The life and work of St. Paul

SECOND EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS. 405
advice, and as if tlio party opposed to him had, BO to speak, turned upon him
and repudiated his authority. They said that he had not come, and he would
not como. It was all very well to write stern and threatening letters, but it
was not by letters, but by the exercise of miraculous power, that Kephas had
avenged the wrongs of the Church and of the Spirit on Ananias and Sapphira,
and on Suaon Magus. Paul could not do this. How could it bo
expected of a man so mean of aspect, so vacillating in purpose, so inefficient
in speech ? It was not Paul who had been chosen as the twelfth Apostle, nor
was ho an Apostle at all. As the abuses among his followers showed that
his teaching was dangerous, so his inability to rectify them was a proof that
his authority was a delusion. Tha very fact that ho had claimed no support
from his converts only marked how insecure he felt his position to be. What
the Church really wanted was the old stringency of the Mosaic Law;
some one from Jerusalem some true ;
Apostle, with his wife, who would rule
them with a real supremacy, or at least some emissary from James and the
brethren of the
"
Lord, to preach another Gospel," more accordant with, the
will of Jesus Himself. 1
Paul, they implied, had never known Jesus, and
2
misrepresented Him altogether ; for He had said that no jot or tittle of the
law should pass, and that the children's bread should not bo cast to dogs.
Paul 3
preached himself, and indeed seemed to be hardly responsible for what
ho did preach. He waa half demented ; and yet there was some method in
his madness, which showed itself partly in self-importance and partly in
avarice, both of which were very injurious to the interests of his followers.*
What, for instance, could be more guileful and crafty than his entire conduct
about this collection which he was so suspiciously eager to set on foot ? * He
had ordered them to get up a subscription in his first letter; 8 had, in
answer to their inquiries, 7 directed that it should be gathered, as in the Gala-
tian Churches, by a weekly offertory, and had, since this, sent Titus to
stimulate zeal in the matter. Now certainly a better emissary could not
possibly have been chosen, for Titus was himself a Greek, and therefore well
fitted to manage matters among Greeks ; and yet had visited Jerusalem, so
that he could speak from ocular testimony of the distress which was prevalent
among the poorer brethren ; and had further been present at the great meet-
ing in Jerusalem at which Paul and Barnabas had received the special request
to be mindful of the poor. Yet even this admirably judicious appointment,
and the transparent independence and delicacy of mind which had made Paul
with an insight into their character which, as events showed, was but too
pi-escient entirely to refuse all support from them, was unable to protect
him from the coarse insinuation that this waa only a cunning device to hide
his real intentions, and give him a securer grasp over their money. Such
See Hausrath, p. 420. 2 Cor. xi. 4. 2 Cor. xii. 5.
* V. 13, eir yip e itiev' si. 1, KJK\OV qvfl\s: