The Sea-Voyage
“The warring winds have died away,
And clouds, beneath the glancing ray,
Melt off, and leave the lands and sea
Sleeping in bright tranquillity.
Instead of one unchanging breeze,
There blow a thousand gentle airs,
And each a different perfume bears — As if the loveliest plants and trees
Had vassal breezes of their own
To watch and wait on them alone,
And waft no other breath than theirs.”
“Food and raiment was his bill of fare; and more than this he never cared for, — accounting, that the less he was clogged with these things, the lighter he should march to heaven — especially travelling through a world overrun with troubles and persecutions.” — Cave’s Life of St PawZ, 1676.
lg?0 B may imagine our Great Apostle reaching 1 #& now the old arched gate at the northern entrance of Assos, and hastening to the harbour to see if the ship, which had his companions on board, had arrived. He would have to descend through abrupt and steep streets before reaching the sea-shore; so precipitous, indeed, was the way from the town to the port, that it was a common proverb — “Go to Assos and break your neck.”* Probably he may have stood for a while on the shore watching the vessel gradually approaching. If it had already reached, no time was to be lost in getting on board. Probably, towards the evening of Monday, he once more found himself and his companions surrounded with the voices of Grecian sailors, spreading their sails to the breeze.
We may imagine the beauty of the scene as they
* See Lcwiu.
retired from the harbour of Assos, — its own long line of buildings; its striking citadel, perched on a rock; and, higher still, melted among the tints of the evening sky, was beautiful Ida, with her crags, and groves, and waterfalls. For some time the course of the vessel was not in the open sea; their voyage lay among creeks and islands where the navigation was difficult, and where safety required that they should cast anchor for the night. Modern travellers unite in describing the extreme beauty of the scenery through which, for several successive days, St Paul must have passed. The first place at which they paused was Mitylene, the chief city of the beautiful island of Lesbos, the largest in the iEgean Sea. The town was built on a narrow neck of land, with a port on the east and west side of it, and still remains, under the modern name of Castro. Here they waited over night, as there was at present no moonlight, and the intricate passage between the island and the mainland rendered it only safe to venture by day.
The next morning (Tuesday) they directed their course to Chios, where the straits between the island and the coast become narrower still. On the left, lofty precipices towered hi terror over their heads — to the right, the lovely gardens of the island were bright with blossom.
Passing through similar scenery as they skirted the eastern shores of Samos, they reached Trogyllium, where they again cast anchor. On approaching the latter, Paul could not fail to cast an affectionate and longing look towards a spot much endeared to him, and which could not have been above a few miles distant. It was Ephesus, where, a brief year before, he had witnessed the terrors of a fanatical mob, and yet experienced the faithfulness of Christian friendship. His imminent danger had compelled him to hnrry away in haste, without a word of benediction or farewell, and he could willingly now have landed, and gone direct to its gates to “salute” his attached friends there. Doubtless he could discern its site, at least, from the prow of his vessel; but it was either impossible for him to divert the ship from its course, or, what is equally probable, he was unwilling to allow anything to interfere with his purpose of being in time for the feast of Pentecost at Jerusalem. He could not, however, pass this much-loved place, where so many brethren and sisters of the Lord were, without trying to hold some intercourse with them. He knew that his ship would be detained for a day or two at the port-town of Miletus. Could he not send a messenger to Ephesus (not more than thirty miles) to tell the presbyters of the church to come and see him? He would hear from their lips about his dear converts, and both he and they would have the privilege, at all events, of uniting in prayer, and getting a mutual blessing. He saw, moreover, that dangers and trials, more especially from the wiles of the Judaising Christians, were waiting them; and he was anxious to take the only opportunity he was likely ever to have on earth of uplifting his warning voice. He lived to see how needful the warning was; for, among the very last words he dictated, probably a few days before his death, he tells us, what was not the least of his closing trials, — “This thou knowest, that all they which are in Asia be turned away from me; of whom are Phygellus and Hermogenes.” *
* 2 Tim. i. 15.
Meanwhile, however, we may imagine the joy of the Christians at Ephesus when they were told — “Our beloved Paul is at Miletus, and is waiting for our coming!” We may imagine their journey — their meeting! It is one of the most touching scenes in all the Apostle’s life, or indeed throughout the Bible itself. They are gathered (probably from the time that had elapsed since leaving Troas) on the Sabbath day. It is in no house — no church; their place of assembling is on the solitary beach, within sound of the rippling sea. It was a little prayer-meeting like the one by the river-side at Philippi, beneath the canopy of nature; but never, we believe, did sermon tell with more touching power, or were hearts united in more fervent supplication. The sermon is still left to us. * It is short; but it is one of those beautiful passages of Scripture which no one, to this day, can read without being touched by its beauty and tenderness. They kneeled down at its close on the shore — tears fell fast — old and young flung their arms around Paul’s neck, embracing and kissing him — “sorrowing most of all for the words which he spake to them, that they would see his face no more; and they accompanied him to the ship.” There is no time for delay; the Great Apostle, with a bursting heart, is once more on the blue deep — his eye wistfully following his downcast friends, till distance has separated them for ever.
Before leaving the town of Miletus, we may just remark, that, when Paul knelt by its sea-shore, he must have gazed, close by, on a busy city — a forest of masts crowding its four ports. Already was it beginning to interfere with the trade of Ephesus. If he
* Acts xx. 18-36.
THE SEA- VOYAGE. 21)7
looked towards the sea, a cluster of islands would be right in view, well-known haunts of smugglers and pirates. Owing to the quantity of soil carried down by the stream of the Meander, these islands are now no longer washed by the ocean, but are little elevations rising in the midst of a fertile plain; and Miletus itself has shared in the altered face of nature.*
Chandler visited it, among other places, in his tour in Asia Minor, and was struck with its desolation, though still retaining, in its name (Palat, or Palatia, the Palaces), the remembrance of its ancient greatness. “Miletus,” he says, “was once exceedingly powerful and illustrious. Its early navigators extended its commerce to remote regions; the whole Euxine Sea, the Propontis, Egypt, and other countries, were frequented by its ships and settled by its colonies It afterwards fell so low as to furnish a proverbial saying — 1 The Milesians were once great.’ .... The whole site of the town, to a great extent, is spread with rubbish and overrun with thickets. The vestiges of the heathen city are pieces of wall, broken arches, and a few scattered pedestals and inscriptions, a square marble urn, and many wells.” t
The Greek sailors and their holy voyagers pursue their course towards the island of Cos, which has been called “the garden of the iEgean,” celebrated for wine and silkworms. Among the groups of smaller islands which they passed, they may have got a glimpse of one we have already alluded to, unknown then in sacred story — the island of Patmos, from whose lonely rock there sounded forth the last messages of Deity to our world.
* Lewin, in loc. f Chandler, pp. 148, 149.
Rhodes was the next place to which they sailed. Doubling its northern promontory, they carne in sight of the beautiful town and harbour, rising in the midst of gardens and hills. It was celebrated for its roses, which gave the name to the island — its Temple of the Sun, and great Colossus. This last was said to stand across the harbour, and was so high that vessels passed under its legs. Every finger of the image was as big as a man. It was reckoned the greatest of the seven wonders of the world while it stood; but, in the time of Paul, it was a huge ruin — nothing remaining but the limbs; the vast monument of human labour, 105 feet high, which attracted from afar the eye of the mariner, had been overthrown by an earthquake. As the Apostle passed into the port, the brazen monster was lying prone on the beach, where it continued for ages, until the Saracens took possession of the island, when the brass of the Colossus was sold to a Jew, who carried it away on the backs of 900 camels.*
It is not said whether the ship landed at Rhodes. Most probably it only cast anchor for the night, and, at early dawn, proceeded along the Lycian coast, with a “knot of high and rugged mountains in view,“t which the writer we quote calls Mount Cragus, the haunt of the fabled Chimsera. A little way east of this, they come in sight of Patara, the port of the river Xanthus, ten miles from the city of the same name. The vessel in which they were now sailing seems not to have been bound for Syria; but, fortunately, on reaching Patara, they found one just about to start for Tyre. “Without loss of time, the Apostle seized the favourable opportunity, and once more, under a bright
* Codrnnus. t Beaufort’s Kara ma uia.
full-moon and a favouring breeze, we may imagine him out on the broad ocean — no longer now any creeks or currents to render anchorage for the night necessary.
It is worse than vain and unprofitable, in Bible narrative, to imagine things that are not described; but it may be pardonable for us to picture, in the present voyage, the weather-beaten Apostle standing on the deck of his vessel, “in the great and wide sea,” — the clear moonbeams playing on its white sails, or on the rippling foam of its wake. Every traveller who has been on the Mediterranean by moonlight, has spoken with rapture of the scene. Paul had left his warm cloak behind him at Troas; and we shall afterwards find him wishing much that he had it to protect his shivering frame in the damps of a Roman dungeon. But he can dispense with it now, in a summer night in these genial climes, and under such a canopy. Nature, we know, in her intense repose, has a wonderful power on the human spirit. Those glittering stars above his head, looking down from their quiet heaven like so many ministering angels, may have whispered peace to his lonely spirit. If the rude heathen sailors around were beguiling the hours by their wonted songs, may not the Apostle-voyager and his companions have had also their “songs in the night 1 “One of these, we know, was often on the lips of pilgrims like himself going up to the Passover; — may it not now have soothed his spirit in that moonlit sea, and led him to cast his burden on a faithful God 1” The Lord is thy keeper; the Lord is thy shade upon thy right hand. The sun shall not smite thee by day, nor the moon by night. The Lord shall preserve thee from all evil; he shall preserve thy soul. The Lord shall preserve thy going out, and thy coming in, from this time forth, and even for evermore.” * Perhaps you may remember the first time he sailed along this same sea — it was while, a brave-hearted boy, he stood on the deck of some Phoenician trader, with his father or some other friend at his side, pointing out, one by one, the objects of interest in the land of promise. How different this voyage! That father had, for aught we know, long ere now sunk into his grave, reposing with his dead in the Jewish sepulchre in Tarsus; — perhaps gone down to the tomb in sadness because the child of high promise had become an apostate and a Nazarene! It may be so; but Paul felt that better than father or friend was with him. If his “father and mother had forsaken him,” the Lord had “taken him up.” A mother’s smile may possibly have never fallen upon her boy; but amid the stillness of that midnight hour, a voice would break upon the ear of the orphaned Apostle, as he drew nigh, with a trembling heart, to the city of God. “As one whom his mother comforteth, so will i” comfort you, and ye shall be comforted in Jerusalem!” A few days, as we shall see, fulfilled the promise. 3> The distance from Patara to Tyre was a considerable one, — about four hundred miles; but with a favouring ^11* v north-west wind, (the voyage might easily be made in
forty-eight hours.tj The first land he would descry would be the round-topped mountain of Cyprus, with its summit of snow; and, not long after, he would catch his first glimpse, in the hazy distance, of the peaks of Lebanon.
They have now reached Tyre, the once “great city,”
* Psalm cxxi 5-8. t Howson, vol. i. p. 233.
THE SEx.- VOYAGE. 301
all that remains of which, at the present day, is a few rocks and miserable huts, on which the fishermen spread their nets. When Paul visited it, it was far past the height of its glory, though still large. It was originally situated on the mainland, but the conquering army of Nebuchadnezzar drove the Tyrians to an island close by. Here they fortified themselves, and built a new city, jutting into the sea a mile long. Alexander the Great was only able to take it by connecting, at great labour, the mainland with the islandtown. Its port, into which the Apostle entered, was situated on the north of the peninsula.
Since the Phoenician territory, between the sea and the mountain range of Lebanon, was small, Tyre was still indebted to neighbouring countries for various commodities which she received in exchange for her manufactures; and it has been conjectured, with great probability, that this vessel from Patara, in which Paul now was, may have been laden with grain or wine from the rich provinces of Asia Minor or the islands of the iEgean.* She was bound for Ptolemais, but, before proceeding thither, had to unlade in the Tyrian harbour. This occupied several days; and as the Apostle found he was in ample time for the Jerusalem festival, he willingly spent the leisure thus afforded him with the “brethren at Tyre.” A church seems to have already existed here, and among its members at present were some “prophets,” to whom had been imparted a knowledge of coming events. These used their influence with Paul to try and prevent him from going to Jerusalem, as they had a foresight given them of his coming trials. Their efforts,
* See Howson, vol. i. p. 235.
however, were vain. I need not say if there had been any express divine command in the matter, Paul was not one who would be found “to fight against God,” But it was only a prophetic warning on the part of these Christians, “that if he valued his own liberty and safety, he ought not to venture, since it would certainly expose him to very great hazard.” * He had, however, like his Lord before him, “set his face steadfastly to go up to Jerusalem,” and no danger would divert him from what he considered his path of duty, although he had frankly owned to the elders of Ephesus that his spirit was clouded with the many intimations he had received of coming “bonds and imprisonment.” After spending seven days at Tyre, including a Sabbath, the master of the vessel availed himself of the first fair wind to proceed to Ptolemais. Paul was followed to the seaside, as at Miletus, by many affectionate friends, their wives and children mingling in the sorrowing group who had come to bid him farewell. After uniting in prayer on the shore, the canvas is again spread to the breeze, and in a few hours they are sailing up the spacious bay, at the bend of which is situated the modern Acre, the ancient Ptolemais. We need not stop to describe this illustrious town. It was famous in the time of the Crusades, when England’s lion-hearted king fought under its walls. It defied the power of Napoleon. In more recent times, it was less successful in withstanding the might of our own gallant fleet. Mount Carmel casts its shadow on the south part of the bay, where the principal anchorage was, and here, we may conclude, St Paul ended his present sea-voyage. At Ptolemais,
* Doddridge.
he only remained a single day, visiting the disciples resident there, and then took the road which skirts the base of Mount Carmel to Cesarea, — a distance of thirty-five miles. There were in this latter city many endeared Christian disciples, — one especially, under whose roof he had taken “sweet counsel” before now. Philip the Evangelist and his four daughters dwelt in the town of Herod. These four females seem to have been devoted servants of Jesus, on whom also the gift of prophecy had descended, as in the case of Deborah and Miriam in Old Testament times, and also in accordance with the prediction of Joel. Here the same mournful intimations met the Apostle, of approaching trials and persecution if he ventured to go to Jerusalem. Agabus, a convert and a prophet, the same who had years before predicted the famine in Judea, hearing of Paul’s arrival, had come down all the way from the Holy City to lift his voice of prophetical warning. His former prediction relative to the dearth had been so accurately fulfilled, that the disciples would naturally listen with anxiety to what he would say regarding the future destiny of their revered father. The prophets, in olden time, had a peculiar way of foretelling coming events by acting these in expressive signs or symbols before the eye. Thus Jeremiah foretold the coming Jewish captivity by burying his girdle on the banks of the Euphrates; and Isaiah walked naked and barefoot to proclaim the humbling bondage which awaited Egypt and Ethiopia by the King of Assyria. Agabus used the same striking method now of making known his prediction. He took off Paul’s girdle, binding his own hands and feet with it, and saying, “Thus saith the Holy Ghost, So shall the Jews at Jerusalem bind the man to whom this girdle belongs, and they shall deliver him into the hands of the Gentiles.” Luke, Aristarchus, Trophimus, and his interested friends at Cesarea, implored the Great Apostle to listen to the voice of warning and abandon his purpose of proceeding to Jerusalem. But Paul’s lofty spirit would allow no fears or threats to terrify him; he was bold in his Master’s work. It pained him much to resist the advice of affectionate brethren, but he had been forewarned by a voice of love what “great things he must suffer for His sake.” Is he to shrink from the cross 1 No! he acts up to his own advice to a younger believer — “Endure hardness as a good soldier of Jesus Christ.” He had counted the cost, and found it worthy of martyrdom. “What mean ye to weep and to break mine heart % for I am ready not to be bound only, but also to die at Jerusalem for the name of the Lord Jesus.” * When they saw they could not move him from his purpose, they submitted; and with hearts filled with gloom at all these manifold warnings, said, “The will of the Lord be done.” There was much, indeed, that might well have filled the bold soul of our Apostle with dread; all throughout this journey we cannot fail to mark a dejection that was not usual to him. The Holy Ghost had witnessed in every city that bonds and afflictions were in store for him. He knew he could expect little justice at the hands of the worthless Governor of Judea, the abandoned Felix; and there were low assassins at this time in Jerusalem, who would be ready, for the basest bribe, to sacrifice the noblest life in the world.t
* Acts xxi. 13. t Neander.
But the baggage is put in order; his resolution is taken.
The distance to Jerusalem was seventy-five miles, — a three days’ journey. As many of his personal friends, and Christians from Cesarea, were going up to the Pentecost feast, they must have formed together a goodly company or caravan.
We close this chapter by leaving the noble-minded servant of God in the house of Mnason, an old disciple of Cyprus, looking out on the same streets and scenes with which his eye had been formerly familiar, when, as the boy of Tarsus, he had day by day gone to sit at the feet of the learned Gamaliel.