The life and work of St. Paul

714 APPENDIX.
Epistle to the Corinthians, and therefore at some period during his second residence la
Tarsus. If we take the words, "thrice I besought the Lord," literally, we may then
further believe that it was at each of these recurrences of anguish upon the renewals of
special revelations that he had made his most earnest entreaty to be delivered from the
buffets of this angel of Satan ; and that it was only during, or after, his third and most
memorable vision that his Lord pointed out to him the meaning of the trial, and told
him that, though it could not be removed, he should be strengthened with grace sufficient
to enable him to bear it. 1
5. But even if this was the actual "stake in the flesh," there is the strongest reason
to believe that St. Paul suffered further from acute Ophthalmia, which also fulfils in every
particular the conditions of the problem. This, too, would have the advantage of following
the analogy of God's dealings, by being a trial not arbitrarily inflicted, but one which
might have resulted naturally or, to use the more exact term, let us say, providentially
from the circumstances through which Paul had passed. We know that he was
physically blinded by the glare of light which surrounded him when he saw the risen
Lord. The whole circumstances of that event the noonday journey under the fierce
Syrian sun, the blaze of light which outshone even that noonday brightness, and the
blindness which followed it would have been most likely to leave his eyes inflamed and
weak. His stay in the desert and in Damascus regions notorious for the prevalence of
this disease would have tended to develop the mischief when it had once been set up ;
and though we are never told in so many words that the Apostle suffered from defective
sight, there are yet so many undesigned coincidences of allusion all pointing in this direc-
tion, that we may regard it as an ascertained fact. Apart from the initial probability
that eyes which had once been so seriously affected would be liable to subsequent attacks
of disease, we have the following indications : (i.) When speaking of his infirmity to
the Galatians, St. Paul implies that it might well have rendered him an object of loathing ;
and this is pre-eminently the case with acute ophthalmia. The most distressing objects,
next to the lepers, which the traveller will ever see in the East those who will most
make him inclined to turn away his face with a shudder of pity and almost involuntary
disgust are precisely those who are the victims of this disease. 3
(ii.) And this would
[give a deeper pathos and meaning to the Apostle's testimony that the Galatians in the
first flush of their Gospel joy, when they looked on the preacher of those good tidings as
an angel of God, would, had it been possible, have dug out their eyes in order to
place them at the sufferer's service, (iii.) The term, " a stake in the flesh," would be
most appropriate to such a malady, because all who have been attacked with it know
that the image which it recalls most naturally is that of a sharp splinter run into the
eye. 3
(iv.) Moreover, it would be extremely likely to cause epileptic or other symptoms,
since in severe attacks it is often accompanied by cerebral disturbance, (v.) In spite of
the doubt which has been recently thrown on the commonly accepted meaning of the
expression which St. Paul uses to the Galatians, "Ye see in what large letters I write
to you with my own hand," it must at any rate be admitted that it suits well with the
hypothesis of a condition which rendered it painful and difficult to write at all. That
this was St. Paul's normal condition seems to result from his almost invariable practice
of employing an amanuensis, and only adding in autograph the few last words of greeting
or blessing, which were necessary for the identification of his letters in an age in
which religious forgeries were by no means unknown, (vi.) It is obvious, too, that an
ocular deformity, caused aa this had been, might well be compared to the brand fixed by
1
Compare the interesting parallels of Alfred and of St. Bernard.
When Dr. Lightfoot, who rejects this theory, says that " St. Paul's language implies some
more striking complaint," he is probably thinking of the milder forms of ophthalmia with which alone
we are familiar in England, and not of those virulent attacks which are but too common in Syria
And which make such terrible havoc of the human countenance.
* Alford's remark that ophthalmic disorders are not usually painful is singularly Tnigfaitnn.