140 JIOKiE PAULlNiE. 



of conveying their liberality to the hands of the apostle, that 

 he had acquitted himself of this commission at the peril of 

 his life, by hastening to Rome under the oppression of a 

 grievous sickness — to a reader who knew all this beforehand, 

 every line in the above quotations would be plain and clear. 

 But how is it with a stranger? The knowledge of these 

 several particulars is necessary to the perception and expla- 

 nation of the references ; yet that knowledge must be gath- 

 ered from a comparison of passages lying at a great distance 

 from one another. Texts must be interpreted by texts long 

 subsequent to them, which necessarily produces embarrass- 

 ment and suspense. The passage quoted from the beginning 

 of the epistle contains an acknowledgment, on the part o^ 

 the apostle, cf the liberality which the Philippians had exer- 

 cised towards him ; but the allusion is so general and inde- 

 terminate, that, had nothing more been said in the sequel of 

 the epistle, it would hardly have been applied to this occa- 

 sion at all. In the second quotation, Epaphroditus is de- 

 clared to have " ministered to the apostle's wants," and "tc 

 have supplied their lack of service towards him ;" but hoio\ 

 that is, at whose expense or from what fund he " minister- 

 ed," or what was " the lack of service " which he supphed, 

 are left very much unexplained, till we arrive at the third 

 quotation, where we find that Epaphroditus " ministered to 

 St. Paul's wants," only by conveying to his hands the con- 

 tributions of the Philippians : " I am full, having received oi 

 Epaphroditus the things which were sent from you ;" and 

 that "the lack of service which he supplied" was a delay 

 or interruption of their accustomed bounty, occasioned by 

 .the want of opportunity : " I rejoiced in the Lord greatly 

 that now at the last your care of me hath flourished again , 

 wherein ye were also careful, but ye lacked opportunity/' 

 The afiair at length comes out clear : but it comes out by 

 piecemeal. The clearness is the result of the reciprocal 

 illustration of divided texts. Should any one choose there- 

 fore to insinuate, that this whole story of Epaphroditus, oi 



