The life and work of St. Paul

3S8 THS LIFE AND TVOEK OF ST. PAUL.
hour we both hunger and thirst, and are ill-clad, 1 and aro buffeted, and are hustled
from place to place, and toil, -working with our own hands ; being abused, we bless ;
being persecuted, we endure ; being reviled, we entreat : as refuse of the universe 2
are we become, the offscouring of all things till now." These are bitter and ironical
words of contrast between you and us, I know ; but I write not as shaming you. I
am only warning you as my beloved children. For, after all, you are my children.
Plenty of teachers, I know, have followed ma ; but (and here comes one of his
characteristic impetuosities of expression) even if you have a myriad pedagogues 8
in Christ however numerous, or stern, or authoritative you have not many
fathers. It was I who begot you through the Gospel in Christ Jeans, and I therefore
entreat you to follow my example ; and on this account I sent you my beloved
and faithful son Timothy, to remind you of my invariable practice and teaching. 4
Do not think, however, that I am afraid to confront in person the inflated opposition
of some who say that I do not really moan to come myself. Come I will, and that
soon, if the Lord will ; and will ascertain not what these inflated critics say, but
" But what will ye ? Am I
what they arc; not their power of talk, but of action.
to come to you with a rod, or in love and the spirit of gentleness P"*
7. One thing at least needs the rod. A case of incest of a son taking his
father's wife BO gross, that it does not exist even among the heathen, 8 is absolutely
notorious among you, and instead of expelling the offender with mourning and
shame, you oh ! strange mystery of the invariable connexion between sensuality
and pride have been inflated with sophistical excuses about the matter.*
"
I, at
any rate, absent in body, but present in spirit, have already judged as though
actually present the man who acted thus in this thing, in the name of our Lord
Jesus ChrLst you being assembled together, and my spirit which is present with
you, though my body is absent with the power of our Lord Jesus Christ, to hand
over such a man to Satan, for destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved
in the day of the Lord Jesus Christ." 8 If any passage of the letter was written
with sobs, which are echoed in his very words, as Sosth&nes wrote them down from
his lips, it is this. He summons up the scene and sentence of excommunication.
He is absent, yet he is there ; and there, with the power of Christ, he pronounces
the awful sentence which hands over the offender to Satan in terrible mercy, that by
destruction of hia flesh he may bo saved in the spirit. And then he "
adds, The
subject of your self-glorification is hideous. 9 Know ye not that a little leaven
leaveneth the whole lump ? Purge out then at once the old leaven, that ye may be
a new lump, as ye are (ideally) unleavened. 10 For indeed our Passover is slain n
Cf. 3 Cor. xi. 27.
* '"
irepiKdUfapfiara, purgamenta, things rile, and worthless, and to be "
flung awav," not piaeular
offerings," ro;'^rj(xo. The Scholiast on Ar. Pint. 456, says, that in famines and plagues It -was an
ancient Greek and Roman custom to wipe off guilt by throwing wretches into the sea, with the
words " Bewmi our j/erifwma,." The reference here is probably less specific, but of. Prov. mn, 13
*\$~\3 (L2QC-), Tob. v. IS. iyia a-epA^ia