Chapter IV: Part 4

Then when the sailors had sounded and had found the water growing shallow they threw out four anchors and waited for morning to come. We have just seen that Paul had four anchors, too—four anchors to his soul: “I believe God”; “His I am”; “Him I serve”; “He has given me those who sail with me.” In the morning they loosened the four anchors and let the sea drive the ship toward the shore at a place where two seas met and formed a cove, and there they beached it. The force of the waves broke the ship to pieces and the soldiers were for killing all the prisoners but the centurion had learned to respect Paul and was determined to save him, so that he allowed everybody on board to swim or float to shore and all were saved. The island turned out to be Malta, south of Sicily. Here the ship’s crew and the soldiers and the prisoners spent three months. Paul was able here once again to preach to the people and he worked wonders among them. At the end of the three months they started out again on the treacherous sea to complete the journey. The ship on which they sailed from Malta bore the sign of “the Twins,” Castor and Pollux, who were supposed by the Romans to be the guardians of sailors. The new ship touched at Syracuse, the famous capital of Sicily, where Plato had come with his wisdom, and, after two days, it brought its precious load into port at Puteoli, near Naples, in sight of a beautiful, quiet mountain peak, named Vesuvius, which, a few years later, was to spout lava and cinders over the towns lying on the shores of this wonderful blue bay. Here in the Italian port, Paul found a group of Christian believers who greatly refreshed him, and his kind centurion allowed him to stay there an entire week. These Christians at Puteoli were the first people in Italy to hear the great teacher of the new way of life. Then on foot or by horses, the strange troop wound up the glorious valley, leading from Puteoli to Rome. At the Forum of Appius, about ten miles out of the imperial city, a band of Roman Christians came to meet him as though he were a hero coming in triumph to their city. They found a prisoner kept by soldiers. When Paul saw these devoted Christian men coming to share their love and fellowship with him he forgot all about being a prisoner. Here were dear friends who loved him and that was enough. The long and arduous journey of many months was over. Here in front was Rome. Nero might be there, and his court and prison might be waiting for him, but the most important thing was that there was a church of Christ in Rome and Paul could see the members and make the church grow larger!

XXI

THE TRIUMPH OF THE HERO

“I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ,” Paul had said in his letter to Rome. “It is the _power_ of God.” Rome was the most powerful city the world had ever seen up to that time. Its armies had gone everywhere and this city on the Tiber had become the conqueror of all lands and peoples. Out from the capital of the empire the roads ran like the spokes of a wheel from the hub, and the soldiers marched forth from this centre to subdue countries and to hold them wherever the emperor wished to send them. Here was power which all eyes could see and which all men could feel. Over against this visible power, Paul knew that he had discovered a new kind of power. It could not be seen as armies could be seen, but it changed lives and it remade cities and it upheld and supported men and women in the hardest suffering and trial. Here was this man now bound with chains, guarded by soldiers, a prisoner of the emperor’s, weak, frail, alone, but in reality the bravest, strongest, most powerful man in the whole empire. Nero is dead now. His empire has passed away. But Paul is still a mighty power in the world. Eight million copies of his letters are sold every year. Everybody reads what he wrote and he still goes on working in the world as though he were yet alive and speaking.

At first, when he came to Rome, he was treated kindly and was allowed to have his own house, though of course he was under the care of Roman soldiers. The guard was changed every day so that he constantly had new soldiers by him. It gave him a splendid chance to preach his gospel to the Roman army, for he would surely never let a soldier stay all day by him without telling him of Christ. It must have _worked_, too, for, in his letter to the church at Philippi, he writes that “the saints in Cæsar’s household send greetings,” and he also says that he has been able to spread the news of Christ through the whole prætorian guard. Perhaps he did more as a prisoner than he could have done as a travelling preacher. Paul was the kind of man that would appeal to soldiers. They could see at once that he was as brave as they were, and they could feel that he was in his way a hero, and they were ready to listen to his story and we may be sure that many of them went back to Cæsar’s palace changed into “saints.” Others went out with the army and carried the truth about Christ into the lands where they were stationed. “It has all happened right,” Paul wrote to his friends. “My chains have helped to spread the gospel!”

During the first part of the time in Rome, Paul expected to be freed. He thought his trial would come off favourably, and he was full of hope. In this early period he wrote a beautiful letter to his friend Philemon, who lived in Asia. He told this friend that he expected soon to be free and he playfully added you can get me a lodging, for I shall be coming to Asia before long. He had found in Rome a run-away slave that belonged to Philemon. He had told the slave, who was named Onesimus, about Christ and Onesimus had become a follower of Christ. Paul sent him back to his master, changed from a slave to a brother and Paul calls him his “own son in Christ.” This was the way Paul’s gospel worked for all kinds of people. It made them new men, and it gave them a new relationship to everybody. One day a poor, mean slave, the next day a brother and a son! In this letter Paul calls himself an old man. He writes: “I am Paul the aged.” He could not have been very old in years—probably not more than fifty-five—but his years in prison and the terrible hardships, through which he had been, had left their mark upon him and he seemed old before he was old.

As time went on, and Paul had had two years in “his own hired house,” he seems to have been taken to some imperial prison, perhaps to the famous Mamertine prison, which was deep underground, and very dark, cold and damp. It became more and more evident that the wonderful prisoner was not to go free again. His friends in Philippi remembered him and sent one of their number all the way to Rome to comfort him and to carry to him the things he needed in his hard prison life. He was very deeply touched by their love and kindness and he wrote an extraordinary letter of thanks to his first Christian believers in Europe—those men of Macedonia who called him to them. He told them that he did not know whether the outcome of his trial was to be life or death, but that he was “ready” for either event that might come. “I have learned” he wrote, “how to be contented with what comes to me. I know how to be successful and how to be defeated. I know how to be happy when I am full and I know how to be happy when I am hungry. I can do everything with Christ’s help.” “I want you,” he told his friends, “to learn the secret. I want you to rejoice and again to _rejoice_, and evermore to REJOICE.”

What happened at last, we do not know. Nobody has written for us any “We-Narrative” about the last prison days and about the trial in Cæsar’s court. Some people think that the great prisoner got his freedom and went on for many years doing missionary work across the world, travelling with Timothy and Titus and the other helpers, and preaching in new lands and in new cities. But I do not think so. I think that he never left Rome again. The Jews who were opposed to him had a very strong case against him. They could prove that in almost every city in the empire where Paul had been there had been riots and uprisings and they could make it seem that Paul was the cause of these things. He was one lone man with a whole multitude of furious enemies and in Cæsar’s court the testimony against him would count for very much, and would weigh very heavily. It seems most likely that the trial ended with a decision against the great missionary. If he was condemned, as I believe he was, then he was soon after executed, and, as a Roman citizen, he would be put to death with the sword. That is the steady tradition in Rome that he was taken out to the place now called the Three Fountains and there beheaded. We shall probably never know any more about the end of our hero’s life.

One great fragment of a letter has been preserved for us. It does not tell anything about the prison, or the trial, or the manner of the death. But it does tell about his courage, his calmness, his faith and his noble spirit. It is a letter to Timothy, his young friend, written by “Paul the aged.” It says: “I am already being offered up now, and the time of my departure is come. I have fought the good fight. I have finished my course. I have kept the faith. Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness.” At the end, as always through his life, he was “ready.” Unmoved and undefeated, and, we may be sure, with his face shining, as Stephen’s shone that memorable day in Paul’s youth, he went to meet his death. They could kill his body with their sharp sword, but they could not crush his spirit or conquer his faith and hope. When his eyes could no longer see Rome with its capital and its coliseum, he could see his Christ, and when his ears could not hear the shouting and the cries of the people, he could hear a gentle voice say: “Well done, good and faithful servant, enter into the joy of thy Lord.” The hero got home with God at last.

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Transcriber’s Note

Punctuation has been normalized. Variations in hyphenation have been retained as they were in the original publication. The following changes have been made:

“new Jersualem,” —> Jerusalem {page 42}
the saints in Cæsar’s househould —> household {page 167}

Italicized phrases are presented by surrounding the text with _underscores_.