The life and work of St. Paul

IMPOBTAWCE OP THE EPISTLE TO THE OALATIANS. 427
Some of them, at least, were bad men, anxious to stand well with everybody,
and to substitute an outward observance for a true religion. Greed, self-importance,
externalism, were everything to them ; the Cross was nothing. If
they had not been bad men they would not have been BO grossly inconsistent
as to manipulate and evade the Law to which they professed allegiance.
If they had not been bad men they would not have made the free use they
did of the vilest of controversial weapons surreptitious sneers and personal
slanders. Yet by such base means as those they had persistently tried to
undermine the influence of their
paraged
great opponent. They systematically dis-
his authority. He was, they said, no Apostle whatever; he was
he had never seen Jesus except in a vision,
certainly not one of the Twelve ;
and therefore lacked one essential of the Apostolate ;
all that ho knew of
Christianity he had learnt at Jerusalem, and that he had wilfully perverted ;
his Gospel was not the real Gospel; such authority as he had was simply
derived from the heads of the Church at Jerusalem, to whom his doctrines
must be referred. Many of his present developments of teaching
were all
but blasphemous. They were a daring apostasy from the oral and even from
the written Law; a revolt against the traditions of the fathers, and even
against Moses himself. "Was not his preaching a denial of all inspiration?
Could they not marshal against him an array of innumerable texts ? "Was
not well-nigh every line of the five books of Moses against him ? "Who was
this Paul, this renegade from the Rabbis, who, for motives best known to
himself, had become a nominal Christian from a savage persecutor ? Who
1
was he that he should set himself against the Great Lawgiver ? If he
argued that the Law was abrogated, how could he prove it? Christ had
never said so. On the contrary, He had said that not a fraction of a letter of
the Law should pass till all was fulfilled. To that the Twelve could bear
witness. They kept the Law. They were living at peace with their Jewish
brethren who yet did aot recognise Jesus as the Messiah. Must not Paul's
opinions be antagonistic to theirs, if he was the only Christian who could
not show his face at Jerusalem without exciting the danger of a tumult ?
Besides, he was really not to be trusted. He was always shifting about, now
saying one thing and now another, with the obvious intention of pleasing men.
"What could be more inconsistent than his teaching and conduct with regard
to circumcision ? He had told the Galatians that they need aot be circumcised,
and yet he himself had once preached circumcision aye, and more than
preached it, he had practised it ! "Would he answer these two significant
questions "Who circumcised Timothy ? "Who circumcised Titus ?
St. Paul saw that it was time to speak out, and he did speak out. The
matter at issue was one of vital importance. The very essence of the Gospel
1 The elements of the above paragraph are drawn partly from the "Galatians," partly
from the "Corinthians." For the Ebionite slanders against St. Paul, see Iren. Adv.
Haer. i. 28 ; Euseb. H. E. iii. 27 ; Epiphan. Haer. xxx. 25 ; Ps. Clem. Horn. ii. 1719.
"
Totius mundi odio me "
oneravi," says Luther, qui olim eram tutissimus. Ministerium
Ecclesiae omnibus periculis cxpositum eat, Diaboli insultationibus, mundi ingratitudini,
ectarum blasphemiis " (Colloq. i. 13).