Are they ministers of Christ? (I am talking like a madman) I more; in labours more abundantly, in prisons more abundantly, in stripes very exceedingly, in deaths often.' This last point is again stronger than the other three, and, like 'I am more a minister of Christ than they are,' it receives explanation in detail. In giving the experiences which brought him so near to death he groups them according as they were caused by the violence of Jews, or of Gentiles, or of nature. 'in deaths ofien. Of the Jews five times received I forty stripes save one. once was I stoned. Thrice I suffered shipwreck; a night and a day have I been in the deep.' Then we have another subordinate heading, similar to 'in deaths often'; and under this new heading four pairs of details show what is involved in it, the first three being pairs of contrasts. 'By journeyings often; perils of rivers, perils of robbers, perils from my countrymen, perils from Gentiles, perils in the sea, perils among false brethren.' There is balance and resonance in what follows, but the clauses do not seem to belong any longer to the subordinate heading, 'By journeyings often,' but rather to be additional items in the evidence that he is a true minister of Christ. 'By labour and travail, in watchings often, In hunger and thirst, in fastings often, In cold and nakedness.' Here there is a blank, which forms an effective pause. The pause indicates that the list of frequent trials is closed; and thus we are prepared for the mention of a trouble which never leaves him. This in turn is briefly explained; and then the self-assertion, which has been forced upon him by his opponents and their followers, is closed by a solemn declaration that God knows that it is all true. 'Besides those things which I omit, my anxiety for all the Churches. Who is weak, and I am not weak? Who is made to stumble, and I burn not? If I must needs glory, I will glory of the things which concern my weakness. He that is blessed for evermore, knoweth that I lie not.' The effect of this lofty flight of eloquence is heightened by contrast with the prosaic statement of a simple matter of fact, the escape from Damascus, which immediately follows it (xi. 30, 33). Some of the above examples are discussed by J. Weiss, and he gives many more from other Epistles of S. Paul. But the question, how far the Apostle had studied oratory, cannot yet be answered with certainty. 142, 144 affirmative or interrogative, 92, 125, 127, 128 alliteration, 3, 24, 58, 82, 86, 150 ambassadors, ministers as, 56 American Revisers, 70 angel of Satan, 120 anointing, 16 Antipas, Herod, 113 aorist, epistolary, 19, 81, 84 55, 57, 67, 70, 79, 98, 123, 129 Apostles, false, 99, 103, 123 Aquinas, Thomas, 141 Arnold, Matthew, 90 article, inaccuracy in the A.V. asyndeton, 52, 104, 106, 122 Augustine, 39, 56, 86, 119, 138, 141 Barbarossa, IIO Barnabas, 75, 82, 110 Benediction, 133 Bede, 122 Bengel, 21, 25, 53, 89, 134 Briggs, 79 'brother,' 2, 82, 83 Caligula, 113 Calvin, 29, 43, 142 changes of number, chapters badly divided, 18, 37, 46 of levity, II of severity, 20, 67 of refusing maintenance, 100, Chrysostom, 17, 39, 43, 103, 140 Clement of Alexandria, 46, 116, ' earnest,' or 'pledge,' 16, 49 Enoch, Book of, 49, 86 epistolary aorist, 19, 81, 84 ethnarch, 113 excisions proposed from the text, false apostles, 99, 103, 123 fastings, 59, III 'flesh,' meaning of in S. Paul, James, M. R., 137, 139 Kennedy, 17, 22, 96 Napoleon, 143 new covenant, 31 new creature, 55 offender at Corinth, the great, 20 pageant, S. Paul made to be a, Palestine relief fund, 74, 81, 85, Paley, 29, 74, 102 perfect, force of the Greek, 52, Philo, 91 Philopatris, 137 Plautus, 143 play upon words, 10, 29, 41, 61, plural and singular interchanged, 4, 17, 131 Polycarp, 29, 144 poverty at Jerusalem, 74 Primasius, 140, 141 'primitive error in the text, 118 punctuation of the A.V. defective, quotations from S. Paul's oppo- nents, 100, IOI, 123 Rabbinical sayings, 86, 97 Ramsay, 119, 120, 136, 144, 145 reconciliation to God, 55, 56 rhetoric of S. Paul, 45, 57, 106, 'saints,' 2, 133 Sanday, 1, 20, 124, 134 Second Advent, 11, 44, 48, 51, 97 |