The life and work of St. Paul

420 THE UM AND YTOBK OF ST. PATTL,
CHAPTER XXXIV.
THE SECOND VISIT TO COEINTH,
AtiaKTueby, avsfiKajtor. 2 TUJ. ii. 24
ST. LUKE passes over with the exi-remest brevity the second sojourn of Si
Paul in Tilaeedonia. The reason for his silence may have been that the period
was not iiis iked by any special events sufficiently prominent to find room in
his pages. I' *raa no part of his plan to dwell on the sources of inward
sorrow which weighed so heavily upon the mind of St. Paul, or to detail the
afflictions which formed the very groundwork of his ordinary life. It was
the experience of St. Paul, more perhaps than that of any man who has erer
lived even if we select those who have made their lives a sacrifice to some
great cause of God that life was a tissue of minor trials, diversified by greater
and heavier ones. But St. Luke not to speak of the special purposes which
seem to have guided his sketch only gives us full accounts of the events
which he personally witnessed, 1 or of those which he regarded of capital
importance, and about which he could obtain information which he knew to
be trustworthy. It is one of the many indications of the scantiness of his
biography that he does not even once mention a partner and fellow-worker
of St. Paul so dear to him, so able, so energetic, and so deeply trusted as the
Greek Titus, of whose activity and enthusiasm the Apostle made so much
uee in furthering the Offertory, and in the yet more delicate task of dealirsg
with the Christian Corinthians at this most unsatisfactory crisis of their
troubled history.
St. Luke accordingly, passing over the distress of mind and the outward
persecution which St. Paul tells us he had at this time encountered, says
nothing about the many agitations of which we are able from the Epistles
to supply the outline. All that he tells us is that Paul passed through those
regions, and encouraged them with much exhortation. He does not even
mention tho interesting circumstance that having preached during his second
journey at Philippi, Thessalonica, and Bercea, tho capitals respectively of
Macedonia Prima, Secunda, and Tertia, he now utilised the intentional postponement
of his visit to Corinth by going through Macedonia Quarta as far
aa Hlyricum. Whether he only went to the borders of Illyricnra, or whether
ho entered it and reached as far as Dyrrachium, and even as Nicopolis, and
whether by Illyricum is meant tho Greek district or the Roman province 3
that went by that name, we cannot tell; but at any rats St. Paul mentions this
country as marking the circumference of the outermost circle of those missionary
journeys of which Jerusalem was the centre.
That the Offertory greatly occupied his time and thoughts is clear from
1 So tho Muratorian Canon :
"
act* autS omiriu apostolorum sub uno libro ecribta sunt
"
lucaa optime theofile comprindit quia mb praesentia ejus singula g3rebantur <
"Titus unto Dahnatia," 2 Tim. IT. 10.