of Luke and Paul; but in breadth of culture and depth of spiritual insight and grasp, they never approximated the same class.

While Luke is not to be compared with Paul as a preacher or man of action and practical achievement, yet he does rival him as a thinker and historian, in the breadth and solidity of his learning; and in his grasp of the essentials of Christianity as a religion and of its future sway as an imperial and conquering force in the world's affairs; while, on the other hand, he surpasses Paul as a literary artist, and somewhat also in the bulk of his literary output.

His theological views were practically the same as St. Paul's; and they held identical views as to the universality of the Gospel appeal, message, and power, as meant for and adapted to men of every race, degree of culture, and moral status condition.

or

While Paul undoubtedly loved Timothy the best of all his friends, yet that love was the brooding paternal affection of an older and stronger man for one whose very weaknesses called out his protecting strength; but his love for Luke was of an altogether different nature, one that in no way came into rivalry with his affection for Timothy, the love of one strong man for another of equal strength, years, and ability. There is a fundamental lack of equality and mutualness about the friendship of Paul and Timothy; they never were and never could be on the same plane. There is no such disparity in the

mutual love of Paul and Luke. Titus was a man of more independent and aggressive practical achievements than Luke, in all other respects he must be put in another and somewhat lower class.

Take all of Paul's friends and consider all their points and characteristics-mental, spiritual, intellectual, and personal-and Luke will be found the only man in the list, and the only man of the entire New Testament, whom we can think of as anything like Paul's peer, the only one whom we can conjecture to have been a complete companion for the varied and inexhaustible riches of Paul's mind.

What royal banqueting of heart and soul must have been theirs-whether in conversation or in silence as they journeyed together over the fabled and classic land of Greece; as they voyaged from Caesarea to Rome and as shipwrecked mariners wintered in Malta; as together with imperial vision they labored to evangelize Imperial Rome herself; as they sat together in the lonely nightwatches in Paul's felon's cell, awaiting the fall of Nero's bloody, releasing, crowning axe-and in the death of the one "they were not divided." O Luke, thou man of the "unsaid word" and unheralded deed, the great Apostle knew thee as thou wert, and as his mighty heart beat in rhythmic music to thine own his unconscious but answering hand penned thine immortal epitaph-"Luke the beloved physician."

V

What Paul and Luke Each Owed to the Other

All through our brief review of this holy marriage of two of the mightiest souls whose love and friendship has ever blessed this world of ours, we have been constantly finding new material on the topic we have now reached. We need not repeat or enlarge upon what has gone before, merely add a word or two farther.

In Paul's letters we find many medical terms and allusions which are undoubtedly due to his years of constant intercourse with St. Luke. On the other hand in Luke's writings, which in all probability were both composed after Paul's death, we find about two hundred words or phrases common in St. Paul's epistles. This proves the influence of the latter upon Luke, or else that the phraseology was common to both in their familiar intercourse and evangelistic labors. On either supposition it shows the profound affinity of the two men-mental, literary, and theological.

Had there been no Paul, what would have been the story of Luke's personal services to Christianity? Had there been no Paul, of what would Luke have written beyond the first third of Acts? Had there been no Luke, what would we know of the Apostolic Age, of Paul's life and missionary journeys, and where would we find the key to the knotty questions of his epistles?

I have characterized Luke as "the biographer of St. Paul." The phrase does not do him justice. Let me amend it by calling him "the most indispensable friend of St. Paul." But he is far more even than that. He need not shine by borrowed light; he is himself a luminary of the first magnitude. With Peter, John and Paul, he must forever rank as one of the four colossal figures of the New Testament. Though inferior to the other three in the founding and spreading of Christianity, yet in revealing its essential spirit and nature and in recording its mighty advance and world significance and destiny, he surpasses the first two and rivals the third.

O man of matchless heart and matchless pen, we need not compare thy merits nor praise thy greatness. With thee we have heard a mother's "Magnificat" and listened to the angels' song above Judea's hills: with thee we have journeyed with a Gospel despised and persecuted at Jerusalem, till we have seen it enthroned on the Tiber's Seven Hills.

CHAPTER VII

Aquila and Priscilla-Paul's Fellow Craftsmen and Fellow Evangelists

Our information concerning their activities is based upon the following passages:-Acts 18:1-3, and 18-26, Rom. 16:3-5, 1 Cor. 16:19, and 2nd Tim. 4:19.

T

HE names of Aquila and Priscilla have a fairly familiar sound to every student of the New Testament; but if asked to tell something definite about them I doubt if one in ten of average Bible readers could give any information beyond the fact that they were tentmakers: some probably would not even recall that fact. Perhaps this is not altogether surprising as they are named but six times in the entire New Testament, their names being found in only four books,-three times in Acts 18, once in Romans, once in 1st Corinthians, and once in 2nd Timothy. Our entire information concerning them is all contained in just eleven verses,-six in Acts, three in Romans and a fragment of a verse in both 1st Corinthians and 2nd Timothy.