grave gray eyes; and, failing that, he tried to visualize her as her aunt's finished product. And that also was too much for him. He could not get beyond the fact that on Monday morning, promptly at nine, he would begin selling books again. He would become a bookseller's assistant; the books would be brought to the mart for sale, Uncle Toby and the rest, no more than paper and ink and calf and morocco; and she who had poured them all tea would go down the drive to become flesh and blood under the pork-market guidance of her Western relatives. There would be only the house, waiting for the next inhabitant who could fit himself into its drowsy atmosphere. The house and the gray garden. . . ... He knocked out his pipe, for he wanted to leave its ashes on the hearth. The firelight wavered delicately over the tea things. It is only firelight which makes ghosts. The light in the open window had retreated beyond the glass. It was growing darker and darker. Now and then he could catch a glimmer of gold on the back of a book; but the corners of the room had faded. Only the chandelier, in the breathing glow of the flames, hung over him like Titania's web. The black dress of the child had acquired invisibility in the shadow: there were only her pale face and hands, her long braid of wheat-colored hair, and her grave gray eyes. She was looking at him earnestly. 'I wish I could remember your name.' He swallowed convulsively. 'It was It is I have n't any name - just now.' of the truck. He could hear the tires clawing at the gravel. 'I don't want to go,' he said. And then he found himself in the hall. There was no sign of the butler. Only the furniture in its moving-garb, and the bare floor, and his hat, coat, and gloves on the table. He put them on and closed the front door after him. No sign of the butler. Had he left the child alone? Suddenly it occurred to him that he had not tasted his tea. He tried the door, but it was locked. IV 'Perhaps, then, you feel like me. And I don't want to go. Oh, I don't! I don't!' He was not sure she was crying. 'Here I am,' said Corrigan, unnecessarily, as the truck snorted to a stop. 'Get aboard.' Adams stared up at the silent windows. 'But the butler's gone.' 'Yesterday,' amended Corrigan, putting a smoke ring round the word. "The little girl's all alone.' 'No, she ain't. That's what I brought ye for. She left two days ago, with her aunt, in a limysine as long as me tailboard.' He exhaled pennons of smoke.. 'Get aboard, sir. It's three hours to Boston with this load on.' Reluctantly Adams complied. Corrigan released the brakes and they started coasting, silently, down the drive, past wide terraces of lawn and the gray garden. 'Look!' said Corrigan, drawing the clay pipe from his mouth, and the word was like crystal without the smoke. Adams glanced along the stem and saw, in the middle of the gray garden, the bud of a white crocus, by itself. They passed down through the gateposts, with the roosters atop, tiptoe for crowing. "The creatures!' said Corrigan, as he juggled the gears into high. THE EPISTLE OF KALLIKRATES J. M. WITHEROW, TRANSLATOR [THE document which follows is somewhat freely translated from a Greek MS. written in uncials of a form that suggests the second century. Thirtyfour pages remain, but the last is a mere fragment, and the conclusion of the work is lost. These papyrus pages were discovered, along with other documents, far down in sand that filled the cellar of a ruined house. For reasons that may be easily guessed, the site of this house must remain a secret for some time to come. It may be said, however, that the discovery took place in a certain district of North Africa. All the papyri unearthed were carefully packed and forwarded to New York, where they arrived on June 7 of the past year. Of the other documents found in the same cellar, only one is of general interest. It seems to be an account of the harbors of the eastern Mediterranean in the time of Vespasian. The rest are letters, accounts, recipes for cooking, and minutes of some guild meeting. These will be published later. The present work purports to be a letter from a man of some little culture belonging to the Corinthian Church, addressed to the Apostle Paul at Rome. The tone is that of one genuinely desirous of spiritual light, though at certain points it sounds a little querulous. The writer seems most familiar with the Epistle known as First Corinthians in our New Testament, and gives no sign of having ever seen the Acts or the Pastoral Epistles. Opinions are sure to differ on the genuineness of this little treatise. Some will take it for what it claims to be, a work of a Christian scholar about the year 64 A.D. Others will confidently pronounce it an obvious forgery of the time of Justin Martyr or later in the second century. In either case it makes a definite contribution to the discussion of religious problems that have excited keen interest in certain quarters both in Europe and in America. The letter has been divided into paragraphs, with headings inserted. Some references to the sources of quotations have been given here and there. For these headings and references the translator alone is responsible. As the writer makes no claim to be writing sacred instruction for the Church, no attempt has been made to render his language into Biblical English. -TRANSLATOR] KALLIKRATES, the son of Euphorbus, one of the faithful at Korinth, to Paul, the beloved apostle of our Lord Jesus Christ: grace and peace be yours always from the one true God who sent you to bring the word of life to Achaia. It has ever been a sorrow to me that, living in a mountain village a day's journey south of Sikyon, I never saw you, Paul, or indeed heard of you when you were preaching the Gospel in Korinth. Three years after you left Korinth for the last time, I came here to study the books of some of our celebrated teachers, and here I met Stephanas, your brother in Christ, and now mine. He taught me the way of 3 reason with us when you write of the law courts, of the payment of apostles, of tongues in public worship, of the resurrection, and other subjects. But why reason with us, if we may not judge your argument? Surely you are implying that you wish us to use our own minds and judge what you say? Nay, at certain points you expressly invite us to form our own opinions. In discussing idolatry2 and again about unveiled women, and again about prophets' speaking to the church, you tell us plainly to think for ourselves. I am sure you will not blame us for taking you at your word. Permit me, then, beloved teacher, to tell you what my judgment is on some points of your teaching, praying you not to be offended, but to be patient with me if I disagree, and with brotherly kindness explain to me the right doctrine on these points more perfectly. salvation, which you had taught him. Through him I have been baptized and received into the number of the saints that are in Korinth. I live in the street that leads to the old harbor, the fourth house from the temple of Apollo. Stephanas has been very kind to me, lending me your letters to the brethren in this city, and a copy of a letter you wrote to the brethren in Galatia and of another to the brethren at Rome. I have copied them all out and have read them again and again, thanking God our Father for the truth in Christ sent to me in my ignorance and unworthiness through your words, deep, eloquent, and persuasive. At many places in your works I feel as often as I read that the Lord Himself is speaking to me through you. I have fed at your hands, but am still hungry. I have drunk at your fountain, but I am thirsty still. Besides all this, we your children in Korinth are in much anxiety about you. We hear you are again to be brought before Cæsar's tribunal. We earnestly pray God night and day for you that you may be acquitted and set at liberty. And I pray also that you may come back to Korinth and guide us, for some are in need of guidance, I myself most of all. Meanwhile, I write of my difficulties and doubts to you in this letter, hoping you may wish to know the present beliefs of the church in Korinth and may be permitted by your jailer to answer. You are our most profitable and convincing teacher. From Silas and Loukas we have received sayings of our Lord Himself and many of His parables, and from Apollos many interpretations of the Hebrew writers. But you are our greatest teacher of all men now living. And yet, as you said, you do not 'lord it' over our faith. You 12 Cor. 1. 24 Education First, then, I make mention of what you have written to the brethren here about human wisdom and knowledge. We all see quite clearly that by no cleverness or genius or learning do men enter the kingdom of God. We understand quite well that you rightly recommended the Gospel of Christ as an engine of power to change men's hearts and conduct, using this appeal to fact in simple language rather than subtle argument and flashy rhetoric and display of erudition. About all this there is no difficulty. But here and there you use language which to some of us seems to go much further. For instance you say, 'Sage, scribe, critic of this world, where are they all? Has not God stultified the wisdom of the world?' And again, 'Whoever of you imagines he is wise with this world's wisdom must become a fool, if he is 21 Cor. x. 14, 15 31 Cor. XI. 13 41 Cor. XIV. 29 5 1 Cor. 1. 20 really to be wise. For God ranks this world's wisdom as sheer folly.'1 A certain section of our brotherhood here never tire of quoting these sentences of yours, especially when they see me or my companions present at the meeting on the day of the Lord or at the love-feast in the evening. Some of them are sure they are acceptable to the Lord because they can neither read nor write nor avoid solecisms in their speech, and that I, because I have studied logic, geometry, and philosophy, and the dramatic poets, am in danger of eternal perdition. They say that you, in mentioning sage and scribe, plainly censure both Greek and Hebrew culture, that all education is folly and therefore offensive to God everywhere, but especially in members or administrators of His Church, and that we Christians should know nothing but Christ and Him crucified. In vain do I plead with them that your words only mean that you despise flashy rhetoric in stating God's offer of everlasting life, and that human art and learning and education, if applied to redeem a man's soul, are utterly out of place and 'sheer folly,' in the sense of being entirely futile for that purpose. Thus I might call the rudder oar of a trireme an instrument of foolishness if I saw a man trying to build a house with it, but that would not prove that I thought triremes should have no rudders. So I plead that men should use some common sense when your epistles are read. But this is all in vain. Some of these brethren reply to me that I must be wrong because you never admit that human wisdom is valuable for any purpose. They add that your reason probably is that you are sure the world is soon to end and the day of the Lord's return is very near. When I hint that perhaps neither you nor anybody could 11 Cor. ш. 18, 19 be certain of this, and that if the day of the Lord should not come for one hundred and fifty years it would be unkind to deprive our young people of education to fit them for doing their work in the world, they are offended, and tell me to read again your words on the resurrection, 'We shall not all sleep,'2 proving, as they say, that the day of the return must come in the lifetime of some of us now living. Others, again, add that most assuredly we should agree that with God human wisdom must be sheer folly, because God may be regarded as a mighty emperor and men in His eyes as less than spiders, and an emperor may well smile at the foolishness of the cleverest spider. To this I answered, 'I am sure that is not Paul's conception. Did you ever,' I asked, 'hear of an emperor sending his son to die for spiders?' But although this reduced my opponents to silence for a time, I did not convince them, and indeed I confess that, on reading again your words about human and divine wisdom, I myself remain uneasy in my mind. I cannot hide from myself that your whole trend and tone are hostile to human culture, and I cannot find much recognition of, or sympathy for, the noble and true sayings of our philosophers and poets, though you did once quote from the Thais. I go back to one of my favorite books and I read, 'Be sure of this, no evil can happen to a good man either in life or after death,' and then I read in your letter to the brethren at Rome: 'God will render to everyone who does good, glory, honour, and peace.'3 And I wish to know, beloved teacher, why I ought to call the second sentence divine wisdom in spiritual language and the first sentence human wisdom and sheer folly, and why I must renounce appreciation of the first if I wish to appreciate the second. Even when I narrow your meaning to a censure of flashy rhetoric in stating the Gospel, I find myself wondering whether you think it would be wrong to use good rhetoric stating the Gospel in a careful, educated way, in order to conciliate an educated hearer and win him to Christ. Surely not wrong? But if not, then, O beloved teacher, I do wish that at this point in your letter you had inserted some such word. No Governing Officials We have now several bishops at Korinth, as I hear our brethren in Philippi and Ephesus also have. They are wise and earnest, trying to settle our difficulties and superintend our worship in accordance with your instructions written for us in your letters. I never refer to these instructions myself without wondering why you did not appoint, or cause us to appoint, bishops or other administrators before you left Korinth the first time. You wrote that there were various teachers and governors under the apostles in the Church elsewhere. You knew that some brethren in Korinth were more or less qualified for this work. You actually named Stephanas and said you would like us to follow men like him. For Discipline But, O Paul, would it not have been wiser to have seen that such men were appointed directly it was certain that you yourself would have to leave? Naturally you were shocked at the adulterous person who brought discredit on our church in the early days. But for whom among the brethren was it a duty to put himself forward in the very unpleasant business of denouncing the offender and calling on the church to have him expelled? Can you be surprised there was some delay? We 11 Cor. v had no one to act or to judge because no one had been appointed. Your instructions in this affair bear the interpretation that an assembled congregation (men and women, married and unmarried, old people, and young boys and girls) may suitably hear and decide about such offenses. Surely you do not mean this? If your words about procedure here are insisted on as binding on the Church until our Lord come, I foresee grave trouble. In the ancient times of Hellenic freedom it was ever found, both in Athens and in Korinth, to be difficult to make a large assembly into a court of law. Will it be easy for us? Or for Arbitration Similar thoughts occur to me when I find you censuring the brethren for resorting to the Roman courts2 for judgment of disputes between one Christian and another. If the brethren had possessed already a court of their own, with power to enforce its award, they would never have dreamed of carrying some of their disputes to Cæsar's magistrates. But no such court, no Christian arbitrators, had been given them, and I wonder why. Perhaps you smiled at your own irony when you assured your Korinthian converts of their competence to judge? However that may be, some of the 'puffed-up persons' in this city whom you had occasion to reprove more than once3 never doubted their competence to judge you and 'the world' and 'the angels' and everybody else. Your mention of the angels at this point,* and also in the paragraph about women in public worship, has caused much perplexity, but I must not ask too many questions. I wish to say that modesty about ability to judge is not, and I think never was, a difficulty in the Korinthian church. |