St. Paul’s constitution, if somewhat stunted and sickly, must have been nevertheless of a tough and stout fibre. His arduous travels, attended for many years with the double strain of manual and intellectual labour, above all the catalogue of his hardships in 2 Co 11, bespeak in him a man of exceptional vitality and nervous energy. And, in spite of his uncomeliness, he exerted a rare personal fascination. ‘Rude in speech’ as he was to a fastidious Greek ear, his charm of manner and the incisive force and sympathetic aptness of his address commanded a hearing from all kinds of assemblies. He could never Ἧς: listened to with indifference. His preaching excited warm assent or contradiction. He set all minds astir and in debate around him; his presence and discourse acted like an electric current that drives to opposite poles the mingled elements through which it passes (Ac 13 144 etc., 2 Co 214-16),
The emotional nature of the apostle counted for as much in the effects of his eloquence as did his intellectual powers. His temperament was choleric and impetuous, his nervous organism finely strung and quivering with sensibility. There was nothing in him of the impassive Stoic. His affections towards his converts were those of a mother or a lover, rather than of a pastor. He ‘travailed a second time in birth over’ the un- toward Galatians, ‘till Christ should be formed in’ them (4; cf. 2 Co 11”, 1 Th 27-8), ‘Now we live,’ he writes to the Thess., ‘if you stand fast in the Lord’ (1 Th 3510), The attacks of sickness and the anxieties and disappointments of his calling threw him at times into paroxysms of anguish. But his mental buoyancy and elasticit; were equally marked; his ‘consolation throug Christ’ brought him an exultancy proportioned to the depth of grief in which he shared ‘the suffer-
PAUL THE APOSTLE
ings of Christ’ (1 Co 2° 1551-83, 2 Co 1511 47-11 74-6 Col 1%, Eph 34, Ph 2)7-15), His letters—esp. 2 Co, Gal, Ph, 2 Ti—reflect the ardour and quick re- sponsiveness of the apostle’s feelings, his sudden
ternations of mood, the conflicts of fear and hope, of affection and indignation, by which his soul could be torn and tossed. This lively play of emotion, expressed by look and gesture (e.g. Ac 13° 141214 20% 231-6 26!, Gal 3}, Ph 318, etc.) but held under the firm control of judgment, gave a peculiar animation to Paul’s discourse, which, how- ever abrupt and unpolished in phrase, was arrest- ing and affecting in the highest degree. He spoke from the heart and to the heart. The effectiveness of his utterance he ascribed to the energy of the Spirit of Christ possessing his mind; he was con- scious of ‘Christ speaking’ in him; a Divine force ‘energized mightily’ through his ‘wrestling’ of spirit and of speech (2 Co 135, Col 1”, 1 Th 15, ete.).
ere was the true secret of St. Paul’s transcendent power. Before everything else he was a πνευμα- 7ixés—a man of the largest spiritual capacity, filled with the living Spirit of Jesus Christ. If we must admit a fault, his vehemence was apt to break out into a heat and haste of temper, mani- fested occasionally in expressions which he was disposed afterwards to regret (see Ac 1539 235; and perhaps 2 Co 78:9, Gal 51%).
St. Paul shared eminently in the supernatural experiences and χαρίσματα special to the apostolic age, as well as in the permanent and normal en- dowments of the Church. He exercised miraculous powers of healing and of discipline (Ac 13°" 14% 1, 1Co 421 5%, 2Co 131-10), though he did not regard these as the chief ‘signs of the apostle’ (2 Co 118% 1212-14 31-8), He ‘spoke with tongues more than all,’ but thought this an inferior gift (1 Co 148°), In ‘visions and revelations of the Lord’ no one could rival him (2 Co 12!-*); he had been once ‘caught up into paradise, and heard unspeakable words.’ To Paul the living God, the Lord Christ, the indwelling Spirit, the unseen world, were immediate and overwhelming realities.
His thorn in the flesh (or rather, thorn for the Slesh, σκόλοψ τῇ σαρκί) is connected by himself with his unique experiences of trance and vision (2 Co 119. The former served as a kind of counter- poise to the latter: ‘ Because of the excess of the revelations, that I might not be excessively lifted up, there was given to me a thorn for my flesh, an angel of Satan sent to buffet me,—that I might not be excessively lifted up.’ We gather that this infliction was bodily in nature, acutely painful and humiliating, prostrating in effect, and repeated in occurrence (ὑπεραίρωμαι and κολαφίζῃ are both Greek presents of recurrent action); that it was also mysterious in origin, and such as to be fitly associated with the working of a malignant unseen power. From the connexion of ν. with the fore- oing context, it appears probable that the out- reak of this te attended Paul’s supreme vision, ‘fourteen years’ previously to 2Co (i.e. about A.D. 43), when in a state of trance (vv.* 3) he was ‘seized and caught up into paradise and heard muspeakeie words.’ e ‘thorn’ attached itself to this "ὑπερβολή of the revelations’ (cf. Gn 320. 81), in which the apostle ‘exults’ as he writes, and which, he feels, might otherwise have excited him to an unholy pride; this cruel affliction was therefore used by God for a merciful end. Hence the Lord, though thrice besought, did not remove the evil; He allowed ‘Satan’s angel’ ‘to buffet’ His servant; but He promised e sufficient for endurance, and assured the sufferer that ‘ power is perfected in weakness.’ Thus Paul learnt to glory in this as in other weaknesses and injuries, and had indeed found himself strongest when nature was most beaten down (vv.* 19).