Paul the Conqueror

Foreword

This little book is sent out in the hope that it may open some new avenues of thought and study about the character and achievements of the great apostle. It does not seek, as its primary emphasis, to deal with historical or critical questions. It does not aim to present in detail Paul's contribution to Christian theology. The hope is rather that, viewing in a simple way the thought, the work, and the life of Paul in its own setting, it may suggest the meaning of that work, thought, and life for our to-day. Through these brief studies it is hoped that some new glimpses may be gained of the problems that Paul met, and of the quality of life that he brought to bear upon them. Its goal cannot be attained, however, unless the glimpses thus gained lead forward the thought of those who use these studies, to estimate the meaning of the problems in our world to-day, and the value of Paul's way of living in the society that we know. To suggest some ways of approach to acquaintance with a powerful personality, that the contagion of that personality may contribute to effective Christian living to-day, is the final purpose of this book.

Grateful acknowledgment is made to Mr. Harold H. Tryon of the Union Theological Seminary, New York City, for stimulating criticism while the studies were in preparation, and to my sister, Caroline Denison Ely, without whose encouragement and inspiration the book would not have been possible.

M. R. E.

St. Johnsbury, Vermont

The Fullness of Christ .

. 108

Chapter I I Can Do All Things

''I can do all things'' — ^what is the spirit behind these words ? Ours is an age of daring and of doing, but not many men would venture an assertion of power like this. ^'I can do all things" — is it the boasting pride of a young enthusiast, confident in his own power, because having never greatly tried, he has never conspicuously failed? Or is it the unreasoning determination of a man embittered by defeat, who, having suffered the pangs of disappointed egotism, is doggedly denying the fact of failure ? ^ ^ I can do all things ' ' — they are the words of an old man in prison, soon to be tried at Caesar's court, and soon to lay down his life. They are words not of boasting, but of humble and self- forgetful triumph through a power that was not his own. ' * I can do all things in him that strengtheneth me." And Paul, the apostle of Jesus Christ, had put his life back of the words. If his living had not upheld them, we should despise them as the miserable vauntings of a little soul. But the glorious triumph of his life of achievement, and the humility that counted not his own life as dear unto himself (Acts 20 : 24), had given to the unconquerable spirit a sure foundation of truth and life. To

US in an age when power counts, PauFs dauntless spirit brings challenge and appeal.

Not only through the contagion of his invincible spirit, but by the summons of his life of vigorous activity, Paul sends out his call to us to-day. To read the record of his gigantic task, to see him hastening from city to city, bringing his message from one corner of the empire to another, planning his campaigns like a military general, gathering a force of workers to assist him, utilizing every situation to which he came for the spreading of his message, to see him defying fatigue, illness, opposition, imprisonment, and even death, to accomplish the work that was set before him, is to marvel at the effective energy of his living. To an age that puts efficiency high in its scale of values, Paul speaks through his life of vivid achievement.

Unconquerable in spirit, colossal in his power of accomplishment, Paul brings a challenge to the Christian of to-day. But he speaks to us too in the gospel that he taught. The great ideals for which he worked are those that to-day we are striving to make real in human living. Freedom to think, to act, to live, was the compelling note of his gospel. ^^We serve in newness of the spirit, not in oldness of the letter'' (Rom. 7 : 6), ^^ for the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life " (II Cor. 3:6). To bring freedom from the confines of a binding law, and to lay hold on the liberty that is the privilege of sons of God — this was the starting point of his message.

I CAN DO ALL THINGS 11

' ^ For all ye are sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus'' (Gal. 3 : 26). ''Thou art no longer a bondservant, but a son; and if a son, then an heir through God" (Gal. 4:7).

With his gospel of freedom went also his message of brotherhood. In the glorious breadth and good will of the Christian gospel, were blotted out all distinctions of race and class. ''There can be neither Jew nor Greek, there can be neither bond nor free, there can be no male and female ; for ye all are one man in Christ Jesus" (Gal. 3:28). "One man in Christ Jesus" — this was the pivot of his social gospel. The brotherhood for which he worked was to be spiritually founded. It was the expression in human relations of the inner, vital fellowship with Christ which was the mainspring of his own life. The realization of the family ideal, which is the aim of Christian democracy to-day, was the goal of Paul's Christianity.

^^ Hearts I have won of sister or of brother Quick on the earth or hidden in the sod, Lo, every heart awaiteth me, another Friend in the blameless family of God.''*

Freedom and brotherhood are ideals that are slow of realization. The hope of their achievement lies in a third of Paul's great teachings — the gospel of the new start. "Wherefore if any man is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things are passed away; behold they are become new" (II Cor. 5:

* Myers : Saint Paul,

17). The *^new man" can look back without bitterness and without fear upon the mistakes of the past, and can look forward with courage to the broad inviting fields of new endeavor. The *^new man'' has taken the road of progress, and forgetting the things which are behind and stretching forward to the things which are before, he can press on toward the goal. Freedom, brotherhood, progress, these are the rallying cries of our world to-day. To an age that asks for leadership toward these ideals, Paul the Apostle has a living gospel to speak.

To a weak, struggling Christian community, with a leadership that, though loyal, was all too imperfect, came Paul of Tarsus, who had seen Jesus on the Damascus road and who had heard his call to service. His pioneer vision and his tireless leadership saved the early church from a narrow, exclusive existence and opened the way for a world-wide Christianity. ^^He was the greatest missionary of the age, and in him the Gospel fought its mightiest battles and won its most splendid victories, "t But Paul 's service cannot be measured by his gift to his own time. Great as that service was, it was only the beginning of the work he was to do. His work as a pioneer in the first century was in reality a gift to all the generations of Christians who have followed him, because in his living and his thinking he was touching at great, persistent human needs.

f McGiffert: The Apostolic Age, p. 423.

I CAN DO ALL THINGS 13

In his spirit of triumphant courage, in his life of stupendous achievement, in his gospel of freedom, of brotherhood, and of progress, he is speaking to our age as really as he did to the first century. To us there comes ringing across all these years, his challenge to life, his appeal to service. To the great adventure of Christian living, Paul the Apostle calls to-day, ^^I can do all things in him that strengtheneth me."

Chapter II A Jew Of Tarsus

^ ^ I am a Jew, of Tarsus in Cilicia, a citizen of no mean city."

Paul was proud to claim his connection with the place of his birth. And Tarsus was a city worthy of that pride. Standing in the broad, fruitful plain, between the Tarsus Mountains and the Mediterranean Sea, it was the meeting place for the long caravans of camels that came along the trade routes across the mountains, and the great merchant ships that came sailing up the river from the sea. Back among those snow-clad peaks that sheltered the city on the north, there was one narrow gateway that led out into the broad plains beyond the mountains. The Cilician Gates, as they were called, had served in olden days as the door between East and West for the great armies of the Greeks and Persians. Now the roadway carried Roman legions from the city that was the center of the Mediterranean world out to her provinces in the East. And the trade of both the East and the West found its highway here.

Tarsus, because it stood at this meeting place

A JEW OF TARSUS 15

for trade and travel between East and West, had become the dwelling place of many nationalities and races. Greeks, Romans, and Jews all found their home within her gates, and with the ships that came up the river from the Mediterranean, and with the caravans that came down from the mountains, came sailors and tradesmen from the far eastern lands, from the islands of the sea, and from the country of the Nile.

Paul's Early Home

In a busy, cosmopolitan city like this, Paul spent the early years of his life. Try to picture him as a boy, alert, keen, and responsive as he must have been to all the interests of life about him, and try to imagine what his life would be in the midst of this great commercial city. Shipping in the river that led to the great harbor only ten miles away, raft driving to float down the river the logs cut in the mountains, trading between the dwellers in the city and the travelers who came along the trade routes, bargaining in the market place of such fervor as only Orientals know — all these would claim the interest of a growing boy and would lead his imagination far beyond the limits of his own home life. Touch with the life of the world and knowledge of men and affairs came naturally to him, as they never could have come in a little provincial town.

But Tarsus was more than a city of commercial interests; it was a great university town. In no

16 PAUL THE CONQUEROK

other city, unless it were in Athens or in Alexandria, would Paul have come in contact with such an earnest love of letters as he saw in Tarsus, or so close an application to the study of philosophy and the religious cults of the time. Athenodorus, who was the greatest teacher of his day and the tutor of Caesar Augustus, had lived in Tarsus just before the time of Paul and had helped to make the university known in all the world. And so with the traders, the sailors, and the men of business, there came another type of stranger within the gates of Tarsus, men of the meditative, scholarly type, the thinkers of the day, who came together to discuss the problems of thought that puzzled the minds of men. Paul would catch glimpses of groups of students gathered in the schools along the banks of the river, and stories of the poets and teachers and orators who came to the university would fire his imagination and quicken his zeal for the learning of the Greek world.

His Touch with Greek Thought and Life

For Tarsus, though a city of the eastern Mediterranean, was Greek in its language and its thought. From the earliest days of its history, it had been touched with the influence of Greece, for its first traders had been Greek sailors from the ^gean, and always Greeks had been among its settlers. At the time of Alexander's conquests, three hundred years before Paul was born, Greek armies had filled the Cilician plains, and never after that did Tarsus

A JEW OF TAESUS 17

lose the spirit of Greek thought and life. Jew though he was, Paul could not fail to grow in sympathy with the Greek world, because ''he had inhaled the language and the soul of Hellenism with the air of Tarsus. ' '* In its uniting of widely differing interests, in its gathering of men of different races and customs, in its own civic history, growing from a simple oriental town to a Greek free city, and then to a center of Roman imperialism. Tarsus could well claim its title as the meeting place of the eastern and western worlds.

Touch with the world of affairs, the hum of business, and the broad interests of a city that was both commercial and educational — this was the first schooling of Paul of Tarsus. It was training in tolerance, in sympathy with men, and in independence of thought. Surely it was an influence guiding him, even though unconsciously, into the ' ' mystic bond of brotherhood that makes all men one. ' '

Compare the early environment of Paul with that of Jesus, and note the essential differences between them.

Can you find evidences in their words that they carried to mature life the impress of the early surroundings ? List such as occur to you.

His Jewish Home

The home of Paul's boyhood was a world of activity, busy with the concerns of men, but in a certain sense, his family was in it and not of it.

* Deissmann : Saint Paul, p. 43.

His people belonged to that company of Jews who had gone forth from their own land and had settled among aliens, but whose hopes and desires were still centered upon the land and people left behind. They never identified themselves wholly with the new community life but remained a peculiar people, cherishing their own faith, adhering to their old traditions, and zealously guarding the customs of their fathers. Read Phil. 3 : 4-5, Rom. 11 : 1, II Cor. 11 : 22, Acts 26 : 5, and Acts 23 : 6, and notice Paul's pride in this Jewish inheritance and in all the religious significance of such a heritage as his.

We have no record of the home life that he knew, but it is not hard to imagine the conditions that prevailed there. We know the Jewish family ideals, the strict adherence to the formalities of religion in the home, the respect for the minute details of the law, the cherishing of traditions and ideals from the past, the reverence for authority, and the stern effort to withstand any taint of alien influence. These ideals would be the more earnestly sought in a home of the stricter sort, such as PauPs must have been. '^ After the straitest sect of our religion I lived a Pharisee '' (Acts 26:5). We can picture the child of such a home listening to stories of the great heroes of the Hebrew faith, thrilling with pride at the intrepid deeds of those men of old, and yielding his own allegiance to the faith for which they lived.

A JEW OF TARSUS 19

Even more stirring to a boy like Paul than the tales of the great heroes of the past, would be the stories told him of the hope of the Jewish people. He would hear how one day there would come a leader of the people who would make of them a nation to rule all the world. Those would be the great days for the chosen people of God, and always they must be watching and waiting and preparing for that time. And until that day, they must keep the commandments and honor the law and keep themselves apart from other nations, a people holy and blameless before God. These were thoughts that would quicken the imagination and thrill the heart of a boy, and he would resolve to do his part to make the nation ready for the Day of the Lord. But his part at present meant duties not wholly inviting to a lively, active boy. There were minute ceremonies to be observed, and there were long passages of the Law and the Prophets that must be learned by heart. In such a home as his the old command would surely be observed :

^'And these words which I command thee this day shall be upon thy heart ; and thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thy house.'' (Deut. 6: 6-7.)

Paul's ready command of scripture and the naturalness with which he turns to it later in his letters bears testimony to the fact that the ancient command was honored in his home. Though a citizen of Tarsus, Paul was brought up to be a ''Hebrew of the Hebrews. ' '

"What would be the natural contributions of such training as Paul received in his home, to his character and equipment for life ?

"What elements in it would further his work as a Christian missionary ?

What elements would hinder that work ?

In what form is the exclusive ideal of the Pharisees present in modem Christianity?

Sis Roman Citizenship

A Jew, born in Tarsus of Cilicia, and living in the midst of a civilization that was Greek in spirit, Paul was also a Roman citizen. As a boy in Tarsus he was accustomed to the sight of Roman soldiers, for Tarsus, though Greek in its spirit and its language, was a free city of the Roman empire. And as he came to see the splendid discipline of the legions of the empire, and heard how they had fought to make one city ruler of all the world, and as he heard the travelers who came to Tarsus telling of Rome's splendid laws and her great system of roads, Paul would be glad to remember that citizenship in this great empire was his by right of inheritance. How this right of citizenship came to Paul's father, we do not know, but we are sure that it was a source of pride to Paul that he could say, ''I am a Roman born" (Acts 22:28). The fact that citizenship afforded protection, and gave

A JEW OF TARSUS 21

him special privileges before the law and prestige among his fellows, made it a privilege to be esteemed, but perhaps even more important was its effect upon his thinking as he was growing to manhood.

In his sense of partnership in the greatest administrative enterprise of the age, Paul was broadening his thought and making real in his consciousness the idea of a world-family. A world-family in government could later become in his thought a world-family in faith and in brotherhood, and we are not surprised to hear Paul the Roman saying in his later years to his Christian brethren, ''Our citizenship is in heaven'' (Phil. 3:20). The dignity of citizenship in a world empire had become to him a symbol of the spiritual calling of man. And even as a child in Tarsus, hearing of the prowess of the great empire, and feeling himself a part of that broad movement that was sweeping all the earth, he was growing in the breadth of mind and the largeness of vision that were later to make him not merely a citizen of Rome, but a citizen ' ' worthy of the gospel of Christ'' (Phil. 1:27).

Reared in a Jewish home, but touched by the busy life of a great city of the Greek world, and caught into the spirit of a world empire, Paul began all unconsciously his training for his apostleship of Jesus Christ. As he looked back in later years on these beginnings of his schooling in life, he wrote that God had ''separated" him from his very birth and '* called'' him ''through his grace'' (Gal. 1: 15). No wonder that he recognized in the facts of this experience a special training for the task that was to carry him into many lands and make him a messenger to many peoples.

1. What were the advantages for Paul in his early

environment in Tarsus ?

2. Of what value to him would be the influence of

the Greek culture of this city?

3. "What contributions to his moral and religious

equipment would come from his training in a strict Jewish home?

4. What would be the influence of the Roman citi-

zenship on his ideals ? On his conduct ?

5. In what ways would these strains of influence

tend to counteract one another? In what ways would they strengthen one another ?

6. In his whole environment and experience as a

child, what elements tended to develop and strengthen Paul's religious interest?

7. What stimulus to his religious life, similar to

that which Paul received, does the average child of to-day receive ? What in addition ? What does he lack?

8. What constructive suggestions can you give for

the improvement of religious education in America to-day?

A JEW OF TAESUS 23

Deissmann : St. Paul. Ch. 4.

Mathews : Paul the Dauntless. Ch. 2.

Wood : The Life and Ministry of Paul the Apostle. Ch. 2.

Eamsay: St. Paul the Traveller and the Roman Citizen. Ch. 2.

Ramsay : The Cities of St. Paul. pp. 85 ff.

Chapter III At The Feet Of Gamaliel

A Hebrew of the Hebrews, a Roman citizen, a child of Greek civilization and culture, Paul of Tarsus looked out upon life, confident by reason of the heritage that was his. Disciplined in body and mind by the rigorous training of the Jewish home and school, keen and alert in his thinking, he faced the day of his departure from home, we may well imagine, as a young adventurer faring forth in search of conquest.

PauVs Trade

Already, in accordance with the Jewish custom, Paul made himself master of a trade or handcraft that should be his resource in time of need. His was the trade of a tentmaker, naturally enough, since the most important industry of his native city was the weaving of coarse cloth from the long hair of the goats that pastured on the Cilician hills, and the fashioning from it of tent covers ready to be used for shelter by the wandering peoples of the Ea^t. Read I Thess. 2 : 9, Acts 18 : 3, Acts 20 : 34- 35, and note how this skill stood Paul in good stead later. Now, as he was setting forth on the first great adventure of his life, it would be counted a valuable part of his equipment, giving him a wholesome confidence in his own powers.

Early Education

Already he had outstripped the boys of his own age in the learning that the Jewish schools of his own city afforded (see Gal. 1: 14), and was eager for new intellectual tasks. And what was this learning that he had gained in the schools of Tarsus? We do not know exactly, but perhaps he would learn to read and write in Aramaic, the spoken language of the Jews at that time, and surely he must learn to read Hebrew, the sacred language of the Law and the Prophets. Perhaps it was here that he began the study of the Greek Bible from which he quotes so readily in his letters. Certainly he was memorizing portions of the law, and growing steadily more familiar with the history and the traditions of his fathers. In the house of prayer as well, he would be growing in the knowledge of the law and in the appreciation of the glorious past of Israel's religion. The synagogue stood as the center of the Jewish community life, and thither as a boy Paul must have been taken by his parents, not only on Sabbaths but for week-day services as well. Here in the recitation of the law, in the prayers, and in the reading of the scriptures, even the young boys might take part, and they could feel themselves sharing in the family life of this chosen people of God.

Summing up the influence of home, school, and synagogue in Tarsus, in how far do you feel that Paul would be strengthened by it for his life task

(a) In intellectual power?

(b) In self-control?

(c) In friendliness and sympathy with men? In how far would it tend to limit him along these

lines ?

Show how his training tended to emphasize to him the dignity of manual labor.

As a child, Paul must have heard much of Jerusalem, the home city of his faith. Like the exiles of olden days, Jews who lived away from the fatherland would yearn for the inspiration and joy of worship in the holy city, and would repeat with genuine feeling the psalmist's song:

*^If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, Let my right hand forget her cunning. ''

Jews of Tarsus who went as pilgrims to the feasts in Jerusalem would return with wonderful stories of the great palace that Herod had built, of the gardens about it, of his theater and gymnasium, of the Roman garrison tower, but most of all of the temple itself, that glorious structure of shining white stone and flashing gold, whose beauty symbolized to all the Jewish people the glory of their faith and the holiness of their worship of the God of Abraham and of Isaac and of Jacob.

Stories of the people gathered from many cities, of the crowded temple courts, of the sacrifices and festal processions would come back with the pilgrims from the feasts and would claim Paul 's interest. But best of all to a boy who had chosen to become a rabbi, a leader in the faith, an interpreter of the law, would be the stories of the temple schools, where the great teachers of the time sat daily, each with his group of students about him, expounding the law, arguing the minute points of its application, and discussing the great historic question that had come down from the prophets of old, the coming of Israel's Messiah.

Training in Jerusalem

Such was the life to which Paul came when he left the schools of his home city. At exactly what age he went we do not know, but if he went at the normal age for such a step, it would be when he was from thirteen to sixteen years of age. And it would be a significant change from a city of such broad and cosmopolitan interests as Tarsus to this city that was the historic home of the Jewish faith. However many the strangers from other lands and races who were within her gates, Jerusalem was always, first and last, the city of David, ' ^ builded as a city that is compact together, whither the tribes go up'' (Ps. 122:3-4). An ancient prophet had foretold that many nations should come unto her, but they were to come because she had wisdom and instruction to give,

'*for out of Zion shall go forth the law and the word of Jehovah from Jerusalem (Is. 2: 3).

No external touch of foreign influence or power could dominate the inner course of her life. In the midst of evidences of Roman occupation, the life of the Jewish community went on, cherishing its traditions from the past, and looking for the day when the center of the whole earth should be the throne of the house of David. Within her walls there was a unity of interest, a solidarity of national feeling that could not be disturbed, and here, as in no other surroundings in all the world, would a Jewish student grow to revere and honor the past, to take pride in the religious heritage that was his, and to found his hope on the hope of his race.

To a student like Paul the temple would be the center of his life. Here he would go daily to join a group of students who sat in one of the pillared porches at the feet of some teacher of the law. Here he would share in the sacred services, the feasts, and the morning and evening sacrifices. Here he would give his best as a student, to honor the Law and the Prophets. But close by the temple on the north, stood another building toward which he would also look with pride, Castle Antonia, the symbol of Rome 's power here in this far-away country of Palestine. To many a Jew in Jerusalem, this Roman garrison would be a hateful thing, a i reminder that the glory of the house of Israel had gone down in defeat before the might of empire. As a Jew, Paul would share this resentment and would look forward to the day when a prince of the house of David should rule over an empire that would be eternal.

But he must have looked with mingled feelings on a sight like this, for as a Roman citizen, he would thrill with pride that he had a part in all this military dignity and imperial sway. As he saw the soldiers guarding the castle, heard the clank of arms against the stonework, or caught the gleam of a helmet flashing in the sun, perhaps there would rise to his thought the question, why he, who had the right to share in the greatness of this mighty empire, had come away eastward to take up a student 's life. Perhaps it would startle a longing within him to cast aside all these minute cavilings with an ancient law, and take his part in the military glory of an empire that could sway the whole world. The broad, free highways to Rome were always open and alluring, but he had chosen the path of a pilgrim to the holy city. His hope was built on a surer foundation than any power of empire. With the psalmist he could say :