The life and work of St. Paul

124 THE LIFE AND WORK OF ST. PATH*,
instances an enemy might almost apply the word " brutal " to the language
in which he ridicules, or denounces, or unmasks the 1
impugners of his gospel ;
in one or two passages he speaks with a tinge of irony, almost of irritation,
about those " accounted to be pillars "
the " out-and-out Apostles," who
even if they were Apostles ten times over added nothing to him :
2 but the
storm of passion dies away in a moment; he is sorry even for the most
necessary and justly-deserved severity, and all ends in expressions of tenderness
and, as it were, with a burst of tears. 3
Now it is true that we recognise in Saul of Tarsus the restlessness, the
vehemence, the impetuous eagerness which we see in Paul the Apostle ;
but it is hard to imagine in Saul of Tarsus the nervous shrinking, the
tremulous sensibility, the profound distrust of his own gifts and powers
apart from Divine grace, which are so repeatedly manifest in the language of
Paul, the fettered captive of Jesus Christ. It is hard to imagine that siich a
man as the Apostle became could ever have been the furious inquisitor,
the intruder even into the sacred retirement of peaceful homes, the eager
candidate for power to suppress a heresy even in distant cities, which Saul
was before the vision on the way to Damascus. It is a matter of common
experience that some physical humiliation, especially if it take the form
of terrible disfigurement, often acts in this very way upon human character.*
It makes the bold shrink ; it makes the arrogant humble ; it makes the
self-confident timid; it makes those who once loved publicity long to hide
themselves from the crowd ; it turns every thought of the heart from trust in
self to humblest submission to the will of God. Even a dangerous illness
is sometimes sufficient to produce results like these; but when the illness
leaves its physical marks for life upon the frame, its effects are intensified ;
it changes a mirthful reveller, like Francis of Assisi, into a squalid ascetic ;
a favourite of society, like Francis Xavier, into a toilsome missionary ; a gay
soldier, like Ignatius Loyola, into a rigid devotee.
Gal. iii. 1 ; iv. 17 (in the Greek).
^ Gill. ii. 6, TUP SoKOvvriav etna ri, oiroiai irore fi