| IN SEARCH OF PAUL
The Acts of Paul and Thekla,1 an apocryphal source from the second century of the Christian era, describes the outward appearance of the Apostle Paul. Onesiphorus, an Ephesian paterfamilias, hears that Paul is coming along the royal road from Lystra to Iconium. So he goes to meet him with his wife and two sons and offers to lodge him in his home. He had not yet met Paul and may have known him only from Titus' description. Beside the road to Lystra he meets the man he was expecting. He was "a man small of stature, with a bald head and crooked legs, in a good state of body, with eyebrows meeting and nose somewhat hooked, full of grace; for now he appeared like a man, and now he had the face of an angel."2 Jews usually avoided describing a person's outward appearance. So this is the only description we have of the apostles and it seems very genuine. In Acts chapter 14 we are told how in Lystra Paul healed a man lame from his mother's womb, who "had never walked." Then the crowd caused a disturbance and shouted in the Lycaonian language, "The gods have come down to us in human form. Barnabas they called Zeus, and Paul they called Hermes because he was the chief speaker." Zeus was the principal god of the Greeks. Hermes, to whom Paul was compared, was the messenger of the gods. He was pictured as a young man with travelling headgear, winged sandals and a staff. He was the patron of all those who travelled by road. Similarly, he protected young men and their sporting interests. Besides his envoy's task he was worshipped as the patron of rhetoric. Paul was truly small in size like Hermes, but he is said to have been also "in a good state of body." We can well understand this in the light of his activities. According to one calculation, his preaching and missionary journeys accumulated at least 60,000 kilometres. When one thinks of the huge mountains of Turkey, beside which the hills of Israel and the Near-East pale in comparison, one gets a hint of the difficulties of these "apostolic journeys." It demanded a profound conviction of the importance of his message and excellent physical fitness, too. Paul's portrait is best reflected in the narrative of 2 Corinthians where he was provoked into speaking about himself. First he reminds his readers that "we do not preach ourselves but Christ." And he is an ambassador "on behalf of Christ." In Hebrew there is a saying: "Sheliah melekh ka-melekh, the king's envoy is as the king." Paul was engaged in the business of the King of Kings. One must always remember that a person's theology is composed of the building materials of his own life and of the world of values which he experiences as his own. In this sense Paul's letters are part of his personality. It was reflected through his modest outward appearance, "like the face of an angel." So he writes, "We put no stumbling block in anyone's path, so that our ministry will not be discredited. Rather, as servants of God we commend ourselves in every way: in great endurance; in troubles, hardships and distresses; in beatings, imprisonments and riots; in hard work, sleepless nights and hunger; in purity, understanding, patience and kindness; in the Holy Spirit and in sincere love; in truthful speech and in the power of God; with weapons of righteousness in the right hand and in the left; through glory and dishonour, bad report and good report; genuine, yet regarded as impostors; known, yet regarded as unknown; dying, and yet we live on; beaten, and yet not killed; sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; poor, yet making many rich; having nothing, and yet possessing everything." Here Greek rhetoric and the typical narrative of the rabbis are combined, seasoned with paradoxical antitheses. The same feature appears a little later in the words: "For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, so that you through his poverty might become rich."3 Paul's inner life also appears in his speech of defence to the Corinthians. There he says he was indeed "weak in speech, but not in knowledge." And he asks whether he sinned when he condescended to preach the Gospel "without remuneration." At that time the office of rabbi was not yet officially recognised, and most of them made a living in their subsidiary occupation. But now that the church allowed some of its members to "eat them out of house and home" and "take unfair advantage" of them, Paul considered it his right to speak, contrary to his custom, "like a fool." In comparing himself with these "deceitful" workers, he says, "I have worked much harder, been in prison more frequently, been flogged more severely, and been exposed to death again and again. Five times I received from the Jews the forty lashes minus one. Three times I was beaten with rods, once I was stoned, three times I was shipwrecked, I spent a night and a day in the open sea, I have been constantly on the move. I have been in danger from rivers, in danger from bandits, in danger from my own countrymen, in danger from Gentiles; in danger in the city, in danger in the country, in danger at sea; and in danger from false brothers. I have laboured and toiled and have often gone without sleep; I have known hunger and thirst and have often gone without food; I have been cold and naked. Besides everything else, I face daily the pressure of my concern for all the churches. Who is weak, and I do not feel weak? Who is led into sin, and I do not inwardly burn? If I must boast, I will boast of the things that show my weakness. The God and Father of the Lord Jesus, who is to be praised forever, knows that I am not lying."4 This passage ends with a eulogy, a typically Jewish "hodayah", which, as it were, seals its message. In the history of mankind there is hardly to be found another man who would have sacrificed as much for his convictions as did the Apostle Paul. Here are fulfilled the words that Jesus announced to his disciple Ananias in Damascus concerning Paul's future: "Go! This man is my chosen instrument to carry my name before the Gentiles and their kings and before the people of Israel. I will show him how much he must suffer for my name."5 When nowadays we apply for new jobs, we often have to write an autobiography,
a curriculum vitae, in which appears "the course of one's life" with
an account of one's experience and education. The Apostle Paul too must
be seen as a man and as a teacher. In this way we shall gain as
realistic a picture of him as possible.
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