The life and work of St. Paul

240 THE LIFE AND WORK OF ST. PAUL,
the prophets. 1 Some of these details must be purely imaginative ; but legends,
as has well been said, are like the clouds that gather upon the mountain sum-
mits, and show the height and take the shapes of the peaks about which they
cling. We may readily believe that he was a Nazarite, perhaps even an
ascetic one who, by the past affinities of his character, was bound rather to
B.anns, and John Baptist, and the strict communities of the Essenes, than to
the disciples of One who came eating and drinking, pouring on social life the
brightness of His holy joy, attending the banquet of the Pharisee at Capernaum,
and the feast of the bridegroom at Cana, not shrinking from the tears
with which Mary of Hagdala or the perfumes with which Mary of eiabathed his feet.
Bethany
Such was the man who now rose to speak, with the long locks of the
Nazarite streaming over his white robe, and with all the sternness of aspect
which can hardly have failed to characterise one who was so rigid in his
convictions, so uncompromising in his judgments, so incisive in his speech.
The importance of his opinion lay in the certainty that it could hardly fail to
be, at least nominally, adopted by the multitude, among whom he exercised an
authority, purely local indeed and limited, but within those limits superior
even to that of Peter. The most fanatical of bigots could hardly refuse to be
bound by the judgment of one who was to the very depth of his being a loyal
Jew ; to whom even unconverted Jews looked up with reverence ; to whom
the " Law," which neither St. Peter nor St. John so much as mention in their
Epistles, was so entirely the most prominent conception that he does not
once mention the Gospel, and only alludes to it under the aspect of a law,
though as "the perfect law of liberty." 2
His speech which, as in so many other instances, bears internal marks of
authenticity 3
was^thoroughly Judaic in tone, and yet showed that the private
arguments of the Apostles of the Gentiles had not been thrown away on a
mind which, if in comparison with the mind of a Paul, and even of a Peter, it
was somewhat stern and narrow, was yet the mind of a remarkable and holy
man who would not struggle against the guidance of the Holy Spirit of God.
Peter, in one of those impetuous outbursts of generous conviction which
carried him beyond his ordinary self, had dauntlessly laid down broad
principles which are, perhaps, the echo of thoughts which Paul had impressed
upon his mind. It would have been too much to expect that James would
speak with equal breadth and boldness. Had he done so, we should have felt
at once that he was using language unlike himself, unlike all that we know of
1 Dan. i. 8, 12 ; Tob. i. 11, 12. i? ol *po$qrat &jAov