The life and work of St. Paul

THE SAMABITAN8 THE ETTNUCH THE CENTURION. 145
the Son, 1 and win the blessing of those who trusted in the Lord. It was the
darkest midnight of the world's history, but the Goshen of Christ's Church
was brightening more and more with the silver dawn.
To this ontward peace and inward development was due an event which
must continue to have the most memorable importance to the end of time the
admission of Gentiles, as Gentiles, into the Church of Christ. This great
event must have seemed inevitable to men like St. Stephen, whose training as
Hellenists had emancipated them from the crude spirit of Jewish isolation.
But the experience of all history shows how difficult it is for the mind to shako
itself free from views which have become rather instinctive than volitional ;
and though Jesus had uttered words which could only have one logical explanation,
the older disciples, even the Apostles themselves, had not yet learnt their
full significance. The revelation of God in Christ had been a beam in the
darkness. To pour suddenly upon the midnight a full flood of spiritual
illumination would have been alien to the method of God's dealings with our
race. The dayspring had risen, but many a long year was to elapse before it
broadened into the boundless noon.
But the time had now fully come in which those other sheep of which Jesus
had spoken the other sheep which were not of this fold 2 must be brought
to hear His voice. Indirectly, as well as directly, the result was due to St.
Paul in a degree immeasurably greater than to any other man. To St. Peter,
indeed, as a reward for his great confession, had been entrusted the keys of the
and, in accordance with this high metaphor, to him was
Kingdom of Heaven ;
permitted the honour of opening to the Gentiles the doors of the Christian
Church. And that this was so ordained is a subject for deep thankfulness.
The struggle of St. Paul against the hostility of Judaism from without and
the leaven of Judaism from within was severe and lifelong, and even at his
death faith alone could have enabled him to see that it had not been in vain.
But the glorious effort of his life must have been fruitless had not the principle
at stake been publicly conceded conceded in direct obedience to sanctions
which none ventured to dispute by the most eminent and most authoritative
of the Twelve. And yet, though St. Peter was thus set apart by Divine fore-
sight to take the initiative, it was to one whom even the Twelve formally
recognised as the Apostle of the Uncircumcision, that the world owes under
God the development of Christian faith into a Christian theology, and the
emancipation of Christianity from those Judaic limitations which would have
been fatal to its universal acceptance. 3 To us, indeed, it is obvious that " it
would have been impossible for the Gentiles to adopt the bye-laws of a
Ghetto." If the followers of Christ had refused thorn the right-hand of
fellowship on any other conditions, then the world would have gone its own
1 Ps. ii. 12, 13-^3, either "kiss the Son," or "worship purely." Which rendering ig
right has been a disputed point ever since Jerome's clay (Adv. Ruff. L). See Perowne,
Psalms, i. 116.
2 John x. 16. In thin verse it is a pity that the English version makes no distinction
between aiAij, "fold," and W^, " flock."
3 Immer, Neut. Theol, 206
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