Now, Essenes, this story that I tell of what happened to us at Lystra has been told with some care by me, for it is significant of what has happened to me for twenty years, since the day, as you have heard, when the Lord Jesus himself spoke to me out of the clouds and appointed me to preach the Gospel he had given unto me, which, upheld by him, I have preached faithfully, followed wherever I went by persecution from Jews determined to undo my work. But undeterred by stones and threats, we returned to Lystra and preached there again, and in Perga and Attalia, from thence we sailed to Antioch, and there were great rejoicings in Saigon Street, as we sat in the doorways telling of the churches that we founded in Galatia, and how we flung open the door of truth to the pagans, and how many had passed through.
But some came from Jerusalem preaching that the uncircumcised could not hope for salvation, and that there could be no conversion unless the law be observed, and the first observance of the law, they said, is circumcision. We answered them as is our wont that it is no longer by observances of the law but by grace, through our Lord Jesus Christ, that men may be saved; and we being unable to yield to them or they to us, it was resolved that Barnabas and Titus, a Gentile that we brought over to the faith, should go to Jerusalem.
On the way thither we preached that the Saviour promised to the Jews had come, and been raised from the dead, and the Samaritans hearkened and were converted in great numbers, and the news of these conversions preceding us the joy among the brethren was very great, for you, who know the Scriptures, need not be told that the conversion of the Gentiles has been foretold; nor was it till we began to talk about the abrogation of the law that James and the followers of James rose up against us. We wondered, and said to each other: were ever two brothers as unlike as these? Though myself had never seen the Lord in the flesh, I knew of him from Peter, and we whispered together with our eyes fixed on the long, lean man whose knees were reported callous from kneeling in the Temple praying that God might not yet awhile destroy the world. It was sufficient, so it was said, for him to hold up his hand to perform miracles, and we came to dislike him and to remember that he had always looked upon Jesus our Lord with suspicion during his lifetime. Why then, we asked, should he come into power derived from his brother's glory?
He seemed to be less likely than any other Jew to understand the new truth born into the world. So I turned from him to Peter, in whom I thought to find an advocate, knowing him to be one with us in this, saying that it were vain to ask the Gentiles to accept a yoke which the Hebrews themselves had been unable to bear; but Peter was still the timid man that he had ever been, and myself being of small wit in large and violent assemblies said to him: thou and I and James will consult together in private at the end of this uproar. But James could not come to my reason, saying always that the Gentiles must become Jews before they became Christians; and remembering very well all the trouble and vexation the demand for the circumcision of Titus had put upon me (to which I consented, for with a Jew I am a Jew so that I may gain them), and how he had submitted himself lest he should be a stumbling-block, I said to Timothy, my own son in the faith, thy mother and grandmother were hearers of the law, and he answered, let me be a Jew externally, and myself took and circumcised. A good accommodation Peter thought this to be, and I said to Peter, henceforth for thee the circumcised and for me the uncircumcised. Against which Peter and James had nothing to say, for it seemed to them that the uncircumcised were one thing in Jerusalem and another thing beyond Jerusalem. But I was glad thus to come to terms with them, thinking thereby to obtain from them the confirmation of my apostleship, though there was no need for any such, as I have always held, it having teen bestowed upon me by our Lord Jesus Christ himself; and holding it to be of little account that they had known our Lord Jesus in the flesh, I said to their faces, it were better to have known him in the spirit, thereby darkening them. It might have been better to have held back the words.
Myself and Barnabas and Titus returned to Antioch and it was some days after that I said to Barnabas: let us go again into the cities in which we have preached and see if the brethren abide in our teaching and how they do with it. But Barnabas would bring John Mark with him, he who had left us before in Perga from cowardice of soul. Therefore I chose Silas and departed. He was our warrant that we were one with the Church of Jerusalem, which was true inasmuch as we were willing to yield all but essential things so that everybody, Jews and Gentiles, might be brought into communion with Jesus Christ.
We went together to Lystra and Mysia, preaching in all these towns, and the brethren were confirmed in their faith in us, and leaving them we were about to set out for Bithynia and would have gone thither had we not been warned one night by the Holy Breath to go back, and instead we went to Troas, where one night a vision came to me in my sleep: a man stood before me at the foot of my bed, a Macedonian I knew him to be, by his dress and speech, for he spoke not the broken Greek that I speak, but pure Greek, the Greek that Mathias speaks, and he told me that we were to go over into Macedonia.
To tell of all the countries we visited and the towns in which we preached, and the many that were received into the faith, would be a story that would carry us through the night and into the next day, for it would be the story of my life, and every life is long when it is put into words; nor would the story be profitable unto you in any great measure, though it be full of various incidents. But I am behoven to tell that wherever we went the persecution that began in Lystra followed us. As soon as the Jews heard of our conversions they assembled either to assault us or to lay complaints before the Roman magistrates, as they did at Philippi, the chief city of Macedonia. Among my miracles was the conversion of a slave, a pythonist, a teller of fortunes, a caster of horoscopes, who brought her master good money by her divinations, and seeing that he would profit thereby no longer, he drew myself and Silas into the market-place and calling for help of others had us brought before the rulers, and the pleading of the man was, and he was supported by others, that we taught many things that it was not lawful of them, being Jews, to hearken to, and the magistrates, wishing to please the multitude, commanded us to be beaten, and when many stripes had been laid on us we were cast into prison, and the jailer being charged to keep us in safety thrust our feet into the stocks.
Myself and Silas prayed and sang praises unto God despite our wounds, and as if in response there was a great earthquake, and the prison was shaken and all the doors opened, on seeing which the keeper of the prison drew his sword and would have fallen upon it, believing that the prisoners had fled, if I had not cried to him in a loud voice: there is no reason to kill thyself, for thy charges are here. What may I do to be saved? he said, being greatly astonished at the miracle, and we answered: believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. Thereupon he invited us into his house and set food before us, and he was baptized and bidden to have no fear, for we confided to him that we were Romans, and that the magistrates would tremble when they heard that they had ordered a citizen of Rome to be beaten and him uncondemned. Why, he asked, did ye not declare yourselves to be Romans? Because, we answered, we were minded to suffer for our Lord Jesus Christ's son, at which he wondered and gave thanks. He was baptized by us, and when he had carried the news of their mistake to the ears of the magistrates they sent sergeants saying that we were to be allowed to go. But we refused to leave the prison, saying, we are Romans and have been beaten uncondemned. Let the magistrates come to fetch us. Which message being taken to them they came beseeching us to go, and not to injure them, for they had done wrong unwittingly, and taking pity of them for the sake of our Lord Jesus Christ we passed into Thessalonica, where I preached in the synagogues for three Sabbaths and reasoned with the Jews, showing them passages in the Scriptures confirming all that we said to them about the Christ that had suffered and been raised from the dead. Some believed, and others assaulted the house of Jason, in which we were living, and the Romans were perplexed to know how to keep order, for wherever we went there were stirs and quarrels among the Jews, the fault being with them and not with us. In Corinth too the Jews pleaded against us before the Roman magistrates and——