The life and work of St. Paul

670 THE LIFE AND WORK OF ST.
Crescens departed, perhaps on some necessary mission, to the Churches of
Galatia, and Titus to those of Dalmatia. He had dispatched Tychiens to
Ephesus shortly before he wrote this letter. One friend alone was with him
the beloved physician, the faithful, unobtrusive, cultivated Luke. 1 Of
hardship Paul recked nothing; he had spent a life of endless hardship, and
had learnt a complete independence of the outward elements of comfort ; but
to one situated as he was, and liable to constant pain, to be utterly companion*
less would have been a trial too hard to bear.
A single happy unexpected visit broke the continuity of his loneliness, and
cheered him amid the sense of desertion. The good-hearted Ephesian Onesi-
phorus, who had already made himself conspicuous among the Christians of
his native city by his active kindliness, came to Rome. He knew that St.
Paul was somewhere in that city as a prisoner, and he rose above the timid
selfishness of his fellow-countrymen. He set about searching for the captive
Jew. In a city thronged with prisoners, and under a government rife with
suspicions, upon which it acted with the most cynical unscrupulousness, it was
by no means a safe or pleasant task to find an obscure, aged, and deeply
implicated victim. Had Onesiphorus been less in earnest, it would have
been easy for him to make an excuse to other Christians, and to his own
conscience, that he had not known where Paul was, and that he had looked
for him but could not find him. But he would not abandon his earnest search
until it led him to the side of the Apostle. 8 Nor was he content with a single
visit. Glad to face the shame and scorn of befriending one whose condition
was now so abject, he came to the Apostle again and again, and refreshed his
soul with that very consolation the sense of human sympathy for which most
8
of all it yearned. Probably the death of this true and warm-hearted Ephesian
took place at Rome, for St. Paul utters a fervent wish that he may find mercy
of the Lord in the great day, and in writing to Timothy he sends a greeting to
his household, but not to him. 4 The tone of intense gratitude which breathes
through the few verses in which the Apostle alludes to him makes us feel that
the brave and loving friendliness of this true brother, contrasted as it was with
the cowardly defection of the other Asiatics, was the brightest gleam of light
which fell on the dense gloom of the second imprisonment.
At last the time came when the Apostle had to stand before the great
Roman tribunal. What was called in Roman law the prima aciio came on. 6
The Scriptures were written with other objects than to gratify our curiosity
with the details of historic scenes, however memorable or however important.
1 Where was Aristarchus (Acts xxvii. 2 ; Col. iv. 10 ; Phil. 24) ? We cannot tell ; but
his name would not have been omitted by an ingenious imitator.
* 2 Tim. i 17,