|
As if he (who, by his assertion that he was endowed with the privileges
of a Roman citizen from his birth, testifies that he was no mean person
according to this world's rank) might not likewise have been supported by
the property which formerly belonged to him! And as if those men who were
possessors of lands and houses in Jerusalem and sold everything and kept
back nothing whatever for themselves, and brought the price of them and
laid it at the feet of the apostles, might not have supplied their bodily
necessities from their own property, had this been considered the best plan
by the apostles, or had they themselves deemed it preferable! But they gave
up all their property at once, and preferred to be supported by their own
labour, and by the contributions of the Gentiles, of whose collection the
holy Apostle speaks in writing to the Romans, and declaring his own office
in this matter to them, and urging them on likewise to make this
collection: "But now I go to Jerusalem to minister to the saints. For it
has pleased them of Macedonia and Achaia to make a certain contribution for
the poor saints who are at Jerusalem: it has pleased them indeed, and their
debtors they are. For if the Gentiles are made partakers of their spiritual
things, they ought also to minister to them in carnal things." To the
Corinthians also he shows the same anxiety about this, and urges them the
more diligently to prepare before his arrival a collection, which he was
intending to send for their needs. "But concerning the collection for the
saints, as I appointed to the churches of Galatia, so also do ye. Let each
one of you on the first day of the week put apart with himself, laying up
what it shall well please him, that when I come the collections be not then
to be made. But when I come whomsoever you shall approve by your letters,
them I will send to carry your grace to Jerusalem." And that he may
stimulate them to make a larger collection, he adds, "But if it be meet
that I also go, they shall go with me:" meaning if your offering is of
such a character as to deserve to be taken there by my ministration. To the
Galatians too, he testifies that when he was settling the division of the
ministry of preaching with the apostles, he had arranged this with James,
Peter, and John: that he should undertake the preaching to the Gentiles,
but should never repudiate care and anxious thought for the poor who were
at Jerusalem, who for Christ's sake gave up all their goods, and submitted
to voluntary poverty. "And when they saw," said he, "the grace of God which
was given to me, James and Cephas and John, who seemed to be pillars, gave
to me and to Barnabas the right hand: of fellowship, that we should preach
to the: Gentiles, but they to those of the circumcision: only they would
that we should be mindful of the poor." A matter which he testifies that he
attended to most carefully, saying, "which also I was anxious of myself to
do.Who then are the more blessed, those who but lately were gathered out of
the number of the heathen, and being unable to climb to the heights of the
perfection of the gospel, clung to their own property, in whose case it was
considered a great thing by the Apostle if at least they were restrained
from the worship of idols, and from fornication, and from things strangled,
and from blood, and had embraced the faith of Christ, with their goods
and all: or those who live up to the demands of the gospel, and carry the
Lord's cross daily, and want nothing out of their property to remain for
their own use? And if the blessed Apostle himself, bound with chains and
fetters, or hampered by the difficulties of travelling, and for these
reasons not being able to provide with his hands, as he generally did, for
the supply of his food, declares that he received that which supplied his
wants from the brethren who came from Macedonia; "For that which was
lacking to me," he says, "the brethren who came from Macedonia
supplied:" and to the Philippians he says: "For ye Philippians know also
that in the beginning of the gospel, when I came from Macedonia, no church
communicated with me in the matter of giving and receiving, except you
only; because even in Thessalonica once and again you sent to supply my
needs:" (if this was so) then, according to the notion of these men,
which they have formed in the coldness of their heart, will those men
really be more blessed than the Apostle, because it is found that they
have ministered to him of their substance? But this no one will venture to
assert, however big a fool he may be.
|
|