Digging Deeper for such a time as this: APOLLOS A certain Jew named Apollos, an Alexandrian by race, a learned man.—Acts 18:24. THE name Apollos is contracted from either Apollonius or Apollodorus, probably the former. So at least it is written in full in Codex D (Acts 18:24), and the variation seems to point to some very early tradition. Apollos was an Alexandrian, and the name Apollonius was common in Alexandria, probably owing to the fact that the first governor left by Alexander in his African province was so called. I HIS PREPARATION The first thing to be taken into account in estimating any man who has played an important part in life is the influence to which he was exposed in his early days. The associations of his youth, the place of his training, the manner of his education,—these things have usually much to do with the career which follows. 1. Now we know what Alexandria was. Even in the Acts of the Apostles we see it in its relations to the religious life of the Jews in Jerusalem, and to the world-wide commerce of heathen Italy. This city was a most remarkable meeting-place of East and West, and was characterized alike by mercantile and by mental activity. Even the memory of Alexander, its great founder, would tend to produce breadth of view among the Alexandrians, to make them tolerant and less disposed than others to lay stress on national distinctions. Moreover, there was no place where greater advantages of education were enjoyed in the age of the Apostles, among which may be reckoned the greatest library of the ancient world. ¶ Alexandria was founded by the wise foresight of the great conqueror of the ancient world, as the place where his Greek power could be brought to bear most easily on Egypt, and which, therefore, was best suited for the Greek capital of that land of mystery and wonder. It is not probable he had in view any especial adaptation of the city as that centre of the world’s intellectual life which it afterwards became; and yet its admirable facilities for communication with every part of the then known world, and the impress he left upon it by the munificence and wisdom of his dispositions in reference to its structure, were the conditions which gave it the possibility of this future eminence. ¶ In America there is a Yankee type everywhere visible; in Russia there is a Muscovite type; and everywhere, from the Mississippi to the Volga, there is a certain uniformity of face, or at all events of dress. But here, in Alexandria, each face seems to stand alone. There are eyes and foreheads, noses and beards, colours of skin, peculiarities of expression—the sly, the dignified, the rascally, the ignorant, the savage, the refined, the contented, the miserable,—giving each face its own distinct place in the globe. And there is, if possible, a greater variety in costume. Every man seems to have studied his own taste, or his own whim, or, possibly, his own religion, in the shape, colour, and number of his garments. The arms, whether dirk or dagger, single pistols or half a dozen, modern or as old as the invention of gunpowder, sword, gun, or spear—all have their own peculiar form and arrangement, so that every Eastern has to a Western a novelty and picturesqueness that is indescribable. And the motley crowd presses along: fat, contented, oily Greek merchants, or majestic Turks, on fine horses splendidly caparisoned, or on aristocratic donkeys, who would despise to acknowledge as of the same race the miserable creatures who bray in our coal-carts; bare-legged donkey boys, driving their more plebeian animals before them; Arabs from the desert, with long guns and gipsy-like coverings, stalking on in silence; beggars, such as one sees in the pictures of the old masters—verily “poor and needy, blind and naked”; insane persons, with idiotic look, and a few rags covering their bronzed bodies, seeking alms; Greek priests, Coptic priests, and Latin priests; doctors of divinity and dervishes. 2. A Jew born in Alexandria at that time would find himself living in the midst of a community of his own countrymen in a separate quarter of the city, and yet subject to the manifold influences of Greek culture. If he belonged to the class that set a high value on that culture, he would learn grammar and rhetoric from Greek teachers; he would become acquainted with at least the terms and main ideas of the forms of Greek philosophy then dominant, and would read at least selected portions of Greek dramatists and poets. Even as a Jew, his education and his worship would differ materially from that of his brethren in Jerusalem. Though still exulting in the old name of Hebrew, the speech of his fathers would be comparatively strange to him. A few etymologies of proper names, more or less accurate, often glaringly inaccurate, would be impressed upon him by his teachers, and, in proportion to his ignorance of the language as a whole, would be treasured up by him as precious. But when he read the Sacred Books of his fathers, it would be in what we have learnt to call the Version of the Seventy. His ignorance of the speech of Palestine would render him unable to correct its numerous errors. It would keep him also from studying the traditions of the elders, the casuistic disputes of Pharisees and Sadducees, of Hillel and of Shammai, in the schools of Jerusalem. The temple at Leontopolis would probably for him take the place of that at Jerusalem. 3. Pre-eminent among the influences at work on the mind of a young and thoughtful Alexandrian Jew at this period would be that of the teaching of Philo. We know but little of the personal history of that illustrious teacher, but it is clear that he must have been the leader of Jewish thought in that city, the founder of a new school of interpretation. He was, so far, the forerunner of the great masters of the Catechetical school for which the Church of Alexandria was afterwards famous. Clement and Origen would hardly have been what they were if Philo had not preceded them. While Paul was sitting at the feet of Gamaliel, growing into the strictest Pharisaism, we may think of Apollos as drinking in new knowledge and wider thoughts from the lips of Philo. Every page of the Sacred Records became full of new meanings. The arithmetic, geometry, astronomy of the Greeks were brought to bear upon the history of the Creation in Gen. 1., till it was made to read like a page from the Timœus of Plato. The literal meaning disappears, and an allegory is found at every step. Paradise is no garden upon earth, but the supreme element of the soul; the trees of which it was full were the ten thousand thoughts that fill the mind of man; the tree of life was godliness, that of the knowledge of good and evil was the “neutral understanding” which hovers on the border-land of vice and virtue. The serpent was but the symbol of pleasure, with its grovelling lusts, crawling on the ground and eating dirt. The four rivers were but the four great virtues of the Greek schools—Prudence, Temperance, Fortitude, Justice. With a winning eloquence, he leads his hearers on to these and a thousand like interpretations, as that which would complete their training and raise them out of the state of children, in which they had been governed by rule and precept taken in their literal meaning, to that of full-grown men, who were capable of a higher knowledge. It was obvious that this attempt to make the records of the remote past of the patriarchal age speak the thoughts of the schools of Greece involved the risk of the obliteration of what had been most characteristic in them. The Messianic hopes, which among the Jews of Palestine were growing into ever-clearer distinctness, were almost, if not altogether, absent from those of Alexandria. Such mutual relations of Jews and Gentiles in this place were among the providential preparations for the spread of Christianity. In the midst of these influences Apollos was brought up; and the accomplishments thus acquired were of essential service to him in his future work. Even if we consider Alexandria only as a school of high education, a resort of learned men, and a place affording opportunities, if rightly used, for the training of the mind, it is instructive to observe how God made use of such opportunities in preparing His servant for his appointed task. ¶ It was to Emerson that Lowell’s debt was particularly great. This he has himself acknowledged in his essay on “Emerson the Lecturer”: “To be young is surely the best, if the most precarious, gift of life; yet there are some of us who would hardly consent to be young again, if it were at the cost of our recollection of Mr. Emerson’s first lectures during the consulate of Van Buren. We used to walk in from the country to the Masonic Temple (I think it was), through the crisp winter night, and listen to that thrilling voice of his, so charged with subtle meaning and subtle music, as ship-wrecked men on a raft to the hail of a ship that came with unhoped-for food and rescue. Cynics might say what they liked.… At any rate, he brought us life, which, on the whole, is no bad thing.… The delight and the benefit were that he put us in communication with a larger style of thought, sharpened our wits with a more pungent phrase, gave us ravishing glimpses of an ideal under the dry husk of our New England; made us conscious of the supreme and everlasting originality of whatever bit of soul might be in any of us; freed us, in short, from the stocks of prose in which we had sat so long that we had grown well-nigh contented in our cramps.… To some of us that long-past experience remains the most marvellous and fruitful we have ever had. Emerson awakened us, saved us from the body of this death. It is the sound of the trumpet that the young soul longs for, careless what breath may fill it. Sidney heard it in the ballad of Chevy Chase, and we in Emerson. Nor did it blow retreat, but called to us with assurance of victory.” II HIS PREACHING AT EPHESUS 1. We first hear of Apollos at Ephesus. Ephesus, one of the most celebrated cities of Ionia in Asia Minor, was situated on the river Cayster, not far from the sea-coast, between Smyrna and Miletus. After falling into the hands of the Romans, it became the metropolis of pro-consular Asia; and was famous as a place of great commerce; still more so as the chief seat of the worship of the goddess Artemis, whose splendid temple stood not far from the harbour Panormus. Having been burnt by Herostratus on the night when Alexander the Great was born (B.C. 355), a new and more magnificent structure was reared, which was reckoned one of the seven wonders of the world. The Apostle Paul visited the place on his second missionary journey, as he returned from Corinth with Priscilla and Aquila. He did not, however, remain in it, but left Aquila and Priscilla. On his third journey, he revisited the city and abode there two years and three months, preaching first in the synagogue, and then in the school of Tyrannus. It was in the interval between St. Paul’s visits that Apollos came to Ephesus. ¶ Ephesus was the seat of that form of corrupted Christianity which we find so often alluded to in the Acts of the Apostles as “science falsely so called,” “vain philosophy,” etc. Here let us make a distinction; confuse not the philosophy of those days with that of the present day; they are alike in name alone. The science of these days is a reverent investigation of the laws of God, and it is marvellous how men can fail to gain from it something of the love of God; but the philosophy of those days was simply the craving of the intellect for amusement and enjoyment in the things of God. And let it be remembered that religion’s self may become a mere matter intellectual, and men may examine the evidences respecting the being of a God, or the proofs of immortality, with the same apathy and coldness with which we consider the evidences of the existence of some volcanic crater or of some distant nebula. 2. Now, what brought Apollos to Ephesus? The most obvious answer is, the claims of business. But if this is true, those claims had a very slight hold upon him, for as soon as occasion arose he was ready to pass on to Corinth for a definitely religious work. In the absence of any positive statement, the opinion may be advanced that he came to Ephesus with an equally religious purpose in view. Ephesus possessed attractions likely to appeal to this learned and zealous Jew, and with all the passion of a teacher and an apologist in his soul he made his way thither, intent upon proving to the Jews that in Jesus their own Messianic prophecies had received their fulfilment. It was a noble mission, and it had as its object the enthronement of that Lord he so imperfectly understood. ¶ His intention was beyond criticism, but his equipment was incomplete. How reminiscent of Wesley’s comment on his missionary endeavours in Georgia, “I who went to America to convert others was never myself converted to God,” especially in the light of the later note, “I am not sure of this!” Apollos went to Ephesus to teach others, and he learned that he himself stood in need of a teacher. Spirit of Light! do Thou impart Majestic truths, and teach my heart; Teach me to know how weak I am, How vain my powers, how poor my frame; Teach me celestial paths untrod, The ways of glory and of God. III HIS QUALIFICATION FOR THE WORK 1. St. Luke suddenly introduces Apollos in Acts 18:24, where he describes him as “an eloquent man (or a learned man—R.V.) and mighty in the scriptures.” Then in the next verse he says, “This man had been instructed in the way of the Lord; and being fervent in spirit, he spake and taught carefully the things concerning Jesus, knowing only the baptism of John.” The precise character of his religious knowledge is not easily determined from these few words. It has been generally held that Apollos’ instruction in “the way of the Lord” was such as any well-educated Jew might have gathered from teaching like that of the Baptist based on the Messianic prophecies. Dean Farrar expresses the common view of this passage when he says that Apollos must have been very imperfectly acquainted with the doctrines of Christianity if he did not know any baptism but that of John. And when it is stated a few verses farther on that St. Paul found at Ephesus, after the departure of Apollos, twelve men who were baptized into John’s baptism, it has been freely believed that they were converts whom Apollos had made, and that he had actually told them nothing of Jesus, but left them disciples of the Baptist. That belief, however, is contradicted by the narrative itself. For, as Dr. Blass points out, these men are called “disciples,” an expression which, standing by itself, is never used except of Christians. They are also said to have “believed,” another word which is appropriated to faith in Christ. And then, the way in which St. Luke speaks of Apollos himself, that “he taught carefully the things concerning Jesus,” is unintelligible if Apollos did not know or did not teach anything beyond the preaching and the baptism of John. Accordingly, Dr. Blass suggests that Apollos did know accurately the story of our Lord’s life, and taught it; but that he was unacquainted with any other baptism than John’s. Whereupon the interesting inquiry arises, How did Apollos acquire the knowledge which he possessed? Was it from a book, or from viva voce intercourse with Christians? Surely, if he had been converted by a Christian missionary, he would have been taught by him the necessity for Christian baptism. But if he learned from a written Gospel, it might have been one as full in its account of our Lord’s words and deeds as Mark’s or Luke’s, and yet have said no more than these do about Christian baptism. ¶ If this suggestion could be accepted, it would certainly have an interesting bearing on the date of the publication of the Gospels. To know that a written Gospel had found its way to Alexandria at so early a date as the conversion of Apollos is with one stroke to settle some of the keenest controversies of our day. But the word translated “instructed” (κατηχεῖσθαι) is that which is specially employed of oral instruction. Almost unknown outside the New Testament till the early Church seized it to signify that course of instruction which converts underwent before they were admitted to baptism—(the word “catechumen” is simply its present participle), it is used there for a report that is carried from mouth to mouth, or for teaching that is derived “from viva voce intercourse with Christians.” And the Revised Version actually reminds us of this, by explaining in the margin that the Greek for “instructed” is “taught by word of mouth.” Dr. Wright’s solution of the problem is as follows:—Apollos had been baptized by John. He had been taught to expect the Messiah at once. Possibly Jesus had been pointed out to him as such. He then, according to the Western text of Acts 18:25, returns to Alexandria, where rumours would reach him from time to time of what was happening in Palestine. He would hear of our Lord’s ministry, of His mighty works, His rejection, crucifixion, and resurrection. For a long time report would give him only the broad outlines of the facts, but in the course of twelve or fifteen years one of those catechists whom the Church of Jerusalem sent out in large numbers visited the metropolis of Egypt. This itinerant was neither apostle, evangelist, nor preacher. He had learned by heart, and was anxious to teach others, “the facts concerning Jesus,” and he formed a class for that purpose. Apollos became one of the pupils, and, like Theophilus, was “orally instructed” in the way of the Lord, until he became perfect and was able to teach others also. For when he came to Ephesus, “being fervent in spirit,” he could not keep silence, but “repeated by rote, and taught accurately the facts concerning Jesus.” 2. Among his hearers were Priscilla and Aquila, who discovered that the preacher’s knowledge of “the way” was imperfect. Accordingly, when Priscilla and Aquila had heard him in the synagogue, “they took him unto them and expounded unto him the way of God more carefully.” These two Jewish Christians—as we learn from the early part of the chapter—were “tentmakers,” with whom St. Paul had made acquaintance at Corinth, and whom he had left at Ephesus a short time previous to the arrival of Apollos. They became the religious instructors of this Alexandrian stranger, who in their hands was a most willing learner. Thus here we have an eloquent man, a learned man, a fervent man, not unwilling to be taught, and taught too by plain and homely people who were engaged in business. One of these teachers, moreover, was a woman. In making this observation we are certainly not justified in suggesting that Scripture throws any contempt on learning or scholarship. We have seen the very contrary in the case both of this Jew of Alexandria and of St. Paul himself. Still the fact is as stated here. The secular training of Apollos came from a very distinguished source, his high religious training from a very lowly one. How frequently has this been the case since! Those who have been eminent in University honours have often learnt their best lessons of religion even from the poor, and often from women, in the retired hours of domestic life. By such methods God’s Providence brings all parts of a man’s experience into harmony, and causes all to bear upon the one point of active service. Those men who produce great religious results on the minds of others have usually drawn their own teaching from very various sources. Many things are made tributary to that stream of wide influence, which in the end flows full and strong. There must, however, be a teachable spirit if the benefits are to be fully realized. We must become children, if we are to be high in the Kingdom of Heaven. It would seem probable, though the fact is not stated, that Apollos received baptism at the hands of Priscilla and Aquila, as his followers in a like case did at the hands of St. Paul. ¶ You cannot, as the Sophist proposed to do (that was part of his foolishness), take and put truth into the soul. If you could, it might be established there, only as an “inward lie,” as a mistake. “Must I take the argument and literally insert it into your mind?” asks Thrasymachus. “Heaven forbid,” answers Socrates. IV HIS CORINTHIAN MINISTRY After some stay in Ephesus, Apollos determined to go to Corinth, an invitation to do so having come to him, according to the Western text, from certain Corinthians who were in Ephesus at the time. They gave him letters of commendation, and when he arrived in Corinth “He helped them much which had believed through grace: for he powerfully confuted the Jews and that publicly, shewing by the scriptures that Jesus was the Christ.” 1. He could not have chosen a place more suitable for his work. St. Paul had established a branch of the Church in Corinth, but it was a city where gross idolatry and immorality were conspicuous. Further, it was a place where Apollos’s talents would have a peculiar usefulness. It was a centre of commerce; it was a town also of great intellectual activity. And in both these respects it resembled Alexandria, with whose inhabitants Apollos was so familiar. From his early experience he knew precisely what methods would avail best, both with the merchants and with the philosophers. Within a short time he gained a position of great influence. ¶ “The gods sell anything and to everybody at a fair price,” says Emerson; and he might have added that they give nothing away. Whatever a man secures in the way of power or fame he pays for in preliminary preparation; nothing is given him except his native capacity; everything else he must pay for. 2. But the very success of his work had an unexpected and unfortunate result. Against his wish, he was made to figure as the rival of St. Paul. To many of the educated thinkers of Corinth the lofty eloquence of Apollos seemed greatly superior to St. Paul’s simple and unpolished manner of speech. Thus there grew up an Apollos-party and a Paul-party in the Corinthian Church. We may be quite sure that the admirers of Apollos lost no occasion of telling him how much they preferred him to his predecessor, and nothing would have pleased them more than if he had proclaimed himself the head of this party, and St. Paul’s avowed rival. The First Epistle to the Corinthians was occasioned by internal conditions in the Church which arose shortly after St. Paul’s departure from Corinth for Ephesus, and was written from the latter city, when he was contemplating a visit to them. He had received information as to the situation from various persons. Some dependents of “the house of Chloe” had told him of “contentions” (1 Cor. 1:11). Stephanas, Fortunatus, and Achaicus had visited him (1 Cor. 16:17), and Apollos had come, and was with him when the Epistle was written (1 Cor. 16:12). ¶ Unable to persuade himself that parties are even indifferent means to useful ends, Stanley felt that all, especially in religion, are combined of truth and falsehood, and that to join any is to accept the evil as well as the good. He believed that “the man who loves Christianity better than truth is on the highroad to love his own sect better than Christianity, if not to love himself better than either.” He detested the principle of party, as the great rival in the minds of men to the love and pursuit of that truth which was “to be sought, above all things, for itself, and not for any ulterior object.” 3. The question at issue may have been only the relative importance of St. Paul and Apollos in the founding of the Corinthian Church; but it seems likely that there was also a difference in the manner in which the gospel was presented by each; and it may be (though for this there is no proof) that some doctrinal differences appeared after the lapse of years. The teaching of Apollos’s followers may, e.g., have degenerated into Antinomian Gnosticism. However that may be, the Corinthian Church was agitated by bitterly opposed factions as late as the time of Clement of Rome. But it is unlikely that there was any personal disagreement between St. Paul and Apollos. It has indeed been suggested that in 1 Cor. 2:1, St. Paul has the eloquent Apollos in his mind, and again in 2 Cor. 3:1, where he declares that he at least needed no commendatory letters; and it is curious that Apollos is not mentioned at all as one of the founders of the Christian society at Corinth in 2 Cor. 1:19. But, however we explain these passages, they do not prove anything like serious estrangement. ¶ General Grant had been for several months in front of Petersburg, apparently accomplishing nothing, while General Sherman had captured Atlanta, and completed his grand “march to the sea.” Then arose a strong cry to promote Sherman to Grant’s position as lieutenant-general. Hearing of it, Sherman wrote to Grant, “I have written to John Sherman (his brother) to stop it. I would rather have you in command than any one else. I should emphatically decline any commission calculated to bring us into rivalry.” Grant replied, “No one would be more pleased with your advancement than I; and if you should be placed in my position, and I put subordinate, it would not change our relations in the least. I would make the same exertion to support you that you have done to support me, and I would do all in my power to make your cause win.” 4. Now the question arises—and in estimating his character it is quite essential to answer the question—whether this party-spirit which was developed at Corinth was in any way the fault of Apollos, and whether, when it was developed, he encouraged it at all. Here another passage from the latter part of the same Epistle presents itself to our attention, and supplies the answer. The Apostle writes: “As touching our brother Apollos, I greatly desired him to come unto you with the brethren; but his will was not at all to come at this time; but he will come when he shall have convenient time.” It is not hard to see the reason of Apollos’s refusal, which was simply his fine sense of loyalty to St. Paul. He knew only too well the present temper of the Corinthian Church, and he was sure that his presence in Corinth at this juncture would do more harm than good. His arrival would cause the party feeling to break out again with fresh vigour, and St. Paul’s detractors would once more become active. With equal unselfishness, St. Paul bade him disregard any such fears and go, but Apollos was firm in his refusal. To preach in Corinth might be to make some converts, and certainly it would add to his reputation; but it would tend also to lessen the authority of St. Paul. Therefore he would not return until length of time had allowed this spirit of faction to die down. Then, according to the tradition preserved by St. Jerome, he did revisit Corinth, becoming bishop of that city. Weary of all this wordy strife, These notions, forms, and modes, and names, To Thee, the Way, the Truth, the Life, Whose love my simple heart inflames, Divinely taught, at last I fly, With Thee and Thine to live and die. Forth from the midst of Babel brought, Parties and sects I cast behind; Enlarged my heart, and freed my thought, Where’er the latent truth I find, The latent truth with joy to own, And bow to Jesu’s name alone. V HIS LATER LIFE In the year 67, when St. Paul wrote his letter to Titus, Apollos was expected in Crete during the course of a missionary journey. This is the last mention of him in the New Testament. While no writings have come down to us under the name of Apollos, there is a widely accepted opinion, first suggested by Luther, that he may have been the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews. There is no external evidence or authority for this view. It rests entirely upon the internal characteristics of the book. The principal consideration in favour of the authorship of Apollos is that he is described in the Acts as a cultured and rhetorical Alexandrian, who was well versed in the Greek Old Testament. This fact might account for the elaborate style, the Alexandrian cast, the kinship with Philo and the Book of Wisdom, and the copious use of the Septuagint in the Epistle, while the fact that Apollos had come under the influence of St. Paul might be regarded as explaining its kinship to St. Paul’s thought. On the other hand, Apollos was not a disciple of the primitive Apostles, as the author of Hebrews seems to have been (2:3). The argument carries us only thus far: The author, if not Apollos, was some such man as Apollos was—a literary Hellenist, familiar with the philosophical ideas which were current at Alexandria and practised in the argumentative use of the Septuagint. The apocryphal book called the Wisdom of Solomon has also been attributed to Apollos. VI HIS CHARACTER 1. All that we know of the history of Apollos may be summed up in a few verses, but the lessons of his life endure. Gifted with great natural ability, he enhanced it by years of patient toil. Above all other literature he prized the Word of God—whereas in our own day the number of educated people who could be termed “mighty in the Scriptures” is lamentably small. Wholly free from the pride of intellect, he was alert to welcome fresh truth, however unexpected its form and source. He applied himself to his ministry with fervour, courage, and success. Yet success had no evil effect upon his character. To the end he cared much for the welfare of the Church, much for the honour due to his fellow-labourer, and nothing at all for his personal fame. A strenuous toiler, a profound scholar, a loyal companion—such was Apollos; such is a type of man needed by the Church in every age. ¶ Men of achievement crown loyalty as one of the first of the virtues. Charity must be a divine gift indeed if it is greater than faithfulness. The soldier’s worth is in his adherence to duty. The test of the jurist is loyalty to the client. The test of the pupil is loyalty to his master. The two great books in ancient literature are the Iliad and the Odyssey. The Iliad exposes the fickleness and disloyalty of beautiful Helen, whose infidelity turned a city into a heap. The Odyssey celebrates the loyalty of Penelope, who kept her palace and her heart. Young man, scorn the very thought of disloyalty to your employer. If you can’t work with him, resign. But flee the very thought of disloyalty as you would flee from the edge of the precipice. Disloyalty belongs to the serpent that bites, the wolf that rends, and the lion that slays. To be disloyal is to join hands with the devil himself. Pride yourself on your loyalty. Learn to follow, that you may be worthy to lead. Life may bring you gold, office, and honour, but it will bring you nothing comparable to the happiness that comes from the consciousness of having been loyal to your ideals. And when it is all over, let this be men’s judgment upon you: “He was faithful unto death.” 2. Probably Apollos is not much more than a name to the average reader of the New Testament, yet his character is one which well deserves our admiring study. That it is possible to include him among the friends of St. Paul is a tribute alike to his greatness and to the power of Christian love. It would not have been surprising had he proved, at one stage of his life, St. Paul’s most dangerous opponent, and at another his avowed rival. In the first instance, he was saved by the inherent nobility of his character. From the second risk he escaped through the thoroughness with which he accepted the fulness of the new teaching, bringing its doctrines of love and fellowship to bear upon the practice of his life. And so Apollos has a double claim upon our regard: both intellectually and morally he was a great man. Remarkable as were St. Paul’s mental attainments, and profound as was his acquaintance with the literature of the Old Testament, it is doubtful whether in these respects he was the superior of Apollos. In eloquence and the power of impressing the educated men of Corinth, Apollos was unmistakably the more gifted. But, had it not been united to moral greatness, his intellectual greatness would have thwarted in place of furthering the growth of the Christian faith. Exceptional gifts seem always to carry with them the penalty of exceptional temptations, and the very fact that his intellectual powers were so remarkable might easily have made Apollos either impatient of instruction or intolerant of a subordinate position in the Church. We may feel quite certain that those temptations presented themselves to him in full force. But he overcame them, and remained to the end St. Paul’s loyal comrade and fellow-worker. ¶ Cowden Clarke has left us a very pleasant record of one curious feature in the intercourse between the two friends [Leigh Hunt and John Keats]. From time to time they would challenge one another to poetic effort in the composition of verses written in amicable rivalry on some given theme. On one occasion, when the talk had run “on the character, habits, and pleasant associations with that reverent denizen of the hearth, the cheerful little grasshopper of the fireside,” Hunt proposed to Keats that they should compose, “then and there and to time,” a sonnet each on the grasshopper and the cricket. “No one but myself was present,” says Clarke, “and they accordingly set to,” Keats being the first to complete his task. Then came “the after-scrutiny,” which, says Clarke, “was one of many such occurrences which have riveted the memory of Leigh Hunt in my affectionate regard and admiration for unaffected generosity and perfectly unpretentious encouragement.” And he goes on to speak of Hunt’s “sincere look of pleasure” on reading out the first line of Keats’s poem: “The poetry of earth is never dead.” “Such a prosperous opening,” he exclaimed. And when he came to the tenth and eleventh lines— On a lone winter evening, when the frost Has wrought a silence … “Ah, that’s perfect! Bravo, Keats!” If the wide world stood row on row, And stones at you began to throw, I’d boldly out with them to fight, Saying they were wrong and you were right. If every bird on every tree, With note as loud as loud could be, Sang endlessly in your dispraise, One graceless thought it would not raise. If all the great, and wise and good, Upon your sins in judgment stood— They’d simply waste their valued breath, For I’m your friend through life and Death. If I were wrong, and they were right, I’d not believe (for all their might), Not even if all they said were true, For you love me and I love you. ¶ Dean Stanley writes: To make sure of “Apollos’s name being enrolled in no calendar, however apocryphal,” I wrote to Ward from Norwich to ask, but got no answer till this morning, forwarded from Norwich. Fortunately, it coincided with what I had said; he had put the question to the Roman Catholic divines at Ware, and they had said that it had never struck them before, but that certainly it was a remarkable fact that Apollos was nowhere called Saint or Doctor. Hastings, J. (Ed.). (1916). In The Greater Men and Women of the Bible: St. Luke-Titus. Edinburgh: T&T Clark. - via Logos 5 #diggingdeeperforsuchatimeasthis #christjesus #vineofchristministries #theword #studyscripture #god #biblestudy #bible #jesus #faith
Posted on: Sat, 30 Nov 2013 20:30:24 +0000
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