the third story to the ground, and was taken up dead. Paul, hearing of the accident, immediately went down and restored the young man to life.
From Troas, Paul repaired to Lesbos, Chios, Samos, and Miletus. From the latter place he sent for the clergy of Ephesus, and bade them a last tender farewell, saying: “Now, behold, bound in the spirit I go to Jerusalem [1], not knowing the things that shall befall me there.” He then told them that he feared nothing, but was willing to lay down his life for his Divine Master.
To the bishops he said: “Take heed to yourselves, and to all the flock over which the Holy Ghost has placed you bishops to rule the Church of God, which He hath purchased with His own Blood. I know that after my departure ravenous wolves will enter in among you, not sparing the flock.” Then, kneeling down, he prayed with them all. And there was much weeping among them; and, falling on Paul’s neck, they embraced him, and accompanied him to the ship, sorrowing that they should see his face no more.
COMMENTARY.
The Divinity of Jesus Christ has been proved by St. Paul in many of his epistles to the faithful. may be well to quote a few of the most important passages in them.
In his Epistle to the Romans St. Paul writes thus: “God is my witness, whom I serve in my spirit in the Gospel of His Son, that without ceasing I make commemoration of you always in my prayers’’ (I, 9). And again: “If, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the Death of His Son, much more, being reconciled, shall we be saved by His Life” (5, 10). “If God be for us, who is against us? He that spared not even His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how hath He not, also with Him, given us all things” (8, 31. 32)? “Of whom (the Israelites) is Christ, according to the flesh, who is over all things, God blessed for ever (9, 5).
To the Galatians St. Paul writes: “And I live, now not I, but Christ liveth in me. And that I live now in the flesh, I live in the faith of the Son of God, who loved me and delivered Himself for me” (2, 20). “When the fulness of the time was come, God sent His Son,
- ↑ To Jerusalem. Thus ended his third great missionary journey. Well might St. Paul say (i Cor. 15, 10): “The grace of God in me hath not been void (or inefficacious); but I have laboured more abundantly than they all (i. e. than the other apostles): yet not I, but the grace of God with me.”
