Curiosities of Christian History Prior to the Reformation

by James Paterson

WAS ST. PAUL EVER IN GREAT BRITAIN?

It was at one time believed that St. Paul had entered Great Britain as within his mission, and preached to the natives. But Thackeray, in his “Researches into the State of Ancient Britain” (1843), comes to a conclusion in the negative for the following reasons: (1) There is no mention nor even allusion to it in the New Testament; (2) the statement of his friend Clemens, Bishop of Rome, to the effect that Paul preached to the utmost bounds of the West, is far too vague to be available, and seems only a hyperbolic mode of expressing the magnitude of his labours; (3) there is no probable allusion to Paul’s journey to Britain to be found in the whole range of literature prior to Theodoret, early in the fifth century, and even he does not specify Britain; (4) there is no mention of any such mission to be found in our own historians prior to the Norman Conquest.

ST. PAUL ON AREOPAGUS, QUOTING A POET.

The fact that St. Paul, when addressing the Athenians on the summit of the Areopagus or Hill of Mars, quoted a Greek poet for the saying, “Ye are also his offspring,” has led scholars to search for the originals. And the saying is found in two poets who flourished before the Christian era—namely, Aratius and Cleanthes. There are two other quotations (Titus i. 12; 1 Cor. xv. 33), traced to Epimenides and Callimachus. Some have inferred from these quotations that St. Paul may have been familiar with the poets of Pagan antiquity. But the researches of scholars tend to show that the quotations were only common sayings of the period, and the inferences one way or another as to the Pagan learning of the apostle are mere speculations. The occasion also on which St. Paul spoke on Areopagus has been the subject of discussion, as to whether Paul was at the moment charged with some indictable offence against the sanctity of the gods, or whether there was some inquisition held by authority in order to include Jesus as one of the recognised divinities, or whether it was merely an address at the request of the keen-witted Epicurean and Stoic philosophers of the time. No certain conclusion can be arrived at on these moot points.

ST. PAUL AND PLAUTILLA.

A legend of the death of St. Paul relates that a certain Roman matron named Plautilla, one of the converts of St. Peter, placed herself on the road by which St. Paul passed to his martyrdom, in order to behold him for the last time; and when she saw him, she wept greatly and besought his blessing. The apostle then, seeing her faith, turned to her, and begged that she would give him her veil to bind his eyes when he should be beheaded, promising to return it to her after his death. The attendants mocked at such a promise; but Plautilla, with a woman’s faith and charity, taking off her veil, presented it to him. After his martyrdom, St. Paul appeared to her, and restored the veil stained with his blood. It is also related that, when he was decapitated, the severed head made three bounds upon the earth, and wherever it touched the ground a fountain sprang forth. This legend is sometimes represented in the pictures of the martyrdom of St. Paul. The church of San Paolo at Rome, where the body of St. Paul was interred, rich with mosaics, was consumed by fire in 1823.

ST. PAUL AND THE VIPER.

Not far from the old city of Valetta, in the island of Malta, there is a small church dedicated to St. Paul, and just by the church a miraculous statue of the saint with a viper on his hand, supposed to be placed on the very spot on which he was received after his shipwreck on this island, and where he shook the viper off his hand into the fire without being hurt by it. At that time the Maltese assure us the saint cursed all the venomous animals of the island and banished them for ever, just as St. Patrick banished those of Ireland. Whether this be the cause of it or not, it is said to be a fact that there are no venomous animals in Malta.

THE HISTORY OF JUDAS ISCARIOT.

The “Apocryphal Gospel,” called the “Arabic Gospel of the Infancy,” has the following (chapter xxxv.): “In the same place there dwelt another woman, whose son was vexed by Satan. He, Judas by name, whenever Satan seized him, bit all who approached him; and if he found no one near him, he bit his own hands and other members. Therefore the mother of this unfortunate youth, hearing the fame of Lady Mary and her Son Jesus, arose and took with her her son Judas to my Lady Mary. Meanwhile, James and Joses had taken away the Child Lord Jesus to play with other children; and after leaving home, they had sat down, and the Lord Jesus with them. Judas the demoniac came nigh, and sat down at the right of Jesus; and then, being assaulted by Satan as he was wont to be, he sought to bite the Lord Jesus, but he could not; yet he struck the right side of Jesus, who for this cause began to weep. Forthwith Satan went forth out of the boy in form like a mad dog. Now, this boy who struck Jesus, and from whom Satan went out in the form of a dog, was Judas Iscariot, who betrayed Him to the Jews, and that side of Him on which Judas had smote Him the Jews pierced with a spear” (Matt. x. 4; John xix. 34).