The life and work of St. Paul

190 SHS LIFE AND WOBK OP BT. PAUL.
in all probability preached already in bis native Cilicia, 1 and as Barnabas was
by birth a Cypriote, they bent their voyage thitherward. It was towards the
west, towards Chittim and the Isles of the Gentiles, that the course of missions
naturally tended. All land routes were more or less dangerous and difficult.
Roads were, with few exceptions, bad; vehicles were cumbrous and ex-
pensive ; robbers were numerous and insolent. But the total suppression of
piracy by Pompey had rendered the Mediterranean safe, and in the growth
of navigation it had become "the marriage-ring of nations." 2
Along the
eastern coast of Asia Minor the Jews had long been scattered in numbers far
and while the extension
exceeding those to be found there at the present day ;
of the Greek language furnished an easy means of communication, the power
of Roman law, which dominated over the remotest provinces of the Empire,
afforded the missionaries a free scope and a fair protection. Accordingly
they descended the rocky stairs which led down to the port of Seleucia, 3 and
from one of its two piers embarked on a vessel which was bound for Cyprus.
And thus began " the great Christian Odyssey." * The Apostolic barque has
spread her sails; the wind breathes low, and only aspires to bear upon its
wings the words of Jesus. If Rome has but too good reason to complain of
the dregs of moral contamination which the Syrian Orontes poured forth to
mingle with her yellow Tiber, on this occasion, at any rate, the Syrian river
made ample amends by speeding on their way with its seaward current these
messengers of peace and love.
As they sail south-westward over the hundred miles of that blue sea which
one of them was destined so many tunes to traverse the sea which four
times wrecked him with its unregardful storms, and tossed him for a night
and a day on its restless billows ; as they sit at the prow and cast their wistful
gaze towards the hills which overshadow the scene of their future labours,
or, resting at the stern, not without a glance of disgust at its heathen images,
look back on the rocky cone of Mount Casing, " on which three centuries later
5
smoked the last pagan sacrifice," they must have felt a deep emotion at the
thought that now for the first time the Faith, on which depended the hopes of
the world, was starting for fresh regions from its native Syria. Little did
St. Paul know how trying in its apparent failures, how terrible in its real
before him ! That future the fire of
hardships, was the future which lay
the furnace in which the fine gold of his heroic spirit was to be purged from
every speck of dross was mercifully hidden from him, though in its broad
1 Gal. i. 21 ; Acts ix. 30 ; xi. 26. That there were churches in Cilicia appears from
Acts xv. 41.
2 See some good remarks in Kenan, Lcs Ap6tres, p. 280, tcq. ; and for an exhaustive
treatment, Herzfeld, Geach. d. jvdi&chen Harwlds.
Polyb. v. 59.
4 Renan, Les Apdto'et, p. 386 ; of. St. Paul, p. 13, " Oe fut la seconde po6sie du
Christianisme. Le lac de Tiberiade et les barques de pedicure avaient found la premiere.
Maintenant un souffle plus puissant des aspirations ven lea torres plus lointaines nous
entralne en haute mer."
* El Djebel el Akra, "the bald mountain" (Cheaney, Euphrat. 1. 386; Amm. Marcoll,
xxii. 14, 8 ; Julian, Misop, 861).