The life and work of St. Paul

40 THE LIPS AND YfORS O* ST. FATTI*
and ought now to be suffered to drop away. It is not for the sake of the
calyx, but for the sake of the corolla, that we cultivate the flower, and the
calyx may drop away when the flower is fully blown. To cling to the shadow
when it had been superseded by the substance was to reverse the order
of God.
Then comes a strong and tender appeal.
" Become as I, because I too became as you, brethren, I beseech you, 1
It is not
I whom you wronged at all, by your aberrations. Nay, to me you were always
kind. You know that the former time it was in consequence of a sickness that I
preached to you : and though my personal condition might welj have been a trial to
you, ye despised me not, nor loathed me, 2 but as an angel of God ye received me,
SB Christ Jesus. What, then, has become of your self-felicitation ? for I bear you
witness that, if possible, ye dug out your very eyes and gave them me. So, have
I become your enemy by speaking the truth to you ?
8
M Mere alien teachers are paying court to you assiduously, but not honourably ;
nay, they want to wall you up from every one else, that you may pay court "to
them. 4 Now, to have court paid to you is honourable in an honourable cause
5
always, and not only when I am with you, my little children whom again I travail
with, until Christ be formed in you. But I could have wished to be with you now,
6 and to change my voice to you, for I am quite at a loss about you."?
Then, returning
as it were to the attack, he addresses to them the curious
allegory of the two wives of Abraham, Sarah and Hagar, and their sons
Ishmael and Isaac. 8
These are types of the two covenants Hagar represents Sinai, corresponds to, or
is under the same head with bondage, with the Law, with the Old Covenant, and
therefore with the earthly Jerusalem, which is in bondage under the Law ; but
Sarah corresponds to freedom, and the promise, and therefore to the New Covenant,
and to the New Jerusalem which is tie free mother of us all. There must ba
antagonism between the two, as there was between the brother-sons of the slave and
the free-woman ; but this ended in the son of the slave-woman being cast out. So
it is now ;
the unbelieving Jews, the natural descendants of the real Sarah, are tha
spiritual descendants of Hagar, the ejected bondwoman of the Sinaitic wilderness,
and they persecute the Gentiles, who are the prophesied descendants of tbe spiritual
Sarah. The spiritxial descendants of Sarah shall inherit the blessing of which those
Jews who are descended physically from her should have no share. Isaac, the
supernatural child of promise, represents the spiritual seed of Abraham, that is
Christ, and all who, whether Jew or Gentile, are in Him. "
Therefore, brethren,
we," he adds identifying himself far more entirely with Gentiles than with Jews,
"
are not children of a slave-woman, but of the free. In the freedom wherewith
Christ freed us, stand then, and bo not again enyoked with the yoke of slavery."
1 i.e., free from the bondage of Judaism.
2 iv. 14, t&jrrvVare lit., spat out," Krenkel (v. infra. Excursus X.J explains this
of the " spitting " to avert epilepsy. " Despuimus comitiales morbos " (Pun. xxviiL 4, 7 ;
Plant. Capt. iii. 4, 18, 21).
3 iv. 1216. On this passage, . infra, Excursus X.
4 iv. 17, Iva. ftXovre (ind.), but probably meant for a subjunctive ; tlie apparent sole-
cism is probably due to the difficulty of remembering the inflexions of the contract verb ;
cf. 1 Cor. iv. 6.
4 He seems to "
mean, I do not blame zealous attachment, provided it be (as mine to
you waa) from noble motives, and provided it be not terminated (as yours to me w&s) by
a temporary separation."
'
t.c., to speak to you In gentler tones.
7 iv. 1720. 8 On this allegory see fupra, p. 83.