The life and work of St. Paul

PAUL IT EPHESTJS. 351
regions in which we must look for illustrations to throw such light as is
possible on the meaning of St. PauL 1 As to the precise details, considering
the utter want of unanimity among Christian interpreters, I am content to
say, with St. Augustine, "I confess that I am entirely ignorant what the
Apostle meant."
* o o i | J.
EPHESUS.
CHAPTER XXXI.
PAUL AT EPHESUS.
They say this town it full of cozenage ;
Af, nimbling jugglers that deceive the eye,
Disguised cheaters, prating mountebank*,
And many
luch-like liberties of sin."
SHAKSP. Comedy of Error*.
"Diana Ephesia ; cujus nomen unicum .... totus veneratur orbis."
APPUL. Metam.
THE justice of Gallic had secured for St. Paul an unmolested residence in
Corinth, such as had been promised by the vision which had encouraged him
amid his earlier difficulties. He availed himself of this pause in the storm of
opposition by preaching for many days perhaps for some months and then
determined to revisit Jerusalem, from which he had now been absent for nearly
three years. It may be that he had collected something for the poor ; but in
any case he felt the importance of maintaining amicable relations with the
other Apostles and with the mother church. He wished also to be present at
the approaching feast in all probability the Pentecost and thereby to show
that, in spite of his active work in heathen cities, and the freedom which he
claimed for Gentile converts, in spite, too, of that deadly opposition of many
synagogues which had already cost him so dear, he was still at heart a loyal
although a liberal Jew. Accordingly, he bade farewell to the friends whom
set out for
he had converted, and, accompanied by Priscilla and Aquila,
Cenchreae. At that busy seaport, where a little church had been already
formed, of which Phcebe was a deaconess, he gave yet another proof of his
for some deliverance 2
allegiance to the Mosaic law. In thanksgiving perhaps
from an attack of sickness, perhaps from the Jewish riot he had taken upon
him the vow of the temporary Nazarite. In accordance with this, he abstained
1 See infra, Excursus XIX., "The Man of Sin." For the symbols employed, see
Ezek. xixviii. 16, 17 ; Dan. vii. 10, 11, ; 23^26 xi. 31, 36.
2 See Jos. B. J. ii. 15, 1, and the Minima treatise Nazir, ii. 8. Spencer (De Leg,
Hebr. iii. 6, $ 1) thinks, most improbably, that it was done to obtain a fair voyage. Cf.
JUT. Sat. xii. 8L