AN UNRECORDED SERMON OF ST. PAUL.
" WHEN Paul reasoned of righteousness, temperance, and judgment to come, Felix trembled." It is difficult to read this passage without a thrill of emotion. What could St. Paul have said which shook the self-complacency of a Roman Governor ? It is as if an Indian official of to-day were to tremble before the preaching of some wandering Hindoo teacher. The fragmentary nature of the New Testament Scriptures is never more apparent than in the account of this scene,—to those, that is, who struggle to re- construct from its pages a picture of primitive Christianity. St. Luke in the Acts of the Apostles -gives us but the merest suggestion of the force wielded by the chosen instruments of "the wind of the spirit" which nineteen centuries ago blew out of Palestine and overact the logical conclusions of the whole ancient world. But perhaps St. Luke's omission is not in this instance so great as it would at first sight appear. Doubtless he knew that Paul's teaching on "righteousness, temperance, and judgment to come" was familiar to his readers, who could construct his sermon for themselves,—in its gist, if not in its eloquence. What St. Luke's audience could do we also may do with a little trouble. We know what St. Paul taught on these subjects as well as they did, and how- ever much his doctrinal teaching developed between his con- version and "the time of his departure," on these three vital questions he never differed from himself. Righteousness, he declared in his Epistles—as no doubt he preached .before Felix—consists in no minuthe of rules and ceremonies. "All the law is fulfilled in one word, even this, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself." That this law should be carried out no social revolution is necessary. Sedition is no part of Christianity. "Every man in the calling wherein he is called" may " therein abide with God." Every slave who obeys this rule is "Christ's free man," every free man who abides by it is "the Lord's bondsman." In demanding of us this right attitude towards our neighbour God asks no new thing and no impossibility. The doctrine commends itself to every man's conscience. There is no need to say," Who will go up into heaven? (that is, to bring Christ down), who will descend into the deep? (that is, to bring Christ up from the dead), but the Word is very nigh unto thee in thy mouth and in thy heart,—that is, the word of faith which we preach." Having laid this foundation, St. Paul would proceed to build on it. "Love worketh no ill to his neighbour," he may have said. Therefore "recompense to no man evil for evil. Be ye angry and sin not. Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth. Having renounced the hidden things of dishonesty, speak every man the truth. Let all bitterness and evil speaking be put away from you with all malice." These are the simplest precepts of St. Paul. But "Let brotherly love continue," he goes on,—Christianity requires something beyond the plain rules of ethics. The polish of courtesy should embellish right conduct. Especially of those in authority does the preacher demand strict atten- tion to the manner of their rectitude or their kindness. "He that ruleth let him do it with diligence, he that givetb, with simplicity, he that showeth mercy, with cheerfulness." Every man is to prove his own work, and "then shall he have rejoicing in himself alone, not of another," for "if we would judge ourselves, we should not be judged."
On the subjects of " temperance " and " judgment " it is not more difficult to gather what St. Paul preached. The
absence in any man of this purely human virtue of temper- ance—ivaskrita—self-control—is, he asserts, the surest sign of the atrophy of the soul. "To be carnally minded is death, to be spiritually minded is life and peace. He that soweth to the flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption, he that soweth to the spirit shall of the spirit reap everlasting life." St. Paul bases his whole theory of the spiritual life upon the warring elements within the soul of man. On this subject he relates his own experience because it is common to all men, to Christian and heathen alike. The Spirit of God dwells in every man, he affirms, the Spirit of that one "God who is above all and through all and in you all," but in perpetual conflict with this "law of God in the inner man" there exists another law "warring against the law of my mind and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin," so that "when I would do good evil is present with me." The Jews supposed this "law of sin" to be somehow inherent in the flesh,—an inheritance from Adam. In the victory of the "quickening Spirit" over the flesh lies "temperance," but victory does not necessarily imply contempt, or torture, or annihilation. St. Paul did not teach asceticism, he preached a "gospel of reconciliation." "Yield yourselves to God," he exhorts. "I pray you in Christ's stead be ye reconciled to God."
To the terrors of "judgment," apart from that " death " which threatens those who "quench the Spirit," St. Paul makes few allusions. A desire to go on existing in his own proper person was very strong in him, and he everywhere , takes it for granted that it is strong in every one. "For though we that are in this tabernacle do groan being burdened, we would not be unclothed but clothed upon that mortality might be swallowed up in life." The existence of a material hell he never even suggests. "Tribulation and anguish on every soul of man that doeth evil" he looks for. ." Knowing therefore the terror of the Lord, we per- suade men," he asserts, for "we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ." In St. Paul's mouth this last sentence may have contained an allusion to a speedy second coming, but to Felix it must have meant, as it means to us in the present day, a judgment by the standard of Christ's teaching. Possibly even the Apostle himself meant his words to be taken metaphorically, for he frequently uses the title of our Lord—the word "Christ "—to designate no being, human or divine, but to typify the eternal relation between God and man. For instance, when he tells us that the Jews in the time of Moses "did all eat the same spiritual meat" as those he speaks to, "and did all drink the same spiritual drink, for they drank of that spiritual rock which followed them, and that rock was Christ," he must be using the phrase in the sense we have indicated. In the same way when he declares "To me to live is Christ" he must mean, 'I live in that relation to the eternal which Christ typifies for us.' It is possible that those terrific words which we find in the Epistle to the Hebrews are the words of St. Paul, for though it seems to be generally asserted by scholars that St. Paul did not write Hebrews, the book evidently emanated from the Pauline circle, and it is still possible that he had something to do with its composition, or even that. as Origeu asserts, he dictated it. "The Word of God is quick and powerful and sharper than any two-edged sword piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit and of the joints and marrow, and is a discoverer of the thoughts and intents of the heart. All things are naked and open unto the eyes of Him with Whom we have to do. It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God." To a reader who knows little of the constantly changing decisions of Biblical criticism there would appear to be a certain "fearful looking for judgment" about the writing of Hebrews which consorts ill with that bold spirit who "could wish himself accursed from Christ for his brethren's sake," and was "ready to im- part his own soul" to his friends.
Clearly, however, whether these eloquent words were used by St. Paul or not, it was by no terror of hell that Felix was made to tremble. Fear is not the only emotion which may shake a man's soul, and, unaccustomed as he was to the metaphorical language of the Old Testament Scriptures, any material description of "the pit" would have seemed to him as "old wives' fables." Men of religious genius like Paul of Tarsus seem to have the power of literally, for one instant, "imparting their own souls" to their hearers, and making
them see their. own lives with eyes which are not their own. What if the Jew should be right? Felix may have thought. What if it were really possible for a man to "gain the whole world and lose his own soul " ? Could this man's apparently insane courage . and optimism have any supernatural source:
Could there be any real ground for that hope which he bad "as an anchor of the soul both sure and steadfast, and which entereth into that within the veil." Perhaps the Roman Governor may have asked Paul how he intended to preach the message of Christ from a Roman prison and have been startled by his answer, with its sober acceptance of suffering and its enthusiastic assertion of faith : "I indeed suffer as an evildoer even unto bonds, but the Word of 0-ad is not bound."
We Christians, he may have added, preach not ourselves but Christ Jesus the Lord, and ourselves your servants for Christ's sake.'
Whatever Paul actually said at this interview, he failed of his immediate purpose. Felix was not converted. He kept Paul bound hoping that money should have been given him.
His moment of insight was short-lived. A little reflection quieted his nerves, and like Browning's " Cleon," he was soon able to say to himself :— " Thou must not think a mere barbarian Jew As Paulus proves to be, one circumcised, Rath access to a secret shut from us ?"
Why should he lose his peace of mind at the bidding of such as Paul ! He and his Master were alike beside themselves— "Their doctrines could be held by no sane man."
When he saw Paul again he would no doubt remind him bow that—
"Rome is on the march to crush out like a little spark Thy tribe, thy crazy tale and thee at once."
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