This was just what Paul experienced and exulted in avowing. Christ had “deposed” Paul’s former self, and substituted a new self of his own as viceroy, to rule Paul, “in his heart.” A soldier might say that Christ, in the moment of taking Paul prisoner, had (so to speak) given him back his sword, saying “Use it on my side among all the nations of the earth, that they also may receive the good tidings of the forgiveness of sins.” But in fact (according to Paul’s view) Christ had done much more than this. He had given Paul a new sword, “the sword of the spirit.” He had also made his whole nature anew, according to Paul’s own saying, “If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature, behold all things are made new.”
Not that I was as yet convinced that Christ had actually risen from the dead. For I did not yet feel sure that Paul might not have been deceived by himself and by the Christians. But I did now feel sure that Paul was honest and did not knowingly deceive his readers. And it was becoming more and more difficult to believe that self-deception or Christian deception could have produced effects on multitudes of men so great and permanent as those which were plainly discernible in the epistles.
I remember at this time trying to prevent my growing admiration for Paul’s work from blinding me to his defects. Such phrases as “let him be anathema,” and “dogs,” and “whose belly is their glory,” and “I would that those who are thus desolating you would even emasculate themselves”—these and others I marked with red in my volume. I knew Epictetus would have condemned them. But I soon perceived that these fiery flashes of wrath were reserved for those whom Paul regarded as proud and greedy ensnarers and oppressors of helpless souls; proud of knowledge that was no knowledge; greedy of money and influence to which they had no right; shutting their eyes against the light, and dragging back poor pilgrims just as they were on the point of entering into the City of Truth. Towards others, even if they might have appeared as rivals, he seemed to me to feel no rivalry, merging all such feeling in allegiance to Christ. Some, he said to the Philippians, preached Christ “thinking to add affliction” to his bonds, out of jealousy and spite. “What then?” he says, “Whatever may be the motive, Christ is preached, and I rejoice. Yea, and I will rejoice.” In the same spirit he wrote to the church of Corinth concerning those among them who said, “I am of Apollos,” “I am of Cephas,” “I am of Paul”—condemning all partisanship, although he gently reminds them of his singular relation to them, “Even though ye have ten thousand tutors in Christ, yet ye have not many fathers: for in Christ Jesus through the Gospel I begot you.”
Another detail interested me. Paul (I found) differed greatly from Epictetus in physical constitution, Epictetus used to teach us that a Cynic had no business to be “infirm” of body. At all events, he said, no such person can do the work of a Cynic Missionary. When he extolled “the sceptre of Diogenes,” he used to tell a story of the way in which that philosopher, lying by the roadside, sick of a fever, called on the wayfarers to admire him. It was the road to Olympia, and people were on the way to the games: “Villains!” he shouted to them, “Stay! Are you going all that way to Olympia to see athletes fight or perish, and will you not stay to behold a contest between a man and a fever?” But this contest, I think, ended in Diogenes’s death. As a rule, both he and Socrates had been perfectly and robustly healthy: and Epictetus seemed somewhat to despise those who were otherwise.
Paul, on the other hand, frequently spoke of his “weakness,” meaning physical infirmity or sickness. It was “owing to weakness,” he told the Galatians, that he preached the gospel for the first time among them; and he called it a “temptation (or, trial) in the flesh.” This I took to mean that he had been delayed in Galatia by some sickness, and had founded the Church there while in that condition. So to the Corinthians he said, “In weakness and in fear and in trembling did I come addressing myself to you.” But that letter went on to say, “And my word and my preaching were not in the persuasive words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the spirit and power”—so that “power” went hand in hand with “weakness.” Once at least I found Paul praying to be delivered from “weakness.” “I will not boast about myself”—so he writes to the Corinthians—“except in my weaknesses.” And then he went on to explain the “boasting” as being quite different from that of Diogenes. For the Cynic cried, in effect, “Come and see how strong I am!” But Paul meant that he would “boast” because, when he felt weakest, then his Master came to his aid and made him strong. This he expressed in a way that perplexed me at first: “There was given to me a thorn in the flesh, an angel of Satan, to buffet me, that I might not be lifted up above measure. About this, I besought the Lord thrice that it might depart from me. And He said unto me, My grace sufficeth for thee, for in weakness is Power made perfect.”
For some time I could not understand this phrase, “an angel of Satan.” But afterwards I found Paul writing to his Thessalonian converts that, when he wished to come to help them, “Satan hindered him,” so that Satan appeared to be a hinderer of the gospel. Then it seemed to me that among the Jews and Christians certain diseases might be regarded as demons, or the work of demons—just as, in Rome, “Fever” is worshipped as divine and has temples. This fact I had heard Epictetus mention; and he also condemned those who pray to be delivered from fever. The right course was, he said, “to have the fever rightly.” Paul seemed to say, “first pray to be delivered from fever, if it seems to hinder you from doing the work of the Lord. Then, if it be revealed to you as the will of the Lord that you should bear the fever, be sure that He will make your bodily weakness spiritually strong. Thus the temptation from Satan, the Hinderer and Adversary, shall be turned into a strengthening trial from God, your Helper and Friend.”
Summing up the marvellous changes that seemed to have come about for Paul in consequence of Christ’s “appearing” to him, I was more than ever disposed to believe that it was of a divine origin and a great deal more than a mere “appearing.” I thought it must have been an “appearing” to the inner eye, the spirit, as well as to the outer eye.
When we Romans and Greeks use the word “spirit,” we mostly think of a shadowy unreal appearance of the dead. We should not call Jupiter, or Zeus, a “spirit.” But I perceived that, with Paul, “spirit” was more real—and, if I may so say, more eternally solid—than “body.” It was the real “person.” The word “person” in Greek, as also in Latin, means a “mask” or “character.” There is, with us, no one word to express “real person.” Common people think the body real, but the spirit unreal. Paul used the name “spiritual body” to describe a “real person,” raised from the dead in Christ. Well, then, it seemed to me that the power of Christ on Paul might be described, not only as an “appearing” but also as the grasp of a “real person,” “taking hold of” Paul’s spirit with a spiritual hand so as to strengthen and direct him. What else was it that made him so strong?
The strength of Epictetus in bearing trials and sufferings had long excited my admiration. But now the strength of Paul seemed greater. Epictetus bore—or at least professed to bear—only his own burdens. As for those of others, he said, “These are nothing to me.” Paul was like a gentle nurse or tender mother with the weaklings among his converts. “Who,” he asked, “is made to stumble, and I burn not? Who is weak, and I am not weak?” And yet, in his weakness, he was a very Hercules or Atlas, strong enough to bear “the care of all the churches”! This “weak” man was always fighting, always craving to fight, and always conquering—up to the time of his impending departure, when he exclaimed that he had “fought the good fight”! And through what an extent of the civilised world! “From Jerusalem to Illyricum”—so he wrote to the Romans! In that same letter he announced his intention of carrying the eagles of the New Empire into Rome itself, and of passing onward from Rome to the invasion of Spain! No wonder that he felt able to say, “I take pleasure in weaknesses, in outrages, in straits and necessities, in persecutions and hardships, in Christ’s behalf; for in the moment when I am weak, in that moment I am strong.”
“I am strong”! Yes. Rolling up the volume as I retired to rest that night, I was constrained to agree with that, at all events. “About some things,” said I, “or perhaps about many things in your letters I am doubtful; but assuredly you are strong. I myself am also certain that you are honest. But that you are strong—and that, too, with a strength that comes from faith in the resurrection of your Master—this not even an atheist or Epicurean could deny.”
CHAPTER XV
EPICTETUS’S GOSPEL
I went somewhat unwillingly to the next day’s lecture. It would probably be interesting, I thought; but I could no longer deny that I was beginning to feel doubtful about that. And certainly I was more interested in Paul’s letters. Soon after I was seated, Glaucus came in. He looked worn and haggard, but there was no time to ask him questions. The subject of the lecture was, How are we to struggle with adversity? The answer was, By bearing in mind that death is no evil; that defamation is nothing but the noise of madmen; and that only the rich, the lords and rulers of the earth, are the subjects of tragedies. But the main point was that “the door” is always open: “Do not be more cowardly than children. The moment they are tired, they say, ‘I won’t play any more.’ Say you the same, ‘I won’t play any more.’ And be off. But if you stay, don’t keep on complaining.” This topic had become familiar. What followed, though not quite novel, interested me more, because it seemed to bear on the Jewish Law.
First came a general descant on the advantages of being absolutely free from fear. Why should a man fear? Had he not power over everything that might cause him fear? Then a pupil was supposed to ask for more rules of life, saying, “But give me commandments.” The reply was, “Why am I to give you commandments? Has not Zeus given you commandments? Has He not given and appointed for you what is your own, unhindered and unshackled; but what is not your own, hindered and shackled? Well, then, what is the commandment? Of what nature is the strict injunction with which you have come into the world from Zeus? It is this, ‘Keep in all ways the things that are yours, desire not the things that are for others’.… Having such suggestions and commands from Zeus, what further commands can you crave from me?” He finished this section of his discourse thus, “Bring these commandments, bring your preconceptions, bring the demonstrations of the philosophers, bring the words you have often heard and have often yourself spoken, read, and pondered.”
I could not feel sure whether “bring” meant “bring to bear on each point,” or “bring to your aid”; but, in either case, this conclusion, to me at least, was disappointing. “It is all very true,” I thought, “and strictly according to reason. We are sure we have ‘preconceptions.’ We are not sure that we receive strength, in this or that emergency, from any being except ourselves. And yet how tame—and, in emergencies, how flat and unhelpful—such an utterance as this appears in comparison with the oracle that the Christian believed he had heard from his Lord, ‘My grace is sufficient for thee. For Power is made perfect in weakness’!”
The rest of the lecture was more lively and expressed with more novelty, but old in substance—addressed to those who wanted to enjoy the best seats in the theatre of life but not to be squeezed by the crowd. His prescription was, “Don’t go to see it at all, man, and then you will not be squeezed. Or, if you like, go into the best seats, when the theatre is empty, and enjoy the sun there.” Then he added something that made my companion Glaucus shrug his shoulders and cease taking notes, “Remember always, We squeeze ourselves, we pinch ourselves. For example, we will suppose you are being reviled. What is the harm in that? Why pinch yourself on that account? Go and revile a stone. What harm will you do the stone? Well then, when you are reviled, listen like a stone. And then what harm does the reviler do you?”
We went out together, Glaucus and I. I think I have said before that Glaucus had some troubles at that time in his home at Corinth, but of what kind I did not exactly know. “Silanus,” he said presently to me, with a bitter smile, “I am pinching myself with my shoe.” “Then take it off,” said I. “By the immortal Gods,” he exclaimed, “I wish I could! But what if my shoe is the universe? What if it is—” He stopped. I replied at once, like a faithful disciple of Epictetus, “Not the universe, Glaucus, but your opinions about the universe.” “Well then,” said he, “my ‘opinions about the universe.’ What if my ‘opinions about the universe’ include ‘opinions about’ certain persons and things—home, father, mother, sister, and other such indifferent trifles? To put an imaginary case, could I by ‘taking off’ my ‘opinion about’ my father, take my father out of prison, or save him from death, or others from disgrace worse than death? No, Silanus, I am beginning to be a little tired of hearing ‘Remember always, You pinch yourselves.’ Often it is so. But not always. What say you?”
What ought I to have said? I knew exactly what was the correct thing to say. “In such cases, give up the game. The door is open. Do you say the universe pinches you? Then take off your shoe by going out of the universe.” This would have been the orthodox consistent answer. But I was inconsistent, not indeed in words, but in a heretical glance of sympathy, which Glaucus—I could see—interpreted rightly. We parted. As I walked slowly back to my rooms, I had leisure to reflect that the gospel of Epictetus had no power to strengthen Glaucus, and—I began to fear—no power to strengthen me, except to bear comparative trifles. It was not strong enough—at least in me—to stand up against the great and tragic calamities of human life.
With these thoughts, I sat down once more to study Paul’s epistles from the beginning. Once more (but now for the last time) I was led into a digression. It was the word “gospel” that thus dragged me away, coming upon me (in Paul’s first sentence) just when I had been deploring the failure of the “gospel” of Epictetus. Reading on, I found that Paul’s “gospel” had been “promised beforehand, through God’s prophets, in the holy scriptures concerning His son.” A little later, the writer said, “I am not ashamed of the gospel. For it is God’s power tending to salvation for every one that hath faith, Jew first, and then Greek. For God’s righteousness is therein revealed, from faith tending to faith, even as it is written, ‘Now the righteous shall live by faith’.”
The next words surprised me by mentioning “God’s wrath” as a part of the gospel: “For there is revealed therein God’s wrath from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men that hold down the truth in unrighteousness.” But I immediately perceived that it might be regarded as “gospel” or “good tidings” to be informed that God does really feel “wrath” at unrighteousness, or injustice, and that He will sooner or later judge and punish it. Accordingly I was not surprised to find Paul, soon afterwards, connecting “gospel” and “judging” thus: “In the day when God shall judge the secrets of men according to my gospel, through Jesus Christ.”
From this I perceived that Paul’s gospel promised a righteous judgment as well as immortality. But how could it be proved that there would be this righteous judgment? Paul said that it was “revealed from faith to faith.” He added, “as it is written”; and a note in the margin of my MS. shewed me that he was referring to a certain prophet named Habakkuk. I unrolled the passage. It seemed that this Habakkuk was living in times when his nation was grievously oppressed. The oppressors were like fishermen catching the oppressed at their pleasure. The prophet, standing on a tower, said to the people, “Wait and have faith. The righteous shall live by faith.” Paul meant that if we would begin by having some faith in a righteous God, in spite of appearances on the surface of things, we should be helped to rise “from faith to more faith,” and consequently that we should “live”—that is have real life. Faith seemed to Paul needful for life. Life without faith seemed to him no real life but a living death.
As I read on, I saw that this kind of “faith” was regarded by Paul as the foundation of all righteousness. He quoted scripture thus, “Abraham had faith in God, and it was reckoned unto him for righteousness.” Then I remembered that he had quoted the same passage in writing to the Galatians, in order to prove to them that the seed of Abraham did not obtain righteousness by doing the works prescribed in the code of Moses, but by following in the faith of their forefather. Now this faith, in the case of Abraham, had seemed to me at first of a narrow and selfish nature:—“God will keep His promise to me, God will give me a child in my old age.” But Paul shewed that the promise concerned “all the nations of the earth,” and that Abraham was not selfish in his faith—any more than in his pleading with God for such righteous people as might be in Sodom and Gomorrah when he said, “Shall not the judge of all the earth do right?” This faith in God’s truth and righteous judgments was at the bottom of Paul’s gospel, and Paul taught that it was at the bottom of all righteousness both of Jews and Gentiles.
But here came a great difficulty and obstacle in the way of faith, because, when men departed from God’s righteousness, God Himself (so Paul taught) departed from them for a time, allowing them to do the unrighteousness that was in their hearts and to judge unjustly. For this cause (according to Paul) God introduced Law into the world, and especially the Law of Moses. The Law was brought in to represent His righteousness in a poor rough fashion, until the time should come when He would send into the world the real righteousness or justice, the real judge or spirit of judgment. Such a judge (according to Paul’s gospel) was Jesus Christ, judging the world already to some extent, but destined to judge it in complete righteousness, “in the day when God shall judge the secrets of men according to my gospel,” said Paul, “through Jesus Christ.”
At this point came the doctrine of the immortality of the soul, enabling Paul to say, “Wait, and you will see justice done”; whereas Epictetus was forced to say, in effect, “Justice will never be done,”—not at least what a plain man would call justice—“since the justice of this life was, is, and will be, oppression, and no second life is ever to exist.”
The only passage in which Epictetus (as far as I could recollect) described a good judge, was one in which the philosopher was supposed to hold a dialogue with the Censor, or Judge, of Nicopolis. The man was an Epicurean; and Epictetus, after representing him as boasting that he was “a judge of the Greeks,” and that he could order imprisonment or flogging at his discretion, replied that this was coercing, not judging. “Shew us,” said he, “the things that are unprofitable for us and we shall avoid them. Make us passionate imitators of yourself, as Socrates made men of himself. He was really a ruler of men. For he, above all others, so framed men that they subordinated to him their inclinations, aversions, and impulses.”
This seemed to me, at first, a fine ideal of a spiritual judge. I contrasted it with Paul’s picture of the Lord as Judge taking vengeance in fire upon His enemies; and Epictetus seemed to have the advantage. But on consideration it appeared that Epictetus was confusing his hearers by passing suddenly from a judge to a ruler. According to his own account elsewhere, Socrates did not persuade a thousandth part of those to whom he addressed himself. On the other hand Paul distinguished two aspects of Christ. In one, He appeared as constraining His subjects to love Him and to become “passionate imitators” of Him. In the other, He appeared as a judge, making the guilty shrink from their own guilt, and feel pain at their own sin, when the light of judgment reveals them to themselves. Paul spoke of “fire” according to the metaphors of the scriptures. He appeared to be describing the Supreme Judge as destroying the evil while purifying the good—as fire may destroy some things but purify others.
This was not the only occasion when the gospel of Epictetus seemed to me—not at first, but upon full consideration—inferior to the gospel of Paul in recognising facts fairly and fully. For example, Paul, in the epistle I was now reading, adopted the ancient Jewish tradition that death came into the world as a result of the sin of the first man Adam. According to this view, death was a “curse.” Now Epictetus appeared to be directly attacking this doctrine when he spoke as follows, “If I knew that disease had been destined to come upon me at this very moment, I would rush towards it—just as my foot, if it had sense, would rush to defile itself in the mire. Why are ears of corn created? Is it not that they may be parched and ripened? And are they to be parched and ripened, and yet not reaped? Surely, then, if they had sense, the ears of wheat ought not to pray never to be reaped. Nay, this is nothing short of a curse upon wheat—never to be reaped! So you ought to know that it is nothing short of a curse upon men, not to die. It is all the same as not being ripened—not to be reaped.”
How much finer, thought I at first, is this doctrine of Epictetus than the doctrine of Paul! And how superstitious is that Hebrew story about a serpent, causing death to fall upon man as a curse from God! But coming back to the matter again after I read some way in the epistle, and thinking over what “death” meant to Epictetus and what it meant to Paul, I began to waver. For Epictetus thought that “death” meant being dissolved into the four elements. And how was this like “being ripened and reaped”? When corn is reaped, men get good from it. But when I am “reaped,” that is to say, distributed into my four elements, who will get any good from that? So, once more, the gospel of Epictetus, as compared with the gospel of Paul, seemed to be deficient not only in power but also in directness and clearness of statement.
It reminded me of the saying of Paul when he said that God sent him to preach the gospel “not in wisdom of word lest the cross of Christ should be made of no effect.” “Wisdom of word” appeared to mean “calling old facts by new names without revealing any new truth.” So far as I could understand the gospel of Epictetus, his language about my being “ripened and reaped” was like that other earlier promise that I should find “friends” in the four elements when I passed into them in the dissolution of death. It was all “wisdom of word.”
CHAPTER XVI
PAUL’S GOSPEL
In contrasting Epictetus with Paul to the disadvantage of the former, I was far from imagining that the latter had unloosed the knot of the origin of sin. But at all events he recognised the existence of the knot. Epictetus ignored it, or failed to recognise it. He spoke in the same breath of God’s ordaining “vice and virtue, winter and summer,” as though God’s appointing that some men shall be bad caused him no more difficulty than His appointing that some days shall be cold.
Paul, on the other hand, treated death as though it were a curse in the intention of Satan, but a blessing (or step towards blessing) through the controlling will of God. He also spoke of a spiritual body rising out of the dead earthly body, as flower and fruit rise out of the decaying seed. I did not at first feel sure what he meant by this. Flower and fruit resemble seed in that they can be touched. Did Paul mean that the spiritual body resembled the earthly body in being tangible, besides being more beautiful? I thought not. It seemed to me possible that a person in the flesh, dying, might become a person in the spirit, living for ever. A man’s actions and sufferings, sown in the transient flesh, might after death become part of the flower of the imperishable spirit, the real man, the spiritual body. That, I thought, was what Paul meant. This belief I found also stimulative to well-doing, according to the saying of Paul himself, “I press on, if by any means I may attain to the resurrection of the dead.” Moreover I remembered the “angel of Satan” appointed for Paul to keep him from pride, and how he prayed against it, and received a revelation “My grace is sufficient for thee.” If prayer and strength were brought about for Paul by an “adversary” of prayer, might not righteousness be brought about for the human race by the “adversary” of righteousness? I did not myself at that time believe in the existence of such an “adversary”; but Paul’s belief seemed to me not unreasonable.
This turned me to other passages in the epistles concerning “Satan,” or the “angels of Satan,” or “principalities and powers.” And I contrasted them with what Epictetus had said, “All things are full of Gods and daemons,” meaning good daemons. Once more, the words of Epictetus seemed the nobler. But were they true? What did they amount to in fact? Nothing except “wisdom of word,” calling the four elements “friends”! Thus in the end—though very slowly and reluctantly—I was brought, first, to understand, and then to favour, Paul’s opinion, namely, that so far as we can see the truth in the “enigma” of the “mirror” of this world, there is being waged a battle of good against evil, order against disorder, light against darkness, life against death.
What Isaiah said concerning the stars and God’s “leading them forth” gave me some help, just when I was thinking about the “conflict between light and darkness.” For how, I thought, does God bring forth the stars except through the hand of His angel of darkness? Yet we, men, mostly speak of “darkness” as an enemy. And so, in a sense, it often is. Yet it is revealed in the aspect of a servant of God when besides bringing us the blessing of rest and sleep it leads forth the hosts of glories that (except for darkness) would never have been perceived. So, darkness brings God’s greatness to light. Paul certainly predicted that the same truth would hereafter be recognised about death and about the apparent disorder of Nature, and her “groanings and travailings”; and it seemed to me that he extended the same doctrine even to sin.
The result was that I found myself content to accept—in a manner, and provisionally—what Paul said about “Satan” and about “principalities” and at the same time what he said to the effect that all things are from God and through God and to God, and, “For them that believe, all things work together for good.” In my judgment, it was better—yes, and more reasonable, in Paul’s sense of the word “reason”—to feel that I was in the Universe fighting a real fight against evil but looking up to God as my Helper, than to feel that there was no evil or enemy for me anywhere except in myself, and no friend either. So in the end I said, “Better to have been under the curse of death with Paul, if the curse may lead to a supreme blessing of life eternal in the presence of the Father, than to pass out of life with Epictetus, without any experience of curse at all, as so much earth, air, fire and water, into the nominal friendship of Gods and daemons!”
In allowing myself thus to be led away by my new Jewish teacher I was not influenced by his letters alone, but by legends and traditions—to some of which he referred—in the Hebrew histories, visions, and prophecies. Some of these taught, predicted, prefigured, or suggested that, while man and the brute forces of man and nature blindly imagine that they are moving the wheel of the universe, God alone is really moving it, and is using them to move it, towards His own decreed and foreordained purpose.
To the most beautiful of all such visions I was drawn by these words of Paul, “Know ye not what the scripture saith of Elijah?” Here a marginal note in my MS. referred me to the whole story, how Elijah, having slain with the sword the adversaries of God, was himself forced to flee from the sword of King Ahab, to Mount Horeb or Sinai, where the Law had once been given to Israel amid lightnings and thunders. And here the prophet was taught that God is not in the principalities of Nature, not in the tempest or fire or earthquake, but in “the still small voice.” This agreed with a passage in Isaiah concerning the Deliverer, “He shall not cry aloud.” In comparison with these and other similar poems and prophecies, the best things that the Greeks have written began to appear to me like mere “wisdom of word.”
As regards the time when Paul’s “good news” or “gospel” of “the righteous judgment” of God was to be fulfilled, I gathered that the judgments of God had been revealed to the apostle as having been working from the beginning of the world—seen, as it were, through openings in a veil—in the deluge, in the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, in the punishment of the Egyptians for persecuting Israel, in the punishments of Israel during and after the Exodus, and especially in their captivity and the destruction of their temple. But he seemed to believe that he had received also some special revelation about a judgment to fall upon the Jews, or upon all mankind, as soon as the gospel had been proclaimed to the world, but not before.
His language, however, varied. To the Philippians he spoke as though he were in doubt whether to desire to depart and to be with Christ, or to “remain in the flesh” for the sake of his converts. This shewed that he contemplated the possibility of his dying before the Lord’s coming. And this was made still clearer in some of his sayings to Timothy, such as “I have fought the good fight,” if taken with their contexts. But to the Thessalonians he wrote somewhat differently. It appeared that certain of them were grievously disappointed because some of their brethren had died before the Lord’s coming. Paul wrote to console them, saying that they, too—that is the dead brethren—would be raised up. “We that are alive,” he said, “shall in no wise precede them that are fallen asleep”—as though he anticipated that, on the day of the Coming, the greater number of the brethren, and he among them, would be still “alive.”
From several of these passages, and from similar words in the prophets, I gathered that, had he lived long enough to witness it, Paul would have considered the destruction of Jerusalem by Titus to have been a “day of the Lord” or “day of judgment.” But he was assured that the greatest day of all would not arrive till the sins of mankind had come to a head. Also it appeared to me that Paul did not profess to know when the last “judgment” would come to pass, and that he, like other Christians, at first expected it to come soon, and afterwards changed his mind.
Summing up the results of my study, I found that Paul’s gospel appeared to be good news in a double aspect, first outside us, then inside us. First, it said that man was made by a perfectly good God to be, in the end, perfectly good, but was allowed by the Maker to fall into imperfection, through Satan, as a step towards perfection. This could be seen in the history of God’s judgments from the beginning, but most of all in the fact that the Son of God, having been sent into the world as a son of David, for the salvation of all the nations of the earth, and having been killed by the Jews, had been raised from the dead to save and judge mankind in righteousness. Secondly, it said that there was in every human being a faculty of faith in the goodness and love and righteous judgments of God, and that this faith, when fixed on the Saviour, enabled men to receive His spirit of righteousness and His love, to await His judgments, and to lead a life of righteousness on earth followed by an immortality of blessedness in heaven.
Comparing this with the gospel of Epictetus I could not but feel that Paul’s was far more helpful, but also more difficult to believe. Yet it was not incredible. Epictetus himself recognised in Socrates some traces of a power to frame men to his own will. If Socrates the Athenian, and Diogenes the Sinopian, and others, whom God called “His own sons,” had this power in some degree, in proportion to their possession of a share of the divine Logos, why might not Jesus the Jew be regarded as possessing this power to the fullest extent, having the fulness of the Logos so that he could succeed where Socrates and Diogenes and Epictetus failed?
I write here “Jesus the Jew,” to shew that, at that time, I did not know that Jesus was called the Nazarene, nor had I any notion that he was born otherwise than naturally “of the seed of David.” But I clearly perceived that Paul placed Jesus far above all patriarchs and prophets. Also I think (but am not quite sure) that I already understood Paul to believe that the Son of God was Son from the beginning of the world, before taking flesh as “the seed of David”—but not in any miraculous way. About this point I did not employ my thoughts. The question for me was, Had this Jesus the power attributed to him by Paul’s gospel—to conform men to himself? I was obliged to answer, “Yes, with some men.” For the epistles had long ago compelled me to give up the notion that the Christians were a vicious, immoral, and rebellious sect. It was clear to me that they were above the average in morality. And as for Paul himself, I felt sure that Jesus had exerted this power over him, and, through him, over vast multitudes in various nations.
Now, too, having a clearer conception of Paul’s gospel, I began to understand better something that had perplexed me a good deal on the first reading—I mean Paul’s description to the Galatians of the course he took immediately after his conversion. I had expected that he would have said something to this effect, “You Galatians are revolting from my gospel. But it is the true gospel. I have told you the truth about all Christ’s words and deeds. It is true that I did not know Him—or hear Him, or even see Him—in the flesh. But after I was converted, I took great pains to ascertain as soon as possible, from those who had known Him in the flesh, all that He did and said. I wrote down these traditions at once, and read them again and again till I knew them by heart. These are the traditions I gave you.” This is what I had expected Paul to say. But what I found him actually saying to the Galatians was this: “I make known unto you brethren, as to the gospel preached by me, that it is not on any human footing, nor did I receive it from any human being, nor was I taught it as teaching, but [it came to me] through revelation of Jesus Christ.”
What he meant by “gospel” was—I now perceived—not Christ’s teaching before the resurrection, but His teaching after the resurrection. And this included an unfolding of the will of God as revealed in the scriptures and in all the history of Israel. This appeared in what followed. The Galatians all knew (he said) how bitterly he had persecuted the Christians. For he had been a most bigoted and bitter zealot of strict Judaism. But, said he, “When it pleased God to reveal His Son in me that I might preach His good tidings among the nations, straightway I conferred not with flesh and blood, nor went I up to Jerusalem to those that were apostles before me, but I went away to Arabia.” Afterwards (but not in this context) he spoke of “Mount Sinai in Arabia.” Sinai being the place where Moses received the revelation of the old Law, and where Elijah, too, received the revelation of the “still small voice,” I had assumed (at the time of reading the epistle) that Paul went to Mount Sinai in Arabia that he also might receive his revelation of the new Law of Christ. Perhaps, however, it merely meant that he wished to be alone. If so, I was wrong. But it does not seem to me, even now, wrong to infer that, all through that sojourn in Arabia, Paul was in communion with that same Jesus Christ, who had recently appeared to him, and who had converted him from an enemy into a friend.
The same Galatian letter described Paul as not going up to Jerusalem till “three years” had elapsed. Even then he remained only “fifteen days” in Jerusalem, and saw (as I gathered) only one or two of the apostles, and did not go up again till “after the space of fourteen years.” All these details about time he appeared to add, not out of any jealousy of the older apostles, but to shew that he did not attach importance to the things that Christ had said “in the flesh,” before death, in comparison with the things that He had said after death, “being raised up according to the spirit of holiness.” And who could be surprised at this? The things that Christ said after death, when He had been “defined as Son of God from the resurrection of the dead”—how should not these be more deeply impressed upon the mind of the hearers, and also be most deep and spiritual in themselves, being reserved till the disciples were spiritually prepared to receive them?
So the gospel of Paul resolved itself into this, that God, having decreed from the beginning that men should love Him as Father and one another as brethren, had sent His Son into the world to enable them to do this, by dying for them, and by imparting to them His Spirit. The Son dictated no code of laws to obey. All that He asked was faith in Himself as the Son of God, dying for men, and victorious over sin and death. This seemed simple, but its simplicity did not deceive me into imagining that I believed it. “That is all that is needed,” said I, as I closed the volume of the epistles; “but it is more than I possess, or can possess. Paul’s gospel is not a message but a person. It is, as he says somewhere, ‘Christ, dwelling in the heart through faith.’ I feel no such indwelling. In the gospel of Epictetus I am neither able nor willing to believe. I might perhaps be willing, but I am not able, to believe in the gospel of Paul.”
CHAPTER XVII
EPICTETUS CONFESSES FAILURE
From such thoughts about my own desires and inabilities it was a relief to turn to some definite matter of fact. I had been spending several hours in attempting to find out what Paul’s gospel was. But what was Christ’s gospel, so far as it could be gathered from the epistles? This I had made no attempt to discover. “Epictetus,” I reflected, “though he does not profess to teach a gospel of Socrates or Diogenes, yet frequently quotes from them. Might I not expect to find at least a few words of Christ—whether uttered before or after the resurrection—quoted here and there in some at least of these numerous letters?” Hitherto I had met with none. But now, on rapidly unrolling the volume and searching onwards from the end of the epistle to the Romans, I came to a quotation that had escaped me. It was in the first of the Corinthian letters, following immediately after some details (not of great interest) about women’s head-covering. I had just time to note that the passage contained the words “the Lord Jesus said,” and “on the night on which he was delivered over,” when my servant announced that Glaucus wished to see me, and I put the book aside.
Ostensibly Glaucus had come to compare some of his lecture notes with mine. But I soon found that his real object was to forget his troubles in the society of a friend. To forget them, not to reveal them. He avoided anything that might lead to personal questions, and I respected his reticence. When, however, he rose to go, he made some remark on the difficulty of retaining the imperturbability on which Epictetus was always insisting, “under the sword of Damocles.” Knowing vaguely that his alarm was not for himself but for others, I suggested that he might return at once to Corinth. “I would do so,” he said, “but my father expressly bids me remain at Nicopolis.” He said this uneasily, and with a wistful look, as though he suspected that something was amiss and longed for advice. “If action of any kind is possible,” said I, “take it. If not—.” Then I stopped. “Well,” said he, “‘if not’—.” He waited for me to complete my sentence. I would gladly have left it uncompleted. For the truth was that I had begun the sentence in one mood and was being called on to complete it in another. When I said, “If not,” I had a flash of faith coming with a sudden memory of Isaiah’s message about God as the Shepherd of the stars and his exhortation to “wait patiently on the Lord.” But it had vanished and left me in the dark. “‘If not’—,” repeated Glaucus for the second time. I ought to have replied, “Then at least keep yourself ready for action.” What I did say, or stammer out, was, something about “waiting and trusting.”
Glaucus looked hard at me. “‘Wait and trust!’ That is to say, ‘Wait and believe.’ That is not like you, Silanus. You don’t mean it, I see. It is not like you to say what you don’t mean. I would sooner have heard you repeat your old friend Scaurus’s advice, which was more like ‘Wake and disbelieve.’ ‘Wait,’ say you, ‘and trust.’ Trust whom? Wait for what? Wait for the river of time to run dry? I have kept you up too late. Sleep well, and may sleep bring you better counsel for me!” So saying, he departed, but turned at the door to fling a final jibe at me, “Silanus, you are a Roman and I am only a Greek. But you must not think we Greeks are quite ignorant of your Horace. And what says he about waiting? Rusticus expectat: ‘Hodge sits by the river.’ Farewell, and sleep well.”
This was bitter medicine; but I had deserved it, and it did me good. My cheeks burned with shame as I recalled his words “It is not like you to say what you don’t mean.” Had I come to this? Was this the result of my study of these Jewish writings? And yet, did I not “mean” it? Was not the fact rather this, that in my own mind I did to some extent mean and believe it? But it was a dormant belief. And I had no power to communicate it to others. Then I perceived the reason. I had said “Wait and trust.” But Isaiah said “Wait thou upon the Lord.” In preaching my gospel to Glaucus I had left out “the Lord”—the life and soul of the precept! If “the Lord” had been in me, as He was in Isaiah and in Paul, I could not have left Him out. But I left Him out because He was not in me. The truth was that I had no true gospel to preach.
In great dejection I was on the point of retiring to rest when it occurred to me that I had left unfinished, and indeed hardly begun, the study of Christ’s words in the Corinthian epistle. Too weary to resume it now, I extinguished the light and flung myself down to forget in sleep all thought of study. But I could not forget. All through the dreams of a restless and troubled night ran threads of tangled imaginations about what those words would prove to be, intertwined with other imaginations about the words of Christ to Paul at his conversion. Along with these came shadows or shapes, with voices or voice-like sounds:—Epictetus gazing on the burning Christians in Rome, Paul listening to the voice of Christ near Damascus, Elijah on Horeb amid the roar of the tempest. Last of all, I myself, Silanus, stood at the door of a chamber in Jerusalem where Christ (I knew) was present with His disciples, and from this chamber there began to steal forth a still small voice, breathing and spreading everywhere an unspeakable peace—when a whirlwind scattered everything and hurried me away to the Neronian gardens in Rome.
There, someone, masked, took me by the hand and forced me to look at the Christian martyrs whom he was causing to be tortured. I thought it was Nero. But the mask fell off and it was Paul. The martyrs looked down on us and blessed us. Paul trembled but held me fast. I felt that I had become one with him, a persecutor and a murderer. They all looked up to heaven as though they saw something there. At that, Paul vanished, with a loud cry, leaving me alone. Fear fell upon me lest, if I looked up, I should see that which the martyrs saw. So I kept my eyes fixed on the ground. But the blessings of those whom I had persecuted seemed to enter into me taking me captive and forcing me to do as they did. Then I too looked up. And I saw—that which they saw, Jesus the crucified. I tried to cry out “I see nothing, I see nothing,” but my voice would not speak. I struggled to regain control over my tongue, and in the struggle I awoke.
I had dreamed long past my usual hour for rising; and the lecture was already beginning when I took my seat next Glaucus. It was a relief to me to find him there; for his late outbreak of bitterness had made me fear that he might prove a deserter. Epictetus was describing man as being the work of a divine Artist, a wonderful sculpture, he said, superior to the Athene of Phidias. Appealing to us individually, “God,” he said, “has not only created you, but has also trusted you to yourself alone, and committed the guardianship of you to yourself, saying ‘I had no one more trustworthy than yourself to take charge of yourself. Preserve this person for me, such as he is by nature, modest, faithful, magnanimous’”—and he added many other eulogistic epithets. Here Glaucus passed me his notes with a bitter smile, pointing to the words “preserve me this person such as he is by nature.” He had marked them with a query. Nor could I help querying them in my mind. I felt that at all events they were liable to be interpreted in a ridiculous way. My thought was, “Paul bids us trust in God or in the Son of God. Epictetus never does this. But here he says that God trusts us to ourselves. Does He then trust babies to preserve themselves? And if not, when does He begin to trust us—whether as boys or as youths or as men—to preserve ourselves as we are by nature?” And here I may say that, as regards belief, or trust, or faith, Epictetus differed altogether from Paul. The former inveighed against babblers, who “trust” their secrets to strangers, and against the Academic philosopher for saying “Believe me it is impossible to find anything to be believed in.” But he never insisted (as Paul does) on the marvellous power possessed by a well-based belief or faith to influence men’s lives for good. For the most part Epictetus used the word “belief,” like the words “pity” and “prayer,” in a bad sense.
But to return to the lecture. In order to illustrate his favourite topic of the necessity of seeking happiness in oneself, Epictetus, as it were, called up Medea on the stage, expostulating with her for her want of self-control: “Do not desire your husband, then none of your desires will fail to be realised.” She complained that she was to be banished from Corinth. “Well,” said he, “Do not desire to remain in Corinth.” He concluded by advising her to desire that which God desires. “And then,” said he, “who will hinder or constrain you any more than Zeus is constrained?” To me, even as a dramatic illustration, such advice seemed grotesque. Nor was it a good preparation for what followed, in which he bade us give up desires and passions relating, not only to honour and office, but also to country, friends, children: “Give them all up freely to Zeus and to the other Gods. Make a complete surrender to the Gods. Let the Gods be your pilots. Let your desires be with them. Then how can your voyage be unprosperous? But if you envy, if you pity, if you are jealous, if you are timid, how do you dare to call yourself a philosopher?”
I could perceive that Glaucus was ill pleased at this, and especially at the connexion of “pity” with “envy”—though it was not the first time, nor the last, that I heard Epictetus speak of “pity” in this contemptuous way. Perhaps others were in the same mood as Glaucus, and perhaps our Teacher felt it. If he did, he at all events made no effort to smooth away what he had said. Far from it, he seemed to harden himself in order to reproach us for our slackness and for being philosophers only in name. “Observe and test yourselves,” he exclaimed, “and find out what your philosophy really is. You are Epicureans—barring perhaps a few weak-kneed Peripatetics. Stoic reasonings, of course, you have in plenty. But shew me a Stoic man! Shew me only one! By the Gods, I long, I long to see one Stoic man. But perhaps you have one—only not as yet quite completed? Shew him, then, uncompleted! Shew him to me a little way towards completion! I am an old man now. Do me this one last kindness! Do not grudge me this boon—a sight that up to this day my eyes have never enjoyed!”
We were all very quiet at this outburst, so unusual in our Teacher. Two or three youths near my seat seemed stimulated rather than depressed. But to me it seemed a sad confession of failure, amounting, in effect, to this, “I have taught from the days of Vespasian to the second year of Hadrian. My business has been to produce Stoics. Up to this day, a real Stoic is”—these were his words—“a sight that up to this day my eyes have never enjoyed.” What a contrast, thought I, between my Teacher (for “mine” I still called him) and that other, the Jew, Paul, (whom I refused to call “mine”) who numbered his pupils by cities, and whose campaigns from Jerusalem to Rome, through Asia and Greece, had been a succession of victories, leading trains of prisoners captive under the banner of the Crucified!
What followed amazed me, forcing me to the conclusion that Epictetus was profoundly ignorant of human nature, at all events of our nature, and perhaps of his own. For instead of saying, “We have been on the wrong road,” or “You have not the power to walk, and I have not the power to make you walk,” he found fault with himself and us, without attempting to shew what the fault was. At first it seemed our lack of noble ambition. “Not one of you,” he exclaimed, “desires, from being man, to pass into becoming God. Not one of you is planning how he may pass through the dungeon of this paltry body to fellowship with Zeus!” But then he shifted his ground, saying, in effect, “I am your teacher. You are my pupils. My aim is so to perfect your characters that each of you may live unrestrained, uncoerced, unhindered, unshackled, free, prosperous, blessed, looking to God alone in every matter great or small. You, on your side, come here to learn and to practise these things. Why, then, do you fail to do the work in hand, if you on your side have the right aim, object, and purpose, and I on my side—in addition to right aim, object, and purpose—have the right preparation? What is deficient?”
Here was our Master assuming as absolutely certain that he had “the right preparation”! But that was just the point on which I had long felt doubtful, and was now beginning to feel absolutely certain in a negative sense. However, he continued with the same perfect confidence in himself and in the practicability of his theory, “I am the carpenter, you the material. If the work is practicable, and yet is not completed, the fault must rest with you or with me.” Then he concluded with the following personal appeal; these were his exact words, “Is not this matter”—he meant the art of living as a son of Zeus, free, and in perfect peace—“capable of being taught? It is. Is it not in our own hands? Nay, it is the only thing that is in our own hands. Wealth is not in our own hands, health is not, reputation is not. Nothing is—except the right use of our imaginations. This is the only thing that is by nature ours, unpreventable, unhinderable. Why do you not perform it then? Tell me the reason. Your non-performance is either my fault, or your fault, or the natural and inherent fault of our business. Now our business, in itself, is practicable, and is indeed the only business that is always practicable. It remains, then, that the fault rests either with me, or with you, or, which is nearer the truth, with both of us. What is to be done, then? Are you willing that we should begin together, at last though late, to bring this purpose into effect? Let bygones be bygones. Only let us begin. Believe me, and you will see.”
With that, he dismissed us. I was curious to know what Glaucus thought of it, so I waited for him to speak. To my surprise, he said, “It is not often that the Master speaks in this way or suggests that he himself may be in fault. Who knows? He may have something new in store. I felt so angry with him at the beginning of the lecture that I was within an ace of going straight out. But now, as he says, ‘Let bygones be bygones.’ I shall go on with him a little longer. What say you? For the most part he is too cold for me, always talking about the Logos within us, and the God within us, as though I, Glaucus the son of Adeimantus, who need the help of all the Gods that are, were myself all the God that I needed! He chills me with his Logos. But when he appealed to us in that personal way ‘Believe me,’ he gave me quite a new sensation. Did it not stir you? I don’t think I ever heard him say that before.”
“It did stir me,” said I, “and I am sure I never heard him say it before. Plato represents Socrates as always persuading his hearers to ‘follow the Logos,’ not to follow Socrates; and Epictetus, for the most part, uses similar language. For the rest, I am not sure that our Master will do me all the good I had hoped. But I shall do as you do. We shall still sit, I hope, together.” So we parted.
I had not said more than the truth. Epictetus had stirred me, but not in the way in which he had stirred Glaucus. “Let bygones be bygones”—the “bygones” of nearly forty years! Why were they to be “bygones”? Had they no lesson to teach? Did they not suggest that for forty years Epictetus had been on the road to failure and that he had consequently failed? Could I believe that during all that time Epictetus himself had been deficient in “purpose”? Not for a day! Not for a moment!
As I sat down to revise the notes of my lecture, it occurred to me that Glaucus—who was of a much less settled temperament than Arrian—must have heard better news from home, and that this helped him to take a brighter view of things in general and of philosophy in particular. “If my old friend were here,” said I, “would he not regard Glaucus’s change of mood as one more instance of Epictetus’s power to ‘make his hearers feel precisely what he desired them to feel’? But what if I went on to say that this ‘power’ was mere rhetoric, not indeed ‘wisdom of word’ in the sense of hair-splitting logic, but ‘wisdom of speech,’ the knowledge of the language and imagery best fitted to stir the emotions? What would Arrian say to that?”
I mentally constructed a dialogue between us. “There is something more, Silanus.” “But what more?” “That I do not know. Only I know there is something more behind.” Then Scaurus’s explanation recurred to me of that “something more behind.” For Scaurus had asserted that Epictetus had been touched by what he called the Christian superstition, which, although he had shaken it off, had left in his mind a blank, a vacant niche, which he vainly tried to fill with the image of a Hercules or a Diogenes. That brought back to my thoughts Scaurus’s first mention of “Christus”; and then it came upon me as a shock that I had spent half-an-hour in my rooms, musing over Epictetus and Glaucus and Arrian, and there, on the table before me, was Paul’s first epistle to the Corinthians containing his only quotation of the words of the Lord, and I had taken no notice of it. So I put my notes aside and unrolled the epistle.
CHAPTER XVIII
PAUL’S ONLY RECORD OF WORDS OF CHRIST
The first words of the sentence were, “For I received from the Lord”—he emphasized “I,” as though it meant “I myself,” or “Whatever others may have received, I received so and so”—“that which I also delivered over to you, that the Lord Jesus, on the night on which he was to be delivered over.…” Here I paused and looked back, to see what “for” meant (in “for I received”) and why Paul was introducing this saying of the Lord. I found that the apostle had been warning the Corinthians thus, “Ye meet together, not for the better, but for the worse.” In the first place, he said, there were dissensions among them, and in the next place, “When ye come together it is not possible to eat the Lord’s Supper, for each one taketh his own supper, and one is hungry while another is drunken.” Then I understood that the Lord’s Supper meant that same Christian feast of which Arrian had spoken. This interested me because in Rome, as a boy, I had heard it said that the Christians partook of “a Thyestean meal,” that is, they killed children and served up the flesh to the parents. This I do not think I had myself believed, except perhaps in the nursery; but it was commonly taken as truth among the lower classes in Rome.
Now I perceived that the meal was to have been a joint one—like that of the Spartan public meals or syssitia, where all fed alike. But in that luxurious city of Corinth many of the Christians had introduced Corinthian luxury and turned the public meal into a group of private meals, so that some had too little and others too much. Paul tried to bring them back to better things by telling them what Christ said to his disciples on the night of his last meal, “the night on which he was to be delivered over.” He implied that their meal ought to have been like Christ’s last meal; and now the question for me was, what that, the Lord’s Supper, was like.
But first I had to ask myself the meaning of Christ’s being “delivered over.” About this I had no doubt that it referred to the prophecy in Isaiah concerning the Suffering Servant, who “was delivered over on account of our sins.” These words Paul had quoted in the epistle to the Romans, and he elsewhere spoke of God, or the Father, as “giving,” or “delivering over,” the Son for the salvation of mankind. Now both Isaiah and Paul had made it quite clear that the Servant, or Son, thus “delivered over” by the Father, goes voluntarily to death, and this I assumed to be the case here. But I did not know by what agency God was said to have “delivered him over.” I thought it might be by a warning or dæmonic voice, as in the case of Socrates, bidding him surrender himself to the laws of his country. Or Christ’s own people, the citizens of Jerusalem, might have delivered him up to Pilate, to procure their own exemption from punishment on account of some rebellion or sedition. Or he might be said to have been delivered over by a decree of Fate, to which he voluntarily submitted.
So much was I in the dark that for a moment I thought of Christ as fighting at the head of an army of his countrymen and giving himself up for their sakes, like Protesilaus or the Decii; and I tried to picture Christ doing this, or something like this. But I failed. Still I was being guided rightly so far as this, that I began faintly to recognise that this “delivering over” might be not a mere propitiation of Nemesis, occurring now and then in battles, but part of the laws of the Cosmopolis, occurring often when a deliverance is to be wrought for any community of men. Of such a propitiation Protesilaus was the symbol, concerning whom Homer says,