Philemon, Ephesians, Philippians.

IV. A.D. 61-64. 1 Timothy, Titus, 2 Timothy.

St. Paul was in the habit of dictating his letters. In Rom. xvi. 22
occurs the name of Tertius, who was then acting as his secretary. But
St. Paul wrote the little letter to Philemon himself, and in Gal. vi.
11-18 we find a postscript which the apostle wrote in his own large
handwriting. Similar instances are found in 1 Cor. xvi. 21-24 and Col.
iv. 18, while in 2 Thess. iii. 17 he shows us that he sometimes made
these additions in order to protect his converts from being deceived by
forged letters written in his name.

In order to enter into the spirit of St. Paul's letters it is necessary
to understand his history, a brief outline of which will now be given.

Saul, who changed his name to Paul, was born at Tarsus in Cilicia, a
city which prided itself upon its good education. The language of the
city was Greek; Saul's father was a Jew and a Roman citizen. He was
trained at Jerusalem by {119} Gamaliel, a renowned Pharisee. The
future apostle was therefore born a member of the most religious race
in the world, spoke the language of the most cultivated race in the
world, and lived under the most masterly and fully organized
government. All these three influences left their mark on a soul which
was always impressible towards everything great and noble. But his
nature was not only impressible; it was endowed as well by God with a
strong pure heat which could fuse truths together into an orderly and
well-proportioned form, and purge away the falsehoods which clung to
truths. It is plain that he was not a Pharisee of the baser sort, even
when he believed that the Messiah was a pretender. Righteousness was
his ideal, and because he hated sin, a struggle raged between his
conscience and his lower instincts (Rom. vii. 7-25). He fiercely
persecuted the Christians, whom he regarded as traitors to their race
and their religion. On his way from Jerusalem to Damascus with a
warrant from the high priest to arrest the Christians, he was converted
(about A.D. 35) by a direct interposition of the risen Lord. Every
effort has been made by modern rationalists to explain this revelation
as either an imaginary vision or an inward light in his conscience.
The fact remains that St. Paul never speaks of it as a merely inward
reality, that he does not number his conversion among the ecstatic
states to which he was subject (2 Cor. xii. 1), and that h