The life and work of St. Paul

380 THE LIFE AND WORK OF ST. PAUL.
his mitid, and some of its queries woro sufficient to betray an excited state of
opinion. But -when ho came to talk with these visitants from Chloo's household,
and they told him the simple truth, he stood aghast with horror, and
was at the same time overwhelmed with grief. Reluctantly, bit by bit, in
answer to his questionings, they revealed a state of things which added dark-
ness to the night of his distress*.
8. First of all, he learnt from them that the Church which he had founded
was split up into deplorable factions.
It was the result of visits from various teachers who had followed in the
wake of Paul, and built upon his foundations very dubious materials by way
"
of superstructure. Many teachers, much strife," had been one of the wise
and pregnant sayings of the great Hillel, and it had been fully exemplified
at Corinth, where, in the impatient expression of St. Paul, they had had " ten
thousand pedagogues." The great end of edification had been lost sight of in
the violences of faction, and all deep spirituality had been evaporated in dis-
putatious talk. He heard sad rumours of " strifes, heartburnings, rages,
dissensions, backbitings, whisperings, inflations, disorderiiness." l
i. It became clear that even the visit and teaching of Apollos had done
harm harm which he certainly had not intended to do, and which, as a loyal
friend and follower of Paul, he was the first to regret. Paul's own preaching
to these Corinthians had been designedly simple, dealing with the great broad
fact of a Redeemer crucified for sin, and couched in language which made no
pretence to oratorical ornament. But Apollos, who had followed him, though
an able man, was an inexperienced Christian, and not only by the natural charm
of his impassioned oratory, but also by the way in which he had entered into
the subtle refinements so familiar to the Alexandrian intellect, had uninten-
tionally led them first of all to despise the unsophisticated simplicity of St.
Paul's teaching, and next to give the rein to all the sceptical fancies with
which their faith was overlaid. Both the manner and the matter of the fervid
convert had so delighted them that, with entire opposition to his own wishes,
they had elevated him into the head of a party, and had perverted his views
into dangerous extravagances. These Apollonians were so puffed up with
the conceit of knowledge, so filled with the importance of their own in-
tellectual emancipation, that they had also begun to claim a fatal moral h'bsrty.
They had distracted the Sunday gatherings with the egotisms of rival oratory j
had shown a contemptuous disregard for the scruples of weaker brethren ;
had encouraged women to harangue in the public assemblies as the equals of
men; were guilty of conduct which laid them open to the charge of the
grossest inconsistency ; and even threw the cloak of sophistical excuse over
one crime so heinous that the very heathen were ready to cry shame on the
offender. In the accounts brought to him of this Apollos-party, St. Paul
could not but see the most extravagant exaggeration of his own doctrines
the hilf truths, which ara ever the most dangerous of errors. If it was poa-
i 2 Cor. lii. 20.