The life and work of St. Paul

452 THE LIFE AND WOBK OF ST. PAUL.
lucidity with which the Apostle appeals to an ideal public to follow him in the
discussion of abstract truths. We seem already to be indefinitely removed from
the narrow fanaticism of those who insisted on the impossibility of salvation
apart from circumcision. The Hellenistic Judaism of a great city, however
ignorant and however stereotyped, was incapable of so gross an absurdity, and
in the wider and deeper questions which were naturally arising between the
Jew and the Gentile Christian, there was as yet nothing sufficiently definite to
exasperate the Apostle with a sense of ruinous antagonism. The day indeed
was not far distant when, in the very city to which he was writing, some would
preach Christ even of contention, hoping to add affliction to his bonds.1 But,
this lay as yet in the unknown future. He wrote during one of those littio
interspaces of repose and hope which occur in even the most persecuted lives.
The troubles at Corinth had been temporarily appeased, and his authority
established. He was looking forward with the deepest interest to fresh
missions, and although he could not deliberately preach at Some, because ho
had made it a rule not to build on another man's foundation, he hoped to hava
his heart cheered by a kindly welcome in the imperial city before he started to
plant the Cross on the virgin soil of Spain. And the Church of Rome stood
high in general estimation. It was composed of Jews and Gentiles, of whom,
not long afterwards, the former seem to have ranged themselves in uncompromising
hostility to the Gospel ; but he could as little foresee this as he could be
aware that, in the second century, the Ebionism of this section of the Church
would lead to a malignant attack on his character. At this time there do not
seem to have been any open divisions or bitter animosities.2 Differences of
opinion there were between " the weak," who attached importance to distinctions
of meats and drinks, and " the strong," who somewhat scornfully discarded
them but it seems as ;
though, on the whole, the Jews were forbearing and the
Gentiles moderate. Perhaps the two parties owed their immunity from dissensions
to the passage of the Gentiles into the Church through the portals of
the synagogue ; or perhaps still more to the plasticity of ecclesiastical organisa-
tion which enabled the foreign and Greece-Roman converts to worship
undisturbed in their own little congregations which met under the roof of an
Aquila or an Olympas. If the Jewish and Gentile communities were separated
by a marked division, collisions between the two sections would have been less
likely to occur.
Be this as it may, it is evident that it was in a peaceful mood that the
Apostle dictated to Tertius the great truths which he had never before so
thoroughly contemplated as a logical whole.3 The broad didactic character
1 Phil. L 16. These were evidently Judaieers (iii. 2 ; Col. iv. 11).
2 The only trace of these is in xvi. 17 20 ; rat &i\otrTa