“This leads Paul to the thought of the armour of God, and the friends and enemies of God, the good and the evil, which this wandering Christian Hercules has to deal with: ‘_By the arms of righteousness, on the right hand and on the left; by glory and dishonour; by ill report and good report_—,’ he means, I think, ‘glory in the sight of God, dishonour in the sight of men,’ and again, ‘ill report on earth, good report in heaven.’ And so he continues, ‘_as knaves and true_’—that is, ‘knaves in appearance, in the world’s false judgment, but true men in the sight of Him who judges truly.’ It is a marvel of compression. And it is kept up in what follows:—‘_misunderstood_ [_i.e._ by men] _and well understood_ [_i.e._ by God]; _dying, and behold we live; under the headsman’s scourge, yet not beheaded; grieving, but always rejoicing; beggars, but making many rich; having nothing, yet having all things for ever!_’ “You will be tired of this. But your zeal for your new teacher brought it on you. You admire his ‘fervour.’ Then what do you think of this man’s fervour? He could give points to Epictetus both for fervour and for compression. I admit that Paul has not your master’s dramatic flash, irony, and epigrammatic twist. But, as for ‘fervour,’ here, I contend, is the original Falernian, which your friend Epictetus has watered down. Not that I blame him, either as regards style or in respect of morality. His humorous description of the nursery troubles of the married Stoic was very good—for his purpose, and for a lecture. But it would not have suited Paul. A lecturer must not be too brief. If Epictetus were to pack stuff in his lectures as Paul packs it in his epistles, your lesson would sometimes not last five minutes.