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At no point in his career does Paul's greatness appear more than now in his relations with Judaeo-Christianity. Equally above the doctrinaire temper and that of mere opportunism, he acted as a true missionary statesman, with his eye both on the larger future and the limiting present. As he himself obeyed the principle of concern for others' good by conforming his own practice to cer tain Jewish forms of piety (I Cor. ix. 19 seq., 2 2) ; so he was ready to enjoin on Gentiles abstinence from blood, simply as a thing abhorrent to Jewish sentiment. His was the spirit of a strong man, who can afford and loves to be generous, for the greater good of all. This is the key to his conduct all along, to keep in touch with Jerusalem, including repeated visits, in order to remove prejudice against him due to rumours.
Not long after this concordat Paul proposed to Barnabas a visitation of the churches they had jointly founded. But Barnabas made the reinstatement of John Mark as their helper a condition of so doing. To this Paul demurred on the ground that he could not be relied upon in all emergencies. Each went to his own sphere of work, Barnabas to Cyprus and Paul towards Asia Minor; and we never again read of them as together, though Paul later refers to his old colleague in kindly terms (I Cor. ix. 6 and Col. iv. io). He found a col league in Silas (Silvanus), a "leading" man in the Jerusalem Church, but like himself a Roman citizen (Acts xvi. 37, 39) ; and started with the goodwill of the Antiochene Church, probably in summer A.D. 5o. His way lay through churches of his own foundation, in one of which he found a helper to replace Mark, Timothy of Lystra, who was to be as a son to him up to the very end. Confident in the conciliatory spirit of both sides in the concordat, and anxious to show how ready he was to consider Jewish feeling where Gentile freedom was not involved, he cir cumcised this young semi-Jew before taking him as his associate into regions where work would still lie largely among Jews.
But the secondary issues of this visit were among the bitterest in Paul's life, owing to the unscrupulous action of Judaizers who, in his absence, began a subtle propaganda amongst his converts in this region. Had not Paul himself confessed the value of circumcision (v. I I) in the case of Timothy, the son of a Gentile father? As for his earlier policy, it must have been due simply to a wish to humour his converts' prejudices (i. io), to begin with. At any rate the gospel they now brought
was the authentic Apostolic Gospel; and if Paul's did differ from it, so much the worse for his gospel, since it could in no case claim to be other than derived from theirs (i. 1-9, II seq.). How plausible must such a plea have seemed to inexperienced Gentile converts, "bewitching" their minds away from the central facts: Christ crucified and the free gift of the Spirit through faith in Him. But how disingenuous as regards Paul's real position! Can we wonder at the indignation of his reply, and that he was goaded on to pass a counter-judgment upon their motives too sweepingly severe (vi.
seq.)? In any case the gross abuse by the Judaizers of Paul's promulgation of the "abstinences" in Galatia fully explains his contrary practice elsewhere.
Paul left his Galatian converts about autumn A.D. 5o, for the adjacent province. "Asia." But not even yet was he to preach there, being diverted by something in which he saw the divine hand ; and when later he tried to enter Bithynia, he was again turned aside by "the spirit of Jesus." His course seemed open only westwards to the coast, which was reached at Troas, a chief port of transit from Asia to Macedonia. It was a new departure to which Paul there found himself summoned, when in a night-vision "a certain Macedonian" stood as if entreat ing him : "Come over into Macedonia and help us." Here was the positive guidance to which two negative divine interventions had been leading up. Paul hesitated not a moment, though the idea was bolder than that of his own frustrated plan. "Straight way," in the words of Luke, "we sought to go forth into Mace donia, concluding that God had called us to preach the Gospel unto them." The mission began at Philippi, a Roman colonic. Here the Jewish settlement, in which as usual Paul sought first to gain a footing, was a small one, consisting in the main of women—who enjoyed much freedom in Macedonian society. But the normal extension of his work was cut short by an incident characteristic both of the age and of the way in which the f or tunes of the Gospel were affected by the vested interests around it. The story of Paul's imprisonment again illustrates his quiet mastery of any situation. Next came Thessalonica, the real cap ital of the province (see THESSALONIANS).