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The Many-Sided Paul 
 
 A Study of the Character 
 of the Great Apostle as 
 unfolded in The Acts and 
 the Pauline Epistles . . 
 
 BY 
 
 GEORGE FRANCIS GREENE 
 
 Minister of the Presbyterian Church, Cranford, New Jersey 
 
 Grasp but about thee, in this life so rich, so free, 
 And where thou touchest it will interest thee." 
 
 PHILADELPHIA 
 
 THE WESTMINSTER PRESS 
 1901 
 
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 Tin, t ^Pyright, i 9 oi, by 
 
 Ahe Trustees of thf p^c 
 
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 This Book is Affectionately Inscribed 
 
Preface 
 
 This little work does not profess to be another 
 of the now numerous biographies of the Apostle 
 Paul, nor is it a study of the Pauline Theology. 
 It is simply an attempt to present in popular 
 form a tolerably complete, though condensed, 
 review of the character of the great apostle by 
 arranging under their proper heads the materials 
 for the portraiture that are in the New Testament. 
 The one work with the plan of which my aim 
 most nearly coincides, so far as I am acquainted 
 with the literature of the subject, is Dr. J. S. 
 Howson's The Character of St. Paul. But How- 
 son's study, brilliant, sympathetic and spiritual 
 as it is, does not claim completeness in any 
 sense — it sets forth four or five aspects of its 
 subject only. I have tried to attach to the frame- 
 work of my scheme all the principal features of 
 the apostle's history as revealed objectively in The 
 5 
 
6 PREFACE 
 
 Acts and subjectively in the Pauline letters, to- 
 gether with the main outlines of his teaching so 
 far as these throw light on the apostle's own per- 
 sonality. So far as I know, then, my plan is 
 unique in that it aims to discuss, though often 
 very cursorily, all the main features of the ma- 
 terial in question, not as sources of a biography, 
 nor as elements of a department of biblical 
 theology, but as indications of a character. 
 
 While I trust that I have dealt justly with the 
 historical matters involved, and that I have placed 
 a correct interpretation on the language of the 
 apostle, I do not offer this work as a contribu- 
 tion to critical scholarship. It is sent forth with 
 the hope that it may serve to profit some at 
 least of the large class of wide-awake, intelli- 
 gent Christians who in a busy world have little 
 time to use helps to the understanding of the 
 great personages and the great teachings of 
 God's word other than their English Bibles and 
 their concordances. Possibly there are Sunday- 
 school teachers, — now that the topical study of 
 the Bible is beginning to receive larger attention 
 in our Bible schools, — who may find in the fol- 
 lowing pages an outline of an important field of 
 study which they may profitably enlarge upon. 
 Possibly, also, there are students for the minis- 
 
PREFACE 7 
 
 try who may be aided in catching somewhat of 
 the sublime spirit of the great apostle from this 
 brief account of the qualities and methods of the 
 greatest preacher since Pentecost. But it is to 
 the average reader that the work is chiefly ad- 
 dressed. 
 
 I deem it unnecessary to justify myself for 
 adding another to the almost endless list of 
 essays upon this noble subject. It is one of the 
 best evidences of the divine source of the apos- 
 tle's power and grandeur of spiritual stature that 
 the world never tires of our theme. The study 
 of St. Paul is like the study of life itself, — so 
 long as men recognize as features of human 
 thought and character the struggle with guilt 
 and sin, and the aspiration after holiness and 
 God and a blessed immortality, so long will the 
 Christian consciousness gladly welcome new trib- 
 utes to the wondrous personality of this " slave 
 of Christ"; so long will the last word concern- 
 ing him yet remain unsaid. 
 
 I am not unfamiliar with many of the radical 
 and unsympathetic treatises on the general sub- 
 ject that have appeared in English and German 
 during the past three decades; but I do not deem 
 it necessary here to name even a partial list of 
 them. A good bibliography of the subject, 
 
8 PREFACE 
 
 which may be consulted by those who are in- 
 terested, is appended to Stevens' The Pauline 
 Theology. 
 
 In the use of Scripture quotations I have uni- 
 formly followed the text of the Revised Version. 
 
 G. F. G. 
 
 Cranford, New Jersey, February, 1901. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 i 
 
 The Pre-Christian Paul n 
 
 II 
 
 The Faith of St. Paul 31 
 
 III 
 St. Paul the Preacher 51 
 
 IV 
 
 St. Paul the Missionary 77 
 
 V 
 St. Paul the Pastor 99 
 
 VI 
 
 The Intellectual Greatness of St. Paul 125 
 
 VII 
 
 The Friendships of St. Paul 147 
 
 VIII 
 
 St. Paul the Gentleman 167 
 
 9 
 
io Contents 
 
 IX 
 St. Paul the Theologian 189 
 
 X 
 
 St. Paul's Christlikeness . . . . 219 
 
 Appendix I, Approximate dates, etc 245 
 
 Appendix II, The Epistles of St. Paul 247 
 
 Index of Scripture References ... 249 
 
 General Index 255 
 
THE PRE-CHRISTIAN PAUL 
 
Ere stars were thundergirt, or piled 
 
 The heavens, God thought on me his child ; 
 
 Ordained a life for me, arrayed 
 
 Its circumstances, every one 
 
 To the minutest. 
 
 — Robert Browning. 
 
 I am a Jew, born in Tarsus of Cilicia, but brought up in this 
 city, at the feet of Gamaliel, instructed according to the strict 
 manner of the law of our fathers, being zealous for God.— 
 Acts 22 : j. 
 
THE PRE-CHRISTIAN PAUL 
 
 What was St. Paul prior to his conversion ? In 
 considering the early life of this most remarkable 
 of men we shall dwell less on its outer than on 
 its inner features. 
 
 A few words must suffice to summarize the 
 events of the period closing with the Damascus 
 noon. About the time that the angels were 
 heralding the birth of Jesus in little Bethlehem, 
 Paul was born in the populous Cilician city on 
 the Cydnus — two streams rising far apart, though 
 at nearly the same hour in the ages, and destined 
 the one marvelously to absorb into its own 
 bosom the waters of the other. It was probably 
 at the age of thirteen 1 that the young Jew of 
 Tarsus was sent to Jerusalem to complete a rab- 
 binic education. May not his first visit to the 
 holy city have corresponded in time with the 
 
 14 'At five years of age, let children begin the Scripture; at ten, the 
 Mischna ; at thirteen, let them be subjects of the law." — {The Mischna, 
 quoted by Tholuck.) This presents our reason for suggesting the age of the 
 young Paul as thirteen at his first visit to Jerusalem. So Farrar. Godet, 
 however, {Introduction to Romans) says "twelve." 
 
 13 
 
i 4 THE MANY-SIDED PAUL 
 
 first visit of Jesus at the age of twelve to the city 
 of David? Possibly; though it does not appear 
 that he ever consciously beheld Jesus during the 
 earthly life of our Lord. Here, then, the young 
 Paul studied, while doubtless a member of the 
 household of a married sister (cf. Acts 2y. 16), 
 under the direction of the gentle and far-famed 
 Gamaliel. His severe rabbinic studies ended, he 
 appears to have left Jerusalem not to return until 
 after the Ascension and the momentous events 
 of the day of Pentecost. Our first clear view of 
 him subsequent to his student period is when 
 we see him, "a young man" (Acts 7: 58), prob- 
 ably between thirty and thirty-five years of age, 
 standing among the official enemies of Christi- 
 anity over the mangled body of Stephen. This 
 was the beginning of the last and darkest hour 
 of the night. His journey to the north, soon 
 afterwards, on an errand of terror and death, and 
 his effective arrest on the way by the Spirit of 
 God, marked the opening of the dawn. 
 
 It is generally admitted that elements of a 
 providential preparation for the apostolic career 
 of St. Paul are discoverable in the portion of his 
 life preceding his conversion. His twofold na- 
 tionality — a "Hebrew of Hebrews" in family 
 (Phil. 3:552 Cor. 1 1 : 22), a " freeborn " Roman in 
 
THE PRE-CHRISTIAN PAUL 15 
 
 citizenship (Acts 22: 28) — is one of these ele- 
 ments that have received frequent recognition. 
 As an educated Jew he treasured the "oracles" 
 of God (Rom. 3: 2), priceless in their threefold 
 value as law, prophecy, and psalmody; while he 
 shared the Messianic hope in common with the 
 chosen people. The ancient predictions of the 
 Christ were at his tongue's end, though he did 
 not until later comprehend their true meaning. 
 He could trace from its beginning the line of 
 Messianic teaching which extends like a thread 
 of gold from Genesis to Malachi. Thus in his 
 Christian period he would be well prepared to 
 preach the Christ of prophecy to the covenant 
 people; and as a Roman citizen there would be 
 opened to him as Christ-bearer many a gate in the 
 Gentile world that no political alien could hope 
 to enter. It has also frequently been pointed 
 out that the knowledge of Greek letters and life 
 which he must have gained under the shadow 
 of the university of Tarsus, was a provision 
 divinely ordered to equip him for his apostle- 
 ship. We can hardly believe that he was ever 
 an enrolled student of that university; for the 
 poetry, the mythology, and even the history of 
 Greece, would probably have been frowned on 
 as heathenish by his devout parents. But a 
 
1 6 THE MANY-SIDED PAUL 
 
 great mind cannot dwell for years beside an 
 important school of learning without catching 
 somewhat of its spirit; and certainly from some 
 source in his early days the apostle learned 
 enough of Greek life and manners to enable 
 him afterwards to feel at his ease among the 
 schoolmen of the " Mother of arts and elo- 
 quence," and to stand unabashed in the polished 
 circles of Corinth. 1 Add to the foregoing the 
 fact that in being taught a trade— and one, too, 
 that could be profitably employed almost any- 
 where, — he was insured against the helplessness 
 of utter poverty in unfriendly situations, — thus 
 made like "a vineyard that is fenced," — and we 
 have before us the principal features of the early 
 providential preparation of St. Paul for his apos- 
 tleship that are usually specified. 
 
 In these ways was this marvelous character 
 being fitted during the first three decades of his 
 life for his sublime mission. But a close inspec- 
 tion reveals likewise the hand of God during his 
 early years in establishing within him certain 
 moral qualities as forerunners of his ensuing 
 
 1 It is generally agreed now among scholars, we believe, that the three 
 quotations from Greek poets found in St. Paul's writings form an insuffi- 
 cient proof of the claim that he was deeply versed in Greek literature. The 
 three quotations in question appear in Acts 17 : 28 ; 1 Cor. 15 : 33 ; Tit. 
 1 : 12. 
 
THE PRE-CHRISTIAN PAUL 17 
 
 faith. We are inclined to think that too much 
 has commonly been made of the antagonisms 
 between the two great divisions of his life and 
 too little of their points of agreement. The 
 pulpit has too frequently drawn a parallel be- 
 tween the conversion of utterly infidel and god- 
 less persons and that of this man who, however 
 misled, never knowingly opposed truth and 
 never did violence to his conscience. Theolo- 
 gians have often erred in presenting the impres- 
 sion that the chill and blackness of the grave are 
 not more antagonistic to the glow and glory of 
 the resurrection dawn than the early character of 
 St. Paul was opposed to his later character. But 
 must we not see, on the contrary, that there was 
 a spiritual and logical connection between the 
 two divisions of his life ? Was he not, in a 
 sense, a child of grace from the very beginning ? 
 Instead of representing his conversion as a chasm 
 between the two sections of his career, should 
 we not rather regard it as a bridge? Or, to 
 change the figure, are we not nearer right in 
 regarding the relation between Paul the Pharisee 1 
 and St. Paul the Christian as that between the 
 seedtime and the harvest, than in regarding it 
 
 1 1 do not think it necessary, considering the scope of this essay, to dwell 
 on the significance of the two names of our subject— Saul and Paul. I use 
 the latter designation exclusively. 
 
1 8 THE MANY-SIDED PAUL 
 
 as that between a dead planet and a world of 
 
 warmth and light ? Viewed strictly as an ac- 
 ceptance of Christ the conversion of St. Paul was 
 no more remarkable than that of Matthew the 
 publican, or Peter the fisherman, though its ac- 
 companying features were more dramatic and 
 striking. It was less remarkable as a spiritual 
 revelation than the conversion of a man like Cor- 
 nelius, for instance, in whom we cannot believe 
 that there were early moral forces so directly, so 
 urgently, impelling toward the light. What we 
 mean is this: The complex of moral forces at 
 work in the soul and experience of St. Paul from 
 his birth, and which sprang from his heredity, 
 his environment, his training, and above all 
 from the constraining action of the Spirit of 
 God, impelled him as irresistibly toward the 
 result of the experience of the Damascus road 
 as the needle points to the pole. The eye of 
 Omniscience must have seen the end from the 
 beginning. At his first breath the stamp of 
 Christ's ownership was upon his soul, though 
 men knew it not. 
 
 And this was the matured view of the apostle 
 himself. He tells the Galatians that his Christian 
 experience and apostleship were due to the 
 "good pleasure of God, who separated " him, 
 
THE PRE-CHRISTIAN PAUL 19 
 
 "even from " his "mother's womb, and called" 
 him "through his grace, to reveal his Son " in him 
 (Gal. 1:15, 16). He was born into God's plan at 
 the moment he was born into the world. Nay, he 
 regards himself as an object of "prenatal grace"; 
 for in his letter to the Ephesians he classes him- 
 self with those whom God has chosen in Christ 
 before the foundation of the world (Eph. 1 : 4). 
 And later in the same letter he includes himself 
 with those who are God's "workmanship, cre- 
 ated in Christ Jesus for good works, which God 
 afore prepared that we should walk in them " 
 (Eph. 2: 10). And in his speech to his people in 
 Jerusalem at the beginning of his first imprison- 
 ment he quotes approvingly the words of Ana- 
 nias at his conversion: "The God of our fathers 
 hath appointed thee to know his will " (Acts 
 22'. 14). Plainly, in view of these representa- 
 tions, we must believe that a chain of moral 
 causes connected the Damascus high noon with 
 the indefinite past of this wondrous career. He 
 who appointed the places of Orion and the 
 Pleiades; He who led Israel in the time of the 
 desert wandering as well as in the time of the 
 possession of the goodly land; He who said to 
 Cyrus, "I have surnamed thee, though thou hast 
 not known me" (Isa. 45:4); He, the God of 
 
20 THE MANY-SIDED PAUL 
 
 grace and mercy, surely led Paul of the ante- 
 Christian days unerringly toward the birthday of 
 his apostleship. 1 
 
 But let us inquire concerning the particular 
 ways in which divine grace wrought in St. Paul's 
 moral nature during his early years to prepare 
 the way for his conversion. 
 
 First of all he was given a whole-hearted re- 
 spect for duty. We look in vain for any indica- 
 tion that he ever trifled with the eternal law of 
 right that is written on the conscience. He 
 obeyed his conscience from the beginning. As 
 one has well said: "He reverenced his con- 
 science as his king." In the full flush of his 
 Christian manhood he could sincerely declare to 
 the Sanhedrin: "Brethren, I have lived before 
 God in all good conscience until this day" 
 (Acts 2y. i). With unfaltering accent he was 
 able to declare to King Agrippa that though he 
 had been mistaken in his early career, yet he had 
 been sincere, in his opposition to the name of 
 Jesus: "I verily thought with myself, that I 
 
 1 "In a sense, and to an extent which I doubt if even Paul himself fully 
 realized, though he was mightily impressed by it, and repeatedly referred 
 to it, he was truly separated from his mother's womb for his special work." 
 — R. J. Drummond, The Relation of the Apostolic Teaching to the Teaching 
 of Christ, p. 53. (Kerr Lectures, 1899, 1900.) To emphasize this matter 
 is plainly to magnify divine grace and power as factors in the apostle's char- 
 acter and course. 
 
THE PRE-CHRISTIAN PAUL 21 
 
 ought to do many things contrary to the name of 
 Jesus of Nazareth " (Acts 26 : 9). And in old age, 
 unbosoming himself to his beloved Timothy, he 
 could declare that he had inherited from his an- 
 cestors a disposition to obey his conscience: "I 
 thank God, whom I serve from my forefathers in 
 a pure conscience" (2 Tim. 1 : 3). So then, even 
 in the darkest period of his life, when he appears 
 farthest from Christ, he does not reveal a delib- 
 erate trampling upon conscience. 
 
 Hence we are not surprised to find that he was 
 faithful always to the law of the Mosaic cove- 
 nant. "As touching the righteousness which is 
 in the law" he found himself " blameless" (Phil. 
 3: 6). So far as man could keep the law in heart 
 and life he kept it. The deceit and trickery of a 
 Jacob, the deliberate acts of wrongdoing of a 
 David, including covetousness, lust, and murder, 
 the impurity of a Solomon, — indeed, the stains of 
 apostasy and immorality that so frequently dis- 
 figure the characters of many of the notable men 
 of Hebrew history, — there is none of these ever 
 in the life of St. Paul. Such an attitude toward 
 duty, toward conscience, toward God's revela- 
 tion, must needs keep a man's face toward the 
 light. The words of Jesus to him at his con- 
 version: "It is hard for thee to kick against the 
 
22 THE MANY-SIDED PAUL 
 
 goad" (Acts 26: 14), imply that conscience had 
 been conversing with him on the way. As Farrar 
 well states it: "He was forced to go up into the 
 dark tribunal of his own conscience." 1 And as 
 he had always hitherto followed conscience he 
 would hardly have been himself if he had re- 
 fused to listen now to conscience' new word. 
 Thus his life training as a servant of conscience 
 was bound to lead him to the foot of the Cross 
 the moment he recognized conscience as beckon- 
 ing him thither. 
 
 Grace wrought in the early career of St. Paul, 
 also, by impelling him to reverence the nature 
 and authority of God. He was never an atheist 
 nor an agnostic. The God of Abraham, Isaac, 
 and Jacob, was his God. The God of creation, 
 the God of redemption, the God of providence, 
 the God of judgment, the God of mercy, was 
 his sovereign. With the most faithful he ac- 
 knowledged fully the sovereignty of God over all 
 his creatures, and the obligation of every man to 
 render to him obedience and love. With the 
 most devout he believed in the efficacy and 
 preciousness of prayer. Into the spirit of the 
 earnest, loyal appeals of Moses to the throne of 
 the Highest, and into the spirit of the sublime 
 
 1 Farrar, Life and Work of St. Paul, p. 103. 
 
THE PRE-CHRISTIAN PAUL 23 
 
 hymns of Israel's sweet singer, he could fully 
 enter. No one can fail to see what a world of 
 difference there is between an attitude like his 
 before God and that of a shallow Gallio, who 
 " cared for none of these things" (Acts 18: 17), 
 or of a cynical Agrippa, or of a "jesting Pilate." 1 
 By implanting in him, through inheritance and 
 training, this reverence for himself God well pre- 
 pared Paul for his Christian faith and for his sub- 
 sequent Christian zeal. Let the young Paul see, 
 as he shall one day, that it is God who anointed 
 Jesus, and God who raised him from the dead, 
 and his hostility to the Cross shall vanish in a 
 moment! 
 
 And, still further, the early Paul appears to 
 have been providentially prepared for faith in 
 Christ and faithful work under his leadership by 
 being given a disposition to service for God 
 through self-sacrifice. This brings us to the very 
 center of his nature. Behind his religious train- 
 ing, behind his conscious recognition of God's 
 claim upon him, we suppose there existed a pre- 
 disposition toward self-sacrifice. It was his 
 birthright. God gave him the spirit of self-abne- 
 gation — and he gave it as he gives breath, and 
 
 1 Lord Bacon: "What is truth ? said jesting Pilate; and would not stay 
 for an answer." — Essay on Truth. 
 
24 THE MANY-SIDED PAUL 
 
 a beating heart. Zeal for God's service as he 
 understood it appears to have brought him to 
 the class room of Gamaliel, to have led him to 
 cast his vote against Stephen, and to have thrown 
 him into active opposition against the Christians; 
 but surely nothing of self-interest appears in his 
 early course. There is not the slightest hint that 
 he sought place or pelf during his pre-Christian 
 period. Misguided he was, but selfish, never. 
 His conversion glorified his self-sacrificing spirit 
 and gave a right direction to it, but it did not 
 originate it. It was a natural quality divinely 
 given, not, indeed, diminishing his need of 
 the Christ, but serving as a noble instrument 
 of God's Spirit in the day of his clarified spir- 
 itual vision, to bind him to the Master as with 
 hoops of steel. 
 
 Is it not clear that in thus endowing him with 
 a self-sacrificing temper God was preparing him 
 in this respect as well as in others for obedience 
 when the great call from above should sound in 
 his ears ? There was in this regard, as has been 
 forcibly said, a great "inherent congruity be- 
 tween the character of Paul and the life of 
 Jesus." 1 The keynote of the ministry of Jesus 
 is herein: "The Son of man came not to be 
 
 1 Matheson, Spiritual Development of St. Paul, p. 24. 
 
THE PRE-CHRISTIAN PAUL 25 
 
 ministered unto, but to minister" (Matt. 20: 28). 
 Bring the disinterested Paul and the self-giving 
 Jesus together, then, and what must follow ? 
 Why this: that the central principle of the life 
 and ministry of the Redeemer must awaken the 
 immediate and enthusiastic admiration of the 
 Pharisee. Why, then, was he ever an enemy of 
 Jesus ? He never was. It was the name of Jesus, 
 and that only, against which the young Pharisee 
 raged. Jesus himself he never saw, he never 
 knew, until the day of his conversion. The mo- 
 ment he saw Jesus in the heavens, and heard the 
 voice of the Crucified and Risen, and recognized 
 that divine personality, that moment an infinite 
 and imperishable sympathy was established be- 
 tween them. A man who is naturally selfish or 
 luxurious may be, indeed, subdued to the Spirit 
 of Jesus through divine grace. Zacchseus affords 
 an illustration of this. But an unselfish man, 
 other features being the same, will be far more 
 likely to recognize the divine personality of Jesus. 
 There is more room in the self-sacrificing soul on 
 which faith may be established. 
 
 Thus we cannot but believe the view errone- 
 ous which regards St. Paul as being, prior to his 
 conversion, a monster of unbelief and wicked- 
 ness. If we are asked how we are to reconcile 
 
26 THE MANY-SIDED PAUL 
 
 with this statement those assertions of the 
 apostle himself in which he declares that during 
 his early life he has been a "blasphemer, and a 
 persecutor, and injurious " (i Tim. i : 13), and is 
 consequently the "least of the apostles" (1 Cor. 
 15: 9), and the "chief" of sinners (1 Tim. 1: 
 15), we reply that in interpreting these rep- 
 resentations account is to be taken of the utter 
 humility of the apostle, and that so clear in 
 the days of his full development was his 
 knowledge of the perfections of Christ, that in 
 contrast every element of his early ignorance and 
 shortcoming was presented to his consciousness 
 as black and hideous — as relatively small stains 
 are great defects on the face of a finished work 
 of a Michelangelo or Phidias. The shining, 
 peaceful face of the dying Stephen must have 
 haunted him to the last; he could never efface 
 the memory of the fact that he had blasphemed 
 the name if he had not spoken against the char- 
 acter of Jesus; he always sorrowed that he had 
 once hunted to the death, though mistakenly, 
 the servants of the Master. But he had never 
 to reproach himself that he had even at his worst 
 quenched "Conscience, . . . that little 
 spark of celestial fire," 1 or said with the fool 
 
 1 George Washington. 
 
THE PRE-CHRISTIAN PAUL 27 
 
 "There is no God'' (Ps. 14: 1), or idolized lux- 
 ury, "curst by heaven's decree." 1 
 
 The present-day antitype of Paul the Pharisee, 
 then, is not the infidel, nor the agnostic, nor the 
 flippant and indifferent worldling, nor the reck- 
 less and bold violator of God's law, nor the 
 ignorant and besotted victim of sensuality; but 
 — and his name is legion — the respectable, 
 cultivated, outwardly correct moralist, who bows 
 before the sovereignty of God, who admires the 
 beautiful and the good, who is conscientious to 
 a fault, but who has never acknowledged the 
 just supremacy of Christ. And in his remote- 
 ness from Christ the modern moralist too often, 
 it is to be feared, has deep in his heart a sort of 
 contempt for believers and faith, which corre- 
 sponds in quality with the contempt that in a 
 different age led Paul to active persecution of 
 Christ's people. At all events, there are always 
 those with whom the one thing needful is an 
 appreciation of Christ, and who are, like the 
 young ruler and like the young Paul, 2 because 
 they sincerely honor the right, though they have 
 not discovered the narrow way, not far from the 
 kingdom of God. 
 
 1 Goldsmith, The Deserted Village. 
 
 2 It will be remembered that an old tradition makes the young ruler 
 (Matt. 19 : 16) to be none other than the young Saul of Tarsus. 
 
28 THE MANY-SIDED PAUL 
 
 In view of the foregoing what account shall be 
 given of the method of St. Paul's conversion ? We 
 admit its distinctly supernatural features. The 
 sudden appearance of the glorified Jesus and 
 the sound of his voice in the sky, we believe to 
 have been objectively real. We have no sym- 
 pathy with the various attempts which have 
 been made to explain away the supernatural 
 features of the phenomenon that arrested the 
 young zealot. We agree also to the claim that 
 the instant transformation wrought in this fiery 
 opponent of the Church by his conversion affords 
 an unanswerable argument for the divine source 
 of the Christian religion. Thus Farrar states it: 
 '•'It is impossible to exaggerate the importance 
 of Paul's conversion as one of the evidences of 
 Christianity. That the same man who just be- 
 fore was persecuting Christianity with the most 
 violent hatred should come, all at once, to be- 
 lieve in Him whose followers he had been seek- 
 ing to destroy, and that in this faith he should 
 ' become a ' new creature ' — what is this but a 
 victory which Christianity owed to nothing but 
 the spell of its own inherent power?" 1 
 
 But precisely how did God act at his conver- 
 sion to bring about the transformation in ques- 
 
 1 Farrar, Life and Work of St. Paul. Ch. 10. 
 
THE PRE-CHRISTIAN PAUL 29 
 
 tion ? He revealed Jesus to him, — the real Jesus, 
 the Jesus never hitherto known to him except as 
 a name, the Jesus of Calvary, and of the Mount 
 of Ascension. That revelation was the essential 
 feature of God's act in his conversion. 
 
 And what precisely was the nature of the con- 
 version ? It was knowledge taking the place of 
 ignorance, and, in consequence of that, devotion 
 created in place of a vanished antagonism. It 
 was essentially ignorance of Jesus departing, and 
 knowledge of him arriving. It was, to state the 
 matter differently, hearing distinctly the asser- 
 tion of God's will with respect to Jesus, and 
 yielding quick obedience to that will. With this 
 there was an instantaneous self-recognition, an 
 apprehension of the futility of looking for peace 
 through a zealous attempt to serve God in one's 
 own strength; and there was also a vision of 
 peace on another roadway. Viewing again 
 God's act in this conversion, the essential feature 
 in it was not the blinding flash of light, nor the 
 thunder peal, but the revelation of the divine will, 
 and the driving home to a human consciousness 
 of the unmistakable sense of an obligation to 
 follow a path that the Most High appoints. 
 
 With such a past, and such a present., the future 
 must be certain. Let anv man or woman have a 
 
So THE MANY-SIDED PAUL 
 
 sincere desire for the peace of God, have a long 
 training, as St. Paul had, in the school of con- 
 science, have reverence for God's authority, have 
 a predisposition to a life of self-sacrificing serv- 
 ice; let that person withal be brought somehow 
 to see the hopelessness of a life that trusts only 
 to its own good works; and finally bring that 
 person through the agency of the Holy Spirit 
 face to face with the real Jesus Christ — not the 
 mere name of Jesus, not the Christ of any church, 
 or school, or creed, but the actual, loving, attract- 
 ive, reigning, adorable Christ, — and it will be safe 
 to predict that the soul of that one also, — con- 
 strained of the Spirit, yet also of its own unfet- 
 tered volition, — will cry out, with sorrow in 
 view of the past, but with unspeakable joy in 
 anticipation of the future, " Lord, what wilt 
 thou have me to do ? " 
 
THE FAITH OF ST. PAUL 
 
Celestial King ! Oh, let thy presence pass 
 
 Before my spirit, and an image fair 
 
 Shall meet that look of mercy from on high, 
 
 As the reflected image in a glass 
 
 Doth meet the look of him who seeks it there 
 
 And owns its being to the gazer's eye. 
 
 — Longfellow. 
 
 Faith is operative in love, and must produce good works as 
 the inevitable proof of its existence. — Philip Schaff. 
 
 I have been crucified with Christ ; yet I live ; and yet no 
 longer I, but Christ liveth in me : and that life which I now 
 live in the flesh I live in faith, the faith which is in the Son of 
 God, who loved me, and gave himself up for me. — Gal. 2 : 20. 
 
II 
 
 THE FAITH OF ST. PAUL 
 
 Apart from its divine Founder, Christianity has 
 in St. Paul its noblest exponent. " Christianity 
 got the opportunity in him of showing the world 
 the whole force that was in it." But the great- 
 ness of Paul the Christian is the greatness of sub- 
 jection. He is chief among the world's spiritual 
 giants because more completely than are others 
 he is the bondservant of Christ. Thus he is the 
 best illustration of faith. After his conversion 
 the life he lived in the flesh he lived in faith, the 
 faith which is in the Son of God. Never, in- 
 deed, has there lived a champion of the gospel 
 whose character could more accurately be de- 
 scribed by the one word — faith. 
 
 We are to consider, then, the faith of St. Paul. 
 Let us see in him that living principle which, 
 as Luther said, waits not for work but is ever 
 working. 1 It is not faith viewed as a topic of 
 the apostle's teaching which here interests us, 
 
 1 Preface to Romans. 
 
 33 
 
34 THE MANY-SIDED PAUL 
 
 but faith contemplated as an element of his 
 spiritual life. So far as we are led to refer to 
 his statements concerning faith let us employ 
 them solely for the light they throw upon the 
 experience of their author. And as faith in 
 general is a vague term, let us understand that 
 what we are describing is "saving faith," — 
 what Toplady called the "eye of the soul," 
 — the faith that connects the life of the be- 
 liever with the life of the Redeemer. And how 
 accurately may the nature of the faith that saves 
 be determined by distinguishing the elements of 
 that act of the soul of St. Paul which joined him 
 to his Lord, and kept the tie unbroken ! Would 
 we learn what Christian faith is ? Surely a good 
 way is to fix the attention on faith's most splen- 
 did illustration. 
 
 At the outset we note the element of knowl- 
 edge in St. Paul's faith. Consider his spiritual 
 birthday. He hears a supernatural call. "Saul, 
 Saul, why persecutest thou me? . . . Rise, 
 and enter into the city" (Acts 9: 4-6). Here is 
 a summons from above. This summons he ap- 
 prehends as a matter of knowledge. Then there 
 are other facts related to his present condition 
 which he apprehends as knowledge. He knows 
 the testimony of the Scriptures concerning the 
 
THE FAITH OF ST. PAUL 35 
 
 Messiah. He knows what conscience is urging in 
 the issue before him. He knows that he has 
 spiritual needs that hitherto have been unsat- 
 isfied. He knows that faith in the glorified 
 Jesus now addressing him has rendered other 
 lives beautiful — notably that of Stephen. All of 
 these things, and others, he knows; and on the 
 basis of this knowledge his new belief springs 
 into being. Thus we see that his teaching cor- 
 responds with his experience when he pre- 
 sents in the Epistle to the Romans the thought 
 that intelligent hearing must precede belief: 
 "How shall they believe in him whom they 
 have not heard?" (Rom. 10: 14) and "Belief 
 cometh of hearing" (Rom. 10: 17). Thus we 
 are prepared, too, for his triumphant declara- 
 tion to Timothy: "I know him whom I have 
 believed" (2 Tim. 1: 12). Knowledge enters 
 into his faith; or rather, so far as his moral na- 
 ture alone considered is concerned, it is the root 
 of it. If therefore St. Paul's experience is typical, 
 as it plainly is, we must conclude that there is no 
 true faith that does not involve knowledge. 
 
 We find accordingly that St. Paul's faith de- 
 pends on evidence. The things he knows con- 
 cerning the relation of his moral nature to God 
 are accepted by him at his conversion as evi- 
 
36 THE MANY-SIDED PAUL 
 
 dence of the justice of the demand upon him for 
 his devotion. He trusts the testimony of Scrip- 
 ture, the testimony of his enlightened conscience, 
 the testimony afforded by the transforming effect 
 of faith in other characters, the testimony of his 
 consciousness that the demand upon him for 
 obedience from Jesus is real. So far, then, as we 
 discover a strengthening of his faith as his Chris- 
 tian experience lengthens, we conclude that the 
 result follows a deepening of his conviction of 
 the reliability of the evidences of the divine i'n 
 the Christian religion. But when we say that St. 
 Paul's faith depends on evidence we say no more 
 than that he habitually thinks and acts ration- 
 ally. To believe without evidence is irrational. 
 Indeed, faith apart from evidence is not faith, 
 but credulity. 1 
 
 We discover, again, that the faith of St. Paul 
 involves will force. Not only is there at his con- 
 version an intellectual apprehension of certain 
 truths hitherto not recognized or accepted, or ac- 
 cepted only in part, particularly of the truth of 
 the transcendent excellence of Jesus Christ, but 
 there is also obedience. He is divinely summoned 
 to action. He obeys. In this he exerts power 
 of will. This outputting of will power is plainly 
 
 1 See A. A. Hodge's Outlines of Theology, xxx. 7. 
 
THE FAITH OF ST. PAUL 37 
 
 an essential element of his faith ; and this 
 harmonizes strictly with what appears in every 
 instance of conversion under the earthly ministry 
 of Jesus. "Come," is the Master's word to the 
 disciples. Their obedience is a part of their 
 faith. "Stretch forth thy hand," says Jesus to 
 the man whose hand is withered (Matt. 12: 13). 
 He wills to obey, and his thus willing is a condi- 
 tion of his cure. The call to faith to the young 
 ruler, to Nicodemus, to Zacchaeus, indeed to 
 every individual Christ summons into his king- 
 dom, is an appeal to the will, since it is a de- 
 mand for obedience. Therefore, we are not sur- 
 prised to find that St. Paul in his preaching 
 always presents the call to faith as a command. 
 Thus of the jailer in Philippi the apostle de- 
 mands faith (Acts 16: 31); and thus he tells the 
 Athenians that God " commandeth men that 
 they should all everywhere repent" (Acts 17: 
 30). But why multiply illustrations? No one 
 who has given thought to the matter will 
 question the statement that faith with St. Paul 
 always involves an act of the will. It is not the 
 same thing as, it is more than, belief, which is 
 always involuntary. Will does not enter into 
 speculative faith, which is a species of belief. It 
 does enter into saving faith. The history of 
 
38 THE MANY-SIDED PAUL 
 
 every true conversion may therefore be epito- 
 mized in these inspired words: "He saith unto 
 them, Come ye after me, . . . and they 
 . . . followed him" (Matt. 4: 19, 20). 
 
 But still further, we discover that the faith of 
 St. Paul is an act that terminates upon a Person. 
 Not a truth, not a system of truths, but a divine 
 Person, is the ultimate object of that something 
 we term his faith. When the scales fall from his 
 eyes not a fact of history, not a record of a life, 
 not a theological system, but the Person of One 
 altogether lovely, occupies the center of his 
 field of vision and remains there permanently. 
 Therefore, in his teaching he invariably represents 
 faith as an outgoing of soul toward the Person 
 of Christ. For instance, he speaks of the faith 
 of the Colossians as a receiving of Christ: " As 
 therefore ye received Christ Jesus the Lord, so 
 walk in him" (Col. 2: 6). He presents the 
 same view of faith in the epistle to the Gala- 
 tians : " Even we believed on Christ Jesus " 
 (Gal. 2: 16); "For ye are all sons of God, through 
 faith, in Christ Jesus " (Gal. 3: 26). Faith is not 
 a believing about Jesus, but it is a believing on 
 Jesus, or in Jesus. The distinction is unmistaka- 
 ble. And so elsewhere. When we say that St. 
 Paul accepted Christianity, therefore, we mean 
 
THE FAITH OF ST. PAUL 39 
 
 that he accepted Christ; for, as Luthardt says, 
 " Christ is Christianity." In order to believe as a 
 Christian it is requisite that the soul go out in 
 admiration and adoration toward Jesus Christ. 
 Says George MacDonald somewhere, " Any 
 faith in Him, however small, is better than any 
 belief about Him, however great." That sen- 
 tence betokens an accurate thinker. 
 
 And finally, we see that trust is the very heart 
 of that quality of the apostle we term his faith. 
 The inner fiber of the new thing born into his 
 nature on the Damascus road is trust — trust in 
 Christ, and in his righteousness, and in his power 
 to save and to keep. Henceforth he believes in 
 Christ and on Christ. He stakes his all on the 
 assumption of the power and love of the Master. 
 The question of place, of occupation, of friends, 
 of struggles, of triumphs, of failures, of rewards 
 — he leaves all this with Him who is able to save 
 to the uttermost. Or perhaps we ought rather to 
 say that his faith is a trust in God who newly 
 appears manifest in Jesus. His faith is confi- 
 dence. It is a confiding without misgiving. At 
 the end of his career he refers to it as a com- 
 mittal to God. The text is familiar to everybody. 
 "He is able," he says to his spiritual child, "to 
 guard that which I have committed unto him " 
 
4 o THE MANY-SIDED PAUL 
 
 (2 Tim. i : 12). Shall we not say, then, that trust 
 defines the notion of saving faith more accurately 
 than the unqualified term faith ? Put thy trust 
 in the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved. 
 Thus we venture to paraphrase a familiar verse. 
 Says one, "The word translated faith is equiva- 
 lent to trust in a person;" and the words of A. 
 A. Hodge are pertinent: "The specific act of 
 saving faith which unites to Christ, and is the 
 commencement, root and organ of our whole 
 spiritual life, terminates upon Christ's person and 
 work as Mediator, as presented in the offers and 
 promises of the gospel. This assuredly includes 
 trust in its very essence, and this is called saving 
 faith by way of eminence." 1 
 
 Surely it must be profitable for us thus to 
 analyze what we term faith as illustrated in 
 St. Paul. As an embodiment of the faith that 
 saves he may more justly than any other serve as 
 the typical Christian. This is so because each of 
 the elements of his spiritual character appears in 
 purer and more distinct colors than in the case of 
 other believers. But we could not learn what 
 faith is with us by determining what it is with 
 him were it not in the main features of its nature 
 alike in all. Surely, therefore, it must aid us in clear 
 
 1 Outlines of Theology, xxx. 18. 
 
THE FAITH OF ST. PAUL 41 
 
 thinking on the subject to learn thus, as we have, 
 that saving faith is more than belief; that it is, 
 indeed, a complex act, involving knowledge, 
 obedience, and trust. Seeing, too, as we do, that 
 trust is its soul, we cannot but recognize our 
 moral accountability to God for its lack or 
 possession. A child may not be held respon- 
 sible for a degree of ignorance of a noble father; 
 but he may justly be held responsible for failing 
 to yield to him loyalty, obedience, and affection. 
 
 We come now to the inquiry, What is St. 
 Paul's conception of Christ? Who is he to the 
 mind of the apostle as indicated by the latter's 
 acts and words ? and what are his offices and 
 characteristics ? and what is the measure of his 
 authority over the souls of men ? Perhaps we 
 can best approach this question by trying to 
 determine what conception the apostle has of 
 Christ immediately subsequent to the conversion. 
 
 There are several sources of information open to 
 us. We can hardly leave the address of Stephen 
 out of account; for there is no doubt that the 
 dying words of the protomartyr played an im- 
 portant part, under God, in the transformation of 
 the persecutor into the saint. Thus the Christ of 
 Stephen's address, we feel assured, is substan- 
 tially the Christ of St. Paul's earliest Christian 
 
42 THE MANY-SIDED PAUL 
 
 faith. Then there are the three accounts of the 
 conversion, — St. Luke's, in Acts 9, and the 
 apostle's own, as reported by St. Luke, in Acts 
 22, and 26. And lastly there are various reflec- 
 tions of his early experience in the later writings 
 of the apostle — as, for example, in 1 Cor. 15, and 
 Gal. 1. When we bring together these various 
 accounts of the conversion we find that we 
 possess considerable data from which to infer the 
 early Pauline conception of Christ. 
 
 The Christ of St. Paul's earliest Christian expe- 
 rience is, first of all, the Messiah of prophecy. 
 We have seen that the young zealot was learned 
 in the Scriptures, and that he shared the Messi- 
 anic hope of his nation. He could not, then, 
 have worshiped Jesus without identifying him 
 with the expected Deliverer of Israel. From the 
 first he must have clearly recognized Jesus as the 
 fulfillment of prophecy, as his words to Agrippa 
 indicate: "I stand unto this day testifying both 
 to small and great, saying nothing but what the 
 prophets and Moses did say should come; how 
 that the Christ must suffer, and how that he first 
 by the resurrection of the dead should proclaim 
 light both to the people and to the Gentiles" 
 (Acts 26: 22, 23). The Christ of St. Paul's early 
 faith is also the Righteous One. The term 
 
THE FAITH OF ST. PAUL 43 
 
 means "The (ideal) Just One. The highest 
 messenger of God. The Innocent and entirely 
 Righteous." 1 It is interesting to note as strik- 
 ingly corroborative of our view of the vital and 
 lasting impression produced by Stephen's address 
 on the mind of St. Paul, that this expression as 
 applied to Jesus by the apostle in his address be- 
 fore Agrippa is apparently borrowed from the 
 address of Stephen (Acts 7 : 52 ; 22 : 1 4). Through 
 all the intervening years since the death of the 
 protomartyr certain of the very words of the 
 latter thus seem to have echoed in the apostle's 
 soul; and as Stephen presented Jesus as the em- 
 bodiment of all righteousness so we must be- 
 lieve that the same conception of Jesus entered 
 into the apostle's earliest Christian thinking. 
 Stephen also represented Jesus as the Son of 
 man, the Messianic designation of the prophecy 
 of Daniel; and if we are right in regarding 
 Stephen as St. Paul's first spiritual preceptor we 
 can hardly err in claiming that the Jesus of the 
 early days of the latter's Christian experience 
 was likewise regarded as the "Son of man." 
 Immediately after his conversion we find St. 
 Paul preaching in the synagogues of Damascus 
 that Jesus "is the Son of God" (Acts 9: 20). 
 
 1 Meyer, Commentary on Acts. 
 
44 THE MANY-SIDED PAUL 
 
 Here, then, is a further element in the apostle's 
 early spiritual conception of Jesus. Christ is 
 also the Ascended King to the young convert, 
 as is obvious from the entire scope of the va- 
 rious narrations of the conversion. He is also 
 to the young convert the Universal Saviour, as 
 appears from the divine word to Ananias, which 
 must certainly have been directly communicated 
 to St. Paul: "He is a chosen vessel unto me, to 
 bear my name before the Gentiles and kings" 
 (Acts 9: 15). To summarize, then, we find in 
 the earliest conception of Christ in the mind of 
 St. Paul subsequent to his conversion these 
 notions: The Messiah of prophecy, the Right- 
 eous One, the Son of man, the Son of God, the 
 Ascended King, the Universal Saviour. What 
 fundamental element of spiritual knowledge con- 
 cerning Jesus Christ is here lacking? What 
 factor is there in the definition of the nature and 
 offices of Jesus Christ framed by the Westmin- 
 ster divines sixteen centuries later that does not 
 here appear in outline ? — " The only Redeemer of 
 God's elect is the Lord Jesus Christ, who, being 
 the eternal Son of God, became man, and so was, 
 and continueth to be, God and man, in two dis- 
 tinct natures, and one person, forever." 1 
 
 1 Shorter Catechism, A. 21. 
 
THE FAITH OF ST. PAUL 45 
 
 So much did the apostle probably know of 
 Christ at the beginning of his Christian career. 
 But was there a development in his knowledge 
 of Christ from that point on ? Not, we hold, — 
 as certain scholars, like Principal Jowett, for 
 instance, would have it, — in the sense of a 
 doctrinal movement from one position to a con- 
 tradictory one. We look in vain for one view of 
 Christ held and taught by St. Paul that is clearly 
 at variance with any other view of his held at a 
 different period on the same subject. The Christ 
 of the Pastoral Epistles is the Christ of the 
 Thessalonian Letters, or of The Acts. There 
 is not the slightest clear evidence that St. 
 Paul taught anything about Christ at one period 
 that he denied at a later period. There are two 
 sorts of doctrinal development. There may be 
 an advance like that of the Copernican theory in 
 astronomy over the Ptolemaic, — one scheme op- 
 posing and supplanting another; but there may 
 also be an advance like that of the Calculus over 
 the primary manual of arithmetic, where there 
 is expansion of knowledge, but no opposition. 
 Now we hold that whatever advance there was 
 in the course of the life of St. Paul in the matter 
 of his faith was of the latter sort. It was 
 simply in the direction of enlargement or fulfill- 
 
46 THE MANY-SIDED PAUL 
 
 ment. That he grew in his apprehension of 
 spiritual truth of which Christ was the sum we 
 do not deny. St. Luke tells us that at Damascus 
 he "increased the more in strength" (Acts 
 9: 22); and the apostle says of himself that as 
 a man he has ''put away childish things" 
 (1 Cor. 13: 11), — he has grown spiritually from 
 year to year. It must needs have been so, 
 since none can escape the obligation to grow in 
 grace and in knowledge, to leave the things 
 that are behind, and to press forward to the 
 things that are before. How, then, did Paul's 
 knowledge of Christ increase ? We reply that 
 his impressions of the perfections of Christ grew 
 in vividness as time advanced; he penetrated 
 ever nearer to the heart of the great mysteries of 
 our religion; his realization of the wealth of the 
 divine love enlarged constantly; his trust in the 
 Redeemer deepened in intensity. To say this is 
 to say that he was to the end a wide-awake be- 
 liever. There is evidence of it all in the outer 
 and inner elements of his history. 
 
 " The thoughts of men are widen'd with the process of the 
 sun." ] 
 
 But while a man is absolutely the servant of 
 
 1 Tennyson, Locksley Hall. 
 
THE FAITH OF ST. PAUL 47 
 
 the Spirit of God, as St. Paul was in his Christian 
 days, his thought-widening will not set one of 
 his decades into antagonism against another. 
 The Holy Spirit widens us, but he does not 
 divide us. 
 
 Apparently from the ever memorable midday 
 at Damascus until the final scene on the Ostian 
 Road at Rome the Lord Jesus Christ formed 
 the center of the apostle's thinking. Never was 
 there a champion of the gospel who made more 
 of Christ. The subject of his written teaching is 
 always Christ, whomsoever he addresses and 
 whatever his special motive in writing. For ex- 
 ample: in the letters to the Thessalonians Christ 
 is presented as Judge; in the letter to the Gala- 
 tians he is presented as Deliverer from the law; 
 in that to the Romans he is presented as Deliv- 
 erer from guilt; in that to the Colossians he is 
 presented as the Fullness of all things. But al- 
 ways it is Christ who is presented, and with a 
 passion of devotion and loyalty equaled in no 
 other servant of Jesus. He is not a man of one 
 book, but he is a man with one theme. That 
 theme is Jesus — only Jesus. Truthfully might 
 his words to the Corinthians describing Christ's 
 supremacy in his message to them be taken 
 as descriptive of his life thought: " I determined 
 
48 THE MANY-SIDED PAUL 
 
 not to know anything among you, save Jesus 
 Christ, and him crucified" (i Cor. 2: 2). Not 
 man, not sin, not the divine decrees, not the Jew- 
 ish Jehovah, but "God manifest in the flesh" 
 stands invariably in clear outline before his eyes. 
 His alpha and omega is 
 
 " Christ — the one great word 
 Well worth all languages in earth or heaven." 
 
 Then who may hope adequately to tell of the 
 intensity of the faith of this grandest of faith's 
 heroes ? Never did a man give up so much 
 under the inspiration of faith. Never did one 
 better prove the reality of his faith by his sacri- 
 fices. His faith was full-fledged at its birth, or 
 it could not have led him as it did unhesitat- 
 ingly, unfalteringly, to break at once, totally and 
 forever, with his past. Friends, position, pride, 
 ambition, advancement — all went by the board 
 instantly at the summons of his faith in the 
 Crucified and Ascended. Strong must be the 
 faith that so completely lifts a man from one 
 world into another. But a yet better test of 
 faith is its ability to hold its possessor to the 
 path along which it guides. It must rule might- 
 ily when it gives so invincible a life purpose 
 as it gave to St. Paul. And what a purpose! 
 
THE FAITH OF ST. PAUL 49 
 
 Nothing less than to carry God's message of 
 salvation, in the face of a thousand devils, to 
 two continents! When, therefore, countless nat- 
 ural dangers, human opposition, and persecution 
 to the point of imprisonment and stripes, loomed 
 up formidably, what must have been the faith 
 of this warrior of God to enable him, not to 
 submit in patience merely, but to " glory in 
 tribulations," to rejoice in bearing in his body 
 the marks of the Lord Jesus! Then, too, his faith 
 gave forth an intenser glory as the candle of 
 his life burned toward its socket; and so power- 
 ful was its blaze that in its light he laughed at 
 what has ever been to the many the king of 
 terrors. 
 
 With the faith of what soldiers on God's 
 spiritual battlefields shall we compare the faith 
 of St. Paul ? Shall we tell of the faith of Poly- 
 carp, the Ephesian martyr; of Augustine, the 
 brand snatched from the burning; of Bernard, 
 the consecrated Middle-Age scholar; of Luther, 
 the iron hammer of the Reformation; of John 
 Knox, "who never feared the face of man"; of 
 Wesley, the devoted; of Whitefleld, the eloquent; 
 of Spurgeon, "the emperor of the nineteenth cen- 
 tury pulpit " ? They all are as children in faith 
 beside their principal! His faith excels theirs as 
 
50 THE MANY-SIDED PAUL 
 
 the sun rules the stars in brightness. His faith 
 is the one particular star before whose splendor 
 all other stars pale in faith's firmament. 
 
 Then when we contrast the faith of the great 
 apostle with the faith of the average Christian 
 of us, do we not contrast a Himalaya with a 
 molehill, a giant with a pigmy, a sword of steel 
 with a weapon of lath ? Yet, thanks be to God! 
 faith as a grain of mustard seed saves; and the 
 humblest believer may rejoice that, if his faith 
 do not equal St. Paul's in intensity, yet it does 
 in quality. Nor, since St. Paul was human like 
 ourselves, is the measure of his faith above our 
 possible attainment. St. Paul is our brother; a 
 stronger brother, but nevertheless our kinsman. 
 On the same roadway he and we rise to the 
 unseen, — 
 
 " The great world's altar stairs, 
 That slope through darkness up to God." x 
 
 1 Tennyson, In Memoriam. 
 
ST. PAUL THE PREACHER 
 
I venerate the man, whose heart is warm, 
 
 "Whose hands are pure, whose doctrine and whose life 
 
 Coincident, give lucid proof 
 
 That he is honest in the sacred cause. 
 
 — Cowper. 
 
 The deep insight into truth, the happy faculty of imparting 
 truth ; these two endowments together made up that which was 
 essential to the prophet of the early church. — F. W. Robertson. 
 
 But we preach Christ crucified, unto Jews a stumbling-block, 
 and unto Gentiles foolishness ; but unto them that are called, 
 both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God, and the wis- 
 dom of God. — i Cor. i : 23, 24. 
 
Ill 
 
 ST. PAUL THE PREACHER 
 
 From the week of his conversion until his 
 death the main business of St. Paul was to 
 preach the "good news;" and as Saul the-king 
 was a full head and shoulders taller than other 
 men, so the great apostle overtops vastly all 
 Christian preachers who follow him. It is all- 
 important, then, in the process of getting ac- 
 quainted with the character of St. Paul to deter- 
 mine what he was as a preacher. 
 
 Let us consider briefly his special preparation 
 for preaching. As in the case of every warm- 
 hearted convert, a zeal for souls was born in him 
 with his faith. He embraced his first opportunity 
 of telling others of his new-found Saviour. St. 
 Luke tells us, speaking of the first days in Damas- 
 cus after the conversion, that " straightway in the 
 synagogues he proclaimed Jesus, that he is the 
 Son of God" (Acts 9: 20). But almost imme- 
 diately, with the growing sense of the vastness 
 of his mission came the feeling that he needed 
 53 
 
54 THE MANY-SIDED PAUL 
 
 special training for his task. Hence he betook 
 himself into a solitary place, probably "the 
 region of Arabia Petrsea either south or east of 
 Damascus." Years afterwards he tells the Gala- 
 tians of the experience: "Immediately I con- 
 ferred not with flesh and blood: neither went I 
 up to Jerusalem to them which were apostles be- 
 fore me: but I went away into Arabia" (Gal. 
 i : 17). The inference is plain that his chief ob- 
 ject in this journey was to equip himself for 
 future service by communion with God. Possi- 
 bly the step was determined by the example of 
 Jesus, who after his baptism " was led up of the 
 Spirit into the wilderness" for a season (Matt. 
 4: 1). Then, too, we cannot be mistaken about 
 the employment of his time during this Arabian 
 period. Of course he searched the Scriptures to 
 determine finally their teachings about Christ. 
 Of course he reflected long and deeply upon the 
 tremendous theme of Christ for the world. Of 
 course he prayed much, seeking light upon his 
 future path. Of course, also, God spake to him 
 often through the divine Spirit. Are we not to 
 believe, too, that it was at this time that he "re- 
 ceived" directly from God the knowledge of 
 Christ's death, burial, and resurrection, and the 
 special information concerning the institution of 
 
ST. PAUL THE PREACHER 55 
 
 the Lord's Supper, to which he refers in his First 
 Epistle to the Corinthians? (1 Cor. 1 1 : 23 ff.). 
 Are we carrying imagination too far in suppos- 
 ing, also, that sacred eloquence — the ordinary 
 rules governing effective preaching — occupied his 
 attention somewhat at this juncture ? We need 
 not suppose that he did not preach at all then, 
 but only that the period was in the main one of 
 preparation. Its duration is spoken of as "three 
 years," but this may mean, according to the Jew- 
 ish mode of reckoning, no more than one 
 year and parts of two other years — say, two 
 full years. It was a time when the eagle's 
 wings were growing and strengthening prior to 
 his long, sublime flight. 
 
 Not, then, until a goodly portion of a two 
 years' period had been spent in obscurity did St. 
 Paul emerge as a full-fledged preacher. As a 
 fresh convert he had "proclaimed Jesus, that he 
 is the Son of God" — what any novitiate in God's 
 school can and ought to do; but after his return 
 to Damascus from the wilderness he "con- 
 founded the Jews, . . . proving that this is 
 the Christ" (Acts 9: 22), now revealing for the 
 first time the skill of a master of the preacher's 
 art. Have we not, too, in this example of his a 
 good argument for a special training in divinity 
 
56 THE MANY-SIDED PAUL 
 
 for those who are called to preach ? We may 
 not, indeed, say that God never summons men 
 from the shop or the field into the pulpit direct. 
 There are men of remarkable native force, — like 
 Cartwright, or Finney, or Moody, — who plainly 
 have a gospel message for the world though they 
 have never studied in a theological seminary; but 
 they are to be regarded as exceptions. In ordi- 
 nary cases Arabia must precede Antioch and 
 Corinth. Without toil of intellect and search- 
 ing of heart in the student epoch there will 
 be little inspiration under the mantle of the 
 prophet. Nor do we believe that the teacher 
 of religious truth in any department can make 
 a deep impression without serious preparation 
 for his task. St. Paul in Arabia is an impress- 
 ive example for the Sunday-school teacher, for 
 instance, or even the leader of a prayer meet- 
 ing. How dare we seek to instruct others in 
 the name of Christ unless we ourselves have 
 been well instructed ? Is it not trifling with im- 
 mortal souls to pretend to teach others before we 
 ourselves have had the vision of Christ which is 
 vouchsafed only to those who "search the Scrip- 
 tures " and besiege the throne of grace ? The 
 words of one of our great American preachers, 
 who has received his crown, deserve to be 
 
ST. PAUL THE PREACHER 57 
 
 quoted. Says Dr. W. M. Taylor: "He who 
 would preach to others must be much alone with 
 his Bible and his Lord; else, when he appears 
 before his people, he will send them to sleep 
 with his pointless platitudes or starve them with 
 his empty conceits. Get you to Arabia, then, ye 
 who would become the instructors of your fel- 
 low-men! Get you to the closet and the study! 
 Give your days and nights to the investigation of 
 this Book ; and let everything you produce from 
 it be made to glow with a white heat in the 
 forge of your own heart, and be hammered on 
 the anvil of your own experience! " 1 
 
 Only fragments of St. Paul's sermons and ad- 
 dresses have been preserved, but they are suffi- 
 cient, we must believe, to give us accurate 
 knowledge as to the subject and principal ma- 
 terial of his preaching. Among his discourses of 
 which we have the summaries, are the sermon in 
 Antioch in Pisidia, the sermon in Lystra, the talk 
 to the Philippian jailer, the sermon in Thessalo- 
 nica, the sermon in Athens, the words to the im- 
 perfectly taught disciples in Ephesus, the parting 
 address to the elders at Miletus, the address on 
 the castle stairs in Jerusalem, the address before 
 the Sanhedrin, the address before Felix, and the 
 
 1 Paul the Missionary. 
 
58 THE MANY-SIDED PAUL 
 
 defense before Agrippa. Do we err in saying 
 that the keynote of his sole message, repeated on 
 a hundred occasions, and with infinite variations 
 of emphasis, is found in St. Luke's account of 
 his visit to Athens, in the words "he preached 
 Jesus and the resurrection " ? The first of his 
 sermons of which we possess any portion, that 
 in Antioch in Pisidia (Acts 1 3), may perhaps be 
 regarded as a type of the Pauline sermon. As 
 such it will repay careful attention. It reveals 
 the following features: First, it was addressed 
 primarily to the Jews ; it was delivered in a 
 synagogue. Though the apostle was sent espe- 
 cially to the Gentiles it appears always to have 
 been his practice to offer salvation " to the Jew 
 first," and then to the Greek. Again, its argumen- 
 tative appeal was to the Scriptures. It assumed 
 the absolute correctness of the Hebrew Scrip- 
 tures. That Jesus is the Messiah was inferred 
 from the history of the chosen people as un- 
 folded in the sacred writings. There is no ques- 
 tioning the fact that St. Paul accepted the Scrip- 
 tures not as containing, but as being, the word 
 of God. Furthermore, great emphasis was laid 
 on the resurrection of Jesus. To the mind of the 
 preacher his entire system stood or fell with this 
 truth. "But God raised him from the dead — " 
 
ST. PAUL THE PREACHER 59 
 
 this was the dominant and glad note of the 
 sermon. Not a dead Christ, but a living Master, 
 is the apostle's Lord. Still further, faith in Jesus 
 Christ, as opposed to obedience to the law, was 
 presented as the means of salvation. "By him 
 every one that believeth is justified from all things, 
 from which ye could not be justified by the law 
 of Moses" (Acts 13: 39). Here, then, is the 
 Pauline doctrine of justification by faith, so glori- 
 ously unfolded later in the epistles to the Romans 
 and to the Galatians. Finally, there was a de- 
 mand for an unconditional surrender to Christ. 
 The sermon ended with a word of solemn warn- 
 ing. If the question be raised as to the leading 
 elements of St. Paul's preaching, we think the 
 answer may be found in this summary of the 
 sermon in Antioch given in Acts 13. Indeed we 
 have no doubt that one large purpose of the 
 Holy Spirit in preserving for us so much of this 
 sermon was to instruct gospel preachers in all the 
 Christian centuries concerning the subject-matter 
 and method of the preaching of Christ's ablest 
 and wisest servant. 
 
 Having thus briefly considered the material of 
 St. Paul's preaching, let us turn now to the 
 manner of it ; or, in other words, let us 
 inquire concerning the natural and gracious 
 
6o THE MANY-SIDED PAUL 
 
 qualities of his personality as a preacher. 
 We shall seek information on this line from 
 various sources. 
 
 Reference has already been made to the apos- 
 tle's devotion to Christ ; but our study of his 
 character as preacher requires us again to give 
 attention to this characteristic. During his min- 
 istry he appears never consciously to have al- 
 lowed his will to conflict with that of Christ. 
 Since the subject of his preaching always is the 
 living Christ, we expect to find all his plans, his 
 ambitions, his methods, as a preacher, derived 
 from the authority of his ascended Lord. It is 
 Christ who commissions him to preach; it is 
 Christ who sends him forth to the Gentile 
 world; it is Christ who regulates his plans, — 
 as, for example, when he and his companions 
 on their second missionary tour have decided 
 to enter Bithynia, and the " Spirit of Jesus" suf- 
 fers them not (Acts 16: 7); it is Christ who 
 speaks to him in precious visions in Troas, in 
 Jerusalem, on shipboard, and elsewhere; they 
 are the presence and will of Christ that shape his 
 every purpose, make him bold in the presence 
 of enemies, give him eloquence everywhere in 
 presenting truth, and endow him with a majestic 
 resoluteness in his life task that reckons neither 
 
ST. PAUL THE PREACHER 61 
 
 with disaster nor death. One who has written 
 charmingly of the apostle thus describes this 
 characteristic: "Christ burnt at the glowing 
 center of his heart, and the radiance illumined 
 the outermost circumference of his life. What 
 gravitation is in the physical universe, holding 
 everything in its place, that the love of Jesus 
 was in his soul, regulating the lowliest as well as 
 the loftiest of his actions." 1 In a word, his entire 
 career as a preacher corresponds with his desig- 
 nation of himself as "a bondservant of Jesus 
 Christ" (Rom. i : i), and again, as an ambassador 
 in behalf of Christ (2 Cor. 5: 20). Not alone in 
 Corinth, but generally in his course as preacher, 
 we must believe that he determined not to know 
 anything "save Jesus Christ, and him crucified" 
 (1 Cor. 2:2). In like manner will not the preacher 
 of the twentieth century need to subject himself 
 to the same divine Will that controlled this royal 
 preacher of the first century, if he would be a 
 true force in God's kingdom ? Young preachers 
 are often, and rightly, urged by the fathers in 
 the ministry to "preach Christ"; but if they 
 learn first of all to obey Christ, or to live Christ, 
 the quality of their message will take care of 
 itself. Well is it for the preacher of any age if 
 
 1 Dr. W. M. Taylor, Paul the Missionary. 
 
62 THE MANY-SIDED PAUL 
 
 he can say with St. Paul, " For to me to live is 
 Christ" (Phil, i: 21). 
 
 We are struck also with the singleness of aim 
 of this preacher. He tells the elders at Miletus 
 that he holds not his life of any account as dear 
 unto himself, so that he might accomplish his 
 course (Acts 20: 24); and his words to the 
 Philippians are very familiar: "Brethren, I count 
 not myself yet to have apprehended: but one 
 thing I do, forgetting the things which are be- 
 hind, and stretching forward to the things which 
 are before, I press on toward the goal unto the 
 prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus " 
 (Phil. 3: 13, 14). Every page of his history veri- 
 fies the truth of these assertions. He is a man 
 with a single definite life purpose. It is to win 
 as many converts, and organize as many Chris- 
 tian churches as God will permit, until he ex- 
 changes the sword for the crown. We have 
 known preachers with vacillating purposes. 
 Now they have been on fire with evangelistic 
 zeal; now, perhaps, they have turned their at- 
 tention to some educational pursuit; now, again, 
 they have been swayed by the ambition of writ- 
 ing a successful novel; now, still further, they 
 have dreamed of making a fortune through an 
 invention or a speculative investment; and now, 
 
 
ST. PAUL THE PREACHER 6 3 
 
 at last, they have turned to preaching again. Do 
 not illustrations of this sort occur to all of us ? 
 But there is nothing of this in St. Paul. He has 
 but one employment. There are no cross-pur- 
 poses in his mind. He knows that the gospel 
 ministry is a jealous mistress. No preacher ever 
 more clearly recognized the fact that life is too 
 short to permit a large success where other em- 
 ployments and other aims are allowed to inter- 
 fere with the task of preaching the glorious 
 gospel. It is true that he sometimes works at 
 a secular trade; but it is plain that his tent- 
 making is engaged in only as a necessity in his 
 situation, an aid to the main business of his life. 
 Another fundamental element of power in St. 
 Paul as a preacher is his familiarity with the 
 Scriptures. Like Apollos, though in a fuller 
 sense, he is "mighty in the Scriptures" (Acts 
 18: 24). It has been said of him that "he can 
 hardly write five lines in succession without a 
 biblical reference." His sermons and speeches, 
 like his epistles, are charged with the spirit as 
 they are infused with the language of the Old 
 Testament. His complete respect for the Scrip- 
 tures of the chosen people throws light upon the 
 meaning to be attached to the term " works " in his 
 arguments for justification by faith. Whatever 
 
64 THE MANY-SIDED PAUL 
 
 it is in Judaism that stands in antithesis to faith 
 in the plan of redemption, we may be sure, judg- 
 ing from his reverence for the sacred oracles of 
 Israel, that it is nothing pertaining to the essence 
 of the Mosaic covenant. We may be sure that 
 he finds justification by faith in Moses and the 
 prophets, or he never would have found it at all. 
 To him Christ is in the Old Testament. Christ 
 is not the destruction but the fulfillment of the 
 law — the law, that is, viewed as the changeless 
 rule of practice from the changeless God. It has 
 been said that St. Paul is often weak, according 
 to the modern standard, in his arguments from 
 Scripture, in that he mistakes rabbinic subtleties 
 for genuine logic. Without dwelling on the 
 point we venture the assertion that since his con- 
 clusions are invariably sound it is more than pos- 
 sible that his critics have missed the mark in 
 attributing to him the attempt at a logical proc- 
 ess where he has intended only illustration. Cer- 
 tainly his acquaintance with the Scriptures is a 
 mighty engine under his hand for the winning of 
 converts. His first task is always to appeal to 
 his own people, and his biblical learning enables 
 him to meet them on their own ground; and it 
 is doubtless true that in his time, as likewise it 
 is in ours, the best instrument for conciliating and 
 
ST. PAUL THE PREACHER 65 
 
 conquering the heathen mind was the written 
 word of God. 
 
 Well may the preacher of our time imitate the 
 apostle in being "a workman that needeth not 
 to be ashamed, handling aright the word of 
 truth" (2 Tim. 2: 15). A preacher may be 
 tolerated who has the mastery of ' ' little Latin 
 and less Greek "; he may do good, if in the right 
 place, though of weak presence and uncouth 
 manner; he may win precious souls, though 
 lacking the orator's gift; but he is a weak vessel 
 indeed if he be ignorant of his Bible. I cannot 
 forget the sorrowful tone of a certain good 
 woman in speaking of a preacher of our ac- 
 quaintance. "He is shamefully ignorant of the 
 simplest features of the Bible," she said. No 
 wonder that his ministry was unusually fruitless. 
 On the other hand I have been told of a learned 
 professor in an English university town who long 
 listened with pleasure on Sundays to a plain man 
 who was pastor of what our English cousins call 
 a "dissenting chapel," and who when asked 
 what it was in the preacher that attracted him, 
 replied in effect: "Though he is unacquainted 
 with science and literature, he knows his Bible. 
 It is his knowledge of the word of God that 
 attracts me to him." No man can be strong in 
 
66 THE MANY-SIDED PAUL 
 
 the pulpit without knowing his Bible. And no 
 man can be utterly weak there if he have the 
 mastery of the Book. 
 
 And then how pure is the humility of this first 
 century preacher! Such expressions as "chief 
 of sinners," and "least of the saints," which he 
 applies to himself with evident sincerity, attest 
 the lowliness of his spirit in the presence of the 
 Master. His tone is never boastful. He glories 
 only in the Cross. He is not inflated with self- 
 importance. He is free from self-conceit. When 
 he refers to his own experience or position it is 
 never in order to win praise or honor for himself, 
 but only to honor Christ. Farrar says with refer- 
 ence to his letters that he "speaks but little, and 
 never in detail, of the outward incidents of his 
 life." There is the same sort of reticence in his 
 sermons. He has mastered the lesson — and so 
 few ever learn it! — that the best strength arises 
 from the absence of self-assertion. "When I 
 am weak, then am I strong" (2 Cor. 12: 10) is 
 his testimony — a truth every preacher may well 
 impress upon himself even in these times so 
 marked by pride of opinion and vaunting self- 
 glorification. The humblest are the strongest. 
 As in the home not the sturdy, boisterous, half- 
 grown youth is of greatest force, but the speech- 
 
ST. PAUL THE PREACHER 67 
 
 less, helpless baby in the cradle, so they in God's 
 household have lordliest power who are most 
 plastic under the divine hand. Truly every 
 worker for God should seek on his knees 
 
 " Humility, that low, sweet root 
 From which all heavenly virtues shoot." l 
 
 Closely allied to his humility, though to be dis- 
 tinguished from it, is the apostle's self-abandon. 
 We refer to that evident disposition in his preach- 
 ing to lose entire sight of possible consequences 
 to himself, to overlook every thought of personal 
 gain or advantage, through his interest in his 
 message and his audience. He never poses. 
 Hence we see no blush of confusion in the 
 preacher's face as we listen to his sermon. We 
 are aware of no stammering suggestive of a 
 nervous fear of his own voice. Recently I heard 
 a successful public speaker declare that if while 
 speaking his thought turned upon himself for 
 an instant, he was lost thereby to his speech. 
 Every experienced speaker understands this. 
 The thought must be entirely upon the subject 
 and the hearers; and plainly the oratory of St. 
 Paul is irresistible largely because his hearers 
 think not of him, but of what he is saying. The 
 
 1 Moore, Loves of the Angels. 
 
68 THE MANY-SIDED PAUL 
 
 highest compliment I ever heard of England's 
 greatest preacher in our generation was this: 
 "When I came away I did not think of the 
 greatness of Spurgeon, but of the loveliness of 
 Christ." There is indicated this quality of self- 
 abandon which St. Paul possessed in an eminent 
 degree. " Not I, but Christ," is evident always as 
 a feature of what we may term our apostle's 
 pulpit demeanor. 
 
 How intense, too, is the sympathy of this herald 
 of the gospel! There are many evidences of his 
 vast, unselfish love for men. It is indicated by 
 the expressions of his fervent longing for the re- 
 demption of his own nation. His heart's desire 
 and his supplication to God for them is that they 
 may be saved. It is indicated by the broad 
 circle of his friendships. The many messages of 
 love to individuals in the concluding chapter of 
 the Epistle to the Romans affords an illustration, 
 among others. It is indicated by the many mani- 
 festations of his craving for affection. It is indi- 
 cated by the tone of tender affection for his 
 spiritual children, as apparent, for instance, in his 
 sweet letter in behalf of the slave Onesimus, in 
 his two letters to his "son" Timothy, and in his 
 references to his friend and fellow-traveler, the 
 "beloved physician." It is indicated by the pain 
 
ST. PAUL THE PREACHER 69 
 
 he manifests at the backsliding of his converts; as 
 illustrated, to look no further, in the letter to the 
 Galatians, and in the first extant letter to the 
 Corinthians. It is indicated by his occasional 
 self-reproach after administering censure, — of 
 which the second letter to the Corinthians 
 affords illustrations, — from the fear lest he may 
 have spoken too harshly. It is indicated by the 
 entire tenor of his apostolic course; a career in 
 which he spends and is spent for his fellow-men. 
 It is indicated by his rich tributes to love, of 
 which the noble lyric in his Corinthian letter 
 affords the best illustration — words that could 
 not have been written by one with an unsym- 
 pathetic nature. His was plainly a large, warm 
 heart. He felt for men as few preachers have 
 felt. Sinner and saint — toward both his affec- 
 tion went out in a full current. 
 
 Here, then, is another source of his imperious 
 power as a preacher. His very gestures and 
 voice-tones must have lent themselves to his 
 affectionate spirit. We feel sure that often there 
 were tears in his voice. The best eloquence is 
 conditioned on this element. If there be a broad 
 sympathy in the heart it will show itself in the 
 speech. If it be absent no mere flourish of 
 rhetoric can supply its place. It is the force that 
 
7o THE MANY-SIDED PAUL 
 
 enabled Whitefield to sway the multitude at will; 
 that gave an " seolian harp attachment" to the 
 voice of Spurgeon; that won men to Wesley 
 and to Beecher. I believe it to have been the 
 chief secret of the power of Moody. A friend 
 after hearing the great evangelist in my pulpit 
 declared his conviction that it was his sympathy 
 which enabled that rare preacher to speak so 
 effectively. Every divinity student should be 
 urged again and again to cultivate this quality, 
 for it is the preacher's best gift. 
 
 Then, who that has studied St. Paul has failed to 
 discover his unfailing tact— another indispensa- 
 ble quality in the true preacher. He never seems 
 to speak an unsuitable word. He appears able 
 to measure the peculiar need of his audience at a 
 glance, and his speech is always seasoned with 
 salt. Among the illustrations of this priceless 
 quality are his varying accounts of his conver- 
 sion, his tone being quite different when he ad- 
 dresses on that subject a Roman official in Cses- 
 area from that he has adopted in his defense 
 before a Jewish audience in Jerusalem ; the skillful 
 plan of his argument before the Sanhedrin; his 
 speaking just the right word at the right moment 
 to the ship's master, with a view to the safety of 
 the voyagers; his discreet manner of handling 
 
ST. PAUL THE PREACHER 71 
 
 the subject of slavery in the Epistle to Philemon; 
 and lastly, his frequent apt quotations in his 
 epistles, where "he falls back on ground that is 
 common to himself and those whom he wishes 
 to persuade." The chief illustrations of his tact 
 in his sermons appear in the discourse in Athens, 
 and in that in Lystra, where he approaches the 
 gospel from the one point of view whence he 
 can hope to carry his hearers with him. The 
 evidence is ample that he never loses a point of 
 advantage through a want of this all-important 
 form of common sense which ever serves as a 
 sort of prophetic insight in its happy possessor. 
 Next to the want of consecration, and of the 
 sympathy of which we have spoken, the lack of 
 tact is doubtless responsible for more feebleness 
 in the pulpit than any other one limitation. 
 Many a preacher is mourning because his words 
 are as blunted arrows, unconscious of the fact 
 that his failures are chiefly due to his bungling 
 way of approaching those to whom he ministers. 
 He smiles when he should weep, he is solemn at 
 the wrong moment; he is severe toward the 
 sensitive, and lenient toward the utterly perverse. 
 His themes are often ill-chosen. He shocks his 
 best friends by his unhappy speeches, until his 
 efforts are dreaded by those who have had a dire 
 
72 THE MANY-SIDED PAUL 
 
 experience of his failing. Are there not many 
 tactless preachers ? Is not the absence of tact 
 the fly that spoils the richest ointment of their 
 equipment ? Tact — it is the John the Baptist of 
 the preacher's eloquence. 
 
 Still further, St. Paul is characterized by im- 
 mense earnestness. Says Dr. W. M. Taylor: 
 "If ever man was in earnest, he was in earnest. 
 Everything about him was intense. Festus might 
 sneer at him as 'mad,' and his Corinthian antag- 
 onists might despise him as ' beside himself,' but 
 his was the madness of a holy" and intelligent 
 zeal, the insanity of a benevolent and healthy 
 enthusiasm." l "Always and overwhelmingly in 
 earnest" is the comment of Farrar. His zeal is 
 pronounced. We feel as we listen to him that 
 here indeed is one who regards himself as a dying 
 man preaching to dying men. Possibly he may 
 never come this way again; hence he must con- 
 centrate all the energy of his being on the present 
 effort. He does nothing by halves. His work in 
 presenting truth is never slipshod. We wonder 
 at the force in him. It seems superhuman. It is 
 enthusiasm, inspired by enormous faith in the 
 efficacy of the Cross. 
 
 We must next glance at the apostle's moral 
 
 1 Paul the Missionary. 
 
ST. PAUL THE PREACHER 73 
 
 courage. It has been questioned whether he pos- 
 sessed much of what we term physical courage. 
 His expression, "I die daily," the tone of his 
 rehearsal of his remarkable hardships, his ac- 
 count of his trepidation in Macedonia, — " with- 
 out were fightings, within were fears " (2 Cor. 
 7: 5), — are among the supposed evidences of his 
 lack of the sort of courage we look for in the 
 athlete or soldier. But if he did not ignore 
 pain, if he instinctively shrank from physical 
 peril, certainly his sublime moral courage held 
 him sternly to the path of duty, at whatever 
 cost of danger, and ranked him among the 
 heroes of the ages. It would be easy to mul- 
 tiply illustrations of this quality, but we must 
 confine attention to the exhibitions of it in the 
 line of his preaching. He is constantly preach- 
 ing to unfriendly audiences. Without hesitation 
 he repeatedly speaks for the Cross in the face of 
 popular contempt. See him "alone" in Athens, 
 for instance, preaching Christ before haughty 
 scoffers. But the experience is repeated in well- 
 nigh every place he visits. Not once but a hun- 
 dred times does he reveal that highest form of 
 courage which consists in defending the truth 
 where it is unpopular. Such, though in a less 
 degree, was the courage of preachers like Huss, 
 
74 THE MANY-SIDED PAUL 
 
 and Wyclif, and Savonarola and George Fox. 
 No age has altogether lacked men who have 
 dared much in defense of right and truth. The 
 world needs men of that stamp now. 
 
 Finally, we must touch upon the cheerfulness 
 of St. Paul — a valuable trait in the preacher al- 
 ways, as it is a quality we have a right to expect 
 in every child of grace. The apostle may have 
 lacked humor, as Dr. Howson says 1 ; but he cer- 
 tainly abounded in cheerfulness. He had his 
 dark days, but always the clouds passed, and the 
 sun of hope rose brighter than before, making his 
 path glorious. We must regard the quality in 
 him as a fruit of grace, rather than as a natural 
 gift. If Christ had never claimed him we believe 
 that his course would have ended in a night of 
 sullen gloom and despair. As it was, the tone of 
 good cheer in him became firmer, more gladsome, 
 as the years sped. The indications of this are 
 numerous. He is able to sing in the Philippian 
 dungeon (Acts 16: 25); he speaks of "overflow- 
 ing with joy" in affliction (2 Cor. 7: 4); he 
 begs the Ephesians not to faint at his tribula- 
 tions (Eph. 3:13); he writes in a happy strain 
 to Philemon ; the tone of his Epistle to the 
 Colossians is most sanguine; his sermons all 
 
 1 The Character of St. Paid. 
 
ST. PAUL THE PREACHER 75 
 
 breathe hopefulness, triumph, joyousness. Most 
 striking of all, this cheerfulness of spirit in- 
 creases toward the end, and the happiest words 
 proceed from his prison, — nay, while he is un- 
 der the growing shadow of his martyrdom. 
 From his first Roman captivity he writes words 
 like these : "I thank my God upon all my 
 remembrance of you" (Phil. 1:3); "If there 
 is therefore any comfort in Christ, if any con- 
 solation of love, if any fellowship of the Spirit, 
 if any tender mercies and compassions, fulfill 
 ye my joy" (Phil. 2: 1); "I joy and rejoice 
 with you all: and in the same manner do ye 
 also joy, and rejoice with me" (Phil. 2: 18); 
 "Finally, my brethren, rejoice in the Lord" 
 (Phil. 3: 1) ; ''Rejoice in the Lord alway : 
 again I will say, Rejoice" (Phil. 4: 4). And we 
 have all noticed the note of triumph in the epis- 
 tles to Timothy, the sweetest at the last, which 
 is well indicated in the joyous declaration: "I 
 have fought the good fight, I have finished the 
 course, I have kept thefaith: henceforth there is 
 laid up for me the crown of righteousness " 
 (2 Tim. 4: 7, 8). Never, indeed, was there a 
 better example of what faith in Jesus can do 
 to keep a man sweet and happy. Nothing in 
 earth or hell can crush so complete a believer. 
 
76 THE MANY-SIDED PAUL 
 
 Yea, "faithfulness can feed on suffering, and 
 knows no disappointment." When, therefore, the 
 preacher of these days of scant faith is depressed 
 by worldliness and indifference, and inclined to 
 deep melancholy by the vast suffering that is in 
 the world, let him look to St. Paul, and his trials, 
 and his cheerful heart, and let him, too, as at a 
 new Market of Appius and Three Taverns, thank 
 God and take courage. 
 
 On the whole, shall we not term him the 
 emperor of the Christian pulpit — this peerless 
 preacher, of whom in an infinitely larger sense 
 than of Wesley it could be said that the whole 
 world was, and is, his parish ? 
 
ST. PAUL THE MISSIONARY 
 
And if the way seems rough, I only clasp 
 The Hand that leads me, with a firmer grasp. 
 
 — Annie C. Lynch. 
 
 These are the two great types of strength which fill the 
 earth — the Caesars and Napoleons claiming the earth for them- 
 selves, and subduing it to their proud wills — the Pauls and Bon- 
 ifaces and Xaviers and Eliots and Livingstones, claiming the 
 earth for holiness, and subduing it to the will of God. . . . 
 Our own dear faith has never, since she stood tiptoe with St. 
 Paul upon the shore of Troas, ready to cross over into Europe, 
 has never since then stood so ready for her work, " with loins 
 girt up to run around the earth." — Phillips Brooks. 
 
 Yea, making it my aim so to preach the gospel, not where 
 Christ was already named, that I might not build upon another 
 man's foundation. — Ro??ians ij ; 20. 
 
IV 
 
 ST. PAUL THE MISSIONARY 
 
 We are now more particularly to view St. Paul 
 as the man of action. We are to study him as 
 the explorer of new regions, and the founder of 
 churches. Here we face the leading feature 
 of his character and life work; for above all else 
 he was a Christian missionary. Of all the mod- 
 ern forms of Christian service, indeed, that of 
 the foreign missionary corresponds most closely 
 to the main business of the leading apostle. 
 The young man or woman of our time who 
 would follow most closely in the steps of 
 St. Paul must choose the calling of the foreign 
 missionary. 
 
 Every other phase of the apostle's life was sub- 
 ordinate to this. Are we interested in his work 
 in Damascus, in Jerusalem, in Antioch ? It is to 
 be looked on as preparatory to his work in Asia 
 and Europe. Do we find him communing and 
 consulting with other leaders of the apostolic 
 Church — as at the Council of Jerusalem? Such 
 79 
 
80 THE MANY-SIDED PAUL 
 
 association is not to be understood save in the 
 light thrown upon it by his missionary activities. 
 Are we interested in his epistles, would we study 
 his system of teaching ? We must bear in mind 
 that the primary aim of these undying letters was 
 to instruct those who had been recently con- 
 verted under his missionary preaching, or to 
 strengthen churches in the line of his missionary 
 travels. None of his epistles are directed to 
 home churches, like Jerusalem or Antioch. They 
 all are to believers on Asiatic or European soil. 
 Do we find rich spiritual profit in regarding the 
 apostle as a man of study and prayer ? We must 
 remember that his intellect and piety were de- 
 voted chiefly to the furtherance of his missionary 
 projects. As in securing a true photograph of a 
 man's person you must have his face and not an 
 inferior member of his body in the foreground, 
 so in gaining a judgment concerning the charac- 
 ter of St. Paul you must, in order to avoid a 
 distorted and false picture of him, keep his mis- 
 sionary aim and work in the center of your 
 field of vision. 
 
 His peculiar natural qualifications for the work 
 of a missionary were various and important. 
 His double citizenship, to which allusion has 
 already been made, gave him a peculiar fitness 
 
ST. PAUL THE MISSIONARY 81 
 
 for carrying the gospel into regions dotted over 
 with Jewish synagogues, but under the control 
 of the Roman government. Then, too, his 
 knowledge of the Greek tongue, and his fine 
 intellect, gave him access to every important 
 circle in the empire; for Greek was to the civi- 
 lized world of his day what French is to Europe 
 in ours. Furthermore, he was one of those rare 
 men in whom both the speculative and the active 
 temperaments are largely developed. He was 
 by nature both a thinker and a man of affairs. 
 Ordinarily the man of deep reflection, the man 
 who is able to add most largely to the world's 
 wealth of ideas, is poorly equipped for taking the 
 lead in great practical undertakings; and on the 
 other hand, the great men of practical enterprise 
 are seldom preeminently great as thinkers. For 
 instance, how difficult it would be to think of 
 Tennyson or Carlyle as successful leaders in the 
 British Parliament, or to think of great adminis- 
 trators or captains like Peabody or General 
 Grant as distinguished in poetry or philosophy. 
 But the ideal missionary will be strong on both 
 these lines. He will be powerful in the sphere 
 of meditation and reflection, and he will be 
 equally great as the man of quick, accurate de- 
 cision, and sharp, decisive action, — for mission- 
 
82 THE MANY-SIDED PAUL 
 
 ary fields, like battlefields, are always places for 
 wise generalship. Now St. Paul was neither a 
 bookworm nor a mere instrument to execute 
 other men's ideas. He was forceful in both 
 thought and affairs. His modern counterparts 
 in this regard are, of course, men of the type of 
 Adoniram Judson, or Alexander Duff, or Coleridge 
 Patteson. 
 
 But still further, he had what has been termed 
 the pioneer spirit, a genius for penetrating into 
 unworked fields, at whatever cost of hardship or 
 suffering. This must ever be regarded as the 
 most striking natural element of the person who 
 may be styled "a born missionary." Without 
 the attachment of a distinct spiritual purpose it is 
 the trait that forms the basis of character of the 
 great explorer, — like Columbus, or Hudson, or 
 Sir John Franklin, or Nansen; or of the great ad- 
 venturer, like Sir Francis Drake, or Captain Cook, 
 or Daniel Boone. Some men cannot live in wide 
 separation from friends and home comforts. 
 They are depressed by the solitude, and pros- 
 trated by the sense of danger, in wild, untrodden 
 regions. The process of " roughing it" in dis- 
 tricts remote from the place of their nativity un- 
 nerves and debilitates them. Such men, what- 
 ever their qualifications in other respects, are not 
 
ST. PAUL THE MISSIONARY 83 
 
 marked by nature for the calling of the mission- 
 ary. But St. Paul was a born pioneer, and thus 
 far was a born missionary. He has been in this 
 respect happily compared to Dr. Livingstone. 
 The words of Dr. Stalker deserve quoting 
 here: ''In modern times no missionary has had 
 this consecrated spirit of adventure in the same 
 degree as our lamented hero, David Livingstone. 
 When he first went to Africa he found the mis- 
 sionaries clustered in the south of the continent, 
 just within the fringe of heathenism; they had 
 their houses and gardens, their families, their 
 small congregations of natives; and they were 
 content. But he moved at once away beyond 
 the rest into the heart of heathenism, and dreams 
 of more distant regions never ceased to haunt 
 him, till at length he commenced his extraordi- 
 nary tramps over thousands of miles where no 
 missionary had ever been before; and when 
 death overtook him he was still pressing for- 
 ward. Paul's was a nature of the same stamp, 
 full of courage and adventure. The unknown in 
 the distance, instead of dismaying him, drew 
 him on." 1 Modern missions present many illus-* 
 trations of this fundamental natural trait of the 
 true missionary. Eliot, Brainerd, Paton, and Dr. 
 
 1 Life of St. Paul, p. 112. 
 
84 THE MANY-SIDED PAUL 
 
 Good, are names that will occur to every student 
 of latter-day Christian missions. 
 
 It must be added to the statement of these 
 natural qualifications of the apostle for his mis- 
 sionary enterprises that he believed in a mission- 
 ary Christ. To him God was the Sovereign of 
 the whole earth. Christ died, according to his 
 thinking, not for a church or a class, but for the 
 world. He saw that the gospel was to be 
 preached to the Jew first, but also to the Greek 
 — that is, to the entire non-Jewish world. With- 
 out doubt he was aware of the words of the 
 Lord, "The field is the world" (Matt. 13:38), 
 "Go ye therefore, and make disciples of all the 
 nations" (Matt. 28: 19). Having accepted the 
 truth of the divinity of Christ, and the design of 
 the atonement, his broad and logical mind recog- 
 nized clearly that it would be an insult to divine 
 grace practically to limit the gospel to a particular 
 section. If, then, the gospel was for the entire 
 earth, he as a man of burning zeal and courage 
 must needs do his full share, whatever it chance 
 to be, to carry it abroad. 
 
 It is true that the Holy Ghost appointed St. 
 Paul to his work as a missionary. But we hold 
 that the Spirit of God chose him thus because he 
 was the right man for the work to be done. The 
 
ST. PAUL THE MISSIONARY 85 
 
 Holy Spirit, we believe, never calls men arbitra- 
 rily into any field of action. There are young 
 men about us who may have been called by the 
 Holy Spirit to missionary endeavor; but it is safe 
 to conclude that the call is not his that is im- 
 agined to be so by one who has no striking apti- 
 tude for the missionary's peculiar work. May 
 we venture to suggest certain natural qualifica- 
 tions without which, with possibly rare excep- 
 tions, no man should become a foreign mission- 
 ary in our generation ? Among them are a sound 
 physical constitution, a certain facility in linguis- 
 tic study, a degree of fondness for teaching, a 
 measure of social independence, inborn unselfish- 
 ness, and the humanitarian temper. These 
 qualities are fundamental. Apparently St. Paul 
 possessed them all. 
 
 Let us attempt to gain a bird's-eye view of the 
 apostle's missionary activities, to discover what 
 they involved to him, and to apprehend their 
 main results. The apostle himself speaks of 
 missionary labors, which must have been quite 
 prolonged, in Syria and Cilicia (Gal. 1: 21). 
 Then St. Luke in The Acts presents an account, 
 with more or less detail, of three missionary 
 tours of the apostle, together with the account of 
 a journey made by him, while a prisoner, from 
 
86 THE MANY-SIDED PAUL 
 
 Palestine to Italy. In addition to these, scholars 
 are mainly agreed that during a period of two or 
 three years intervening between a first and 
 second imprisonment in Rome he made a final 
 missionary tour, unrecorded in The Acts, in 
 which he visited, and labored in, at least Asia, 
 Crete, Macedonia and Achaia. 1 The second of 
 these tours of The Acts appears to have been the 
 most fruitful. Stalker refers to it as a journey 
 " perhaps the most momentous recorded in the 
 annals of the human race." 2 The record by St. 
 Luke of these important missionary labors appears 
 in Acts 13: 1 to 21 : 15. 
 
 Perhaps it was in the year of our Lord 46 
 when St. Paul, Barnabas, and Mark, started forth 
 from Antioch on the apostle's first formal gospel 
 tour toward the west. They proceeded to Seleu- 
 cia, the seaport of Antioch, and thence sailed to 
 the island of Cyprus. They preached in the 
 synagogue in Salamis, at the eastern end of the 
 island, and thence proceeded, probably preach- 
 ing as they went, to the town of Paphos, at 
 the island's western extremity. Thence they 
 crossed to the mainland, into the province of 
 Pamphylia, and came to the town of Perga, 
 
 1 The genuineness of the Pastoral Epistles depends on such a tour. 
 3 Life of St. Paul. 
 
ST. PAUL THE MISSIONARY 87 
 
 where Mark deserted his principals and returned 
 to Jerusalem. Thence the two missionaries went 
 to Antioch of Pisidia, where St. Paul preached his 
 first missionary sermon of which we have any 
 account. After leaving Antioch they labored in 
 Iconium, and afterwards preached in turn in 
 Lystra and Derbe. From Derbe the mission- 
 aries retraced their steps, going to Lystra, to 
 Iconium, to Antioch, to Perga. Thence they 
 went to Attalia, whence they sailed to Antioch 
 in Syria, their starting point. The journey had 
 occupied probably not less than three years, and 
 the travelers had covered approximately fifteen 
 hundred miles, about one-half on land and one- 
 half on water. According to recent scholarship, 
 which I accept, Antioch of Pisidia, Iconium, Lys- 
 tra, and Derbe, mark the points of the "churches 
 in Galatia" to which the Epistle to the Galatians 
 was afterwards directed. 1 
 
 The second journey began a year or two 
 later, about the year 50. On this tour St. Paul 
 was accompanied by Silas of Jerusalem. The 
 missionaries started from Antioch in Syria, 
 where the first tour began, and proceeded 
 overland into Asia Minor, visiting on their way 
 
 *See Ramsay's St. Paul the Traveler and the Roman Citizen. So also 
 Bacon. Also (formerly) Weizsacker, Hausrath, etc. 
 
88 THE MANY-SIDED PAUL 
 
 the churches already founded in Syria and Cili- 
 cia — the latter St. Paul's native province. Thence 
 they came to Derbe, and then to Lystra. In the 
 latter place the apostle discovered Timothy, there- 
 after his faithful coworker. Doubtless on his 
 way he revisited Antioch and Iconium, though 
 we are not expressly told that such was the 
 case; and being supernaturally directed not to 
 labor in the provinces of Asia and Bithynia, he 
 and his companions came to Troas, on the 
 /Egean Sea, over against what is now south- 
 eastern Turkey. From that point they crossed 
 over into Europe, — the most momentous act, 
 outside the earthly life of our Lord, in all Chris- 
 tian history. They founded a church in Philippi, 
 and then proceeding to Thessalonica they founded 
 a church there. Then they labored for a time, 
 successfully, in Bercea. Next, leaving Silas 
 and Timothy in Beroea, St. Paul went alone to 
 Athens, where he appears to have accomplished 
 little in the way of direct results, though we 
 could ill spare the great sermon the visit occa- 
 sioned. From Athens the apostle went to Cor- 
 inth, where he founded a church, and where he 
 remained in most profitable work for a year 
 and a half. While here he probably wrote his 
 first two epistles, the first and second missives 
 
ST. PAUL THE MISSIONARY 89 
 
 to the Thessalonians. From Corinth he pro- 
 ceeded to the capital of the province of Asia, 
 the great city of Ephesus, where, however, he did 
 not attempt a prolonged work. Promising his 
 hearers there to return to them, he sailed thence 
 to Csesarea, and from Csesarea he returned to the 
 starting point, Antioch. He had covered a dis- 
 tance of somewhat more than two thousand 
 miles, 1 and occupied a period of perhaps two 
 and a half years. 
 
 The third gospel journey began, according to 
 my reckoning, in the year 54. The apostle pro- 
 ceeded overland from Antioch through the south- 
 ern tier of provinces in Asia Minor until he came 
 to Ephesus, where he tarried three years, and 
 where the most important part of the work of 
 the journey was accomplished. We must date 
 the Epistle to. the Romans, and those to 
 the Corinthians, from about this period. His 
 work in Ephesus ended, the apostle proceeded 
 into Macedonia, and thence into Greece. From 
 the city of Philippi he sailed back across the 
 /Egean to Troas, where he preached, and whence 
 he started on his journey homeward. We re- 
 gard the sketch of this gospel tour as ending 
 
 1 Professor Gilbert estimates the distance as twenty-five hundred miles.- 
 Student's Life of Paul, p. 135. 
 
9 o THE MANY-SIDED PAUL 
 
 with the account of his arrival in Jerusalem. 
 The time required for the events of the journey 
 could hardly have been less than four years. The 
 distance traveled may be roughly estimated 
 as two thousand miles, partly on land and 
 partly on water. 
 
 I pass by in this description the details of the 
 apostle's long voyage in captivity to Italy, with 
 its manifold perils and adventures including its 
 shipwreck; and we shall not enter the field of 
 conjecture concerning the fourth missionary jour- 
 ney, of which St. Luke tells us nothing. If we 
 reckon the voyage to Rome as being two thou- 
 sand miles, and if we reckon the undescribed 
 tour as being fifteen hundred miles in length, 
 then we conclude that this matchless missionary 
 traveled in the course of his missionary under- 
 takings, together with his journey as a prisoner, 
 not less than nine thousand miles, by land and 
 by sea. The time from the beginning of the 
 first to the close of the third journey I judge to 
 have been about twelve years. From the begin- 
 ning of his missionary career until his death was 
 a period of about twenty years, assuming that 
 he received his crown in a. d. 67 or 68. 
 
 Nine or ten thousand miles of travel during 
 twenty years does not sound very formidable to 
 
ST. PAUL THE MISSIONARY 91 
 
 the seasoned traveler of these days of ocean 
 palaces and transcontinental express trains; but 
 in trying to present to our minds the difficulties 
 and discomforts of St. Paul's journeyings, we 
 must bear in mind how different were the condi- 
 tions of travel in the Roman Empire of the first 
 century from those with which we are familiar. 
 Probably the main highways — the large arteries 
 of commerce and travel — were good, for the 
 Romans were excellent road builders. But the 
 rivers were imperfectly bridged, and often were 
 to be crossed only by fording. There were 
 beasts of prey in the forests that have since dis- 
 appeared from those regions. The mountain 
 passes were infested with brigands. All travel- 
 ers in Asia Minor for centuries have complained 
 of the excessive summer heat, the intolerable 
 dust, and the pestiferous stinging insects. And 
 what we term "hotel accommodations" along 
 the great roads must have been, according to our 
 notion, exceedingly primitive, where they were 
 not altogether wanting. Travelers must have 
 been constantly in danger of suffering from 
 hunger. Add to all this the fact that the apostle 
 must have gone about from town to town almost 
 entirely on foot, and consider also the inferior 
 methods of navigation in his time, long before 
 
92 THE MANY-SIDED PAUL 
 
 the use of the chart and mariner's compass, 
 and we may begin to get a faint impression of 
 the meaning of the nine or ten thousand miles of 
 the apostle's travels over land and sea. 
 
 We have been considering first century travel 
 in its most favorable light. It would seem to be 
 difficult enough for one who met only good will 
 from his brother beings along the way. But we 
 know that St. Paul found his worst difficulties in 
 travel in the form of human hostility. In nearly 
 every place in which he preached he sooner or 
 later met with intense opposition. Again and 
 again Jews and pagans fell upon him with viru- 
 lent hatred, and dogged him with deadly perse- 
 cution. Now he was driven ignominiously out 
 of a city; now he was hounded by the oriental 
 mob, as by the ''wild beasts" at Ephesus; now 
 he was stoned, and dragged half dead over the 
 rough ground, as at Lystra; now he was beaten 
 by Roman lictors, as at Philippi, or by the 
 officials of the synagogue; now he was assailed 
 by ungodly tradesmen like Demetrius, whose 
 craft was endangered by his pure teaching; now 
 he was met with cynical contempt or laughter, 
 as in Athens; now he was cast into a loathsome 
 prison cell. The most of his hardships during 
 these journeys St. Luke passes over in silence, since 
 
ST. PAUL THE MISSIONARY 93 
 
 the historian aims to magnify the grace of God 
 rather than to win sympathy for his hero; and 
 the apostle in his own writings only once fully 
 lifts the veil from the appalling list of his suffer- 
 ings as a missionary of the Cross. To begin to 
 get a full appreciation of the hardships he met 
 with as a missionary we must read his words in 
 the Second Epistle to the Corinthians: "Of the 
 Jews five times received I forty stripes save one. 
 Thrice was I beaten with rods, once was I 
 stoned, thrice I suffered shipwreck, a night and a 
 day have I been in the deep; in journeyings 
 often, in perils of rivers, in perils of robbers, in 
 perils from my countrymen, in perils from the 
 Gentiles, in perils in the city, in perils in the 
 wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils among 
 false brethren; in labor and travail, in watchings 
 often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in 
 cold and nakedness" (2 Cor. 11:24-26). Pass- 
 ing over all other forms of suffering here men- 
 tioned, consider the fact that he received a Jewish 
 scourging five times, and a Roman scourging 
 three times. One Roman scourging was enough 
 to constitute a man a martyr. The victims of 
 Jewish scourgings not infrequently died under 
 the infliction on the bare back of the thirty-nine 
 cruel lashes of the twisted six strands of leather 
 
94 THE MANY-SIDED PAUL 
 
 in the hands of the muscular cha^an of the 
 synagogue. 
 
 Yet all these sufferings were lightly borne by 
 the great apostle. So great was his spiritual ex- 
 altation that he seems almost to have been oblivi- 
 ous of his sufferings when he experienced them, 
 and he refers to them afterwards with joy rather 
 than with shame. We recall Tertullian's words, 
 "The leg feels nothing in the stocks when the 
 soul is in heaven." And truly remarks Dr. 
 Farrar, "A much lower exaltation than that of 
 the apostle would rob anguish of half its sting." 
 What a lesson for all Christian sufferers in the 
 gentle, sweet spirit of this apostle! Shall we 
 servants of God have the face to complain of our 
 treatment, in this luxurious age, when we con- 
 trast our little sufferings with those of St. Paul ? 
 
 We must briefly touch upon the results of St. 
 Paul's missionary enterprises. Of course he won 
 many converts. How many is a matter of con- 
 jecture. Renan thinks they were not more than 
 one thousand altogether. Probably that view is 
 far too conservative. But the most of us would 
 think it glory enough to be able to win one thou- 
 sand men for Christ in a lifetime. But the su- 
 preme glory of St. Paul's work was that its fruits 
 lasted after his departure. He was a founder of 
 
ST. PAUL THE MISSIONARY 95 
 
 churches. Many of these continued in power 
 for centuries. We classify them as follows: 
 First, those indicated in The Acts as organized by 
 him. Among these are the churches in Galatia, — 
 Antioch, Iconium, Lystra, and Derbe, — and those 
 of Philippi, Thessalonica, Beroea, Corinth, and 
 Ephesus. " He founded no church in Athens, but 
 there — it may be under the fostering charge of 
 the converted Areopagite — a church grew up. In 
 the next century it furnished to the cause of 
 Christianity its martyr bishops and its eloquent 
 apologists." So says Dr. Farrar; 1 but we think 
 the Athenian church is to be ascribed, at least indi- 
 rectly, to the influence of the apostle. Second, the 
 churches with which we know St. Paul was con- 
 nected, judging from his epistles, and which we 
 must regard as in some sense arising from his 
 labors. The church in Colossae and the churches in 
 Crete are illustrations. Third, the churches re- 
 ferred to elsewhere in the New Testament than 
 in The Acts or the Pauline letters, but which we 
 have reason to ascribe directly or indirectly to his 
 efforts. For instance, the seven churches of the 
 Apocalypse. Dr. Ramsay thinks, and with good 
 reason as we judge, that these seven churches 
 sprang into being as a fruit of the apostle's three 
 
 1 The Life and Work of St. Paul. 
 
96 THE MANY-SIDED PAUL 
 
 years' labor in Ephesus. x Fourth, churches 
 founded by the apostle of which we have no rec- 
 ord. That there were churches of this class we 
 are certain. He did foundation work, — for in- 
 stance, in Syria and Cilicia, — which is described 
 to us only in the most general terms. It deserves 
 notice that, generally speaking, the Pauline 
 churches were established on the great lines of 
 communication in the empire and at strategic 
 points; and therefore they were adapted to be 
 lights on a hill, throwing their gracious beams 
 far and wide. An important lesson is here for 
 all pioneers in gospel work. 
 
 In general terms it may be said that the great 
 result of St. Paul's missionary labors was the 
 final establishment of Gentile Christianity. For 
 a time it was a question whether Christianity was 
 to be regarded as a branch of Judaism, with its 
 narrow sectionalism, and hedged about with an 
 enslaving ceremonialism, or whether it was to 
 spread out broadly as the universal world reli- 
 gion. St. Paul stood for the broader conception 
 of our holy faith. The battle was fiercely waged 
 between him and the Judaizing Christians, but he 
 won the day; and the chief factor in establish- 
 ing his victory was the practical fruitage of his 
 
 1 St. Paul, the Traveler and the Roman Citizen. 
 
ST. PAUL THE MISSIONARY 97 
 
 missions in the heart of the Roman world. As 
 under his influence church after church sprang 
 into being out of non-Jewish materials, the logic 
 of events gradually proved too much for Jew- 
 ish superstition and narrowness as control- 
 ling elements in the Church of the universal 
 Redeemer. 
 
 The results of St. Paul's missions are of 
 vital interest to us. We of the western world 
 owe an incalculable debt of gratitude to him for 
 carrying the gospel into Europe. What if St. Paul 
 had traveled with the gospel toward the East in- 
 stead of toward the West ? What if on the 
 shore of the /Egean he had disobeyed the invita- 
 tion of the man from Macedonia? You and I 
 might in that event at this hour be prostrate be- 
 fore images of Buddha, or be burning incense to 
 the shade of Confucius; or worse still, we might 
 be painted savages, like the aboriginal Scots and 
 Angles. In that event China and India might 
 now be sending Christian missionaries to us, 
 instead of our sending ambassadors of the Cross 
 to them. "Providence conferred on Europe a 
 blessed priority, and the fate of our continent 
 was decided when St. Paul crossed the y^Egean." 
 In view, therefore, of this undeniable fact how 
 powerfully gratitude to God for the Christian 
 
98 THE MANY-SIDED PAUL 
 
 salt that has healed the streams of the history of 
 western civilization should impel us in our turn 
 to send the glorious gospel to the spiritually 
 destitute in distant lands! 
 
 Indeed, not the least of the blessings en- 
 joyed by the Church at this hour, which Chris- 
 tians may thank God for, is the missionary spirit 
 Christ's people have learned from St. Paul. 
 When toward the close of the last century the 
 beginning of a missionary revival arose in the 
 churches of England and America, the move- 
 ment was simply a return to first principles. It 
 was a new recognition of the meaning of St. 
 Paul's work viewed in the light of the univer- 
 sality of the spirit of Jesus. Because we believe 
 in Christ we believe in St. Paul; and because we 
 believe in St. Paul we believe in Christian mis- 
 sions; and because we believe in missions woe 
 to us if we do not give, every one of us, 
 thought, sympathy, prayer, and practical help, 
 to the gospel agencies of the kingdom of God in 
 every land! Under God it is due to St. Paul that 
 the Church of the everlasting Jehovah 
 
 " Like a mighty army " 
 
 is moving, gradually but invincibly, against the 
 ignorance, unbelief, and sin, of the world's 
 heathenism. 
 
ST. PAUL THE PASTOR 
 
 LofC. 
 
In his duty prompt at every call, 
 
 He watch'd, and wept, and felt, and pray'd for all. 
 
 — Goldsmith. 
 
 Happy the faithful pastor, who, in his flesh, perpetuates Thy 
 sacrifice and Thy conflict ! While he struggles and groans, I 
 see him in my visions, hidden in Thy bosom, as on the day of 
 the funeral banquet him whom Thou lovedst. — Vinet. 
 
 And I will most gladly spend and be spent for your souls. — 
 2 Cor. 12 : ij. 
 
ST. PAUL THE PASTOR 
 
 We proceed to view the apostle as a Christian 
 pastor— to inquire in what spirit and manner he 
 discharged the duty of practical oversight of the 
 churches to which he was officially related. 
 
 The distinction between pastoral work and 
 preaching is practical and popular rather than 
 logical; but nevertheless it is sufficiently clear to 
 warrant separate treatment of the two functions 
 in a study of a career so rich in activity as that 
 of St. Paul. We often hear the expression, con- 
 cerning a clergyman, " He is a good preacher, 
 but a poor pastor," or the reverse; and occasion- 
 ally, "He is able both as preacher and pastor; " 
 and it is this sense of the term pastor that we are 
 here to employ. It is that phase of the apostle's 
 service we are to consider that is indicated, for 
 example, when St. Luke tells us of St. Paul and 
 his companion that at the close of the first mis- 
 sionary tour they returned to Lystra, Iconium, and 
 Antioch, "confirming the souls of the disciples, 
 
102 THE MANY-SIDED PAUL 
 
 exhorting them to continue in the faith" (Acts 
 14:22); or when he quotes St. Paul's sugges- 
 tion at the beginning of the second tour: ''Let 
 us return now and visit the brethren in every 
 city wherein we proclaimed the word of the 
 Lord, and see how they fare" (Acts 15: 36). 
 Texts like these introduce us to what may be 
 termed, perhaps rather loosely, the pastoral work 
 of St. Paul. 
 
 Of the apostle's genius for organization I have 
 already spoken; and hence, to avoid repetition, I 
 shall not speak of that quality in the present con- 
 nection. There remain to be considered the 
 apostle's views concerning the pastoral function; 
 his relation to his brother ministers; his manage- 
 ment of church finances; his attitude toward the 
 sacraments; his ideas concerning church dis- 
 cipline; his practice of pastoral visitation; and 
 his practical dealing with various classes of weak 
 or troubled believers. The thoughtful consider- 
 ation of topics like these must be of vast and 
 permanent interest not only to officials of Chris- 
 tian churches, but also to Christians in general. 
 
 It is the infinite good fortune of the Church of 
 Christ that St. Paul has left on record, in the 
 pastoral epistles, his own views concerning the 
 well-equipped pastor and his tasks ; and we 
 
ST. PAUL THE PASTOR 103 
 
 feel sure that this body of teaching corresponds 
 to the writer's own character and habits as a 
 pastor, — that the best of pastors reveals himself 
 in his instruction concerning the ideal pastor. 
 What, then, are the leading qualities of the faith- 
 ful pastor, according to the letters to Timothy 
 and that to Titus ? 
 
 He must, in the first place, be wholly loyal to 
 Christ. That is assumed throughout. If he be 
 true he will be " a good minister of Christ Jesus, 
 nourished in the words of the faith, and of the 
 good doctrine" (1 Tim. 4: 6). He should grow 
 in Christlikeness, — "be strengthened in the 
 grace that is in Christ Jesus" (2 Tim. 2: 1). He 
 must believe on that Person whom the apostle 
 has adored. The under shepherd the apostle in- 
 structs is a "true child after a common faith" 
 (Titus 1 : 4). Christ must have absolute do- 
 minion in the heart of the true pastor. Next, 
 the pastor should possess strength of character. 
 He should be what we term "a strong man." 
 This involves a comprehensive knowledge of 
 the Scriptures. The man who is strong as a 
 pastor will "give diligence to present" himself 
 "approved unto God, a workman that needeth 
 not to be ashamed, handling aright the word of 
 truth" (2 Tim. 2: 15). He will not confuse 
 
104 THE MANY-SIDED PAUL 
 
 human trivialities with the solemn instruction 
 of Scripture. He will "shun profane bab- 
 blings" (2 Tim. 2: 16). He will be built on too 
 vast a scale to bother over the mythical in Chris- 
 tian history or waste time over matters of insig- 
 nificant moment; he will not "give heed to fables 
 and endless genealogies" (1 Tim. 1: 3, 4). As 
 he advances in spiritual knowledge he will grow 
 far above the spirit of pettiness — a fault that has 
 proved a snare to thousands in pastoral work. 
 Again, the pastor of whom St. Paul approves 
 must be exemplary in domestic and neighbor- 
 hood relations. He must be a model of peace in 
 his home and community; his deportment to- 
 ward women must be strictly dignified and 
 pure; he must rule his own children well; he 
 must be of a genial hospitality; he must be 
 generous and open-handed; and he must keep 
 his personal character in every respect above 
 suspicion (1 Tim. 3: 1-7; Titus 1: 6-8). Then, 
 furthermore, the pastor who understands his 
 place must uphold dignity and reverence in 
 public worship. He will instruct men to pray 
 "lifting up holy hands, without wrath and dis- 
 puting" (1 Tim. 2:8-12). He will refuse to 
 permit irregular or questionable proceedings in 
 Christian assemblies over which he presides. 
 
ST. PAUL THE PASTOR 105 
 
 In other words he will himself be solemnized in 
 church or chapel by the knowledge that "the 
 Lord is in his holy temple" (Ps. 11: 4); and 
 with that spirit flippancy and sensational speech 
 are clearly inconsistent. Still further, the ideal 
 pastor will be a man of wise courage and honest 
 though tactful plainness of speech. It is a pastor 
 speaking to a pastor who manfully declares, 
 "God gave us not a spirit of fearfulness" 
 (2 Tim. 1 : 7). There are times when the conse- 
 crated pastor will "reprove, rebuke, exhort" 
 (2 Tim. 4:2). Considering a certain class — 
 "unruly men, vain talkers and deceivers" (Titus 
 1: 10) — a class Ian Maclaren has called "church 
 mutineers " — there are times when the strong pas- 
 tor must needs "reprove them sharply" (Titus 
 1 : 13). Admitting that this duty is to be dis- 
 charged advisedly and tactfully, we must yet al- 
 low that there is sometimes occasion in the pastor 
 for righteous indignation vigorously expressed. 
 Finally, the pastor who is approved of God will 
 be strictly impartial as between different classes, 
 socially considered. Pastor Timothy is told that 
 they are false shepherds who suppose that 
 "godliness is a way of gain" (1 Tim. 6: 5), and 
 he is instructed to "charge them that are rich in 
 this present world, that they be not high- 
 
106 THE MANY-SIDED PAUL 
 
 minded" (i Tim. 6: 17). If he and other pas- 
 tors are the true servants of Jesus Christ, they 
 will not cringe before wealth or social position. 
 Yet they are not to assume, on the other hand, 
 that wealth and rank necessarily involve enmity 
 to God. The correct attitude of the spiritual 
 guide is not opposition to any class, but a kindly 
 impartiality. 
 
 These are among the principles set forth by 
 the apostle in the pastoral epistles for the guid- 
 ance of the preacher in pastoral service; and 
 their enunciation clearly throws light on the 
 author's own character. There never was a 
 more subjective writer than St. Paul; never was 
 it easier than with his words to measure a man 
 by the product of his pen. And how much in 
 these three letters needs to be taken to heart by 
 the Christian pastors of our own time! 
 
 The foregoing has prepared us to consider 
 what the apostle was as a pastor, as shown by 
 St. Luke's record of his pastoral career, and by 
 the tone of his pastoral counsels indicated in the 
 epistles other than the three of which we have 
 spoken. 
 
 It is doubtless correct to classify with the pas- 
 toral duties of a Christian minister those obliga- 
 tions and services which he owes to his brethren 
 
ST. PAUL THE PASTOR 107 
 
 of the ministry. Therefore it pertains to our sub- 
 ject to inquire concerning St. Paul's relation to 
 his fellow-ministers. We discover three leading 
 facts as to that relation. First, the apostle was 
 never abjectly subject to the methods and views 
 of brother ministers. St. Peter, for instance, has 
 preceded him in the apostolic order; yet St. Paul 
 never appears to have regarded him as occupying 
 an official position superior to his own. On the 
 contrary, in view of his independent call to his 
 office, his originality of mind, and his special de- 
 partment of work, he not only refused to attrib- 
 ute infallibility to St. Peter, but he reserved the 
 right to call in question the wisdom and even the 
 moral correctness, on occasion, of that apostle. 
 On at least one occasion he " resisted" his fellow 
 "to the face" (Gal. 2: 11). We are not to un- 
 derstand by this that any lack of kindly consid- 
 erateness or gracious courtesy characterized our 
 apostle ever in his bearing toward St. Peter, or 
 toward the other apostles, but simply that he did 
 his own thinking, and that, with no disrespect 
 for others, he regarded no man as his lord, save 
 Jesus only. Second, it appears that the apostle 
 demanded a high ideal of moral qualities, partic- 
 ularly of courage, in his fellow-ministers, as is 
 shown in his treatment of John Mark at the begin- 
 
108 THE MANY-SIDED PAUL 
 
 ning of the second missionary journey. He had 
 scant patience with chicken-heartedness, or spir- 
 itual effeminacy, in fellow-laborers in Christ's 
 vineyard. And third, he had respect for the au- 
 thority of the Church as a centralized body. He 
 was no exponent of independency. He and 
 Barnabas accepted official indorsement from the 
 Church at large acting through the three leading 
 apostles, Peter, James, and John. He took part 
 in the proceedings of the so-called Jerusalem 
 Council, and he respected its deliverance. On. 
 his journey, following that convention, to the 
 cities of Asia Minor he "delivered them the de- 
 crees for to keep, which had been ordained of 
 the apostles and elders that were at Jerusalem " 
 (Acts 16: 4). From all of which we see that the 
 apostle was as free from the prelatical spirit, on 
 the one hand, as he was from that of the sepa- 
 ratist, on the other. We cannot conceive of 
 such a mind cribbed and cabined in the office of 
 a parish priest of the Church of Rome; nor can 
 we think of so human and affectionate a nature 
 working for Christ apart from the official sanction 
 of an organized company of believers. 
 
 But it is not my purpose to discuss here mooted 
 questions of church government. Nor may I 
 enlarge upon the lessons suggested by St. Paul's 
 
ST. PAUL THE PASTOR 109 
 
 bearing toward his brethren in the ministry, for 
 the guidance of Christian clergymen of our time 
 in corresponding relations. Such lessons are, 
 however, unmistakable and valuable. 
 
 We next approach the topic of the apostle's 
 relation to church finances. In addition to the 
 references to this matter in The Acts we find more 
 or less extended accounts of his dealing with 
 beneficence in several of his epistles, — for in- 
 stance, in 1 Cor. 16, 2 Cor. 9 and Romans 15. 
 St. Paul believed that the pastor of a church was 
 entitled to temporal support from the people to 
 whom he ministered. He compares his work to 
 that of the soldier. Both are entitled to be paid 
 for their labor. "What soldier ever serveth at 
 his own charges?" he asks of the Corinthians. 
 Further on he adds, "If we sowed unto you 
 spiritual things, is it a great matter if we shall 
 reap your carnal things?" (1 Cor. 9: 7-14). 
 Support from the Church is the pastor's right. 
 In one case, at least, the apostle accepted such 
 support. He acknowledges to the Philippians 
 their contributions to supply his need : "For even 
 in Thessalonica ye sent once and again unto my 
 need" (Phil. 4: 16). Sometimes he refused such 
 support. He reminds the Corinthians that in their 
 case he had not used "to the full" his "right in 
 
no THE MANY-SIDED PAUL 
 
 the gospel" since when among them he had 
 " used none of these things" (i Cor. 9: 15). In- 
 variably, whether funds contributed by his con- 
 verts and intrusted to his care were intended for 
 him or for others, he revealed an absolute un- 
 selfishness; and his principal acts in relation to 
 church funds seem to have concerned contribu- 
 tions for the assistance of indigent believers in 
 whom he was interested. 
 
 We note the following leading features of St. 
 Paul as a church financier. He exercised what 
 we may call a holy adroitness in employing the 
 benevolent spirit in one center as a fulcrum to 
 move the hearts and purses of believers else- 
 where. Thus he informs the Church of Corinth 
 that he is boasting of the beneficence of that 
 church to the Christians of Macedonia. "I glory 
 on your behalf," he says, "to them of Mace- 
 donia" (2 Cor. 9: 2). His laudable aim is plainly 
 twofold. He intends to awaken the generosity 
 of the believers in Macedonia, and he desires a 
 deepening of the same spirit where it has already 
 had a noble exercise. Herein is holy common 
 sense. We discover, also, in the apostle, a con- 
 secrated thrift. In advising the churches of 
 Galatia and Corinth concerning the manner of 
 their offerings he urges them to make their con- 
 
ST. PAUL THE PASTOR in 
 
 tributions weekly, so that the aggregates will be 
 likely to be augmented; and on Sundays, the 
 days when Christians are likely to be most in the 
 mood of giving; and without excepting any from 
 the obligation to give; and to have the totals 
 ready on his arrival, to avoid a hurry and 
 scramble for a respectable amount after his 
 coming (i Cor. 16: 1-4). Here are foresight, 
 economy, prudence — for the sake of Christ's 
 poor; in other words, consecrated thrift, — thrift 
 laid on God's altar. And we find in the apostle a 
 businesslike method in handling church funds, in 
 that he appears invariably to have required the 
 assistance of others, and these not named by 
 himself, in holding money offerings, and in the 
 auditing of his accounts with the churches. 
 "Whomsoever ye shall approve by letters," he 
 writes to the Corinthians, "them will I send to 
 carry your bounty unto Jerusalem" (1 Cor. 16: 
 3). Hence, conscious as he was of his own 
 integrity, he had enough practical wisdom to 
 take precautions lest some shallow-brained or 
 malicious critic might arise to charge him with 
 misusing the offerings of his churches. He kept 
 himself, with marked caution, above suspicion. 
 He did not, in this regard, suffer his good to be 
 evil spoken of. 
 
ii2 THE MANY-SIDED PAUL 
 
 I have recently heard from a business man the 
 remark concerning a clergyman: "He has good 
 ideas of business — for a minister!" Such a 
 remark could not have been made if all pastors 
 had been as discreet, thrifty and wise in their 
 relation to money matters as the apostle Paul. 
 And we must add, that if all pastors were 
 as faithful as St. Paul was in urging upon their 
 people the duty and privilege of giving, there 
 would be fewer burdensome church debts, and 
 fewer piteous accounts of paralyzing deficiencies 
 in the treasuries of our missionary societies. 
 
 The attitude of the apostle toward the sacra- 
 ments deserves remark in this connection. He 
 himself on a few occasions baptized his converts, 
 for instance — as is probable — the jailer of Philippi 
 and the members of his household, and the dis- 
 ciples of John in Ephesus; though the nature of 
 his work as chiefly a pioneer forbade his fre- 
 quent administration of the rite. He tells us 
 that he baptized only a few individuals in 
 Corinth, though he spent months in that city 
 (i Cor. i : 14-16). But he regarded baptism as the 
 sign of entrance into church membership, as is 
 clear from his remarks: "In one Spirit were we 
 all baptized into one body" (1 Cor. 12: 13), and 
 "as many of you as were baptized into Christ 
 
ST. PAUL THE PASTOR 113 
 
 did put on Christ" (Gal. 3: 27). The Lord's 
 Supper he regarded as of great value, since the 
 rite was founded by our Lord, both as a 
 memorial of Christ and as a communion with 
 fellow-believers and with the Lord (1 Cor. 11: 
 23-25] 10: 16). Whenever he speaks of this 
 sacrament he does so, as Professor Adeney has 
 said, "with peculiar reverence." 1 
 
 In the present connection, also, I may speak of 
 the apostle's practice and teaching with relation 
 to church discipline. The one clear illustration 
 of discipline exercised by the apostle against 
 an unworthy church member is the case of the 
 offender in Corinth. The offense of this in- 
 dividual had been exceedingly shameful, and 
 apparently committed unblushingly (1 Cor. 5: 1). 
 St. Paul instituted severe measures against him, 
 with the twofold object of saving the man's 
 soul, and of protecting his church against re- 
 proach (1 Cor. 5: 3-5). The end justified the 
 action ; for evidently its object became repentant, 
 and the apostle afterwards urged that he be for- 
 given, kindly treated, and even loved (2 Cor. 2). 
 The following principles governing discipline are 
 inferable from the apostle's action in this in- 
 stance, and the tone of his teaching generally: 
 
 1 Theology of the New Testament, p. 211. 
 
ii 4 THE MANY-SIDED PAUL 
 
 First, severe action, even to the point of excom- 
 munication, is sometimes demanded of a church 
 toward an offending member. A church is not 
 to tolerate within its ranks a brother who is 
 deliberately and continuously "a fornicator, or 
 covetous, or an idolater, or a reviler, or a 
 drunkard, or an extortioner" (i Cor. 5: 11). 
 There are times when a church is to "purge out 
 the old leaven " (1 Cor. 5 : 7). Christians are not 
 to be " unequally yoked with unbelievers" 
 (2 Cor. 6: 14). Yet, second, the love principle, 
 not vindictiveness, is ever to be the basis of 
 discipline. And third, the principal aim of such 
 action should always be to secure the offender's 
 recovery, — "that the spirit may be saved" 
 (1 Cor. 5:4). When the suspended or excom- 
 municated brother truly reveals the fruits of 
 repentance then the church should " forgive him 
 and comfort him, lest by any means such a one 
 should be swallowed up with his overmuch 
 sorrow" (2 Cor. 2:7). 
 
 My revered teacher, Prof. A. A. Hodge, was 
 accustomed to warn his students to resort to 
 discipline rarely during their pastorates, and, 
 whenever extreme cases demanded such action, 
 to exercise it with extreme caution, and in the 
 kindest and most prayerful spirit. Judicious ad- 
 
ST. PAUL THE PASTOR 115 
 
 vice; and in what perfect harmony with St. 
 Paul's spirit and method! 
 
 Pastoral visitation, as a feature of the pastor's 
 task, finds warrant in the example of St. Paul. 
 He reminds the elders of Ephesus at Miletus 
 that during his sojourn in their midst he had 
 taught them not only publicly, but also "from 
 house to house" (Acts 20: 21). And if the 
 apostle could find time to visit his people in any 
 church from house to house, and if pastors of our 
 time, of manifold interests, like John Hall and 
 William M. Taylor, could make it possible to visit 
 systematically the houses in their pastorates, few 
 young pastors surely may excuse themselves on 
 any plea from this important form of service. 
 
 We are yet to consider the topic of the apostle's 
 pastoral dealing with believers in various situa- 
 tions of spiritual weakness or of distress. 
 
 One class to whom we find him ministering is 
 that of the perplexed. A goodly portion of the 
 First Epistle to the Corinthians, to look no 
 further, is plainly designed for souls in a state 
 of perplexity. There are various sorts of people 
 in the church of that cosmopolitan center. There 
 are leaders of discord; there are men of pride, 
 conceit, and self-will; there are victims of a mor- 
 bid conscience; there are those of a chastened 
 
n6 THE MANY-SIDED PAUL 
 
 and crushed spirit; there are also, we doubt not, 
 healthful and true servants of Christ. But 
 plainly, too, as we judge from the tone of the 
 epistle referred to, an important element of the 
 Corinthian Christians consists of sincere souls 
 that are caught between two contrary forces of 
 instruction, like the ship that drifted to the 
 Melitan shore, where two seas met. Indeed, it 
 is easy to regard the whole of this message as an 
 answer to a series of questions. "What shall 
 we decide in face of this spirit of division, when 
 one says, 'I am of Paul,' and another, ' I am of 
 Apollos,' and another, 'I am of Cephas,' and 
 another, 'I am of Christ'?" 'Ms it right for us 
 to settle our disputes in the heathen courts ? " 
 "Are we to believe those who say that marriage 
 is sinful ?" " Is it a sin for us to eat meat that 
 has been used in heathen sacrifices?" "How 
 about this practice of speaking with tongues in 
 our religious gatherings?" "Are we to believe 
 those who teach that the resurrection has no 
 reality ? " These are among the questions that 
 appear to have disturbed many of the believers 
 in Corinth at the date of that "astonishing and 
 eloquent epistle" which sprang from the au- 
 thor's beating heart and was punctuated by his 
 tears (2 Cor. 2: 4). 
 
ST. PAUL THE PASTOR 117 
 
 Speaking in general terms we simply remark 
 concerning the apostle's method in helping these 
 perplexed ones in Corinth that, first, he offers 
 his advice in love — the grace that is far above 
 the gift of prophecy and knowledge and zeal, — 
 his heart goes with his counsel; and, second, he 
 reveals his practical common sense in grappling 
 with difficult questions; and, third, he deter- 
 mines the answer to special questions in each 
 case by the application of broad principles — thus 
 warranting the praise of F. D. Maurice that First 
 Corinthians is "the best manual for the ductor 
 dubitantium because it teaches him that he must 
 not give himself airs of certainty on points where 
 certainty is not to be had." 1 In a sentence, there 
 is no better illustration of the apostle's method of 
 dealing with the spiritually perplexed than this 
 epistle. It would be well for every student of 
 the ministry at the outset to gain a complete 
 mastery not only of its contents but of its spirit, 
 as a chief means of equipment for the task of 
 helping those in spiritual difficulties. We may 
 not dwell on illustrations elsewhere of the apos- 
 tle's pastoral help to the class in question. 
 
 Another class to whom the apostle affords pas- 
 toral help is that of the contentious and wayward, 
 
 1 Unity of the New Testament. 
 
n8 THE MANY-SIDED PAUL 
 
 Here we are brought to regard him as a peace- 
 maker of the highest type. He is not a " peace- 
 at-any-price " pastor. But so far as possible con- 
 sistent with honor to Christ he would have his 
 spiritual children be at peace with their neighbors 
 (Rom. 12: 18). He is plainly grieved to find his 
 converts in Corinth engaged in litigation before 
 heathen tribunals, and he warmly demands, 
 "Dare any of you, having a matter against his 
 neighbor, go to law before the unrighteous, 
 and not before the saints?" (1 Cor. 6: 1). 
 Christians, to his mind, should find a way to an 
 amicable and quiet settlement of their differences. 
 He beseeches converts elsewhere "to walk 
 worthily," "with long-suffering, forbearing one 
 another in love" (Eph. 4: 2). It is, indeed, his 
 thought that serious differences should not arise 
 between Christian brethren, since he urges the 
 Philippians, so dear to his heart, to fulfill his joy 
 by "having the same love, being of one accord, 
 of one mind" (Phil. 2: 2). It appears that two 
 of his friends in Philippi have been squabbling, 
 for he exhorts Euodia and Syntyche "to be of 
 the same mind in the Lord " (Phil. 4: 2). And in 
 writing to the Colossians he reaches the highest 
 ground by insisting that class differences and 
 disputes are an impossibility in the sanctified 
 
ST. PAUL THE PASTOR 119 
 
 state. There cannot, in the Christian brother- 
 hood, be "Greek and Jew," but "Christ is all, 
 and in all" (Col. 3: 11). It is a suggestive ques- 
 tion as to the disposition of patriotism, and in- 
 ternational disputes that is required by the spirit 
 of the apostle in language like this. 
 
 Evidence is constant to show that, as the apos- 
 tle surveyed the little colonies of believers which 
 came to mark his missionary paths, rejoicing in 
 their newborn faith while mourning their petty 
 jealousies, heartburnings, and contentions, his 
 soul ever went out toward the wayward and 
 quarrelsome, not like that of a zealot, but like 
 that of a kind father of unruly children. His 
 spirit is conciliatory, and it disarms contentious- 
 ness. He does not take sides save when Christ's 
 honor itself is at stake. He would rather tame 
 and save a half-savage in the Christian camp than 
 to drive him forth into the forest. On him might 
 well have been pronounced the benediction of 
 our great poet: — 
 
 " God's benison go with you, and with those 
 That would make good of bad, and friends of foes ! " 
 
 In our own time nothing is apt to be a more 
 trying task for the average pastor than to act 
 properly toward classes or individuals that are at 
 
120 THE MANY-SIDED PAUL 
 
 variance. To try to settle the disputes of others 
 is too often like trying to put out fire — there is 
 danger of the fireman getting his own fingers 
 burned. Perhaps the pastor can follow no better 
 rule in general than to magnify in his speech and 
 in his own behavior the principle of action of St. 
 Paul regarding disputes and disputants. Let 
 him join issue with none save only with the 
 spirit of quarrelsomeness. And the peace-loving 
 pastor, it may be added, may often by the same 
 quality of temper win to himself his own op- 
 ponents. A quotation from one of Mr. Beecher's 
 lectures may have value in this connection. 
 "There lived over on the other side of the street 
 in Lawrenceburg, where first I had my settle- 
 ment, a very profane man who was accounted 
 ugly. I understood that he had said some very 
 bitter things of me. I went right over into his 
 store, and sat down on the counter to talk with 
 him. I happened in often, — day in and day out. 
 My errand was to make him like me. 1 did make 
 him like me, — and all the children too." ! This 
 is Christianity. In the early Christian age, we 
 are told, the sneers of the heathen were silenced 
 when they were compelled to say, "See how 
 these Christians love one another! " 
 
 1 Lyman Beecber Lectures on Preaching. 
 
ST. PAUL THE PASTOR 121 
 
 Yet the apostle in his contact with unruly men 
 did not hesitate to administer reproof when it 
 was demanded. Passing by his stern rebuke of 
 the high priest on the castle stairs, we find in- 
 stances of words of his of merited sharpness in 
 his letters to the Corinthians and Thessalonians, 
 and in that to the Galatians and that to the Phi- 
 lippians. There are times when the conscientious 
 pastor is to answer the fool according to his 
 folly, and the backbiter according to his venom. 
 
 Still another class to whom the apostle offers 
 pastoral help is that of the weak of conscience. 
 There is always a class, — not of the most intelli- 
 gent, not of the best spiritual maturity, — who 
 have conscientious scruples concerning attitudes 
 and acts that are in themselves indifferent. To- 
 ward this class St. Paul is not harsh or impatient, 
 since he realizes that Christ died for the weak as 
 well as for the strong. The better-instructed 
 and larger-spirited brother, according to his teach- 
 ing, is to act not merely with reference to his 
 own conscience but to that also of the weak 
 brother. Perhaps the apostle's statement that 
 best sums up his own principle of action to- 
 ward the latter class is the appeal in Romans: 
 "Let us not therefore judge one another any 
 more: but judge ye this rather, that no man put 
 
122 THE MANY-SIDED PAUL 
 
 a stumbling-block in his brother's way" (Rom. 
 14: 13). And the true and faithful pastor will 
 never forget that he owes duties not only to the 
 mature in spiritual knowledge, but also to the 
 "babes in Christ." 
 
 The class to whom the apostle gave pastoral 
 help that we shall finally consider is that of 
 the bereaved and afflicted. Early in his course 
 he must have gained for his own soul the pre- 
 cious lesson that there is for the believer a gra- 
 cious purpose in affliction. He writes to the Ro- 
 mans, and, as we are persuaded, out of his own 
 experience, "Tribulation worketh patience; and 
 patience probation; and probation hope" (Rom. 
 5: 3). The first step for him who would help 
 the afflicted is to see the golden side of trouble 
 in his own horizon. The apostle has not only 
 been lifted to sunny heights of peace through 
 the ministry of sorrow, but he has also learned 
 that God has directly aimed to fit him through 
 chastening to comfort the chastened. He tells 
 the Corinthians in the second letter that it is God 
 " who comforteth " him " in all " his " affliction, 
 that" he might "be able to comfort them that 
 are in any affliction, through the comfort where- 
 with " he himself has been " comforted of God " 
 (2 Cor. 1:4); and with his sword of consola- 
 
ST. PAUL THE PASTOR 123 
 
 tion thus tempered with fire he is able to go to 
 the rescue of the sorrowful and discouraged in 
 the name of Peace. Early in his missionary 
 career we find him in Lystra, Iconium, and Anti- 
 och, encouraging his converts with the thought 
 that tribulation is a stairway along which we 
 ascend in the kingdom of God (Acts 14: 22); 
 and the primary aim of the letters to the Thessa- 
 lonians seems to have been to console the be- 
 reaved and saddened. "We would not have 
 you ignorant, brethren, concerning them that fall 
 asleep; that ye sorrow not, even as the rest, 
 which have no hope" (1 Thes. 4: 13). "That 
 ye may be counted worthy of the kingdom of 
 God, for which ye also suffer " (2 Thes. 1 : 5). 
 Such are among the consoling words which must 
 have fallen like soothing balm on bruised hearts, 
 that this tender, sympathetic pastor-friend con- 
 veyed to his spiritual children in Thessalonica. 
 They are but examples of expressions and illus- 
 trations of a tone that is everywhere prominent 
 in his pastoral oversight of the churches he had 
 begotten. The Resurrection Chapter of First 
 Corinthians — the beauty, pathos, eloquence, and 
 power of which no adjective can describe — what 
 is it primarily other than a pastoral message 
 of consolation to the bereaved? And as the 
 
i2 4 THE MANY-SIDED PAUL 
 
 apostle is a pastor of the ages, who shall count 
 the myriads whose tears have been dried by the 
 triumphant word, "O death, where is thy vic- 
 tory ? " The chapter is an unfailing treasure- 
 trove for those who sorrow for the dead — 
 
 " Christian mourners, while they wait 
 In silence, by some churchyard gate." 
 
 Such is our imperfect outline sketch of St. Paul 
 viewed as a pastor. Let us assure ourselves that 
 the world can never outgrow the need of such 
 service as the man of God can give, speaking in 
 Christ's name, as he comes into close contact 
 with weak and needy men and women. And 
 let not the minister of the gospel in this or any 
 other age believe that any degree of scholarship 
 or full measure of pulpit eloquence can supply 
 the place of the hand-to-hand conflict with sin 
 and suffering that pertains to faithful pastoral 
 oversight and service. 
 
THE INTELLECTUAL GREATNESS OF 
 ST. PAUL 
 
If a man's eye is on the eternal his intellect will grow.— 
 
 Emerson. 
 
 A man's felicity consists not in the outward and visible favors 
 and blessings of Fortune, but in the inward and unseen per- 
 fections and riches of the mind. — Plutarch. 
 
 Dost thou know Greek ? — Acts 21 : 37. 
 
VI 
 
 THE INTELLECTUAL GREATNESS OF ST. PAUL 
 
 It is well often to consider the fact that Chris- 
 tianity is adapted to attract the best that is in 
 intellect no less than to stir what is most 
 genuine in emotion. To be sure, the teaching 
 concerning the Cross appeared to be "foolish- 
 ness" to the spirit of Athens, for intellect as 
 well as stupidity is often blind to truth in its 
 higher forms; but nevertheless there is not lack- 
 ing an essential affinity between the gospel and 
 mind at its noblest. It is likewise true that 
 respect for the religious system of which Jesus is 
 the vital center is necessarily inspired and intensi- 
 fied by the knowledge that men of mental force 
 have never been wanting who have assented to 
 that system. The world cannot but be impressed 
 by the devotion of a great mind to the person 
 and teachings of Christ. For, say what we will, 
 intellect commands universal honor. We un- 
 consciously pay deference to the moral attitudes 
 
 of those who rule in the world of thought. Any 
 127 
 
i 2 8 THE MANY-SIDED PAUL 
 
 cause has won an immense advantage when it 
 has gained the championship of a commanding 
 intellect. 
 
 We therefore do well to view the intellectual 
 side of the character of St. Paul. There is an 
 argument for Christianity in the fact that Christ 
 won to himself a mind of such princely gifts. 
 Thousands are yet to be attracted to the Son of 
 God through the mental splendor of his most 
 brilliant apostle. 
 
 He was an intellectual Hercules. No other 
 champion of the gospel in his time measured up 
 to his mental stature. He met no antagonist 
 who was able to stand before the club of his 
 argument. He could hurl mountains at error 
 and wrongdoing. The lightnings of the whole 
 heaven of truth were at his command in his 
 war for faith and wholesome living. Moreover, 
 his mental breadth and power were monumental, 
 — they made an ineffaceable impression on the 
 thought of the ages. His mind has stood the 
 supreme test of genius: its action is not limited 
 by the boundaries of a century or millennium. 
 His thought is still vital and vigorous no less than 
 it was when it first flashed from his gigantic 
 soul. He is more than the peer of the. greatest 
 thinkers of Christianity of the Christian centuries. 
 
INTELLECTUAL GREATNESS 129 
 
 Farrar has thus eloquently, yet not extravagantly, 
 characterized his mental preeminence as revealed 
 in his writings: "If we look at him only as a 
 writer, how immensely does he surpass, in his 
 most casual epistles, the greatest authors, 
 whether Pagan or Christian, of his own and 
 succeeding epochs. The younger Pliny was fa- 
 mous as a letter writer, yet the younger Pliny 
 never produced any letter so exquisite as that to 
 Philemon. Seneca, as a moralist, stood almost 
 unrivaled, yet not only is clay largely mixed 
 with his gold, but even his finest moral aphor- 
 isms are inferior in breadth and intensity to the 
 most casual of St. Paul's. Epictetus and Marcus 
 Aurelius furnish us with the purest and noblest 
 specimens of Stoic loftiness of thought, yet St. 
 Paul's chapter on charity is worth more than all 
 they ever wrote." * The intellect of this apostle, 
 wherever we view its action, is thus to be classed 
 among the stupendous creations of the Almighty. 
 Said Carlyle: "The world's wealth is in its 
 original men; by these and their works it is a 
 world, and not a waste." St. Paul's originality 
 demands notice as the first among the marks of 
 his intellectual vastness. He gave the world new 
 thought. "We owe to him hundreds of ideas 
 
 1 The Life and Work of St. Paul. 
 
130 THE MANY-SIDED PAUL 
 
 which were never uttered before." Of but a 
 small fraction of those accounted the world's 
 great thinkers can this be said. Most of the 
 great intellects of the ages have simply given a 
 new aspect to old ideas. Their task has been 
 akin to that of the workman who takes the 
 rough gem, and fashions it, and polishes it, and 
 gives it a fine setting. Only the one great mind 
 of ten thousand is capable of bringing in vast 
 measure from its hidden depths the rough treas- 
 ure of truth. There are two sorts of originality, 
 that of style, and that of thought. The latter 
 is immeasurably rarer than the former, as it is an 
 unspeakably better evidence of mental greatness. 
 How many prophets have arisen, say in the last 
 century, — nay, in the past five centuries, — who 
 have enriched the world by presenting on a large 
 scale wholly new and permanently valuable 
 thought? Are they ten ? Are they five? Only 
 when we reflect upon the extreme rarity of the 
 sort of fecundity of St. Paul's intellect are we in 
 a condition to recognize the significance of his 
 creative power. 
 
 We are speaking of a characteristic of the 
 apostle that is apparent chiefly, of course, in his 
 writings. These thirteen letters, written doubt- 
 less with no consciousness of their immortality, 
 
INTELLECTUAL GREATNESS 131 
 
 are forever vital, forever fresh in interest, because 
 they struck a new note in the music of God's 
 language to men. So decided is the originality 
 of their manifold message that they appear to 
 stand on a summit between two eternities. The 
 message was not heard before, and it has had 
 no successor. Forever, in sublime isolation, 
 stands the thought structure of the apostle by 
 itself, above comparison with the fruitage of any 
 authorship since the canon of Scripture was 
 closed. Further, the writings of the apostle re- 
 veal their originality by the fact that they belong 
 to that class of literature which is always inspiring 
 other literature. Thus viewed only on the human 
 side St. Paul is to be classed with authors like 
 Homer, Dante, and Shakespeare. Consider the 
 hundreds and hundreds of books treating of the 
 Pauline epistles that have appeared in English and 
 German, to look no further, during the past fifty 
 years. Yet we must not seem to measure St. 
 Paul's genius by that of any secular writer. 
 The sort of originality which characterizes him 
 as an author is the fruit only of God's Spirit. It 
 is an immeasurably higher sort of originality 
 than that of the greatest philosophers, moralists, 
 and poets, of Greece or England. It is an orig- 
 inality arising from a special inbreathing of the 
 
1 32 THE MANY-SIDED PAUL 
 
 divine Mind into a human spirit of wondrous 
 native originality. 
 
 Another mark of the largeness of St. Paul's 
 intellect is his evident sense of proportion. Large 
 efforts for large needs, lesser strenuousness for 
 small issues — this is the rule for minds built on a 
 large scale. An insignificant artist may spend a 
 year in painting a shoe buckle, or the scales on a 
 fish; but a Da Vinci or a Turner will reveal his 
 greater genius by expending his chief force on 
 the large features of his canvas, dismissing the 
 trivial elements with a few rough strokes of his 
 brush. So a truly great teacher, a prophet of the 
 first order, will not wreak his great wealth of 
 passion on the subordinate questions. He will 
 spend his largest life force in righting the great 
 wrongs, in establishing the broad and lasting 
 principles of his faith. He will understand moral 
 perspective. He will understand the matter of 
 size. So the student of St. Paul soon discovers 
 that his master's main contention is always for 
 the large and universal truths. He never makes 
 a mountain of a molehill. He wastes no time 
 in combating evils that will take care of them- 
 selves. He has a comparatively slight interest in 
 merely temporary or local concerns. There is 
 thus great suggestiveness in his omissions. 
 
INTELLECTUAL GREATNESS 133 
 
 Posture in prayer, the question of a liturgy, in- 
 struments of music in God's house, the mode of 
 baptism, the precise relation of the Christian to 
 particular issues in the political sphere — slavery, 
 or temperance legislation, for instance, — the true 
 attitude of the believer toward particular forms 
 of amusement, — these questions do not seem to 
 trouble the apostle. The reason is, he seems to 
 feel that if men accept his fundamental teach- 
 ings the minor practical questions of the reli- 
 gious life will solve themselves. He deals with 
 the distinctive Jewish rite only so far as it stands 
 related to the large and permanent issue of Chris- 
 tian freedom. The rite in itself considered is un- 
 important to him. Neither circumcision availeth 
 anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new crea- 
 ture. Such is his view of the matter. The 
 question, likewise, of meats and drinks interests 
 him only so far as it relates to the larger topic of 
 Christian love. These references illustrate his 
 common mental attitude, and they show him to 
 us as a man of large intellectual caliber. Indeed 
 the characteristic in question pertains to a mind 
 quality rather than to a conscience quality. The 
 fact that the apostle always lays his heaviest 
 emphasis upon such sublime subjects as human 
 depravity, the atonement, justification, faith, holi- 
 
i 3 4 THE MANY-SIDED PAUL 
 
 ness, love, the judgment, and freedom from the 
 bondage to form, is an indication essentially of a 
 mental rather than of a moral trait. It is, in 
 other words, a matter of correct vision. He has 
 large visual power. He is great in drawing 
 distinctions. 
 
 Contrast with this quality in the apostle that 
 pettiness of mind which has often characterized 
 the laity and clergy alike throughout Christian his- 
 tory. Consider that sects have been founded on 
 such issues as the question of an organ in the house 
 of worship, or the question of suffrage in the 
 State, or even the tremendous question of bap- 
 tism in running water! We have known clergy- 
 men to resign their charges because of a disa- 
 greement with their church officials over the 
 quality of communion wine, and we have known 
 others who have acted as if a vital principle were 
 involved in the question of church fairs or pew 
 rentals. Doubtless there are clergymen and lay- 
 men now living who would be willing to be 
 burned at the stake as martys to the vast prin- 
 ciple of lighted candles in a chancel, or the ar- 
 chitecture of a reredos, or the correct style of sar- 
 torial decoration on the back of a priest! There 
 are martyrs and martyrs. It will be well for us 
 to learn the lesson from the broad-minded apostle 
 
INTELLECTUAL GREATNESS 135 
 
 of overlooking the trivial matters in Christian 
 casuistry, and spending our vital powers in es- 
 tablishing more firmly on earth those vast prin- 
 ciples of divine teaching which are of universal 
 and eternal interest. 
 
 A further indication of the intellectual great- 
 ness of St. Paul is his evident breadth of vision. 
 His mind is at the opposite pole from that of the 
 parochial spirit. With an eagle eye he scans the 
 whole horizon. His plans involve the civilized 
 world. His message is for thousands, and tens 
 of thousands. Preaching for him is not to be 
 limited by the bounds of a single language. He 
 will make himself heard by the people of many 
 nationalities; he will send his gospel forth on the 
 wings of many sorts 4 of tongues. We rightly 
 attribute greatness of intellect to Alexander of 
 Macedon, and Caesar of Rome, and Charles the 
 Great, and Napoleon of France, because they 
 knew how to plan campaigns on a vast scale; 
 because they could rule not only a nation, but a 
 group of nations; because they had the force and 
 skill to impress their personalities on the million, 
 of varied national traits and many tongues. 
 They were more than national leaders; they 
 were in a large sense world leaders. The 
 same sort of genius is to be attributed to the 
 
136 THE MANY-SIDED PAUL 
 
 apostle to the Gentiles. It would not have ap- 
 peared remarkable if, after his conversion, this 
 son of Abraham had settled in Antioch or Tar- 
 sus, and confined his evangelistic efforts to the 
 narrow constituency of a single town. But be- 
 cause he possessed the genius of a large general- 
 ship in connection with his burning faith he 
 straightway was granted the blessing of a large 
 vision, — a vision of the teeming millions of the 
 Roman world, and, stretching far away beyond 
 the edge of the empire, millions of the uncivi- 
 lized, reaching out their hands imploringly for the 
 gospel of the all-loving Christ as a gift intrusted 
 to his charge. And there are indications that his 
 eye was cast upon the great world lying in 
 shadow far beyond the provinces tributary to 
 the Caesars, and that his thought reached ahead 
 to the remote future. Obedient to that vision he 
 became a preacher not to a congregation, not to 
 a locality, but to the nations, and the coming 
 centuries. In consequence, the literary heritage 
 he left the world consisted not only of books 
 dedicated to individuals, but chiefly of those 
 dedicated to Christian circles of great cities of the 
 empire, scattered over Asia Minor, Achaia, Greece, 
 and Italy. Thus the breadth of the horizon he 
 was able to command classes him with the great 
 
INTELLECTUAL GREATNESS 137 
 
 masters of generalship and the great seers, of 
 all the ages. 
 
 But it is chiefly in his grasp of argument that 
 the apostle reveals the nature and training of a 
 truly great mind. He is a born logician, and of 
 the first order. He is not devoid of imagination, 
 — no first-class preacher is,— but he is lacking in 
 fancy. He has the imagination of the seer, but 
 he lacks the fancy of the poet. His mental proc- 
 esses, generally speaking, are those of the phi- 
 losopher rather than of the poet. But this philo- 
 sophic quality, stripped of its accidental features, 
 is of the noblest sort. The greatest intellect is 
 that of him who not only recognizes the force of 
 great germinal truths, but who also is able with- 
 out a misstep to follow those truths to their re- 
 mote consequences. Trained in the rabbinic 
 school, it would not have been surprising if the 
 pedantic and false logical method of the teachers 
 of his people had adhered to him permanently. 
 But the main links of his arguments are always 
 sound. We often recognize rabbinic elements 
 in his logic, and perhaps we ought to admit that 
 rabbinic faults are not wanting in his style of 
 thinking. But these are but the accidental fringe 
 of his dialectical garments. The main fiber of 
 the fabric is soundly woven, and without a seam. 
 
i 3 S THE MANY-SIDED PAUL 
 
 So true is his logic that it has even been thought 
 that he must have studied Aristotle. Coleridge 
 somewhere refers to his logic as Aristotelian. 
 Dr. Hodge seems to think that he received in part 
 his mastery of logic from a Greek source. He 
 says, " He pursues, far more than any other of 
 the sacred writers of Jewish education, the log- 
 ical method of presenting truth," — and the re- 
 mark follows the suggestion that he perhaps 
 gained his education in part " in a Grecian city." 1 
 But we are inclined to the view, — speaking 
 strictly of the human side to the apostle's method, 
 — that simply the vigor of his genius brought 
 him unconsciously in line with the Aristotelian 
 method. He and Aristotle drank from the same 
 stream. He thought in right lines in virtue of 
 his genius, as Aristotle did, though in a diviner 
 sense. But he is a greater thinker than Aristotle, 
 for the reason that, besides his special guidance 
 from above, his subjects transcend those of the 
 Greek master as far as Everest overtops the Jung- 
 frau. When we study as an illustration his 
 masterpiece, the Epistle to the Romans, we dis- 
 cover a mind that strides like the fabled giant, 
 from mountain top to mountain top; we see an 
 intellect that, with superhuman climbing power, 
 
 1 Hodge on Romans, Introduction. 
 
INTELLECTUAL GREATNESS 139 
 
 moves with ease among the stars. Viewed as 
 genius there is nothing in secular literature to 
 compare with the dialectic of St. Paul — "the 
 bold soaring dialectic with which he rises from 
 the forms of our finite and earthly thought to the 
 infinite and the spiritual life embodied in them." 
 And here, we repeat, is the chief evidence of his 
 intellectual preeminence. For a finite mind to 
 hold in firm grasp thoughts that transcend the 
 finite, and to be able to mold those thoughts 
 into a comprehensible system, — this is to possess 
 the greatest power ever vouchsafed to man. 
 There is perhaps danger here of our failing to 
 distinguish clearly between the human and the 
 superhuman in the mind of St. Paul the writer. 
 But since, as Dr. Hodge says, "the Holy Spirit, 
 in employing men as his instruments in convey- 
 ing truth, did not change their mental habits," 1 
 we can hardly err in regarding the peerless dia- 
 lectical skill of the apostle as the great mark of 
 his natural genius. 
 
 Finally, we must not fail to note as one of 
 the elements of the intellectual greatness of St. 
 Paul, his perpetual disposition to growth. We 
 believe that there can be traced in his history 
 subsequent to his conversion, and to the end, a 
 
 1 Hodge on Romans, Introduction. 
 
i 4 o THE MANY-SIDED PAUL 
 
 constant mental growth. His intellect never ap- 
 pears to have become jaded. He never loses his 
 interest in men and things. Better and better he 
 understands the human heart, and society, and 
 God's purposes concerning the world. He is 
 never so wise, and his spirit is never so genial, 
 as when his immediate outlook is upon his final 
 release from toil. Far from discovering any 
 failure of his mental powers in his old age we 
 cannot but feel that, barring his physical decline, 
 he is, in mental equipment, better fitted to teach 
 in the year 67 than he was in the year 52. His 
 continuous spiritual progress from his conversion 
 to his death, is, we suppose, quite generally 
 recognized. At first he apparently foresaw no 
 large consequences of his conversion apart from 
 his personal relation to Christ. But soon he 
 heard his call to the work of a missionary; 
 though "his original ideal of a Christian mission- 
 ary was based purely upon a Hebrew type of 
 thought." Following this we discover that his 
 theory of the kingdom of God centered about 
 the hope of the Master's second coming — a 
 theory lacking in full breadth of view rather than 
 in truth. Thence he seems to have grown away 
 into the grand conception of the kingdom of 
 Christ brought to fulfillment not subsequent but 
 
INTELLECTUAL GREATNESS 141 
 
 prior to the end of this dispensation, and con- 
 terminous with the vast empire of Rome. From 
 this conception arose the more splendid vision of 
 the world instead of Rome subdued to Christ. 
 And finally, at the end of his life, he appears to 
 have grown up to the stupendous conception of 
 Christ's complete reign over, not merely the 
 world, but the universe. Such, at all events, is 
 the outline of the apostle's spiritual progress as 
 traced in Matheson's highly suggestive essay on 
 the subject, and to which we may, in the main, 
 assent. 1 But is it not clear that a spiritual growth 
 of this order in a man's history from middle life 
 to old age is conditioned upon an intellectual 
 growth during the same period ? If St. Paul had 
 been of an ordinary type of mind, if he had 
 reached in middle age an intellectual dead line, 
 his sort of spiritual progress would have ceased 
 at the hour that marked the beginning of his 
 mental decline. Humanly speaking it was pos- 
 sible for his spiritual nature to expand un- 
 ceasingly because he never ceased to keep his 
 eyes open, because he was always looking for 
 new light, because he never suffered prejudice 
 or the fear of inconsistency to prevent a wise 
 modification of previous conceptions. Clearly 
 
 1 Matheson, The Spiritual Development of St. Paul. 
 
142 THE MANY-SIDED PAUL 
 
 there is here an intellectual as well as a spiritual 
 quality. 
 
 St. Paul was one of those men who may be 
 described as being very much alive; and the 
 vitality of his mind was of extraordinary per- 
 sistence. We cannot think of such a type of in- 
 tellect as burning out prematurely. St. Paul in his 
 dotage is unthinkable. St. Paul past the point of 
 alertness to make new discoveries of truth, or of 
 keen interest in men, is likewise unthinkable. 
 The work of such a man is never done until he 
 dies. Indeed, his last work is apt to be his best. 
 We have been reminded of the unfailing intel- 
 lectual progress of St. Paul by the corresponding 
 quality in Gladstone. The mind of the great 
 nineteenth-century commoner of England never 
 ceased to expand. He was an enthusiastic 
 student at eighty-five. The best wine of his 
 mental vintage was at the end of the feast. The 
 truest intellectual greatness involves this quality 
 of persistence of strength, and undying progress. 
 And as we are bound to feel that the " one thing 
 I do" principle of St. Paul had much to do in af- 
 fording an unfailing stimulus to his mental 
 powers, so we cannot doubt that too often a 
 moral fault lies behind the premature failure of 
 the powers of Christian workers. So long as the 
 
INTELLECTUAL GREATNESS 143 
 
 faith and zeal of a Christian be intense he will be 
 a learner; and so long as he learns, his work 
 need not lack attractiveness and power. 
 
 We must not close our account of the intel- 
 lectual side of St. Paul's character without briefly 
 referring to his literary style, — since " style is of 
 the man." 1 As has been repeatedly shown, the 
 dress in which his thought is arrayed is often 
 lacking in form and gracefulness. His para- 
 graphs are in the main solid and rugged, rather 
 than polished and ornate. If the work of 
 modern masters of literary style may be com- 
 pared to a French garden, — level, regular and 
 pretty,— the writings of St. Paul may be com- 
 pared to a mountain range, — of irregular surface, 
 with spots of bareness on its face, but, withal, 
 dominating the landscape, and giving balance to 
 the planet. The mountain with all its irregular- 
 ities is more than the garden, since God, not 
 man, is its maker. The sentences of the Pauline 
 epistles are often involved, often broken and 
 unfinished. Their form indicates a fierce on- 
 rushing of ideas; a tide of thought that, like a 
 swollen mountain torrent, is constantly leaping 
 over its banks. Everywhere thought is above 
 rhetoric. The author evidently cares only to 
 
 1 Dlambert. 
 
i 4 4 THE MANY-SIDED PAUL 
 
 convey his message. He is indifferent to the 
 envelope of it. To change the figure, his style 
 indicates a Vulcan pounding his anvil, with great 
 thought fragments, white-hot, flying every- 
 whither. Luther wrote of it, " meras flammas 
 loquitur"; Erasmus compared it to a thunder- 
 storm; Martineau has used this language con- 
 cerning it: "Brilliant, broken, impetuous as the 
 mountain torrent freshly filled, never smooth and 
 calm but on the eve of some bold leap, never 
 vehement but to fill some receptacle of clearest 
 peace;" and Professor Stevens speaks thus: 
 " His teaching is marked by an individuality and 
 independence which prove him to have been the 
 master, and not the servant, of the ideas and 
 arguments with which he had been indoctrinated 
 in his youth." As has been truly said, the 
 very formlessness of this writing is an indication 
 of its highest originality. The first plow that 
 tears up the virgin soil does not leave a smooth 
 surface. But when the work upon it of the 
 pioneer is ended it is a minor task for an after- 
 comer to level and beautify it. Yet we must not 
 say that the writings of the apostle are wholly 
 devoid of the beauty of form. Again and again, 
 as he rises to a sublime height of spiritual ecstasy, 
 his words become supremely eloquent and beau- 
 
INTELLECTUAL GREATNESS 145 
 
 tiful. Of exalted literary grandeur is the ending 
 to the eighth chapter of Romans. Nothing 
 could be more beautiful than the chapter in the 
 Corinthian letter on love. And the Epistle to 
 Philemon has been aptly described as an "idyl of 
 the progress of Christianity." But these occa- 
 sional instances of matchless literary form do not 
 appear to arise from an attempt at eloquence; 
 they rather betoken an unconscious ascent of the 
 author to the highest level of nature. In short, 
 the apostle "has the style of genius, if not the 
 genius of style." Nay, it is the style of a genius 
 that is transfigured by the inner light of the Spirit 
 of God. 
 
 Thus in St. Paul's career we find the noblest 
 illustration, in the apostolic age, of intellect and 
 genius laid reverently at the feet of Jesus. 
 And, thank God, in no century since have there 
 been wanting intellects of the higher order that 
 have been glorified by faith, and that in turn have 
 added glory to the kingdom of the Son of God 
 by their consecration to his blessed service. The 
 great apostle was the precursor of a long line of 
 intellectual noblemen and noblewomen, who, 
 like him, have not been ashamed of the gospel of 
 Christ. In our own time we have seen men like 
 Faraday and De Lavelaye in science, Browning 
 
146 THE MANY-SIDED PAUL 
 
 and Tennyson in letters, and Lincoln and Glad- 
 stone in statesmanship, — princes, every one — 
 who rejoiced to pay allegiance to the Redeemer, 
 delighted to give the Most High their finest 
 service. And may the coming centuries be rich 
 in talented men who are ready to lay the divinest 
 trophies of their genius reverently at the Master's 
 feet. For a nation can offer God no gift com- 
 parable to the gift of a princely intellect. As he 
 looks down upon the earth in the coming years, 
 may he claim for himself the souls that are not 
 only good but great! 
 
THE FRIENDSHIPS OF ST. PAUL 
 
How were friendship possible ? In mutual devotedness to 
 the Good and True : otherwise impossible ; except as Armed 
 Neutrality, or hollow Commercial League. A man, be the 
 Heavens ever praised, is sufficient for himself; yet were ten 
 men, united in Love, capable of being and of doing what ten 
 thousand singly would fail in. Infinite is the help man can 
 yield to man. — Carlyle. 
 
 Friendship has had its strongest hold on those who were 
 strongest, and has done its best work in the best natures. Not 
 the base but the noble, not the low but the lofty, not the de- 
 pendent but the self-contained, in all spheres of life, seem to 
 value most, and to be best fitted for, the gains and privileges 
 and responsibilities of friendship. And therefore it is that 
 friendship is most potent with those whose potency with others 
 is greatest. — Trumbull. 
 
 What do ye, weeping and breaking my heart ? — Acts 21 ; ij. 
 
VII 
 
 THE FRIENDSHIPS OF ST. PAUL 
 
 The picture which St. Luke draws for us of his 
 hero in Csesarea with his face set toward Jerusa- 
 lem, while his aching heart is being tugged at by 
 two opposite forces — the tears of friends on the 
 one hand, and his sense of duty on the other — 
 may serve to present to us one of the most 
 striking features of the apostle's ministry, — 
 namely, his friendships. It has been said that " a 
 friend may well be reckoned the masterpiece of 
 nature." And when we reflect upon the extra- 
 ordinary power of friendship affection in our 
 apostle, so often and so powerfully illustrated, 
 we feel that we hardly err in terming his char- 
 acter the chief of nature's master works. For 
 surely friendship at its highest has never been 
 better exemplified than in him. 
 
 The evidences of what we may term his genius 
 
 for friendship are abundant. The partial sketch 
 
 of his life history in The Acts is replete with 
 
 illustrations of his singular power of attaching 
 149 
 
150 THE MANY-SIDED PAUL 
 
 men to himself, of the enthusiastic devotion to 
 him of many sorts of people, and of his magnifi- 
 cent helpfulness to those who claimed his re- 
 gard ; and his letters not only include numerous 
 direct references to his friends and friendships, 
 but, so far as they reveal the inner workings of 
 his heart, they also bear in every line the stamp 
 of a nature of wondrous affectionateness. He 
 loves easily. The objects of his regard multiply 
 rapidly. And once interested in a particular per- 
 son he seems never to forget him. Distance 
 does not appear to blunt the keen edge of his 
 love. Time does not diminish his heart throbs. 
 His own troubles never becloud his direct inter- 
 est in his brethren. Even the infirmities of age 
 do not distract his thought from distant disciples 
 who need his instruction and his prayers. He 
 lives always according to the divine principle of 
 his glowing and rapturous tribute to that grace 
 which " suffereth long and is kind" (i Cor. 
 13: 4). "Friendship is love without either 
 flowers or veil." Love of this species, abso- 
 lutely disinterested, is the supreme master of 
 this matchless personality. Of course in St. Paul 
 friendliness is refined and glorified by the do- 
 minion over him of the Spirit of Christ; but we 
 must believe that affectionateness was born with 
 
THE FRIENDSHIPS OF ST. PAUL 151 
 
 his birth. Let us digress. Possibly we are war- 
 ranted in drawing an inference from his great- 
 heartedness concerning the character of the 
 mother in the Tarsus home relating to whom 
 not a hint of direct description has survived. It 
 has been noted that the leading traits of many 
 great men have been inherited from their moth- 
 ers. Are we at variance with the law of he- 
 redity, therefore, in supposing that the mother 
 of the apostle was a woman of an extraordinary 
 wealth of affection ? Is it pure fancy to suppose 
 that the affableness of the man we know throws 
 a dim light upon the home life of the child we 
 have not known ? Leaving this surmise, we re- 
 mark that certain of the very weaknesses of the 
 apostle arise from the quality in question, and 
 bear testimony to its power. We have all rec- 
 ognized, for instance, his peculiar sensitiveness; 
 and, as a feature of it, the keenness of his suffer- 
 ing under the sting of ingratitude. His first 
 letter to the Corinthians and that to the Gala- 
 tians are each the outburst of a sensitive soul — a 
 spirit not only jealous for truth, but also easily 
 wounded by forgetfulness on the part of trusted 
 friends. We can almost hear sobs behind the 
 lines. Not grievous indignation so much as in- 
 dignant grief appears in his references to those 
 
152 THE MANY-SIDED PAUL 
 
 who have wronged him or forgotten his teach- 
 ings. "All that are in Asia turned away from 
 me; of whom are Phygelus and Hermogenes" 
 (2 Tim. i: 15). "Alexander the coppersmith 
 did me much evil" (2 Tim. 4: 14). "Their 
 word will eat as doth a gangrene " — that of 
 Hymenaeus and Philetus (2 Tim. 2: 17), — so he 
 writes at the very last; and we readily believe 
 that the writer is more hurt than angry. He has 
 a woman's sensitiveness with his warrior cour- 
 age; and it bespeaks a soul with a craving for 
 hearts in whom his trust may abide. Thus, too, 
 his sense of loneliness, — a quality that looks, but 
 is not, out of place in a missionary, — is but an- 
 other mark of his natural desire for friends. He 
 truly suffers when separated from his friends, 
 as is evidenced, to look no further, by his message 
 from Athens to Silas and Timothy to " come to 
 him with all speed" from Bercea (Acts 17: 15); 
 by his distress in Troas when he failed to meet 
 Titus there according to his expectation (2 Cor. 
 2: 12, 13); and again, by the pathetic tone of 
 his word from his last captivity, — " Only Luke 
 is with me" (2 Tim. 4: 11); — and his suffering 
 thus is a certain indication of a glowing passion 
 of friendship. His heart burns with regard for 
 his friends, as with hidden Vesuvian fires. 
 
THE FRIENDSHIPS OF ST. PAUL 153 
 
 In this extraordinary capacity for friend- 
 ship St. Paul reveals a striking evidence of the 
 essential greatness of his nature. Not all great 
 men are great as friends; but it is safe to say 
 that no small-souled man can love widely and 
 deeply. It is reserved for large natures to loom 
 up big in friendship. Many of the great think- 
 ers of the ages have borne testimony to this truth. 
 Says Sir Thomas Browne, "This noble affec- 
 tion falls not on vulgar and common constitu- 
 tions, but on such as are marked for virtue." 
 Charles Kingsley asserts the truth thus: "It is 
 only the great-hearted who can be true friends: 
 the mean and cowardly can never know what 
 true friendship means." And Cicero, with his 
 philosophic insight into human nature, declared, 
 "Just in proportion as a man has most confi- 
 dence in himself, and as he is most completely 
 fortified by worth and wisdom, so that he needs 
 no one's assistance, and feels that all his resources 
 reside in himself,— in the same proportion is 
 he most highly distinguished for seeking out 
 and forming friendships." No dwarfed soul, 
 seamed with suspicions, chilled with envy, 
 cramped by jealousy, shriveled with selfishness, 
 is equal to a vast friendship. St. Paul's friend- 
 ship was a giant passion. Hence it was the pas- 
 
154 THE MANY-SIDED PAUL 
 
 sion of a giant. Heat for a planetary system 
 can proceed only from a sun. 
 
 But if the apostle's greatness of soul is indi- 
 cated by the wealth of love he bestowed upon 
 others, it is equally evidenced by the readiness 
 with which others clung to him and fed upon 
 his affection. It is only a strong manhood that 
 can draw to itself a multitude. That this sturdy 
 general in Christ's army could win the admira- 
 tion and personal loyalty of such a variety of 
 men in the ranks — old and young, native and 
 foreigner, learned and unlearned — fully proves 
 that he was framed after a large pattern. As 
 Stalker well comments, "It was the largeness 
 of his manhood which was the secret of this 
 fascination; for to a big nature all resort, feeling 
 that in its neighborhood it is well with them." 1 
 On the fact of the immense circle of his friends 
 we need not dwell. Who is unfamiliar with the 
 long list of his personal acquaintances who re- 
 joiced in the privilege of loving him while they 
 deferred to him as their master — or rather, the 
 partial list of these that has been preserved? 
 Need we speak at length of what he was to 
 Luke of Antioch, Barnabas of Cyprus, Silas of 
 Jerusalem, Timothy of Lystra, and Mark of 
 
 1 Life of St. Paul. 
 
THE FRIENDSHIPS OF ST. PAUL 155 
 
 Judaea — the staff-officers of his generalship ? 
 Need we do more than name some of the others 
 who gave him their hearts, — like Titus, Onesi- 
 mus, Philemon, Archippus, Epaphras, Aristar- 
 chus, Aquila, Priscilla, Tychicus, Trophimus, 
 Apollos, and Erastus,— of the inferior officials of 
 his command ? And shall we try to do more 
 than mention others — of the rank and file of his 
 devoted adherents — such as Andronicus, Junias, 
 Demas, Crescens, Herodion, Epaphroditus, One- 
 siphorus, Tertius, and Zenas ? These we must 
 view as but a segment of the grand circle of his 
 friends. Each was doubtless the center of a 
 smaller circle of spiritual planets all revolving 
 about the huge central sphere. Those who 
 basked in the warmth of his personality were 
 surely hundreds. In no exaggeration, there- 
 fore, Dean Stanley describes the wide plane his 
 friends occupied, in words declaring that he 
 "had a thousand friends, and loved each as his 
 own soul, and seemed to live a thousand lives in 
 them, and to die a thousand deaths when he 
 must part from them." These were his — and he 
 was theirs. This love he won from the thousand 
 hearts was his wealth; and who shall venture to 
 weigh against it his toil, his hardships and his 
 martyrdom ? Who shall venture to pronounce 
 
156 THE MANY-SIDED PAUL 
 
 that man poor and his life fruitless who is the 
 owner of such a treasure ? 
 
 Not only did the apostle come to be sur- 
 rounded by a great circle of friends, but he also 
 received from many a splendid ardor of friend- 
 ship. It often happens that the popular man, 
 the man who brings light and joy into many 
 companies, fails to realize the deeper currents of 
 love from others while the sources of regard for 
 him are multiplied. Often to be loved by many 
 means to be loved by none with fullest intensity. 
 But it was not so with St. Paul. A short ac- 
 quaintance with him seems to have been sufficient 
 to bind to him the hearts of his disciples with un- 
 breakable cords. For instance, glance at the 
 practical hospitality to him of Lydia the mer- 
 chant-woman in Philippi. Almost at first sight 
 of him on his first visit to that Macedonian city 
 this large-hearted woman was constrained to 
 offer her house as his temporary home. And 
 short as his ministry was among them the 
 Philippians grew to love him enough to supply, 
 even after his departure, contributions for his 
 support. The Galatians, as all will recall, like- 
 wise lavished affection upon him during his first 
 ministry in their province in no niggardly meas- 
 ure, as appears from his subsequent commenda- 
 
THE FRIENDSHIPS OF ST. PAUL 157 
 
 tion of their hospitality. " Ye received me," he 
 says, " as an angel of God, even as Christ Jesus. 
 ■. . . I bear you witness, that, if possible, ye 
 would have plucked out your eyes and given 
 them to me" (Gal. 4: 14, 15). It is safe to 
 say that Aquila and Priscilla, — able, noble Chris- 
 tian pair, — could not have loved him more if he 
 had been their own father. Onesiphorus of 
 Ephesus affords another striking illustration. 
 During his last imprisonment in Rome the 
 apostle is sought out by this friend while 
 somehow in the metropolis, and is visited 
 by him again and again, — at what cost of 
 scorn and even personal peril we may read- 
 ily imagine. And finally, sublime is the de- 
 votion to him, even unto death, of Luke, 
 "the faithful, unobtrusive, cultivated" physi- 
 cian, the solitary companion of his very last 
 days. Stalker has thus correctly written: "If he 
 was bitterly hated by enemies, there was never 
 a man more intensely loved by his friends." 1 
 The streams of friendship that poured in upon 
 him from so many sources were not, as a rule, 
 shallow. Their depths were ordinarily below 
 all sounding. 
 We are brought next to consider what the 
 
 1 Life of St. Paul. 
 
 - 
 
158 THE MANY-SIDED PAUL 
 
 apostle's friends were to him as instruments in 
 accomplishing the work God assigned him. 
 They were, in the first place, a constant, health- 
 ful incentive to him. His friendships brought 
 out the best that was in him. They quickened 
 his intellect, enlarged his devotion to humanity 
 in its illimitable breadth, and stimulated his 
 heart hunger for souls as trophies for Christ. 
 "To be without friends is to find the earth a 
 wilderness," says Bacon; and rare indeed must 
 be the man who could work at his best, to say 
 nothing of feeling a lively interest in his work, 
 without the inspiration of friendship. The 
 soldier strikes more effectively as he thinks 
 of the circle at the distant fireside. The poet 
 must needs throw more heart into his verse, and 
 the artist more soul upon his canvas, as they 
 reflect on others who in their love would gladly 
 applaud the product of their genius. Nay, 
 further, what Christian preacher is there, 
 whether laboring in most favored soil or in the 
 midst of darkest heathenism, though he be con- 
 strained mightily by the sufficient love of Christ, 
 who is not strengthened somewhat by the power 
 of the love of friends — those of his own flesh 
 and blood, and those joined to him by remoter 
 ties ? Some are more helped than others by this 
 
THE FRIENDSHIPS OF ST. PAUL 159 
 
 inspiration of friendship; and St. Paul seems to 
 have been given wings by the sentiment beyond 
 the experience of ordinary beings. When his 
 heart quivers with concern lest his friends are 
 forsaking him and his counsels, then we may 
 look — and good instances are the Epistle to the 
 Galatians and the First Epistle to the Corinthians 
 — for his most powerful words for the Master. 
 When he realizes most mightily the wealth of 
 his own regard for a church or a man, then from 
 his full heart is apt to issue his best councils for 
 the instruction of the ages. The invaluable 
 epistles to Timothy are an illustration in point. 
 As Dr. H. C. Trumbull has said, " It was be- 
 cause of the special friendship between St. Paul 
 and Timothy that the letters from the one to 
 the other have in them so much of tender sym- 
 pathy and of affectionate counsel as a means of 
 good to appreciative readers to the end of 
 time." 1 Indeed, we may say that friendship 
 was the occasion — the Spirit of God being their 
 cause — of each of the thirteen priceless letters of 
 the apostle, so vast, so far-reaching a factor of 
 his Christian activity. And doubtless at every 
 point of his missionary travels he was stimulated 
 to wield the sword of the Spirit with power be- 
 
 1 Friendship the Master Passion. 
 
160 THE MANY-SIDED PAUL 
 
 yond his natural prowess, not only by the direct 
 influence of the divine Spirit, but also, though in 
 a lesser degree, by the space-defying force aris- 
 ing from the hopes and prayers of present and 
 distant friends. Surely it was so; since he never 
 forgot a circle where he had once found cheer. 
 " Eager as he was for new conquests, he never 
 lost his hold upon those he had won." 1 While 
 considering the golden fruitage of this most re- 
 markable of 'preachers, let us not fail to note as 
 one of the aids to it the loving sympathy of his 
 fellow-workers. 
 
 Furthermore, the apostle's friendships were a 
 support to him in his hours of trial. In the time 
 of bodily suffering his friends gave him tender 
 nursing; in his temporary pecuniary need they 
 contributed money for his support; in his lone- 
 liness they brought courage with their presence; 
 and in his imprisonments they dispelled the 
 gloom of the dungeon by the light of loving 
 comradeship and converse. Evidence is abun- 
 dant of this indispensable support given to him in 
 his days of weakness and trial by the presence 
 of those he loved; but can we hesitate to believe 
 that even in their absence from him, voluntary or 
 involuntary, his friends supplied him with a sus- 
 
 1 Stalker, Life of St. Paul. 
 
THE FRIENDSHIPS OF ST. PAUL 161 
 
 taining force ? His heart bounds upward when 
 friends greet him at the Market of Appius; but 
 ean we doubt that at many another point, as we 
 know was the case in Corinth, his heart was 
 likewise cheered by the assurance that other 
 friends, though far away, held him in loving 
 thought, and were making him the subject of 
 their prayers? The presence of Onesiphorous 
 and Luke brought somewhat of heaven into the 
 Roman prison, we know; were there not also 
 glimmers reflected thither from a thousand 
 hearts, separated by weary distances from their 
 master, that burned with undying affection 
 for him ? Let us not feel that our love is 
 valueless unless we can profess it with our 
 lips to its object. Love is powerful in spite 
 of distance, and where the mail pouch even is 
 unknown. No ocean can confine it. No moun- 
 tain range can serve as its barrier. As the 
 Roentgen rays pass through opaque substances, 
 so the light of love shines through even the iron 
 doors of strongest prisons. It is ubiquitous. It 
 is irresistible. 
 
 As we speak of the moral support afforded 
 the apostle by the affection of his friends, pres- 
 ent and absent, we must not overlook the value 
 to him of their prayers. We have often noted 
 
1 62 THE MANY-SIDED PAUL 
 
 the frequency of his prayers for others; but we 
 must not forget that he valued the prayers of 
 others offered in his behalf. He asks the Thes- 
 salonians more than once for their prayers 
 (i Thes. 5: 25; 2 Thes. 3: 1). He earnestly re- 
 quests the Colossians to pray for him that a new 
 door for the gospel may be opened to him (Col. 
 4: 3). In his letter to Philemon he refers in 
 grateful tone to the prayers in his behalf of that 
 cherished friend (Philemon 22). And the great- 
 est of his letters does not close without a request 
 for the prayers of its readers (Rom. 15:30). 
 Having in mind the true source of all spiritual 
 power, shall we not allow that, after all, the 
 greatest service of the friends of St. Paul to 
 their majestic leader was the sincere prayers 
 that sprang forth for him from their devoted 
 spirits ? Strong and great as he was he needed 
 the friendship of the least of them ; and of 
 all the forces impelled by their friendship he 
 needed most their prayers. Thus we, too, 
 can best prove our friendship for the serv- 
 ants of God, by praying for them out of hearts 
 that are full and warm. To offer earnest effect- 
 ive prayer for others, — this is the highest pre- 
 rogative of our humanity. It is a requisite gift 
 of friendship. 
 
THE FRIENDSHIPS OF ST. PAUL 163 
 
 " For what are men better than sheep or goats 
 That nourish a blind life within the brain, 
 If, knowing God, they lift not hands of prayer 
 Both for themselves and those who call them friends ? " l 
 
 St. Paul was absolutely unselfish in his devo- 
 tion to his friends. Thus his friendship bears 
 the stamp of the pure article. Says Dr. Trum- 
 bull: "True friendship being love without com- 
 pact or condition, true friendship never pivots 
 on an equivalent return of service or of affec- 
 tion. Its whole sweep is away from self and 
 toward the loved one." 2 Such was friendship 
 as exemplified in St. Paul, and thus we search 
 the history of human friendships in vain for a 
 higher type of friend than our apostle. Neither 
 Ruth the Moabitess, nor Jonathan the prince, 
 nor even the beloved disciple, revealed friendship 
 of a higher sort. There was nothing sinister in 
 his passion. There is no hint anywhere that he 
 regarded a friend as a stepping-stone to power 
 or pelf. He sought love for its own sake, — or 
 rather, as a means of blessing to them who gave 
 him their hearts. He sought not theirs but 
 them. He gave in return for their love the best 
 he had. For others he freely sacrificed his time, 
 his labors, his anxieties, his sufferings, his pray- 
 ers, his very life. His heart's desire and prayer 
 
 1 Tennyson, Morte d' Arthur. 2 Friendship the Master Passion. 
 
1 64 THE MANY-SIDED PAUL 
 
 to God for them was for their salvation. He 
 was even willing to be himself accursed, if need 
 be, in order that the crown of divine favor might 
 adorn the brow of their redeemed manhood. 
 He spent himself for their sakes. He lavished 
 his dearest resources, with prodigal hand, on the 
 altar of friendship, that his friends might be 
 rich unto God. And touching beyond words are 
 his prayers for his friends, revealing above all 
 other proofs the unalloyed nobleness of his love 
 for them. "The Lord grant mercy unto the 
 house of Onesiphorus: for he oft refreshed me, 
 and was not ashamed of my chain." Thus he 
 writes to Timothy (2 Tim. 1 : 16) and the closing 
 words of the letter are a prayer for the younger 
 teacher: "The Lord be with thy spirit" (2 Tim. 
 4: 22). Even for friends who had played the 
 coward and deserted him he prays: "May 
 it not be laid to their account" (2 Tim. 4: 16) 
 — an echo of the prayer of Jesus on the cross for 
 his enemies. Friendship nearer to that of Christ 
 never appeared. 
 
 It should be said, finally, that the love of St. 
 Paul for human friends was subordinate always 
 to his devotion to Christ. And this is only to 
 say in another way that his friendships were 
 pure. Friendship was never to him a snare or 
 
THE FRIENDSHIPS OF ST. PAUL 165 
 
 temptation. It did not move between him and 
 Christ, eclipsing the authority of his Sovereign. 
 He did not make an idol of his friends. There 
 was no image worship in his affection. It has 
 often happened that men have transferred to fel- 
 low-mortals the devotion due to Christ su- 
 premely. Often, too, love for faulty friends has 
 led astray from the plain path of duty, — the 
 lower path has been followed for friends' sake, 
 rather than the higher path with the risk of 
 alienating a friend. A thousand times the faulty 
 counsels of friends, for friendship's sake, have 
 been obeyed instead of the counsels of the Most 
 High, with the result of disaster to the soul of 
 the one loving and of the one beloved. Thus the 
 friends of Balaam were a snare to him, and thus 
 the love of Samson sheared away his lordly 
 strength. But with St. Paul, Christ was first and 
 friends second. Accordingly the best serv- 
 ice of his friendship, next to his prayers, was 
 sometimes the tender reminding of his friends 
 of their weak points, as in the case of Timothy, 
 or even sharply rebuking them for their offenses, 
 as when he resisted his brother apostle "to the 
 face, because he stood condemned." In Smith's 
 biography of Henry Drummond we are told that 
 the young Scotch evangelist possessed the grace of 
 
1 66 THE MANY-SIDED PAUL 
 
 friendship that enabled him to offer to those he 
 honored and loved criticism when truth de- 
 manded it; and therein Drummond, and every 
 friend of like quality, resembles the apostle who 
 loved his friends too sincerely to be blind to their 
 faults or indifferent as to their removal. Farrar, 
 in commenting on the apostle's ability to per- 
 form disagreeable duties for love's sake, toward 
 his friends, quotes aptly the wise saying: "The 
 words of a friend are better at all times than the 
 precious balms of an enemy that break the head." 
 Let us thank those who are nearest to us for their 
 gentle admonitions, which, however bitter now, 
 may, if we receive them, yield us sweetest fruit 
 hereafter. 
 
 " Better is a neighbor that is near than, a brother far off." 
 
 " Faithful are the wounds of a friend : 
 But the kisses of an enemy are profuse." 
 
 " Iron sharpeneth iron ; 
 So a man sharpeneth the countenance of his friend." 
 
 " As in water face answereth to face, 
 So the heart of man to man." 
 
 " Ointment and perfume rejoice the heart : 
 So doth the sweetness of a man's friend that cometh of hearty 
 counsel." * 
 
 1 Proverbs. 
 
ST. PAUL THE GENTLEMAN 
 
How sweet and gracious, even in common speech, 
 Is that fine sense which men call Courtesy ! 
 Wholesome as air and genial as the light, 
 Welcome in every clime as breath of flowers, — 
 It transmutes aliens into trusting friends, 
 And gives its owner passport round the globe. 
 
 —J. T. Fields. 
 
 His manners were not so much genteel as gentle. We 
 should not call him a genteel man, but he was in the highest 
 sense a gentleman ; with no mere outside politeness, but in- 
 wardly careful of the feelings of all. — Ja?nes Freeman Clarke. 
 
 In honor preferring one another. — Romans 12 : 10. 
 
VIII 
 
 ST. PAUL THE GENTLEMAN 
 
 Numerous students of the character of St. Paul 
 have remarked upon his possession of the quali- 
 ties that constitute the gentleman. Thus Cole- 
 ridge, somewhere, in commenting on the great 
 German reformer refers to the apostle as a gen- 
 tleman: "Luther — not by any means such a 
 gentleman as the apostle was," and so on. And 
 in his Table Talk we find this expression of the 
 same profound thinker: "St. Paul, whose man- 
 ners were the finest of any man's upon record." 
 Dean Stanley speaks of the apostle as the first 
 example in detail of "a gentleman." Dr. Schaff 
 says of the Epistle to Philemon that it " reveals a 
 perfect Christian gentleman, a nobleman of na- 
 ture, doubly ennobled by grace"; and Dr. J. F. 
 Clarke terms it a letter "of a Christian gentle- 
 man, of high principles, of exquisite tact, of deli- 
 cate feeling." Professor Ramsay thus views an 
 illustration of this side of the apostle's character 
 
 as revealed in the tone of the Epistle to the Gala- 
 169 
 
170 THE MANY-SIDED PAUL 
 
 tians: "And in what a gentlemanly spirit does 
 Paul refer to that visit! . . . Not even in 
 this hot and hasty letter does he swerve from his 
 tone of respect and admiration, or assume in the 
 slightest degree a tone of superiority to Peter and 
 James." Jowett quotes the comment on the 
 apostle that he was "the finest gentleman that 
 ever lived." Dr. J. S. Howson calls his courtesy 
 " remarkable." And John Henry Newman with 
 characteristic power thus states the thought: 
 "There is not any one of those refinements and 
 delicacies of feeling, which are the result of ad- 
 vanced civilization, not any one of those pro- 
 prieties and embellishments of conduct in which 
 the cultivated intellect delights, but he is a pattern 
 of it, in the midst of that assemblage of other 
 supernatural excellencies which is the common 
 endowment of apostles and saints." It will 
 hence appear that we are on ground that has 
 often been occupied in contemplating 5/. Paul 
 the gentleman. 
 
 We are forced to use the term gentleman to 
 describe the side of the apostle's character in 
 mind because, as Emerson says, "the word Gen- 
 tleman has not any correlative abstract to express 
 the Quality." Courtesy does not cover the 
 ground; nor does gentility. To say that a man 
 
ST. PAUL THE GENTLEMAN 171 
 
 is a gentleman is to ascribe to him an aggregate 
 of qualities that no other word will quite repre- 
 sent. What constitutes the gentleman ? We 
 must rule out artificial or base elements. Family 
 does not make the gentleman; for we know that 
 a man may be descended from a hundred earls 
 and yet be essentially a boor. Station does not 
 make the gentleman ; for we have known sena- 
 tors and governors who lacked both heart and 
 breeding. Wealth does not make the gentle- 
 man; as any one may discover from noting the 
 coarseness and meanness that are not always 
 strangers to steam yachts, palatial hotels and 
 gilded salons. To be a gentleman is to have 
 heart, but that is not all. It is to possess cour- 
 tesy, but that is not all. It is to understand the 
 conventionalities that govern men of the noblest 
 grade, but that is not all. Shall we not say it is to 
 have a pure heart plus manners ? It is essentially 
 a matter of heart, since out of the abundance of 
 the heart the mouth necessarily speaks. Thus 
 the perfect gentleman may be one, to take the 
 sense the apostle meant to be attached to his 
 words, "having nothing, and yet possessing 
 all things" (2 Cor. 6: 10). This corresponds to 
 Emerson's thought: "The word gentleman 
 . . . is made of the spirit, more than of the 
 
172 THE MANY-SIDED PAUL 
 
 talent of man;" and it corresponds to the un- 
 derstanding Burns had of his father's feeling on 
 the subject: — 
 
 " He bade me act a manly part, though I had ne'er a farthing, 
 For without an honest, manly heart no man was worth re- 
 garding." 
 
 With this notion, too, we are enabled to under- 
 stand what the old English poet meant when he 
 said that "Christ was the first gentleman." He 
 was the absolutely pure-hearted, as he pro- 
 nounced the finest blessing on pure-heartedness. 
 In this sense was St. Paul a gentleman. It is 
 immaterial to this view — the question as to his 
 origin, his material means, his official rank, or 
 even as to his practice of those modern qualities 
 of polish which Lord Chesterfield calls "the 
 graces." It has been urged that he would not 
 have proved an agreeable man in modern "so- 
 ciety." The suggestion is irrelevant. It is un- 
 fair to measure any man by the manners of an 
 age from which he is remote. The question is, 
 f was St. Paul essentially a gentleman in his own 
 time, or is he that as his personality touches 
 what is unchanging in the race ? To this ques- 
 tion there is but one answer. 
 
 "The gentleman," says Emerson, "is a man 
 of truth, lord of his own actions, and expressing 
 
ST. PAUL THE GENTLEMAN 173 
 
 that lordship in his behavior, not in any manner 
 dependent and servile either on persons, or opin- 
 ions, or possessions." That is, there is in him a 
 virile and just self-respect. He never carries the 
 air of apologizing for his existence. His eye 
 never droops before the gaze of any. He instinc- 
 tively recognizes the dignity of his own manhood. 
 Yet he has the quietness of conscious power. He 
 honors himself too much to claim more than his 
 due, and he never blusters. Now notice how 
 the evidence of this endowment of the gentle- 
 man is multiplied in the history of St. Paul. We 
 can note only a few illustrations. On the morn- 
 ing after the earthquake in Philippi, when the 
 order of release from prison was brought to St. 
 Paul and Silas from the prsetors, St. Paul gave 
 this reply: "They have beaten us publicly, un- 
 condemned, men that are Romans, and have 
 cast us into prison; and do they now cast us out 
 privily? Nay, verily; but let them come them- 
 selves and bring us out" (Acts 16: 37). The self- 
 respect of a true man! A similar note is distin- 
 guishable in the dignified claim made to the chief 
 captain on the castle stairs in Jerusalem: "I am 
 a Jew, of Tarsus in Cilicia, a citizen of no mean 
 city" (Acts 21: 39); and we almost see the 
 flash of the eye and hear the clear ring to the 
 
i 7 4 THE MANY-SIDED PAUL 
 
 voice in the reply to the same official when the 
 latter speaks of having purchased his citizenship, 
 — ''But I am a Roman born" (Acts 22: 28). 
 For still another instance, how grandly the 
 self-respect of the apostle appears in his una- 
 bashed decision in the presence of Festus: "I 
 appeal unto Caesar " (Acts 25 : 1 1). In the Pauline 
 epistles, likewise, is this quality evidenced. Con- 
 sider the honest self-vindication in this sentence 
 of the message to the Galatians: " If I were still 
 pleasing men, I should not be a servant of Christ" 
 (Gal. 1 : 10); and the recognition of having well 
 performed his duty in the reminder to the Thes- 
 salonians: " Remember ye not, that, when I was 
 yet with you, I told you these things ? " (2 Thes. 
 2:5). " Self-consciousness " Dr. Howson names 
 the spirit that prompts words like these; but a 
 nobler term is more fitting. Entirely consist- 
 ent, too, with this temper is the note of apparent 
 self-depreciation we sometimes discover in the 
 apostle's language. He suffers; his spoken word 
 is "foolishness"; his bodily presence is weak; 
 he is willing to be counted a fool. But this is 
 when he contrasts himself with Christ, and con- 
 siders the littleness of men at best in comparison 
 with the Master. At the same time he never for- 
 gets that he is a redeemed man, of high station 
 
ST. PAUL THE GENTLEMAN 175 
 
 and privilege in the kingdom. He is humbled 
 before Christ; but before men he is unabashed. 
 Emerson's first mark of the gentleman — "lord of 
 his own actions" — is clearly revealed in the char- 
 acter of this apostle. 
 
 Dr. Howson defines courtesy as "a combi- 
 nation of tact and sympathy." Of both of these 
 qualities of the apostle we have already spoken. 
 Let us dwell briefly on another quality of his 
 that is closely allied to sympathy — that is, in- 
 deed, an element of it, — his unselfishness. The 
 true gentleman must not be selfish. Even 
 those artificial laws which constitute good man- 
 ners, or etiquette, are based on the law demand- 
 ing the pleasing of others rather than self. How 
 much more does the heart of the gentleman 
 require unselfishness as a constant habit! He 
 who has polish without heart acts unselfishly ; he 
 who has heart and polish both is unselfish. 
 Therefore unselfishness is of the soul of good- 
 breeding. Now the many illustrations of the 
 unselfishness of the apostle will occur to all of 
 us. Indeed, the entire history of his apostleship 
 may be described as the most striking history of 
 pure unselfishness on record — of course with the 
 One exception. But our attention may well be 
 recalled to several indications of the quality in 
 
176 THE MANY-SIDED PAUL 
 
 question, particularly in its limited aspect of an 
 entire absence of the mercenary feeling. We are 
 sure, for example, that we are listening to a 
 sincere statement when we hear these words to 
 the Corinthians: "But I have used none of 
 these things: and I write not these things that it 
 may be so done in my case. . . . What then 
 is my reward ? That, when I preach the gospel, 
 I may make the gospel without charge" (i Cor. 
 9: 15, 18). He desired nothing at Corinth for 
 himself. His one thought was the salvation of 
 the Corinthians. Of like tenor is his state- 
 ment to the Thessalonians: " For ye remember, 
 brethren, our labor and travail : working night and 
 day, that we might not burden any of you, we 
 preached unto you the gospel of God" (1 Thes. 
 2: 9). In sentences like these we are introduced 
 to the inner sanctuary of the apostle's soul, and 
 we find that the holy place is wholly free from 
 the contamination of greed. We often meet 
 men who go into society, and endeavor to please 
 in the social circle of our period with the con- 
 scious motive of winning friends as a means of 
 satisfying personal ambition; nor can we urge a 
 sweeping censure of the motive when honestly 
 restrained and guarded. But on how much 
 higher a plane is the friend who cultivates us 
 
ST. PAUL THE GENTLEMAN 177 
 
 altogether for our own sake, without a thought 
 of his own gain! Indeed, the ideal gentleman 
 will be too rich in his own resources to dream of 
 finding a gold mine or a stepping-stone to power 
 in his friendships. That independence is involved 
 in his native lordship. The faintest trace of 
 Shylock in him spoils the picture, shames the 
 ideal. Though his hands be soiled with tent- 
 making we expect to find a sort of kingly 
 independence in him, the independence that 
 prefers always to win rather than to owe an 
 obligation. 
 
 We must not fail to note that aspect of the 
 apostle's unselfishness which appears in his con- 
 siderateness, — an element that even more dis- 
 tinctly than the absence of self-advancement lies 
 at the heart of polite behavior. Hardly anything 
 is more striking in the many-sided representation 
 we possess of the apostle's habits of intercourse 
 with the world at large than the numerous 
 indications of his unfailing thoughtfulness for the 
 comfort, not to say spiritual welfare, of others. 
 Thus on shipboard, fiercely besieged by the 
 elements, his first thought is, not for his own 
 safety, but for his fellow-voyagers. What a 
 revelation of character in his words to these: " I 
 beseech you to take some food: for this is for 
 
178 THE MANY-SIDED PAUL 
 
 your safely " (Acts 27 : 34). It is the same man — 
 we might know without being told it — who 
 pauses in a spiritual exhortation to his dearest 
 disciple, when the thought of the delicate health 
 of the man occurs to him, to interject the 
 homely advice, "Use a little wine for thy 
 stomach's sake, and thine often infirmities " 
 (1 Tim. 5: 23). The same concern for the wel- 
 fare of another asserts itself even in the trials 
 of the last imprisonment, and leads him to refer 
 to a distant sufferer: "Trophimus I left at 
 Miletus sick" (2 Tim. 4: 20). And at the same 
 period, much as he must have needed the min- 
 istrations of every companion, he sends Epaph- 
 roditus to Philippi simply because the latter was 
 ill and homesick. Of the poor and afflicted he 
 was ever mindful, even in the hours of his own 
 deepest suffering. Characteristic is his modest 
 assertion in his Galatian epistle of his thoughtful- 
 ness at the beginning of his ministry concerning 
 the poor saints: "Only they [the apostles in 
 Jerusalem] would that we should remember the 
 poor; which very thing I was also zealous to do" 
 (Gal. 2: 10). These, of course, are but single 
 illustrations of a distinguished lifelong spirit. 
 Fittingly, therefore, has this feeling of our 
 apostle toward the members of our troubled 
 
ST. PAUL THE GENTLEMAN 179 
 
 humanity been described as "the generous sen- 
 sibility of a heart which, by many a daily 
 affliction, had learnt to throb with sympathy 
 with the afflicted." * Here, we feel sure, is a 
 man who does not becloud the circles he enters 
 with the weight of his own sorrows; but who 
 aims to make life all about him a little more 
 sunny than he finds it. If agreeableness be 
 the one word that best describes the effect pro- 
 duced by contact with the gentleman, surely St. 
 Paul must rank according to their own law far 
 above the lords of the modern drawing-rooms 
 and courts. Where among the sayings of 
 Chesterfield are words indicative of the true 
 courtier that equal the genial language we have 
 quoted as a revelation of his prevailing spirit in 
 social intercourse ? 
 
 Another quality that helps to constitute the 
 framework of the gentleman in St. Paul is what 
 we may term his freedom from pettiness. Trifles 
 light as air do not ruffle his feelings, nor inter- 
 rupt the warm, steady flow of his friendships. 
 There is nothing of the weasel in him. He never 
 busies himself with ferreting in little corners. He 
 takes large views of men and things. Hence the 
 successes of others do not annoy him ; and aber- 
 
 1 Farrar, Life and Work of Si. Paul, p. 231. 
 
i8o THE MANY-SIDED PAUL 
 
 rations arising from momentary error are promptly 
 forgiven and forgotten. He obeys the Golden 
 Rule. He quickly overlooks much in others. A 
 friend of mine who is closely associated with 
 another in a certain good work, referring to the 
 attitude of his fellow-worker toward himself in 
 view of a degree of praise that had been accorded 
 by a section of the public to the first mentioned, 
 said, "Oh, he is too large a man to feel any 
 envy concerning my little successes! " In a vast 
 sense do we find such largeness of mind in St. 
 Paul. Though a party in the Corinth church has 
 adopted the name of Apollos to mantle its heresy, 
 he does not hesitate to send that teacher subse- 
 quently to Corinth, plainly without thought of 
 jealousy. As we discover in the second letter to 
 that turbulent body, he promptly forgives its re- 
 cent shortcomings. Though the Galatians have 
 been " bewitched " since his sojourn among them, 
 he cherishes no resentment, his tone toward them 
 being as kind as it is plain-spoken. As has been 
 said by another, " He does not indulge the habit 
 of suspicion." 1 His magnanimity is distinguished. 
 In chains before Agrippa, to view another illustra- 
 tion, with a politeness that springs from a noble 
 soul as truly as its outward expression is exquis- 
 
 1 Howson, The Character of St. Paul. 
 
ST. PAUL THE GENTLEMAN 181 
 
 itely given, he wishes that his royal hearer might 
 be as himself is, " except these bonds" (Acts 
 26: 29). He does not wish trouble even to a con- 
 temptuous enemy. Say we not truly that here 
 is a mark of a gentleman ? The import of the 
 feature we have commented on to the man of 
 correct breeding has been discovered by our 
 greatest poet, profoundest student of human 
 nature : — 
 
 " We are gentlemen, 
 That neither in our hearts, nor outward eyes, 
 Envy the great, nor do the low despise." 
 
 "Nothing," says Dr. Howson, whom we have 
 so frequently quoted, "is more truly courteous 
 than to assume the presence of right feeling in the 
 minds of those whom we address." This intro- 
 duces us to another feature of St. Paul's character 
 which denotes his gentlemanly spirit no less than 
 do those we have considered. We refer to his dis- 
 position to fair dealing. I have heard a pleasant 
 comment on Emerson to the effect that he knew 
 the art of dissenting squarely from the opinions of 
 others in conversation, with utmost quietness, 
 though with power, without arousing the slight- 
 est animosity on the part of his opponents. He 
 must, then, have argued fairly, as St. Paul always 
 does when he must needs contend. There could 
 
182 THE MANY-SIDED PAUL 
 
 have been no pettifogging in his pleading; no 
 attempt to disguise the truth in the contention of 
 the opposite party; no undue heat; no willing- 
 ness to raise a laugh from bystanders by an un- 
 warrantable satire or an unchivalrous wit. Here 
 is true fineness of feeling. At this point many 
 who are accounted masters of courtesy fail. But 
 St. Paul was not lacking in this regard. He was 
 too fair even to resort to flattery — a species »of 
 contempt for the understanding of those toward 
 whom it is employed. " For neither at any time 
 were we found using words of flattery, as ye 
 know " — so he reminds the Thessalonians (i Thes. 
 2: 5). And his toleration, as for instance in his 
 sermons in Lystra and Athens, is familiar to all. 
 Newman notes of his address to the Lycaonians 
 that "he speaks of God's love to them, heathens 
 though they were." Of his bitterest persecutors, 
 the Jewish bigots, he manages to find some good 
 to say, thus: "I bear them witness that they 
 have a zeal for God" (Rom. 10: 2). In other 
 words, there is not manifest in the illustrations 
 we have used, nor is there elsewhere, an attempt 
 to carry his point irrespective of means. His is 
 genuine argumentative chivalry. He commands 
 the high intellectual and moral level of doing 
 justice always to his friends and antagonists; 
 
ST. PAUL THE GENTLEMAN 183 
 
 and this quality goes far toward the formation of 
 the heart of a gentleman. It is one thing to be a 
 gentleman in the utterance of polite nothings; it 
 is another to be always a gentleman in serious 
 debate. There are many who have the entree to 
 the parlors of the Mrs. Thrales, who are quite 
 Johnsonese in the disposition to club adversaries 
 with the butt end of their pistols of argument 
 when they cannot disable them with the fair dis- 
 charge of logic. But the complete gentleman 
 must pattern after St. Paul rather than after Dr. 
 Johnson, in the matter of suavity and fairness in 
 their contentions. A good example here for con- 
 testants for causes and principles in our churches 
 and in our church courts! 
 
 But still further, how the instinct of courtesy 
 appears in the disposition to conciliate constantly 
 revealed by the apostle. We have only to run 
 over in mind his various sermons and addresses 
 reported in The Acts to recall his practically in- 
 variable habit of beginning his discourse with 
 complimentary expressions. As we become 
 well acquainted with the man we become con- 
 vinced that this method is something better than 
 a rhetorical or oratorical device. There is 
 genuine kindliness in it. There is an inclina- 
 tion to recognize what good there is in the 
 
i8 4 THE MANY-SIDED PAUL 
 
 false beliefs and evil lives of the worst. The 
 first syllable of his message always is a note of 
 music. The first step of the pathway to the 
 Cross of Christ as he outlines it is paved with 
 silver. Listen to several sentences introductory 
 to his sermons: "Men of Israel, and ye that 
 fear God, hearken " (Acts 13: 16). "We also 
 are men of like passions with you, and bring 
 you good tidings" (Acts 14: 15). "Ye men of 
 Athens, in all things I perceive that ye are some- 
 what religious " (Acts 1 7 : 22, margin). In each in- 
 stance he attempts to win his hearers at the start. 
 And as we further recall, his speech before Felix 
 begins with a compliment (Acts 24: 10), and that 
 before Agrippa with a sentence distinctly courte- 
 ous (Acts 26: 2). So, too, is his conciliatory spirit 
 evidenced in the kindly greetings with which he 
 begins his letters, even when his purpose is 
 chiefly to rebuke. The most striking illustration, 
 perhaps, is the first letter to the Corinthians, 
 where he begins by naming his converts whom 
 he is about to admonish sternly the "sanctified 
 in Christ Jesus, called to be saints." The same 
 tone appears in the initial sentences of his other 
 letters, with the possible exception of that to the 
 Galatians. If he can possibly find ground for 
 praise or compliment, he utilizes it as a stepping- 
 
ST. PAUL THE GENTLEMAN 185 
 
 stone to argument or appeal. We feel assured 
 that he would not have indorsed the method of 
 one of our American preachers, who began a 
 sermon with the words, "Ye beggars, tramps 
 and loafers!" His courtesy in public address 
 was innate and pronounced. 
 
 Finally, there is apparent in the apostle a cer- 
 tain delicacy of feeling, a species of reserve, 
 which leads him to respect that sacred inner 
 shrine of the personalities of his friends, the in- 
 vasion of which no privilege of love on his part 
 could warrant. "In all things I would have the 
 island of a man inviolate," says the sage of Con- 
 cord. There is that deference on St. Paul's part 
 to the rights and privacies of his intimates — one 
 of the most refined and exquisite touches to the 
 man of perfect breeding. One illustration must 
 suffice, though others will readily be recalled, — 
 the spirit of the Epistle to Philemon. In this 
 aspect of delicacy this sweet letter is one of the 
 politest messages ever sent by man to his friend. 
 Where bluntness might have been pardoned as 
 natural the apostle reveals only tenderness; 
 where a man of rougher fiber would have ex- 
 horted he rather beseeches; where an appeal to 
 conscience might easily have been made we find 
 instead an appeal to affection. Not a word too 
 
1 86 THE MANY-SIDED PAUL 
 
 much is said to friend Philemon. There is 
 nothing of the slapdash about the epistle. 
 Hence deep insight into the writer's character has 
 led to the remark, prompted by the view of this 
 epistolary gem, " Paul was not a man to take a 
 liberty with a friend." 1 
 
 Perhaps there has been danger in the forego- 
 ing study of our forgetting the true inspiration 
 of the phase of our apostle's character under re- 
 view. It should be remarked, then, with all 
 the emphasis possible, that he was a fine type 
 of the grand genus gentleman because he was 
 a glorious type of the class Christian. Be- 
 cause of the grace of God he became a master 
 of "the graces" of good breeding. He himself 
 ascribed his every endowment to the grace of 
 God through Christ, — "By the grace of God I 
 am what I am" (i Cor. 15: 10). No Tarsus 
 Turveydrop had taught him his noble deport- 
 ment. He had learned the art in Christ's own 
 school. Early in his Christian career he had 
 taken to heart the words of the Master, "It is 
 more blessed to give than to receive " (Acts 
 20: 35), — the primary principle of politeness of 
 soul. His rules of etiquette are formulated 
 in the thirteenth chapter of First Corinthians, 
 
 1 Farrar, The Messages of the Books, p. 347. 
 
ST. PAUL THE GENTLEMAN 187 
 
 and there are none better. They shaped them- 
 selves naturally in a heart truly devoted to Jesus 
 Christ. 
 
 There should be value in the view we have 
 been taking for those who have been perplexed 
 by the teaching of Matthew Arnold, which al- 
 leges a marked distinction between Hellenism 
 and Hebraism, and which claims that the key- 
 note of the former is beauty, while that of the 
 latter is conduct. Whatever may be said of the 
 distinction, broadly speaking — and without doubt 
 Professor Hunt is quite right in saying of Arnold 
 that "he has thus insisted upon an antithesis 
 where none in reality exists, " and in quoting 
 Ruskin as alleging that "moral sensibility is 
 essential to the appreciation of beauty," 1 — cer- 
 tainly that distinction vanishes in the character 
 of St. Paul, the best exponent of what we 
 may term Christian Hebraism, on the one hand, 
 and, at the same time, as shown by his remark- 
 able courtesy, a perfect exponent of what we 
 suppose to be meant by Hellenism, on the other. 
 Truly St. Paul's gospel teaches severity only 
 toward sin. As its cardinal principle is love, 
 it must form beauty and agreeableness in man- 
 ners, since good breeding may be defined as 
 
 1 Homiletic Review, vol. 38, p. 403. 
 
188 THE MANY-SIDED PAUL 
 
 love in life's minor actions. And we may believe 
 that the time is at hand when it is to be under- 
 stood that boorishness is essentially pagan, what- 
 ever it claims for itself, while refined manners 
 are a necessary blossom of the Christian's faith. 
 
ST. PAUL THE THEOLOGIAN 
 
The works of man inherit, as is just, 
 Their author's frailty, and return to dust ; 
 But Truth divine forever stands secure, 
 Its head as guarded, as its base is sure ; 
 Fixed in the rolling flood of endless years, 
 The pillar of the eternal plan appears ; 
 The raving storm and dashing wave defies, 
 Built by that Architect who built the skies. 
 
 — Cowper. 
 
 When the Church of Christ thinks of her Head as the de- 
 liverer of the soul from sin and death, as a spiritualizing pres- 
 ence ever with her and at work in every believer, and as the 
 Lord over all things who will come again without sin unto 
 salvation, it is in forms of thought given her by the Holy Ghost 
 through the instrumentality of this apostle. — Stalker. 
 
 For I shrank not from declaring unto you the whole counsel 
 of God. — Acts 20 : 2j. 
 
IX 
 
 ST. PAUL THE THEOLOGIAN 
 
 St. Paul gave the world a system of teaching 
 concerning God's revelation of himself. Hence 
 the title of theologian must be added to the other 
 designations of this marvelous man. Indeed, 
 he may be called the first Christian theologian; 
 for, as Weiss says, "in his writings . . . 
 Christian truth first appears as a compact 
 whole." 1 Perhaps in viewing his scheme of 
 truth we shall less directly look upon the char- 
 acter of the apostle than in our previous studies; 
 but we shall not fail at every step to see the man 
 behind the system, so fully does he ever reveal 
 his own personality in his message. 
 
 The first task of the student of the apostle's 
 teaching is to consider the principal features of 
 his method of unfolding truth — to determine 
 what Professor Stevens has aptly called his 
 "thought forms." 
 
 First among these we note his extraordinary 
 
 1 Biblical Theology of the New Testament. 
 191 
 
1 92 THE MANY-SIDED PAUL 
 
 devotion to Scripture. He assumes that the He- 
 brew sacred writings form a revelation from 
 God. For that revelation he has an absolute re- 
 spect. With its substance he takes no liberties. 
 Thus far, indeed, he is on the level with his 
 fellow-apostles. But he seems to have a wider 
 knowledge of his Bible than Peter or James or 
 John. It is more apparently woven into his 
 system. It never fails to color his thought. His 
 grasp of it may be roughly indicated by his fre- 
 quent quotations from it. Consider one illustra- 
 tion, his greatest epistle. Quotations from the 
 Old Testament form over six per cent of the 
 four hundred and thirty-three verses of that 
 work. We may sum up the matter thus: how- 
 ever it is conveyed to him, he never fails to in- 
 terpret truth in the light of prophecy. His sys- 
 tem is plainly not to be regarded as an antithesis 
 to the Old Testament, but as an unfolding and 
 expansion of it. 
 
 A second feature is the evident rabbinic color- 
 ing of his mental processes. This is unmistaka- 
 ble. We discover it, for example, in his refer- 
 ence to Christ as the " spiritual rock that fol- 
 lowed" Israel (i Cor. 10:4), where the old leg- 
 end of a rock that literally accompanied the 
 people in their journeying is clearly in mind; 
 
ST. PAUL THE THEOLOGIAN 193 
 
 and in his account of the law as having been 
 "ordained through angels" (Gal. 3: 19), where 
 a tradition concerning the Mosaic dispensation is 
 appealed to; and in his mention of "Jannes and 
 Jambres " (2 Tim. 3: 8), where he reveals knowl- 
 edge of the rabbinic legend of the two Egyp- 
 tian magicians who opposed Moses. But the 
 chief illustration of his rabbinic method of hand- 
 ling Scripture is his allegorical identification of 
 Hagar with Mount Sinai, in the fourth chapter of 
 Galatians. But while just enough trace of this 
 style of interpreting revelation is visible to point 
 to his early schooling, it is to be added that the 
 tendency in question does not, so far as we can 
 legitimately infer, lead him into error of direct 
 teaching. His rabbinisms we regard as parallel 
 to our modern allusions in serious speech to an- 
 cient mythology. Thus if an orator describes 
 Chicago as " phoenix arising from the ashes," 
 no one thinks of attributing to him a belief in the 
 historical reality of that remarkable bird. In other 
 words, the rabbinic bent in the apostle operates 
 in the sphere of his rhetoric rather than in that of 
 his logic. 
 
 A third feature is his fondness for the figures 
 and terms of jurisprudence. The examples are 
 numerous and well known. Among them is the 
 
i 9 4 THE MANY-SIDED PAUL 
 
 instance where he argues concerning the law 
 from the legal aspect of the marriage contract 
 (Rom. 7: 1-6). Other instances are where he 
 illustrates the relation of the redeemed to God 
 by a reference to probate law (Rom. 8: 15-17; 
 Gal. 4: 1-7). This mental characteristic is 
 marked throughout. As Professor Adeney says, 
 "Even when rejecting the law he treats it from 
 a lawyer's point of view." * His mode of unfold- 
 ing the doctrine of Justification reveals this trait 
 most prominently. "The whole subject of Jus- 
 tification is treated prevailingly from the legal 
 point of view." 2 Probably one-sided views of 
 his teachings have sometimes resulted from mis- 
 takenly regarding his legal terminology as being 
 necessitated by the essentials of truth with which 
 he deals, instead of recognizing it as an indica- 
 tion of his individual mental temperament. At 
 all events, we are hardly prepared to catch his 
 deepest meaning unless we make allowance for 
 this bent of his particular genius. 
 
 A fourth feature is his fondness for antithesis, 
 a habit which unconsciously may have arisen, so 
 far as it is a literary characteristic, from acquaint- 
 ance with the balanced verse of Hebrew poetry. 
 Among the examples of the employment of this 
 
 1 New Testament Theology. 2 Ibid. 
 
ST. PAUL THE THEOLOGIAN 195 
 
 style of thought may be mentioned his contrasts 
 between Jew and Gentile, works and faith, 
 Adam and Christ, and the natural body and the 
 spiritual body. 
 
 A fifth feature that may be mentioned is a 
 strong disposition to trace results to their ulti- 
 mate causes. Herein is an indication of a logical 
 mind, or, perhaps it would be better to say, 
 of a deep mind. As of two college students the 
 one of weaker mental grasp is content to know, 
 for instance, how a given result in algebra is ob- 
 tained, while his classmate's natural superiority 
 is indicated by his determination to learn the why 
 of the process, so the apostle's native superiority 
 of mental vigor over other thinkers in the same 
 realm is shown by his greater determination to 
 trace results in the divine plan to their original 
 sources. Thus he traces sin back to Adam. 
 "Through one man sin entered into the world" 
 (Rom. 5: 12-21). "In Adam all die" (1 Cor. 
 15: 22). It would appear that the psychological 
 source of sin is an inscrutable mystery, since he 
 does not attempt to grapple with that problem. 
 Thus also he traces righteousness (the establish- 
 ment of a relation of Tightness between the be- 
 liever and God) back to Christ. "One died for 
 all, therefore all died" (2 Cor. 5: 14). "Ye died, 
 
196 THE MANY-SIDED PAUL 
 
 and your life is hid with Christ in God" (Col. 
 3 : 3). The believer's death to guilt is here, and in 
 similar other passages, traced beyond the out- 
 putting of faith, to Christ's Atonement. Also 
 the believer's spiritual experience finds its source 
 in Christ. According to his view if the believer 
 died with Christ he is also to live with him 
 (Rom. 6: 8). 
 
 A sixth feature may be described as a vividness 
 of conception of vast truths, of which realities 
 sin and righteousness may be given as examples. 
 The quality may be described as a sort of mental 
 picturesqueness— in part, at least, a racial char- 
 acteristic. In his representations sin is more 
 than an impersonal attribute; — it exercises force, 
 it seems to be alive. It holds in bondage (Rom. 
 3: 9); it governs as a master (Rom. 6: 6); it 
 has the power of reviving from an inactive or inert 
 state (Rom. 7: 9). And so, likewise, righteous- 
 ness is looked upon objectively, not as an attri- 
 bute but as a relation. It is a something that 
 can almost be measured apart from personal 
 character. Certainly we cannot understand St. 
 Paul's meaning in the use of the terms sin and 
 righteousness by a mere reference to modern 
 usage in the employment of those terms. 
 
 A seventh feature of the apostle's way of un- 
 
ST. PAUL THE THEOLOGIAN 197 
 
 folding truth, and the last we mention, is what 
 we may term his breadth of outlook. His sys- 
 tem is primarily broader in reach than those of 
 the other apostles, because he has learned to see 
 farther. Salvation is most clearly to him a gift 
 for all. As Godet puts it: "His Son, the 
 heathen: these two notions were necessarily (to 
 St. Paul) correlative. The revelation of the one 
 must accompany that of the other. This relation 
 between the divinity of Christ and the univer- 
 sality of his kingdom is the key to the preamble 
 to the Epistle to the Romans." ? This remarkable 
 breadth of the Pauline spirit may doubtless be 
 traced to a variety of sources. It is partly no 
 doubt due, we must believe, to the manner of 
 the apostle's conversion. "It was not as a Jew 
 but as a man that he had been dealt with in his 
 conversion." 2 Undoubtedly it was due largely to 
 his acquaintance with a larger circle in his min- 
 istry than those of the other apostles. But it 
 was, we believe, chiefly due to his recognition of 
 the gracious operation of the Holy Spirit upon 
 the heathen. These different causes combined 
 to give him a breadth of vision that was not 
 Jewish but Hellenic; and because of its posses- 
 sion his system presents him as a great world 
 
 1 Romans, Introduction, p. 12. 3 Stalker, The Life of St. Paul. 
 
198 THE MANY-SIDED PAUL 
 
 teacher, — apostle to the Gentiles, preacher to 
 the ages! 
 
 It is not my purpose to discuss at length the 
 Pauline theology. A condensed and brief out- 
 line of its leading features is all that our plan calls 
 for. The chief sources of information concern- 
 ing this vast and important subject are, of 
 course, the epistles to the Romans and Galatians; 
 though all of the Pauline letters, save, perhaps, 
 that to Philemon, as well as the book of The 
 Acts, offer contributions to its full treatment. 1 
 The central thought of the entire system we deem 
 to be this: God's declaration of Tightness of re- 
 lation on the pari of humanity toward himself a 
 gracious gift for all; a gift revealed in and 
 through the divine-human Christy and received 
 by trust (Rom. y. 22). 
 
 In St. Paul's teaching the divine nature stands 
 forth as absolutely holy. The truth of the holi- 
 ness of God underlies all representations of the 
 divine dealings with humanity. This holiness, 
 which is of the essence of God, is evidenced by 
 the fact that he cannot tolerate sin. Against sin 
 his wrath burns. The " wrath of God is re- 
 vealed from heaven against all ungodliness and 
 
 1 It will be noticed that the non-Pauline authorship of the Epistle to the 
 Hebrews is assumed throughout this work. 
 
ST. PAUL THE THEOLOGIAN 199 
 
 unrighteousness of men" (Rom. 1 : 18). But the 
 holiness of God operates in another way. It 
 works not only to destroy sin but also to reveal 
 mercy to the sinner. The divine mercy is an es- 
 sential and necessary element of the divine holi- 
 ness. God is "rich in mercy" (Eph. 2: 4); 
 mercy inheres in the divine nature. This mercy 
 has been revealed to all, Jew and heathen — to 
 "every nation" (Acts 17:26). It is to be empha- 
 sized that the Gentile world has not been over- 
 looked in its manifestation (Rom. 15:9). " That 
 which may be known of God is manifest in 
 them "(Rom. 1: 19). Hence men are "vessels 
 of mercy" (Rom. 9: 23). But there is another 
 way of viewing the divine holiness: it may be 
 looked on as love. God's love prompted the gift 
 of the divine Son for the world's redemption. 
 "God commendeth his own love toward us, in 
 that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for 
 us" (Rom. 5:8; cf. Eph. 2: 4). It is to be seen, 
 further, that God has planned the salvation of 
 every member of the human family who trusts 
 him as he reveals himself in Christ. Christians 
 may declare, God has "foreordained us unto 
 adoption as sons through Jesus Christ " (Eph. 1 : 
 5 ; cf. Rom. 9 : 11; 1 Cor. 2 : 7). 
 The apostle's teaching concerning sin is very 
 
2oo THE MANY-SIDED PAUL 
 
 important, but we can only glance at his treat- 
 ment of the theme. Plainly, to his mind, sin is 
 the largest, dreadfullest, shamefullest fact con- 
 cerning humanity prior to redemption. As to 
 its source, it has proceeded from some original 
 catastrophe. This catastrophe occurred at the 
 origin of human history, and sprang from an in- 
 dividual. "Through one man" it entered the 
 world (Rom. 5 : 12) ; and that man was " Adam " 
 (1 Cor. 15: 22). The consequences of sin to all 
 subsequent to Adam are guilt and death. By 
 nature men since then have been "children of 
 wrath" (Eph. 2: 3), and death has reigned over 
 them (Rom. 5: 17); for "in Adam all die" 
 (1 Cor. 15: 22). Unbelievers are "dead through" 
 "trespasses and sins" (Eph. 2: 1). Not one apart 
 from Christ, Jew or heathen, has ever escaped 
 from the venom of sin; condemnation has come 
 upon every child of Adam; the "judgment came 
 unto all men to condemnation" (Rom 5: 18; 
 also, Rom. 1 and 2). But human guilt before 
 God is not to be understood as arbitrarily imputed 
 to men because they are descendents of Adam; 
 the disposition to sin is universal, and guilt in 
 each case arises from sin voluntarily committed, 
 Condemnation has passed upon all, "for that all 
 sinned" (Rom. 5: 12). Such is our imperfect 
 
ST. PAUL THE THEOLOGIAN 201 
 
 outline of the teaching of St. Paul concerning the 
 most frightful fact of the universe. 
 
 Sin being the universal and only too evident 
 fact in the sphere of humanity, the question 
 arises, How secure deliverance from its conse- 
 quences ? This is the problem of the ages. To 
 the unlocking of the problem St. Paul addresses 
 himself with the superbest effort of his super- 
 natural genius in the Epistle to the Romans. 
 There are two conceivable ways of getting de- 
 liverance from the guilt and power of sin, the 
 way of the law and the way of grace. First, 
 then, what in brief does the apostle teach con- 
 cerning the law ? Apparently, (though he uses 
 the term in various senses) when the apostle 
 contrasts law and grace he uses the former term 
 in the sense of the divine will as embodied in the 
 Old Covenant. We infer that this is the Pauline 
 meaning to be attached to law as a conceivable 
 method of access to God's favor from what he 
 states as its various qualities and offices. It is 
 holy and good. "The law is holy" (Rom. 
 7: 12). It is "spiritual" (Rom. 7: 14). Nega- 
 tively, it is not sin (Rom. 7: 7). It also harmo- 
 nizes with God's promises (Gal. 3: 21). Further- 
 more, it has been designed to prepare the way 
 for Christ, by revealing to man his sin, and 
 
202 THE MANY-SIDED PAUL 
 
 strengthening the consciousness of it. It u came 
 in that the trespass might abound" (Rom. 
 5: 20). Paul declares that he himself "had not 
 known sin except through the law" (Rom. 
 7: 7 ff.). In other words, this holy will of God, 
 when he became aware of it, showed him that 
 his sin was sin. Thus the law may be spoken 
 of as an instructor. "The law hath been our 
 tutor to bring us unto Christ" (Gal. 3: 24), 
 plainly, by showing us our helplessness apart 
 from God as he is revealed in Christ. Yet the 
 law was not intended as a substitute for faith in 
 Christ. Here precisely has lain the mistake of 
 the Pharisees, and of the Judaizers, who have 
 opposed the apostle's teaching among his con- 
 verts. They have regarded the law as an end in 
 itself, instead of as a means of availing of the 
 gracious work of Christ. The law itself is holy, 
 but when its purpose is misunderstood there 
 may be an employment of it that is not holy. 
 The unholy worship of its outward forms, then, 
 is what the apostle has in mind when, along 
 with those representations of it we have men- 
 tioned, he describes its observances as " rudi- 
 ments of the world " (Gal. 4:3), and " weak and 
 beggarly rudiments" (Gal. 4: 9); and when he 
 treats of circumcision, the leading outward sym- 
 
ST. PAUL THE THEOLOGIAN 203 
 
 bol of allegiance to it, as an antithesis to Christ 
 (Gal. 5: 2). This false employment of law, 
 further, is in the apostle's mind, evidently, when 
 he declares that rightness of relation to God is 
 not to be had through the law (e. g., Gal. 2: 21). 
 The law then is from God; it is holy; and it is 
 designed to point to Christ. It would seem, 
 therefore, that a perfect or ideal obedience to it 
 would involve a laying hold of God's righteous- 
 ness as revealed in Christ, since Christ is the end 
 of the law. In a sense the law involves Christ. 
 He "is the end of the law unto righteousness" 
 (Rom. 10: 4). But no one can keep the law of 
 himself, for the simple reason that while it pre- 
 sents to man prohibitions and positive commands, 
 it of itself supplies no vital force to a dead soul 
 that is requisite to secure the observance of its 
 requirements. Hence the law as an instrument 
 of salvation from sin always has been, and al- 
 ways must be, a failure. No man ever yet was 
 saved by law alone. 
 
 Obedience to law being an impracticable 
 means of salvation, there remains but one other 
 method of securing the happy result toward 
 which the law has pointed; and that is divine 
 grace. What men cannot secure of themselves 
 God has offered as a free gift. Christians living 
 
2o 4 THE MANY-SIDED PAUL 
 
 under the New Dispensation are saved by grace: 
 " by grace have ye been saved" (Eph. 2: 5). And 
 the Old Testament saints likewise were saved by 
 grace; for God's promise, for example to Abra- 
 ham, was "according to grace" (Rom. 4: 16 ff.). 
 It is an error, therefore, to speak of the New 
 Dispensation, in contradistinction to the Old, as 
 the dispensation of grace. Grace, in both New 
 Testament and Old Testament times, has been 
 the only practicable method of salvation. In 
 numerous passages the apostle magnifies grace as 
 the great means of delivering man from sin and 
 death (cf. Rom. 5: 2, 20, 21 ; 1 1 : 6; Eph. 2: 8; 
 4: 7, etc.). Indeed, we need not say that none 
 of the other apostles have so grandly developed 
 the glorious doctrine of salvation by grace as 
 has St. Paul. 
 
 But if God has designed to offer men salvation 
 as a fruit and pledge of his grace there must be 
 some striking means of revealing that grace, 
 some wondrous embodiment of his will freely 
 to pardon and save. Such an embodiment of 
 divine grace has appeared in Jesus Christ, the 
 Lamb slain from the beginning of the world. 
 We therefore must pause here to outline in part 
 the teaching of St. Paul concerning the person of 
 Christ. He presents Christ as the Messiah of 
 
ST. PAUL THE THEOLOGIAN 205 
 
 prophecy (Acts 18: 5); as truly human — of "the 
 seed of David " (Rom. 1 : 3) ; as wholly sinless 
 (2 Cor. 5: 21); as an infallible teacher (1 Cor. 
 7: 10); as the Lord (Rom. 5:1); as the founder 
 of an organization — "the firstborn among many 
 brethren" (Rom. 8: 29); as truly divine — the 
 "Lord of all" (Rom. 10: 12-14); as preexistent 
 (2 Cor. 8: 9; Phil. 2: 5-1 1); as God's own Son 
 (Rom. 8: 3); as in a sense subordinate to the 
 Father (Rom. 9: 5); as the image of the invisible 
 God (Col. 1: 15); as wedded to the Church 
 (Eph. 5: 2)), and as the head of it (Eph. 5: 30); 
 and as the end of all things (Col. 1 : 20). By 
 bringing representations like these together we 
 discover how impossible it is to deny either the 
 complete humanity or the complete divinity of 
 Christ in the light of the Pauline teaching. 
 "Christ, . . . being the eternal Son of God, 
 became man, and so was, and continueth to be, 
 God and man, in two distinct natures, and one 
 person, forever." 
 
 But how, in the apostle's view, has Christ 
 embodied the grace of God? The answer to 
 that inquiry brings us to the Pauline teaching 
 concerning Christ's redemptive work. Christ 
 Jesus is the ever-living, divine-human instrument 
 of redemption. He represents the divine will 
 
2o6 THE MANY-SIDED PAUL 
 
 and efficiency in effecting that wondrous result. 
 "God was in Christ reconciling the world unto 
 himself" (2 Cor. 5: 19). In a nobly mystical 
 sense he and his people died together on the 
 cross (Gal. 2: 20). It is the whole of Christ — 
 the divine-human — that has wrought our release 
 from guilt and death; "it is Christ Jesus that 
 died" (Rom. 8: 34). The atoning death of 
 Christ is the most striking element of his 
 redemptive work; the gladsome account of the 
 matter is "the word of the Cross" (1 Cor. 
 1: 18, etc.). But another element, likewise, not 
 to be overlooked, is his resurrection. He was 
 "delivered up for our trespasses, and was raised 
 for our justification" (Rom. 4: 25). And it is to 
 be noted that the obedience of Christ is the 
 central fact of his eternal mission as Saviour. 
 " Through the obedience of the One" righteous- 
 ness is accomplished (Rom. 5: 19). The apostle 
 attaches different names to the redemptive work 
 of our Lord. He calls it "redemption" (Rom. 
 3: 24); and "reconciliation" (2 Cor. 5: 18); and 
 also "propitiation" (Rom. 3: 25). As to the 
 motive of Christ's mission the apostle sometimes 
 describes it as "righteousness " (e. g., Rom. 3 : 25), 
 and sometimes as " love " (Rom. 5:8). But love 
 as the more general term may be taken to 
 
ST. PAUL THE THEOLOGIAN 207 
 
 cover the ground. In Christ "God commend- 
 eth his love to us." The specific results of re- 
 demption for Christ's people are variously set 
 forth. They are described as freedom from con- 
 demnation (Rom. 8: 1); destruction of sin (Rom. 
 8: 3); deliverance from the world (Gal. 1:4); 
 and the imparting of life— Christians are a new 
 "lump" (1 Cor. 5: 7). The one general term 
 descriptive of the results of redemption is — a 
 new creation in place of the natural man. The 
 general object of redemption may be stated as 
 —the destruction of sin. 
 
 Paul's most splendid work as a teacher is re- 
 vealed in his unfolding of the great truths re- 
 lating to the person and offices of Christ. At 
 this point we touch the high-water mark of his 
 matchless instruction. 
 
 But how shall humanity avail itself of the fruits 
 of this divine service in its behalf? The answer 
 is — Faith. But to determine what St. Paul 
 means by faith in his great epistles we must 
 not be content to look to the popular usage of 
 the term, but must carefully study the various 
 connections in which he uses the word. We 
 discover that by faith as the mode of justifica- 
 tion St. Paul does not mean credulity, nor mere 
 intellectual assent. It is first of all belief in a 
 
208 THE MANY-SIDED PAUL 
 
 Person, — ''Jesus Christ" (Gal. 2: 16). Also, it 
 is an outputting of soul that involves the pos- 
 session of "the spirit of Christ" (Rom. 8: 10). 
 It is a sharing with Christ of a common spiritual 
 life principle. Furthermore, obedience is of its 
 essence (Rom. 16: 26). Still further, it works 
 through love (Gal. 4: 14). And its direct issue 
 is goodness. Hence on the human side it 
 originates in the will. The faith that lays 
 hold of redemption, then, is not a simple, 
 but a complex, act. The simplest definition 
 of it is, trust in Christ. And he who has this 
 trust, with all that it involves, is justified — in 
 other terms, he is declared to be in a right 
 relation to God. 
 
 The end of faith, then, is Justification. Vol- 
 umes have been written about justification, but 
 we know of no better account of the topic in 
 brief phrasing than that of Professor Adeney: 
 "It is now admitted that the idea of justifica- 
 tion which passed over from Judaism to Chris- 
 tianity is not that of an ethical change — the 
 making a bad man good. Indisputably it sig- 
 nifies clearing from a charge of guilt, or 
 even a more general vindication of righteous- 
 ness where no change has been made — not 
 making right, but declaring a person to be right, 
 
ST. PAUL THE THEOLOGIAN 209 
 
 and then, by a natural transition, treating him 
 as right." 1 
 
 He who has been justified through his trust in 
 Christ, as a work of divine grace, is, according 
 to St. Paul, a "new creation." No longer does 
 he grovel in the dust, no more does he find 
 enjoyment in conscious sin. His face is set 
 Godward. His affection is on things above. 
 Rich is the teaching of the apostle concerning 
 the features of the faith life. It is contemplated 
 under various aspects. We mistake in attending 
 exclusively to any one representation, such as 
 the mystical phrase "in Christ," as though it 
 were the sole definition of Christian character. 
 The believer is a being who is "in Christ" 
 (2 Cor. 5: 17, etc.). He is also one who has a 
 consciousness of sonship, he cries "Abba, 
 Father!" (Rom. 8: 16). He is a being who 
 lives in the sphere of the Holy Spirit (Rom. 8: 9). 
 He likewise is one who bears the fruits produced 
 by the Spirit — his character is clean (Gal. 5 : 22, 
 2}). He is in the line of spiritual knowledge 
 (1 Cor. 2: 14, 15). He is free from the fetters of 
 sin (Rom. 8: 2). He is a worker for God (Phil. 
 2: 12, 13; 3: 13). He is in a state of warfare 
 against evil forces (2 Tim. 4: 7). And his 
 
 1 Theology of the New Testament, p. 197. 
 
210 THE MANY-SIDED PAUL 
 
 knowledge is progressive (i Cor. 13: 12), as is 
 his spirituality (1 Cor. 3: 1, 2; Phil. 3: 12-14). 
 These are among Paul's various accounts of the 
 nature of the human life that is ''hid with Christ 
 in God." 
 
 We must not fail to note the apostle's highly 
 important teaching concerning the Holy Spirit. 
 Plainly he regards the Spirit as a divine Person, 
 distinct from the Father and from the Son while 
 of the substance of the Godhead, whose office is 
 to supply the grace of the absent Christ, and 
 who is ever the vital force in the life of the be- 
 liever. He is omniscient (1 Cor. 2: 10, 11). In 
 him we are justified (1 Cor. 6: 11). It is he who 
 gives us assurance of our adoption into God's 
 family (Rom. 8: 15). He guides us in all profit- 
 able study of the Scriptures (1 Cor. 2: 13). He 
 directs us in true worship (Phil. 3:3). He 
 frames for us the petitions of true prayer (Rom. 
 8: 26, 27). He assures us of God's love for us 
 (Rom. 5: 5). He is the source of joy (1 Thes. 
 1 : 6). He assigns to us our peculiar spiritual 
 gifts ( 1 Cor. 12: 11). And he is the soul and 
 inspiration of church unity (Eph. 4:3). Of 
 course this meager outline of the apostle's doc- 
 trine of the Holy Spirit might easily be expanded 
 into a volume. 
 
ST. PAUL THE THEOLOGIAN 211 
 
 All this is but a fraction of the rich theological 
 system of St. Paul. I have not, for instance, 
 dwelt on his important teaching concerning the 
 Family, or the State, or the Church, or the Future 
 Life. It has been my design to emphasize mainly 
 the more prominent points of his system so far 
 as it relates to sin and deliverance from it. But 
 an outline like this, meager as it is, is sufficient to 
 indicate the wealth of the sublime legacy of truth 
 concerning Christ and his Church that our 
 apostle has left for the instruction of the ages. 1 
 
 The fact that each of the apostle's greater 
 epistles consists of two divisions — the doctrinal 
 followed by the practical— is one of the indica- 
 tions of his logical bent; and it also serves as a 
 perpetual reminder that theory and practice are 
 not to be divorced in the believer's life rule or the 
 Christian teacher's method. Truth and practical 
 holiness, the two correlates of the apostle's 
 teaching, — each is the half-orb of the true life. 
 They are mutually dependent. Truth alone is 
 cold, unfeeling, non-lovable, anti-social; and, on 
 
 1 A discussion, however condensed, of St. Paul's ethical system would 
 lead me too far from my chosen path. One point, however, I must express 
 an opinion upon — the apostle's attitude toward marriage. I read i Cor. 7 
 in connection with such passages, for example, as Eph. 5 : 22, 23, — where 
 marriage is almost exalted into a sacrament,— and 1 Tim. 5 : 14,— where 
 "the younger women" are advised to marry, — and I hold accordingly that 
 it is an error to charge their author with unfriendliness to the married state. 
 
212 THE MANY-SIDED PAUL 
 
 the other hand, conduct alone, which does not 
 rest on a system of truth, however fair to the 
 sight, is a house without a foundation. Hence 
 all true preaching must present the two ele- 
 ments. Its end is not belief, and it is not con- 
 duct; but it is belief revealed in action. 
 
 Is St. Paul's teaching absolutely reliable ? In 
 other words, is that teaching to be regarded as a 
 part of the gospel, or is it to be regarded rather 
 as a comment on the gospel ? Does the apostle 
 infallibly present the divine thought concerning 
 the character and offices of Christ, and concern- 
 ing the character and life of the Church of God ? 
 Or is there an antithesis between St. Paul and 
 Christ ? We cannot impeach the trustworthi- 
 ness of the apostle, and hence we must not 
 sympathize with the spirit behind the cry that 
 has been heard of late,— "Back from Paul to 
 Christ! " For the apostle claims to have received 
 his 'apostleship from the Lord himself; and he 
 distinctly claims to teach under direct super- 
 natural revelation from Christ. He tells the 
 Galatians concerning the gospel which he has 
 been preaching — and this indicates beyond the 
 slightest doubt his own claim as to the source 
 and authority of his message, — "Neither did I 
 receive it from man, nor was I taught it, but it 
 
ST. PAUL THE THEOLOGIAN 213 
 
 came to me through revelation of Jesus Christ " 
 (Gal. 1 : 12). This is a vital utterance, a key- 
 text. With it harmonize other statements where 
 a similar claim of a special revelation is made 
 (e. g., 1 Cor. 9: 1); with it harmonizes the 
 significance of his various visions and his under- 
 standing of them; and there also harmonizes 
 with it a general tone of his utterances, namely, 
 that, of certainty and emphasis concerning 
 alleged truths pertaining to Christ which no man 
 could ever have attained to originally by any 
 means short of a supernatural revelation. Since, 
 then, he clearly believes and claims that he has 
 received such a revelation, we must either admit 
 his claim or impeach his rationality. He is a 
 genuine mouthpiece of Christ, or he is an 
 enthusiast. But that he is no mere enthusiast 
 appears from his confident appeal to the manifest 
 signs of his apostleship that were recognized by 
 those he primarily addressed. 
 
 There is another way of approaching the 
 question of St. Paul's reliability, and that is by 
 remarking on the antecedent probability of such 
 a revelation from Christ as we believe he re- 
 ceived. Christ at the very last informed his 
 disciples that there was truth to be revealed to 
 them thereafter which they had not yet learned. 
 
2i 4 THE MANY-SIDED PAUL 
 
 " I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye 
 cannot bear them now" (John 16: 12). To un- 
 fold this revelation subsequent to his death he 
 promised the Holy Spirit, and, as a means in 
 some transcendent sense to be identified there- 
 with, he promised himself. ''He shall guide 
 you into all the truth." " I will come unto 
 you." According to the divine Mind itself, 
 then, the gospel record is not to close with the 
 history of the four evangelists. A revelation is 
 to follow the Resurrection and the Ascension, 
 where the record of the four ends. Since, then, 
 in the nature of things, a complete gospel must 
 deal with a complete Christ, we could not but 
 regard the mere narrative of the events of the 
 earthly life of our Lord as a fragmentary gospel. 
 The entire gospel must involve a contemplation 
 of the ascended, glorified Christ, and an account 
 of the kingdom of God in the light of his full 
 kingship. Now where are we to look for this 
 revelation supplementary to that granted to the 
 four evangelists ? What more reasonable to be- 
 lieve than that to St. Paul in the light of the 
 peculiar features of his supernatural call was 
 principally intrusted the supreme privilege and 
 task of receiving from above and recording the 
 thought of God concerning those gospel principles 
 
■■■ 
 
 ST. PAUL THE THEOLOGIAN 215 
 
 less fully unfolded by the earlier sacred writers ? 
 Principally, we say; for in the matter of author- 
 ity apart from quality and extent of teaching 
 we may not claim superiority for St. Paul 
 as a vehicle of revelation in contrast with his 
 fellow-apostles. 
 
 As Professor Adeney says: "St. Paul laid claim 
 to a specific apostolic mission, with a gospel re- 
 ceived not from man but direct from Christ, 
 and a full share in the new gifts of the Spirit. If a 
 great outpouring of the Holy Ghost on the Church, 
 with a more specific illumination for the apostles, 
 is to be accepted as a central fact in the history of 
 these times, it is simply unreasonable to expect 
 that so potent an influence should not have left 
 its stamp in a most marked degree on such a man 
 as the great apostle to the Gentiles." 1 And as 
 Professor Wilkinson declares: "Our option is 
 not 'Christ or Paul.' 'God forbid!' I seem to 
 hear St. Paul himself, after his manner, fervently 
 saying. Our option is not ' The Christ of the gos- 
 pels or the Christ of Paul's epistles.' Our true 
 option is, ' The Christ partially revealed in the gos- 
 pels and in the epistles.' " 2 There is a contrast, 
 indeed, between the gospels and the Pauline epis- 
 
 1 Theology of the New Testament. 
 3 Homileiic Review, vol. 38, p. 1 14. 
 
2i 6 THE MANY-SIDED PAUL 
 
 ties; but it is the contrast simply between 
 the root and the tree, between truth and more 
 truth. The relation is not of opposition but of 
 expansion. 
 
 Yet we are not to hold that finality attaches to 
 the teaching of our apostle. The end of truth is 
 unattainable on earth. There is more to Christ 
 and the gospel than St. Paul ever discovered. Pro- 
 gressiveness of knowledge concerning the things 
 of God, the apostle himself clearly teaches. ' ' Now 
 we know in part," he writes, speaking of the mir- 
 ror light of human wisdom at its clearest in con- 
 trast with the face-to-face light of the heavenly 
 life (i Cor. 13: 9). But since he received his 
 message from a source higher than human, new 
 light springing from the gradual mind move- 
 ment of the Church under the guidance of the 
 Holy Spirit may reveal new meaning and beauty 
 in his thought, but it cannot weaken its force or 
 dominion. 
 
 Next after the Man of Galilee, no person has 
 exerted so vast an influence over the thought 
 and life of humanity during the past nineteen cen- 
 turies as has St. Paul, the theologian. The un- 
 dying, ever enlarging vitality of his thought is 
 evidenced strikingly by the new literature that is 
 constantly appearing under the inspiration of his 
 
ST. PAUL THE THEOLOGIAN 217 
 
 teaching. The world does not tire of him and his 
 instruction. So long as men struggle against sin, 
 and so long as the human mind is inclined to 
 grapple with the transcendental problems of 
 grace, redemption, and the future life, so long 
 will Christian intelligences continue to welcome 
 earnest, sympathetic comments on the method 
 and substance of his system of teaching. He 
 stands before the mind of the ages as the great- 
 est exponent of the life and teaching of the 
 divine Master. 
 
 Even among those who are not to be classed as 
 evangelical there are not wanting men of power 
 and even genius who do not hesitate reverently 
 to pay to him high tributes of admiration and re- 
 spect on the ground of his wondrous apprehen- 
 sion of the mind of Jesus, and his consequent 
 priceless contribution to the thought of the cen- 
 turies. With the words of one of the greatest of 
 these on our continent we close: — 
 
 "Paul, more than anyone else, has gone down 
 into the mind of Jesus. His doctrine in the ear- 
 liest times turned a Jewish religion into one 
 adapted to all mankind. It transferred Christian- 
 ity from Asia to Europe. It broke down, in the 
 beginning, the attempt to narrow it into the di- 
 mensions of a Jewish sect. . . . He gave a fresh 
 
2i 8 THE MANY-SIDED PAUL 
 
 impulse to human thought, and the force of this 
 movement is not yet exhausted. Augustine, Lu- 
 ther, Pascal, and Wesley, have each, in turn, re- 
 ceived from the apostle Paul the mighty influ- 
 ence which awakened their spiritual natures. 
 His place in universal history is in the front rank 
 of those who create a new epoch in civilization 
 and progress." 1 
 
 1 James Freeman Clarke, The Ideas of St. Paul. 
 
ST. PAUL'S CHRISTLIKENESS 
 
Oh, no, my dear, it is to pray, to pray as God would have us ; 
 this is what at times makes me turn cold to my soul. Believe 
 me, to pray with all your heart and strength, with the reason 
 and the will . . . that is the last, the greatest achievement 
 of the Christian's warfare on earth. Teach us to pray, O 
 Lord! — Coleridge — Table Talk. 
 
 Only when we have freely given ourselves to the most merci- 
 ful God do we know what it is indeed to pray, to speak to God 
 with that trustful yet reverent familiarity which becomes chil- 
 dren who feel that they have and can have no secrets to hide 
 from their Father in heaven. Only when we have presented 
 ourselves unreservedly to God as a living sacrifice, can we taste 
 the joy of an untroubled conscience, and of a true inward peace 
 of soul, and of a moral assurance of salvation, through His most 
 precious death, who makes our self-oblation an acceptable 
 reality. — L iddon. 
 
 To me to live is Christ — Phil, i : 21. 
 
X 
 
 ST. PAUL'S CHRISTLIKENESS 
 
 In Chapter II. the determining principle of the 
 apostle's character and work is spoken of. We 
 are now and finally to consider the main features 
 of his spirituality; or, in other words, to glance 
 at the outline of the picture of Christ as it is 
 reflected from his spirit. Faith is the tree, 
 rooted in divine grace ; Christlikeness is the 
 golden fruit, borne on branches that reach into 
 the heavens. 
 
 The visions of St. Paul must not be overlooked 
 as a factor in his spiritual experience. We ac- 
 cept the record of them as historical, but we can- 
 not explain them. Neander has well said, 
 "We know not the law according to which the 
 communications of a higher spiritual world to 
 men living in the world of sense take place, so 
 as to be able to determine anything concerning 
 them." It is idle to try to analyze or describe 
 the glory or language of heaven, or the mode of 
 their occasional manifestation in the souls of men 
 
222 THE MANY-SIDED PAUL 
 
 on the earth. It is enough to know that there 
 are capacities in the human soul that enable it in 
 exceptional instances literally to hear voices from 
 heaven and to behold heavenly forms, and to be 
 thus cheered and inspired. In the threefold ac- 
 count of the first of these visions of St. Paul we 
 are to understand that Christ actually appeared 
 in visible form to his prostrate servant (Acts 9, 
 22, 26). We regard it not as a dream, nor as a 
 figment of an exalted imagination, but as a mat- 
 ter of genuine sense perception. In the case of 
 Christ's appearance to the praying convert in the 
 temple it is not so clear that it was a matter of per- 
 ception by the outer sense; it was in " a trance " 
 — possibly to the inner sight — that the Lord ap- 
 peared with his strengthening command. Con- 
 cerning the other instances, — the approach of 
 Ananias (Acts 9: 12); the appearance of the man 
 of Macedonia in Troas (Acts 16: 9); the encour- 
 aging word of the Lord in the dark hour in Corinth 
 (Acts 18: 9, 10); the presence and encouraging 
 prophecy of Christ in the Jerusalem prison (Acts 
 2y. 11); the uplifting to the third heaven and 
 the hearing of " unspeakable words " (2 Cor. 12: 
 1-4); and the appearance of the angel on ship- 
 board with his message of courage (Acts 27: 23, 
 24) — concerning these we can only accept the 
 
ST. PAUL'S CHRISTLIKENESS 223 
 
 history as it is written, leaving it reverently in its 
 native nimbus of sacred mystery. The fact that 
 these experiences always coincided with solemn 
 crises of the apostle's career has received fre- 
 quent comment. Perhaps they may be described 
 as supernatural revelations to oppose temptations 
 of unique power, an extraordinary force from 
 above to meet an extraordinary spiritual need. 
 At all events, the supernatural element in St. 
 Paul's experience must not be left out of account 
 in a just description of his character. Our fail- 
 ure to lay constant emphasis on this factor in our 
 portraiture of several sides of our subject has not 
 been, indeed, unintentional. Wherever it has 
 been possible to explain the apostle's spirit and 
 work in the light of the ordinary processes of 
 grace, we have magnified the ordinary rather than 
 the extraordinary sources of his power in order 
 to show how essentially human and thus far im- 
 itable he was. But we have never overlooked the 
 fact that his spiritual genius was shaped in part 
 by special and unusual revelations from God. 1 
 
 1 We should not, of course, overlook the extent to which the apostle was 
 an agent of the supernatural. The main references in The Acts to his 
 miracles are these: Chaps. 13: 11; 14: 3, 8-10; 16: 16-18; 19: n, 12; 20: 10; 
 28: 8, 9. Interesting questions for the student of the subject are: Wherein 
 does St. Paul's power of working miracles differ from that of Jesus? To 
 what extent is his consciousness of this power discoverable in the quality of 
 his faith and zeal ? His distinct claim to possession of this power is not to 
 be lost sight of (see Rom. 15: 19; 2 Cor. 12: 12). 
 
224 THE MANY-SIDED PAUL 
 
 But the one cause of his splendid resemblance 
 to the Master which involves all lesser influences 
 was the Holy Spirit. He was kept in close touch 
 with Christ throughout his apostleship by a force 
 that acted upon his soul from without — a force 
 not innate but heaven-born. This, indeed, is the 
 sum of the whole matter. In his missionary 
 career he was, in a rare sense, Spirit-led. In no 
 other history is the Holy Spirit so honored as in 
 The Acts. But the inner as well as the outer life 
 currents of this arch saint were shaped by the 
 Paraclete. He approached nearer than others 
 have to Christ's ideal because above his brethren 
 he followed the leadings of the Spirit. 
 
 The leading feature of the spirituality of the 
 apostle was his habit of prayer. He imitated 
 Christ in this, first of all, that he lived in the at- 
 mosphere of communion with the Father. It 
 must ever prove a surprise to him who inquires 
 into the matter for the first time to learn how 
 largely prayer figures in St. Paul's experience. 
 We often comment on the value Luther attached 
 to prayer; we have been struck with the deeply 
 devotional spirit of men of vast intellectual equip- 
 ment, like Coleridge and Gladstone; we have 
 noted how necessary prayer has proved to the 
 princes of Christian missions, like Eliot, and 
 
ST. PAUL'S CHRISTLIKENESS 225 
 
 Brainerd, and Judson, and Livingstone; but we 
 can hardly doubt that none of these has made so 
 much of prayer as did this father of missions. 
 Prayer was truly the ozone of his soul's breath. 
 
 In considering the instances of his prayers 
 mentioned by Luke — a list of no mean propor- 
 tions — it might be profitable to group together 
 the references to his prayers in his own behalf, 
 and to place in another group the references to 
 his prayers for others. In the first group would 
 fall such instances as his prayer immediately sub- 
 sequent to his conversion, in the house of Judas 
 in Damascus, — "Behold he prayeth " (Acts 9: 
 11); and that of his prayer in the temple, later, 
 when in his trance he saw and heard the Lord 
 (Acts 22: 17); and that of the prayer meeting he 
 and Silas held in prison in Philippi after their 
 scourging (Acts 16: 25); and that of his outpour- 
 ing of soul to God in the presence of the elders 
 at Miletus on the occasion of his farewell to them 
 (Acts 20: 36) ; and that of the gathering for prayer 
 on the beach at Tyre in company with the Chris- 
 tians of the place, men and women and chil- 
 dren (Acts 21: 6); and that of the utterance of 
 his thanks to God at the Market of Appius and 
 the Three Taverns when he was met by friends 
 from Rome (Acts 28: 15). In instances like these 
 
226 THE MANY-SIDED PAUL 
 
 we discover the apostle at prayer for wisdom, 
 guidance, strength, — for himself, or in view of 
 the situation in which he is placed. 
 
 Among the definite instances mentioned of his 
 prayers for the welfare of others we may men- 
 tion that when, in connection with the ordina- 
 tion of elders on his first missionary journey, he 
 and Barnabas "prayed with fasting" (Acts 14: 
 23); and that in connection with the healing of 
 the father of Publius, "unto whom Paul en- 
 tered in, and prayed, and laying his hands on him 
 healed him" (Acts 28:8). 
 
 Then, too, a student of the prayerfulness of 
 the apostle would not fail to note the many ref- 
 erences to his prayers and his habit of prayer 
 that he himself makes. Thus he tells the Thes- 
 salonian saints, "We give thanks to God al- 
 ways for you all, making mention of you in our 
 prayers" (1 Thes. 1:2). He is " always " talk- 
 ing about them to God. A little later he repeats 
 to the same friends the fact of his unceasing 
 thanksgiving to God on their account,— "We 
 also thank God without ceasing" (1 Thes. 2: 13); 
 and still again he tells the same class that " night 
 and day "he is "praying exceedingly " that he 
 might be permitted to see them in person (1 Thes. 
 3: 10); and in his second letter to the same 
 
ST. PAUL'S CHRISTLIKENESS 227 
 
 people, as though that were the best proof of 
 his constant loyalty to them, he repeats the as- 
 sertion of his habit of remembering them before 
 God, — "We pray always for you" (2 Thes. 
 1 : 1 1). In the letter to the Romans we find ex- 
 pressions like this: "I thank my God through 
 Jesus Christ for you all that your faith is pro- 
 claimed throughout the whole world" (Rom. 
 1:8); or this: "Unceasingly I make mention of 
 you, always in my prayers making request, if by 
 any means now at length I may be prospered by 
 the will of God to come unto you" (Rom. 1 :g, 10). 
 In the Corinthian epistles we recall references to 
 his thanks to God concerning the saints in Corinth 
 (e. g. 1 Cor. 1 : 4), and the familiar reference to 
 his threefold prayer for the removal of his thorn 
 in the flesh (2 Cor. 12: 8). He tells his readers 
 in the Ephesian letter that he ceases not to 
 give thanks for them, making mention of them 
 in his prayers, that they might secure "a spirit 
 of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of" 
 Christ (Eph. 1: 15-17). So, too, he reminds the 
 Colossians that he is "praying always" for 
 them (Col. 1 : 3, 9, 10). And every "remem- 
 brance" of his beloved friends in Philippi leads 
 him to supplication in their behalf, " with joy" 
 (Phil. 1 : 3-7). In his first letter to Timothy we 
 
228 THE MANY-SIDED PAUL 
 
 hear him thanking God for enabling grace (i Tim. 
 i: 12); and he tells his younger brother in the 
 second letter that his remembrance of him 
 before God is "unceasing," (2 Tim. 1: 3). To 
 Philemon also he writes, "I thank my God al- 
 ways, making mention of thee in my prayers " 
 (Philemon 4). The frequent use of the word " al- 
 ways " in these references is significant. How 
 much of the time of this busiest of Christian work- 
 ers was spent in prayer ? Must we not infer that 
 never a day passed without its own hour of prayer ? 
 Are we wrong in supposing that whole days 
 were at different periods devoted in this life 
 crowded with activities to solemn communion 
 with God ? Nor can we doubt that the secret of 
 his sustained strength and of his vast labors, 
 with their magnificent results, finds its solution 
 largely in the fact of this habit of prayer. It is 
 through feeding on the fruits of prayer that the 
 soul's life is renewed like the eagle's. 
 
 Then, still further, let us consider the apostle's 
 exhortations to prayer which we feel sure are 
 justly to be regarded as an indication of his own 
 practice. Listen to his injunction to the Thes- 
 salonians: "Pray without ceasing; in every- 
 thing give thanks" (1 Thes. 5: 17); and his 
 request, "Pray for us" (1 Thes. 5:25). Hear 
 
ST. PAUL'S CHRISTLIKENESS 229 
 
 his request for the prayers of the same people 
 for himself: "Brethren, pray for us, that the 
 word of the Lord may run and be glorified " 
 (2 Thes. y. 1). Note the phrase elsewhere, "con- 
 tinuing steadfastly in prayer" (Rom. 12: 12), 
 and the expressions indicative of Christian priv- 
 ilege, — "praying at all seasons in the Spirit" 
 (Eph. 6: 18), and "giving thanks always for all 
 things in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ" 
 (Eph. 5: 20). Dwell also on the suggestion, 
 after he has expressed a wish for the peace of 
 God in behalf of the Colossians, " Be ye thank- 
 ful " (Col. 3: 15), and on his exhortation to the 
 same church to have every word and deed pro- 
 ceed from the prayer spirit (Col. 3: 17), and on 
 his injunction, " Continue steadfastly in prayer, 
 watching therein with thanksgiving" (Col. 4: 2). 
 Recall, too, the oft-quoted teaching in the Phi- 
 lippian epistle: "In everything by prayer and 
 supplication with thanksgiving let your requests 
 be made known to God" (Phil. 4: 6). And be- 
 hold yet again his desire as expressed to Timothy 
 that "supplications, prayers, intercessions, thanks- 
 givings, be made for all men" (1 Tim. 2:1). 
 
 Prayer, then, was finely interwoven into the 
 very fabric of the apostle's life. It seems to have 
 been connected with every fervent thought, every 
 
230 THE MANY-SIDED PAUL 
 
 burning word, every important activity. He 
 appears to have begun every letter with prayer. 
 His plans of journeys were born in prayer; he 
 set forth on every itinerary in the mood of prayer; 
 his returns from abroad were all celebrated with 
 thanksgiving. He could not reflect on absent 
 friends without offering up a silent petition for 
 their welfare. He mingled prayer with his ten- 
 der advice, or his sterner admonitions. His af- 
 flictions ever brought him to his knees, and 
 thus increased his sweet intimacy with the God 
 of all comfort. ''Every statement of doctrine 
 seems to lead to a thanksgiving, every discussion 
 of a practical subject seems to suggest a prayer." 1 
 His statements of Christian truth, however they 
 might seem to pertain to the intellectual rather 
 than to the emotional realm in Christian experi- 
 ence, were all charged with the temper of prayer 
 as the heavy clouds are charged with electricity. 
 Often even his sterner and more rugged teach- 
 ings end with an exalted outburst of devotion. 
 The great crises of his career are all marked with 
 the evidence of prayer, as mountain tops in the 
 Adirondacks are marked by the tripods of the 
 surveyor. Truly he is a constant illustration of 
 the truth that 
 
 1 Howson, The Character 0/ St. Paul. 
 
ST. PAUL'S CHRISTLIKENESS 231 
 
 " Prayer is the Christian's vital breath, 
 The Christian's native air." 
 
 Again, the study of the prayerfulness of the 
 apostle Paul makes clear the close association of 
 petition and thanksgiving as elements of prayer. 
 Dr. Howson, in his well-known study of the 
 apostle's character, seems to regard "thanksgiv- 
 ing and prayer" as distinct; but it is clearly 
 more accurate to regard thanksgiving as a form 
 of prayer, or as one of its elements. Thanks- 
 giving is not distinct from prayer, but is a part 
 of it. The complete or ideal prayer always in- 
 volves thanksgiving, though that outpouring of 
 soul to God which involves only petition or only 
 thanksgiving may be true prayer. Now it is 
 clear that while St. Paul had many things to ask 
 of God he never forgot his constant causes of 
 thankfulness. His experience teaches that in 
 prayer we both give and receive. We receive 
 the blessing and we give the praise. In- 
 deed, we are to remember that thanksgiving is 
 the true ending or just climax of our prayers. 
 As Maclaren of Manchester states it, "The 
 prayer that begins with trustfulness, and passes 
 on into waiting, will always end in thankfulness, 
 triumph, and praise." 
 
 Let us now consider the apostle's conscien- 
 
232 THE MANY-SIDED PAUL 
 
 tiousness as a feature of his Christlikeness. And 
 here we will examine the feature in question in 
 the light of that revelation of himself afforded 
 in his utterances rather than in the light of his 
 history as narrated by St. Luke. The honest 
 and high-toned regard of the apostle for his own 
 reputation has already been spoken of; and his 
 tender respect for weak consciences has also been 
 dealt with. There remain to be glanced at, his 
 general instructions about conscience, his appeals 
 to conscience, his warnings against trifling with 
 conscience, and his account of his lifelong 
 habit concerning conscience. His unquestiona- 
 ble sincerity leads us to infer from his words on 
 these topics that he was a just man, a good man, 
 a man who lived as conscious that the eye of 
 God was ever on him — in other terms, that he 
 was a true follower of the Lord Jesus Christ. 
 What, then, does the apostle have to say 
 about conscience ? Let us select teachings on 
 the topic from his later utterances. Thus he 
 declares to Timothy, "The end of the charge 
 is love out of a pure heart and a good con- 
 science and faith unfeigned" (i Tim. i: 5). 
 Here love, the sum of the matter of Christlike- 
 ness, is viewed as resting on the triple foundation 
 of faith, conscientiousness, and heart purity. A 
 
ST. PAUL'S CHRISTLIKENESS 233 
 
 "good conscience" must be maintained, or we 
 are to understand that the blessed structure will 
 fall. Later he indicates that the substance of 
 his charge to one he probably loves most of all 
 his vast circle of friends, and for whose spiritual 
 prosperity he is accordingly most deeply so- 
 licitous, is " holding faith and a good con- 
 science" (1 Tim. 1: 18). It would seem that 
 he regards faith and a correct life as eternally 
 married; they may not be put asunder; they tell 
 the whole story of a life as the Master would 
 have it. Accordingly he insists with emphasis 
 that office bearers — deacons for instance — must 
 hold "the mystery of the faith in a pure con- 
 science" (1 Tim. y. 9). And this teaching is an 
 echo of his somewhat earlier instruction that it is 
 demanded of all that their lives have reference to 
 things honorable, just, pure, lovely, and of good 
 report (Phil. 4: 8). Such, then, is the indication 
 in the apostle's language, to look no further, of 
 his respect for a good conscience, a truly upright 
 and godly life. Surely he would have agreed that 
 
 " He that has light within his own clear breast, 
 May sit i' the center, and enjoy bright day ; 
 But he that hides a dark soul, and foul thoughts, 
 Benighted walks under the midday sun; 
 Himself is his own dungeon." * 
 1 Milton. 
 
234 THE MANY-SIDED PAUL 
 
 His regard for the light of "the candle of the 
 Lord " within man is shown, also, by his power- 
 ful appeals to conscience. The heathen are not 
 without this light, and with this fact he begins 
 his argument in behalf of Christ to the pagan 
 world (Rom. i: 20, 21). Humanly speaking, 
 the only ground of hope for the acceptance of 
 the gospel by members of heathen communities 
 is the fact of the possession of a conscience by 
 the lowest and most ignorant. If the heathen 
 world were devoid of a sense of right and wrong 
 there could be no room for the task of the mis- 
 sionary. Hence we are not surprised at the 
 apostle's appeals to conscience when he ad- 
 dresses the pagan consciousness, as in Lystra or 
 in Athens (Acts 14: 14-18; 17: 27). These 
 appeals indicate clearly the apostle's respect for 
 rightness of action, and incidentally throw light 
 on his own ideal of conduct. 
 
 But still further, conscience is so exalted, so 
 divine a treasure, to his mind, that it is not to be 
 trifled with. A thing may be right in itself, but 
 if there be in any partially-instructed soul a 
 scruple about it, to that soul it becomes a sin and 
 it is to be avoided. The well-known warning to 
 those of tender conscience against eating meats 
 offered to idols is essentially a warning against 
 
ST. PAUL'S CHRISTLIKENESS 235 
 
 playing with conscience, — " But he that doubteth 
 is condemned if he eat" (Rom. 14: 2}] also 
 1 Cor. 8: 12; 10: 28, etc.). To toy with con- 
 science, or juggle with its arguments, is like 
 playing with the divine fire between the 
 cherubim. Thus its light will be extinguished, 
 and as the light fails the fire is likely to consume 
 the trifler. Our teacher here is plainly one who 
 is keenly alive to the sense of right. 
 
 He tells us, furthermore, with a noble frankness 
 that is far above boastfulness, that following con- 
 science has been his lifelong habit, — a practice 
 that we believe must have grown like every 
 other habit. Before Felix he solemnly declares, 
 " Herein do I also exercise myself to have a con- 
 science void of offense toward God and men al- 
 way " (Acts 24: 16). Following conscience is 
 ever a daily business with him. In connection 
 with this assertion of his constant respect for his 
 conscience we are to consider such a statement 
 as this: "We preach not ourselves, but Christ 
 Jesus as Lord" (2 Cor. 4: 5). We understand, 
 then, that to his mind Christ the Lord as a per- 
 sonal Saviour is in vital relation to correctness of 
 conduct; is, in fact, the source of a pure life. 
 But we are chiefly to note how conscientious the 
 preacher seems to be in the matter of delivering 
 
236 THE MANY-SIDED PAUL 
 
 a true message — that with Christ as its soul. He 
 exercises himself to have a good conscience when 
 he interprets the gospel, he is an ambassador 
 true to his king. Of like purport is his pro- 
 fession: "Knowing therefore the fear of the 
 Lord, we persuade men, but we are made mani- 
 fest unto God; and I hope that we are made 
 manifest also in your conscience" (2 Cor. 5: 11). 
 In general conduct, and in preaching, therefore, 
 our apostle is one who is true to the Christ 
 standard. In the relations of temporal business, 
 likewise, he takes pains to act with strict correct- 
 ness. We have already spoken of the principles 
 that have guided him in monetary matters, but it 
 remains to quote his statement of his own attitude 
 in trying to avoid the slightest risk of criticism in 
 this department: "Avoiding this, that any man 
 should blame us in the matter of this bounty 
 which is ministered by us" (2 Cor. 8: 20). In 
 the light of teachings like these concerning con- 
 science surely there is little room for the claim 
 that the teacher places a principle, faith, in a 
 sphere apart from right conduct. In the teach- 
 ings and in the man we find that the tree— faith 
 — is good, and that consequently the fruit — holy 
 character — is likewise good. 
 We do but follow the consensus of the Chris- 
 
ST. PAUL'S CHRISTLIKENESS 237 
 
 tian thought of the ages in declaring that St. Paul 
 was Christlike in this, that he was a man of duty. 
 Not what is expedient, but what is right; not 
 what is pleasurable, but what is right; not what 
 is profitable in this present time, but what is 
 right: this may truly be said to have been the 
 rule by which the apostle ordered his course. 
 "Duty," says Lacordaire, "is the grandest of 
 ideas, because it implies the idea of God, of the 
 soul, of liberty, of responsibility, of immortality." 
 If this be correct St. Paul was actuated from his 
 Damascus day to his coronation day by the no- 
 blest idea. I cannot forget the moment when 
 with beating heart I read the inscription on the 
 stone marking the resting place of Mary Lyon, 
 at Mount Holyoke: "There is nothing in the 
 universe that I fear, but that I shall not know all 
 my duty, or shall fail to do it." It is an echo of 
 the feeling of St. Paul. And his regard for duty 
 was inspired by the life, and the eternal demand, 
 of Him who is everlastingly the effulgence of the 
 Father's glory, and the very image of the sub- 
 stance of the Omnipotent. 
 
 The Christlikeness of St. Paul may be regarded 
 likewise from the standpoint of his other-world- 
 liness. Heaven as the abode of the Christ of 
 glory was the firmest reality to him, and its 
 
'238 THE MANY-SIDED PAUL 
 
 purity, peace, splendor, and everlastingness, were 
 ever before his mind as more than an offset to 
 all tribulations, and more than a full reward for 
 all difficult endeavors. The farther he pursued 
 duty's path the brighter the star of hope above 
 him glowed; the deeper the valley of trial 
 through which he passed the more perfectly the 
 glory of the future surrounded him, dispelling all 
 gloomy shadows. Probably there never lived a 
 mere man to whom heaven was so real. 
 
 Consider the evidences his language affords of 
 his firm faith in the resurrection. The sources 
 of that faith have been already dwelt on — the 
 miraculous appearance of the risen Christ at his 
 conversion, his visions, and those ordinary min- 
 istrations of the Holy Spirit that are available for 
 all believers. The strength of that faith is at 
 every turn manifest in the epistles; and to attach 
 but a secondary importance to it is to fail to 
 learn the chief lesson of the apostle's life. His 
 trust in the truth of the resurrection life is 
 expressed in most vigorous language. He 
 ''knows " whom he has believed (2 Tim. 1 : 12). 
 He declares that he believes, and hence writes, 
 "knowing that he which raised up the Lord Jesus 
 shall raise up us also with Jesus" (2 Cor. 4: 14). 
 Earthly life and service, blessed as they are, are 
 
ST. PAUL'S CHRISTLIKENESS 239 
 
 less desirable to him than the life to come. He 
 knows that while he is at home in the body he 
 is absent from the Lord (2 Cor. 5: 6). And ac- 
 cording to his view the Christian is to be pitied, 
 even if his earthly life is regulated by faith in 
 Christ, provided the object of that faith be but a 
 phantom, as it must be if Christ is not risen and 
 the resurrection of believers is consequently but 
 a delusion. " If," he writes to the Corinthians, 
 "in this life only we have hoped in Christ, we 
 are of all men most pitiable" (1 Cor.. 15: 19). 
 Because of this reliance upon the future he can 
 truly declare that his " citizenship is in heaven" 
 (Phil. 3: 20), and he can laugh at the alleged de- 
 feat that death threatens. Surely to his mind 
 
 "There is no death. 
 What seems so is but transition." 
 
 Heaven to him is the first of realities. 
 
 Accordingly we are sure that he measures 
 all earthly values by the standard of heavenly 
 wealth. He could truly say, "I coveted no 
 man's silver, or gold, or apparel" (Acts 20: 33). 
 Why ? Because he ever followed his own ad- 
 vice to the Colossians to "seek the things that 
 are above, where Christ is" (Col. 3: 1). But he 
 was not led by this principle to any fanatical dis- 
 
2 4 o THE MANY-SIDED PAUL 
 
 regard of material blessings. He knew the 
 power of health, and mental vigor, and oppor- 
 tunity, and money; but he kept these in their 
 true place. He used them all to the glory of 
 God. He was rich toward God. He was in- 
 finitely removed from the Epicurean philosophy 
 of life. 
 
 This ever-present sense of the reality of 
 heaven enables him to sustain himself under the 
 burden of the hardships of his life course and 
 ministry. He reckons "that the sufferings of 
 this present time are not worthy to* be compared 
 with the glory which shall be revealed " toward 
 him. The end makes the means easy. " For to 
 this end we labor and strive, because we have 
 our hope set on the living God/' (i Tim. 4: 10). 
 Nowhere does he rise to a higher flight of ecstasy 
 in contrasting the littleness of human trials with 
 the glory of their end than in the magnificent 
 peroration of the eighth chapter of Romans. 
 "If God is for us," he cries, "who is against 
 us?" God is heaven, and "neither death, nor 
 life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things 
 present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor 
 height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall 
 be able to separate us from the love of God, 
 which is in Christ Jesus our Lord" (Rom. 8: 38, 
 
ST. PAUL'S CHRISTLIKENESS 241 
 
 39). The language of faith in ageless life never 
 reached a higher level. 
 
 Of course such a sense of heaven destroys the 
 fear of death. Among the many expressions 
 which reveal the apostle's personal attitude to- 
 ward death these maybe recalled: "I hold not 
 my life of any account, as dear unto myself" 
 (Acts 20:24); that is, of course, apart from 
 God's will. "Whether we wake or sleep" he 
 teaches, "we should live together with him" 
 (1 Thes. 5: 10). At Caesarea he is " ready not to 
 be bound only, but also to die at Jerusalem " 
 (Acts 21 : 13). " Whether we live, we live unto 
 the Lord; or whether we die, we die unto the 
 Lord: whether we live, therefore, or die, we are 
 the Lord's" (Rom. 14:8). His times are cheer- 
 fully left in God's hands. Calmly and without 
 fear he declares to the Corinthians, that "God 
 hath set forth us the apostles last of all, as men 
 doomed to death" (1 Cor. 4: 9). We cannot 
 but feel an admiration of the brute bravery with 
 which the gladiators saluted the emperor calmly 
 as men about to die; but how much loftier the 
 courage of this Christian apostle in which there 
 was no despair; who, because of the look across 
 the grave, was enabled deliberately to turn his 
 back on prosperity, friends, honor, wealth — a 
 
242 THE MANY-SIDED PAUL 
 
 peaceful life followed by a peaceful death — and 
 to choose rather, and in gladness of soul, a 
 course of toil, privation, and pain, which must 
 end, like his Master's, at some Calvary and at an 
 inevitable cross! 
 
 Fearlessness is in this other-worldliness, and 
 also joy. His striving, beyond all seeking after 
 the present fruits of an active and successful 
 ministry, is for an incorruptible crown (i Cor. 
 9: 25). And at life's summit he hardly knows 
 which attracts him most— work for the Mas- 
 ter below, or joy in the Master's presence 
 above. He is "in a strait betwixt the two, hav- 
 ing the desire to depart and be with Christ" 
 (Phil. 1 : 2}). At the very last the sharpness 
 of death is all lost in the ecstasy of the sight of 
 the near haven, and the abiding throne, and the 
 unfading crown. "I have fought the good 
 fight, I have finished the course, I have kept the 
 faith: henceforth there is laid up for me the 
 crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the 
 righteous judge, shall give to me at that day: 
 and not only to me, but also to all them that 
 have loved his appearing" (2 Tim. 4: 7, 8). 
 Thus ends the earthly portion of this best and 
 grandest of merely human lives. The best wine 
 is offered at the feast's end. The career which 
 
ST. PAUL'S CHRISTLIKENESS 243 
 
 has signified so much to the kingdom of God on 
 earth ends in a shout of victory. Like his 
 Master on Olivet he seems to ascend into a cloud. 
 He passes above our sight, and he leaves all 
 warfare, weariness, and pain, below. Heaven is 
 on the earth to such a life. The future to him is 
 but a fuller revelation of mysteries now in part 
 understood, and of glories now in a measure 
 realized. 
 
 A great Atlantic steamer, after a winter voyage 
 westward, calmly steams up New York harbor 
 to her pier. A severe journey is ended. Yester- 
 day, as during the days preceding, the staunch 
 vessel was buffeting huge waves, facing a 
 terrific head wind, and surrounded by an atmos- 
 phere bitterly cold. She bears the scars of her 
 conflict with the elements, Her deck and sides 
 are heavily mantled with ice, and her rigging 
 resembles the bleak trees of some Canadian 
 forest in December, heavily encrusted with tons 
 of ice. But on the morning of her arrival at her 
 destined port, through one of those quick 
 climatic changes common on our shore, she 
 seems to have emerged into the warmth and 
 
244 THE MANY-SIDED PAUL 
 
 light of a day in springtime. Her cargo is 
 intact; her human freight has suffered no harm; 
 her great engines are still at work — the smoke 
 still pours in a steady stream from her great 
 smokestack. As she moves nobly into the 
 upper bay, her flag floating proudly from her 
 peak, the sun smiles a welcome to her, causing 
 rainbows to be reflected from her icy armor. 
 The battle with the sea has issued in victory, and 
 the ship is fast at her dock in the homeland! It 
 is a type of the apostle's arrival home. His war- 
 fare with unfriendly elements is accomplished; 
 he has nobly, against many adversaries, wrought 
 out his task; he has reached his haven; and all 
 heaven, and all Christian generations on earth, 
 the living and the unborn, may well unite to laud 
 his triumph with a chorus of celestial praise. 
 
APPENDIX I 
 
 Approximate Dates of St. Paul's Life 
 
 [Time points determined by secular authorities, in italics] 
 
 St. Paul's Birth (B. C.) I 
 
 Conversion (A. D.) 32 
 
 First Visit to Jerusalem after Conversion (Gal. 1 : 18) . 34 
 
 Years in Syria and Cilicia 34-44 
 
 Death of Herod Agrippa I. 44 
 
 Second Visit to Jerusalem (Gal. 2: 1) . . . . 45 
 
 First Missionary Tour Begins 46 
 
 Third Visit to Jerusalem (Jerusalem Council) . . 50 
 Second Missionary Tour Begins ..... 50 
 Third Missionary Tour Begins ..... 54 
 
 Imprisonment in Csesarea 58-60 
 
 Festus Succeeds Felix 60 
 
 Voyage to Rome 60-61 
 
 Imprisonment in Rome 61-63 
 
 Final Missionary Labors 63-66 
 
 Martyrdom 67 
 
 245 
 
APPENDIX II 
 
 THE EPISTLES OF ST. PAUL 
 
 List in 
 Chronological Order 
 
 Groups 
 
 Periods 
 
 Dates 
 
 A. D. 
 
 (about) 
 
 Where Written 
 
 Character 
 
 i Thessalonians 
 2 Thessalonians 
 
 I 
 
 2d Miss'y Tour 
 
 <52 
 
 53 
 
 Corinth 
 
 Eschatological 
 
 Galatians 
 
 i Corinthians 
 
 2 Corinthians 
 
 Romans 
 
 II 
 
 3d Miss'y Tour 
 
 57 
 57 
 57 
 58 
 
 Ephesus? 
 
 Ephesus 
 Macedonia 
 
 Corinth 
 
 Soteriological 
 
 Philippians 
 Ephesians 
 Colossians 
 Philemon 
 
 III 
 
 First Roman 
 Imprisonment 
 
 62 
 63 
 63 
 63 
 
 Rome 
 
 Personal 
 Christological 
 
 Personal 
 
 Titus 
 i Timothy 
 2 Timothy 
 
 IV 
 
 Closing Years 
 
 66 
 66 
 67 
 
 Macedonia ? 
 Rome 
 
 Pastoral 
 
 247 
 
Index of Scripture References 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Psalms. 
 
 11 .4 105 
 
 I4:i 27 
 
 Isaiah. 
 
 45 : 4 19 
 
 Matthew. 
 
 4:1 ...... 54 
 
 4: 19, 20 38 
 
 12 •' 13 37 
 
 13 : 38 84 
 
 19: 16 27 
 
 20: 28 25 
 
 28: 19 84 
 
 John. 
 
 l6: 12 214 
 
 7-'5 2 43 
 
 7:58 H 
 
 Ch. 9 42, 222 
 
 9:4-6 34 
 
 9: 11 . . • . . . . 225 
 
 9 : 12 • 222 
 
 9:15 44 
 
 9:20 43,53 
 
 9 : 22 46, 55 
 
 Chs. 13-21 .... 86 
 
 Ch. 13 . 
 
 
 
 
 . . 5 8f 
 
 13: H 223 
 
 13: 16 . . 
 
 
 
 
 14, 184 
 
 13:39 • 
 
 
 
 
 • 59 
 
 14: 3, 8-IO 
 
 
 
 
 . 223 
 
 14: I4-I8 
 
 
 
 
 . 234 
 
 14: 15 . 
 
 
 
 
 . 184 
 
 14: 22 . . 
 
 
 
 
 102, 123 
 
 14 : 23 . 
 
 
 
 
 . 226 
 
 15:36 . 
 
 
 
 
 . 102 
 
 16: 4 
 
 
 
 
 . 108 
 
 16: 7 
 
 
 
 
 . 60 
 
 16: 9 
 
 
 
 
 . 222 
 
 16: 16-18 
 
 
 
 
 . 223 
 
 16: 25 . 
 
 
 
 
 74, 225 
 
 16:31 . 
 
 
 
 
 • 37 
 
 16:37 . 
 
 
 
 
 • 173 
 
 17: 15 • 
 
 
 
 
 . l 5 2 
 
 17 : 22 . 
 
 
 
 
 . 184 
 
 17 : 26 . 
 
 
 
 
 • • 199 
 
 17:27 . 
 
 
 
 
 • • 234 
 
 17:28 . 
 
 
 
 
 . . 16 
 
 17:30 . 
 
 
 
 
 • • 37 
 
 18: 5 . 
 
 
 
 
 • • 205 
 
 18: 9, 10 
 
 
 
 
 . . 222 
 
 18:17 • 
 
 
 
 
 . . 23 
 
 18: 24 . 
 
 
 
 
 . • 63 
 
 19: II, 12 
 
 
 
 
 . . 223 
 
 20: IO . 
 
 
 
 
 • . 223 
 
 249 
 
250 INDEX OF SCRIPTURE REFERENCES 
 
 PAGE 
 
 20: 21 nc 
 
 20 •• 24 62, 241 
 
 20:27 190 
 
 20 '• 33 • ■ 239 
 
 2 ° : 35 186 
 
 20 •• 36 225 
 
 21 : 6 225 
 
 21 •• r 3 • • • . 148, 241 
 21 = 37 -...-. 126 
 «■" 39 ...... 173 
 
 Ch- 22 • • ' . . . 42, 222 
 
 22: 3 I2 
 
 22:I 4 19,43 
 
 22: 17 225 
 
 22:28 15,174 
 
 2 3 : I 20 
 
 2 3--n 222 
 
 2 4-' 10 184 
 
 2 4= 16 235 
 
 2 5:n 174 
 
 Ch. 26 42, 222 
 
 2 6:2 x g 4 
 
 26:8 21 
 
 26: 14 22 
 
 26 •' 22 , 23 42 
 
 26: 29 j8i 
 
 2 7- 2 3 222 
 
 2 7=34 178 
 
 2 8:8 226 
 
 28:8,9 223 
 
 2 $: 15 225 
 
 Romans. 
 
 Ch. 1 200 
 
 *'•* 61 
 
 1 : 3 205 
 
 1:8 
 
 1 : 9, 10 
 I: 18 . 
 I: 19 • 
 I : 20, 21 
 Ch. 2 . 
 2: 2 
 
 3-'9 
 
 3: 22 . 
 
 3- 24 • 
 3:25 . 
 4: i6ff 
 
 4 : 25 . 
 5= 1 
 
 5=2 
 
 5:3 
 5:5 
 5:8 . 
 
 5: 12 . 
 5 : 12-21 
 
 5: 17 • 
 5:18 . 
 
 5 •• 19 • 
 
 5 : 20 
 5: 20, 21 
 6:6 
 6:8 
 7: 1-6 
 7:7 • 
 7-'9 
 7:12 . 
 
 7 •' 14 • 
 Ch. 8 . 
 8: 1 
 8:2 
 8:3 • 
 
 PAGE 
 . . 227 
 . . 227 
 . . I99 
 
 • ' 199 
 . . 234 
 
 . . 200 
 
 • • *5 
 
 . . 196 
 
 . . 198 
 
 . . 206 
 
 . . 206 
 
 . . 204 
 
 . . 206 
 
 . . 205 
 
 • . 204 
 . . 122 
 . . 210 
 
 199, 206 
 
 . . 200 
 
 • • i95 
 . . 200 
 . . 200 
 . . 206 
 . . 202 
 , . 204 
 
 . 196 
 . . 196 
 
 • • 194 
 201, 202 
 
 . 196 
 
 , . 201 
 
 . 201 
 
 • 145 
 
 . 207 
 
 . 209 
 
 205, 207 
 
INDEX OF SCRIPTURE REFERENCES 251 
 
 9 
 9 
 9 
 
 10 
 10 
 10 
 10 
 10 
 
 12 
 12 
 
 12 
 14 
 14 
 14 
 Ch 
 15 
 l 5 
 J 5 
 *5 
 16 
 
 9 • 
 
 10 . 
 
 15 • 
 i5-!7 
 
 16 . 
 26, 27 
 29 . 
 31 • 
 34 • 
 38,39 
 
 5 • 
 
 11 . 
 
 23 • 
 2 
 
 4 • 
 12, 
 
 14 
 
 17 
 
 6 
 
 10 
 
 12 
 
 18 
 
 14 
 
 Corinthians. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 209 
 208 
 210 
 194 
 209 
 210 
 205 
 240 
 206 
 240 
 205 
 199 
 199 
 182 
 203 
 205 
 35 
 35 
 204 
 168 
 229 
 118 
 241 
 122 
 
 235 
 109 
 199 
 223 
 
 78 
 162 
 208 
 
 1:2 184 
 
 1:4 227 
 
 I: 14-16 112 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 PAGE 
 
 I : 18 206 
 
 1 : 23, 24 . 
 
 
 
 
 
 52 
 
 2:2 . . 
 
 
 
 
 
 48,6l 
 
 2:7 . . 
 
 
 
 
 
 199 
 
 2: IO, 11 . 
 
 
 
 
 
 2IO 
 
 2: 13 . . 
 
 
 
 
 
 2IO 
 
 2: 14, 15 . 
 
 
 
 
 
 209 
 
 3: 1, 2 
 
 
 
 
 
 2IO 
 
 4:9 . . 
 
 
 
 
 
 241 
 
 5:1 . . 
 
 
 
 
 
 "3 
 
 5 : 3-5 • • 
 
 
 
 
 
 "3 
 
 5-"4 • • 
 
 
 
 
 
 114 
 
 5 : 7 • • 
 
 
 
 
 11 
 
 4, 207 
 
 5: 11 . 
 
 
 
 
 
 114 
 
 6: I . 
 
 
 
 
 
 118 
 
 6: 11 . 
 
 
 
 
 
 210 
 
 Ch. 7 . 
 
 
 
 
 
 211 
 
 7 : 10 . 
 
 
 
 
 
 205 
 
 8: 12 . 
 
 
 
 
 
 235 
 
 9: 1 . 
 
 
 
 
 
 . 213 
 
 9 : 7-M 
 
 
 
 
 
 . 109 
 
 9: 15 • 
 
 
 
 
 
 . no 
 
 9: 15, 18 
 
 
 
 
 
 . 176 
 
 9: 25 . 
 
 
 
 
 
 . 242 
 
 10 : 4 
 
 
 
 
 
 . 192 
 
 10: 16 . 
 
 
 
 
 
 • "3 
 
 IO: 28 . 
 
 
 
 
 
 • 235 
 
 II: 2 3 ff. 
 
 
 
 
 
 • 55 
 
 11:23-25 
 
 
 
 
 
 • 113 
 
 12: 11 . 
 
 
 
 
 
 . 210 
 
 12: 13 . 
 
 
 
 
 
 . 112 
 
 Ch. 13 . 
 
 
 
 
 
 • 145 
 
 13:4 • 
 
 
 
 
 
 . 150 
 
 13:9 • 
 
 
 
 
 
 . 216 
 
 13:11 . 
 
 
 
 
 
 . 46 
 
 13: 12 . 
 
 
 
 
 
 . 210 
 
252 INDEX OF SCRIPTURE REFERENCES 
 
 Ch. 15 42, 123 
 
 15 : 9 26 
 
 15: 10 186 
 
 15 : l 9 239 
 
 15 : 22 195, 200 
 
 I5 : 33 l6 
 
 Ch. 16 109 
 
 16: 1-4 ill 
 
 16:3 ill 
 
 2 Corinthians. 
 
 I : 
 
 Ch. 
 2: 
 2: 
 2: 
 4 = 
 
 4 = 
 
 5 : 
 
 5: 
 
 5 : 
 
 5 = 
 5 = 
 5: 
 
 5 = 
 5 = 
 
 6: 
 6: 
 
 7 = 
 7 = 
 8: 
 8: 
 Ch. 
 
 9 = 
 II : 
 
 4 • 
 2 
 
 4 • 
 7 • 
 12, 13 
 
 5 • 
 14 . 
 
 6 . 
 n . 
 14 . 
 
 17 • 
 
 18 . 
 
 19 . 
 
 20 . 
 
 21 . 
 10 . 
 14 . 
 
 4 • 
 
 5 • 
 9 • 
 20 . 
 
 9 • 
 2 
 
 22 . 
 
 122 
 
 113 
 116 
 114 
 
 152 
 
 235 
 238 
 
 239 
 236 
 
 195 
 209 
 206 
 206 
 
 61 
 205 
 171 
 114 
 
 74 
 
 73 
 205 
 236 
 109 
 no 
 
 14 
 
 1 1 : 24-26 
 12: 1-4 
 12: 8 . 
 12: 10 . 
 12: 12 . 
 12: 15 . 
 
 PAGE 
 
 93 
 222 
 227 
 
 66 
 223 
 100 
 
 Galatians. 
 
 Ch. 
 
 16 
 
 42 
 
 207 
 
 174 
 
 213 
 
 19 
 
 54 
 
 85 
 
 178 
 
 107 
 
 .4 
 
 10 
 12 
 
 17 
 
 21 
 10 
 11 
 
 16 38, 208 
 
 20 32, 206 
 
 .... 203 
 
 .... 193 
 
 . . . . 201 
 
 . . . . 202 
 
 .... 38 
 
 .... "3 
 
 .... 194 
 
 . . . . 202 
 
 . . . . 202 
 
 .... 208 
 
 21 .... , 
 
 19 
 
 21 ... . 
 
 24 .... , 
 
 26 
 
 27 .... 
 1-7 ... . 
 
 3 . . . . 
 
 9 . . . . 
 
 14 ... . 
 
 H, 15 *57 
 
 2 203 
 
 22, 23 209 
 
 Ephesians. 
 
 19 
 199 
 
INDEX OF SCRIPTURE REFERENCES 253 
 
 PAGE 
 
 i: 15, 16 ....... 227 
 
 2:1 200 
 
 2:3 200 
 
 2:4 *99 
 
 2:8 204 
 
 2: 10 19 
 
 2: 15 204 
 
 3- J 3 74 
 
 4:2 118 
 
 4:3 2I ° 
 
 4=7 • • • 2 °4 
 
 5 : 20 229 
 
 5 : 22, 23 211 
 
 5 : 2 3 20 5 
 
 5 : 3° 2 °5 
 
 6: 18 229 
 
 Philip picms. 
 
 Chs. 1-4 74, 145 
 
 1:3 75 
 
 i:3-7 22 7 
 
 I : 21 62, 220 
 
 I : 23 242 
 
 2:1 75 
 
 2: 12 118 
 
 2:5-11 ■ 205 
 
 2: 12, 13 209 
 
 2:18 75 
 
 3= l 75 
 
 3:3 2I ° 
 
 3:5 J 4 
 
 3=6 21 
 
 3 : 12-14 2IO 
 
 3 : I 3 2 °9 
 
 3: 13, 14 ...... . 62 
 
 3 : 2 ° 2 39 
 
 PAGH 
 
 4:2 Il8 
 
 4=4 75 
 
 4:6 229 
 
 4:8 2 33 
 
 4: 16 109 
 
 Colossians. 
 
 Chs. 1-4 74 
 
 1 : 3, 9> IO 22 7 
 
 1 : 15 2 °5 
 
 I : 20 205 
 
 2:6 38 
 
 3 : 1 2 39 
 
 3:3 *96 
 
 3=11 "9 
 
 3= 15 22 9 
 
 3= 17 22 9 
 
 4:2 229 
 
 4= 3 l62 
 
 1 Thessalonians. 
 
 1:2 226 
 
 1:6 210 
 
 2:5 182 
 
 2: 9 ........ 176 
 
 2: 13 226 
 
 3 : IO 226 
 
 4: 13 I2 3 
 
 5 : 10 241 
 
 5: 17 228 
 
 5 : 25 162, 228 
 
 2 Thessalonians. 
 
 i:5 I2 3 
 
 I : 1 1 227 
 
 2: 5 *74 
 
 3:1 162, 229 
 
254 INDEX OF SCRIPTURE REFERENCES 
 
 I Timothy. 
 
 3,4 
 5 
 
 12 
 13 
 
 J 5 
 
 1 
 
 8-12 
 J-7 • 
 
 9 • 
 6 . 
 
 10 . 
 14 • 
 23 • 
 5 • 
 l 7 ■ 
 
 2 Timothy. 
 
 104 
 
 232 
 
 228 
 
 26 
 
 26 
 
 233 
 229 
 104 
 
 104 
 
 2 33 
 103 
 240 
 211 
 
 178 
 
 io 5 
 106 
 
 3 21, 228 
 
 7 105 
 
 12 35, 4o, 238 
 
 l S .. 152 
 
 16 164 
 
 1 103 
 
 1 5 65, 103 
 
 16 104 
 
 2: 
 2 : 
 2 : 
 2: 
 3: 
 4: 
 4: 
 
 4= 7> 
 4 = 
 4 = 
 
 4 
 4 
 4 = 
 
 !52 
 
 193 
 
 io 5 
 209 
 
 l 5 2 
 
 J 52 
 
 164 
 
 178 
 
 164 
 
 Titus. 
 
 vs. 1-25 
 
 4 • 
 22 . 
 
 Philemon. 
 
 103 
 104 
 
 io 5 
 
 16 
 
 105 
 
 185 
 228 
 162 
 
General Index 
 
 Achaia, Paul's work in, 86. 
 
 Adam, sin traced to, 195. 
 
 Adeney, Prof., 113, 194, 208, 215. 
 
 Adroitness, Paul's, in use of church funds, 1 10. 
 
 Affectionateness, Paul's, 150. 
 
 Afflicted, Paul's treatment of the, 122. 
 
 Afflictions, prayer in, 227. 
 
 Agreeableness, Paul's, 179. 
 
 Agrippa, 23 ; Paul's courtesy toward, 180, 184. 
 
 Alexander, why a great general, 135. 
 
 Alexander the coppersmith, 152. 
 
 Analysis, Paul's fondness for, 195. 
 
 Ananias, seen in vision, 222. 
 
 Andronicus, 155. 
 
 Angel, Paul's vision of on shipboard, 222. 
 
 Angels, 193. 
 
 Antioch in Syria, 86, 87, 89. 
 
 Antioch of Pisidia, 87 ; Paul's sermon in, 57. 
 
 Antithesis, Paul's use of, 194. 
 
 Apollos, 155 ; sent to Corinth, 180. 
 
 Apostles, three, indorse Paul and Barnabas, 108. 
 
 Aquila, 155. 
 
 Arabia, Paul in, 54. 
 
 Archippus, 155. 
 
 Aristarchus, 155. 
 
 Aristotle, Paul and, 138. 
 
 Arnold, Matthew, 187. 
 
 Athens, Paul in, 88; message from, to Silas and Timothy, 152; 
 
 introduction to sermon in, 184; Paul's sermon in, 234; 
 
 church in, 95. 
 Attalia, Sy. 
 
 255 
 
256 GENERAL INDEX 
 
 Bacon, Prof., 87. 
 
 Balaam, false friends of, 165. 
 
 Baptism, seldom practiced by Paul, 112; Paul's respect for as a 
 
 rite, 112. 
 Barnabas, 86. 
 Beecher, H. W., 120. 
 Beneficence, Paul's references to, 109. 
 Bereaved, the. See Afflicted. 
 Bercea, 88. 
 Bithynia, 88. 
 Boyhood of Paul, 13. 
 Brainerd, David, prayerfulness of, 225. 
 Brooks, Phillips, 78. 
 Browning, Robert, 12. 
 Burns, Robert, 172. 
 Business, pastors and practical, 1 12; conscience in, 236. 
 
 C^sar, 135. 
 
 Caesarea, 89; Paul parting from friends in, 149. 
 
 Captain, chief, in Jerusalem, 173. 
 
 Carlyle, on friendship, 148. 
 
 Cartwright, Peter, 56. 
 
 Catechism, Westminster, 44. 
 
 Charitableness of Paul toward the unruly, 119. 
 
 Charles the Great, 135. 
 
 Cheerfulness, Paul's, 74. 
 
 Chesterfield, Lord, 172. 
 
 Children, the pastor's, 104. 
 
 Chivalry in argument, 182. 
 
 Christ, and Paul, 212; Paul's conception of, 41-44, 47; Paul's 
 supreme loyalty to, 60, 164; Paul on person and offices of, 
 207; Pauline teaching on person of, 204; and Law, 202; 
 God's supreme embodiment of grace, 204 ; obedience of, 
 206 ; humanity of, 205 ; as Redeemer, 205 ; resurrection 
 of, 206; righteousness from, 195; prayerfulness of, 224; 
 the pastor's loyalty to, 103. See Person of Christ. 
 
GENERAL INDEX 257 
 
 Christianity, appeals to intellect, 127 ; an argument for, in 
 
 Paul's genius, 128. 
 Church, Paul respects authority of the, 108. 
 Church government, theories of not under review, 108. 
 " Church mutineers," 105. 
 Churches, founded by Paul, classified, 95. 
 Cilicia, Paul's labors in, 85, 88. 
 Circumcision, Paul's attitude toward, 133. 
 Citizenship, Paul's, in heaven, 238. See Nationality. 
 Clarke, J. F\, 168, 169, 217. 
 
 Coleridge, S. T., 169, 220; a believer in prayer, 224. 
 Colossae, Church in, 95. 
 Colossians, Paul requests the prayers of the, 162; prays for the, 
 
 227 ; unity argued for in the Epistle to the, 118. 
 Common sense, Paul's, shown in Corinthian Epistles, 117. 
 Conciliation, Paul's spirit of, illustrations of, 183. 
 Condemnation, universal, 200. 
 Conscience, 232-237 ; Paul early follows, 20, 21 ; Paul's views 
 
 on, 23 1 ; Paul appeals to, 234. 
 Consciences, weak, Paul's treatment of, 121 ; views concern- 
 ing, 234. 
 Conscientiousness, Paul's, a striking feature, 231, 235. 
 Considerateness. illustrations of Paul's, 177. 
 Contentious, Paul's method with the, 117. 
 Conversion, Paul's, 14, 197; method and significance of, 28 ; 
 
 nature of, 29. 
 Converts, number of Paul's, 94. 
 Corinth, Paul in, 88; issues in, 116; Paul's vision in, 222; 
 
 Paul cheered in, 161 ; Paul baptizes in, 112; Paul's 
 
 prayers for saints in, 227. 
 Corinthians, 1 and 2 Epistles to the, date of, 89; reproofs 
 
 in, 121. 
 Corinthians, 1 Epistle to the, primary purpose of, 115; opening 
 
 sentence of, 184; Maurice on value to the divinity student 
 
 of, 117. 
 Cornelius, 18. 
 Council, Jerusalem, Paul in the, 108. 
 
258 GENERAL INDEX 
 
 Courage, Paul's, 73; the pastor's, 105. 
 
 Courtesy, Paul's, J. F. Clarke on, 168; J. T. Fields on, 1 68. 
 
 Covetousness, Paul's freedom from, 239. 
 
 Cowardice, Paul's hatred of, 107. 
 
 Cowper, William, 52, 190. 
 
 Credulity, faith distinguished from, 36. 
 
 Crescens, 155. 
 
 Crete, Paul's work in, 86; church in, 95. 
 
 Criticism, Paul's, of his friends, 165 ; Paul avoids risk of, 236. 
 
 Cross, vital doctrine of the, 206. 
 
 Cydnus, River, 13. 
 
 Cyprus, 86. 
 
 Deacons. See Office bearers. 
 
 Dead line, no intellectual, in Paul, 141. 
 
 Death, and sin, 200 ; no fear of in Paul, 241 ; Longfellow on, 239. 
 
 Debts, church, one cause of, 112. 
 
 Decrees. See Predestination. 
 
 Decrees of Jerusalem council, 108. 
 
 Delicacy, Paul's, shown in Epistle to Philemon, 185. 
 
 Demas, 155. 
 
 Derbe, 87, 88. 
 
 Development, Paul's spiritual, 45, 46; Matheson on, 141. 
 
 Dialectics. See Logic. 
 
 Disagreeable tasks, Paul's faithfulness in, 166. 
 
 Disciples in Ephesus. See Ephesus. 
 
 Discipline, church, Paul's relation to, 113. 
 
 Divinity of Christ, 205. 
 
 Doctrine, prayer and, 230. See Theology. 
 
 Dogma. See Theology. 
 
 Drummond, Henry, and his friends, 165. 
 
 Drummond, R. J., 20. 
 
 Duty, Paul's early respect for, 20; Paul's lifelong respect for, 237. 
 
 Earnestness, the preacher's, 72. 
 Elders of Ephesus. See Miletus. 
 Eliot, the missionary, prayerfulness of, 224. 
 
GENERAL INDEX 259 
 
 Eloquence, Paul's, 145. 
 
 Emerson, R. W., 126, 170, 171, 172, 185; fairness of, in 
 
 debate, 181. 
 Epaphras, 155. 
 Epaphroditus, 155, 178. 
 Ephesians, Epistle to, prayer spirit in, 227. 
 Ephesus, Paul's labors in, 89 ; John's disciples in, baptized by 
 
 Paul, 112; Paul's pastoral visits in, 115. 
 Epistles, Paul's, combine doctrine and practice, 211 ; many 
 
 commentaries on, 131 ; are letters of a. missionary, 80; 
 
 originality of, 130. 
 Erasmus, 144. 
 Erastus, 155. 
 
 Essentials, illustrations of, alone to be insisted on, 1 33. 
 Ethics, Paul's, 211. 
 Etiquette, Paul's rules of, 186. 
 Euodia, 118. 
 
 Europe, entry of gospel into, 88. 
 Evidence, faith depends on, 35. 
 Excommunication, sometimes demanded, 114. 
 
 Fair dealing, a mark of the gentleman, 181. 
 
 Faith, a complex act, 207; analysis and definition of, 34; Schaff 
 on, 32 ; Paul, best illustration of, t>Z > works and, insepara- 
 ble, 232. 
 
 Faith in the unseen, strength of Paul's, 238. 
 
 Faith life, various aspects of, 209. 
 
 Fanatic, Paul not a, 239. 
 
 Fancy, Paul lacking in, 137. 
 
 Farrar, F. W., 22, 28, 66, 95, 129, 166, 186. 
 
 Fasting and prayer, 226. 
 
 Fearlessness, Paul's, 241. 
 
 Felix, Paul's courtesy toward, 184, 235. 
 
 Festus, 174. 
 
 Fields, J. T., 168. 
 
 Finality, Paul's teaching not a, 216. 
 
 Finance, church. See Beneficence. 
 
2 6o GENERAL INDEX 
 
 Financial support, Paul accepts, defends pastor's receipt of, is 
 
 unselfish with respect to, 109, 1 10. 
 Financier, Paul as a church, 109-112. 
 Finney, C. G., 56. 
 Flattery, Paul never resorts to, 182. 
 Foreordination. See Predestination. 
 Friends, Paul's list of, 155 ; prayers of Paul's, 161. 
 Friendship, viewed as an occasion of Paul's epistles, 159; 
 
 Paul's, an aid to zeal, 158; quotations concerning, 148 ff; 
 
 biblical illustrations of, 163. 
 Fundamentals. See Essentials. 
 
 Galatia, churches in, 87. 
 
 Galatians, Epistle to the, reproofs in, 121. 
 
 Gallio, 23. 
 
 Gamaliel, 14. 
 
 Genius, consecrated, 145; Paul a true, 128; Paul's, shown by 
 his vast plans, 135. 
 
 Gentleman, title of, applied to Paul by many, 169; what con- 
 stitutes the, 173-185. 
 
 Gilbert, G. H., 89. 
 
 Giving, Jesus' words on, 186. 
 
 Gladiators, brute courage of, 241. 
 
 Gladstone, mental vigor of, in old age, 142 ; prayer habit of, 224. 
 
 God, Paul's early reverence for, 22; holiness of, 198; suffi- 
 ciency of, for the believer, 240. 
 
 Godet, 13, 197. 
 
 Golden rule, followed by Paul, 180. 
 
 Goldsmith, Oliver, 27, 100. 
 
 Good breeding, inspired by Christianity, 187. 
 
 Good manners, moral element in, 175. 
 
 Gospel, Paul's teaching a true, 212. 
 
 Grace, and "the graces," 186; Paul's enabling, 228; in O. T. 
 and N. T., 203; embodied in Christ, 204; Paul a child 
 of, 17 ; prenatal, 19. 
 
 Great-heartedness, Paul's, 153. 
 
 Greece, Paul in, 89. 
 
GENERAL INDEX 261 
 
 Greek, Paul's knowledge of, 15. 
 
 Growth, Emerson on intellectual, 126; Paul's disposition to, 
 
 139; the moral element in, 142. 
 Guilt, how imputed, 200. 
 
 Hagar and Mt. Sinai, 193. 
 
 Hall, Dr. John, 115. 
 
 Happiness, Plutarch on, 126. 
 
 Hardships, Paul's, 91, 160, 240. 
 
 Hausrath, 87. 
 
 Heathen, conscience in the, 234. 
 
 Heaven, reality of, to Paul, 237-243 ; Paul's vision of third, 222. 
 
 Hebraism, 187. 
 
 Hebrews, Epistle to the, non-Pauline authorship of, 198. 
 
 Hellenism, 187. 
 
 Heredity, a factor in Paul's character, 18. 
 
 Hermogenes, 152. 
 
 Herodion, 155. 
 
 High priest, reproved by Paul, 121. 
 
 Hodge, Dr. Charles, on inspiration, 139; on the logic of 
 Paul, 138. 
 
 Hodge, Dr. A. A., 40; on church discipline, 114. 
 
 Holy Spirit, Paul's life shaped by the, 224 ; Paul's teaching on 
 the, 210; Paul's inspiration by the, 215; source of Paul's 
 epistles, 159; the agent in conversion, 30; and the 
 heathen, 197 ; the source of Paul's peculiar originality, 
 131 ; the source of Scripture, 139. 
 
 Home, Paul's early, 151. 
 
 Hospitality, the pastor's practice of, 104. 
 
 Howson, J. S., 74, 170, 174, 175, 180, 181, 230. 
 
 Humanity of Christ, 205. 
 
 Humility, Paul's, 66, 174. 
 
 Humor, Paul lacking in, 74. 
 
 Hunt, Prof. T. W., 187. 
 
 Hymenaeus, 152. 
 
 Iconium, 87. 
 
262 GENERAL INDEX 
 
 Imagination, did Paul lack, 137. 
 
 Impartiality, social, required of the pastor, 105. 
 
 Independency, Paul does not stand for, 108. 
 
 Indignation, righteous, 105. 
 
 Infinite, Paul's grasp of the, 139. 
 
 Inspiration, Hodge on, 139. 
 
 Intellect, a great, demands admiration, 127. 
 
 Intolerance concerning nonessentials, 134. 
 
 Jailer in Philippi, Paul and the, 112. 
 Jannes and Jambres, 193. 
 
 Jerusalem, Paul studies in, 13; Paul's vision in, 222. 
 Jesus, pre-Christian Paul and, 24, 25. 
 John, an illustration of friendship, 163. 
 Jonathan, as a friend, 163. 
 Jowett, Principal, 45, 170. 
 Joy, Paul's, 242. 
 Joyousness, Paul's, 74. 
 Judas, Paul's prayer in the house of, 225. 
 Judson, Adoniram, prayerfulness of, 225. 
 Junias, 155. 
 
 Jurisprudence, Paul's use of terms of, 193. 
 Justification, faith and, 59; in the O. T., 64; Paul's method of 
 treating, 194; Adeney on, 208. 
 
 Kerr Lectures, 1899, 1900, 20. 
 
 King, Christ as ascended, 44. 
 
 Knowledge, involved in faith, 34 ; faith and, 238. 
 
 Lacordaire, 237. 
 
 Language, Paul's. See Style. 
 
 Law, Paul's pre-Christian attitude toward the, 21 ; Paul's usage 
 
 of the term, 201 ; the, ordained through angels, 193. See 
 
 Mosaic covenant. 
 Lawsuits, Paul's teaching on, 118. 
 Letters, notable Christian men of, 145. 
 Letter writing, politeness in, 185. 
 
GENERAL INDEX 263 
 
 Liddon, H. P., 220. 
 
 Life, Paul's, surrendered to God, 241. 
 
 Literature, Paul's epistles viewed as original, 1 3 1. 
 
 Litigation. See Lawsuits. 
 
 Livingstone, David, pioneer spirit of, 83 ; prayer habit of, 225. 
 
 Logic, Paul's power of, 137. 
 
 Loneliness, Paul's sense of, 152. 
 
 Longfellow, H. W., 32, 239. 
 
 Lord's Supper, 55 ; observance of, insisted on, Prof. Adeney 
 
 on, 113. 
 Love, Christ's motive, 206; the basis of discipline, 114; the 
 
 beauty of I Cor. on, 145 ; the source of Paul's counsels, 117. 
 Loyalty of Paul's friends, 156. 
 
 Luke, and Paul, 157 ; Paul's companion in Rome, 152. 
 Luthardt, 39. 
 Luther, on faith, 33 ; on Paul's literary style, 144 ; prayerful- 
 
 ness of, 224. 
 Lydia, hospitality of, 156. 
 Lynch, Annie C, 78. 
 Lyon, Mary, devotion to duty of, 237. 
 Lystra, 87, 88; Paul's sermon in, 234. 
 
 MacDonald, George, 39. 
 
 Macedonia, Paul in, 89 ; Paul's final tour in, 86. 
 Maclaren, Alexander, 231. 
 Magnetism, Paul's, 150, 154. 
 Mark, John, 86; Paul's break with, 107. 
 Market of Appius, 161, 225. 
 
 Marriage, doubts concerning, in Corinth, 116; Paul on, 21 1. 
 Marriage contract, figure of the, 194. 
 Martineau, 144. 
 
 Martyrdom, Paul's complacency in facing, 242. 
 Matheson, George, 24, 141. 
 Matthew, conversion of, 18. 
 Maurice, F. D., 117. 
 
 Meats, offered to idols, 116; and drinks, Paul's view on, 133. 
 See Consciences, weak. 
 
264 GENERAL INDEX 
 
 Mercy, a revelation of divine holiness and love, 199. 
 
 Messiah, hope of the, shared by Paul before conversion, 15 ; 
 
 Christ viewed as the, 42. 
 Miletus, prayer of Paul with elders at, 225. 
 Milton, 233. 
 
 Ministers, Paul's relation to his brother, 107. 
 Miracles, list of Paul's, 223. 
 Miraculous, the, in Paul's conversion, 28; a factor in Paul's 
 
 experience, 223. 
 Mischna, quoted, 13. 
 
 Missionary, call and qualifications of the, 85. 
 Missions, modern, indebted to Paul, 98. 
 Money. See Bejtefjcejice. 
 Moody, D. L., 56 ; sympathy of, 70. 
 Moore, the poet, 67. 
 
 Moralist, the, an antitype of the early Paul, 27. 
 Mosaic covenant, Paul's early faithfulness to the, 21. 
 Mother, Paul's, 151. 
 
 Napoleon, large plans of, 135. 
 
 Nationality, Paul's, 14. 
 
 Neander, 221. 
 
 Newman, J. H., 170, 182. 
 
 Nicodemus, 37. 
 
 Nonessentials, illustrations of, 133. 
 
 Obedience, involved in faith, 36; Christ's, 206. 
 
 Offender, in Corinth, 113. 
 
 Office bearers, conscience in, 233. 
 
 Old Testament, Christ in the, 64. See Law; Mosaic covenant. 
 
 Omissions, Paul's, significance of, 132. 
 
 Onesimus, 155. 
 
 Onesiphorus, 155, 157, 161. 
 
 Open-handedness, Philippians and Galatians an illustration 
 
 of, 156. 
 " Oracles " of God, 15. 
 Originality, Paul's native, 131 ; Carlyle on, 129 ; two sorts of, 130. 
 
GENERAL INDEX 265 
 
 Other-worldliness, Paul's. See Heaven. 
 Outlook, Paul's broad, 197. 
 
 Pamphylia, 86. 
 
 Paphos, 86. 
 
 Pastor, function of the, 10 1 ; qualities of the, as indicated in the 
 Pastoral Epistles, 102 ; Goldsmith on the, 100 ; Vinet on 
 the, 100. 
 
 Pastoral Epistles, revelation of Paul's character in the, 103. 
 
 Patriotism, Paul's teaching and, 119. 
 
 Paul, St., birth and boyhood of, 13; a pupil of Gamaliel, 14; a 
 witness of Stephen's death, 14; conversion of, 28; period 
 of, in Arabia, 54; subject-matter of preaching of, 57; 
 qualifications of, as a missionary, 80; period of, in Syria 
 and Cilicia, 85, 88; first missionary journey of, 86; second 
 missionary journey of, 87 ; third missionary journey of, 88; 
 the last journeys of, 86 ; the faith of, 34, 48 ; spiritual de- 
 velopment of, 45 ; attitude of, toward Christ, 41, 212. 
 
 Pauline theology. See Theology. 
 
 Peace, to be studied by the pastor, 104. 
 
 Peacemaker, the pastor as, 119. 
 
 Perga, 86. 
 
 Perplexed, Paul's dealings with the, 115. 
 
 Person of Christ, 207 ; faith terminates on the, ^8. See Christ. 
 
 Perspective, moral, 132. 
 
 Peter, St, conversion of, 18; Paul's rebuke of, 165; Paul's 
 relation to, 107. 
 
 Pettiness, freedom from, a mark of the gentleman, 179; Intel- 
 lectual, 134; to be avoided by the pastor, 104. 
 
 Philemon, 155; delicacy of Paul toward, 185; Paul recognizes 
 the prayerfulness of, 162; Paul's prayers for, 228; idyllic 
 quality of the Epistle to, 145. 
 
 Philetus, 152. 
 
 Philippi, 88 ; prayers in prison of, 225 ; Paul's prayers for 
 saints in, 227. 
 
 Philippians, open-handedness of the, 156; reproofs in the 
 Epistle to the, 121. 
 
266 GENERAL INDEX 
 
 Phygelus, 152. 
 
 Picturesqueness, Paul's mental, 196. 
 
 Pilate, 23. 
 
 Pioneer spirit, Paul's, 82. 
 
 Plain speaking, the pastor and, 105. 
 
 Plutarch, 126. 
 
 Poetry, Hebrew, 194. 
 
 Poets, Greek, Paul's quotations from, 16. 
 
 Poor saints, 178. 
 
 Popularity, less than friendship, 156. 
 
 Prayer, a practical experience with Paul, 224, 228, 229 ; Paul's 
 
 exhortations to, 228 ; subjects of, not limited, 229 ; doctrine 
 
 and, 230; thanksgiving an element in, 231. 
 Prayers, list of Paul's, 225; Paul's, for his friends, 164; of 
 
 Paul's friends for him, 161. 
 Prayerfulness, references to Paul's, 226. 
 Preacher, preparation of the* 53 ; theme of the, 57 ; qualities of 
 
 the successful, 59ff; value of friends to the, 158; as a 
 
 pastor, 101. 
 Predestination, 199 ; Paul's conversion illustrates, I4ff. 
 Prelatical spirit, Paul free from, 108. 
 Priscilla, 155. 
 
 Propitiation, a Pauline term, 206. 
 Proportion, Paul's sense of, 132. 
 Proverbs, book of The, quotations from, 166. 
 Prudence, Paul's, in handling money, ill. 
 Publius, father of, 226. 
 Purity, peace and, 118. 
 Purpose, Paul's, in life, vastness of, 135. 
 
 Rabbinisms, Paul's, 64, 137, 192. 
 
 Ramsay, W. M., 87, 95, 169. 
 
 Rebukes, Paul's, of his friends, 165. 
 
 Reconciliation, effected by Christ, 206. 
 
 Redemption, Christ the instrument of, 205 ; results of, 207. 
 
 Reliability, Paul's, 212. 
 
 Renan, 94. 
 
GENERAL INDEX 267 
 
 Reproofs, illustrations of Paul's, 121. 
 
 Resurrection, of Christ, a vital matter, 206 ; Paul's faith in the, 
 238; the, a question in Corinth, 116; the bereaved and 
 the, 123. 
 
 Revelation, Paul's system is of, 212. 
 
 Righteous One, Christ as the, 42. 
 
 Righteousness, Christ the source of, 195 ; viewed as a rela- 
 tion, 196. 
 
 Robertson, F. W., 52. 
 
 Rock, the, that followed Israel, 192. 
 
 Romans, Epistle to the, date of, 89; preamble to, 197; O. T. 
 quotations in, 192; grandeur of passages in, 145; power 
 of logic in, 138; treatment of sin in, 201. 
 
 Romans, prayers of, requested, 162. 
 
 Rome, Paul's prayers for saints in, 227. 
 
 Ruler, the young, 27. 
 
 Ruskin, John, 187. 
 
 Ruth the Moabitess, 163. 
 
 Sacraments, Paul on the, 112. 
 
 Salamis, 86. 
 
 Salvation, a gift for all, 197. 
 
 Samson, love of, a snare, 165. 
 
 Saviour, Christ as universal, 44. See Christ. 
 
 Schaff, P., 32, 169. 
 
 Scourgings, Paul's, 93. 
 
 Scriptures, Paul's early respect for the, 15 ; Paul's mature 
 
 attitude toward the, 58, 192; the preacher and the, 63; 
 
 the pastor and the, 103. 
 Sects, often born of trivial questions, 134. 
 Seleucia, 86. 
 
 Self-abandon, the preacher's, 67. 
 Self-consciousness, Dr. Howson on, 174. 
 Self-depreciation, Paul's, 26, 174. 
 
 Self-respect, a quality of the gentleman, 173; Paul's, 173. 
 Self-sacrifice, Paul's early spirit of, 23. 
 Sensationalism, to be avoided by the pastor, 104. 
 
268 GENERAL INDEX 
 
 Sensibility, Paul's fine, 185. 
 
 Sensitiveness, Paul's, 151. 
 
 Separatist, Paul no, 108. 
 
 Sermons, list of Paul's, 57. 
 
 Seven churches of Asia, 95. 
 
 Shakespeare, 181. 
 
 Silas, 87. 
 
 Sin, origin of, a mystery, 195 ; Adamic source of, 200; viewed 
 
 as having personality, 196; divine abhorrence of, 199; 
 
 consequences of, 200; treatment of, in Epistle to the 
 
 Romans, 201 ; deliverance from, 201. 
 Singleness of aim, Paul's, 62. 
 Sister, Paul's, 14. 
 Son of man, Christ as, 43. 
 Son of God, Christ as, 43. 
 Sorrow, the ministry of, 122. 
 Speculative faith, 37. 
 Spirit, of Christ, determines Paul's friendships, 150. See Holy 
 
 Spirit. 
 Spurgeon, Charles, modesty of, 68. 
 Stalker, James, 83, 86, 154, 157, 190, 197. 
 Stanley, A. P., 155, 169. 
 Steadfastness, in prayer, 229. 
 Stephen, martyrdom of, 14, 41, 43. 
 Stephens, G. B., 191. 
 Style, Paul's literary, 143. 
 Subjectiveness of Paul, 106. 
 Supernatural. See Miracles ; Miraculous. 
 Suspicion, absence of, in Paul, 179. 
 Sympathy, the preacher's, 68. 
 Syntyche, 118. 
 Syria, Paul's labors in, 85, 88; and Cilicia, 96. 
 
 Tact, the preacher's, 70. 
 
 Tarsus, 13; University of, 15 ; influences on Paul in, 151. 
 
 Taverns, Three, 225. 
 
 Taylor, W. M., 57, 61, 72, 115. 
 
GENERAL INDEX 269 
 
 Temple, Paul's prayer in the, 225. 
 
 Tennyson, the poet, 46, 50, 163. 
 
 Tertius, 155. 
 
 Thanksgiving, Paul's, in behalf of friends 226 ; an element of 
 
 prayer, 231. 
 Theologian, Paul's influence as a, 216. 
 Theology, Paul's sources of, 198, 212; Weiss's estimate of, 191 ; 
 
 Stalker on, 190. 
 Theory and practice in Paul's epistles, 211. 
 Thessalonians, 1 and 2, Epistles to the, date of, 88; primary 
 
 aim of, 123 ; reproofs in, 121 ; Paul asks for prayers in, 162. 
 Thessalonica, 88. 
 Tholuck, 13. 
 
 Thorn in the flesh, Paul's, 227. 
 Thought, Paul's, freshness and vigor of, 128. 
 Thought forms, Paul's 191. 
 Thoughtfulness, Paul's, for others, 150. 
 Thrift, Paul's, in use of church funds, 1 10. 
 Timothy, 88, 159 ; Paul's prayers for, 228. 
 Titus, 155. 
 
 Tongues, speaking with, 116. 
 Trade, Paul's, 16, 63. 
 Travel, in first century, 91. 
 Trials, Paul's. See Hardships. 
 Tribulation, ministry of, 122. 
 Triumph, Paul's final, 243. 
 
 Troas, 88, 89; Paul's loneliness in, 152; Paul's vision in, 222. 
 Trophimus, 155, 178. 
 Trumbull, H. C, 149, 159, 163. 
 Trust, the essence of faith, 39. See Faith. 
 Truth, Cowper on, 190. 
 Tychicus, 155. 
 Tyre, prayer meeting at, 225. 
 
 Unity, teaching concerning, 118. 
 University of Tarsus, 15. 
 Unselfishness, Paul's, 163, 175. 
 
270 GENERAL INDEX 
 
 VlNET, IOO. 
 
 Vision, Paul's breadth of, 135. 
 
 Visions; Paul's, 60, 213, 221. 
 
 Visitation, pastoral, illustrated by Paul, 115. 
 
 Vitality, Paul's mental, 142. 
 
 War, in light of Paul's teachings, 119. 
 
 Washington, George, 26. 
 
 Weak brethren. See Conscience. 
 
 Wealth, not to influence the pastor, 106. 
 
 Weiss, 191. 
 
 Weizsacker, 87. 
 
 Wilkinson, W. C, 215. 
 
 Will, exercised in faith, 36. 
 
 Woman, the pastor and, 104. 
 
 Works, good, and salvation, 29. 
 
 World, Paul seeks the evangelization of the, 136. 
 
 Worship, the pastor in public, 104. 
 
 Zacch^us, 25, 37. 
 Zenas, 155. 
 

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