The life and work of St. Paul

290 THE LIFE AND WOKK OF ST. PATTX.
instructions. 1 And this high example had produced its natural effects, for
they had embraced his teaching with passionate wholo-hoartedness as a divine
message, 2 and inspired him with an affection which made their image ever
present to his imagination, though untoward hindrances had foiled a twice-
repeated attempt to visit them again.
The Epistle also throws light on that special feature of St. Paul's teaching
which was ultimately made the ground for the attack upon him. His suffer-
tho cruelty of man had
ings had naturally turned his thoughts to the future ;
tended to fix his faith yet more fervently on the help of God ; the wickedness
of earthly rulers, and the prevalence of earthly wrongs, had combined with
circumstances on which we shall touch hereafter, to fill his teaching with the
hopes and prophecies of a new kingdom and a returning King. His expectation
of the rapid revelation of that Second Advent had boon a theme of
encouragement under incessant afflictions.
Few indeed wore the untroubled periods of ministry in the life of St. Paul,
The jealousy and hatred which had chased him from city to city of Pisidia and
Lycaonia pursued him here. The Jews from first to last the Jews for whom
ho felt in his inmost heart so tender an affection were destined to be the plague
and misery of his" suffering life. At Antioch and Jerusalem, Jews nominally
within the fold of Christ opposed his teaching and embittered his days ;
in all
other cities it was the Jews who contradicted and blasphemed the holy name
which he was preaching. In the planting of his Churches he had to fear their
deadly opposition ; in the .watering of them, their yet more deadly fraternity.
The Jews who hated Christ sought his life ; tho Jews who professed to love
Him undermined his efforts. The one faction endangered his existence, the
other ruined his peace. Never, till death released him, was he wholly free
from their violent conspiracies or their insidious calumnies. Without, they
sprang upon him at every opportunity like a pack of wolves ; within, they hid
themselves in sheep's clothing to worry and tear his flocks. And at Thossalonica
he had yet a now form of persecution against which to contend. It was not
purely Jewish as in Palestine, or purely Gentile as at Philippi, or combined as
at Iconium, but was simply a brutal assault of the mob, hounded on by Jews in
the background. Jealous, 3 as usual, that the abhorred preaching of a crucified
Messiah should in a few weeks have won a greater multitude of adherents than
they had won during many years to the doctrines of Moses furious, above
all, to see themselves deprived of the resources, the reverence, and the adhesion
of leading women they formed an unholy alliance with the lowest dregs of
the Thossalonian populace. wing to the dishonour in which manual pursuits
were held in aucient days, 4
every largo city had a superfluous popiilation of
worthless idlers clients who lived on the doles of the wealthy, flattei-ers who
s
1 Thess. it. 11.
Id. U. 13.
8 This is sufficiently obvious, whether we read ^KMramtt la Aots xvil. 5 (A, B, E, and
many versions) or not.
* "
llliberales autem et sordidi quacstus mercenariorum omniumqne quorum opcrae
non ortea sunt ; est enim ipsa mercca auetoramcutum servi^itia " (Cic-, De Off. i. 42).