and night he lived among the tombs and caves, shrieking, cutting himself with stones, and falling upon the passers-by. Hardly had he seen Jesus afar off when he [rushed up to him, threw himself down before him, and] shrieked: "What do you want with me, O Jesus, son of the Most High? In the name of God, plunge me not into the tortures of the abyss until the last day comes!" [For he commanded the unclean spirit to come out of him.] "What is your name?" asked Jesus. "My name is Legion," was the reply; for there was a host of demons in the unhappy man, and they begged Jesus passionately to allow them to enter into a herd of swine that was feeding there on the mountain. He gave them permission; and in a moment a thousand and yet another thousand swine had rushed over the precipice and were drowned in the sea. The swineherds fled in consternation, and reported what had happened in the city and the country round. Then the people came out to see for themselves, and there they saw the former demoniac, clothed and in his right mind, sitting at the feet of Jesus. In great dismay they implored Jesus to leave their country. [And when he embarked, the man he had rescued begged to be allowed to go with him, but was not permitted to do so. He must return to his own people and tell them how God had taken pity on him.] So runs the story in its completed form, as given in Mark and Luke. Matthew has two demoniacs,' but in other respects is far shorter and simpler. The later traits in the story are partly due to misconception, for our Evangelists imagined that it was all to be taken literally; but we must not be misled by this. We must remember that to the Jews tombs and swine represented the most loathsome forms of uncleanness, and that swine stood specifically for heathenism regarded in its most repulsive light. Observe again that every means of compulsion (by which the ancient systems of law are meant) failed even to restrain the host of unclear spirits (which incidentally represent the great number of heathen deities, as well as the moral corruption of the heathen); but soon the mighty word of Christ expels them, to the terror of the world which loves them. Again, when the healed demoniac is told to go to his own people, it is a charge to the converted heathen to communicate their privileges to others. Finally, we must remember that it was a settled custom-in a certain sense defensible to ascribe to 8 1 Compare p. 355. Compare 1 Corinthians x. 20. 2 Compare p. 249. Jesus himself whatever was done in his spirit and by his messengers. The original meaning of this story therefore is distinct enough; and it points us in the first instance to the fruits of the labors of Paul, which we shall find indicated more than once hereafter under the same emblematic form. His influence and the work that he accomplished might well be celebrated thus! We have seen him carry the battle against heathenism into the heart of the ancient civilization. The gospel is now established in Europe. CHAPTER VIII. PAUL AT EPHESUS. 2 CORINTHIANS XI. 28-29; ACTS XVIII. 18-23, XIX. 1-20, 23-41; GALATIANS; MARK IX. 38-40; MATTHEW XII. 22–37.1 JITH Paul's journey from Corinth to Ephesus and his settlement in the latter city begins the closing period of his apostolic labors. This period extends over some four years (55-59 A.D.), and was marked by the same intensity of successful effort as before; but it was mournfully distinguished by a violent and painful conflict with Jewish-Christianity, which threatened to make the communities Paul had established desert him. His life had been one of restless activity ever since he began to preach the Christ. When we trace the extent of his journeyings upon the map; when we remember what varied and formidable difficulties the traveller of those days had to contend against, and how rare and imperfect the means and · opportunities of locomotion were, especially such means as a simple workman could command, and lastly, when we consider the perpetual dangers of every description to which Paul was constantly exposed, we are lost in admiration of his courage and perseverance, especially when we reflect that the cause itself for which he traversed sea and land was one that involved him in constant difficulties and exposed him to ceaseless ridicule, opposition, and persecution. And now a far more grievous trouble was added to all these; for the systematic agitation and opposition of Jewish believers threw his 1 Luke ix. 49, 50, xi. 14, 15, 17-23, xii. 10; Mark iii. 22-30. whole preaching of the gospel and the whole future of his communities into a position of extremest danger, threatening more than any thing else to destroy the work of his life. But though all hope sometimes seemed lost, though his heart full often bled from piercing wounds, though his bodily strength gave way under the strain, still he persevered; and the might of his spirit and the perseverance of his faith won glorious triumphs in the end.1 Let us listen to his own account, given towards the close of this period, of his experiences for the previous twenty years. Much against his will, for he hated boasting, he compares himself with his opponents. There was not one of them who had labored so unremittingly, who had so often braved maltreatment, imprisonment, and mortal peril for the sake of Christ, as he had done. "Five times have I received forty stripes save one from the Jews; thrice have I been beaten with rods [by the Romans]; once have I been stoned; thrice have I suffered shipwreck; a whole day and night have I been in the deep," tossed on a spar. Here we may pause to note that the writer of the Acts says nothing of the heavy scourgings administered by the Jews in the synagogue, the like of which were sometimes fatal; that he only tells us of one occasion, at Philippi, on which the yet more barbarous Roman punishment was inflicted upon Paul; and that the latter's Roman citizenship can only be maintained in the face of these scourgings on the supposition that the rights of the obscure Jew were constantly despised with arbitrary violence. The author of Acts has preserved the record of Paul's being stoned (at Lystra), - an onslaught from which hardly any one had ever escaped alive; but the only shipwreck of which he has any thing to tell us took place after this time, and must have made a fourth. Paul goes on to say that on his numerous journeys he had been in constant danger of drowning as he crossed over rivers, perhaps swimming, or of falling into the hands of robbers as he journeyed through unfrequented regions; that he had been "in danger from his fellow-countrymen," who fiercely persecuted him as an apostate; "in danger from the heathen," who only saw an atheist or rioter in their benefactor; in danger in the cities" of tumultuous violence; "in danger in the deserts" of losing himself and dying of hunger; danger at sea" of being shipwrecked and drowned; in danger, above all, of seeing his work, his peace, his liberty, 1 See, for example, 2 Corinthians i. 8, 9, ii. 4, iv. 16 ff., et seq. 66 in perhaps his very life, destroyed by "false brethren," his Jewish-Christian enemies. "Toil and pain," he continues, "and watching nights; hunger and thirst, and constant fasting; cold and nakedness, - these have been my life! And besides all the rest I have the constant daily thought and care for all the churches. Never is one of my converts weak in faith or conscience but I feel his weakness as though it were my own; never is one of them betrayed into apostasy or sin but my heart burns with shame and indignation." A year or two before, when he had recently undergone severe ill-treatment it would seem, he had written,1" Henceforth let no man trouble me, for I bear about on my body the marks that I belong to Jesus;" and not long afterwards (in 58 A.D.), "Up to this very hour have hunger, thirst, nakedness, maltreatment, wandering, and heavy manual toil been our lot. When reviled we bless, when persecuted we endure it, when slandered we render consolation. We are held the very refuse and offscourings of the world to this day." But all this did not crush him. "We are oppressed on every side," he writes elsewhere, but not afflicted; perplexed but not despairing; persecuted but not forsaken; cast down but not destroyed.' For it was in this very weakness that the might of his Lord revealed itself. "Therefore I rejoice in infirmities, in sufferings, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses for Christ's sake, for when I am weakest then am I also strongest" in Him.* 86. We naturally refer these general descriptions drawn from the letters of Paul primarily to the period in which they were written, and we are perfectly safe in assigning some of the specific sufferings of imprisonment, scourging, and shipwreck to the same period. But here the author of Acts leaves us entirely in the dark. We saw just now, more clearly than ever, how very imperfect his account of the previous period was; but here he fails us altogether. A great deal of what he does tell us is impossible to believe, and he passes over matters of extreme importance in absolute silence. He says that before leaving Corinth Paul had taken the vow of a Nazarite. We know that this is a moral impossibility; but it is far from the only occasion upon which our author transforms the Apostle of the heathen into a rigid Jew. Then he makes him 1 Galatians vi. 17. 2 1 Corinthians iv. 11-13. 42 Corinthians xii. 10. 2 2 Corinthians iv. 8, 9. 5 See pp. 540, 541, and chap. x. p. 611. - leave his friends Aquila and Priscilla at Ephesus and take his journey notwithstanding the entreaties of the Jews in the synagogue who desire him to stay with them through Cæsarea to Jerusalem. His object in going to the City of the Temple was to celebrate one of the Jewish feasts, and he took the opportunity of visiting the primitive community. Then he spent some time at Antioch, after which he returned through Galatia and Phrygia to Ephesus, where he stayed for three whole years. So says the book of Acts; but we know enough of Paul to be sure that he would not visit Jerusalem for the purpose here assigned to him, nor were his relations with the brethren there of such a character that he would wish to pay them a flying visit when there was no necessity for him to do so. We may therefore strike out the whole of this parenthetical journey, and assume that Paul established himself at once in Ephesus, the populous and stirring capital of the Roman province of Asia. We must not understand, however, that he made the city his permanent abode. It simply served as the centre of his activity, and from it he visited his converts in Galatia, founded fresh communities in various cities in the province,' perhaps crossed over for a visit to Corinth,2 and perhaps even penetrated to the remote Illyria. After three years spent in Ephesus our authorities agree in making him leave this city, pass through Troas into Macedonia and thence to Achaia, spend several months in Corinth, and then return through Macedonia and travel along the coast of Asia Minor to Jerusalem. Let us begin with the visit to Galatia, which took place early in the Ephesian period. We have not forgotten the zeal and joy with which Paul's gospel was received and embraced by the Galatians. But some months after his departure certain emissaries from Jerusalem came into the district and gave the Galatians very different instruction from what they had received from Paul. They announced themselves as coming from the original community and the personal disciples of the Messiah whom Paul had preached, and declared that these disciples, who were the only qualified expounders of their Master's teaching, knew nothing of the repeal of the Old Covenant, of the Law and circumcision, or of a new way opened to salvation by the so-called justification by faith. What Paul said about all this being implied and proved by the death of Jesus on 1 1 Corinthians xvi. 19; Revelation ii., iii. 8 Romans xv. 19. |