
The authenticity of Ephesians and Colossians can only be denied by
ignoring the impression of majesty and profundity which they have made
on the greatest minds. (See the Introductions in Meyer and Alford.)
What other mind of those ages except Paul's could have erected a
structure so magnificent on the very foundations of the Epistle to the
Romans? or in what other mind was there such a union of the doctrinal
and the ethical?
In John's writings the relation of believers to Christ is illustrated
by a far higher comparison: it is compared to the union of Father and
Son in the Deity.
172. See Ernesti: _The Ethic of Paul_; also Juncker.
174. See Smith's _Voyage of St. Paul_; also Sir William Ramsay's
article on Roads and Travel in Hastings' _Dictionary of the Bible_,
vol. v.
176. Burrus, the Praetorian Prefect. So Conybeare and Howson; but
Ramsay, following Mommsen, holds the officer to have been the princeps
peregrinorum, whose quarters lay on the Coelian Hill.
On the various kinds of imprisonment in Roman law see Ramsay's _Roman
Antiquities_, ch. ix.
177-182. The materials for this account of Paul's prison life at Rome
are chiefly gathered from the Epistle to the Philippians.
184. On the genuineness of the Pastoral Epistles see essay by Findley
in Sabatier's _The Apostle Paul_. The comparative lack of doctrinal
matter in them is accounted for by the fact that they were written to
ministers well acquainted with his doctrinal system.
188. At Tre Fontane, to the south of Rome, the traditional scene of
the execution is still pointed out; and not far off stands St.
Paul's-outside-the-Walls, one of the most gorgeous churches in the
world.
164. _Trace out the different collections which Paul is recorded to
have been engaged with._
166. _What were the courts of the temple; and what was the name of the
Roman fortress which overlooked them?_
171. _How often does the phrase "in Christ" (or "in" with pronouns
referring to Christ) occur in Ephesians?_
172. _Give examples from Paul's writings of the application of great
principles to small duties._
175. _Give the names and localities of other great Roman roads.
Describe a Roman triumph._
179. _Narrate the story of Onesimus, gathering it from the Epistle to
Philemon._
184. _Explain the name of the Pastoral Epistles._