Not Paul, but Jesus · Jeremy Bentham
FOOTNOTES:
"Division," says he, "among you:" in this phrase may be seen the style of modern royalty. Towards a will so intimately connected with the divine as the royal, no such temper of mind, so intolerable as opposition, is ever to be supposed: were it on all occasions equally known--known to all, and alike interpreted by all, no division could have place: but, some put one interpretation upon it, some another: in some eyes, this course is regarded as best adapted to the giving effect to it; in others, that: hence that division, to which, on every occasion, it is the duty of all to put the speediest end. Now then as to Paul. This same assumed fatherly affection, under the name of elder-brotherly--this desire of seeing concord among brethren--what was it in plain truth? Answer, love of power. Would you have proof? Take in hand this same Epistle of his to his Corinthians, or, if at verse the tenth, it will be to this purpose early enough, and read on, till you come to chapter iv. verses 15, 16. "Now I beseech you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that ye all speak the same thing, and that there be no divisions among you: but that ye be perfectly joined together in the same mind, and in the same judgment.--For it hath been declared unto me," and so forth, as above. Read on, and at length you will come to the essence of all this good advice, 1 Cor. 4:15. "For, though ye have ten thousand instructors in Christ," says he, "yet have ye not many fathers; for, in Christ Jesus, _I have begotten you_, through the Gospel.--Wherefore, I beseech you, _be ye followers of me_."
At this time, it should seem that, on the occasion of this his courtship of the Jews of Corinth, not only was the name of Peter an object of his declared rivalry, but the name and person of his own sub-disciple Apollos, an object of his jealousy. "For, while one saith," 1 Cor. iii. 4, "I am of Paul; and another, I am of Apollos; are ye not," says he, "carnal?--Who then," continues he, "is Paul, and who is Apollos, but ministers by whom ye believed, even as the Lord gave to every man?--I have planted, Apollos watered; but God gave the increase.--Now he that planteth and he that watereth are one; and every man shall receive his own reward according to his own labour." Fifteen verses after comes a flourish, in which Apollos is spoken of for the last time. "Whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, or the world, or life, or death, or things present, or things to come, all are yours;--23. And ye are Christ's, and Christ is God's." At the word _Cephas_ ends, it may have been observed, common sense: what follows being dust for the eyes: dust, composed of the flowers of Saulo-Paulian eloquence. As to Apollos, if so it was, that, at one time, in the mind of our spiritual monarch, any such sentiment as jealousy, in regard to this sub-minister had place, it seems to have been afterwards, in some way or other, removed: for, in his Epistle to Titus, bearing date about seven years after, namely A.D. 64, the devotion of the subject seems to have been entire. Speaking to Titus, Tit. 3:13, "Bring with you," says Paul, "Zenas the lawyer, and Apollos, on their journey diligently, that nothing be wanting to them."
"And he has said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee." It would require a Swift, Dryden, Pope, Milton or Knowles to stage the above so as make appreciable objective quantities out of the above verbal terms. They might create characters and give them the plumage of angels, nymphs, spirits, heathen gods, etc., and so feast the imagination into paranoia. "Thorn in the flesh." This phrase has baffled the Ecclesiastics. The earlier Commentators interpreted it to mean Paul's great disappointment in all his schemes to subordinate the Apostles of Christ to his personal dominion of which so much has been disparaged by the author.
Text from Project Gutenberg, public domain in the United States.