The life and work of St. Paul

38 THE LIFE AND WORK OF ST. PAUL.
was in reality the dross and tinsel of tradition, the Rabbis had destroyed or
injured its beauty and usefulness ? But probably Saul had not realised this.
To him there was no distinction between the relative importance of the Written
and Oral, of the moral and ceremonial Law. To every precept and they
were countless obedience was due. If it could be done, he would do it. If
on him, on his accuracy of observance, depended the coming of the Messiah,
then the Messiah should come. Were others learned in all that concorned
legal rectitude ? he would be yet more learned. Were others scrupulous?
he would be yet more scrupulous. Surely God had left man free? 1
Surely He would not have demanded obedience to the Law if that obedience
were not possible ! All things pointed to the close of one great aeon in the
world's history, and the dawn of another which should be the last. The very
heathen yearned for some deliverer, and felt that there could be no other end
to the physical misery and moral death which had spread itself over their
hollow societies. 2
Deep midnight was brooding alike over the chosen people
and the Gentile world. From the East should break forth a healing light, a
purifying flame. Let Israel be true, and God's promise would not fail.
And we know from his own statements that if external conformity were all
if obedience to the Law did not mean obedience in all kinds of mattei-s
which escaped all possibility of attention if avoidance of its prohibitions did
not involve avoidance in matters which evaded the reach of the human senses
then Saul was, touching the righteousness of the Law, blameless, having
lived in all good conscience towards God. 3 Had he put the question to the
Great Master, " What shall I do to be saved ? " or been bidden to " keep the
commandments," it is certain that he would have been able to reply with the
youthful ruler, " All these have I kept from my youth," and he might have
added " very much besides." And yet we trace in his Epistles how bitterly
he felt the hollowness of this outward obedience how awful and how burdensome
had been to him " the curse of the Law." Even moral obedience could
not silence the voice of the conscience, or satisfy the yearnings of the soul;
but these infinitesimal Levitisms, what could they do ? Tormenting questions
would again and again arise. Of what use was all this ? from what did the
necessity of it spring ? to what did the obedience to it lead ? Did God indeed
care for the exact size of a strip of parchment, or the particular number of
lines in the texts which were upon it, or the way in which the letters were
formed, or the shape of the box into which it was put, or the manner in which
that box was tied upon the forehead or the arm ? 4 Was it, indeed, a very im-
jortant matter whether "between the two evenings" meant, as the Samaritans
1 The Rabbis said, " Everything is in the hands of heaven, except the fear of heaven."
" All things are ordained by God, but a man's actions are his own. (Barclay, Talmud,
18.)
2
Virg. Ed. iv. ; Suet. Aug. 94 ; Vesp. 4.
2 Cor. xi. 22 ; Horn. xi. 1 ; Acts xxii. 3, xxiii. 1, 6.
4 I have adduced abundant illustrations from Rabbinic writers of the extravagantimportance
attached to minutiae in the construction of the two phylacteries of the hand
(.Tephtittn shd Yad) and of the head (Teph. skd Edsh), in the Exposityr, 1877, No.