Paul the apostle of catholicity
1. What is St. Paul referring to when he says 'As I wrote afore in few words whereby, when ye read[[12]], ye can perceive my understanding in the mystery of Christ' or (if I may venture to retranslate it) 'as I wrote before in brief, by comparison with which, as ye read, ye can perceive my understanding in the secret of the Christ'? It is generally supposed that he is referring to the verses in the first chapter of this epistle (i. 9, 10, &c.), in which he speaks of the 'mystery' or 'secret' of the divine will now disclosed. But his point appears to be rather that he had elsewhere written in brief about his own special commission to preach the Gentile gospel; and the more probable reference seems to be to the Epistle to the Colossians which was written almost simultaneously with this epistle, probably just previously, and was intended to be read at some at least, if not all, of the same churches as this circular epistle, that is to say at Laodicea and Colossae at least, and probabfxly more widely. In that epistle (i. 25 ff.) he had really dwelt on his special commission in almost the same terms as here, and comparison with what he said there would indeed assist those he was now addressing to understand his knowledge in the 'revealed secret of the Christ.'
2. How can St. Paul, who insists continually that he is one of the apostles, call them, without self-complacency, God's holy apostles? The answer to this is that 'holiness' means 'consecration.' Any one is 'holy' or a 'saint' (the same word) who is consecrated to God in any special way. Such consecration lays upon him an obligation to moral goodness, which is what we mean by holiness, but it precedes the fulfilment of the obligation. All Christians are holy (or 'saints') because they are Christians, all apostles because they are apostles. As for St. Paul's personal estimate of himself as an individual, we have it just below. In view of his past sins, when he was 'kicking against the pricks,' and, albeit in ignorance, persecuting the Church, he calls himself 'less than the least of all the holy.'
3. St. Paul conceives his function to be to 'make men see,' or 'bring into the light' a long hidden secret of God now in part disclosed to the apostles, and to be by them disclosed to the world—in part, for its contents are still 'unsearchable' in their depth and in the 'manifoldness' of divine wisdom which they imply. But what is disclosed is no afterthought of God. It is an eternal purpose; and it is all of a piece with the original idea of creation: it is a 'secret ... hidden in God who created all things.' Redemption in fact interprets to angels and men what God's purpose in creation originally was. To minister to this disclosure is enough for any man. It makes all St. Paul's tribulations only such as it is worth while to bear; and the Gentiles, in their turn, should find their glory in his tribulations as an evidence of how much he thought it worth while to suffer in what is their cause no less truly than his.
St. Paul's second prayer
Here, as in the first chapter, the consideration of the glory, and consequently the difficulty, of the gospel which St. Paul has to deliver leads him off—just at the point where he seems to be resuming the uncompleted sentence with which he began—into a prayer that the Asiatic Christians may have strength given them to apprehend the wealth of their spiritual position and opportunity. He invokes God as the universal 'father (pater) from whom every family (patria)—every company of men knit together by common relation to one father—is named,' because this has direct reference to his purpose. All men recognize family, or blood relations and obligations. St. Paul reminds them that every conceivable society on earth or in heaven which is bound by the ties of a common fatherhood, derives its 'name' and therefore its significance from a larger relationship, an all-embracing relationship of which these lower ones are but shadows—the relationship to the one Father: and he calls upon the one Father to strengthen men to transcend all narrownesses of family or blood, and rise to realize their position in the great family, the great brotherhood under the one Father. To do this a strengthening of the inner man, or inner life, by the divine Spirit is indeed needed. Christ must be not only possessed by Christians, but realized. He must dwell in their hearts by the realizing power of an active personal faith. Where this is so—where faith is vigorous—there life must be rooted and founded on love. Christian faith involves love. For it is faith in a Father and His Son and His Spirit; and love, and nothing but love, is the gift of the Father in the Son by the Spirit. This love then will strengthen them, in the fellowship of the saints or consecrated ones altogether, to apprehend God's work and purpose in all its dimensions—breadth and length and depth and height—and to know Christ's love (which yet passes knowledge and remains unknowable), and to find their whole being, not as separate individuals, but as one body praying and working and thinking together, expanded to take in the fulness of what God is, the full complement of the divine life. To be thus enlightened and enlarged is what St. Paul understands by being a 'good catholic': that is what he prays all these Asiatic Christians may become.
And his prayer passes into a doxology—an ascription of glory to God because He is able to realize even what passes our power to conceive or to ask for; and that without doing more for us than He has already pledged Himself to do and actually begun to accomplish in us. And this glory he would have eternally ascribed to God in the Church which lives by His life; and also (where alone God can never fail of His full rights) in Him in whom alone God's life is perfectly realized, and worship perfectly rendered Him under conditions of manhood, in Jesus the Christ.
For this cause I bow my knees unto the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, that ye may be strengthened with power through his Spirit in the inward man; that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; to the end that ye, being rooted and grounded in love, may be strong to apprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ which passeth knowledge, that ye may be filled unto all the fulness of God. Now unto him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us, unto him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus unto all generations for ever and ever. Amen.
St. Augustine, with his eye on the imperfections of the Church, speaks[[13]] of 'the glory of love ... alive but yet frost-bound. The root is alive, but the branches are almost dry. There is a heart alive within, and within are leaves and fruits; but they are waiting for a summer.' That is surely what we feel. The world cries out for brotherhood. We are perpetually explaining that brotherhood can only become actual, in the long run, where men know themselves to be, and in fact are, sons of God. We are continually pointing out that external legislative social reforms can only effect good where there exists, to respond to them and to use them, some strength and purity of inward character: that outward reforms without moral redemption would effect evil rather than good. All this is true and it is necessary to explain it. But the convincing demonstration begins at that point where Christianity makes man feel, and see in fact, that it contains in itself the remedy for social evils, because it has the spirit of love: where the Church is so actually presented as that men should feel and know that this is a true human brotherhood. It is the social, human, brotherly power of the Church which is what is at the present moment best calculated to win the consciences and convince the intellects of men. But this actual living spirit of self-sacrificing love—this spirit of real brotherhood—how 'frost-bound' it is! How large the area of the Church, how many its institutions, where it is not (to say the least) the most obvious thing represented! In fact, social reform, and that the most thorough and the most permanent, requires nothing more than that professing Christians should be better Christians, Christians who really believe what St. Paul and St. John say about the love of the brethren. Come then, O breath of the divine Spirit, and breathe upon these bones of the Christian Church, that they may live!
And outside the area of nominal Christianity how 'frost-bound' our evangelizing love. Surely the Church of England, as part of the expansive British nation, has an apostleship to the nations comparable to St. Paul's. Yet missionary zeal, as directed towards the natives of India, or Japan, or Africa, is a very restricted thing; noticeably restricted it must be confessed among those who most love the name of Catholic: and almost non-existent in the great majority of those who are yet members of the national Church. But it cannot be too deeply felt that to St. Paul the reconciliation of men with God is inseparable from the reconciliation of man with man. The atonement with God that is not an atonement among men he would not own. A peace with God that leaves us content that Hindoos and Japanese and Africans should not be of our religion is a false peace. A Christian who is not really in heart and will a missionary is not a Christian at all. Missionary effort is not a speciality of a few Christians, though, like every other part of Christian life, it has its special organs. It is an essential, never to be forgotten, part of all true Christian living, and thinking, and praying.