ethren;"
[77:5] and at Lystra, the same parties "persuaded the people, and having
stoned Paul, drew him out of the city, supposing he had been dead"
[78:1] The trials through which he now passed seem to have made an
indelible impression on the mind of the great apostle, and in the last
of his epistles, written many years afterwards, he refers to them as
among the most formidable he encountered in his perilous career.
Timothy, who at this time must have been a mere boy, appears to have
witnessed some of these ebullitions of Jewish malignity, and to have
marked with admiration the heroic spirit of the heralds of the Cross.
Paul, when about to be decapitated by the sword of Nero, could,
therefore, appeal to the evangelist, and could fearlessly declare that,
twenty years before, when his life was often at stake, he had not
quailed before the terrors of martyrdom. "Thou," says he, "hast fully
known my long-suffering, charity, patience, persecutions, afflictions,
which came unto me at _Antioch_, at _Iconium_, at _Lystra_, what
persecutions I endured, but, out of them all, the Lord delivered me."
[78:2]

The hostile efforts of the Jews did not arrest the gospel in its
triumphant career. The truth prevailed mightily among the Gentiles, and
the great influx of converts began to impart an entirely new aspect to
the Christian community. At first the Church consisted exclusively of
Israelites by birth, and all who entered it still continued to observe
the institutions of Moses. But it was now evident that the number of its
Gentile adherents would soon very much preponderate, and that, ere long,
the keeping of the typical law would become the peculiarity of a small
minority of its members. Many of the converted Jews were by no means
prepared for such an alternative. They prided themselves upon their
divinely-instituted worship; and, misled by the fallacy that whatever is
appointed by God can never become obsolete, they conceived that the
spread of Christianity must be connected with the extension of their
national ceremonies. They accordingly asserted that the commandment
relative to the initiatory ordinance of Judaism was binding upon all
admitted to Christian fellowship. "Certain men which came down from
Judea" to Antioch, "taught the brethren, and said, Except ye be
circumcised after the manner of Moses, ye cannot be saved." [79:1]

Paul was eminently qualified to deal with such errorists. There was a
time when he had valued hi