The life and work of St. Paul

THE LAST JOURNEY TO JERUSALEM. 511
may be sure that St. Paul taught as he wrote, and since we have noticed it as
a characteristic of his intellect that he is haunted by words and expressions, 1
we might infer, a priori, even if it were not abundantly evident in his
writings, that he is still more powerfully possessed and absorbed by any
thoughts which might have been forced into immediate prominence. We may
regard it as psychologically certain that his discourses at Corinth were the
echo of the arguments which fill the two Epistles which he wrote at Corinth ;
and to the Jews the conclusions which they were meant to establish would be
regarded as "
maddening blasphemies. There is neither Jew nor
"
Gentile
where, then, is the covenant to Abraham and to his seed
"
? There is neither
circumcision nor uncircumcision "
where, then, is Moses and all the splen-
"
dour of Sinai P Weak and beggarly elements "
are these the terms to
apply to the inspired, sacred, eternal Thorah, in which God himself meditates,
which is the glory of the world ? We are not surprised that the Jews should
get up a plot. Paul, under the aegis of Roman authority, might be safe in
the city, but they would avenge themselves on him as soon as his ship had
left the shore. The wealthy Jewish merchants of Corinth would find no diffi-
culty in hearing of sailors and captains of country vessels who were sufficiently
dependent on them to do any deed of violence for a small consideration.
How was the plot discovered ? We do not know. Scenes of tumult, and
hairbreadth escapes, and dangerous adventures, were so common in St.
Paul's life, that neither he, nor any one else, has cared to record their details.
We only know that, after sudden discussion, it was decided, that Paul,
with an escort of the delegates, quite sufficiently numerous to protect him
from ordinary dangers, should go round by Macedonia. The hope of reaching
the only chance
Jerusalem by the Passover had, of course, to be abandoned ;
left was to get there by Pentecost. It was doubtless overruled for good that
it should be so, for if St. Paul had been in the Holy City at the Passover he
would have been mixed up by his enemies with the riot and massacre which
about that time marked the insane rising of the Egyptian impostor who called
himself the Messiah.*
Of -the seven converts' who accompanied St. Paul Sosipater son of
Pyrrhus, 4 a Bercean, Aristarchus and Secundus of Thessalonica, Gains of
Dorbe, Timotheus of Lystra, Tychicus and Trophimus of Ephesus, and Luke
all except the latter left him apparently at Philippi, and went on to Troas
to await him there. 6
St. Luke was closely connected with Philippi, where St.
1 V. tupra, pp. 273, 387, 407 ; infra, pp. 516, 698. 8 Verse 3, *yVrro ywSfj.
* In verse 4 the reading, i^pl T>}S 'A