ACTS 9 COMMETARY EDITED BY GLE PEASE Saul’s Conversion 1 Meanwhile, Saul was still breathing out murderous threats against the Lord’s disciples. He went to the high priest BARES, "And Saul - See the notes on Act_7:58 ; Act_8:3 . He had been engaged be fore in persecuting the Christians, but he now sought opportunity to gratify his insatiable desire on a larger scale. Yet breathing out - Not satisfied with what he had done, Act_8:3 . The word breathing out is expressive often of any deep, agitating emotion, as we then breathe rapidly and violently. It is thus expressive of violent anger. The emotion is absorbing, agitating, exhausting, and demands a more rapid circulation of blood to supply the exhausted vitality; and this demands an increased supply of oxygen, or vital air, which leads to the increased action of the lungs. The word is often used in this sense in the Classics (Schleusner). It is a favorite expression with Homer. Euripides has the same expression: “Breathing out fire and slaughter.” So Theocritus: “They came unto the assembly breathing mutual slaughter” (Idyll. 22:82). Threatening - Denunciation; threatening them with every breath the action of a man violently enraged, and who was bent on vengeance. It denotes also “intense activity and energy in persecution.” Slaughter - Murder. Intensely desiring to put to death as many Christians as possible. He rejoiced in their death, and joined in condemning them, Act_26:10-11 . From this latter place it seems that he had been concerned in putting many of them to death. The disciples of the Lord - Against Christians. Went unto the high priest - See the notes on Mat_2:4 . The letters were written and signed in the name and by the authority of the Sanhedrin, or written and signed in the name and by the authority of the Sanhedrin, or Great Council of the nation. The high priest did it as president of that council. See Act_9:14 , and Act_22:5 . The high priest at that time was Theophilus, son of Ananus, who had been appointed at the feast of Pentecost, 37 a.d., by Vitellius, the Roman governor. His brother Jonathan had been removed from that office the same year (Kuinoel). CLARKE, "Saul, yet breathing out threatenings and slaughter - The original text is very emphatic, ετι εμπνεων απειλης και φονου, and points out how determinate Saul
1. ACTS 9 COMME TARY EDITED BY GLE PEASE Sauls Conversion 1
Meanwhile, Saul was still breathing out murderous threats against
the Lords disciples. He went to the high priest BAR ES, "And Saul -
See the notes on Act_7:58; Act_8:3. He had been engaged be fore in
persecuting the Christians, but he now sought opportunity to
gratify his insatiable desire on a larger scale. Yet breathing out
- Not satisfied with what he had done, Act_8:3. The word breathing
out is expressive often of any deep, agitating emotion, as we then
breathe rapidly and violently. It is thus expressive of violent
anger. The emotion is absorbing, agitating, exhausting, and demands
a more rapid circulation of blood to supply the exhausted vitality;
and this demands an increased supply of oxygen, or vital air, which
leads to the increased action of the lungs. The word is often used
in this sense in the Classics (Schleusner). It is a favorite
expression with Homer. Euripides has the same expression: Breathing
out fire and slaughter. So Theocritus: They came unto the assembly
breathing mutual slaughter (Idyll. 22:82). Threatening -
Denunciation; threatening them with every breath the action of a
man violently enraged, and who was bent on vengeance. It denotes
also intense activity and energy in persecution. Slaughter -
Murder. Intensely desiring to put to death as many Christians as
possible. He rejoiced in their death, and joined in condemning
them, Act_26:10-11. From this latter place it seems that he had
been concerned in putting many of them to death. The disciples of
the Lord - Against Christians. Went unto the high priest - See the
notes on Mat_2:4. The letters were written and signed in the name
and by the authority of the Sanhedrin, or written and signed in the
name and by the authority of the Sanhedrin, or Great Council of the
nation. The high priest did it as president of that council. See
Act_9:14, and Act_22:5. The high priest at that time was
Theophilus, son of Ananus, who had been appointed at the feast of
Pentecost, 37 a.d., by Vitellius, the Roman governor. His brother
Jonathan had been removed from that office the same year (Kuinoel).
CLARKE, "Saul, yet breathing out threatenings and slaughter - The
original text is very emphatic, , and points out how determinate
Saul
2. was to pursue and accomplish his fell purpose of totally
destroying the infant Church of Christ. The mode of speech
introduced above is very frequent in the Greek writers, who often
express any vehement and hostile affection of the mind by the verb
, to breathe, to pant; so Theocritus, Idyll. xxii. ver. 82: , .
They came into the assembly, breathing mutual slaughter. Euripides
has the same form, , breathing out fire, and slaughter, Iphig. in
Taur. And Aristophanes more fully, referring to all the
preparations for war: - , , , . They breathed spears, and pikes,
and helmets, and crests, and greaves, and the fury of redoubted
heroes. The figure is a favourite one with Homer: hence , the
Abantes breathing strength. - Il. ii. 536. And how frequently he
speaks of his fierce countrymen as, , the Greeks breathing
strength, see Il. iii. 8; xi. 508; xxiv. 364, which phrase an old
Scholiast interprets, being filled with strength and fury. St.
Luke, who was master of the Greek tongue, chose such terms as best
expressed a heart desperately and incessantly bent on accomplishing
the destruction of the objects of its resentment. Such at this time
was the heart of Saul of Tarsus; and it had already given full
proof of its malignity, not only in the martyrdom of Stephen, but
also in making havoc of the Church, and in forcibly entering every
house, and dragging men and women, whom he suspected of
Christianity, and committing them to prison. See Act_ 8:3. Went
unto the high priest - As the high priest was chief in all matters
of an ecclesiastical nature, and the present business was
pretendedly religious, he was the proper person to apply to for
letters by which this virulent persecutor might be accredited. The
letters must necessarily be granted in the name of the whole
Sanhedrin, of which Gamaliel, Sauls master, was at that time the
head; but the high priest was the proper organ through whom this
business might be negotiated. GILL, "And Saul yet breathing out
threatenings and slaughter,.... The historian having given an
account of the dispersion of all the preachers of the Gospel at
Jerusalem, excepting the apostles, and of their success in other
parts, especially of Philip's, returns to the history of Saul; who,
not satisfied with the murder of Stephen, and with the havoc he
made of the church at Jerusalem, haling them out of their houses to
prison, continued not only to threaten them with confiscation of
goods and imprisonment, but with death itself. The phrase here used
is an Hebraism; so in Psa_ 27:12 , "one that breathes out
violence", or cruelty; and this shows the inward disposition of his
mind, the rage, wrath, malice, envy, and blood thirstiness he was
full of; and is observed to illustrate the riches of divine grace
in his conversion. And
3. wonderful it is, that that same mouth which breathed out
destruction and death to the followers of Christ, should afterwards
publish and proclaim the Gospel of the grace of God; that he whose
mouth was full of cursing and bitterness, should hereafter, and so
very quickly, come forth in the fulness of the blessing of the
Gospel of Christ. And this rage of his, who now ravened as a wolf,
as was foretold of Benjamin, of which tribe he was, was against the
lambs of Christ, and the sheep of his fold: against the disciples
of the Lord; not against wicked men, murderers, and thieves, and
other evildoers, but against the harmless and innocent followers of
Jesus, and which was an aggravation of his cruelty: and being thus
heated, and full of wrath, he went unto the high priest; Annas or
Caiaphas, who, notwithstanding the Jews were under the Roman
government, had great authority to punish persons with stripes and
death itself, who acted contrary to their law. HE RY, "We found
mention made of Saul twice or thrice in the story of Stephen, for
the sacred penman longed to come to his story; and now we are come
to it, not quite taking leave of Peter but from henceforward being
mostly taken up with Paul the apostle of the Gentiles, as Peter was
of the circumcision. His name in Hebrew was Saul - desired, though
as remarkably little in stature as his namesake king Saul was tall
and stately; one of the ancients calls him, Homo tricubitalis - but
four feet and a half in height; his Roman name which he went by
among the citizens of Rome was Paul - little. He was born in
Tarsus, a city of Cilicia, a free city of the Romans, and himself a
freeman of that city. His father and mother were both native Jews;
therefore he calls himself a Hebrew of the Hebrews; he was of the
tribe of Benjamin, which adhered to Judah. His education was in the
schools of Tarsus first, which was a little Athens for learning;
there he acquainted himself with the philosophy and poetry of the
Greeks. Thence he was sent to the university at Jerusalem, to study
divinity and the Jewish law. His tutor was Gamaliel, an eminent
Pharisee. He had extraordinary natural parts, and improved mightily
in learning. He had likewise a handicraft trade (being bred to
tent-making), which was common with those among the Jews who were
bred scholars (as Dr. Lightfoot saith), for the earning of their
maintenance, and the avoiding of idleness. This is the young man on
whom the grace of God wrought this mighty change here recorded,
about a year after the ascension of Christ, or little more. We are
here told, I. How bad he was, how very bad, before his conversion;
just before he was an inveterate enemy to Christianity, did his
utmost to root it out, by persecuting all that embraced it. In
other respects he was well enough, as touching the righteousness
which is of the law, blameless, a man of no ill morals, but a
blasphemer of Christ, a persecutor of Christians, and injurious to
both, 1Ti_1:13. And so ill informed was his conscience that he
thought he ought to do what he did against the name of Christ
(Act_26:9) and that he did God service in it, as was foretold,
Joh_16:2. Here we have, 1. His general enmity and rage against the
Christian religion (Act_9:1): He yet breathed out threatenings and
slaughter against the disciples of the Lord. The persons persecuted
were the disciples of the Lord; because they were so, under that
character he hated and persecuted them. The matter of the
persecution was threatenings and slaughter. There is persecution in
threatenings (Act_4:17, Act_4:21); they terrify and break the
spirit: and though we say, Threatened folks live long, yet those
whom Saul threatened, if he prevailed not thereby to frighten them
from Christ, he slew them, he persecuted them to death, Act_22:4.
His breathing out threatenings and slaughter intimates that it was
natural to him, and his constant business. He even breathed in
this
4. as in his element. He breathed it out with heat and
vehemence; his very breath, like that of some venomous creatures,
was pestilential. He breathed death to the Christians, wherever he
came; he puffed at them in his pride (Psa_12:4, Psa_12:5), spit his
venom at them in his rage. Saul yet breathing thus intimates, (1.)
That he still persisted in it; not satisfied with the blood of
those he had slain, he still cries, Give, give. (2.) That he should
shortly be of another mine; as yet he breathes out threatenings and
slaughter, but he has not long to live such a life as this, that
breath will be stopped shortly. JAMISO , "Act_9:1-25. Conversion of
Saul, and beginnings of his ministry. Saul, yet breathing out
threatenings and slaughter against the disciples of the Lord, etc.
The emphatic yet is intended to note the remarkable fact, that up
to this moment his blind persecuting rage against the disciples of
the Lord burned as fiercely as ever. (In the teeth of this, Neander
and Olshausen picture him deeply impressed with Stephens joyful
faith, remembering passages of the Old Testament confirmatory of
the Messiahship of Jesus, and experiencing such a violent struggle
as would inwardly prepare the way for the designs of God towards
him. Is not dislike, if not unconscious disbelief, of sudden
conversion at the bottom of this?) The word slaughter here points
to cruelties not yet recorded, but the particulars of which are
supplied by himself nearly thirty years afterwards: And I
persecuted this way unto the death (Act_ 22:4); and when they were
put to death, I gave my voice [vote] against them. And I punished
them oft in every synagogue, and compelled them to [did my utmost
to make them] blaspheme; and being exceedingly mad against them, I
persecuted them even unto strange [foreign] cities (Act_26:10,
Act_26:11). All this was before his present journey. HAWKER 1=2,
"And Saul, yet breathing out threatenings and slaughter against the
disciples of the Lord, went unto the high priest, (2) And desired
of him letters to Damascus to the synagogues, that if he found any
of this way, whether they were men or women, he might bring them
bound unto Jerusalem. The Holy Ghost hath most graciously shown, in
the history of Saul of Tarsus, to what a desperate height the human
mind void of grace is capable of advancing, in malice and hatred,
against the Lord, and that the church of Christ might learn, that
there is no difference between one man and another, in the
Adam-nature in which all are born; the Lord the Spirit hath here
shewn in the example of one of the most eminent servants of Jesus,
as he afterwards proved, what our state would do, while unawakened
and unregenerated before the Lord: and what the Lord enables his
people to do when called by sovereign grace from darkness to light,
and from the power of sin and Satan to the living God, I pray the
Reader to enter upon the wonderful history here before us with
prayer to the Lord the Spirit, that all his gracious designs in
giving this relation to the Church, and frequently repeated as it
is, may be blessed both to the Writer and Reader of this Poor Mans
Commentary; that in the perusal of it, w e may be made wise unto
salvation through the faith that is in Christ Jesus. See Ac 22; 25;
Ga 1; 1Ti_1:12; 1Ti_ 1:16. It should seem, that Saul at this time,
had fairly routed all the preachers of the Gospel, which were at
Jerusalem, excepting the Apostles; and that he made no attack upon
them, we can only refer into the Lords sovereignty, such as Jesus
exercised when on earth, in their personal protection. (See
Joh_18:8. and Commentary upon it.) And now the fury of his heart
led him, as he said elsewhere, (Act_22:4; Act_26:9-11) to persecute
them even unto strange cities; determining, if it were possible, to
exterminate Christ and
5. his Church from the earth. Reader! pause and contemplate the
subject, for it is exceedingly momentous. Who should have thought,
that in the very moment this man was thus aiming destruction at the
Lords people, that he was himself a chosen vessel of Christ, and
had been so from all eternity? Who that heard the blasphemy of
the-man, and beheld the bitter cruelties he exercised on the Lords
redeemed ones, compelling them to blaspheme; Act_26:11, could have
conceived, that the very mouth which breathed out threatenings and
slaughter against the disciples of the Lord, should soon preach
Christ in all his fulness and glory; and to feel the salvation of
souls so near his heart, as to wish himself accursed from Christ
for his brethren, his kinsmen after the flesh, Rom_9:3. But what
cannot the grace of God accomplish? What will it not accomplish,
rather than one, whom the Father hath given the Son in an
everlasting covenant which cannot be broken, should perish? Reader!
I pray you at every step you take in this wonderful history, figure
to yourself that you hear the man, whose conversion the Holy Ghost
hath here so sweetly recorded, proclaiming in his own words, For
this cause I obtained mercy, that in me first Jesus Christ might
shew forth all long- sufferings for a pattern to them, which should
hereafter believe on him to life everlasting, 1Ti_1:16. I stop the
Reader in the midst of the history, to beg him to remark with me,
that it is evident, both from the stoning of Stephen, the binding
unto prison, and death, men and women, and Sauls going to Damascus
for the same purpose, the power of the Sanhedrim was not totally
gone. But if he compares this part of Sauls history here, with that
part of it we meet with when he stood before the council to answer
for his life, as related, (Ac 22) and when the chief captain
rescued him from them; he will perceive that a change had then
taken place. And if he will prosecute the subject a little further,
(and it is a subject of some moment to ascertain the point,) he
will discover, that the Sanhedrim now no longer exercised their
authority in cases of life and death. For when Festus declared
Pauls cause to Agrippa, he made this remarkable observation: It is
not the manner of the Romans to deliver any man to die, before that
he which is accused have the accusers face to face, and have
license to answer for himself concerning the crime laid against
him, Act_25:16. And what a beautiful proof this is, in confirmation
of Jacobs prophecy, of the departure of the sceptre from Judah now
Christ the Shiloh was come, and the gathering of the people to
Christ was taking place in the earth! Gen_ 49:10. See Commentary on
Act_25:16. SBC 1-23, "Early History and Conversion of Paul. Viewed
as a public event in the history of the Christian Church, the
conversion of Paul furnishes new and independent testimony to the
Divine origin of the gospel. The story is perfectly authenticated.
Twice did the Apostle repeat it in detail before public assemblies;
and the book in which we find it recorded was written less than
thirty years after the events were said to have occurred. We learn
from the incident: I. The wisdom of Gods providence. Saul, as he
himself tells us, was separated from his birth for the work of
Apostleship; but though he was advancing towards middle age before
he was actually converted, yet all his intervening history was in
reality a preparation for the true labour of his life. His birth
and boyhood in a Greek city gave him familiarity with that language
which he was to use in all his journeyings. His intimate
acquaintance with the system of the Pharisees, acquired in the
school of Gamaliel, enabled him to cope with those Judaizing
adversaries with whom he had everywhere to contend. A "Hebrew of
the Hebrews, yet at the same time a native Hellenist and a
6. Roman citizen," he combined in himself, as Dr. Schaff has
said, "the three great nationalities of the ancient world, and was
endowed with all the natural qualifications for a universal
apostleship." II. We see here all the riches of the Redeemers
grace. Had the Christians then in Jerusalem been asked to name the
man who was least likely to become a convert to the faith, they
might possibly have specified Saul of Tarsus. Yet observe how
thoroughly he is changed, and how the transformation was effected
by the might of gentleness. Nothing is more remarkable in the whole
narrative than the tenderness of the remonstrance which our Lord
addressed to the persecutor. He came in love, He spoke in
gentleness, and the heart which might have been hardened by
condemnation was melted by mercy. W. M. Taylor, Paul the
Missionary, p. 27. CALVI , "1.And Saul. Luke setteth down in this
place a noble history, and a history full well worthy to be
remembered, concerning the conversion of Paul; after what sort the
Lord did not only bring him under, and make him subject to his
commandment, when he raged like an untamed beast but also how he
made him another and a new man. But because Luke setteth down all
things in order as in a famous work of God, it shall be more
convenient to follow his text, [context,] that all may come in
order whatsoever is worth the noting. When as he saith, that he
breathed out threatenings and slaughter as yet, his meaning is,
that after that his hands were once imbued with innocent blood, he
proceeded in like cruelty, and was always a furious and bloody
enemy to the Church, after that he had once made that entrance
(569) whereof mention is made in the death of Stephen. For which
cause it was the more incredible that he could be so suddenly
tamed. And whereas such a cruel wolf was not only turned into a
sheep, but did also put on the nature of a shepherd, the wonderful
hand of God did show itself therein manifestly. COFFMA , "This
chapter reveals the conversion of Saul of Tarsus, the mighty
persecutor (Acts 9:1-19), Paul's first ministry at Damascus, ending
in the Jewish plot to kill him (Acts 9:20-25), his journey to
Jerusalem and departure for Tarsus (Acts 9:26-30), a brief summary
of the continued prosperity of the church (Acts 9:31), and the
account of two miracles by Peter, (a) the healing of Aeneas at
Lydda (Acts 9:32-35) and (b) the raising of Dorcas from the dead
(Acts 9:36-43). There are a number of interlocking patterns in the
book of Acts, one of these being seen in Luke's relating one after
another various remarkable examples of individual conversions to
Christianity, and another being related to the name "Christian," as
it came to be the accepted designation of the members of Christ's
body. Thus: I. The "name bearer" of the sacred name was chosen in
Acts 9:15. II. The Gentiles, in the person of Cornelius and others,
were formally welcomed into the church in Acts 10, this being
prophetically revealed as prerequisite to the giving of the "new
name" (Isaiah 62:2). III. At the first great Gentile congregation
in Antioch, as revealed in Acts 11:26, the disciples were called
"Christians".SIZE>MO O>LI ES>
7. For further study of the name "Christian," see under Acts
11:26. But Saul, yet breathing threatening and slaughter against
the disciples of the Lord, went unto the high priest, and asked of
him letters to Damascus unto the synagogues, that if he found any
that were of the Way, whether men or women, he might bring them
bound to Jerusalem. (Acts 9:1-2) Regarding the chronological
placement of this event, "Saul's journey from Jerusalem to Damascus
took place not far from that year which saw the death of Tiberius
and the accession of Caligula,"[1] that is, in 37 A.D. We are
inclined to be a little surprised at the authority exercised by the
Jewish hierarchy in so distant a place as Damascus. Of course, the
Sanhedrin "claimed over the Jews in foreign cities the same power,
in religious questions, which they exercised at Jerusalem."[2]
However, it was the death of Tiberius, leading to a loss of Roman
control of Damascus during the reigns of Caligula and Claudia,
which made it possible for the arrogant Sanhedrin to pursue their
goals with such impunity at that particular time. It is not
certainly known just who ruled Damascus during that period, but the
eclipse of Roman authority for a time is proved by the fact that no
coins with the image of Caligula or Claudius have been discovered
there, whereas there have been found many with the image of
Augustus or Tiberius who preceded them, and many with the images of
emperors who succeeded them, thus leaving a gap, viewed by Wiesler
as proof that during those two reigns Rome had no authority in
Damascus.[3] The synagogues ... This indicates a large Jewish
population in Damascus. Josephus told how the citizens of Syrian
Damascus Came upon the Jews and cut their throats, as being in a
narrow place, in number ten thousand, and all of them unarmed, and
this in one hour's time, without anybody to disturb them.[4]
Josephus mentioned the same event later, saying that The barbarous
slaughterers of our people cut the throats of eighteen thousand
Jews, with their wives and children.[5] True to their policy of
finding contradictions wherever they can, some have insisted that
Josephus "contradicted himself," apparently overlooking the fact
that the latter figure includes the "wives and children." The point
of these numbers is that the Jewish community in Damascus was very
large. These massacres took place during the Jewish wars prior to
A.D. 70. Any that were of the Way ... In Acts, this title of the
Christian religion recurs in Acts 19:9,23; 22:4; 24:14,22. This
title was explained by Bruce as "a term used by the early
Christians to denote their own movement, considered as the way of
life or the way of salvation."[6]
8. Threatenings and slaughter ... Such an expression would
hardly have been used if the persecution had resulted in the death
of Stephen alone. There were many slain on account of their faith.
[1] E. S. Howson, Life and Letters of St. Paul (Grand Rapids,
Michigan: Wm. B. Eerdmans, Publisher, 1966), p. 68. [2] Ibid., p.
67. [3] Ibid., p. 68. [4] Flavius Josephus, Antiquities and Wars of
the Jews, translated by William Whiston ( ew York: Holt, Rinehart
and Winston), p. 703. [5] Ibid., p. 853. [6] F. F. Bruce, The Book
of Acts (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Wm. B. Eerdmans, Publishers,
1954), p. 194 COKE, "Acts 9:1. And Saul, yet breathing out
threatenings, &c. This is a very emphatical expression, and
shews the implacable hatred which Saul bore to the Christian
profession; and it must have increased his rage to hear, that those
whom he had been instrumental in driving from Jerusalem, were so
successful in spreading that religion which he was so eager to root
out. The person now in the office of high priest, seems to have
been Caiaphas, the inveterate enemy of Christ: he would therefore
gladly employ so active and bigotted a zealot as Saul; and it is
well known, that the Sanhedrim, however its capital power might
have been abridged by the Romans, was the supreme Jewish Court, and
had great influence and authority among their synagogues abroad.
There are several disputes concerning the time of this transaction.
Spanheim advances several arguments to prove, that it happened six
or seven years after Christ's death, about the fourth year of
Caligula, in the year 40. Benson and others, agreeably to Pearson's
Chronology, think it was sooner; but the exact time cannot be fixed
by any circumstances transmitted to us. ELLICOTT, "(1) Yet
breathing out threatenings.The yet implies a considerable interval
since the death of Stephen, probably coinciding with the time
occupied by the mission-work of Philip in the previous chapter.
During this interval the persecution had probably been continuing.
The Greek participle, literally, breathing-in, is somewhat more
emphatic than the English. He lived, as it were, in an atmosphere
of threats and slaughter. It was the very air he breathed.
Patristic writers and their followers have not unnaturally seen a
half-prophetic parallelism between the language of Jacob, Benjamin
shall ravin as a wolf: in the morning he shall devour the prey, and
at night he shall divide the spoil (Genesis 49:27), and this
description of one who gloried in being of that tribe (Philippians
3:5), and bore the name of its great hero-king.
9. Went unto the high priest.It will be remembered that the
high priest (whether we suppose Annas or Caiaphas to be meant) was
a Sadducee, and that Saul gloried in being a Pharisee of the
straitest sect (Acts 26:5). The temper of the persecutor, however,
does not shrink from strange companionship, and the coalition which
had been formed against our Lord (Matthew 26:3) was renewed against
His followers. If, as is probable, the admission of the Samaritans
to the new community had become known at Jerusalem, it would
naturally tend to intensify their hatred. It would seem to them as
if the accursed people were now allied with the Galileans against
the Holy Place, and those who were zealous for its honour. BE SO
,"Acts 9:1-2. And Saul, yet ( , adhuc, hitherto, or still)
breathing out threatenings and slaughter This very emphatical
expression refers to what is related of Saul, Acts 8:3; (where see
the note;) and it shows that his zeal against the followers of
Christ was so outrageous that he could be satisfied with nothing
less than their utter destruction. It shows too, that the Jews were
now at liberty to put them to death; probably, as Macknight
observes, because between the removal of Pontius Pilate, and the
accession of Herod Agrippa, in the second year of the Emperor
Claudius, who gave him all the dominions of his grandfather, Herod
the Great, there was no procurator in Judea to restrain their
intemperate zeal. Saul, therefore, being thus freed from restraint,
and at liberty to pursue his malicious design of endeavouring to
effect their extirpation; went to the high-priest Whom he knew to
be much exasperated against them; and desired of him letters to
Damascus It is generally supposed that Caiaphas now filled the
office of high- priest; and if so, as he was an inveterate enemy of
Christ, and had a principal hand in his crucifixion, he would
doubtless be glad to employ so active and bigoted a zealot as Saul
in carrying on the persecution against them, which at this time was
very violent and severe. To the synagogues From this, and from Acts
9:20 th, where Paul is said to preach Christ at Damascus in the
synagogues of the Jews, it appears there were more than one in that
city, as there were also in divers other cities of the Gentiles.
These synagogues, it seems, had a jurisdiction over their own
members, in the exercise of which, however, they were sometimes
directed, as on this occasion, by the high-priest and council at
Jerusalem. At this time Damascus was full of Jews. Indeed, being
the capital city of Syria, it generally abounded with them; so much
so, that Josephus assures us ten thousand of them were once
massacred there in one hour; and at another time, eighteen thousand
with their wives and children. (Joseph. Bell., lib. 2. cap. 20; and
lib. 7. cap. 8.) ow in a place which so much abounded with Jews, it
is very likely there would be some Christians. Probably, indeed,
some of those whom persecution had driven from Jerusalem had taken
refuge there, and by their zeal and diligence had been instrumental
in making converts to the faith of Christ. If so, it must have
exceedingly vexed Saul to find that his endeavours to extirpate
Christianity only tended to spread it the more, and to increase the
number of those who embraced it. This, of course, would the more
inflame his rage against Christs disciples, and excite him to make
still greater efforts to destroy them, and exterminate their
religion. Be this as it may, understanding that there were
Christians at Damascus, although it was at a great distance from
Jerusalem, he resolved to go thither, with his new commission
from
10. the high-priest; that if he found any there of this way Any
of the Christian community; whether they were men or women For he
and his employers spared no age or sex; he might bring them bound
unto Jerusalem To be proceeded against in the severest manner by
the sanhedrim. He was not content with having driven many of them
into exile, and with having imprisoned others, (Acts 8:3,) but he
thirsted for their blood. And, as he was joined by assistants
equally bigoted and furious with himself, the news of their coming
reached Damascus before they arrived, and greatly terrified the
saints, Acts 9:14; Acts 9:21. The Lord, however, marvellously
interposed for their deliverance, and probably in answer to their
united and fervent prayers; but in a way which, it is likely, none
of them had thought of. CO STABLE, "Since Stephen's martyrdom (cf.
Acts 8:3), Saul had been persecuting Jews who had come to believe
that Jesus was the Messiah. [ ote: See Appendix 1, "Sequence of
Paul's Activities," at the end of these notes.] "The partitive
genitive of apeiles [threats] and phonou [murder] means that
threatening and slaughter had come to be the very breath that Saul
breathed, like a warhorse who sniffed the smell of battle. He
breathed on the remaining disciples the murder that he had already
breathed in from the death of the others. He exhaled what he
inhaled." [ ote: Robertson, 3:113.] The Jewish high priest's Roman
overseers gave the high priest authority to extradite Jews who were
strictly religious offenders and had fled outside the Sanhedrin's
jurisdiction. [ ote: Longenecker, p. 369; Kent, pp. 82-83.] Saul
obtained letters from the high priest (evidently Caiaphas) giving
him power to arrest Jesus' Jewish disciples from Palestine who had
fled to Damascus because of persecution in Jerusalem. This grand
inquisitor undoubtedly believed that he was following in the train
of other zealous Israelites who had purged idolatry from Israel
(e.g., Moses in umbers 25:1-5; Phinehas in umbers 25:6-15; Elijah
in 1 Kings 18; Mattathias in 1 Maccabees 2:23-28; 1 Maccabees
2:42-48). "Saul never forgave himself for that. God forgave him;
the Christians forgave him; but he never forgave himself... 1
Corinthians 15:9[;] Galatians 1:13." [ ote: Ironside, Lectures on .
. ., pp. 203-4.] The King of the abateans who governed Damascus at
this time cooperated with Saul. He was Aretas IV (9 B.C.-A.D. 40).
[ ote: F. F. Bruce, "Chronological Questions in the Acts of the
Apostles," Bulletin of the John Rylands University Library of
Manchester 18:2 (Spring 1986):275.] Damascus stood about 135 miles
to the north-northeast of Jerusalem, about a weeks journey. It was
within the Roman province of Syria and was one of the towns of the
Decapolis, a league of 10 self- governing cities. "The Way" was one
of the earliest designations of Christianity (cf. Acts 18:24-25;
Acts 19:9; Acts 19:23; Acts 22:4; Acts 24:14; Acts 24:22), and it
appears only in Acts. It meant the path characterized by life and
salvation. This title may go back to Jesus' teaching that He was
the way and that His way of salvation was a narrow way (John 14:6;
Matthew 7:14). C. The mission of Saul 9:1-31
11. The writer focused our attention next on a key figure in
the spread of the Christian mission and on significant events in
the development of that mission to the Gentiles. Peter's
evangelization of Cornelius (ch. 10) will continue to advance this
theme. Luke has given us three portraits of significant individuals
in the evangelization of Gentiles: Stephen, Philip, and now,
climactically, Saul. He stressed that Saul's conversion and calling
to be an apostle to the Gentiles came supernaturally and directly
from God, and Saul himself played a passive role in these events.
Saul retold the story of his conversion and calling twice in Acts
22, 26 and again in Galatians 1. Its importance in Acts is clear
from its repetition. [ ote: See Ernst Haenchen, The Acts of the
Apostles, p. 327.] "It cannot be stressed enough that these
accounts are summaries and Luke has written them up in his own
style and way." [ ote: Witherington, p. 309.] Saul became God's
primary instrument in taking the gospel to the Gentile world.
BARCLAY 1-9, "In this passage we have the most famous conversion
story in history. We must try as far as we can to enter into Paul's
mind. When we do, we will see that this is not a sudden conversion
but a sudden surrender. Something about Stephen lingered in Paul's
mind and would not be banished. How could a bad man die like that?
In order to still his insistent doubt Paul plunged into the most
violent action possible. First he persecuted the Christians in
Jerusalem. This only made matters worse because once again he had
to ask himself what secret these simple people had which made them
face peril and suffering and loss serene and unafraid. So then,
still driving himself on, he went to the Sanhedrin. The writ of the
Sanhedrin ran wherever there were Jews. Paul had heard that certain
of the Christians had escaped to Damascus and he asked for letters
of credit that he might go to Damascus and extradite them. The
journey only made matters worse. It was about 140 miles from
Jerusalem to Damascus. The journey would be made on foot and would
take about a week. Paul's only companions were the officers of the
Sanhedrin, a kind of police force. Because he was a Pharisee, he
could have nothing to do with them; so he walked alone; and as he
walked he thought, because there was nothing else to do. The way
went through Galilee, and Galilee brought Jesus even more vividly
to Paul's mind. The tension in his inner being tightened. So he
came near Damascus, one of the oldest cities in the world. Just
before Damascus the road climbed Mount Hermon and below lay
Damascus, a lovely white city in a green plain, "a handful of
pearls in a goblet of emerald." That region had this characteristic
phenomenon that when the hot air of the plain met the cold air of
the mountain range, violent electrical storms resulted. Just at
that moment came such a lightning storm and out of the storm Christ
spoke to Paul. In that moment the long battle was over and Paul
surrendered to Christ. So into Damascus he went a changed man. And
how changed! He who had intended to enter Damascus like an avenging
fury was led by the hand, blind and helpless.
12. There is all of Christianity in what the Risen Christ said
to Paul, "Go into the city, and you will be told what to do." Up to
this moment Paul had been doing what he liked, what he thought
best, what his will dictated. From this time forward he would be
told what to do. The Christian is a man who has ceased to do what
he wants to do and who has begun to do what Christ wants him to do.
HOLE, "Verses 1-43 SAUL WAS STILL filled with furious, persecuting
zeal when the Lord intercepted him on the road to Damascus, and
revealed Himself to him in a blaze of heavenly light, which shone
not only round about him but into his conscience as well. We may
discern in the record the essential features which mark every true
conversion. There was the light which penetrates to the conscience,
the revelation of the Lord Jesus to the heart, the conviction of
sin in the words, Why persecutes thou Me? and the collapse of all
opposition and self-importance in the humble-words, Lord, what wilt
Thou have me do? When Jesus is discovered, when the conscience is
convicted of sin, when there is humble submission to Jesus as Lord,
then there is a true conversion, though there is very much that the
soul has yet to learn. The Lords dealings were intensely personal
to Saul, for his companions, though amazed, understood nothing of
what had happened. By this tremendous revelation of the Lord, Saul
was literally blinded to the world. Led into Damascus, he spent
three days which he would never forget, days in which the
significance of the revelation sank into his soul. Being blind,
nothing distracted his mind, and his thoughts were not even turned
aside to food or drink. As a preliminary to his service, Ezekiel
had sat among the captives at Chebar and remained there astonished
among them seven days (Ezekiel 3:15). Saul sat astonished in
Damascus for only three days, but his experiences were of a far
deeper order. We may get a glimpse of them by reading 1 Timothy
1:12-17. He was astonished at his own colossal guilt as the chief
of sinners, and even more at the exceeding abundance of the grace
of the Lord, so that he obtained mercy. In those three days he
evidently passed through a spiritual process of death and
resurrection. The foundations were laid in his soul of that which
later on he expressed thus: I am crucified with Christ:
nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me (Galatians
2:20). During the three days Saul had a vision of a man named
Ananias coming in and laying his hands on him that he might receive
his sight, and at the end of them the vision materialized. Ananias
arrived, doing what he was told, and telling Saul he was but the
messenger of the Lord, even Jesus, and that he was not only to
receive his sight but be filled with the Holy Ghost. By this time
Saul was a believer, for only to believers is the Spirit given. The
essential work in Sauls soul having been accomplished, a human
servant is used by the Lord. Two things about that servant are
worthy of note. First, he was just a certain disciple, evidently of
no special prominence. It was fitting that the only man to help
Saul in any way was a very humble one. Saul had been very
13. prominent as an adversary and was soon to be very prominent
as a servant of the Lord. He was helped by a disciple who was
undistinguished and retiring, yet who was near enough to the Lord
to receive His instructions and hold converse with Him. It is often
thus in Gods ways. Second, Ananias dwelt in Damascus, and thus was
one of those against whom Saul had been breathing out threatenings
and slaughter. So one of those that Saul would have murdered was
sent to call him, Brother Saul, to open his eyes, and that he might
be filled with the Holy Ghost. Sauls evil was requited with good in
this overwhelming fashion. Sauls days of blindness, both physical
and mental, were now over: he was baptized in the ame of the One he
had formerly despised and hated, and he consorted with the very
people he had thought to destroy, for he had become one of them. He
had been called as a chosen vessel, so straightway his service
began. Jesus had been revealed to him as the Christ, and as the Son
of God, so he preached Him thus and proved by the Scriptures that
He was the Christ, to the confounding of his former friends. The
friends however speedily became his bitter foes and took counsel to
kill him, even as not long before he had thought to kill the
saints. He had anticipated entering Damascus with some measure of
pomp as the plenipotentiary of the hierarchy in Jerusalem.
Actually, he entered as a humbled and blinded man; and he left it
in undignified fashion, huddled in a basket, as a fugitive from
Jewish hate. From the outset Saul had thus to taste for himself the
very things he had been inflicting upon others. Arrived back in
Jerusalem, he was distrusted by the disciples, as was very natural,
and the intervention of Barnabas was needed before they received
him. Barnabas could vouch for the Lords intervention and his
conversion, and he acted as his letter of commendation. In
Jerusalem he witnessed boldly and came into conflict with the
Grecians, possibly the very men who had been so responsible in the
matter of Stephens death. ow they would slay the man who held the
clothes of those that slew Stephen. In all this we can see the
working of the government of God. The fact, that the Lord had shown
such amazing mercy in his conversion, did not exempt him from
reaping in this governmental way that which he had sown. Threatened
again with death, Saul had to depart to Tarsus, his native city. It
may be wondered where came in that visit to Arabia, of which he
writes in Galatians 1:17. We think it was probably during the many
days, of which verse Acts 9:23 of our chapter speaks, for he tells
us that he returned again to Damascus. If this is so, the flight
from Damascus over the wall took place after his return from
Arabia. Be that as it may, it was his departure to distant Tarsus
that inaugurated the period of rest and edification for the
churches, which led to a multiplication of their numbers. In verse
Acts 9:32 we return to the activities of Peter, that we may see
that the Spirit of God had not ceased to work through him while
working so powerfully elsewhere. There had been, first, a great
work in Lydda through the raising up of the palsied man. Then at
Joppa Peter was used to bring Dorcas to life, and this led to many
in
14. that town believing on the Lord. It also led to Peter
making a lengthy stay there in the house of Simon a tanner.
Meanwhile also the Spirit of God had been at work in the heart of
Cornelius the Roman centurion, as the fruit of which he was marked
by piety and the fear of God, with almsgiving and prayer to God.
The time had now come to bring this man and his like-minded friends
into the light of the Gospel. ow to Peter had been given the keys
of the kingdom of heaven (Matthew 16:19), so just as he had used
the keys on the day of Pentecost to admit the election from among
the Jews, now it is his to admit this election from among the
Gentiles. This chapter has recounted how God called and converted
the man who was to be the Apostle to the Gentiles, the next tells
how Peter was delivered from his prejudices and led to open the
door of faith to the Gentiles, thus paving the way for subsequent
ministry of the Apostle Paul. EBC, "THE TRAINING OF SAUL THE RABBI
THE appearance of St. Paul upon the stage of Christian history
marks a period of new development and of more enlarged activity.
The most casual reader of the Acts of the Apostles must see that a
personality of vast power, force, individuality, has now entered
the bounds of the Church, and that henceforth St. Paul, his
teaching, methods, and actions, will throw all others into the
shade. Modern German critics have seized upon this undoubted fact
and made it the foundation on which they have built elaborate
theories concerning St. Paul and the Acts of the Apostles. Some of
them have made St. Paul the inventor of a new form of Christianity,
more elaborate, artificial, and dogmatic than the simple religion
of nature which, as they think, Jesus Christ taught. Others have
seen in St. Paul the great rival and antagonist of St. Peter, and
have seen in the Acts a deliberate attempt to reconcile the
opposing factions of Peter and Paul by representing St. Pauls
career as modelled upon that of Peter. These theories are, we
believe, utterly groundless; but they show at the same time what an
important event in early Church history St. Pauls conversion was,
and how necessary a thorough comprehension of his life and training
if we wish to understand the genesis of our holy religion. Who and
whence, then, was this enthusiastic man who is first introduced to
our notice in connection with St. Stephens martyrdom? What can we
glean from Scripture and from secular history concerning his
earlier career? I am not going to attempt to do what Conybeare and
Howson thirty years ago, or Archdeacon Farrar in later times, have
executed with a wealth of learning and a profuseness of imagination
which I could not pretend to possess. Even did I possess them it
would be impossible, for want of space, to write such a biography
of St. Paul as these authors have given to the public. Let us,
however, strive to gather up such details of St. Pauls early life
and training as the New Testament, illustrated by history, sets
before us. Perhaps we shall find that more is told us than strikes
the ordinary superficial reader. His parentage is known to us from
St. Pauls own statement. His father and mother were Jews of the
Dispersion, as the Jews scattered abroad amongst the Gentiles were
usually called; they were residents at Tarsus in Cilicia, and by
profession belonged to the Pharisees who then formed the more
spiritual and earnest religious section of the Jewish people. We
learn this from three passages. In his defence before the Council,
recorded in Act_23:6, he tells us that he was "a Pharisee, a son of
Pharisees." There was no division in religious feeling between the
parents. His home life and his earliest years knew nothing of
religious jars and strife. Husband and wife were joined not only in
the external bonds of marriage, but in the profounder union still
of spiritual sentiment and hope, a memory which may have
15. inspired a deeper meaning, begotten of personal experience
in the warning delivered to the Corinthians, "Be not unequally
yoked with unbelievers." Of the history of his parents and
ancestors we know practically nothing more for certain, but we can
glean a little from other notices. St. Paul tells us that he
belonged to a special division among the Jews, of which we have
spoken a good deal in the former volume when dealing with St.
Stephen. The Jews at this period were divided into Hebrews and
Hellenists: that is, Hebrews who by preference and in their
ordinary practice spoke the Hebrew tongue, and Hellenists who spoke
Greek and adopted Greek civilisation and customs. St. Paul tells us
in Php_3:5 that he was "of the stock of Israel, of the tribe of
Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews," a statement which he substantially
repeats in 2Co_11:22. Now it was almost an impossibility for a Jew
of the Dispersion to belong to the Hebrews. His lot was cast in a
foreign land, his business mixed him up with the surrounding pagans
so that the use of the Greek language was an absolute necessity;
while the universal practice of his fellow- countrymen in
conforming themselves to Greek customs, Greek philosophy, and Greek
civilisation rendered the position of one who would stand out for
the old Jewish national ideas and habits a very trying and a very
peculiar one. Here, however, comes in an ancient tradition,
recorded by St. Jerome, which throws some light upon the
difficulty. Scripture tells us that St. Paul was born at Tarsus.
Our Lord in His conversation with Ananias in Act_9:2, calls him
"Saul of Tarsus," while again the Apostle himself in the
twenty-second chapter describes himself as "a Jew born in Tarsus."
But then the question arises, how came his parents to Tarsus, and
how, being in Tarsus, could they be described as Hebrews while all
around and about them their countrymen were universally Hellenists?
St. Jerome here steps in to help us. He relates, in his "Catalogue
of Illustrious Writers," that "Paul the Apostle, previously called
Saul, being outside the number of the Twelve, was of the tribe of
Benjamin and of the city of the Jewish Gischala; on the capture of
which by the Romans he migrated with them to Tarsus." Now this
statement of Jerome, written four hundred years after the event, is
clearly inaccurate in many respects, and plainly contradicts the
Apostles own words that he was born in Tarsus. But yet the story
probably embodies a tradition substantially true, that St. Pauls
parents were originally from Galilee. Galilee was intensely Hebrew.
It was provincial, and the provinces are always far less affected
by advance in thought or in religion than the towns, which are the
chosen homes of innovation and of progress. Hellenism might
flourish in Jerusalem, but in Galilee it would not be tolerated;
and the tough, sturdy Galileans alone would have moral and
religious grit enough to maintain the old Hebrew customs and
language; even amid the abounding inducements to an opposite course
which a great commercial centre like Tarsus held out. Assuredly our
own experience affords many parallels illustrating the religious
history of St. Pauls family. The Evangelical revival, the
development of ritual in the Church of England, made their mark
first of all in the towns, and did not affect the distant country
districts till long after. The Presbyterianism of the Highlands is
almost a different religion from the more enlightened and more
cultured worship of Edinburgh and Glasgow. The Low Church and
Orange developments of Ulster bring us back to the times of the
last century, and seem passing strange to the citizens of London,
Manchester, or Dublin, who first make their acquaintance in
districts where obsolete ideas and cries still retain a power quite
forgotten in the vast tide of life and thought which sways the
great cities. And yet these rural backwaters, as we may call them,
retain their influence, and show strong evidence of life even in
the great cities; and so it is that even in London and Edinburgh
and Glasgow and Dublin congregations continue to exist in their
remoter districts and back streets where the prejudices and ideas
of the country find full sway and exercise. The
16. Presbyterianism of the Highlands and the Orangeism of
Ulster will be sought in vain in fashionable churches, but in
smaller assemblies they will be found exercising a sway and
developing a life which will often astonish a superficial observer.
So it was doubtless in Tarsus. The Hebrews of Galilee would delight
to separate themselves. They would look down upon the Hellenism of
their fellow-countrymen as a sad falling away from ancient
orthodoxy, but their declension would only add a keener zest to the
zeal with which the descendants of the Hebrews of Gischala, even in
the third and fourth generations, as it may have been, would retain
the ancient customs and language of their Galilean forefathers. St.
Paul and his parents might seem to an outsider mere Hellenists, but
their Galilean origin and training enabled them to retain the
intenser Judaism which qualified the Apostle to describe himself as
not only of the stock of Israel, but as a Hebrew of the Hebrews.
St. Pauls more immediate family connections have also some light
thrown upon them in the New Testament. We learn, for instance, from
Act_23:16, that he had a married sister, who probably lived at
Jerusalem, and may have been even a convert to Christianity; for we
are told that her son, having heard of the Jewish plot to murder
the Apostle, at once reported it to St. Paul himself, who thereupon
put his nephew into communication with the chief captain in whose
custody he lay. While again, in Rom_ 16:7; Rom_16:11, he sends
salutations to Andronicus, Junias, and Herodion, his kinsmen, who
were residents in Rome; and in verse 21 (Rom_16:21) of the same
chapter joins Lucius and Jason and Sosipater, his kinsmen, with
himself in the Christian wishes for the welfare of the Roman
Church, with which he closes the Epistle. It is said, indeed, that
this may mean simply that these men were Jews, and that St. Paul
regarded all Jews as his kinsmen. But this notion is excluded by
the form of the twenty-first verse, where he first sends greetings
from Timothy, whom St. Paul dearly loved, and who was a circumcised
Jew, not a proselyte merely, but a true Jew, on his mothers side,
at least; and then the Apostle proceeds to name the persons whom he
designates his kinsmen. St. Paul evidently belonged to a family of
some position in the Jewish world, whose ramifications were
dispersed into very distant quarters of the empire. Every scrap of
information which we can gain concerning the early life and
associations of such a man is very precious; we may therefore point
out that we can even get a glimpse of the friends and acquaintances
of his earliest days. Barnabas the Levite was of Cyprus, an island
only seventy miles distant from Tarsus, In all probability Barnabas
may have resorted to the Jewish schools of Tarsus, or may have had
some other connections with the Jewish colony of that city. Some
such early friendship may have been the link which bound Paul to
Barnabas and enabled the latter to stand sponsor for the newly
converted Saul when the Jerusalem Church was yet naturally
suspicious of him. "And when he was come to Jerusalem, he assayed
to join himself to the disciples: and they were all afraid of him,
not believing that he was a disciple. But Barnabas took him, and
brought him to the Apostles." (Act_9:26-27) This ancient friendship
enabled Barnabas to pursue the Apostle with those offices of
consolation which his nascent faith demanded. He knew Sauls boyhood
haunts, and therefore it is we read in Act_11:25 that "Barnabas
went forth to Tarsus to seek for Saul" when a multitude of the
Gentiles began to pour into the Church of Antioch. Barnabas knew
his old friends vigorous, enthusiastic character, his genius, his
power of adaptation, and therefore he brought him back to Antioch,
where for a whole year they were joined in one holy brotherhood of
devout and successful labour for their Master. The friendships and
love of boyhood and of youth received a new consecration and were
impressed with a loftier ideal from the example of Saul and
17. of Barnabas. Then again there are other friends of his
youth to whom he refers. Timothys family lived at Lystra, and
Lystra was directly connected with Tarsus by a great road which ran
straight from Tarsus to Ephesus, offering means for that frequent
communication in which the Jews ever delighted. St. Pauls earliest
memories carried him back to the devout atmosphere of the pious
Jewish family at Lystra, which he had long known, where Lois the
grandmother and Eunice the mother had laid the foundations of that
spiritual life which under St. Pauls own later teaching flourished
so wondrously in the life of Timothy. Let us pass on, however, to a
period of later development. St. Pauls earliest teaching at first
was doubtless that of the home. As with Timothy so with the
Apostle; his earliest religious teacher was doubtless his mother,
who from his infancy imbued him with the great rudimentary truths
which lie at the basis of both the Jewish and the Christian faith.
His father too took his share. He was a Pharisee, and would be
anxious to fulfil every jot and tittle of the law and every minute
rule which the Jewish doctors had deduced by an attention and a
subtlety concentrated for ages upon the text of the Old Testament.
And one great doctor had laid down, "When a boy begins to speak,
his father ought to talk with him in the sacred language, and to
teach him the law"; a rule which would exactly fall in with his
fathers natural inclination. He was a Hebrew of the Hebrews, though
dwelling among Hellenists. He prided himself on speaking the Hebrew
language alone, and he therefore would take the greatest pains that
the future Apostles earliest teachings should be in that same
sacred tongue, giving him from boyhood that command over Hebrew and
its dialects which he afterwards turned to the best of uses. At
five years old Jewish children of parents like St. Pauls advanced
to the direct study of the law under the guidance of some doctor,
whose school they daily attended, as another rabbi had expressly
enacted, "At five years old a boy should apply himself to the study
of Holy Scripture." Between five and thirteen Saul was certainly
educated at Tarsus, during which period his whole attention was
concentrated upon sacred learning and upon mechanical or industrial
training. It was at this period of his life that St. Paul must have
learned the trade of tent making, which during the last thirty
years of his life stood him in such good stead, rendering him
independent of all external aid so far as his bodily wants were
concerned. A question has often been raised as to the social
position of St. Pauls family; and people, bringing their Western
ideas with them, have thought that the manual trade which he was
taught betokened their humble rank. But this is quite a mistake.
St. Pauls family must have occupied at least a fairly comfortable
position, when they were able to send a member of their house to
Jerusalem to be taught in the most celebrated rabbinical school of
the time. But it was the law of that school - and a very useful law
it was too - that every Jew, and especially every teacher, should
possess a trade by which he might be supported did necessity call
for it. It was a common proverb among the Jews at that time that
"He who taught not his son a trade taught him to be a thief." "It
is incumbent on the father to circumcise his son, to redeem him, to
teach him the law, and to teach him some occupation, for, as Rabbi
Judah saith, whosoever teacheth not his son to do some work is as
if he taught him robbery." "Rabbin Gamaliel saith, He that hath a
trade in his hand, to what is he like? He is like to a vineyard
that is fenced." Such was the authoritative teaching of the
schools, and Jewish practice was in accordance therewith. Some of
the most celebrated rabbis of that time were masters of a
mechanical art or trade. The vice-president of the Sanhedrin was a
merchant for four years, and then devoted himself to the study of
the law. One rabbi was a shoemaker; Rabbi Juda, the great Cabalist,
was a tailor; Rabbi Jose was brought up as a tanner; another rabbi
as a baker, and yet another as a carpenter. And so as a preparation
for the office and life work to which his father had destined him,
St. Paul during his earlier years
18. was taught one of the common trades of Tarsus, which
consisted in making tents either out of the hair or the skin of the
Angora goats which browsed over the hills of central Asia Minor. It
was a trade that was common among Jews. Aquila and his wife
Priscilla were tent-makers, and therefore St. Paul united himself
to them and wrought at his trade in their company at Corinth.
(Act_18:3) It has often been asserted that at this period of his
life St. Paul must have studied Greek philosophy and literature,
and men have pointed to his quotations from the Greek poets Aratus,
Epimenides, and Menander, to prove the attention which the Apostle
must have bestowed upon them. (See Act_ 17:28, Tit_1:12, 1Co_15:33)
Tarsus was certainly one of the great universities of that age,
ranking in the first place along with Athens and Alexandria. So
great was its fame that the Roman emperors even were wont to go to
Tarsus to look for rotors to instruct their sons. But Tarsus was at
the very same time one of the most morally degraded spots within
the bounds of the Roman world, and it is not at all likely that a
strict Hebrew, a stern Pharisee, would have allowed his son to
encounter the moral taint involved in freely mixing with such a
degraded people and in the free study of a literature permeated
through and through with sensuality and idolatry. St. Paul
doubtless at this early period of his life gained that colloquial
knowledge of Greek which was every day becoming more and more
necessary for the ordinary purposes of secular life all over the
Roman Empire, even in the most backward parts of Palestine. But it
is not likely that his parents would have sanctioned his attendance
at the lectures on philosophy and poetry delivered at the
University of Tarsus, where he would have been initiated into all
the abominations of paganism in a style most attractive to human
nature. At thirteen years of age, or thereabouts, young Saul,
having now learned all the sacred knowledge which the local rabbis
could teach, went up to Jerusalem just as our Lord did, to assume
the full obligations of a Jew and to pursue his higher studies at
the great Rabbinical University of Jerusalem. To put it in modern
language, Saul went up to Jerusalem to be confirmed and admitted to
the full privileges and complete obligations of the Levitical Law,
and he also went up to enter college. St. Paul himself describes
the period of life on which he now entered as that in which he was
brought up at the feet of Gamaliel. We have already touched in a
prior volume upon the subject of Gamaliels history and his relation
to Christianity, but here it is necessary to say something of him
as a teacher, in which capacity he laid the foundations of modes of
thought and reasoning, the influence of which moulded St. Pauls
whole soul and can be traced all through St. Pauls Epistles.
Gamaliel is an undoubtedly historical personage. The introduction
of him in the Acts of the Apostles is simply another instance of
that marvellous historical accuracy which every fresh investigation
and discovery show to be a distinguishing feature of this book. The
Jewish Talmud was not committed to writing for more than four
centuries after Gamaliels time, and yet it presents Gamaliel to us
in exactly the same light as the inspired record does, telling us
that "with the death of Gamaliel I the reverence for the Divine law
ceased, and the observance of purity and abstinence departed."
Gamaliel came of a family distinguished in Jewish history both
before and after his own time. He was of the royal House of David,
and possessed in this way great historical claims upon the respect
of the nation. His grandfather Hillel and his father Simeon were
celebrated teachers and expounders of the law. His grandfather had
founded indeed one of the leading schools of interpretation then
favoured by the rabbis. His father Simeon is said by some to have
been the aged man who took up the infant Christ in his arms and
blessed God for His revealed salvation in the words of the "Nunc
Dimittis"; while, as for Gamaliel himself, his teaching was marked
by wisdom, prudence, liberality, and spiritual depth, so far as
such qualities could exist in a professor of rabbinical learning.
Gamaliel
19. was a friend and contemporary of Philo, and this fact alone
must have imported an element of liberality into his teaching.
Philo was a widely read scholar who strove to unite the philosophy
of Greece to the religion of Palestine, and Philos ideas must have
permeated more or less into some at least of the schools of
Jerusalem, so that, though St. Paul may not have come in contact
with Greek literature in Tarsus, he may very probably have learned
much about it in a Judaised, purified, spiritualised shape in
Jerusalem. But the influence exercised on St. Paul by Gamaliel and
through him by Philo, or men of his school, can be traced in other
respects. The teaching of Gamaliel was as spiritual, I have said,
as rabbinical teaching could have been; but this is not saying very
much from the Christian point of view. The schools at Jerusalem in
the time of Gamaliel were wholly engaged in studies of the most
wearisome, narrow, petty, technical kind. Dr. Farrar has
illustrated this subject with a great wealth of learning and
examples in the fourth chapter of his "Life of St. Paul." The
Talmud alone shows this, throwing a fearful light upon the
denunciations of our Lord as regards the Pharisees, for it devotes
a whole treatise to washings of the hands, and another to the
proper method of killing fowls. The Pharisaic section of the Jews
held, indeed, that there were two hundred and forty-eight
commandments and three hundred and sixty-five prohibitions involved
in the Jewish Law, all of them equally binding, and all of them so
searching that if only one solitary Jew could be found who for one
day kept them all and transgressed in no one direction, then the
captivity of Gods people would cease and the Messiah would appear.
I am obliged to pass over this point somewhat rapidly, and yet it
is a most important one if we desire to know what kind of training
the Apostle received; for, no matter how Gods grace may descend and
the Divine Spirit may change the main directions of a mans life, he
never quite recovers himself from the effects of his early
teaching. Dr. Farrar has bestowed much time and labour on this
point. The following brief extract from his eloquent word, will
give a vivid idea of the endless puerilities, the infinite
questions of pettiest, most minute, and most subtle bearing with
which the time of St. Paul and his fellow-students must have been
taken up, and which must have made him bitterly feel in the depths
of his inmost being that, though the law may have been originally
intended as a source of life, it had been certainly changed as
regards his own particular case, and had become unto him an
occasion of death. "Moreover, was there not mingled with all this
nominal adoration of the Law a deeply seated hypocrisy, so deep
that it was in a great measure unconscious? Even before the days of
Christ the rabbis had learnt the art of straining out gnats and
swallowing camels. They had long learnt to nullify what they
professed to defend. The ingenuity of Hillel was quite capable of
getting rid of any Mosaic regulation which had been found
practically burdensome. Pharisees and Sadducees alike had managed
to set aside in their own favour, by the devices of the mixtures,
all that was disagreeable to themselves in the Sabbath
scrupulosity. The fundamental institution of the Sabbatic year had
been stultified by the mere legal fiction of the Prosbol. Teachers
who were on the high road to a casuistry which could construct
rules out of every superfluous particle, had found it easy to win
credit for ingenuity by elaborating prescriptions to which Moses
would have listened in mute astonishment. If there be one thing
more definitely laid down in the Law than another, it is the
uncleanness of creeping things; yet the Talmud assures us that no
one is appointed a member of the Sanhedrin who does not possess
sufficient ingenuity to prove from the written Law that a creeping
thing is ceremonially clean; and that there was an unimpeachable
disciple at Jabne who could adduce one hundred and fifty arguments
in favour of the ceremonial cleanness of creeping things. Sophistry
like this was at
20. work even in the days when the young student of Tarsus sat
at the feet of Gamaliel; and can we imagine any period of his life
when he would not have been wearied by a system at once so
meaningless, so stringent, and so insincere?" These words are true,
thoroughly true, in their extremest sense. Casuistry is at all
times a dangerous weapon with which to play, a dangerous science
upon which to concentrate ones attention. The mind is so pleased
with the fascination of the precipice that one is perpetually
tempted to see how near an approach can be made without a
catastrophe, and then the catastrophe happens when it is least
expected. But when the casuists attention is concentrated upon one
volume like the law of Moses, interpreted in the thousand methods
and combinations open to the luxuriant imagination of the East,
then indeed the danger is infinitely increased, and we cease to
wonder at the vivid, burning, scorching denunciations of the Lord
as He proclaimed the sin of those who enacted that "Whosoever shall
swear by the temple, it is nothing; but whosoever shall swear by
the gold of the temple, he is a debtor." St. Pauls whole time must
have been taken up in the school of Gamaliel with an endless study
of such casuistical trifles; and yet that period of his life left
marks which we can clearly trace throughout his writings. The
method, for instance, in which St. Paul quotes the Old Testament is
thoroughly rabbinical. It was derived from the rules prevalent in
the Jewish schools, and therefore, though it may seem to us at
times forced and unnatural, must have appeared to St. Paul and to
the men of his time absolutely conclusive. When reading the
Scriptures we Westerns forget the great difference between
Orientals and the nations of Western Europe. Aristotle and his
logic and his logical methods, with major and minor premises and
conclusions following therefrom, absolutely dominate our thoughts.
The Easterns knew nothing of Aristotle, and his methods availed
nothing to their minds. They argued in quite a different style, and
used a logic which he would have simply scorned. Analogy, allegory,
illustration, form the staple elements of Eastern logic, and in
their use St. Paul was elaborately trained in Gamaliels classes,
and of their use his writings furnish abundant examples; the most
notable of which will be found in his allegorical interpretation of
the events of the wilderness journey of Israel in 1Co_10:1-4, where
the pillar of cloud, and the passage of the Red Sea, and the manna,
and the smitten rock become the emblems and types of the Christian
Sacraments; and again, in St. Pauls mystical explanation of
Gal_4:21-31, where Hagar and Sarah are represented as typical of
the two covenants, the old covenant leading to spiritual bondage
and the new introducing to gospel freedom. These, indeed, are the
most notable examples of St. Pauls method of exegesis derived from
the school of Gamaliel, but there are numberless others scattered
all through his writings. If we view them through Western
spectacles, we shall be disappointed and miss their force; but if
we view them sympathetically, if we remember that the Jews quoted
and studied the Old Testament to find illustrations of their own
ideas rather than proofs in our sense of the word, studied them as
an enthusiastic Shakespeare or Tennyson or Wordsworth student pores
over his favourite author to find parallels which others, who are
less bewitched, find very slight and very dubious indeed, then we
shall come to see how it is that St. Paul quotes an illustration of
his doctrine of justification by faith from Hab_2:4 - "The soul of
the proud man is not upright, but the just man shall live by his
steadfastness"; a passage which originally applied to the Chaldeans
and the Jews, predicting that the former should enjoy no stable
prosperity, but that the Jews, ideally represented as the just or
upright man, should live securely because of their fidelity; and
can find an allusion to the resurrection of Christ in "the sure
mercies of David," which God had promised to give His people in the
third verse of the fifty-fifth of Isaiah. Rabbinical learning,
Hebrew discipline, Greek experience and life, these conspired
together with natural impulse and character to frame and form and
mould a man who
21. must make his mark upon the world at large in whatever
direction he chooses for his walk in life. It will now be our duty
to show what were the earliest results of this very varied
education. Acts 9:1-9 THE CONVERSION OF THE PERSECUTOR. WE have in
the last chapter traced the course of St. Pauls life as we know it
from his own reminiscences, from hints in Holy Scripture, and from
Jewish history and customs. The Jewish nation is exactly like all
the nations of the East, in one respect at least. They are all
intensely conservative, and though time has necessarily introduced
some modifications, yet the course of education, and the force of
prejudice, and the power of custom have in the mare remained
unchanged down to the present time. We now proceed to view St.
Paul, not as we imagine his course of life and education to have
been, but as we follow him in the exhibition of his active powers,
in the full play and swing of that intellectual energy, of those
religious aims and objects for which he had been so long training.
St. Paul at his first appearance upon the stage of Christian
history, upon the occasion of St. Stephens martyrdom, had arrived
at the full stature of manhood both in body and in mind. He was
then the young man Saul; an expression which enables us to fix with
some approach to accuracy the time of his birth. St. Pauls
contemporary Philo in one of his works divides mans life into seven
periods, the fourth of which is young manhood, which he assigns to
the years between twenty-one and twenty-eight. Roughly speaking,
and without attempting any fine-drawn distinctions for which we
have not sufficient material, we may say that at the martyrdom of
St. Stephen St. Paul was about thirty years of age, or some ten
years or thereabouts junior to our Lord, as His years would have
been numbered according to those of the sons of men. One
circumstance, indeed, would seem to indicate that St. Paul must
have been then over and above the exact line of thirty. It is
urged, and that upon the ground of St. Pauls own language, that he
was a member of the Sanhedrim In the twenty-sixth chapter,
defending himself before King Agrippa, St. Paul described his own
course of action prior to his conversion as one of bitterest
hostility to the Christian cause: "I both shut up many of the
saints in prisons, having received authority from the chief
priests, and when they were put to death, I gave my vote against
them"; an expression which clearly indicates that he was a member
of a body and possessed a vote in an assembly which determined
questions of life and death, and that could have been nothing else
than the Sanhedrin, into which no one was admitted before he had
completed thirty years. St. Paul, then, when he is first introduced
to our notice, comes before us as a full-grown man, and a
well-trained, carefully educated, thoroughly disciplined rabbinical
scholar, whose prejudices were naturally excited against the new
Galilean sect, and who had given public expression to his feelings
by taking decided steps in opposition to its progress. The sacred
narrative now sets before us (1) the Conduct of St. Paul in his
unconverted state, (2) his Mission, (3) his Journey, and
22. (4) his Conversion. Let us take the many details and
circumstances connected with this passage under these four
divisions. I. The Conduct of Saul. Here we have a picture of St.
Paul in his unconverted state: "Saul, yet breathing threatening and
slaughter against the disciples of the Lord." This description is
amply borne out by St. Paul himself, in which he even enlarges and
gives us additional touches of the intensity of his antichristian
hate. His ignorant zeal at this period seems to have printed itself
deep upon memorys record. There are no less than at least seven
different notices in the Acts or scattered through the Epistles,
due to his own tongue or pen, and dealing directly with his conduct
as a persecutor. No matter how he rejoiced in the fulness and
blessedness of Christs pardon, no matter how he experienced the
power and working of Gods Holy Spirit, St. Paul never could forget
the intense hatred with which he had originally followed the
disciples of the Master. Let us note them, for they all bear out,
expand, and explain the statement of the passage we are now
considering. In his address to the Jews of Jerusalem as recorded in
Act_22:1-30. he appeals to his former conduct as an evidence of his
sincerity. In verses 4 and 5 (Act_22:4-5) he says, "I persecuted
this Way unto the death, binding and delivering into prisons both
men and women. As also the high priest doth bear me witness, and
all the estate of the elders: from whom also I received letters
unto the brethren, and journeyed to Damascus, to bring them also
which were there unto Jerusalem in bonds, for to be punished." In
the same discourse he recurs a second time to this topic; for,
telling his audience of the vision granted to him in the temple, he
says, verse 19 (Act_22:19), "And I said, Lord, they themselves know
that I imprisoned and beat in every synagogue them that believed on
Thee: and when the blood of Stephen Thy witness was shed, I also
was standing by, and consenting, and keeping the garments of them
that slew him." St. Paul dwells upon the same topic in the
twenty-sixth chapter, when addressing King Agrippa in verses 9-11
(Act_26:9-11), a passage already quoted in part: "I verily thought
with myself, that I ought to do many things contrary to the name of
Jesus of Nazareth. And this I also did in Jerusalem: and I both
shut up many of the saints in prisons, having received authority
from the chief priests, and when they were put to death, I gave my
vote against them. And punishing them oftentimes in all the
synagogues, I strove to make them blaspheme; and being exceedingly
mad against them, I persecuted them even unto foreign cities." It
is the same in his Epistles. In four different places does he refer
to his conduct as a persecutor-in 1Co_15:9, Gal_1:13, Php_3:6,
1Ti_1:13; while again in the chapter now under consideration, the
ninth of Acts, we find that the Jews of the synagogue in Damascus,
who were listening to St. Pauls earliest outburst of Christian
zeal, asked, "Is not this he that in Jerusalem made havock of them
which called on this name? and he had come hither for this intent,
that he might bring them bound before the chief priests"; using the
very same word "making havoc" as Paul himself uses in the first of
Galatians, which in Greek is very strong, expressing a course of
action accompanied with fire and blood and murder, such as occurs
when a city is taken by storm. Now these passages have been thus
set forth at length because they add many details to the bare
statement of Act_9:1-43, giving us a glimpse into those four or
five dark and bloody years, the thought of which henceforth weighed
so heavily upon the Apostles mind and memory. Just let us notice
these additional touches. He shut up in prison many of the saints,
both men and women, and that in Jerusalem before he went to
Damascus at all. He scourged the disciples in every synagogue,
meaning doubtless that he superintended the punishment, as it was
the duty of the Chazan, the minister or
23. attendant of the synagogue, to scourge the condemned, and
thus strove to make them blaspheme Christ. He voted for the
execution of the disciples when he acted as a member of the
Sanhedrin. And lastly he followed the disciples and persecuted them
in foreign cities. We gain in this way & much fuller idea of
the young enthusiasts persecuting zeal than usually is formed from
the words, "Saul yet breathing threatening and slaughter against
the disciples of the Lord," which seem to set forth Saul as roused
to wild and savage excitement by St. Stephens death, and then
continuing that course in the city of Jerusalem, for a very brief
period. Whereas, on the contrary, St. Pauls fuller statements, when
combined, represent him as pursuing a course of steady, systematic,
and cruel repression, which St. Paul largely helped to inaugurate,
but which continued to exist as long as the Jews had the power to
inflict corporal punishments and death on the members of their own
nation. He visited all the synagogues in Jerusalem and throughout
Palestine, scourging and imprisoning. He strove-and this is, again,
another lifelike touch, -to compel the disciples to blaspheme the
name of Christ in the same manner as the Romans were subsequently
wont to test Christians by calling upon them to cry anathema to the
name of their Master. He even extended his activity beyond the
bounds of the Holy Land, and that in various directions. The visit
to Damascus may not by any means. have been his first journey to a
foreign town with thoughts bent on the work of persecution. He
expressly says to Agrippa, "I persecuted them even unto foreign
cities." He may have: visited Tarsus, or Lystra, or the cities of
Cyprus or Alexandria itself, urged on by the consuming fire of his
blind, restless zeal, before he entered upon the journey to
Damascus, destined to be the last undertaken in opposition to Jesus
Christ. When we thus strive to realise the facts of the case, we
shall see that the scenes of blood and torture and death, the
ruined homes, the tears, the heartbreaking separations which the
young man Saul had caused in his blind zeal for the law, and which
are briefly summed up in the words "he made havoc of the Church,"
were quite sufficient to account for that profound impression of
his own unworthiness and of Gods great mercy towards him which he
ever cherished to his dying day. II. The Mission of Saul. Again, we
notice in this passage that Saul, having shown his activity in
other directions, now turned his attention to Damascus. There were
political circumstances which may have hitherto hindered him from
exercising the same supervision over the synagogue of Damascus
which he had already extended to other foreign cities. The
political history and circumstances of Damascus at this period are
indeed rather obscure. The city seems to have been somewhat of a
bone of contention between Herod Antipas, Aretas the king of Petra,
and the Romans. About the time of St. Pauls conversion, which may
be fixed at A.D. 37 or 38, there was a period of great disturbance
in Palestine and Southern Syria. Pontius Pilate was deposed from
his office and sent to Rome for judgment. Vitellius, the president
of the whole Province of Syria, came into Palestine, changing the
high priests, conciliating the Jews, and intervening in the war
which raged between Herod Antipas and Aretas, his father-in-law. In
the course of this last struggle Damascus seems to have changed its
masters, and, while a Roman city till the year 37, it henceforth
became an Arabian city, the property of King Aretas, till the reign
of Nero, when it again returned beneath the Roman sway. Some one or
other, or perhaps all these political circumstances combined may
have hitherto prevented the Sanhedrin from taking active measures
against the disciples at Damascus. But now things became settled.
Caiaphas was deposed from the office of high priest upon the
departure of Pontius Pilate. He had been a great friend and ally of
Pilate; Vitellius therefore deprived Caiaphas of his sacred office,
appointing in his stead Jonathan, son of Annas, the high priest.
This Jonathan did not, however, long continue to occupy the
position, as he was deposed by the same Roman magistrate,
Vitellius, at the feast of
24. Pentecost in the very same year, his brother Theophilus
being appointed high priest in his room; so completely was the
whole Levitical hierarchy, the entire Jewish establishment, ruled
by the political officers of the Roman state. This Theophilus
continued to hold the office for five or six years, and it must
have been to Theophilus that Saul applied for letters unto Damascus
authorising him to arrest the adherents of the new religion. And
now a question here arises, How is it that the high priest could
exercise such powers and arrest his co-religionists in a foreign
town? The answer to this sheds a flood of light upon the state of
the Jews of the Dispersion, as they were called. I have already
said a little on this point, but it demands fuller discussion. The
high priest at Jerusalem was regarded as a kind of head of the
whole nation. He was viewed by the Romans as the Prince of the
Jews, with whom they could formally treat, and by whom they could
manage a nation which, differing from all-others in its manners and
customs, was scattered all over the world, and often gave much
trouble. Julius Caesar laid down the lines on which Jewish
privileges and Roman policy were based, and that half a century
before the Christian era. Julius Caesar had been greatly assisted
in his Alexandrian war by the Jewish high priest Hyrcanus, so he
issued an edict in the year 47 B.C., which, after reciting the
services of Hyrcanus, proceeds thus, "I command that Hyrcanus and
his children do retain all the rights of the high priest, whether
established by law or accorded by courtesy; and if hereafter any
question arise touching the Jewish polity, I desire that the
determination thereof be referred to him"; an edict which,
confirmed as it was again and again, not only by Julius Caesar, but
by several subsequent emperors, gave the high priest the fullest
jurisdiction over the Jews, wherever they dwelt, in things
pertaining to their own religion. It was therefore in strictest
accord with Roman law and custom that, when Saul wished to arrest
members of the synagogue at Damascus, he should make application to
the high priest Theophilus for a warrant enabling him to effect his
purpose. The description, too, given of the disciples in this
passage is very noteworthy and a striking evidence of the
truthfulness of the narrative. The disciples were the men of "the
Way." Saul desired to bring any of "the Way" found at Damascus to
be judged at Jerusalem, because the Sanhedrin alone possessed the
right to pass capital sentences in matters of religion. The
synagogues at Damascus or anywhere else could flog culprits, and a
Jew could get no redress for any such ill-treatment even if he
sought it, which would have not been at all likely; but if the
final sentence of death were to be passed, the Jerusalem Sanhedrin
was the only tribunal competent to entertain such questions. And
the persons he desired to hale before this awful tribunal were the
men of the Way. This was the name by which, in its earliest and
purest day, the Church called itself. In the nineteenth chapter and
ninth verse we read of St. Pauls labours at Ephesus and the
opposition he endured: "But when some were hardened and
disobedient, speaking evil of the Way before the multitude"; while
again, in his defence before Felix, (Act_24:14) we read, "But this
I confess unto thee, that after the Way which they call a sect, so
serve I the God of our fathers." The Revised translation of the New
Testament has well brought out the force of the original in a
manner that was utterly missed in the Authorised Version, and has
emphasised for us a great truth concerning the early Christians.
There was a certain holy intolerance even about the very name they
imposed upon the earliest Church. It was the Way, the only Way, the
Way of Life. The earliest Christians had a lively recollection of
what the Apostles had heard from the mouth of the Master Himself,
"I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life; no one cometh unto the
Father but by Me"; and so, realising the identity of Christ and His
people, realising the continued presence of Christ in His Church,
they designated that Church by a term which expressed their
belief
25. that in it alone was the road to peace, the sole path of
access to God. This name, "the Way," expressed their sense of the
importance of the truth. Theirs was no easy-going religion which
thought that it made not the slightest matter what form of belief a
man professed. They were awfully in earnest, because they knew of
only one way to God, and that was the religion and Church of Jesus
Christ. Therefore it was that they were willing to suffer all
things rather than that they should lose this Way, or that others
should miss it through their default. The marvellous, the intense
missionary efforts of the primitive Church find their explanation
in this expression, the Way. God had revealed the Way and had
called themselves into it, and their great duty in life was to make
others know the greatness of this salvation; or, as St. Paul puts
it, "Necessity is laid upon me; woe is unto me if I preach not the
gospel." The exclusive claims of Christianity are thus early set
forth; and it was these same exclusive claims which caused
Christianity to be so hated and persecuted by the pagans. The Roman
Empire would not have so bitterly resented the preaching of Christ,
if His followers would have accepted the position with which other
religions were contented. The Roman Empire was not intolerant of
new ideas in matters of religion. Previous to the coming of our
Lord the pagans had welcomed the strange, mystic rites and teaching
of Egypt. They accepted from Persia the curious system and worship
of Mithras within the first century after Christs crucifixion. And
tradition tells that at least two of the emperors were willing to
admit the image of Christ into the Pantheon, which they had
consecrated to the memory of the great and good. But the Christians
would have nothing to say or do with such partial honours for their
Master. Religion for them was Christ alone or else it was nothing,
and that because He alone was the Way. As there was but one God for
them, so there was but one Mediator, Christ Jesus. III. Sauls
Journey. "As he journeyed, it came to pass that he drew nigh unto
Damascus." This is the simple record left us in Holy Writ of this
momentous event. A comparison of the sacred record with any of the
numerous lives of St. Paul which have been published will show us
how very different their points of view. The mere human narratives
dwell upon the external features of the scene, enlarge upon the
light which modern discoveries have thrown upon the lines of road
which connected Jerusalem with Southern Syria, become enthusiastic
over the beauty of Damascus as seen by the traveller from
Jerusalem, over the eternal green of the groves and gardens which
are still, as of old, made glad by the waters of Abana and of
Pharpar; while the sacred narrative passes over all external
details and marches straight to the great central fact of the
persecutors conversion. And we find no fault with this. It is well
that the human narratives should enlarge as they do upon the
outward features and circumstances of the journey, because they
thus help us to realise the Acts as a veritable history that was
lived and acted. We are too apt to idealise the Bible, to think of
it as dealing
