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Paul - II
IV. His Equipment.
Ramsay chooses as the title of chapter ii, in his Paul the Traveler, the words "The
Origin of Paul." It is not possible to explain the work and teaching of Paul without a just
conception of the forces that entered into his life. Paul himself is still woefully
misunderstood by some. Thus, A. Meyer (Jesus or Paul, 1909, 119) says: "In spite of all
that has been said, there is no doubt that Paul, with his peculiar personality, with his
tendency to recondite Gnostic speculation and rabbinic argument, has heavily
encumbered the cause of Christianity. For many simple souls, and for many natures that
are otherwise constituted than himself, he has barred the way to the simple Christianity
of Jesus." That is a serious charge against the man who claimed to have done more than
all the other apostles, and rightly, so far as we can tell (1 Cor. 15:10), and who claimed
that his interpretation of Jesus was the only true one (Galatians 1:7-9). Moffatt (Paul
and Paulinism, 1910, 70) minimizes the effect of Paulinism: "The majority of Paul's
distinctive conceptions were either misunderstood, or dropped, or modified, as the case
might be, in the course of a few decades." "Paulinism as a whole stood almost as far
apart from the Christianity that followed it as from that which preceded it" (ibid., 73).
"The aim of some scholars seems to be to rob every great thinker of his originality"
(Garvie, Studies of Paul and His Gospel, 1). Ramsay (Pauline and Other Studies, 3ff)
boldly challenges the modern prejudice of some scholars against Paul by asking, "Shall
we hear evidence or not?" Every successive age must study afresh the life and work of
Paul (ibid., 27) if it would understand him. Deissmann (St. Paul, 3f) rightly sees that
"St. Paul is spiritually the great power of the apostolic age." Hence, "the historian,
surveying the beginnings of Christianity, sees Paul as first after Jesus." Feine (Jesus
Christus und Paulus, 1902, 298) claims that Paul grasped the essence of the ministry of
Christ "auf das tiefste." I own myself a victim to "the charm of Paul," to use Ramsay's
phrase (Pauline and Other Studies, 27). In seeking to study "the shaping influences" in
Paul's career (Alexander, The Ethics of Paul, 1910, 27), we shall be in error if we seek to
explain everything by heredity and environment and if we deny any influence from these
sources. He is what he is because of original endowments, the world of his day, and his
experience of Christ Jesus. He had both essential and accidental factors in his equipment
(Fairbairn, Studies in Religion and Theology, 1910, 469f). Let us note the chief factors
in his religious development.
1. The City of Tarsus:
Geography plays an important part in any life. John the Baptist spent his boyhood in
the hill country of Judea in a small town (Luke 1:39) and then in the wilderness. Jesus
spent His boyhood in the town of Nazareth and the country round. Both John and Jesus
show fondness for Nature in all its forms. Paul grew up in a great city and spent his life
in the great cities of the Roman empire. He makes little use of the beauties of Nature, but
he has a keen knowledge of men (compare Robertson, Epochs in the Life of Paul, 12).
Paul was proud of his great city (Acts 21:39). He was not merely a resident, but a
"citizen" of this distinguished city. This fact shows that Paul's family had not just
emigrated from Judea to Tarsus a few years before his birth, but had been planted in
Tarsus as part of a colony with full municipal rights (Ramsay, Paul the Traveler, 31f).
Tarsus was the capital of Cilicia, then a part of the province of Syria, but it had the title
of metropolis and was a free city, urbs libera (Pliny, NH, v.27). To the ancient Greek the
city was his "fatherland" (Ramsay, Cities of Paul, 1908, 90). Tarsus was situated on the
river Cydnus, and in a wide plain with the hill country behind and the snow-covered
Taurus Mountains in the distance. It was subject to malaria. Ramsay (ibid., 117ff) from
Genesis 10:4f holds that the early inhabitants were Greeks mingled with Orientals. East
and West flowed together here. It was a Roman town also with a Jewish colony (ibid.,
169ff), constituting a city tribe to which Paul's family belonged. So then Tarsus was a
typical city of the Greek-Roman civilization.
The religions of the times all met there in this great mart of business. But it was one
of the great seats of culture also. Strabo (xiv.6, 73) even says that "Tarsus surpassed all
other universities, such as Alexandria and Athens, in the study of philosophy and
educational literature in general." "Its great preeminence," he adds, "consists in this, that
the men of learning here are all natives." Accordingly, he and others have made up a
long list of distinguished men who flourished at Tarsus in the late autumn of Greek
learning: philosophers—of the Academy, of the Epicurean and Stoic schools—poets,
grammarians, physicians. At Tarsus, one might say, "you breathed the atmosphere of
learning" (Lightfoot, Biblical Essays, 205). But Ramsay (Cities of Paul, 231f) cautions
us not to misunderstand Strabo. It was not even one of the three great universities of the
world in point of equipment, fame, students from abroad, or general standing. It was not
on a paragraph with Athens and Alexandria, except that "it was rich in what constitutes
the true excellence and strength of a university, intense enthusiasm and desire for
knowledge among the students and great ability and experience among some at least of
the teachers" (ibid., 233). Strabo was very fond of Athenodorus, for instance. No
students from abroad came to Tarsus, but they went from Tarsus elsewhere. But
Philostratus represents Apollonius of Tyana as disgusted with the university and the
town, and Dio Chrysostom describes Tarsus as an oriental and non-Hellenic town.
Ramsay speaks of Tarsus in the reign of Augustus as "the one example known in
history of a state ruled by a university acting through its successive principals." "It is
characteristic of the general tendency of university life in a prosperous and peaceful
empire, that the rule of the Tarsian University was marked by a strong reaction toward
oligarchy and a curtailment of democracy; that also belongs to the oriental spirit, which
was so strong in the city. But the crowning glory of Tarsus, the reason for its undying
interest to the whole world, is that it produced the apostle Paul; that it was the one city
which was suited by its equipoise between the Asiatic and the Western spirit to mold the
character of the great Hellenist Jew; and that it nourished in him a strong source of
loyalty and patriotism as the citizen of no mean city" (Ramsay, op. cit., 235). The city
gave him a schooling in his social, political, intellectual, moral, and religious life, but in
varying degrees, as we shall see. It was because Tarsus was a cosmopolitan city with "an
amalgamated society" that it possessed the peculiar suitability "to educate and mold the
mind of him who would in due time make the religion of the Jewish race intelligible to
the Greek-Roman world" (ibid., 88). As a citizen of Tarsus Paul was a citizen of the
whole world.
2. Roman Citizenship:
It was no idle boast with Paul when he said, "But I am a Roman born" (Acts 22:28).
The chief captain might well be "afraid when he knew that he was a Roman, and because
he had bound him" (Acts 22:29). Likewise the magistrates at Philippi "feared when they
heard that they were Romans" (Acts 16:39), and promptly released Paul and Silas and
"asked them to go away from the city." "To the Roman his citizenship was his passport
in distant lands, his talisman in seasons of difficulties and danger. It shielded him alike
from the caprice of municipal law and the injustice of local magistrates" (Lightfoot,
Biblical Essays, 203). As a citizen of Rome, therefore, Paul stood above the common
herd. He ranked with the aristocracy in any provincial town (Ramsay, Paul the Traveler,
31). He would naturally have a kindly feeling for the Roman government in return for
this high privilege and protection. In its pessimism the Roman empire had come to be
the world's hope, as seen in the Fourth Eclogue of Virgil (Ramsay, Cities of Paul, 49).
Paul would seize upon the Roman empire as a fit symbol of the kingdom of heaven.
"Our citizenship is in heaven" (Phil. 3:20); "Ye are no more strangers and sojourners, but
ye are fellow-citizens with the saints" (Ephes. 2:19). So he interprets the church in terms
of the body politic as well as in terms of the Israelite theocracy (Col. 2:19). "All this
shows the deep impression which the Roman institutions made on Paul" (Lightfoot,
Biblical Essays, 205). Ramsay draws a striking parallel under the heading, "Paulinism in
the Roman Empire" (Cities of Paul, 70ff). "A universal Paulinism and a universal
Empire must either coalesce, or the one must destroy the other." It was Paul's
knowledge of the Roman empire that gave him his imperialism and statesmanlike grasp
of the problems of Christianity in relation to the Roman empire. Paul was a statesman of
the highest type, as Ramsay has conclusively shown (Pauline and Other Studies, 49-
100). Moffatt (Paul and Paulinism, 66) does say: "His perspective was not
imperialistic," but he shows thereby a curious inability to understand Paul. The vision of
Paul saw that the regeneration of the empire could come only through Christianity.
Ramsay strikingly shows how the emperor dreaded the spiritual upheaval in Paulinism
and fought it steadily till the time of Constantine, when "an official Christianity was
victorious, but Pauline Christianity had perished, and Paul was now a mere saint, no
longer Paul but Paul, forgotten as a man or a teacher, but remembered as a sort of
revivification of the old pagan gods" (Cities of Paul, 78). But, as Ramsay says, "it was
not dead; it was only waiting its opportunity; it revived when freedom of thought and
freedom of life began to stir in Europe; and it guided and stimulated the Protestants of
the Reformation." Suffer Ramsay once more (Pauline and Other Studies, 100):
"Barbarism proved too powerful for the Greek-Roman civilization unaided by the new
religious bond; and every channel through which that civilization was preserved or
interest in it maintained, either is now or has been in some essential part of its course
Christian after the Pauline form." Paul would show the Roman genius for organizing the
churches established by him. Many of his churches would be in Roman colonies
(Antioch in Pisidia, Philippi, Corinth, etc.). He would address his most studied epistle to
the church in Rome, and Rome would be the goal of his ministry for many years
(Findlay, Hastings, Dictionary of the Bible (five volumes)). He would show his
conversance with Roman law, not "merely in knowing how to take advantage of his
rights as a citizen, but also in the use of legal terms like "adoption" (Galatians 4:5f),
where the adopted heir becomes son, and heir and son are interchangeable. This was the
obsolete Roman law and the Greek law left in force in the provinces (compare Galatians
3:15). But in Romans 8:16f the actual revocable Roman law is referred to by which
"heirship is now deduced from sonship, whereas in Galatians sonship is deduced from
heirship; for at Rome a son must be an heir, but an heir need not be a son (compare
Hebrews 9:15ff which presupposes Roman law and the revocability of a will)" (Maclean
in Hastings, Dictionary of the Bible (single volume)). So in Galatians 3:24 the tutor or
pedagogue presents a Greek custom preserved by the Romans. This personal guardian
of the child (often a slave) led him to school, and was not the guardian of the child's
property in Galatians 4:2. See Ramsay, Galatians, 337-93; Ball, Paul and the Roman
Law, 1901, for further discussion. As a Roman, Paul would have "nomen and
praenomen, probably taken from the Roman officer who gave his family civitas; but
Luke, a Greek, had no interest in Roman names. Paulus, his cognomen, was not
determined by his nomen; there is no reason to think he was an AEmilius" (Ramsay,
Paul the Traveler, 31). It is probable, though not certain, that Paul spoke Latin (see
Souter, The Expositor, April, 1911). He was at any rate a "Roman gentleman" (Findlay,
Hastings, Dictionary of the Bible (five volumes)), as is shown by the dignity of his
bearing before governors and kings and the respect accorded him by the proconsul
Sergius Paulus, the procurator Porcius Festus, and the centurion Julius, whose prisoner
he was in the voyage to Rome. His father, as a Roman citizen, probably had some
means which may have come to Paul before the appeal to Rome, which was expensive
(Ramsay, Paul the Traveler, 310ff). Though a prisoner in Rome, he made Rome "his
best vantage ground and his adoptive home," and it was here that he rose to "his loftiest
conceptions of the nation and destiny of the universal church" (Findlay, Hastings,
Dictionary of the Bible (five volumes)) as "an ambassador in chains" (Ephes. 6:20). As
a Roman citizen, according to tradition, he was beheaded with the sword and not
subjected to crucifixion, the traditional fate of Simon Peter. He saw the true pax
Romana to be the peace that passeth all understanding (Phil. 4:7; compare Rostron, The
Christology of Paul, 1912, 19).
3. Hellenism:
It is not possible "to specify all the influences that worked on Paul in his youth"
(Ramsay, Cities of Paul, 79). We do not know all the life of the times. But he was
subject to all that life in so far as any other Jewish youth was. "He was master of all the
education and the opportunities of his time. He turned to his profit and to the
advancement of his great purpose all the resources of civilization" (Ramsay, Pauline and
Other Studies, 285). I heartily agree with this conception of Paul's ability to assimilate
the life of his time, but one must not be led astray so far as Schramm who, in 1710,
wrote De stupenda eruditione Pauli ("On the Stupendous Erudition of Paul"). This is, of
course, absurd, as Lightfoot shows (Biblical Essays, 206). But we must not forget Paul
lived in a Greek city and possessed Greek citizenship also (Ramsay, Paul the Traveler,
33). Certainly the Greek traits of adaptability, curiosity, alertness, the love of
investigation were marked features of his character, and Tarsus afforded wide
opportunity for the acquiring of these qualities (The Ethics of Paul, 39). He learned to
speak the vernacular koine like a native and with the ease and swing displayed by no
other New Testament writer save Luke and the author of He. He has a "poet's mastery of
language," though with the passion of a soul on fire, rather than with the artificial rules
of the rhetoricians of the day (Deissmann, Light from the Ancient East, 239f). Blass (Die
Rhythmen der asianischen und romischen Kunstprosa, 1905) holds that Paul wrote
"rhythmically elaborated artistic prose—a singular instance of the great scholar's having
gone astray" (Deissmann, Light, etc., 64). But there is evidence that Paul was familiar
with the use of the diatribe and other common rhetorical devices, though he was very far
from being tinged with Atticism or Asianism. It is certain that Paul did not attend any of
the schools of rhetoric and oratory. Heinrici (Vorrede to 1 Cor. in Meyer's Krit. exeget.
Komm.) argues that Paul's methods and expressions conform more nearly to the cynic
and Stoic diatribe than to the rabbinical dialectic; compare also Wendland und Kern
Philo u. d. kynisch-stoische Diatribe, and Hicks, "St. Paul and Hellenism" in Stud.
Biblical, IV. How extensive was his acquaintance with Greek literature is in doubt.
Lightfoot says: "There is no ground for saying that Paul was a very erudite or highly-
cultivated man. An obvious maxim of practical life from Menander (1 Cor. 15:33), a
religious sentiment of Cleanthes repeated by Aratus, himself a native of Tarsus (Acts
17:28), a pungent satire of Epimenides (Titus 1:12), with possibly a passage here and
there which dimly reflects some classical writer, these are very slender grounds on which
to build the supposition of vast learning" (Biblical Essays, 206); but Lightfoot admits
that he obtained directly or indirectly from contact with Greek thought and learning
lessons far wider and more useful for his work than a perfect style or a familiar
acquaintance with the classical writers of antiquity. Even so, there is no reason to say
that he made his few quotations from hearsay and read no Greek books (compare Zahn,
Introduction to the New Testament, 52). Certainly he knew the Greek Old Testament and
the Jewish Apocrypha and apocalypses in Greek Garvie is only willing to admit that Paul
had such knowledge of Greek literature and philosophy as any Jew, living among
Greeks, might pick up (Life and Teaching of Paul, 2), and charges Ramsay with
"overstating the influence of the Gentile environment on Paul's development" (Studies of
Paul and His Gospel, 8). Ramsay holds that it is quite "possible that the philosophical
school at Tarsus had exercised more influence on Paul than is commonly allowed" (St.
Paul the Traveler, 354). Tarsus was the home of Athenodorus. It was a stronghold of
Stoic thought. "At least five of the most eminent teachers of that philosophy were in the
university" (Alexander, Ethics of Paul, 47). It is not possible to say whether Paul
artended these or any lectures at the university, though it is hard to conceive that a
brilliant youth like Saul could grow up in Tarsus with no mental stimulus from such a
university. Carvie (ibid., 6) asks when Paul could have studied at the university of
Tarsus. He was probably too young before he went to Jerusalem to study under
Gamaliel. But it is not probable that he remained in Jerusalem continuously after
completing his studies till we see him at the death of Stephen (Acts 7:58). He may have
returned to Tarsus meanwhile and taken such studies. Another possibility is that he took
advantage of the years in Tarsus after his conversion (Acts 9:30; Galatians 1:21) to equip
himself better for his mission to the Gentiles to which he had been called. There is no
real difficulty on the score of time. The world was saturated with Greek ideas, and Paul
could not escape them. He could not escape it unless he was innocent of all culture.
Ramsay sees in Paul a love of truth and reality "wholly inconceivable in a more narrow
Hebrew, and wholly inexplicable without an education in Greek philosophy" ("St. Paul
and Hellenism," Cities of Paul, 34). Paul exhibited a freedom and universalism that he
found in the Greek thought of the time which was not so decayed as some think. For the
discussion between Garvie and Ramsay see The Expositor, April and December, 1911.
Pfleiderer (Urchristenthum, Vorwort, 174-178) finds a "double root" of Paulinism, a
Christianized Hellenism and a Christianized Pharisaism. Harnack is more nearly correct
in saying that "notwithstanding Paul's Greek culture, his conception of Christianity is, in
its deepest ground, independent of Hellenism." The Hellenistic influence on Paul was
relative and subordinate (Wendland, Die hell.-rom. Kultur in ihren Beziehungen zu
Judenthum und Christenthum, 3te Aufl, 1912, 245), but it was real, as Kohler shows
(Zum Verstandnis des Apostels Paulus, 9). He had a "Gr inheritance" beyond a doubt,
and it was not all unconscious or subliminal as Rostron argues (Christology of Paul, 17).
It is true that in Athens the Stoics and Epicureans ridiculed Paul as a "picker up of
learning's crumbs"—Browning's rendering (An Epistle) of óðåñìïëüãïò,
spermoloñgos. Paul shows a fine scorn of the sophistries and verbal refinements of the
mere philosophers and orators in 1 Cor. 1 and 2, but all the same he reveals a real
apprehension of the true significance of knowledge and life. Dr. James Adam (The
Religious Teachers of Greece, 360) shows instances of "the real kinship of thought
between Plato and Paul." He does not undertake to say how it came about. He has a
Platonic expression, ôNäéN ôï™ óùìáôïò, tañ diañ touñ soôñmatos, in 2 Cor. 5:10,
and uses a Stoic and cynic word in 2 Cor. 9:8, ášôÜñêåéáí, autañrkeian. Indeed,
there are so many similarities between Paul and Seneca in language and thought that
some scholars actually predicate an acquaintance or dependence of the one on the other.
It is far more likely that Paul and Seneca drew upon the common phrases of current
Stoicism than that Seneca had seen Paul's Epistles or knew him personally. Lightfoot has
a classic discussion of the matter in his essay on "St. Paul and Seneca" in the
Commentary on Philippians (see also Carr, "St. Paul's Attitude to Greek Philosophy,"
The Expositor, V, ix). Alexander finds four Stoic ideas (Divine Immanence, Wisdom,
Freedom, Brotherhood) taken and glorified by Paul to do service for Christ (Ethics of
Paul, 49-55). Often Paul uses a Stoic phrase with a Christian content. Lightfoot boldly
argues (Biblical Essays, 207) that the later Greek literature was a fitter handmaid for the
diffusion of the gospel than the earlier.
Paul as the apostle to the Greek-Roman world had to "understand the bearings of the
moral and religious life of Greece as expressed in her literature, and this lesson he could
learn more impartially and more fully at Tarsus in the days of her decline than at Athens
in the freshness of her glory" (same place). Ramsay waxes bold enough to discuss "the
Pauline philosophy of history" (Cities of Paul, 10-13). I confess to sympathy with this
notion and find it in all the Pauline Epistles, especially in Romans. Moffatt (Paul and
Paulinism, 66) finds "a religious philosophy of history" in Romans 9-11, throbbing with
strong personal emotion. Paul rose to the height of the true Christian philosopher, though
not a technical philosopher of the schools. Deissmann (St. Paul, 53) admits his language
assigns him "to an elevated class," and yet he insists that he wrote "large letters"
(Galatians 6:11) because he had "the clumsy, awkward writing of a workman's hand
deformed by toil" (p. 51). I cannot agree that here Deissmann understands Paul. He
makes "the world of Paul" on too narrow a scale.
4. The Mystery-Religions:
Was Paul influenced by Mithraism? H.A.A. Kennedy has given the subject very
careful and thorough treatment in a series of papers in The Expositor for 1912-13,
already mentioned (see II, 5, above). His arguments are conclusive on the whole against
the wild notions of W.B. Smith, Der vorchristliche Jesus; J.M. Robertson, Pagan Christs;
A. Drews, Die Christus-Mythe; and Lublinski, Die Entstehung des Christenrums aus der
antiken Kultur. A magic papyrus about 300 AD has "I adjure thee by the god of the
Hebrew Jesu" (ll. 3019f), but Deissmann (Light from the Ancient East, 256) refuses to
believe this line genuine: "No Christian, still less a Jew, would have called Jesus `the
god of the Hebrews.' " Clemen (Primitive Christianity and Its non-Jewish Sources, 1912,
336) endorses this view of Deissmann and says that in the 1st century AD "one cannot
speak of non-Jewish influences on Christology." One may dismiss at once the notion
that Paul "deified" Jesus into a god and made Him Christ under the influence of pagan
myths. Certainly pagan idolatry was forced upon Paul's attention at every turn. It stirred
his spirit at Athens to see the city full of idols (Acts 17:16), and he caught eagerly at the
altar to an unknown god to give him an easy introduction to the true God (Acts 17:23);
but no one can read Romans 1 and 2 and believe that Paul was carried away by the
philosophy of vain deceit of his time. He does use the words "wisdom" and "mystery"
often in 1 Corinthians, Colossians, and Ephesians, and in Phil. 4:12, "I (have) learned the
secret," he uses a word employed in the mystic cults of the time. It is quite possible that
Paul took up some of the phrases of these mystery-religions and gave them a richer
content for his own purposes, as he did with some of the Gnostic phraseology
(Pleôroôma, "fullness," for instance). But Schweitzer (Paul and His Interpreters, 191f)
deals a fatal blow against the notion that the mystery-religions had a formative influence
on Paul. He urges, with point, that it is only in the 2nd century that these cults became
widely extended in the Roman empire. The dates and development are obscure, but it "is
certain that Paul cannot have known the mystery-religions in the form in which they are
known to us, because in this fully developed form they did not exist." Cumont (Lea
religions orientales dana le paganisme romain, 2nd edition, 1909 (English translation))
insists repeatedly on the difficulties in the way of assuming without proof that Mithraism
had any influence on Paul. But in particular it is urged that Paul drew on the "mysteries"
for his notions of baptism and the Lord's Supper as having magical effects. Appeal is
made to the magical use of the name of Jesus by the strolling Jewish exorcists in
Ephesus (Acts 18:13ff). Kirsopp Lake (Earlier Epistles of Paul, 233) holds that at
Corinth they all accepted Christianity as a mystery-religion and Jesus as "the Redeemer-
God, who had passed through death to life, and offered participation in this new life to
those who shared in the mysteries which He offered," namely, baptism and the Lord's
Supper. But Kennedy (Expos, December, 1912, 548) easily shows how with Paul
baptism and the Lord's Supper are not magical sacraments producing new life, but
symbolic pictures of death to sin and new life in Christ which the believer has already
experienced. The battle is still raging on the subject of the mystery-religions, but it is
safe to say that so far nothing more than illustrative material has been shown to be true
of Paul's teaching from this source.
There is nothing incongruous in the notion that Paul knew as much about the
mystery-religions as he did about incipient Gnosticism. Indeed the two things may have
been to some extent combined in some places. A passage in Col. 2:18 has long bothered
commentators: "dwelling in the things which he hath seen," or (margin) "taking his stand
upon the things," etc. Westcott and Hort even suspected an early error in the text, but the
same word, dìâáôåýù, embateuñoô, has been found by Sir W.M. Ramsay as a result of
investigations by Makridi Bey, of the Turkish Imperial Museum, in the sanctuary of
Apollo at Claros, a town on the Ionian coast. Some of the initiates here record the fact
and say that being "enquirers, having been initiated, they entered" (embateuoô). The
word is thus used of one who, having been initiated, enters into the life of the initiate
(compare Independent, 1913, 376). Clearly, then, Paul uses the word in that sense in Col.
2:18.
For further discussion see Jacoby, Die antiken Mysterienreligionen und das
Christentum; Glover, Conflict of Religions in the Early Roman Empire; Reitzenstein,
Die hell. Mysterienreligionen; Friedlander, Roman Life and Manners under the Early
Empire, III; Thorburn, Jesus Christ, Historical or Mythical.
M. Bruckner (Der sterbende und auferstehende Gottheiland in den orientalischen
Religionen und ihr Verhaltnis zum Christentum, 1908) says: "As in Christianity, so in
many oriental religions, a belief in the death and resurrection of a Redeemer-God
(sometimes as His Son), occupied a central place in the worship and cult." To this
Schweitzer (Paul and His Interpreters, 193) replies: "What manipulations the myths and
rites of the cults in question must have undergone before this general statement could
become possible! Where is there anything about dying and resurrection in Mithra?"
There we may leave the matter.
5. Judaism:
Paul was Greek and Roman, but not "pan-Babylonian," though he was keenly alive
to all the winds of doctrine that blew about him, as we see in Colossians, Ephesians, and
the Pastoral Epistles. But he was most of all the Jew, that is, before his conversion. He
remained a Jew, even though he learned how to be all things to all men (1 Cor. 9:22).
Even though glorying in his mission as apostle to the Gentiles (Ephes. 3:8), he yet
always put the Jew first in opportunity and peril (Romans 2:9f). He loved the Jews
almost to the point of death (Romans 9:3). He was proud of his Jewish lineage and
boasted of it (2 Cor. 11:16-22; Acts 22:3ff; Acts 26:4ff; Phil. 3:4-6). "His religious
patriotism flickered up within his Christianity" (Moffatt, Paul and Paulinism, 66). Had
he not been a Roman citizen with some Greek culture and his rich endowments of mind,
he would probably not have been the "chosen vessel" for the work of Christ among the
Gentiles (Garvie, Studies of Paul and His Gospel, 15). Had he not been the thorough
Jew, he could not have mediated Christianity from Jew to Greek. "In the mind of Paul a
universalized Hellenism coalesced with a universalized Hebraism" (Ramsay, Cities of
Paul, 43). Ramsay strongly opposes the notion of Harhack and others that Paul can be
understood "as purely a Hebrew." So in Paul both Hebraism and Hellenism meet though
Hebraism is the main stock. He is a Jew in the Greek-Roman world and a part of it, not a
mere spectator. He is the Hellenistic Jew, not the Aramaic Jew of Palestine (compare
Simon Peter's vision on the house-top at Joppa, for instance). But Paul is not a
Hellenizing Jew after the fashion of Jason and Menelaus in the beginning of the
Maccabean conflict. Findlay (Hastings, Dictionary of the Bible (five volumes)) tersely
says: "The Jew in him was the foundation of everything that Paul became." But it was
not the narrowest type of Judaism in spite of his persecution of the Christians. He
belonged to the Judaism of the Dispersion. As a Roman citizen in a Greek city he had
departed from the narrowest lines of his people (Ramsay, Cities of Paul, 47). His
Judaism was pure, in fact, as he gives it to us in Phil. 3:5. He was a Jew of the stock of
Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin. He was a Hebrew, of the seed of Abraham (2 Cor.
11:22). He shared in full all the covenant blessings and privileges of his people (Romans
9:1-5), whose crowning glory was, that of them came Jesus the Messiah. He was proud
of the piety of his ancestors (2 Tim. 1:3), and made progress as a student of Judaism
ahead of his fellows (Galatians 1:14). His ancestry was pure, Hebrew of the Hebrews.
(Phil. 3:5), and so his family preserved the native Palestinian traditions in Tarsus. His
name Saul was a proof of loyalty to the tribe of Benjamin as his cognomen Paul was
evidence of his Roman citizenship. In his home he would be taught the law by his
mother (compare Galatians 1:14), as was true of Timothy's mother and grandmother (2
Tim. 1:5). In Tarsus he would go to the synagogue also. We know little of his father,
save that he was a Roman citizen and so a man of position in Tarsus and possibly of
some wealth; that he was a tent-maker and taught his son the same trade, as all Jewish
fathers did, whatever their rank in life; that he was a Pharisee and brought up his son as a
Pharisee (Acts 23:6), and that he sent the young Saul to Jerusalem to study at the feet of
Gamaliel (Acts 22:3). Paul always considered himself a Pharisee as distinct from the
Sadducaic scepticism (Acts 23:6). Many of the Pharisaic doctrines were identical with
those of Christianity. That Paul did not consider himself a Pharisee in all respects is
shown later by his conflict with the Judaizers (Galatians 2; Acts 15; 2 Cor. 10-13). Paul
says that he was reared as a strict Pharisee (Acts 26:5), though the school of Gamaliel
(grandson of Hillel) was not so hard and narrow as that of Shammai. But all Pharisees
were stricter than the Sadducees. So Jerusalem played an important part in the training
of Saul (Acts 22:3), as Paul recognized. He was known in Jerusalem as a student. He
knew Aramaic as well as Greek (and Latin), and could speak in it so as to attract the
attention of a Jewish audience (Acts 22:2). Paul was fortunate in his great teacher
Gamaliel, who was liberal enough to encourage the study of Greek literature. But his
liberality in defending the apostles against the Sadducees in Acts 5:34-39 must not be
misinterpreted in comparison with the persecuting zeal of his brilliant pupil against
Stephen (Acts 7:58). Stephen had opened war on the Pharisees themselves, and there is
no evidence that Gamaliel made a defense of Stephen against the lawless rage of the
Sanhedrin. It is common for pupils to go farther than their teachers, but Gamaliel did not
come to the rescue. Still Gamaliel helped Saul, who was undoubtedly his most brilliant
pupil and probably the hope of his heart for the future of Judaism. Harnack (History of
Dogma, I, 94) says: "Pharisaism had fulfilled its mission in the world when it produced
this man." Unfortunately, Pharisaism did not die; in truth has never died, not even from
Christianity. But young Saul was the crowning glory of Pharisaism. An effort has
recently been made to restore Pharisaism to its former dignity. Herford (Pharisaism, Its
Aim and Method, 1912) undertakes to show that the Gospels have slandered Pharisaism,
that it was the one hope of the ancient world, etc. He has a chapter on "Pharisaism and
Paul," in which he claims that Paul has not attacked the real Pharisaism, but has aimed
his blows at an unreal creation of his own brain (p. 222). But, if Paul did not understand
Pharisaism, he did not understand anything. He knew not merely the Old Testament in
the Hebrew and the Septuagint translation, for he quotes from both, though usually from
the Septuagint, but he also knew the Jewish Apocrypha and apocalypses, as is shown in
various ways in his writings (see articles on these subjects). Schweitzer (Paul and His
Interpreters) carries too far his idea that Paul and Jesus merely moved in the circle of
Jewish eschatology. He makes it explain everything, and that it cannot do. But Paul does
show acquaintance with some of these books. See Kennedy, Paul's Conception of the
Last Things (1904), for a sane and adequate discussion of this phase of the subject.
Pfleiderer pursues the subject in his Paulinism, as does Kabisch in his Eschatologie. So
Sanday and Headlam use this source in their Commentary on Romans. Paul knew Wisd,
also, a book from the Jewish-Alexandrian theology with a tinge of Greek philosophy
(see Goodrick, Book of Wisd, 398-403; compare also Jowett's essay on "St. Paul and
Philo" in his Epistles of Paul). Paul knew how to use allegory (Galatians 4:24) in accord
with the method of Philo. So then he knew how to use the Stoic diatribe, the rabbinical
diatribe and the Alexandrian allegory. "In his cosmology, angelology, and demonology,
as well as eschatology, he remains essentially Jewish" (Garvie, Studies of Paul and His
Gospel, 17). When he becomes a Christian he will change many of his views, for Christ
must become central in his thinking, but his method learned in the rabbinical schools
remains with him (Kohler, Zum Verstandnis, etc., 7). Here, then, is a man with a
wonderfully rounded culture. What of his mental gifts?
6. Personal Characteristics:
Much as we can learn about the times of Paul (compare Selden, In the Time of Paul,
1900, for a brief sketch of Paul's world), we know something of the political structure of
the Roman world, the social life of the 1st century AD, the religious condition of the age,
the moral standards of the time, the intellectual tendencies of the period. New
discoveries continue to throw fresh light on the life of the middle and lower classes
among whom Paul chiefly labored. And, if Deissmann in his brilliant study (St. Paul, A
Study in Social and Religious History) has pressed too far the notion that Paul the tent-
maker ranks not with Origen, but with Amos the herdman (p. 6, on p. 52 he calls it a
mistake "to speak of Paul the artisan as a proletarian in the sense which the word usually
bears with us"), yet he is right in insisting that Paul is "a religious genius" and "a hero of
piety" (p. 6). It is not possible to explain the personality and work of a man like Paul by
his past and to refer with precision this or that trait to his Jewish or Greek training
(Alexander, Ethics of Paul, 58). "We must allow something to his native originality"
(same place) . We are all in a sense the children of the past, but some men have much
more the power of initiative than others. Paul is not mere "eclectic patchwork" (Bruce,
Paul's Conception of Christ, 218). Even if Paul was acquainted with Philo, which is not
certain, that fact by no means explains his use of Philo, the representative Jew of the
Hellenistic age. "Both are Jews of the Dispersion, city-dwellers, with marked
cosmopolitan traits. Both live and move in the Septuagint Bible. Both are capable of
ecstatic and mystical experiences, and have many points of contact in detail. And yet
they stand in very strong contrast to one another, a contrast which reminds us of the
opposition between Seneca and Paul. .... Philo is a philosopher, Paul the fool pours out
the vials of his irony upon the wisdom of the world" (Deissmann, Paul, 110). Deissmann,
indeed, cares most for "the living man, Paul, whom we hear speaking and see
gesticulating, here playful, gentle as a father, and tenderly coaxing, so as to win the
hearts of the infatuated children—there thundering and lightning with the passionate
wrath of a Luther, with cutting irony and bitter sarcasm on his lips" (ibid., 16f).
(1) Personal Appearance.
We have no reliable description of Paul's stature and looks. The Acts of Paul and
Thecla (section3) have a protraiture thus: "Baldheaded, bowlegged, strongly built, a man
small in size, with meeting eyebrows, with a rather large nose, full of grace, for at times
he looked like a man and at times he had the face of an angel," and Ramsay (Church in
the Roman Empire, 32) adds: "This plain and unflattering account of the apostle's
personal appearance seems to embody a very early tradition," and in chapter xvi he
argues that this story goes back to a document of the 1st century. We may not agree
with all the details, but in some respects it harmonizes with what we gather from Paul's
Epistles Findlay (Hastings, Dictionary of the Bible (five volumes)) notes that this
description is confirmed by "the lifelike and unconventional figure of the Roman ivory
diptych, `supposed to date not later than the 4th century.' " (Lewin's Life and Epistles of
Paul, Frontispiece, and II, 211). At Lystra the natives took Barnabas for Jupiter and Paul
for Hermes, "because he was the chief speaker" (Acts 14:12), showing that Barnabas had
the more impressive appearance, while Paul was his spokesman. In Malta the natives
changed their minds in the opposite direction, first thinking Paul a murderer and then a
god because he did not die from the bite of the serpent (Acts 28:4-6). His enemies at
Corinth sneered at the weakness of his bodily presence in contrast to the strength of his
letters (2 Cor. 10:9f). The attack was really on the courage of Paul, and he claimed equal
boldness when present (2 Cor. 10:11f), but there was probably also a reflection on the
insignificance of his physique. The terrible bodily sufferings which he underwent (2
Cor. 11:23-26) left physical marks (óôßãìáôá, stŒñgmata, Galatians 6:17) that may
have disfigured him to some extent. Once his illness made him a trial to the Galatians to
whom he preached, but they did not scorn him (Galatians 4:14). He felt the frailty of his
body as an earthen vessel (2 Cor. 4:7) and as a tabernacle in which he groaned (2 Cor.
5:4). But the effect of all this weakness was to give him a fresh sense of dependence on
Christ and a new influx of divine power (2 Cor. 11:30; 2 Cor. 12:9). But even if Paul
was unprepossessing in appearance and weakened by illness, whether ophthalmia,
which is so common in the East (Galatians 4:15), or malaria, or recurrent headache, or
epilepsy, he must have had a tough constitution to have endured such hardship to a good
old age. He had one infirmity in particular that came upon him at Tarsus (2 Cor. 12:1-9)
in connection with the visions and revelations of the Lord then granted him. The
affliction seems to have been physical (óêüëïø ô† óáñêß, skoñlops teôñ sarkŒñ, "a
stake in the flesh" or "for the flesh"), and it continued with him thereafter as a messenger
of Satan to buffet Paul and to keep him humble. Some think that this messenger of Satan
was a demon that haunted Paul in his nervous state. Others hold it to be epilepsy or some
form of hysteria superinduced by the visions and revelations which he had had.
Compare Krenkel, Beitrage (pp. 47-125), who argues that the ancients looked with such
dread on epilepsy that those who beheld such attacks would "spit out so as to escape the
evil (compare modern knocking on wood"); compare qui sputatur morbus in Plautus
(Captivi, iii.4, 17). Reference is made to Galatians 4:14, ïšäc dîåðôýóáôå, oudeñ
exeptuñsate, "nor did ye spit out," as showing that this was the affliction of Paul in
Galatia. But epilepsy often affects the mind, and Paul shows no sign of mental
weakness, though his enemies charged him with insanity (Acts 26:24; 2 Cor. 5:13; 2
Cor. 12:11). It is urged in reply that Julius Caesar, Alfred the Great, Peter the Great, and
Napoleon all had epilepsy without loss of mental force. It is difficult to think headache
or malaria could have excited the disgust indicated in Galatians 4:14, where some
trouble with the eyes seems to be indicated. The ministers of Satan (2 Cor. 11:15) do not
meet the requirements of the case, nor mere spiritual sins (Luther), nor struggle with lust
(Roman Catholic, stimulus carnis). Garvie (Studies of Paul and His Gospel, 65, 80)
thinks it not unlikely that "it was the recurrence of an old violent temptation," rather than
mere bodily disease. "Can there be any doubt that this form of temptation is more likely
to assail the man of intense emotion and intense affection, as Paul was?" But enough of
what can never be settled. "St. Paul's own scanty hints admonish to caution"
(Deissmann, Paul, 63). It is a blessing for us not to know, since we can all cherish a
close bond with Paul. Ramsay (St. Paul the Traveler, 37ff) calls special attention to the
look of Paul. He "fastened his eyes on" the man (Acts 13:9; Acts 14:9). He argues that
Paul had a penetrating, powerful gaze, and hence, no eye trouble. He calls attention also
to gestures of Paul (Acts 20:24; Acts 26:2). There were artists in marble and color at the
court of Caesar, but no one of them cared to preserve a likeness of the poor itinerant
preacher who turned out to be the chief man of the age (Deissmann, Paul, 58). "We are
like the Christians of Colesage and Laodicea, who had not seen his face in the flesh"
(Col. 2:1).
(2) Natural Endowments.
In respect to his natural endowments we can do much better, for his epistles reveal
the mind and soul of the man. He is difficult to comprehend, not because he conceals
himself, but because he reveals so much of himself in his epistles. He seems to some a
man of contradictions. He had a many-sided nature, and his very humanness is in one
sense the greatest thing about him. There are "great polar contradictions" in his nature.
Deissmann (St. Paul, 62ff) notes his ailing body and his tremendous powers for work,
his humility and his self-confidence, his periods of depression and of intoxication with
victory, his tenderness and his sternness; he was ardently loved and furiously hated; he
was an ancient man of his time, but he is cosmopolitan and modern enough for today.
Findlay (HBD) adds that he was a man possessed of dialectical power and religious
inspiration. He was keenly intellectual and profoundly mystical (compare Campbell,
Paul the Mystic, 1907). He was a theologian and a man of affairs. He was a man of
vision with a supreme task to which he held himself. He was a scholar, a sage, a
statesman, a seer, a saint (Garvie, Studies in Paul and His Gospel, 68-84). He was a man
of heart, of passion, of imagination, of sensibility, of will, of courage, of sincerity, of
vivacity, of subtlety, of humor, of adroitness, of tact, of genius for organization, of
power for command, of gift of expression, of leadership—"All these qualities and
powers went to the making of Jesus Christ's apostle to the nations, the master-builder of
the universal church and of Christian theology" (Findlay, Hastings, Dictionary of the
Bible (five volumes); see Lock, Paul the Master Builder, 1905; and M. Jones, Paul the
Orator, 1910).
I cannot agree with Garvie's charge of cowardice (Life and Teaching of Paul, 173) in
the matter of the purifying rites (Acts 21:23) and the dividing of the Sanhedrin (Acts
23:6). The one was a mere matter of prudence in a nonessential detail, the other was
justifiable skill in resisting the attack of unscrupulous enemies. One does not understand
Paul who does not understand his emotional nature. He was "quick, impetuous,
strenuous, impassioned" (Bevan, Paul in the Light of Today, 1912, 26). His heart throbs
through his epistles, and he loves his converts like a mother or a lover (Findlay,
Hastings, Dictionary of the Bible (five volumes)) rather than a pastor. We feel the
surging emotion of his great spirit in 1 Thessalonians, 1 Corinthians, 2 Corinthians,
Galatians, Romans, Philippians, 2 Timothy in particular. He had the spiritual
temperament and reaches his highest flights in his moments of rhapsody. He has
elasticity and rebound of spirit, and comes up with the joy of victory in Christ out of the
severest trials and disappointments. His ambition is great, but it is to serve Christ his
Lord. He is a man of faith and a man of prayer. For him to live is Christ. He has a
genius for friendship and binds men to him with hooks of steel—men like Barnabas,
Silas, Timothy, Luke, Titus (Speer, The Man Paul, 1900, 111ff). He is not afraid to
oppose his friends when it is necessary for the sake of truth, as with Peter (Galatians
2:11ff) and with Barnabas (Acts 15:35ff). "While God made Paul like the other apostles
out of the clay whereof ordinary men are fashioned, yet we may say that He took
extraordinary pains with his education" (Fairbairn, Studies in Religion and Theology,
471). If ever a man, full-blooded and open-eyed, walked the earth, it was Paul. It is a
debatable question whether Paul was married or not. He certainly was not when he
wrote (1 Cor. 7:7; 1 Cor. 9:5). But, if he was a member of the Sanhedrin when he cast
his vote against the disciples (Acts 26:10), as his language naturally means, then he had
been married.
There is in Paul the gift of leadership in a marked degree. He, though young, is
already at the head of the opposition to Stephen (Acts 7:58), and soon drives the
disciples out of Jerusalem.
(3) Supernatural gifts.
He had his share of them. He had all the gifts that others could boast of at Corinth,
and which he lightly esteemed except that of prophecy (1 Cor. 14:18-29). He had his
visions and revelations, but would not tell what he had seen (2 Cor. 12:1-9). He did the
signs of an apostle (2 Cor. 12:12-14). He had the power to work miracles (1 Cor. 4:19-
21) and to exercise discipline (1 Cor. 5:4f; 2 Cor. 13:1-3). But what he cared for most of
all was the fact that Jesus had appeared to him on the road to Damascus and had called
him to the work of preaching to the Gentiles (1 Cor. 15:8).
7. Conversion:
No other element in the equipment of Paul is comparable in importance to his
conversion.
(1) Preparation.
It was sudden, and yet God had led Saul to the state of mind when it could more
easily happen. True, Saul was engaged in the very act of persecuting the believers in
Jerusalem. His mind was flushed with the sense of victory. He was not conscious of any
lingering doubts about the truth of his position and the justice of his conduct till Jesus
abruptly told him that it was hard for him to kick against the goad (Acts 26:14). Thus
suddenly brought to bay, the real truth would flash upon his mind. In later years he tells
how he had struggled in vain against the curse of the Law (Romans 7:7f). It is probable
though not certain, that Paul here has in mind his experience before his conversion,
though the latter part of the chapter may refer to a period later. There is difficulty in
either view as to the "body of this death" that made him so wretched (Romans 7:24).
The Christian keeps up the fight against sin in spite of defeat (Romans 7:23), but he does
not feel that he is "carnal, sold under sin" (Romans 7:14). But when before his
conversion did Paul have such intensity of conviction? We can only leave the problem
unanswered. His reference to it at least harmonizes with what Jesus said about the goad.
The words and death of Stephen and the other disciples may have left a deeper mark than
he knew. The question might arise whether after all the Nazarenes were right. His plea
for his conduct made in later years was that he was conscientious (Acts 26:9) and that he
did it ignorantly in unbelief (1 Tim. 1:13). He was not willfully sinning against the full
light as he saw it. It will not do to say with Holsten that Saul was half convinced to join
the disciples, and only needed a jolt to turn him over. He was "yet breathing threatening
and slaughter against the disciples of the Lord" (Acts 9:1), and went to the high priest
and asked for letters to Damascus demanding the arrest of the disciples there. His
temper on the whole is distinctly hostile to Christ, and the struggle against his course
was in the subconscious mind. There a volcano had gathered ready to burst out.
It is proper to ask whether Paul had known Jesus in the flesh, but it is not easy to
give a categorical reply. It is possible, though hardly likely, that Paul had come to
Jerusalem to study when Jesus as a boy of 12 visited the temple, and so heard Jesus and
the doctors. That could be true only in case Paul was born 5 or 6 BC, which is quite
unlikely. It is possible again that Paul may have remained in Jerusalem after his
graduation the school of Gamaliel and so was present in Jerusalem at the trial and death
of Jesus. Some of the ablest of modern scholars hold that Paul knew Jesus in the flesh. It
will at once seem strange that we have no express statement to this effect in the letters of
Paul, when he shows undoubted knowledge of various events in the life of Christ
(compare Wynne, Fragmentary Records of Jesus of Nazareth, 1887). It is almost certain,
as J. Weiss admits (Paul and Jesus, 41), that in 1 Cor. 9:1 Paul refers to the Risen Jesus.
The passage in 2 Cor. 5:16 is argued both ways: "Wherefore we henceforth know no
man after the flesh: even though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet now we know
him so no more." J. Weiss (ibid., 41-55) argues strongly for the view that he knew Jesus
in the flesh. But in the first clause of the sentence above Paul means by "after the flesh,"
not acquaintance, but standpoint. It is natural to take it in the same way as applied to
Christ. He has changed his viewpoint of Christ and so of all men. Weiss pleads (ibid., p.
40), at any rate, that we have no word saying that "Paul had not seen Jesus in person." It
may be said in reply that the fact that Jesus has to tell Paul who He is (Acts 9:5) shows
that Paul did not have personal acquaintance with Him. But the question may be left in
abeyance as not vitally important. He certainly had not understood Jesus, if he knew
Him.
(2) Experience.
Space does not, permit a discussion of this great event of Paul's conversion at all
commensurate with its significance. A literature of importance has grown up around it
besides the lengthy discussions in the lives and theologies of Paul (see e.g. Lord
Lyttleton's famous Observations on Saul's Conversion, 1774; Fletcher's A Study of the
Conversion of Paul, 1910; Gardner, The Religious Experience of Paul, 1911; Maggs,
The Spiritual Experience of Paul). All sorts of theories have been advanced to explain
on naturalistic grounds this great experience of Christ in the life of Paul. It has been
urged that Paul had an epileptic fit, that he had a sunstroke, that he fell off his horse to
the ground, that he had a nightmare, that he was blinded by a flash of lightning, that he
imagined that he saw Jesus as a result of his highly wrought nervous state, that he
deliberately renounced Judaism because of the growing conviction that the disciples
were right. But none of these explanations explains. Mere prejudice against the
supernatural, such as is shown by Weinel in his Paulus, and by Holsten in his able book
(Zum Evangelium d. Paulus und Petrus), cannot solve this problem. One must be
willing to hear the evidence. There were witnesses of the bright light (Acts 26:13) and
of the sound (Acts 9:7) which only Paul understood (Acts 22:9), as he alone beheld
Jesus. It is claimed by some that Paul had a trance or subjective vision, and did not see
Jesus with his eyes. Denney (Standard Bible Dictionary) replies that it is not a pertinent
objection. Jesus (John 21:1) "manifested" Himself, and Paul says that he "saw" Jesus (1
Cor. 9:1), that Jesus "appeared" (1 Cor. 15:8) to him. Hence, it was both subjective and
objective. But the reality of the event was as clear to Paul as his own existence. The
account is given 3 times in Acts (Acts 9; Acts 22; Acts 26) in substantial agreement,
with a few varying details. In Acts 9 the historical narrative occurs, in Acts 22 Paul's
defense before the mob in Jerusalem is given, and in Acts 26 we have the apology before
Agrippa. There are no contradictions of moment, save that in Acts 26 Jesus Himself is
represented as giving directly to Paul the call to the Gentiles while in Acts 9 and 22 it is
conveyed through Ananias (the fuller and more accurate account). There is no need to
notice the apparent contradiction between Acts 9:7 and 22:9, for the difference in case in
the Greek gives a difference in sense, hearing the sound, with the genitive, and not
understanding the sense, with the accusative. Findlay (HBD) remarks that the
conversion of Paul is a psychological and ethical problem which cannot be accounted for
save by Paul's own interpretation of the change wrought in him. He saw Jesus and
surrendered to Him.
(3) Effect on Paul.
His surrender to Jesus was instantaneous and complete: "What shall I do, Lord?"
(Acts 22:10). He could not see for the glory of that light (Acts 22:11), but he had
already seen "the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ"
(2 Cor. 4:6). The god of this world could blind him no longer. He had seen Jesus, and
all else had lost charm for Paul. There is infinite pathos in the picture of the blind Saul
led by the hand (Acts 9:8) into Damascus. All the pride of power is gone, all the lust for
vengeance. The fierceness of the name of Saul is well shown in the dread that Ananias
has and the protest that he makes to the Lord concerning him (Acts 9:10-14). Ananias
doubtless thought that the Lord had made a strange choice of a vessel to bear the
message of Christ to the Gentiles, kings, and the children of Israel (Acts 9:15), but there
was hope in the promise of chastisement to him (Acts 9:16). So he went, and calls him
"Brother Saul." Saul was filled with the Holy Spirit, the scales fell from his eyes, he was
baptized. And now what next? What did the world hold in store for the proud scion of
Judaism who had renounced power, place, pride for the lowly Nazarene? He dared not
go back to Jerusalem. The Jews in Damascus would have none of him now. Would the
disciples receive him? They did. "And he was certain days with the disciples that were
at Damascus" (Acts 9:19). Ananias vouched for him by his vision. Then Saul took his
courage in his hands and went boldly into the synagogues and "proclaimed Jesus, that he
is the Son of God" (Acts 9:20). This was a public committal and a proclamation of his
new creed. There was tremendous pith and point in this statement from Saul. The Jews
were amazed (Acts 9:21). This is the core of Paul's message as we see in his later
ministry (Acts 13; Acts 17:3). It rests at bottom on Paul's own experience of grace. "His
whole theology is nothing but the explanation of his own conversion" (Stalker, Life of
Paul, 45). We need not argue (Garvie, Studies of Paul and His Gospel, 51) that Paul
understood at once the full content of the new message, but he had the heart of it right.
V. Work.
1. Adjustment:
There was evidently a tumult in Paul's soul. He had undergone a revolution, both
intellectual and spiritual. Before he proceeded farther it was wise to think through the
most important implications of the new standpoint. Luke gives no account of this
personal phase of Paul's career, but he allows room for it between Acts 9:21 and 22. It is
Paul who tells of his retirement to Arabia (Galatians 1:17f) to prove his independence of
the apostles in Jerusalem. He did not go to them for instruction or for ecclesiastical
authority. He did not adopt the merely traditional view of Jesus as the Messiah. He
knew, of course, the Christian contention well enough, for he had answered it often
enough. But now his old arguments were gone an4t he must work his way round to the
other side, and be able to put his new gospel with clearness and force. He was done with
calling Jesus anathema (1 Cor. 12:3). Henceforth to him Jesus is Lord. We know nothing
of Paul's life in Arabia nor in what part of Arabia he was. He may have gone to Mt. Sinai
and thought out grace in the atmosphere of law, but that is not necessary. But it is clear
that Paul grew in apprehension of the things of Christ during these years, as indeed he
grew to the very end. But he did not grow away from the first clear vision of Christ. He
claimed that God had revealed His Son in him that he might preach to the Gentiles
(Galatians 1:16). He claimed that from the first and to the very last. The undoubted
development in Paul's Epistles (see Matheson, Spiritual Development of Paul, and
Sabatier, The Apostle Paul) is, however, not a changing view of Christ that nullifies
Paul's "original Christian inheritance" (Kohler, Zum Verstandnis des Apostels Paulus,
13). Pfieiderer (Influence of the Apostle Paul on the Development of Christianity, 3rd
edition, 1897, 217) rejects Colossians because of the advanced Christology here found.
But the Christology of Colossians is implicit in Paul's first sermon at Damascus. "It is
impossible to escape the conclusion that the significance and value of the Cross became
clear to him almost simultaneously with the certainty of the resurrection and of the
Messiahship of Jesus" (Garvie, Studies, etc., 57). The narrow Jew has surrendered to
Christ who died for the sins of the world. The universal gospel has taken hold of his
mind and heart, and it will work out its logical consequences in Paul. The time in Arabia
is not wasted. When he reappears in Damascus (Acts 9:22) he has "developed faith"
(Findlay, Hastings, Dictionary of the Bible (five volumes)) and energy that bear instant
fruit. He is now the slave of Christ. For him henceforth to live is Christ. He is crucified
with Christ. He is in Christ. The union of Paul with Christ is the real key to his life. It is
far more than a doctrine about Christ. It is real fellowship with Christ (Deissmann, Paul,
123). Thus it is that the man who probably never saw Christ in the flesh understands him
best (Wernle, Beginnings of Christianity, I, 159).
2. Opposition:
Saul had "increased the more in strength, and confounded the Jews that dwelt in
Damascus, proving that this is the Christ" (Acts 9:22). Now he not merely "proclaims"
as before (Acts 9:20); he "proves." He does it with such marvelous skill that the Jews
are first confounded, then enraged to the point of murder. Their former hero was now
their foe. The disciples had learned to run from Saul. They now let him down in a
basket through the wall by night and he is gone (Acts 9:23ff). This then is the beginning
of the active ministry of the man who was called to be a chosen vessel to Gentiles, kings,
and Jews, There was no need to go back to the wilderness. He had gotten his bearings
clearly now. He had his message and it had his whole heart. He had not avoided
Jerusalem because he despised flesh and blood, but because he had no need of light from
the apostles since "the divine revelation so completely absorbed his interest and
attention" (Garvie, Life and Teaching of Paul, 33). No door was open as yet among the
Gentiles. Sooner or later he must go to Jerusalem and confer with the leaders there if he
was to cooperate with them in the evangelization of the world. Saul knew that he would
be an object of suspicion to the disciples in Jerusalem. That was inevitable in view of
the past. It was best to go, but he did not wish to ask any favors of the apostles. Indeed
he went in particular "to visit Cephas" (margin, "to become acquainted with" Galatians
1:18). They knew each other, of course, as opponents. But Saul comes now with the
olive branch to his old enemy. He expressly explains (Galatians 1:19) that he saw no
other apostle. He did see James, the Lord's brother, who was not one of the Twelve. It
seems that at first Peter and James were both afraid of Saul (Acts 9:26), "not believing
that he was a disciple." If a report came 3 years before of the doings at Damascus, they
had discounted it. All had been quiet, and now Saul suddenly appears in Jerusalem in a
new role. It was, they feared, just a ruse to complete his work of old. But for Barnabas,
Saul might not have had that visit of 15 days with Peter. Barnabas was a Hellenist of
Cyprus and believed Saul's story and stood by him. Thus, he had his opportunity to
preach the gospel in Jerusalem, perhaps in the very synagogues in which he had heard
Stephen, and now he is taking Stephen's place and is disputing against the Grecian Jews
(Acts 9:29). He had days of blessed fellowship (Acts 9:28) with the disciples, till the
Grecian Jews sought to kill him as Saul had helped to do to Stephen (Acts 9:29). It was
a repetition of Damascus, but Saul did not wish to run again so soon. He protested to the
Lord Jesus, who spoke in a vision to him, and recalls the fate of Stephen, but Jesus bids
him go: "For I will send thee forth far hence unto the Gentiles" (Acts 22:17-21). One
martyr like Stephen is enough. So the brethren took him down to Caesarea (Acts 9:30).
It was an ominous beginning for a ministry with so clear a call. Where can he go now?
3. Waiting:
They "sent him forth to Tarsus" (Acts 9:30). Who would welcome him there? At
Jerusalem he apparently avoided Gamaliel and the Sanhedrin. He was with the
Christians and preached to the Hellenistic Jews. The Jews regarded him as a turncoat, a
renegade Jew. There were apparently no Christians in Tarsus, unless some of the
disciples driven from Jerusalem by Saul himself went that far, as they did go to Antioch
(Acts 11:19f). But Saul was not idle, for he speaks himself of his activity in the regions
of Syria and Cilicia during this "period of obscurity" (Denney, Standard Bible Dict.) as a
thing known to the churches of Judea (Galatians 1:21f). He was not idle then. The way
was not yet opened for formal entrance upon the missionary enterprise, but Saul was not
the man to do nothing at home because of that. If they would not hear him at Damascus
and Jerusalem, they would in the regions of Syria and Cilicia, his home province. We are
left in doubt at first whether Paul preached only to Jews or to Gentiles also. He had the
specific call to preach to the Gentiles, and there is no reason why he should not have
done so in this province, preaching to the Jews first as he did afterward. He did not have
the scruples of Simon Peter to ov
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