The life and work of St. Paul

PAUL AT EPHESUS. 367
often been liable in the narrow streets. Of his perils among false brethren,
like Phygellus, and Hermogenes, and Alexander, we may see a specimen in
the slanders against his person, and the internecine opposition to his doctrine,
of which we shall meet with future proofs. Perils in the wilderness and in
the sea Avere the inevitable lot of one who travelled over vast districts in those
days, when navigation was so imperfect and intercourse so unprotected. It
was very shortly after his departure from Ephesus that he wrote of all
these dangers, and if, as is possible, he took more than one voyage from the
haA'en of Ephesus to various places on the shores of the Levant, it may have
been at this time that ho suffered that specially perilous shipwreck, in the
escape from which lie floated a day and a night upon the stormy waves.1 And
all this time, with a heart that trembled with sympathy or burned with indignation,
2 he was carrying out the duties of a laborious and pastoral ministry, 3
and bearing the anxious burden of all the churches, of which some, like the
churches of Corinth and Galatia, caused him the most acute distress. Nor
were physical cares and burdens wanting. True to hia principle of refusing
4
to eat the bread of dependence, he had toiled incessantly at Ephosus to support,
not himself only, but even Aristarchus and the others who were with
him ; and not even all his weariness, and painfulness, and sleepless nights of
mingled toil and danger, 5 had saved him from cold, and nakedness, and the constant
pangs of hunger during compulsory or voluntary fasts. 8 And while he
was taking his place like a general on a battle-field, with his eye on every
weak or endangered point ; while his heart was constantly rent by news of
the defection of those for whom lie would gladly have laid down his life ;
while a new, powerful, and organised opposition was working against him in
the very churches which ho had founded with such peril and toil; 7 while he
was being constantly scourged, and mobbed, and maltreated, and at the same
time suffering from repeated attacks of sickness and depression ; while he
was at once fighting a haud-to-haud battle and directing the entire campaign ;he
yet found time to travel for the foundation or confirming of other churches,
and to write, as with his very heart's blood, the letters which should rivet the
attention of thousands of the foremost intellects, eighteen centuries after he
himself had been laid in the nameless grave. In these we find that at the
very hour of apparent success he was in the midst of foolishness, weakness,
shame " pilloried," as it were, " on infamy's high stage," the sentence of
death hanging ever over his head, cast down, perplexed, persecuted, troubled
on every side, homeless, buffeted, ill-provided with food and clothes, abused,
1 Whether a brief and unsatisfactory visit to Corinth was among these journeys is a
disputed point, which depends on the interpretation given to 2 Cor. i. 15, 1C xiii. ; 1, and
which will never be finally settled. A multitude of authorities may be quoted on both
sides, and fortunately the question is not one of '
great importanca
2 2 Cor. xi. 29.
3 Acts * xx. 20, 31. Acts s xx. 34.
2 Cor. xi. 27.
* And that, too, although the tents made at Ephesus had a special reputation, and
were therefore probably in some demand (Plut. Alcib. 12 ; Athen. xii. 47).
7 Perhaps tne Judaic Christians were more content to leave him alone while he was
working in Europe, and were only aroused to opposition by his resumption of work in
Aaia (Krenkel, Paulus, p. 183).