Chapter XXIX: Part 29

The very active share which Saul took in this and the subsequent cruelties of a similar nature, is in itself a decided though terrible proof of that remarkable independence of character, which was so distinctly displayed in the greatest events of his apostolic career. Saul was no slave to the opinions of others; nor did he take up his active persecuting course on the mere dictation of higher authority. On the contrary, his whole behavior towards the followers of Jesus was directly opposed to the policy so distinctly urged and so efficiently maintained, in at least one instance, by his great teacher, Gamaliel, whose precepts and example on this subject must have influenced his bold young disciple, if any authority could have had such an effect on him. From Gamaliel and his disciples, Saul must have received his earliest impressions of the character of Christ and his doctrines; for it is altogether probable that he did not reach Jerusalem until some time after the ascension of Christ, and there is therefore no reason to suppose that he himself had ever heard or seen him. Nevertheless, brought up in the school of the greatest of the Pharisees, he would receive from all his teachers and associates, an impression decidedly unfavorable, of the Christian sect; though the uniform mildness of the Pharisees, as to vindictive measures, would temper the principles of action recommended in regard to the course of conduct to be adopted towards them. The rapid advance of the new sect, however, soon brought them more and more under the invidious notice of the Pharisees, who in the life-time of Jesus had been the most determined opposers of him and his doctrines; and the attention of Saul would therefore be constantly directed to the preparation for contest with them.

Stephen’s murder seems to have unlocked all the persecuting spirit of Saul. He immediately laid his hand to the work of persecuting the friends of Jesus, with a fury that could not be allayed by a single act. Nor was he satisfied with merely keeping a watchful eye on everything that was openly done by them; but under authority from the Sanhedrim, breaking into the retirement of their homes, to hunt them out for destruction, he had them thrown into prison, and scourged in the synagogues, and threatened even with death; by all which cruelties he so overcame the spirit of many of them, that they were forced to renounce the faith which they had adopted, and blaspheme the name of Christ in public recantations. This furious persecution soon drove them from Jerusalem in great numbers, to other cities. Samaria, as well as the distant parts of Judea, are mentioned as their places of refuge, and not a few fled beyond the bounds of Palestine into the cities of Syria. But even these distant exiles were not, by their flight into far countries, removed from the effects of the burning zeal of their persecutor. Longing for an opportunity to give a still wider range to his cruelties, he went to the great council, and begged of them such a commission as would authorize him to pursue his vindictive measures wherever the sanction of their name could support such actions. Among the probable inducements to this selection of a foreign field for his unrighteous work, may be reasonably placed, the circumstance that Damascus was at this time under the government of Aretas, an Arabian prince, into whose hands it fell for a short time, during which the equitable principles of Roman tolerance no longer operated as a check on the murderous spite of the Jews; for the new ruler, anxious to secure his dominion by ingratiating himself with the subjects of it, would not be disposed to neglect any opportunity for pleasing so powerful and influential a portion of the population of Damascus as the Jews were,――who lived there in such numbers, that in some disturbances which arose a few years after, between them and the other inhabitants, ten thousand Jews were slain unarmed, while in the public baths, enjoying themselves after the fatigues of the day, without any expectation of violence. So large a Jewish population would be secure of the support of Aretas in any favorite measure. Saul, well knowing these circumstances, must have been greatly influenced by this motive, to seek a commission to labor in a field where the firm tolerance of Roman sway was displaced by the baser rule of a petty prince, whose weakness rendered him subservient to the tyrannical wishes of his subjects. In Jerusalem the Roman government would not suffer anything like a systematic destruction of its subjects, nor authorize the taking of life by any religious tribunal, though it might pass over, unpunished, a solitary act of mob violence, like the murder of Stephen. It is perfectly incontestable therefore, that the persecution in Jerusalem could not have extended to the repeated destruction of life, and that passage in Paul’s discourse to Agrippa; which has been supposed to prove a plurality of capital punishments, has accordingly been construed in a more limited sense, by the ablest modern commentators.

Kuinoel on Acts xxv. 1, 10, maintains this fully, and quotes
other authorities.

“It seems to some a strange business, that Paul should have had
the Christians whipped through the _synagogues_. Why, in a house
consecrated to prayer and religion, were sentences of a criminal
court passed, and the punishment executed on the criminal? This
difficulty seemed so great, even to the learned and judicious
Beza, that in the face of the testimony of all manuscripts, he
would have us suspect the genuineness of the passage in Matthew
x. 17, where Christ uses the same expression. Such a liberty as
he would thus take with the sacred text, is of course against
all modern rules of sacred criticism. For what should we do
then with Matthew xxiii. 34, where the same passage occurs
again? Grotius, to explain the difficulty, would have the word
synagogues understood, not in the sense of houses of prayer, but
of civil courts of justice; since such a meaning may be drawn
from the etymology of the Greek word thus translated. (συναγωγη,
a gathering together, or assembling for any purpose.) But that
too is a forced construction, for no instance can be brought out
of the New Testament, where the word is used in that sense, or
any other than the common one. What then? We cannot be allowed
to set up the speculations which we have contrived to agree with
our own notions, against accounts given in so full and clear
a manner. Suppose, for a moment, that we could find no traces
of the custom of scourging in the synagogues, in other writers;
ought that to be considered doubtful, which is thus stated by
Christ and Paul, in the plainest terms, as a fact commonly and
perfectly well known in their time? Nor is there any reason why
scourging in the synagogues should seem so unaccountable to us,
since it was a grade of discipline less than excommunication,
and less disgraceful. For it is made to appear that some of
the most eminent of the wise, when they broke the law, were
thus punished,――not even excepting the head of the Senate, nor
the high priest himself.” (Witsius, § 1, ¶ xix.‒xxi.) Witsius
illustrates it still farther, by the stories which follow.

“But there are instances of flagellation in synagogues found in other accounts. Grotius himself quotes from Epiphanius, that a certain Jew who wished to revolt to Christianity, was whipped in the synagogue. The story is to the following purport. ‘A man, named Joseph, a messenger of the Jewish patriarch, went into Cilicia by order of the patriarch, to collect the tithes and first-fruits from the Jews of that province; and while on his tour of duty, lodged in a house near a Christian church. Having, by means of this, become acquainted with the pastor, he privately begs the loan of the book of the gospels, and reads it. But the Jews, getting wind of this, were so enraged against him, that on a sudden they made an assault on the house, and caught Joseph in the very act of reading the gospels. Snatching the book out of his hands, they knocked him down, and crying out against him with all sorts of abuse, they led him away to the synagogue, where they whipped him with rods.’

“Very much like this is the more modern story which Uriel Acosta tells of himself, in a little book, entitled ‘the Pattern of Human Life.’ The thing took place in Amsterdam, about the year 1630. It seems this Uriel Acosta was a Jew by birth, but being a sort of Epicurean philosopher, had some rather heretical notions about most of the articles of the Jewish creed; and on this charge, being called to account by the rulers of the synagogue, stood on his trial. In the end of it, a paper was read to him, in which it was specified that he must come into the synagogue, clothed in a mourning garment, holding a black wax-light in his hand, and should utter openly before the congregation a certain form of words prescribed by them, in which the offenses he had committed were magnified beyond measure. After this, that he should be flogged with a cowskin or strap, publicly, in the synagogue, and then should lay himself down flat on the threshhold of the synagogue, that all might walk over him. How thoroughly this sentence was executed, is best learned from his own amusing and candid story, which are given in the very words, as literally as they can be translated. ‘I entered the synagogue, which was full of men and women, (for they had crammed in together to see the show,) and when it was time, I mounted the wooden platform, which was placed in the midst of the synagogue for convenience in preaching, and with a loud voice read the writing drawn up by them, in which was a confession that I really deserved to die a thousand times for what I had done; namely, for my breaches of the sabbath, and for my abandonment of the faith, which I had broken so far as even by my words to hinder others from embracing Judaism, &c. After I had got through with the reading, I came down from the platform, and the right reverend ruler of the synagogue drew near to me, and whispered in my ear that I must turn aside to a certain corner of the synagogue. Accordingly, I went to the corner, and the porter told me to strip. I then stripped my body as low as my waist,――bound a handkerchief about my head,――took off my shoes, and raised my arms, holding fast with my hands to a sort of post. The porter of the synagogue, or sexton, then came up, and with a bandage tied up my hands to the post. When things had been thus arranged, the clerk drew near, and taking the cowskin, struck my sides with thirty-nine blows, according to the _tradition_; while in the mean time a psalm was chanted. After this was over, the preacher approached, and absolved me from excommunication; and thus was the gate of heaven opened to me, which before was shut against me with the strongest bars, keeping me entirely out. I next put on my clothes, went to the threshhold of the synagogue and laid myself down on it, while the porter held up my head. Then all who came down, stepped over me, boys as well as old men, lifting up one foot and stepping over the lower part of my legs. When the last had passed out, I got up, and being covered with dust by him who helped me, went home.’ This story, though rather tediously minute in its disgusting particulars, it was yet thought worth while to copy, because this comparatively modern scene seemed to give, to the life, the old fashion of ‘scourging in the synagogues.’”

HIS JOURNEY TO DAMASCUS.

Thus equipped with the high commission and letters of the supreme court of the Jewish nation, Saul, breathing out threatenings and slaughter against the disciples of the Lord, went on his way to Damascus, where the sanction of his superiors would have the force of despotic law, against the destined victims of his cruelty. The distance from Jerusalem to this great Syrian city, can not be less than 250 or 300 miles, and the journey must therefore have occupied as many as ten or twelve days, according to the usual rate of traveling in those countries. On this long journey therefore, Saul had much season for reflection. There were indeed several persons in his company, but probably they were only persons of an inferior order, and merely the attendants necessary for his safety and speed in traveling. Among these therefore, he would not be likely to find any person with whom he could maintain any sympathy which could enable them to hold much conversation together, and he must therefore have been left through most of the time to the solitary enjoyment of his own thoughts. In the midst of the peculiar fatigues of an eastern journey, he must have had many seasons of bodily exhaustion and consequent mental depression, when the fire of his unholy and exterminating zeal would grow languid, and the painful doubts which always come in at such dark seasons, to chill the hopes of every great mind,――no matter what may be the character of the enterprise,――must have had the occasional effect of exciting repentant feelings in him. Why had he left the high and sacred pursuits of a literary and religious life, in the refined capital of Judaism, to endure the fatigues of a long journey over rugged mountains and sandy deserts, through rivers and under a burning sun, to a distant city, in a strange land, among those who were perfect strangers to him? It was for the sole object of carrying misery and anguish among those whose only crime was the belief of a doctrine which he hated, because it warred against that solemn system of forms and traditions to which he so zealously clung, with all the energy that early and inbred prejudice could inspire. But in these seasons of weariness and depression, would now occasionally arise some chilling doubt about the certain rectitude of the stern course which he had been pursuing, in a heat that seldom allowed him time for reflection on its possible character and tendency. Might not that faith against which he was warring with such devotedness, be true?――that faith which, amid blood and dying agonies, the martyr Stephen had witnessed with his very last breath? At these times of doubt and despondency would perhaps arise the remembrance of that horrible scene, when he had set by, a calm spectator, drinking in with delight the agonies of the martyr, and learning from the ferocity of the murderers, new lessons of cruelty. to be put in practice against others who should thus adhere to the faith of Christ. No doubt too, an occasional shudder of gloom and remorse for such acts would creep over him in the chill of evening, or in the heats of noon-day, and darken all his schemes of active vengeance against the brethren. But still he journeyed northward, and each hour brought him nearer the scene of long-planned cruelty. On the last day of his wearisome journey, he at length drew near the city, just at noon; and from the terms in which his situation is described, it is not unreasonable to conclude that he was just coming in sight of Damascus, when the event happened which revolutionized his purposes, hopes, character, soul, and his whole existence through eternity,――an event connected with the salvation of millions that no man can yet number.

Illustration: DAMASCUS.

Descending from the north-eastern slope of Hermon, over whose mighty range his last day’s journey had conducted him, Saul came along the course of the Abana, to the last hill which overlooks the distant city. Here Damascus bursts upon the traveler’s view, in the midst of a mighty plain, embosomed in gardens, and orchards, and groves, which, with the long-known and still bright streams of Abana and Pharphar, and the golden flood of the Chrysorrhoas, give the spot the name of “one of the four paradises.” So lovely and charming is the sight which this fair city has in all ages presented to the traveler’s view, that the Turks relate that their prophet, coming near Damascus, took his station on the mountain Salehiyeh, on the west of the hill-girt plain in which the city stands; and as he thence viewed the glorious and beautiful spot, encompassed with gardens for thirty miles, and thickly set with domes and steeples, over which the eye glances as far as it can reach,――considering the ravishing beauty of the place, he would not tempt his frailty by entering into it, but instantly turned away with this reflection: that there was but one paradise designed for man, and for his part, he was resolved not to take his, in this world. And though there is not the slightest foundation for such a story, because the prophet never came near to Damascus, nor had an opportunity of entering into it, yet the conspiring testimony of modern travelers justifies the fable, in the impression it conveys of the surpassing loveliness of the view from this very spot,――called the Arch of Victory, from an unfinished mass of stonework which here crowns the mountain’s top. This spot has been marked by a worthless tradition, as the scene of Saul’s conversion; and the locality is made barely probable, by the much better authority of the circumstance, that it accords with the sacred narrative, in being on the road from Jerusalem, and “nigh unto the city.”

“Damascus is a very ancient city, which the oldest records
and traditions show by their accordant testimony to have been
founded by Uz, the son of Aram, and grandson of Shem. It was
the capital or mother city of that Syria which is distinguished
by the name of Aram Dammesek or Damascene Syria, lying between
Libanus and Anti-Libanus. The city stands at the base of Mount
Hermon, from which descend the famous streams of Abana and
Pharphar; the latter washing the walls of the city, while the
former cuts it through the middle. It was a very populous,
delightful, and wealthy place; but as in the course of its
existence it had suffered a variety of fortune, so it had often
changed masters. To pass over its earlier history, we will
only observe, that before the Christian era, on the defeat
of Tigranes, the Armenian monarch, it was yielded to the
Romans, being taken by the armies of Pompey. In the time of
Paul, as we are told in ♦2 Corinthians xi. 32, it was held
under the (temporary) sway of Aretas, a king of the Arabians,
father-in-law of Herod the tetrarch. It had then a large Jewish
population, as we may gather from the fact, that in the reign of
Nero, 10, 000 of that nation were slaughtered, unarmed, and in
the public baths by the Damascenes, as Josephus records in his
history of the Jewish War, II. Book, chapter 25. Among the Jews
of Damascus, also, were a considerable number of Christians, and
it was raging for the destruction of these, that Saul, furnished
with the letters and commission of the Jewish high priest, now
flew like a hawk upon the doves.” (Witsius, § 2, ¶ 1.)

♦ “2” omitted in the original text.

The sacred narrative gives no particulars of the other circumstances connected with this remarkable event, in either of the three statements presented in different parts of the book of Acts. All that is commemorated, is that at mid-day, as Saul with his company drew near to Damascus, he saw a light exceeding the sun in brightness, which flashed upon them from heaven, and struck them all to the earth. And while they were all fallen to the ground, Saul alone heard a voice speaking to him in the Hebrew tongue, and saying, “Saul! Saul! Why persecutest thou me? It is hard for thee to kick against thorns.” To this, Saul asked in reply, “Who art thou, Lord?” The answer was, “I am Jesus the Nazarene, whom thou persecutest.” Saul, trembling and astonished, replied, “Lord, what wilt thou that I should do?” And the voice said, “Rise and stand upon thy feet, and go into the city; there thou shalt be told what to do, since for this purpose I have appeared to thee, to make use of thee as a minister and a witness, both of what thou hast seen and of what I will cause thee to see,――choosing thee out of the people, and of the heathen nations to whom I now SEND thee,――to open their eyes,――to turn them from darkness to light, and from the dominion of Satan unto God, that they may receive remission of sins, and an inheritance among them that are sanctified, by faith in me.”

These words are given thus fully only in Saul’s own account
of his conversion, in his address to king Agrippa. (Acts xxvi.
14‒18.) The original Greek of verse 17, is most remarkably and
expressively significant, containing, beyond all doubt, the
formal commission of Saul as the “APOSTLE OF THE GENTILES.” The
first word in that verse is translated in the common English
version, “delivering;” whereas, the original, Εξαιρουμενος,
means also “taking out,” “choosing;” and is clearly shown by
Bretschneider, sub voc. in numerous references to the usages of
the LXX., and by Kuinoel, in loc., to bear this latter meaning
here. Rosenmueller and others however, have been led, by the
circumstance that Hesychius gives the meaning of “rescue,” to
prefer that. Rosenmueller’s remark, that the context demands
this meaning, is however certainly unauthorized; for, on this
same ground, Kuinoel bases the firmest support of the meaning
of “choice.” The meaning of “rescue” was indeed the only one
formerly received, but the lights of modern exegesis have
added new distinctness and aptness to the passage, by the
meaning adopted above. Beza, Piscator, Pagninus, Arias Montanus,
Castalio, &c., as well as the oriental versions, are all quoted
by Poole in defense of the common rendering, nor does he seem to
know of the sense now received. But Saul was truly chosen, both
“out of the people” of Israel, (because he was a Jew by birth
and religion,) “and out of the heathen,” (because he was born
and brought up among the Grecians, and therefore was taken
out from among them, as a minister of grace to them,) and the
whole passage is thus shown to be most beautifully just to the
circumstances which so eminently fitted him for his Gentile
apostleship. The Greek verb used in the conclusion of the
passage, is the consecrating word, αποστελλω, (_apostello_,)
and makes up the formula of his _apostolic_ commission, which is
there given in language worthy of the vast and eternal scope of
the sense,――words fit to be spoken from heaven, in thunder, amid
the flash of lightnings, that called the bloody-minded, bitter,
maddened persecutor, to the peaceful, devoted, unshrinking
testimony of the cause, against the friends of which he before
breathed only threatenings and slaughter.

Illustration: Εξαιρουμενος σε εκ τοῦ λαοῦ και τῶν ἐθνῶν, εις
οὑς νῦν σε ΑΠΟΣΤΕΛΛΩ.

All this took place while the whole company of travelers were lying prostrate on the ground, stunned and almost senseless. Of all those present, however, Saul only heard these solemn words of warning, command, and prophecy, thus sent from heaven in thunder; for he himself afterwards, in narrating these awful events before the Jewish multitude, expressly declares “the men that were with me, saw the light, indeed, and were afraid; but they _heard NOT the voice_ of him who spoke to me.” And though in the previous statement given by Luke, in the regular course of the narrative, it is said that “the men who journeyed with Saul were speechless,――hearing a _voice_, but seeing no man;” yet the two statements are clearly reconciled by the consideration of the different meanings of the word translated “_voice_” in both passages, but which the accompanying expressions sufficiently limit in the latter case only to the articulate sounds of a human voice, while in the former it is left in such terms as to mean merely a “sound,” as of thunder, or any thing else which can be supposed to agree best with the other circumstances. To them, therefore, it seemed only surprising, not miraculous; for they are not mentioned as being impressed, otherwise than by fear and amazement, while Saul, who alone heard the words, was moved thereby to a complete conversion. The whole circumstances, therefore, allow and require, in accordance with other similar passages, that the material phenomena which were made the instruments of this miraculous conversion, were, as they are described, _first_ a flash of lightning, which struck the company to the earth, giving all a severe shock, but affecting Saul most of all, and, _second_, a peal of thunder, heard by all as such, except Saul, who distinguished in those awful, repeated sounds, the words of a heavenly voice, with which he held distinct converse, while his wondering companions thought him only muttering incoherently to himself, between the peals of thunder;――just as in the passage related by John, when Jesus called to God, “Father! glorify thy name;” and then there came a voice from heaven, saying, “I both have glorified it and will glorify it;” yet the people who then stood by, said, “It _thundered_,”――having no idea of the expressive utterance which was so distinctly heard by Jesus and his disciples. There is no account, indeed, in either case, of any thunder storm accompanying the events; but there is nothing in the incidents to forbid it; and the nature of the effects upon the company who heard and saw, can be reconciled only with the supposition of a burst of actual thunder and lightning, which God made the organ of his awful voice, speaking to Saul in words that called him from a course of sin and cruelty, to be a minister of grace, mercy and peace, to all whose destroying persecutor he had before been. The sequel of the effects, too, are such as would naturally follow these material agencies. The men who were least stunned, rose to their feet soon after the first shock; and when the awful scene was over, they bestirred themselves to lift up Saul, who was now found, not only speechless, but blind,――the eyes being so dazzled by such excess of light, that the nerve loses all its power, generally, forever. Saul being now raised from the ground, was led, helpless and thunder-struck, by his distressed attendants, into the city, which he had hoped to make the scene of his cruel persecutions, but which he now entered, more surely bound, than could have been the most wretched of his destined captives.

Kuinoel and Bloomfield will furnish the inquiring reader with
the amusing details of the hypotheses, by which some of the
moderns have attempted to explain away the whole of Saul’s
conversion, into a mere remarkable succession of natural
occurrences, without any miracle at all.

HIS STAY IN DAMASCUS.

Thus did the commissioned persecutor enter the ancient capital of Aram. But as they led him along the flowery ways into this Syrian paradise, how vain were its splendors, its beauties and its historic glories, to the eyes which had so long strained over the far horizon, to catch the first gleam of its white towers and rosy gardens, beyond the mountain-walls. In vain did Damascus invite the admiring gaze of the passing traveler, to those _damask_ roses embowering and hedging his path, which take their name in modern times, from the gardens where they first bloomed under the hand of man. In vain did their fragrance woo his nobler sense to perceive their beauty of form and hue; in vain did the long line of palaces and towers and temples, still bright in the venerable splendor of the ancient Aramaic kings, rise in majesty before him. The eyes that had so often dwelt on these historical monuments, in the distant and brilliant fancies of studious youth, were now closed to the not less brilliant splendors of the reality; and through the ancient arches of those mighty gates, and along the crowded streets, amid the noise of bustling thousands, the commissioned minister of wrath now moved distressed, darkened, speechless and horror-struck,――marked, like the first murderer, (of whose crime that spot was the fabled scene,) by the hand of God. The hand of God was indeed on him, not in wrath, but in mercy, sealing his abused bodily vision for a short space, until his mental eyes, purified from the scales of prejudice and unholy zeal, should have become fitted for the perception of objects, whose beauty and glory should be the theme of his thoughts and words, through all his later days, and of his discourse to millions for whom his heart now felt no love, but for whose salvation he was destined to freely spend and offer up his life. Passing along the crowded ways of the great city, under the guidance of his attendants, he was at last led into the street, which for its regularity was called the “STRAIGHT WAY,” and there was lodged in the house of a person named Judas,――remaining for three days in utter darkness, without the presence of a single friend, and without the glimmer of a hope that he should ever again see the light of day. Disconsolate and desolate, he passed the whole of this period in fasting, without one earthly object or call, to distract his attention from the solemn themes of his heavenly vision. He had all this long interval for reflection on the strange reversion of destiny pointed out by this indisputable decree, which summoned him from works of cruelty and destruction, to deeds of charity, kindness and devotion to those whose ruin he had lately sought with his whole heart. At the close of this season of lonely but blessed meditation, a new revelation of the commanding presence of the Deity was made to a humble and devout Christian of Damascus, named Ananias, known even among the Jews as a man of blameless character. To him, in a vision, the Lord appeared, and calling him by name, directed him most minutely to the house where Saul was lodging, and gave him the miraculous commission of restoring to sight that same Saul, now deprived of this sense by the visitation of God, but expecting its restoration by the hands of Ananias himself, who though yet unknown to him in the body, had been distinctly seen in a vision by the blind sufferer, as his healer, in the name of that Jesus who had met him in the way and smote him with this blindness, dazzling him with the excess of his unveiled heavenly glories. Ananias, yet appalled by the startling view of the bright messenger, and doubting the nature of the vision which summoned him to a duty so strangely inconsistent with the dreadful fame and character of the person named as the subject of his miraculous ministrations, hesitated to promise obedience, and parleyed with his summoner. “Lord! I have heard by many, of this man, how much evil he has done to thy saints at Jerusalem; and here, he has commission from the chief priests to bind all that call on thy name.” The merciful Lord, not resenting the rational doubts of his devout but alarmed servant, replied in words of considerate explanation, renewing his charge, with assurances of the safe and hopeful accomplishment of his appointed task. “Go thy way: for he is a chosen instrument of mercy for me, to bear my name before nations and kings, and the children of Israel: for I will show him how great things he must suffer for the sake of my name.” Ananias, no longer doubting, now went his way as directed, and finding Saul, clearly addressed him in terms of confidence and even of affection, recognizing him, on the testimony of the vision, as already a friend of those companions of Jesus, whom he had lately persecuted. He put his hands on him, in the usual form of invoking a blessing on any one, and said, “Brother Saul! the Lord Jesus, who appeared to thee in the way, as thou camest, has sent me, that thou mightest receive thy sight, and be filled with a holy spirit.” And immediately there fell from the eyes of the blinded persecutor, something like scales, and he saw now, in bodily, real presence, him who had already been in form revealed to his spirit, in a vision. At the same moment, fell from his inward sense, the obscuring film of prejudice and bigotry. Renewed in mental vision, he saw with the clear eye of confiding faith and eternal hope, that Jesus, who in the full revelation of his vindictive majesty having dazzled and blinded him in his murderous career, now appeared to his purified sense, in the tempered rays and mild effulgence of redeeming grace. Changed too, in the whole frame of his mind, he felt no more the promptings of that dark spirit of cruelty, but, filled with a holy spirit, before unknown to him, he began a new existence, replete with the energies of a divine influence. No longer fasting in token of distress, he now ate, by way of thanksgiving for his joyful restoration, and was strengthened thereby for the great task which he had undertaken. He was now admitted to the fellowship of the disciples of Jesus, and remained many days among them as a brother, mingling in the most friendly intercourse with those very persons, against whom he came to wage exterminating ruin. Nor did he confine his actions in his new character to the privacies of Christian intercourse. Going immediately into the synagogues, he there publicly proclaimed his belief in Jesus Christ, and boldly maintained him to be the Son of God. Great was the amazement of all who heard him. The fame of Saul of Tarsus, as a ferocious and determined persecutor of all who professed the faith of Jesus, had already pervaded Palestine, and spread into Syria; and what did this strange display now mean? They saw him, whom they had thus known by his dreadful reputation as a hater and exterminator of the Nazarene doctrine, now preaching it in the schools of the Jewish law and the houses of worship for the adherents of Mosaic forms, and with great power persuading others to a similar renunciation of all opposition to the name of Jesus; and they said, “Is not this he who destroyed them that called on this name in Jerusalem, and came hither, with the very purpose of taking them bound, to the Sanhedrim, for punishment?” But Saul, each day advancing in the knowledge and faith of the Christian doctrine, soon grew too strong in argument for the most skilful of the defenders of the Jewish faith; and utterly confounded them with his proofs that Jesus was the very Messiah. This triumphant course he followed for a long time; until, at last, the stubborn Jews, provoked to the highest degree by the defeats which they had suffered from this powerful disputant, lately their most zealous defender, took counsel to put him to death, as a renegade from the faith, of which he had been the trusted professor, as well as the commissioned minister of its vengeance on the heretics whose cause he had now espoused, and was defending, to the great injury and discredit of the Judaical order. In contriving the means of executing this scheme, they received the support and assistance of the government of the city,――Damascus being then held, not by the Romans, but by Aretas, a petty king of northern Arabia. The governor appointed by Aretas did not scruple to aid the Jews in their murderous project; but even himself, with a detachment of the city garrison, kept watch at the gates, to kill Saul at his first outgoing. But all their wicked plots were set at nought by a very simple contrivance. The Christian friends of Saul, hearing of the danger, determined to remove him from it at once; and accordingly, one night, put the destined apostle of the Gentiles in a basket; and through the window of some one of their houses, which adjoined the barriers of the city, they let him down outside of the wall, while the spiteful Jews, with the complaisant governor and his detachment of the city guard, were to no purpose watching the gates with unceasing resolution, to wreak their vengeance on this dangerous convert.

Michaelis alludes to the difficulties which have arisen about
the possession of Damascus by Aretas, and concludes as follows:

“The force of these objections has been considerably weakened,
in a dissertation published in 1755, ‘De ethnarcha Aretae Arabum
regis Paulo insidiante,’ by J. G. Heyne, who has shown it to be
highly probable, first, that Aretas, against whom the Romans,
not long before the death of Tiberius, made a declaration of war,
which they neglected to put in execution, took the opportunity
of seizing Damascus, which had once belonged to his ancestors;
an event omitted in Josephus, as forming no part of the Jewish
history, and by the Roman historians as being a matter not
flattering in itself, and belonging only to a distant province.
Secondly, that Aretas was by religion a Jew,――a circumstance
the more credible, when we reflect that Judaism had been widely
propagated in that country, and that even kings in Arabia Felix
had recognized the law of Moses. * * * And hence we may explain
the reason why the Jews were permitted to exercise, in Damascus,
persecutions still severer than those in Jerusalem, where the
violence of their zeal was awed by the moderation of the Roman
policy. Of this we find an example in the ninth chapter of the
Acts, where Paul is sent by the high priest to Damascus, to
exercise against the Christians, cruelties which the return of
the Roman governor had checked in Judea. These accounts agree
likewise with what is related in Josephus, that the number of
Jews in Damascus amounted to ten thousand, and that almost all
the women, even those whose husbands were heathens, were of the
Jewish religion.” (Michaelis, Introduction, Vol. IV. Part I. c.
ii. § 12.)

HIS RESIDENCE IN ARABIA.

On his escape from this murderous plot, Saul, having now received from God, who called him by his grace, the revelation of his Son, that he might preach him among the heathen, immediately resolved not to confer with any mortal, on the subject of his task, and therefore refrained from going up to Jerusalem, to visit those who were apostles before him. Turning his course southeastward, he found refuge from the rage of the Damascan Jews, in the solitudes of the eastern deserts, where, free alike from the persecutions and the corruptions of the city, he sought in meditation and lonely study, that diligent preparation which was necessary for the high ministry to which God had so remarkably called him. A long time was spent by him in this wise and profitable seclusion; but the exact period cannot be ascertained. It is only probable that more than a year was thus occupied; during which he was not a mere hermit, indeed, but at any rate, was a resident in a region destitute of most objects which would be apt to draw off his attention from study. That part of Arabia in which he took refuge, was not a mere desert, nor a wilderness, yet had very few towns, and those only of a small size, with hardly any inhabitants of such a character as to be attractive companions to Saul. After some time, changes having taken place in the government of Damascus, he was enabled to return thither with safety, the Jews being now checked in their persecuting cruelty by the re-establishment of the Roman dominion over that part of Syria. He did not remain there long; but having again displayed himself as a bold assertor of the faith of Jesus, he next set his face towards Jerusalem, on his return, to make known in the halls of those who had sent him forth to deeds of blood, that their commission had been reversed by the Father of all spirits, who had now not only summoned, but fully equipped, their destined minister of wrath, to be “a chosen instrument of mercy” to nations who had never yet heard of Israel’s God.

The different accounts given of these events, in Acts ix. 19‒25,
and in Galatians i. 15‒24, as well as 2 Corinthians xi. 32‒33,
have been united in very opposite ways by different commentators,
and form the most perplexing passages in the life of Saul. The
journey into Arabia, of which he speaks in Galatians i. 17, is
supposed by most writers, to have been made during the time when
Luke mentions him as occupied in and about Damascus; and it is
said that he went thence into Arabia _immediately_ after his
conversion, before he had preached anywhere; and such writers
maintain that the word “_straightway_,” or “_immediately_,”
in Acts ix. 20, (ευθεως,) really means, that it was not until
a long time after his conversion that he preached in the
synagogues!! Into this remarkable opinion they have been led
by the fact, that Saul himself says, (Galatians i. 16,) that
when he was called by God to the apostleship, “immediately he
conferred not with flesh and blood, nor went up to Jerusalem,
but went into Arabia.” All this however, is evidently specified
by him only in reference to the point that he did not derive
his title to the apostleship from “those that were apostles
before him,” nor from any human authority; and full justice is
therefore done to his words, by applying them only to the fact,
that he went to Arabia before he went to Jerusalem, without
supposing them to mean that he left Damascus _immediately_ after
his baptism by Ananias. All the historical writers however, seem
to take this latter view. Witsius, Cappel, Pearson, Lardner,
Murdock, Hemsen, &c. place his journey to Arabia between his
baptism and the time of his escape, and suppose that when he
fled from Damascus, he went directly to Jerusalem. In the
different arrangement which I make of these events, however, I
find myself supported by most of the great exegetical writers,
as Wolf, Kuinoel, and Bloomfield; and I can not better support
this view than in the words of the latter.

Acts ix. 19. “ἐγένετο δὲ ὁ Σαῦλος. Paul (Galatians ♦i. 17,)
relates that he, after his conversion, did not proceed to
Jerusalem, but repaired to Arabia, and from thence returned to
Damascus. Hence, according to the opinion of Pearson, in his
Annales Paulini, p. 2. the words ἐγένετο δὲ ὁ Σαῦλος are to
be separated from the preceding passage, and constitute a new
story, in which is related what happened at Damascus after Saul’s
return from Arabia. But the words ἱκαναὶ ἡμέραι may and ought
to be referred to the whole time of Paul’s abode at Damascus,
before he went into Arabia; and thus with the ἱκαναὶ ἡμέραι be
numbered the ἡμέραι τινὲς mentioned at verse 19: for the sense
of the words is this: ‘Saul, when he spent some days with the
Damascene Christians, immediately taught in the synagogues. Now
Luke entirely passes by Paul’s journey into Arabia. (Kuinoel.)
Doddridge imagines that his going into Arabia, (to which, as
he observes, Damascus now belonged,) was only making excursions
from that city into the neighboring parts of the country, and
perhaps taking a large circuit about it, which might be his
employment between the time in which he began to preach in
Damascus, and his quitting it after having been conquered by the
Romans under Pompey.’ But in view of this subject I cannot agree
with him. The country in the _neighborhood of Damascus_ is not
properly _Arabia_.”

♦ “1, 17” replaced with “i. 17”

22‒24. “ὡς δὲ ἐπληροῦντο――ἀνελεῖν αὐτόν. In 2 Corinthians xi.
32, we read that the Ethnarch of Aretas, king of Arabia, had
placed a guard at the gates of Damascus, to seize Paul. Now it
appears that Syria Damascene was, at the end of the Mithridatic
war, reduced by Pompey to the Roman yoke. It has therefore been
inquired how it could happen that Aretas should then have the
government, and appoint an Ethnarch. That Aretas had, on account
of the repudiation of his daughter by Herod Antipas, commenced
hostilities against that monarch, and in the last year of
Tiberius (A. D. 37,) had completely defeated his army, we learn
from Josephus Antiquities, 18, 5, 1. seqq. Herod had, we find,
signified this by letter to Tiberius, who, indignant at this
audacity, (Josephus L. c.) gave orders to Vitellius, prefect
of Syria, to declare war against Aretas, and take him alive,
or send him his head. Vitellius made preparations for the war,
but on receiving a message acquainting him with the death of
Tiberius, he dismissed his troops into winter quarters. And
thus Aretas was delivered from the danger. At the time, however,
that Vitellius drew off his forces, Aretas invaded Syria, seized
Damascus, and continued to occupy it, in spite of Tiberius’s
stupid successor, Caligula. This is the opinion of most
commentators, and among others, Wolf, Michaelis, and Eichhorn.
But I have already shewn in the Prolegomena § de chronologia
lib. 2, 3, that Aretas did not finally subdue Damascus until
Vitellius had already departed from the province.” (Kuinoel.)
(Bloomfield’s Annotations, Vol. IV. pp. 322‒324.)

HIS RETURN TO JERUSALEM.

Arriving in the city, whence only three years before he had set out, in a frame of mind so different from that in which he returned, and with a purpose so opposite to his present views and plans,――he immediately, with all the confidence of Christian faith, and ardent love for those to whom his religious sympathies now so closely fastened him, assayed to mingle in a familiar and friendly manner with the apostolic company, and offered himself to their Christian fellowship as a devout believer in Jesus. But they, already having too well known him in his previous character as the persecutor of their brethren, the aider and abettor in the murder of the heroic and innocent Stephen, and the greatest enemy of the faithful,――very decidedly repulsed his advances, as only a new trick to involve them in difficulties, that would make them liable to punishment which their prudence had before enabled them to escape. They therefore altogether refused to receive Saul; for “they were all afraid of him, and believed not that he was a disciple.” In this disagreeable condition,――cast out as a hypocrite, by the apostles of that faith, for which he had sacrificed all earthly prospects,――he was fortunately found by Barnabas, who being, like Saul, a Hellenist Jew, naturally felt some especial sympathy with one whose country was within a few miles of his own; and by this circumstance, being induced to notice the professed convert, soon recognized in him, the indubitable signs of a regenerated and sanctified spirit, and therefore brought him to the chief apostles, Peter, and James, the Lord’s brother; for with these alone did Saul commune, at this visit, as he himself distinctly testifies. Still avoiding the company of the great mass of the apostles and disciples, he confined himself almost wholly to the acquaintance of Peter, with whom he abode in close familiarity for fifteen days. In order to reconcile the narrative of Luke in the Acts, with the account given by Saul himself, in the first chapter of the epistle to the Galatians, it must be understood that the “_apostles_” spoken of by the former are only the two above-mentioned, and it was with these only that he “went in and out at Jerusalem,”――the other apostles being probably absent on some missionary duties among the new churches throughout Judea and Palestine. Imitating the spirit of the proto-martyr, whose death he had himself been instrumental in effecting, “he spoke boldly in the name of the Lord Jesus, and disputed against the Hellenists,” doubtless the very same persons among whom he himself had formerly been enrolled as an unshrinking opposer of that faith which he was now advocating. By them he was received with all that vindictive hate which might have been expected; and he was at once denounced as a vile renegade from the cause which in his best days he had maintained as the only right one. To show most satisfactorily that, though he might change, they had not done so, they directly resolved to punish the bold disowner of the faith of his fathers, and would soon have crowned him with the fate of Stephen, had not the disciples heard of the danger which threatened the life of their new brother, and provided for his escape by means not less efficient than those before used in his behalf, at Damascus. Before the plans for his destruction could be completed, they privately withdrew him from Jerusalem, and had him safely conducted down to Caesarea, on the coast, whence, with little delay, he was shipped for some of the northern parts of Syria, from which he found his way to Tarsus,――whether by land or sea, is unknown.

HIS VISIT TO TARSUS.

This return to his native city was probably the first visit which he had made to it, since the day when he departed from his father’s house, to go to Jerusalem as a student of Jewish theology. It must therefore have been the occasion of many interesting reflections and reminiscences. What changes had the events of that interval wrought in him,――in his faith, his hopes, his views, his purposes for life and for death! The objects which were then to him as idols,――the aims and ends of his being,――had now no place in his reverence or his affection; but in their stead was now placed a name and a theme, of which he could hardly have heard before he first left Tarsus,――and a cause whose triumph would be the overthrow of all those traditions of the Fathers, of which he had been taught to be so exceeding zealous. To this new cause he now devoted himself, and probably at this time labored “in the regions of Cilicia,” until a new apostolic summons called him to a distant field. He was yet “personally unknown to the churches of Judea, which were in Christ; and they had only heard, that he who persecuted them in times past, now preached the faith which once he destroyed; they therefore glorified God on his account.” The very beginnings of his apostolic duties were therefore in a foreign field, and not within the original premises of the lost sheep of the house of Israel, where indeed he was not even known but by fame, except to a few in Jerusalem. In this he showed the great scope and direction of his future labors,――among the Gentiles, not among the Jews; leaving the latter to the sole care of the original apostles, while he turned to a vast field for which they were in no way fitted, by nature, or by apostolic education, nor were destined in the great scheme of salvation.

HIS APOSTOLIC LABORS IN ANTIOCH.