Remember Charles Dickens' famous story...
Illustration
Remember Charles Dickens' famous story, A Christmas Carol? Remember how
the ghost of Scrooge's business partner, Jacob Marley, appears to him one night? Listen
to it again, as Dickens describes it:
The chain he drew was clasped about his middle. It was long, and wound about him like a tail; and it was made (for Scrooge observed it closely) of cash-boxes, keys, padlocks, ledgers, deeds, and heavy purses wrought in steel ...
"You are fettered," said Scrooge, trembling. "Tell me why."
"I wear the chain I forged in life," replied the Ghost. "I made it link by link, and yard by yard; I girded it on of my own free will, and of my own free will I wore it. Is its pattern strange to you?"
Scrooge trembled more and more.
"Or would you know," pursued the Ghost, "the weight and length of the strong coil you bear yourself? It was full as heavy and as long as this, seven Christmas Eves ago. You have laboured on it, since. It is a ponderous chain!"
The ponderous chain of religious respectability, that Saul of Tarsus had spent half his life forging, he had the good sense to unwind from around himself and abandon, once he met Jesus Christ. Saul gave up his identity, and with it even his name. He became someone completely new: Paul, child of God and disciple of Jesus. What he had once been no longer mattered.
The chain he drew was clasped about his middle. It was long, and wound about him like a tail; and it was made (for Scrooge observed it closely) of cash-boxes, keys, padlocks, ledgers, deeds, and heavy purses wrought in steel ...
"You are fettered," said Scrooge, trembling. "Tell me why."
"I wear the chain I forged in life," replied the Ghost. "I made it link by link, and yard by yard; I girded it on of my own free will, and of my own free will I wore it. Is its pattern strange to you?"
Scrooge trembled more and more.
"Or would you know," pursued the Ghost, "the weight and length of the strong coil you bear yourself? It was full as heavy and as long as this, seven Christmas Eves ago. You have laboured on it, since. It is a ponderous chain!"
The ponderous chain of religious respectability, that Saul of Tarsus had spent half his life forging, he had the good sense to unwind from around himself and abandon, once he met Jesus Christ. Saul gave up his identity, and with it even his name. He became someone completely new: Paul, child of God and disciple of Jesus. What he had once been no longer mattered.
