Sir Paul

“ Paul was one of those daring wits whom profane men most admire; and as the young tailor’s style was one which had respect for neither Olympus nor the mortals, he became a laureate, like William the Baker, but not, like him, poet-laureate to the King. ”

“ But blessed art thou, O Paul, that thy generation, and those thou teachest, are the sons of the Kingdom. And know thou, O Paul, that every man who believes through thee hath a great blessing, and a blessing is reserved for him.” Then he departed from me. And the angel who was with me led me forth, and said unto me: “Lo, unto thee is given this mystery and revelation; as thou pleasest, make it known unto the sons of men.” And I, Paul, returned unto myself, and I knew all that I had seen ”

“ While many philosophers and the centurion were assembled with the emperor, Paul came about the ninth hour, and in the presence of all he said, "Caesar behold, here is Paul, the soldier of God; I am not dead, but I live in my God. But upon thee, thou miserable one, [104] many evils and great punishments [105] will come, because thou hast unjustly shed the blood of the righteous, not many days hence." And after having spoken thus, Paul departed from him. [106] When Nero had heard (this) , he commanded that the prisoners be released, Patroclus as well as Barsabas with his friends. ”

“ The pontificate of Paul III. forms a turning-point in the history of the papacy. The situation at his accession was grave and complex: the steady growth of Protestantism, the preponderant power of the emperor and his prolonged wars with France, the advances of the Turks, the uncertain mind of the Church itself—all conspired to produce a problem involved and delicate. Paul was shrewd, calculating, tenacious; but on the other hand over-cautious, and inclined rather to temporize than to strike at the critical moment. His instincts and ambitions were those of a secular prince of the Renaissance ”

“ Paul was born of a noble Hebrew family of Tarsus, and was a man of high culture. He had, to use a modern expression, simplified himself, renounced his position in a time when few could resist the passion for luxury, and taken up a trade for his living; with the scanty profit from his work as a tent-maker, alone and on foot he made measureless journeys through the Empire, everywhere preaching the redemption of man. ”

“ But Paul with his companions, good heart's cheer
Met at Puteoli; a brotherhood
Of lovers greeted them and bade them bide
Seven days for rest and for refreshment there:
The kindly Julius suffered this to them
For Paul's sake easily, seeing to Paul he owed
His own life snatched from those shipwrecking waves.
A week of opportunity it was
To Paul for service of his fellow-men;
For he most rested when he labored most,
Unhindered, with the joy of harvest his,
Winning men to the obedience of his Lord. ”

“ Ah! if there were no awakening! If one were always young!
The fiacre stopped; and soon Paul found himself in the hall of the hotel, [22] surrounded by officious porters. The maître d'hôtel himself, a white-haired Swiss, pushed through them and greeted him, for was not Sir Paul an old and distinguished guest, who never failed to honour him with his patronage each year? Himself, he showed Paul to the same suite he always occupied, and with zealous care conferred with milord over the momentous question of dinner, a matter not to be lightly discussed. ”

“ Paul as a gentleman, what a figure he would have made of the great Apostle of the Gentiles—occupied with himself, not carried away, raised, inspired with his subject—insinuating his doctrines into his audience, not launching them from him with the tongues of the Holy Spirit, and with looks of fiery scorching zeal! ”

“ This familiarity to which this Roman tribune or colonel admitted Paul's nephew is here upon record to his honour. Let no man think he disparages himself by his humility or charity. He went with him aside privately, that none might hear his business, and asked him, "What is it that thou hast to tell me? Tell me wherein I can be serviceable to Paul." It is probable that the chief captain was the more obliging in this case because he was sensible he had run himself into a premunire in binding Paul, against his privilege as a Roman citizen, which he was willing now to atone for. ”

“ Paul is the most prominent figure of all the great men who have adorned, or advanced the interest of, the Christian Church. Great pulpit orators, renowned theologians, profound philosophers, immortal poets, successful reformers, and enlightened monarchs have never disputed his intellectual ascendency; to all alike he has been a model and a marvel. The grand old missionary stands out in history as a matchless example of Christian living, a sure guide in Christian doctrine. No more favored mortal is ever likely to appear; he is the counterpart of Moses as a divine teacher to all generations. ”

“ So had Paul learned to let the peace of Christ
Rule in his heart, a fixed perpetual calm,
Like the deep sleep of ocean at his core
Of waters underneath the planes of storm.
And Stephen answered: "Oh, with God, with God!
And blesséd be His name that thus I choose!"
"Yea, verily," Paul said, "for He sole it is
Who worketh in us, both to will and work
For the good pleasure of His holy will.
As thou this fashion of obedience
Obediently acceptest at His gift,
So growest thou faithful mirror to reflect
Clear to thyself, and just, the thought of God. ”

“ These measures only increased Paul’s unpopularity, so that when he died, on the 18th of August 1559, the Romans vented their hatred by demolishing his statue, liberating the prisoners of the Inquisition, and scattering its papers. Paul’s want of political wisdom, and his ignorance of human nature aroused antagonisms fatal to the success of his cause.
See Panvinio, continuator of Platina, De vitis pontiff. rom.; Ciaconius, Vitae et res gestae summorum pontiff. rom. (Rome, 1601–1602, both contemporaries of Paul IV.) ”

“ Paul speaks of him as his “son,” and this (see Phil. ii. 22) refers to loyal service rather than to spiritual parentage. He was especially interested in the Macedonian churches, which he helped to found. His name is associated with that of Paul in the opening salutations of both epistles to the Thessalonians, the second epistle to the Corinthians, and those to the Philippians and Colossians. He was, therefore, with Paul at Rome. ”

“ Paul would have us cultivate is not this cowardly mis-called wisdom, but rather the spirit of the ideal soldier, of the 'happy warrior.' Nothing, {208} in fact, could be more fascinating than the picture St. Paul here draws of the Christian community. He has a vision of a pure brotherly enthusiastic society, fulfilled with a divine life, and attracting into its warm and comfortable fellowship the isolated, weary, hopeless, and sin-stained from the cold dark world outside.
Look therefore carefully how ye walk, not as unwise, but as wise; redeeming the time, because the days are evil. ”

“ Elected pope, on the 23rd of May 1555, in the face of the veto of the emperor, Paul regarded his elevation as the work of God. With his defects of temper, his violent antipathies, his extravagant notion of papal prerogative, his pontificate was filled with strife. Blinded by ungovernable hatred he joined with France (1555) in order to drive the “accursed Spaniards” from Italy. But the victory of Philip II. at St Quentin (1557) and the threatening advance of Alva upon Rome forced him to come to terms and to abandon his French alliance. He denounced the peace of Augsburg as a pact with heresy ”

“ Paul was cast into prison (Murimuth., Contin., Rolls Ser., p. 117) . He was able, however, to obtain his release as a priest through the intervention of Archbishop Stratford. Although the mastership of the rolls had been taken from him, he was allowed in a short time to resume his position as a master of chancery. In 1346 he was archdeacon of Cornwall (Le Neve, Fasti, i. 398) , and shortly after prebendary of Dunnington in the see of York (ib. iii. 181) . In 1349 he was advanced by a papal provision to the archbishopric of Dublin, having previously been a canon of the see. ”

“ The big man allowed himself to be led away. He felt his armour dropping off in great flakes as he went. No light is so magical as in that mingled hour of sun and moon when the west is still burning and the east just a-glimmer with the glory that is to come. Paul felt it strongly. He was half with the sun and half with the moon, and the gates of fantasy seemed somewhere close at hand. Curtains were being drawn aside, veils lifting, doors softly opening. He almost heard the rush of the wind behind, and tasted the keen, sweet excitement of another world. ”

“ That was the electrifying, vivifying effect of the apparition of such an one as Paul—“a man who had indeed done nothing worthy of bonds or of death”—a man in whose entire disinterestedness and in whose transparent honor the image and superscription of his Master was written so that no one could mistake it. “In every nation, he that feareth God and worketh righteousness” is the noblest work of God our Creator—the most precious result of human endeavor. ”

“ Besides all this, he had great weariness and painfulness in his ministerial labours, and these are things that will come into account shortly, and people will be reckoned with for all the care and pains of their ministers concerning them. Paul was a stranger to wealth and plenty, power and pleasure, preferment and ease; he was in watchings often, and exposed to hunger and thirst; in fastings often, it may be out of necessity ”

“ And they now knew the doom required for Paul.
Paul was left lonely of all men save Luke;
But Luke the faithful chose with him his part.
Paul longed for Timothy, and wrote to him
Bidding him haste and bring John Mark to Rome.
But the end hasted more than these could haste,
And Timothy was never in the flesh
To greet again that father of his soul
Who, for the son's sake more than for his own,
Yearned toward the son to fix in him his faith
Seen nigh to falter in the face of things
Such as now fronted Paul. ”

“ Now though the Lords and Knights of the castle honoured Paul because he was honoured by the Duke, they had little ease with him; so to-night, when Paul took his place, a Knight that sate next him, a shrewd and somewhat malicious man, who loved the talk of the Court, and turned all things into a jest, said, "How now, Sir Paul? You entered to-night full of joy; but now you are like one that had expected to see a welcome guest and saw him not." Then Paul was vexed that his thoughts should be so easily read, and said with a forced smile, "Nay, Sir Edwin, we musical men are the slaves of our moods ”

“ For the exchange, unbargained-for, with Paul.
Paul has much travelled everywhere abroad
[100] And freely commerced with all kinds of men.
He has the skill of many magic arts,
The virtue knows of many a mighty drug;
He can compound thee opiate drinks to drown
Thy thought and senses in oblivion.
He could compose thee in so deep a sleep,
Fair like an infant's, that not all the blare
Of all Rome's trumpets loud together blown
Could rouse thee ever from that fixéd sleep.
A dangerous wicked man to wield such power! ”

“ The most deplorable weakness of Paul was his nepotism. Parma and Piacenza, states of the Church, he bestowed upon his natural son Pier Luigi (1545) . But in 1549 Pier Luigi was assassinated by his outraged subjects, and the emperor thereupon claimed the two duchies for his son-in-law Ottavio Farnese, Paul’s grandson. This led to a family quarrel which greatly embittered the last days of the pope and hastened his death (Nov. 10, 1549) . Parma and Piacenza continued to be a bone of contention for two hundred and fifty years.
Paul was gifted and cultured, a lover and patron of art. ”

“ Paul has seen with the spirit's eye what we have seen since in history,—that he is to be the living link by which the electric fire of life should pass first from religious Asia to quicken this dead, brutish Europe. ”

“ Indeed, Paul had gone through the years of his manhood with a feeling that her presence was always near to him. The [174] conviction that had come to him as he had stood in the Cathedral at Langres was too strong to be shaken off. Whatever happened—and Paul meant to win the woman he had that night left in the Faubourg St. Germain—he felt sure his Queen had willed it.
Such is the inexplicable influence that the dead sometimes exert. ”

“ But when Paul tells us to "submit ourselves to every ordinance of man for the Lord's sake," and to "fear God and honor the king," the heavy tread of the Anglo-Saxon blood walks over the head of Paul and sweeps away from this republic the possibility of a king. And the gentleman himself, I presume, would not assent to the sway of a crowned monarch, Paul to the contrary, notwithstanding. Just as the people have outgrown the injunction of Paul in regard to a king, so have the wives his direction to submit themselves to their husbands. ”

“ Paul, son of a Welsh prince, was a disciple of S. Iltut, along with S. Samson and Gildas. At the age of sixteen he left his master, and retired across the sea into a solitary place among his Brittany moors, where he erected an oratory and a cell. In course of time, other young men, seeking like himself a better country than earth, congregated about him, and he became their superior. He received priest's orders along with twelve of his companions. Near his congregation lived a prince named Mark, who invited him to come into his territory, and instruct his people in the Word of God. ”

“ Paul saith, If it may be, as far as in us is, we owe [ought] to have peace with all men. Therefore, William! if thou wilt now, meekly, and of good heart, without any feigning, kneel down and lay thy [Pg 108] hand upon a book, and kiss it; promising faithfully as I shall here charge thee, that 'thou wilt submit thee to my correction and stand to mine ordinance, and fulfil it duly by all thy cunning and power,' thou shalt yet find me gracious unto thee! ”