480

Remarkable Description of St. Paul's Person.

How little stress is to be laid on external appearance! This prince of apostles seems to hint, concerning himself, that his bodily presence was not calculated to command respect at first sight, 2 Cor. x. 10. St. Chrysostom terms him, homuncionem tricubitalem, "a little man, about three cubits [or four feet and a half] in height.

Lucian, or whoever is the author of the Philopatris, is supposed to have had St. Paul in view, where he introduces "A Galilean" (for so the Christians were contemptuously styled), rather bald headed, with an aquiline nose, who travelled through the air into the third heaven."

But, of all other writers, Nicephorus Callistus has given us the most circumstantial account of St. Paul's person [Lib. ii. cap. 37.]-" St. Paul was small of stature, stooping, and rather inclinable to crookedness: pale faced, of an elderly look, bald on the head. His eyes, lively, keen, and cheerful: shaded in part, by his eyebrows, which hung a little over. His nose, rather long, and not ungracefully bent. His beard, pretty thick of hair, and of a sufficient length; and, like his locks, interspersed with grey."

END OF VOL. III.