Barnabas the Chastened

I am now coming to the figure of a great preacher of the early Christian Church — one who in his day enjoyed the rare privilege of being the friend of opposite parties. I speak of the man who was known to his contemporaries and who is known to posterity by the name of Barnabas. The name was not his own. It was really a term of endearment meaning ’ the son of consolation, ’ or, as it might be rendered, ’ the son of exhortation. ‘It signified that in the opinion of men his preaching of Christian truth was of a most helpful nature, pouring balm on the wounded and giving strength to the weary. The name of love has stuck to him. It has painted him to all ages as a man of supreme kindness, of much tolerance, of wide charity — eager for

the comfort of the distressed and impressed by 239 the duties which he owed to the poor. A rich man himself, he felt that a trust had been committed to him; a preacher of Christ’s Gospel, he felt that a responsibility had been laid upon him; a member of the prophetic school, he felt that he must help to hasten the march to the Promised Land.

This is the second of the great Christian preachers we have met in the Gallery. The first was John the Baptist. Nothing can exceed the difference between these two representatives of pulpit eloquence. The Baptist is immured in a Jewish desert; Barnabas grows up in the free air of Cyprus Isle and by the blue waters of a far-sounding sea. The Baptist is all fire; Barnabas is all persuasion. The Baptist would break down the stubborn strongholds; Barnabas would bind the broken hearts. The Baptist proclaims the terrors of judgment; Barnabas points to the joys of Paradise. The Baptist frightens by the famine and the swine-husks; Barnabas tempts by the ring and the robe and the welcome.

From what sin was such a srood man converted? — that is the question which rises to the hps as we gaze on his face in the Gallery. Remember, I have no historical information on the subject. I have never seen the primitive Barnabas; when he appears before me, he is already a leader of men. Is there any other mode of discovering his past.-* I think there is. Let us look at the man as he flashes before us in the Great Gallery at the height of his Christian influence and in the blaze of his Christian fame. Let us ask if even in this white apparel we can discover the remains of any stain, if even on this fair face we can find the traces of a scar. If we can, you may be sure that we have reached the beginnings of the man — have put our hand on what was once a black mark, have laid our finger on what was originally an ugly sore.

Now, beautiful as the character of Barnabas is, we are permitted to see in it one flaw; and we are entitled to regard this flaw as a remaining trace of that which in the old days was his besetting sin. What is it.-* I should be disposed to describe it as a particular kind of pride 16

—the pride of race. I say, ’ a particular kind ’ of pride. I would sharply distinguish it, for example, from personal pride or egotism — that kind of pride to which the evangelist John in his early days was subject. The pride of race is compatible with personal humility — it may exist side by side with a sense of individual unworthiness. The Jew, indeed, was apt to sink himself in his country — to become personally humble in proportion as he grew patriotically proud. Again, I would distinguish this pride from the pride of wealth. Barnabas was rich, but he was not proud of his riches. In the very first recorded scene of his life we find him selling his land and giving the money to the Church. But is that incompatible with the pride of race! Would it be thought very extravagant if I said that it was the pride of race helped him to do so? Barnabas was a Levite — and the Levites, as individuals, had originally no land; they were forbidden to inherit it, and they were at first too poor to purchase it. If, as wealth accumulated, they acquired it by purchase, a man like Barnabas might well feel that the ancestral glory had been departed from — that the law had been violated in spirit while preserved in the letter; and he might well resolve that, in his case at least, there should be a return to the life of his forefathers. I do not disparage his charity — God forbid! I do not minimise his goodness of heart — that was of the purest. But I do say that in the achieving of this good thing ancestral pride may well have co-operated, and that his personal life may have been humbled by the very consciousness of his national dignity.

Unfortunately for Barnabas, it was not always to good things that this pride led him. Perhaps I should say, ’ fortunately. ‘A man only learns his defect in being chastened — in finding that the ways in which it leads are not ways of pleasantness nor its paths paths of peace. If it always brought him into pastures green, he might come to reverence it. But when it pushes him into quagmires, drives him among thorns, throws him down in stony places, wanders him amid labyrinths, then the man cries, ‘There is something wrong here — something which incommodes me, hurts me, retards me, and which at all hazards I must get rid of.’ That is the Christian history of Barnabas. It is the history of a man who has been transformed from a Jew into a follower of the Cross, but who has carried over with him a remnant of that old ancestral pride which was so prevalent among his countrymen. It is the history of that process of chastening by which this remnant of an old sin was assailed, by which the man was made to feel that the spirit of caste was not the spirit of consolation. In no other light can we read with profit the life of Barnabas. Looked at from the purely secular side, it is a very sad life. It begins in glorious morning; it closes in a cloudy afternoon. It opens with music and dancing; it concludes amid the silence. Its rise is hailed with plaudits; its setting is marked by obscurity. Very sad, I say, from a secular point of view is this life of Barnabas. But from a Christian point of view it reads very differently. If you believe that this decline is a chastening, if you are convinced that the branches lopped from the tree were useless branches, if you feel that the adversity was a revelation that there was still something defective in this man’s soul, then will the afternoon of Barnabas be better than his morning and the shadows of his obscurity more healthy than the glare of his fame. Let us briefly follow the stream of the narrative.

When the great preacher was in the blaze of his glory, there came to Jerusalem another and a rising preacher who promised in the future to be great. It was young Saul of Tarsus, who after a bitter persecution of Christianity had been converted to the faith he maligned and had taken the name of Paul. There had burst upon him the conviction that his special call was not to his own countrymen, but to the Gentiles; it was among these that the sun of his fame rose. From the standpoint of the Jew this was not a very promising beginning. That a scion of the race of Israel should embrace a faith which professed to be cosmopolitan, was bad enough; that he should single out the Gentiles for a special interest, was maddening.

Even the Jewish Christians were not prepared to hail such an advocate. They had ahvays been accustomed to claim the largest room; here was a man that would dispossess them of their privilege! Might not this be only another form of the persecution — an attempt to destroy Christ by denying His special relation to the land of their fathers! Was this a man to be trusted! Were his antecedents such as made him an object of trust! Had he not been a bitter enemy of their faith! Was a change so sudden as his likely to be real, or, if real, likely to be permanent! Were they not standing on the brink of a precipice; let them beware!

And so, when this young preacher came to Jerusalem, he was received coldly. Men shrank from him as from a pestilence. There are times when nothing can raise a man in public estimation but the support of a powerful hand. The man who is under disgrace, under suspicion, under the ban of the multitude, will probably lie there until he is lifted by some one higher than the multitude. But when that happens, the influence of the one will in all likelihood outweigh the influence of the many. So was it with Paul. For a time he lay prostrate in obscurity — shunned and feared by his Christian countrymen. Suddenly, a big hand touched him, and two big arms lifted him up, and a big voice proclaimed, ‘This man is our brother.’ The hand, the arms, the voice, were those of Barnabas. It was exactly the thing we should expect Barnabas to do. He was by nature a consoler. The sounds which first reached his ear were ever the plaints of weakness. To be downtrodden, to have everybody against you, to be despised and rejected by your fellow-men, was quite sufficient to place you within sight of the sympathy of Barnabas. His large heart took in the desolate Paul and made a way for him in the world. He led him to the College of Apostles. He brought him to the President of that college — James the Lord’s brother, to win whose influence was the key to the whole position. He told of Paul’s zeal, of his ardour, of his success. He lost no opportunity of bringing his talents into notice. When Paul had gone back to Tarsus and Barnabas had gone to electrify with his wisdom the Church at Antioch, the older preacher was sad because he had all the glory. He wanted the young man to share it; he determined that he should share it. He went to Tarsus and brought him to the scene of triumph. He gave him a place among the Christian workers. He went about continually in his company, that men might say, * There go Barnabas and Paul.’ He knew well the power of association — how a tarnished name if linked with a great name may lose its tarnish; and he resolved that Paul should reap the advantage of such a union.

This was generous, this was noble. But what if the association should be inverted! What if in process of time the conjunction should be, not * Barnabas and Paul, ’ but ‘Paul and Barnabas ‘! It is quite a common thing to see a mature preacher take a young preacher under his patronage, and in a brief space to behold the young man becoming the leader. In the present instance this actually happened. For a while the name of Barnabas precedes, and that of Paul follows; then there is a change — the order is ‘Paul and Barnabas. ‘The reason is plain. Paul has revealed himself as the greater power. I do not say, as the greater man. If Christian greatness be the spirit of goodness, Barnabas must ever remain one of the loftiest human souls. But if Barnabas was unsurpassed as a man, he was surpassed as a power. It was not long before a superior force made itself felt in the little band — it was the mind of Saul of Tarsus. He entered as a dependent; he ended as a leader. He came to the front by the sheer force of intellect. His mind was in some respects a contrast to that of Barnabas. Barnabas was entirely practical; Paul was, before all things, speculative. Barnabas was naturally calm; Paul was generally on fire. Barnabas was methodical; Paul moved on wings. Barnabas was an organiser; Paul was an inspirer. Barnabas was a man of counsel; Paul was a man of genius. It was inevitable that the stronger force should in the long-run be the dominant force; it was certain from the outset that the leading spirit of the company would be, not Barnabas, but Paul.

But the question which I ask is this. What effect would this have upon Barnabas? Would it touch his jealousy? Never — that, at least, may be confidently affirmed. This man was incapable of jealousy. It had no part in his nature, which was essentially free from individual self-seeking. But if you ask me if it would touch his pride of race, then, looking to what happened afterwards, I must give a very different answer. I think this is the very element in Barnabas which the superior deference paid to Paul would touch. It is true, Paul was as Jewish as himself and had a lineage as good as his own. But those of whom Paul was exclusively the missionary were, in the view of Barnabas, without lineage — the Gentiles had no descent from Abraham. Why should one who represented the Gentiles alone, be seated on a higher throne than one who, however tolerant and however eager to make Gentile converts, had been originally the representative of an older and more venerable line — of that Church which professed to be the latest flower of Judaism and the fulfilment of her Messianic dreams! Was it right, was it well, that it should be so! Ought not the first branch to be the cherished branch! Had it not been deemed in days of yore the proudest of all dignities to belong to the primitive fold; why had the time come when men were turning aside from this reverence to crown one who served the fold of a stranger!

I think that, parallel with his own declining influence, this was the ever-deepening thought of Barnabas. It was not a jealous feeling, it was not even a personal feeling; it was the pride of race. He thought of himself, not as an individual, but as the member of a venerable community which, in the mind even of the Gentile, should ever have the highest place of reverence. Yet, impersonal as it was, the feeling was the remnant of a garment which ought to have been discarded, and which, because it was not discarded, became a source of discord. It was not long before the cloud brooding over the heart was made visible in the sky. It first gathered at Perga. John Mark, the favourite nephew of Barnabas, deserted the Gentile band and went back to the Mother Church at Jerusalem. In the next chapter I shall speak of him separately, and I only allude to him now with a view to illustrate the attitude of Barnabas. But I think his conduct has a bearing on the attitude of Barnabas. When I remember that even after the separation the uncle and nephew still remained on excellent terms, when I recollect how amply it was revealed in the future that the elder man had condoned the deed of the younger, I cannot avoid the conclusion that in the mind of that elder man there had risen a shadow of displeasure which had dimmed the glory of the morning and spread a chill through the once-genial air.

But the shadow was to deepen, the chill was to increase. By and by there was a conference summoned at Antioch. ‘It was to be a meeting for purposes of Church-union. All parties were to be represented; all parties came. The Gentile Christians were probably first in the field ‘So I interpret Galatians ii. n-14.

—Antioch being a Gentile city. Then would come the Hellenists — the men who, though now Grecianised, had either been originally pure Jews or had sprung from Jewish ancestors; and these sat down beside the purely Gentile converts. Then appeared the Jewish Christians; and they too sat down with the Hellenist and the Jew. At last came deputies from that ecclesiastical board of administration over which James presided — men who, however liberal, were full of Jewish memories and deep in the caste of nationality. And when these came, they would not sit down with the mass. They were willing to make copious concessions to the Gentiles, but not to give their company; they could patronise, but not fraternise. They held themselves apart. They kept in an isolated corner. They constituted themselves an inner court of the tabernacle and allowed the party of Paul to remain outside. Gradually, an effect was produced by this attitude. The Jewish Christians began to steal away from the seats they had taken and to form independent groups. Peter quietly removed himself — but simply from a return of his native timidity. There was worse to follow — Barnabas removed himself. This was not timidity, nor was it the impulse of the hour. It must have been the result of a long process of dissatisfaction. Barnabas was not an impulsive man and he was not a passionate man. What he did he did from reflection — a reflection which, though bitter, was dictated, I believe, by an erroneous sense of duty. I think it was really at him that Paul levelled his rebuke. He addressed Peter, but only because he was the virtual chairman of the company. It was Barnabas that made him sore. It was Barnabas that awakened his astonishment and indignation. It was Barnabas that quickened him to the frailty of human nature and to the inveterate and wellnigh invincible weakness that dwells in the heart of man.

At last the cloud descended in a stream of piteous rain. In process of time Paul proposed that he and Barnabas should make a second missionary tour over the ground they had already trodden. Barnabas, you will observe, has now ceased to be the suggester of the Gospel programme; its ordering has passed into the hand of Paul. Yet the former leader is willing here to be the follower. He consents to go, provided Paul will allow John Mark to accompany them. Paul emphatically refuses. Had not this man deserted the standard! Had he not preferred another field to the field so dear to Paul’s heart! Were any family considerations to alleviate the blame of such conduct! John Mark must be viewed, not as the nephew of Barnabas, but as a neutral party! He must be treated on his own merits — not as the scion of an old house, but as if he were an individual unbefriended, obscure, alone! Judged by that test, he had been found wanting! There was a rent in his garment which could not be patched over with family colours; let the man abide where he had elected to be. So said Paul; and it was the last straw. For then the storm broke. Barnabas retorted; Paul replied. The waters pent up for months burst their barriers and rushed into the open. The quarrel which began with being vicarious became personal; mutual recriminations came, and words ran high. At last that happened which in such cases often happens — the less capable combatant left the room and slammed the door. That was in effect what Barnabas did. He threw up his work. He abandoned the mission. He bade farewell to the scene of his labours, to Paul, to the comrades of his midday. He withdrew into his shell — Cyprus. He saw the drama of a great career fade before him; and his life which promised to fill the world was confined within the limits of a little isle. There was again a change in the Gospel partnership. First it had been * Barnabas and Paul ‘; then it was ‘Paul and Barnabas *; henceforth it was to be ‘Paul ’ alone.

Who was wrong in the resjilt of this quarrel.’’ Undoubtedly Barnabas. I waive altogether the subject of John Mark’s treatment. It is a question which is irrelevant; and it ought to have been a question subordinate to Gospel interests. Why should Barnabas have allowed a family consideration to outweigh his work for Christ! Why should he have diminished that work for any discourtesy paid to his house! I believe this last act of his was a final judgment on that lingering weakness of his life — the pride of race. I feel sure that before long it was accepted as such by himself — as his revelation of the pitfall in the way. Why do I think that he lived to regret the step he had takeny So far as I know, he and Paul never met again; what makes me think that Barnabas came to shake hands in spirit.’* There are two things which lead me to that conclusion. One is the fact that, long years afterwards, an extravagantly Pauline letter appeared bearing the name of Barnabas. Its genuineness is outwardly very well attested; internally, the production is thought very unlike him. The reason of the supposed unlikeness is just the fact that he is so unfettered in his treatment of the Jewish scriptures — one would say he had passed over to the Gentiles. Altogether, I do not myself think that he is the author of that letter; but I do think that the fact of its being attributed to him shows where, in his last years, his

mind was known to lie. It shows that in the 17 opinion of his contemporaries his life, as it neared the setting sun, came nearer and ever nearer to that ocean of universal love in which Paul bathed all the day — where there was neither Jew nor Greek, barbarian nor Roman, bond nor free — where the only flag unfurled was the flag of humanity.

But there is another reason why I think the closing years of Barnabas were years of reconciliation. The nephew came back to Paul — came back under circumstances which made the sacrifice all on his side and the gain entirely on Paul’s. As the subject will recur hereafter I shall not dwell upon it here. The one point is that the nephew did come back — came back at a time when love alone could have brought him. And when we consider that after Paul had rejected his services he had gone to live with his uncle, his act of reconciliation throws back its light upon Barnabas. It shows clearly that the spirit of Barnabas had been sweetened by the years. If the impression left by the uncle on the nephew’s mind had been one of bitterness, he would have shunned

Paul for evermore. We do not love those by whom a near and dear relative has been stung, even where the sting has been justly implanted. The return of John Mark proves to my mind that from the breast of Barnabas the sting had been long extracted, and that in its room had been planted the spirit of reconciliation. It proves that, in his sphere of comparative imprisonment in the isle of Cyprus, the heart of Barnabas, at least, had burst its chain. Though no longer he was aiding Paul with the hand, his soul was going with him. His sympathies were breaking forth from Cyprus and following his companion of early years — rejoicing in his triumphs, sharing in his griefs, participating in his burdens, joining in his prayers. The outward union to him personally was not to be restored; but the union in the spirit was already complete, and to his kinsman he left the clasping of the hands.

LORD, let not the sun go down upon my wrath! Life is too short for quarrels. Yet it is not because life is short that I would have peace. It is because eternity is long. How strange my old quarrels look in the light of vanished years! Methinks they will look stranger still in the light of Thine eternity. I am ambitious now, and I shall be ambitious then; but the things for which I am ambitious now are not the things for which I shall be ambitious then. Now I strive to get; then I shall strive to give. Now I seek possession; then I shall try to be dispossessed. Now I covet the uppermost seat; then I shall descend the stair. Now I select the best robe; then I shall choose the servant’s form. I see Paul and Barnabas standing before Thy presence, and there is still a strife between them. But the cause of strife is changed — Paul wishes Barnabas to be first, and Barnabas is eager to remain second; they zuonder at their old quarrel in the light of Thy throne. Reveal that light to me, O Lord! In my hour of quarrel, in the hour when I strive to be first, give me a glimpse of the soul’s last judgment on itself — its reversed judgment! Let me see Cain rejoicing over the acceptance of Abel’s sacrifice! Let me see Lot repudiating the richer share! Let me see Sarah making a home for Ishmael! Let me see Jacob refusing his brother’s birthright! Let me see Joseph exalting his brethren in his dreams! Let me see David take Uriah’s place in the battle! Let me see Jonah intent on sparing Nineveh! Let me see Herod exulting in the sustenance of the babes of Bethlehem! Then shall the light of eternity arrest the strife of time; Paul and Barnabas shall stand side by side.