The death of St. Stephen is a bright passage in the earliest history of the Church. Where, in the annals of the world, can we find so perfect an image of a pure and blessed saint as that which is drawn in the concluding verses of the seventh chapter of the Acts of the Apostles? And the brightness which invests the scene of the martyr’s last moments is the more impressive from its contrast with all that has preceded it since the Crucifixion of Christ. The first Apostle who died was a traitor. The first disciples of the Christian Apostles whose deaths are recorded were liars and hypocrites. The kingdom of the Son of Man was founded in darkness and gloom. But a heavenly light re-appeared with the martyrdom of St. Stephen. The revelation of such a character at the moment of death was the strongest of all evidences, and the highest of all encouragements. Nothing could more confidently assert the Divine power of the new religion; nothing could prophesy more surely the certainty of its final victory.

To us who have the experience of many centuries of Christian history, and who can look back, through a long series of martyrdoms, to this, which was the beginning and example of the rest, these thoughts are easy and obvious; but to the friends and associates of the murdered Saint, such feelings of cheerful and confident assurance were perhaps more difficult. Though Christ was indeed risen from the dead, His disciples could hardly yet be able to realize the full triumph of the Cross over death. Even many years afterwards, Paul the Apostle wrote to the Thessalonians, concerning those who had "fallen asleep" (1Th. 4:13. See Act. 7:60.) more peaceably than Stephen, that they ought not to sorrow for them as those without hope; and now, at the very beginning of the Gospel, the grief of the Christians must have been great indeed, when the corpse of their champion and their brother lay at the feet of Saul the murderer. Yet, amidst the consternation of some and the fury of others, friends of the martyr were found, (f176) who gave him all the melancholy honors of a Jewish funeral, and carefully buried him, as Joseph buried his father, "with great and sore lamentation." (See Gen. 50:10) After the death and burial of Stephen the persecution still raged in Jerusalem. That temporary protection which had been extended to the rising sect by such men as Gamaliel was now at an end. Pharisees and Sadducees — priests and people — alike indulged the most violent and ungovernable fury. It does not seem that any check was laid upon them by the Roman authorities. Either the procurator was absent from the city, or he was willing to connive at what seemed to him an ordinary religious quarrel.

The eminent and active agent in this persecution was Saul. There are strong grounds for believing that, if he was not a member of the Sanhedrin at the time of St. Stephen’s death, he was elected into that powerful senate soon after; possibly as a reward for the zeal he had shown against the heretic. He himself says that in Jerusalem he not only exercised the power of imprisonment by commission from the High Priests, but also, when the Christians were put to death, gave his vote against them. (f177) From this expression it is natural to infer that he was a member of that supreme court of judicature. However this might be, his zeal in conducting the persecution was unbounded. We cannot help observing how frequently strong expressions concerning his share in the injustice and cruelty now perpetrated are multiplied in the Scriptures. In St. Luke’s narrative, in St. Paul’s own speeches, in his earlier and later epistles, the subject recurs again and again. He "made havoc of the Church," invading the sanctuaries of domestic life, "entering into every house:" (Act. 8:3. See Act. 9:2.) and those whom he thus tore from their homes he "committed to prison;" or, in his own words at a later period, when he had recognized as God’s people those whom he now imagined to be His enemies,

"thinking that he ought to do many things contrary to the name of Jesus of Nazareth… in Jerusalem… he shut up many of the saints in prison." (Act. 26:9, 10. See Act. 22:3.)

And not only did men thus suffer at his hands, but women also, — a fact three times repeated as a great aggravation of his cruelty. (Act. 8:3, 9:2, 22:4.) These persecuted people were scourged — "often" scourged — "in many synagogues." (Act. 26:10.) Nor was Stephen the only one who suffered death, as we may infer from the Apostle’s own confession. (f178) And, what was worse than scourging or than death itself, he used every effort to make them "blaspheme" that Holy Name whereby they were called. (f179) His fame as an inquisitor was notorious far and wide. Even at Damascus Ananias had heard (Act. 9:13.) "how much evil he had done to Christ’s saints at Jerusalem." He was known there (Act. 9:21.) as "he that destroyed them which call on this Name in Jerusalem." It was not without reason that, in the deep repentance of his later years, he remembered how he had "persecuted the Church of God and wasted it," ( Gal. 1:13; See also Php. 3:6.) — how he had been "a blasphemer, a persecutor, and injurious;" (1Ti. 1:13.) — and that he felt he was "not meet to be called an Apostle," because he had "persecuted the Church of God." (f180) From such cruelty, and such efforts to make them deny that Name which they honored above all names, the disciples naturally fled. In consequence of "the persecution against the Church at Jerusalem, they were all scattered abroad throughout the regions of Judaea and Samaria." The Apostles only remained. (Act. 8:1.) But this dispersion led to great results. The moment of lowest depression was the very time of the Church’s first missionary triumph. "They that were scattered abroad went everywhere preaching the Word." (Act. 8:4. See Act. 11:19- 21.) First the Samaritans, and then the Gentiles, received that Gospel, which the Jews attempted to destroy. Thus did the providence of God begin to accomplish, by unconscious instruments, the prophecy and command which had been given:—

"Ye shall be witnesses upon Me, both in Jerusalem, and in all Judaea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth." (Act. 1:8.)

The Jew looked upon the Samaritan as he looked upon the Gentile. His hostility to the Samaritan was probably the greater, in proportion as he was nearer. In conformity with the economy which was observed before the resurrection, Jesus Christ had said to His disciples, "Go not into the way of the Gentiles, and into any city of the Samaritans enter ye not: but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel." (Mat. 10:5, 6.) Yet did the Savior give anticipative hints of His favor to Gentiles and Samaritans, in His mercy to the Syrophoenician woman, and His interview with the woman at the well of Sychar. And now the time was come for both the "middle walls of partition" to be destroyed. The dispersion brought Philip, the companion of Stephen, the second of the seven, to a city of Samaria. (f181) He came with the power of miracles and with the message of salvation. The Samaritans were convinced by what they saw; they listened to what he said; "and there was great joy in that city." When the news came to Jerusalem, Peter and John were sent by the Apostles, and the same miraculous testimony attended their presence, which had been given on the day of Pentecost. The Divine Power in Peter rebuked the powers of evil, which were working (f182) among the Samaritans in the person of Simon Magus, as Paul afterwards, on his first preaching to the Gentiles, rebuked in Cyprus Elymas the Sorcerer. The two Apostles returned to Jerusalem, preaching as they went "in many villages of the Samaritans" the Gospel which had been welcomed in the city.

Once more we are permitted to see Philip on his labor of love. We obtain a glimpse of him on the road which leads down by Gaza (f183) to Egypt. The chamberlain of Queen Candace (f184) is passing southwards on his return from Jerusalem, and reading in his chariot the prophecies of Isaiah. AEthiopia is "stretching out her hands unto God, " (Psalm 68:31) and the suppliant is not unheard. A teacher is provided at the moment of anxious inquiry. The stranger goes "on his way rejoicing;" a proselyte who had found the Messiah; a Christian baptized "with water and the Holy Ghost." The Evangelist, having finished the work for which he had been sent, is called elsewhere by the Spirit of God. He proceeds to Caesarea, and we hear of him no more, till, after the lapse of more than twenty years, he received under his roof in that city one who, like himself, had traveled in obedience to the Divine command "preaching in all the cities." (f185)

Our attention is now called to that other traveler. We turn from the "desert road" on the south of Palestine to the desert road on the north; from the border of Arabia near Gaza, to its border near Damascus "From Dan to Beersheba" the Gospel is rapidly spreading. The dispersion of the Christians had not been confined to Judaea and Samaria. "On the persecution that arose about Stephen"they had "traveled as far as Phoenicia and Syria." (Act. 11:19.) "Saul, yet breathing out threatenings and slaughter against the disciples of the Lord," (Act. 9:1.) determined to follow them. "Being exceedingly mad against them, he persecuted them even to strange cities." (Act. 26:11) He went of his own accord to the high priest, and desired of him letters to the synagogues in Damascus, where he had reason to believe that Christians were to be found. And armed with this "authority and commission," (Act. 26:12.) intending "if he found any of this way, whether they were men or women," (Act. 9:2.) to "bring them bound unto Jerusalem to be punished," (Act. 22:5.) he journeyed to Damascus.

The great Sanhedrin claimed over the Jews in foreign cities the same power, in religious questions, which they exercised at Jerusalem. The Jews in Damascus were very numerous; and there were peculiar circumstances in the political condition of Damascus at this time, which may have given facilities to conspiracies or deeds of violence conducted by the Jews. There was war between Aretas, who reigned at Petra, the desert-metropolis of Stony Arabia, (f186) and Herod Antipas, his son-in-law, the Tetrarch of Galilee. A misunderstanding concerning the boundaries of the two principalities had been aggravated into an inveterate quarrel by Herod’s unfaithfulness to the daughter of the Arabian king, and his shameful attachment to "his brother Philip’s wife." The Jews generally sympathized with the cause of Aretas, rejoiced when Herod’s army was cut off, and declared that this disaster was a judgment for the murder of John the Baptist. Herod wrote to Rome and obtained an order for assistance from Vitellius, the Governor of Syria. But when Vitellius was on his march through Judaea, from Antioch towards Petra, he suddenly heard of the death of Tiberius (A. D. 37); and the Roman army was withdrawn, before the war was brought to a conclusion. It is evident that the relations of the neighboring powers must have been for some years in a very unsettled condition along the frontiers of Arabia, Judaea, and Syria; and the falling of a rich border-town like Damascus from the hands of the Romans into those of Aretas would be a natural occurrence of the war. If it could be proved that the city was placed in the power of the Arabian Ethnarch (f187) under these particular circumstances, and at the time of St. Paul’s journey, good reason would be assigned for believing it probable that the ends for which he went were assisted by the political relations of Damascus. And it would indeed be a singular coincidence, if his zeal in persecuting the Christians were promoted by the sympathy of the Jews for the fate of John the Baptist.

But there are grave objections to this view of the occupation of Damascus by Aretas. Such a liberty taken by a petty chieftain with the Roman power would have been an act of great audacity; and it is difficult to believe that Vitellius would have closed the campaign, if such a city were in the hands of an enemy. It is more likely that Caligula, — who in many ways contradicted the policy of his predecessor, — who banished Herod Antipas and patronized Herod Agrippa, — assigned the city of Damascus as a free gift to Aretas. (f188) This supposition, as well as the former, will perfectly explain the remarkable passage in St. Paul’s letter, where he distinctly says that it was garrisoned by the Ethnarch of Aretas, at the time of his escape. Many such changes of territorial occupation took place under the Emperors, (f189) which would have been lost to history, were it not for the information derived from a coin, (f190) an inscription, or the incidental remark of a writer who had different ends in view. Any attempt to make this escape from Damascus a fixed point of absolute chronology will be unsuccessful; but, from what has been said, it may fairly be collected, that Saul’s journey from Jerusalem to Damascus took place not far from that year which saw the death of Tiberius and the accession of Caligula.

No journey was ever taken, on which so much interest is concentrated, as this of St. Paul from Jerusalem to Damascus. It is so critical a passage in the history of God’s dealings with man, and we feel it to be so closely bound up with all our best knowledge and best happiness in this life, and with all our hopes for the world to come, that the mind is delighted to dwell upon it, and we are eager to learn or imagine all its details. The conversion of Saul was like the call of a second Abraham. But we know almost more of the Patriarch’s journey through this same district, from the north to the south, than we do of the Apostle’s in an opposite direction. It is easy to conceive of Abraham traveling with his flocks and herds and camels. The primitive features of the East continue still unaltered in the desert; and the Arabian Sheik still remains to us a living picture of the Patriarch of Genesis. But before the first century of the Christian era, the patriarchal life in Palestine had been modified, not only by the invasions and settlements of Babylonia and Persia, but by large influxes of Greek and Roman civilization. It is difficult to guess what was the appearance of Saul’s company on that memorable occasion. (f191) We neither know how he traveled, nor who his associates were, nor where he rested on his way, nor what road he followed from the Judaean to the Syrian capital.

His journey must have brought him somewhere into the vicinity of the Sea of Tiberias. But where he approached the nearest to the shores of this sacred lake, — whether he crossed the Jordan where, in its lower course, it flows southwards to the Dead Sea, or where its upper windings enrich the valley at the base of Mount Hermon, — we do not know. And there is one thought which makes us glad that it should be so. It is remarkable that Galilee, where Jesus worked so many of His miracles, is the scene of none of those transactions which are related in the Acts. The blue waters of Tiberias, with their fishing-boats and towns on the brink of the shore, are consecrated to the Gospels. A greater than Paul was here. "When we come to the travels of the Apostles, the scenery is no longer limited and Jewish, but Catholic and widely-extended, like the Gospel which they preached: and the Sea, which will be so often spread before us in the life of St. Paul, is not the little Lake of Genesareth, but the great Mediterranean, which washed the shores and carried the ships of the historical nations of antiquity. (f192)

Two principal roads can be mentioned, one of which probably con ducted the travelers from Jerusalem to Damascus. The track of the caravans, in ancient and modern times, from Egypt to the Syrian capital, has always led through Gaza and Ramleh, and then, turning eastwards about the borders of Galilee and Samaria, has descended near Mount Tabor towards the Sea of Tiberias; and so, crossing the Jordan a little to the north of the Lake by Jacob’s Bridge, proceeds through the desert country which stretches to the base of Antilibanus. A similar track from Jerusalem falls into this Egyptian road in the neighborhood of Djenin, at the entrance of Galilee; and Saul and his company may have traveled by this route, performing the journey of one hundred and thirty-six miles, like the modern caravans, in about six days. But at this period, that great work of Roman road-making, which was actively going on in all parts of the empire, must have extended, in some degree, to Syria and Judaea; and, if the Roman roads were already constructed here, there is little doubt that they followed the direction indicated by the later Itineraries. This direction is from Jerusalem to Neapolis (the ancient Shechem), and thence over the Jordan to the south of the Lake, near Scythopolis, where the soldiers of Pompey crossed the river, and where the Galilean pilgrims used to cross it, at the time of the festivals, to avoid Samaria. Prom Scythopolis it led to Gadara, a Roman city, the ruins of which are still remaining, and so to Damascus.(f193)

Whatever road was followed in Saul’s journey to Damascus, it is almost certain that the earlier portion of it brought him to Neapolis, the Shechem of the Old Testament, and the Nablous of the modern Samaritans. This city was one of the stages in the Itineraries. Dr. Robinson followed a Roman pavement for some considerable distance in the neighborhood of Bethel. (f194) This northern road went over the elevated ridges which intervene between the valley of the Jordan and the plain on the Mediterranean coast. As the travelers gained the high ground, the young Pharisee may have looked back, — and, when he saw the city in the midst of its hills, with the mountains of Moab in the distance, — confident in the righteousness of his cause, — he may have thought proudly of the 125th Psalm:"The hills stand about Jerusalem: even so standeth the Lord round about his people, from this time forth forevermore." His present enterprise was undertaken for the honor of Zion. He was blindly fulfilling the words of One who said:"Whosoever killeth you, will think that he doeth God service." (Joh. 16:2.) Passing through the hills of Samaria, from which he might occasionally obtain a glimpse of the Mediterranean on the left, he would come to Jacob’s Well, at the opening of that beautiful valley which lies between Ebal and Gerizim. This, too, is the scene of a Gospel history. The same woman, with whom JESUS spoke, might be again at the well as the Inquisitor passed. But as yet he knew nothing of the breaking-down of the "middle wall of partition." (Eph. 2:14.) He could, indeed, have said to the Samaritans:"Ye worship ye know not what: we know what we worship: for salvation is of the Jews." (Joh. 4:22.) But he could not have understood the meaning of those other words:

"The hour cometh, when ye shall neither in Jerusalem, nor yet in this mountain, worship the Father: the true worshippers shall worship Him in spirit and in truth." (Joh. 4:21, 23.)

His was not yet the Spirit of CHRIST. The zeal which burnt in him was that of James and John, before their illumination, when they wished (in this same district) to call down fire from heaven, even as Elias did, on the inhospitable Samaritan village. (Luk. 9:51- 56.) Philip had already been preaching to the poor Samaritans, and John had revisited them, in company with Peter, with feelings wonderfully changed. (f195) But Saul knew nothing of the little Church of Samaritan Christians; or, if he heard of them and delayed among them, he delayed only to injure and oppress. The Syrian city was still the great object before him. And now, when he had passed through Samaria and was entering Galilee, the snowy peak of Mount Hermon, the highest point of Antilibanus, almost as far to the north as Damascus, would come into view. This is that tower of" Lebanon which looketh towards Damascus." (Son. 7:4.) It is already the great landmark of his journey, as he passes through Galilee towards the sea of Tiberias, and the valley of the Jordan.

Leaving now the "Sea of Galilee," deep among its hills, as a sanctuary of the holiest thoughts, and imagining the Jordan to he passed, we follow the company of travelers over the barren uplands, which stretch in dreary succession along the base of Antilibanus. All around are stony hills and thirsty plains, through which the withered stems of the scanty vegetation hardly penetrate. Over this desert, under the burning sky, the impetuous Saul holds his course, full of the fiery zeal with which Elijah traveled of yore, on his mysterious errand, through the same "wilderness of Damascus." (1Ki. 19:15.) "The earth in its length and its breadth, and all the deep universe of sky, is steeped in light and heat." When some eminence is gained, the vast horizon is seen stretching on all sides, like the ocean, without a boundary; except where the steep sides of Lebanon interrupt it, as the promontories of a mountainous coast stretch out into a motionless sea. The fiery sun is overhead; and that refreshing view is anxiously looked for, — Damascus seen from afar, within the desert circumference, resting, like an island of Paradise, in the green enclosure of its beautiful gardens.

This view is so celebrated, and the history of the place is so illustrious, that we may well be excused if we linger a moment, that we may describe them both. Damascus is the oldest city in the world. (f196) Its fame begins with the earliest patriarchs, and continues to modern times. While other cities of the East have risen and decayed, Damascus is still what it was. It was founded before Baalbec and Palmyra, and it has outlived them both. While Babylon is a heap in the desert, and Tyre a ruin on the shore, it remains what it is called in the prophecies of Isaiah, "the head of Syria." (Isa. 7:8.) Abraham’s steward was "Eliezer of Damascus," (Gen. 15:2.) and the limit of his warlike expedition in the rescue of Lot was "Hobah, which is on the left hand of Damascus." (Gen. 14:15.) How important a place it was in the flourishing period of the Jewish monarchy, we know from the garrisons which David placed there, (2Sa. 8:6; 1Ch. 18:6.) and from the opposition it presented to Solomon. (1Ki. 11:24.) The history of Naaman and the Hebrew captive, Elisha and Gehazi, and of the proud preference of its fresh rivers to the thirsty waters of Israel, are familiar to every one. And how close its relations continued to be with the Jews, we know from the chronicles of Jeroboam and Ahaz, and the prophecies of Isaiah and Amos. (See 2Ki. 14:28, 16:9, 10; 2Ch. 24:23, 28:5, 23; Isa. 7:8; Amo. 1:3, 5.) Its mercantile greatness is indicated by Ezekiel in the remarkable words addressed to Tyre:(f197) — "Syria was thy merchant by reason of the multitude of the wares of thy making: they occupied in thy fairs with emeralds, purple, and broidered work, and fine linen, and coral, and agate. Damascus was thy merchant in the multitude of the wares of thy making, for the multitude of all riches; in the wine of Helbon, and white wool." (Eze. 27:16, 18.) Leaving the Jewish annals, we might follow its history through continuous centuries, from the time when Alexander sent Parmenio to take it, while the conqueror himself was marching from Tarsus to Tyre — to its occupation by Pompey, (f198) — to the letters of Julian the Apostate, who describes it as "the eye of the East," — and onward through its golden days, when it was the residence of the Ommiad Caliphs, and the metropolis of the Mohammedan world, — and through the period when its fame was mingled with that of Saladin and Tamerlane, — to our own days, when the praise of its beauty is celebrated by every traveler. from Europe. It is evident, to use the words of Lamartine, that, like Constantinople, it was a "predestinated capital." Nor is it difficult to explain why its freshness has never faded through all this series of vicissitudes and wars.

Among the rocks and brushwood at the base of Antilibanus are the fountains of a copioiis and perennial stream, which, after running a course of no great distance to the south-east, loses itself in a desert lake. But before it reaches this dreary boundary, it has distributed its channels over the intermediate space, and left a wide area behind it, rich with prolific vegetation. These are the "streams from Lebanon," which are known to us in the imagery of Scripture; (Son. 4:15.) — the "rivers of Damascus," which Naaman not unnaturally preferred to all the "waters of Israel." (2Ki. 5:12.) By Greek writers the stream is called Chrysorrhoas, (f199) or "the river of gold." And this stream is the inestimable unexhausted treasure of Damascus. The habitations of men must always have been gathered round it, as the Nile has inevitably attracted an immemorial population to its banks. The desert is a fortification round Damascus. The river is its life. It is drawn out into watercourses, and spread in all directions. For miles around it is a wilderness of gardens, — gardens with roses among the tangled shrubberies, and with fruit on the branches overhead. Everywhere among the trees the murmur of unseen rivulets is heard. Even in the city, which is in the midst of the garden, the clear rushing of the current is a perpetual refreshment. Every dwelling has its fountain: and at night, when the sun has set behind Mount Lebanon, the lights of the city are seen flashing on the waters.

It is not to be wondered at that the view of Damascus, when the dim outline of the gardens has become distinct, and the city is seen gleaming white in the midst of them, should be universally famous. All travelers in all ages have paused to feast their eyes with the prospect: and the prospect has been always the same. It is true that in the Apostle’s day there were no cupolas and no minarets: Justinian had not built St. Sophia, and the caliphs had erected no mosques. But the white buildings of the city gleamed then, as they do now, in the center of a verdant inexhaustible paradise. The Syrian gardens, with their low walls and waterwheels, and careless mixture of fruits and flowers, were the same then as they are now. The same figures would be seen in the green approaches to the town, camels and mules, horses and asses, with Syrian peasants, and Arabs from beyond Palmyra. We know the very time of the day when Saul was entering these shady avenues. It was at midday. (f200) The birds were silent in the trees. The hush of noon was in the city. The sun was burning fiercely in the sky. The persecutor’s companions were enjoying the cool refreshment of the shade after their journey: and his eyes rested with satisfaction on those walls which were the end of his mission, and contained the victims of his righteous zeal.

We have been tempted into some prolixity in describing Damascus. But, in describing the solemn and miraculous event which took place in its neighborhood, we hesitate to enlarge upon the words of Scripture. And Scripture relates its circumstances in minute detail. If the importance we are intended to attach to particular events in early Christianity is to be measured by the prominence assigned to them in the Sacred Records, we must confess that, next after the Passion of our blessed Lord, the event to which our serious attention is especially called is the Conversion of St. Paul. Besides various allusions to it in his own Epistles, three detailed narratives of the occurrence are found in the Acts. Once it is related by St. Luke (Acts 9.), — twice by the Apostle himself, — in his address to his countrymen at Jerusalem (Acts 22.), — in his defense before Agrippa at Caesarea (Acts 26.). And as, when the same thing is told in more than one of the Holy Gospels, the accounts do not verbally agree, so it is here. St. Luke is more brief than St. Paul. And each of St. Paul’s statements supplies something not found in the other. The peculiar difference of these two statements, in their relation to the circumstances under which they were given, and as they illustrate the Apostle’s wisdom in pleading the cause of the Gospel and reasoning with his opponents, will be made the subject of some remarks in the later chapters of this book. At present it is our natural course simply to gather the facts from the Apostle’s own words, with a careful reference to the shorter narrative given by St. Luke.

In the twenty-second and twenty-sixth chapters of the Acts we are told that it was "about noon" — "at mid-day" — when the "great light" shone "suddenly" from heaven (Act. 22:6, 26:13). And those who have had experience of the glare of a mid-day sun in the East, will best understand the description of that light, which is said to have been "a light above the brightness of the sun, shining round about Paul and them that journeyed with him." All fell to the ground in terror ( Act. 26:14), or stood dumb with amazement (Act. 9:7). Suddenly surrounded by a light so terrible and incomprehensible, "they were afraid." "They heard not the voice of Him that spake to Paul" (Act. 22:9), or, if they heard a voice, "they saw no man" (Act. 9:7).(f201) The whole scene was evidently one of the utmost confusion: and the accounts are such as to express, in the most striking manner, the bewilderment and alarm of the travelers

But while the others were stunned, stupefied and confused, a clear light broke in terribly on the soul of one of those who were prostrated on the ground. (f202) A voice spoke articulately to him, which to the rest was a sound mysterious and indistinct. He heard what they did not hear. He saw what they did not see. To them the awful sound was without a meaning: he heard the voice of the Son of God. To them it was a bright light which suddenly surrounded them: he saw JESUS, whom he was persecuting. The awful dialogue can only be given in the language of Scripture. Yet we may reverentially observe that the words which Jesus spoke were "in the Hebrew tongue." The same language, (f203) in which, during His earthly life, He spoke to Peter and to John, to the blind man by the walls of Jericho, to the woman who washed His feet with her tears — the same sacred language was used when He spoke from heaven to His persecutor on earth. And as on earth He had always spoken in parables, so it was now. That voice which had drawn lessons from the lilies that grew in Galilee, and from the birds that flew over the mountain slopes near the Sea of Tiberias, was now pleased to call His last Apostle with a figure of the like significance:"Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me? It is hard for thee to kick against the goad." As the ox rebels in vain against the goad (f204) of its master, and as all its struggles do nought but increase its distress — so is thy rebellion vain against the power of my grace. I have admonished thee by the word of my truth, by the death of my saints, by the voice of thy conscience. Struggle no more against conviction, "lest a worse thing come unto thee."

It is evident that this revelation was not merely an inward impression made on the mind of Saul during a trance or ecstasy. It was the direct perception of the visible presence of Jesus Christ. This is asserted in various passages, both positively and incidentally. In St. Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians, when he contends for the validity of his own apostleship, his argument is, "Am I not an Apostle? Have I not seen Jesus Christ, the Lord?" (1Co. 9:1.) And when he adduces the evidence for the truth of the Resurrection, his argument is again, "He was seen… by Cephas… by James… by all the Apostles… last of all by me… as one born out of due time" (1Co. 15:8). By Cephas and by James at Jerusalem the reality of Saul’s conversion was doubted (Act. 9:27); but "Barnabas brought him to the Apostles, and related to them how he had seen the Lord in the way, and had spoken with Him." And similarly Ananias had said to him at their first meeting in Damascus:"The Lord hath sent me, even Jesus who appeared to thee in the way as thou camest" (Act. 9:17). "The God of our fathers hath chosen thee that thou shouldest see that Just One, and shouldest hear the voice of His mouth" (Act. 22:14). The very words which were spoken by the Savior, imply the same important truth. He does not say, (f205) "I am the Son of God — the Eternal Word — the Lord of men and of angels:" — but, "I am Jesus" (Act. 9:5, 26:15), "Jesus of Nazareth" (Act. 22:8). "I am that man, whom not having seen thou hatest, the despised prophet of Nazareth, who was mocked and crucified at Jerusalem, who died and was buried. But now I appear to thee, that thou mayest know the truth of my Resurrection, that I may convince thee of thy sin, and call thee to be my Apostle."

The direct and immediate character of this call, without the intervention of any human agency, is another point on which St. Paul himself, in the course of his apostolic life, laid the utmost stress; and one, therefore, which it is incumbent on us to notice here. "A called Apostle," "an Apostle by the will of God," (f206) Apostle sent not from men, nor by man, but by Jesus Christ, and God the Father, who raised Him from the dead;" (Gal. 1:1.) these are the phrases under which he describes himself, in the cases where his authority was in danger of being questioned. No human instrumentality intervened, to throw the slightest doubt upon the reality of the communication between Christ Himself and the Apostle of the Heathen. And, as he was directly and miraculously called, so was the work immediately indicated, to which he was set apart, and in which in after years he always gloried, — the work of "preaching among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ." ( Eph. 3:8. See Rom. 11:13, 15:16; Gal. 2:8; 1Ti. 2:7; 2Ti. 1:11, &c.) Unless indeed we are to consider the words which he used before Agrippa (Act. 26:15-18.) as a condensed statement(f207) of all that was revealed to him, both in his vision on the way, and afterwards by Ananias in the city:

"I am Jesus, whom thou persecutest: but rise, and stand upon thy feet; for to this end I have appeared unto thee, to ordain thee a minister and a witness both of these things which thou hast seen, and of those things wherein I will appear unto thee. And thee have I chosen from the House of Israel, and from among the Gentiles, unto whom now I send thee, to open their eyes, that they may turn from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God; that they may receive forgiveness of sins, and inheritance among the sanctified, by faith in Me." (f208)

But the full intimation of all the labors and sufferings that were before him was still reserved. He was told to arise and go into the city, and there it should be told him what it had been ordained (f209) that he should do. He arose humbled and subdued, and ready to obey whatever might be the will of Him who had spoken to him from heaven. But when he opened his eyes, all was dark around him. The brilliancy of the vision had made him blind. Those who were with him saw, as before, the trees and the sky, and the road leading into Damascus. But he was in darkness, and they led him by the hand into the city. Thus came Saul into Damascus; — not as he had expected, to triumph in an enterprise on which his soul was set, to brave all difficulties and dangers, to enter into houses and carry off prisoners to Jerusalem; — but he passed himself like a prisoner beneath the gateway; and through the colonnades (f210) of the street called "Straight," where he saw not the crowd of those who gazed on him, he was led by the hands of others, trembling and helpless, to the house of Judas, (Act. 9:11.) his dark and solitary lodging.

Three days the blindness continued. Only one other space of three days’ duration can be mentioned of equal importance in the history of the world. The conflict of Saul’s feelings was so great, and his remorse so piercing and so deep, that during this time he neither ate nor drank. (Act. 9:9.) He could have no communion with the Christians, for they had been terrified by the news of his approach. And the unconverted Jews could have no true sympathy with his present state of mind. He fasted and prayed in silence. The recollections of his early years, — the passages of the ancient Scriptures which he had never understood, — the thoughts of his own cruelty and violence, — the memory of the last looks of Stephen, — all these crowded into his mind, and made the three days equal to long years of repentance. And if we may imagine one feeling above all others to have kept possession of his heart, it would be the feeling suggested by Christ’s expostulation:"Why persecutest thou ME?" (See Mat. 25:40, 45.) This feeling would be attended with thoughts of peace, with hope, and with faith. He waited on God: and in his blindness a vision was granted to him. He seemed to behold one who came in to him, — and he knew by revelation that his name was Ananias, — and it appeared to him that the stranger laid his hand on him, that he might receive his sight. (Act. 9:12.)

The economy of visions, by which God revealed and accomplished His will, is remarkably similar in the case of Ananias and Saul at Damascus, and in that of Peter and Cornelius at Joppa and Caesarea. The simultaneous preparation of the hearts of Ananias and Saul, and the simultaneous preparation of those of Peter and Cornelius, — the questioning and hesitation of Peter, and the questioning and hesitation of Ananias, — the one doubting whether he might make friendship with the Gentiles, the other doubting whether he might approach the enemy of the Church, — the unhesitating obedience of each, when the Divine will was made clearly known, — the state of mind in which both the Pharisee and the Centurion were found, — each waiting to see what the Lord would say unto him, — this close analogy will not be forgotten by those who reverently read the two consecutive chapters, in which the baptism of Saul and the baptism of Cornelius are narrated in the Acts of the Apostles. (Acts 9 And 10 Compare also Act. 11:5-18 with Act. 22:12-16.)

And in another respect there is a close parallelism between the two histories. The same exact topography characterizes them both. In the one case we have the lodging with "Simon the Tanner," and the house "by the seaside" (Act. 10:6), — in the other we have "the house of Judas," and "the street called Straight (Act. 9:11)." And as the shore, where "the saint beside the ocean prayed," is an unchanging feature of Joppa, which will ever be dear to the Christian heart; (f211) so are we allowed to bear in mind that the thoroughfares of Eastern cities do not change, (f212) and to believe that the "Straight Street," which still extends through Damascus in long perspective from the Eastern Gate, is the street where Ananias spoke to Saul. More than this we do not venture to say. In the first days of the Church, and for some time afterwards, the local knowledge of the Christians at Damascus might be cherished and vividly retained. But now that through long ages Christianity in the East has been weak and degraded, and Mohammedanism strong and tyrannical, we can only say that the spots still shown to travelers as the sites of the house of Ananias, and the house of Judas, and the place of baptism, may possibly be true. (f213)

We know nothing concerning Ananias, except what we learn from St. Luke or from St. Paul. He was a Jew who had become a "disciple" of Christ (Act. 9:10), and he was well reputed and held to be "devout according to the Law," among "all the Jews who dwelt at Damascus" (Act. 22:12). He is never mentioned by St. Paul in his Epistles; and the later stories respecting his history are unsupported by proof. (f214) Though he was not ignorant of the new convert’s previous character, it seems evident that he had no personal acquaintance with him; or he would hardly have been described as "one called Saul, of Tarsus," lodging in the house of Judas. He was not an Apostle, nor one of the conspicuous members of the Church. And it was not without a deep significance, (f215) that he, who was called to be an Apostle, should be baptized by one of whom the Church knows nothing, except that he was a Christian "disciple," and had been a "devout" Jew.

Ananias came into the house where Saul, faint and exhausted (See Act. 9:19.) with three days’ abstinence, still remained in darkness. When he laid his hands on his head, as the vision had foretold, immediately he would be recognized as the messenger of God, even before the words were spoken, "Brother Saul, the Lord, even Jesus, that appeared unto thee in the way as thou camest, hath sent me, that thou mightest receive thy sight, and be filled with the Holy Ghost." These words were followed, as were the words of Jesus Himself when He spoke to the blind, with an instantaneous dissipation of darkness:"There fell from his eyes as it had been scales:(f216) and he received sight forthwith (Act. 9:18):" or, in his own more vivid expression, "the same hour he looked up on the face of Ananias (Act. 22:13)." It was a face he had never seen before. But the expression of Christian love assured him of reconciliation with God. He learnt that "the God of his fathers" had chosen him "to know His will," — "to see that Just One," — "to hear the voice of His mouth," — to be "His witness unto all men." (Act. 22:14, 15.) He was baptized, and "the rivers of Damascus" became more to him than "all the waters of Judah" (See 2Ki. 5:12.) had been. His body was strengthened with food; and his soul was made strong to "suffer great things" for the name of Jesus, and to bear that Name "before the Gentiles, and kings, and the children of Israel." (See Act. 9:15, 16.)

He began by proclaiming the honor of that name to the children of Israel in Damascus. He was "not disobedient to the heavenly vision" (Act. 26:19), but "straightway preached in the synagogues that Jesus was the Son of God," (f217) — and "showed unto them that they should repent and turn to God, and do works meet for repentance." His Rabbinical and Pharisaic learning was now used to uphold the cause which he came to destroy. The Jews were astounded. They knew what he had been at Jerusalem. They knew why he had come to Damascus. And now they saw him contradicting the whole previous course of his life, and utterly discarding that "commission of the high priests," which had been the authority of his journey. Yet it was evident that his conduct was not the result of a wayward and irregular impulse. His convictions never hesitated; his energy grew continually stronger, as he strove in the synagogues, maintaining the truth against the Jews, and "arguing and proving that Jesus was indeed the Messiah." (Act. 9:22.)

The period of his first teaching at Damascus does not seem to have lasted long. Indeed it is evident that his life could not have been safe, had he remained. The fury of the Jews when they had recovered from their first surprise must have been excited to the utmost pitch; and they would soon have received a new commissioner from Jerusalem armed with full powers to supersede and punish one whom they must have regarded as the most faithless of apostates. Saul left the city, but not to return to Jerusalem. Conscious of his Divine mission, he never felt that it was necessary to consult "those who were Apostles before him, but he went into Arabia, and returned again into Damascus." (Gal. 1:17.)

Many questions have been raised concerning this journey into Arabia. The first question relates to the meaning of the word. From the time when the word "Arabia" was first used by any of the writers of Greece or Rome, it has always been a term of vague and uncertain import. Sometimes it includes Damascus; sometimes it ranges over the Lebanon itself, and extends even to the borders of Cilicia. The native geographers usually reckon that stony district, of which Petra was the capital, as belonging to Egypt, — and that wide desert towards the Euphrates, where the Bedouins of all ages have lived in tents, as belonging to Syria, — and have limited the name to the Peninsula between the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf, where Jemen, or "Araby the Blest," is secluded on the south. In the threefold division of Ptolemy, which remains in our popular language when we speak of this still untraveled region, both the first and second of these districts were included under the name of the third. And we must suppose St. Paul to have gone into one of the former, either that which touched Syria and Mesopotamia, or that which touched Palestine and Egypt. If he went into the first, we need not suppose him to have traveled far from Damascus. For though the strong powers of Syria and Mesopotamia might check the Arabian tribes, and retrench the Arabian name in this direction, yet the Gardens of Damascus were on the verge of the desert, and Damascus was almost as much an Arabian as a Syrian town.

And if he went into Petrsean Arabia, there still remains the question of his motive for the journey, and his employment when there. Either retiring before the opposition at Damascus, he went to preach the Gospel, and then, in the synagogues of that singular capital, which was built amidst the rocks of Edom, (f218) whence "Arabians" came to the festivals at Jerusalem, (Act. 2:11.) he testified of Jesus:— or he went for the purpose of contemplation and solitary communion with God, to deepen his repentance and fortify his soul with prayer; and then perhaps his steps were turned to those mountain heights by the Red Sea, which Moses and Elijah had trodden before him. We cannot attempt to decide the question. The views which different inquirers take of it will probably depend on their own tendency to the practical or the ascetic life. On the one hand it may be argued that such zeal could not be restrained, that Saul could not be silent, but that he would rejoice in carrying into the metropolis of King Aretas the Gospel which his Ethnarch could afterwards hinder at Damascus. (See 2Co. 11:32.) On the other hand, it may be said that, with such convictions recently worked in his mind, he would yearn for solitude, — that a time of austere meditation before the beginning of a great work is in conformity with the economy of God, — that we find it quite natural, if Paul followed the example of the Great Lawgiver and the Great Prophet, and of one greater than Moses and Elijah, who, after His baptism and before His ministry, "returned from Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness." (Luk. 4:1.)

While Saul is in Arabia, preaching the Gospel in obscurity, or preparing for his varied work by the intuition of Sacred Truth, — it seems the natural place for some reflections on the reality and the momentous significance of his conversion. It has already been remarked, in what we nave drawn from the statements of Scripture, that he was called directly by Christ without the intervention of any other Apostle, and that the purpose of his call was clearly indicated, when Ananias baptized him. He was an Apostle "not of men, neither by man," (f219) and the Divine will was "to work among the Gentiles by his ministry." (Act. 21:9.) But the unbeliever may still say that there are other questions of primary importance. He may suggest that this apparent change in the current of Saul’s thoughts, and this actual revolution in the manner of his life, was either the contrivance of deep and deliberate imposture, or the result of wild and extravagant fanaticism. Both in ancient and modern times, some have been found who have resolved this great occurrence into the promptings of self-interest, or have ventured to call it the offspring of delusion. There is an old story mentioned by Epiphanius, from which it appears that the Ebionites were content to find a motive for the change, in an idle story that he first became a Jew that he might marry the High Priest’s daughter, and then became the antagonist of Judaism because the High Priest deceived him. (f220) And there are modern Jews, who are satisfied with saying that he changed rapidly from one passion to another, like those impetuous souls who cannot hate or love by halves. Can we then say that St. Paul was simply a fanatic or an impostor? The question has been so well answered in a celebrated English book, (f221) that we are content to refer to it. It will never be possible for any one to believe St. Paul to have been a mere fanatic, who duly considers his calmness, his wisdom, his prudence, and, above all, his humility, a virtue which is not less inconsistent with fanaticism than with imposture. And how can we suppose that he was an impostor who changed his religion for selfish purposes? Was he influenced by the ostentation of learning? He suddenly cast aside all that he had been taught by Gamaliel, or acquired through long years of study, and took up the opinions of fishermen of Galilee, whom he had scarcely ever seen, and who had never been educated in the schools. Was it the love of power which prompted the change? He abdicated in a moment the authority which he possessed, for power "over a flock of sheep driven to the slaughter, whose Shepherd himself had been murdered a little before;" and "all he could hope from that power was to be marked out in a particular manner for the same knife, which he had seen so bloodily drawn against them." Was it the love of wealth? Whatever might be his own worldly possessions at the time, he joined himself to those who were certainly poor, and the prospect before him was that which was actually realized, of ministering to his necessities with the labor of his hands. ( Act. 20:33, 34; 1Co. 4:12; 1Th. 2:9, &c.) Was it the love of fame? His prophetic power must have been miraculous, if he could look beyond the shame and scorn which then rested on the servants of a crucified Master, to that glory with which Christendom now surrounds the memory of St. Paul.

And if the conversion of St. Paul was not the act of a fanatic or an impostor, then it ought to be considered how much this wonderful occurrence involves. As Lord Lyttelton observes, "the conversion and apostle-ship of St. Paul alone, duly considered, is of itself a demonstration sufficient to prove Christianity to be a Divine revelation." Saul was arrested at the height of his zeal, and in the midst of his fury. In the words of Chrysostom, "Christ, like a skilful physician, healed him when his fever was at the worst:" and he proceeds to remark, in the same eloquent sermon, that the truth of Christ’s resurrection, and the present power of Him who had been crucified, were shown far more forcibly than they could have been if Paul had been otherwise called. Nor ought we to forget the great religious lessons we are taught to gather from this event. We see the value set by God upon honesty and integrity, when we find that he, "who was before a blasphemer and a persecutor and injurious, obtained mercy because he did it ignorantly in unbelief." (f222) And we learn the encouragement given to all sinners who repent, when we are told that "for this cause he obtained mercy, that in him first Jesus Christ might show forth all long-suffering, for a pattern to them which should hereafter believe on Him to life everlasting." (f223)

We return to the narrative. Saul’s time of retirement in Arabia was not of long continuance. He was not destined to be the Evangelist of the East. In the Epistle to the Galatians (Gal. 1:18),(f224) the time, from his conversion to his final departure from Damascus, is said to have been "three years," which, according to the Jewish way of reckoning, may have been three entire years, or only one year with parts of two others. Meantime Saul had "returned to Damascus, preaching boldly in the name of Jesus." (Act. 9:27.) The Jews, being no longer able to meet him in controversy, resorted to that which is the last argument of a desperate cause:(f225) they resolved to assassinate him. Saul became acquainted with the conspiracy: and all due precautions were taken to evade the danger. But the political circumstances of Damascus at the time made escape very difficult. Either in the course of the hostilities which prevailed along the Syrian frontiers between Herod Antipas and the Romans, on one side, and Aretas, King of Petra, on the other, — and possibly in consequence of that absence of Vitellius, (f226) which was caused by the Emperor’s death, — the Arabian monarch had made himself master of Damascus, and the Jews, who sympathized with Aretas, were high in the favor of his officer, the Ethnarch. (f227) Or Tiberius had ceased to reign, and his successor had assigned Damascus to the King of Petra, and the Jews had gained over his officer and his soldiers, as Pilate’s soldiers had once been gained over at Jerusalem. St. Paul at least expressly informs us, (2Co. 11:32.) that "the Ethnarch kept watch over the city, with a garrison, purposing to apprehend him." St. Luke says, (Act. 9:24.) that the Jews "watched the city- gates day and night, with the intention of killing him." The Jews furnished the motive, the Ethnarch the military force. The anxiety of the "disciples" was doubt less great, as when Peter was imprisoned by Herod, "and prayer was made without ceasing of the Church unto God for him." (Act. 12:5.) Their anxiety became the instrument of his safety. From an unguarded part of the wall, (f228) in the darkness of the night, probably where some overhanging houses, as is usual in Eastern cities, opened upon the outer country, they let him down from a window (f229) in a basket. There was something of humiliation in this mode of escape; and this, perhaps, is the reason why, in a letter written "fourteen years" afterwards, he specifies the details, "glorying in his infirmities," when he is about to speak of "his visions and revelations of the Lord." (f230)

Thus already the Apostle had experience of "perils by his own countrymen, and perils in the city." Already "in journeyings often, in weariness and painfulness," (2Co. 11:26, 27.) he began to learn "how great things he was to suffer" for the name of Christ. (Act. 9:16.) Preserved from destruction at Damascus, he turned his steps towards Jerusalem. His motive for the journey, as he tells us in the Epistle to the Galatians, was a desire to become acquainted with Peter. (Gal. 1:18.) Not that he was ignorant of the true principles of the Gospel. He expressly tells us that he neither needed nor received any instruction in Christianity from those who were "Apostles before him." But he must have heard much from the Christians at Damascus of the Galilean fisherman. Can we wonder that he should desire to see the Chief of the Twelve, — the brother with whom now he was consciously united in the bonds of a common apostleship, — and who had long on earth been the constant companion of his LORD?

How changed was every thing since he had last traveled this road between Damascus and Jerusalem! If, when the day broke, he looked back upon that city from which he had escaped under the shelter of night, as his eye ranged over the fresh gardens and the wide desert, how the remembrance of that first terrible vision would call forth a deep thanksgiving to Him, who had called him to be a "partaker of His sufferings!" (1Pe. 4:13.) And what feelings must have attended his approach to Jerusalem! "He was returning to it from a spiritual, as Ezra had from a bodily, captivity, and to his renewed mind all things appeared new. What an emotion smote his heart at the first distant view of the Temple, that house of sacrifice, that edifice of prophecy! Its sacrifices had been realized, the Lamb of God had been offered: its prophecies had been fulfilled, the Lord had come unto it. As he approached the gates, he might have trodden the very spot where he had so exultingly assisted in the death of Stephen, and he entered them perfectly content, were it God’s will, to be dragged out through them to the same fate. He would feel a peculiar tie of brotherhood to that martyr, for he could not be now ignorant that the same Jesus who in such glory had called him, had but a little while before appeared in the same glory to assure the expiring Stephen. The ecstatic look and words of the dying saint now came fresh upon his memory with their real meaning. When he entered into the city, what deep thoughts were suggested by the haunts of his youth, and by the sight of the spots where he had so eagerly sought that knowledge which he had now so eagerly abandoned! What an intolerable burden had he cast off! He felt as a glorified spirit may be supposed to feel on revisiting the scenes of its fleshly sojourn." (f231)

Yet not without grief and awe could he look upon that city of his forefathers, over which he now knew that the judgment of God was impending. And not without sad emotions could one of so tender a nature think of the alienation of those who had once been his warmest associates. The grief of Gamaliel, the indignation of the Pharisees, the fury of the Hellenistic Synagogues, all this, he knew, was before him. The sanguine hopes, however, springing from his own honest convictions, and his fervent zeal to communicate the truth to others, predominated in his mind. He thought that they would believe as he had believed. He argued thus with himself, — that they well knew that he had "imprisoned and beaten in every synagogue them that believed in Jesus Christ," — and that "when the blood of His martyr Stephen was shed, he also was standing by and consenting unto his death, and kept the raiment of them that slew him," (f232) — and that when they saw the change which had been produced in him, and heard the miraculous history he could tell them, they would not refuse to "receive his testimony."

Thus, with fervent zeal, and sanguine expectations, "he attempted to join himself to the disciples" of Christ. (Act. 9:26.) But, as the Jews hated him, so the Christians suspected him. His escape had been too hurried to allow of his bringing "letters of commendation." Whatever distant rumor might have reached them of an apparition on his journey, of his conduct at Damascus, of his retirement in Arabia, they could not believe that he was really a disciple. And then it was that Barnabas, already known to us as a generous contributor of his wealth to the poor, (Act. 4:36.) came forward again as the "Son of Consolation," — "took him by the hand," and brought him to the Apostles. (Act. 9:27.) It is probable that Barnabas and Saul were acquainted with each other before. Cyprus is within a few hours’ sail from Cilicia. The schools of Tarsus may naturally have attracted one who, though a Levite, was an Hellenist: and there the friendship may have begun, which lasted through many vicissitudes, till it was rudely interrupted in the dispute at Antioch. (Act. 15:39.) When Barnabas related how "the Lord" Jesus Christ had personally appeared to Saul, and had even spoken to him, and how he had boldly maintained the Christian cause in the synagogues of Damascus, then the Apostles laid aside their hesitation. Peter’s argument must have been what it was on another occasion:"Forasmuch as God hath given unto him the like gift as He did unto me, who am I that I should withstand God?" (Act. 11:17.) He and James, the Lord’s brother, the only other Apostle (f233) who was in Jerusalem at the time, gave to him "the right hands of fellowship." And he was with them, "coming in and going out," more than forgiven for Christ’s sake, welcomed and beloved as a friend and a brother. This first meeting of the fisherman of Bethsaida and the tent-maker of Tarsus, the chosen companion of Jesus on earth, and the chosen Pharisee who saw Jesus in the heavens, the Apostle of the circumcision and the Apostles of the Gentiles, is passed over in Scripture in a few words. The Divine record does not linger in dramatic description on those passages which a mere human writing would labor to embellish. What took place in the intercourse of these two Saints, — what was said of Jesus of Nazareth who suffered, died, and was buried, — and of Jesus, the glorified Lord, who had risen and ascended, and become "head over all things to the Church," — what was felt of Christian love and devotion, — what was learnt, under the Spirit’s teaching, of Christian truth, has not been revealed, and cannot be known. The intercourse was full of present comfort, and full of great consequences. But it did not last long. Fifteen days passed away, and the Apostles were compelled to part. The same zeal which had caused his voice to be heard in the Hellenistic Synagogues in the persecution against Stephen, now led Saul in the same Synagogues to declare fearlessly his adherence to Stephen’s cause. The same fury which had caused the murder of Stephen, now brought the murderer of Stephen to the verge of assassination. Once more, as at Damascus, the Jews made a conspiracy to put Saul to death: and once more he was rescued by the anxiety of the brethren. (Act. 9:29, 30.)

Reluctantly, and not without a direct intimation from on high, he retired from the work of preaching the Gospel in Jerusalem. As he was praying one day in the Temple, it came to pass that he fell into a trance, (f234) and in his ecstasy he saw Jesus, who spoke to him, and said, "Make haste and get thee quickly out of Jerusalem: for they will not receive thy testimony concerning me." He hesitated to obey the command, his desire to do God’s will leading him to struggle against the hindrances of God’s providence — and the memory of Stephen, which haunted him even in his trance, furnishing him with an argument. (f235) But the command was more peremptory than before:"Depart; for I will send thee far hence unto the Gentiles." The scene of his apostolic victories was not to be Jerusalem. For the third time it was declared to him that the field of his labors was among the Gentiles. This secret revelation to his soul conspired with the outward difficulties of his situation. The care of God gave the highest sanction to the anxiety of the brethren. And he suffered himself to be withdrawn from the Holy City.

They brought him down to Caesarea by the sea, (f236) and from Caesarea they sent him to Tarsus. (Act. 9:30) His own expression in the Epistle to the Galatians (Gal. 1:21) is that he went "into the regions of Syria and Cilicia." From this it has been inferred that he went first from Caesarea to Antioch, and then from Antioch to Tarsus. And such a course would have been perfectly natural; for the communication of the city of Caesar and the Herods with the metropolis of Syria, either by sea and the harbor of Seleucia, or by the great coast-road through Tyre and Sidon, was easy and frequent. But the supposition is unnecessary. In consequence of the range of Mount Taurus (p. 19), Cilicia has a greater geographical affinity with Syria than with Asia Minor. Hence it has existed in frequent political combination with it from the time of the old Persian satrapies to the modern pachalics of the Sultan: and "Syria and Cilicia" appears in history almost as a generic geographical term, the more important district being mentioned first. (f237) Within the limits of this region Saul’s activities were now exercised in studying and in teaching at Tarsus, — or in founding those Churches (f238) which were afterwards greeted in the Apostolic letter from Jerusalem, as the brethren "in Antioch, and Syria, and Cilicia," and which Paul himself confirmed after his separation from Barnabas, traveling through "Syria and Cilicia."

Whatever might be the extent of his journeys within these limits, we know at least that he was at Tarsus. Once more we find him in the home of his childhood. It is the last time we are distinctly told that he was there. Now at least, if not before, we may be sure that he would come into active intercourse with the Heathen philosophers of the place. (f239) In his last residence at Tarsus, a few years before, he was a Jew, and not only a Jew but a Pharisee, and he looked on the Gentiles around him as outcasts from the favor of God. Now he was a Christian, and not only a Christian, but conscious of his mission as the Apostle of the Gentiles. Therefore he would surely meet the philosophers, and prepare to argue with them on their own ground, as afterwards in the "market" at Athens with "the Epicureans and the Stoics." (Act. 17:17, 18.) Many Stoics of Tarsus were men of celebrity in the Roman Empire. Athenodorus, the tutor of Augustus, has already been mentioned. He was probably by this time deceased, and receiving those divine honors, which, as Lucian informs us, were paid to him after his death. The tutor of Tiberius also was a Tarsian and a Stoic. His name was Nestor. He was probably at this time alive: for he lingered to the age of ninety-two, and, in all likelihood, survived his wicked pupil, whose death we have recently noticed. Now among these eminent sages and instructors of Heathen Emperors was one whose teaching was destined to survive, when the Stoic philosophy should have perished, and whose words still instruct the rulers of every civilized nation. How far Saul’s arguments had any success in this quarter we cannot even guess; and we must not anticipate the conversion of Cornelius. At least, he was preparing for the future. In the Synagogue we cannot believe that he was silent or unsuccessful. In his own family, we may well imagine that some of those Christian "kinsmen," (Romans 16.) whose names are handed down to us, — possibly his sister, the playmate of his childhood, and his sister’s son, (f240) who afterwards saved his life, — were at this time by his exertions gathered into the fold of Christ.

Here this chapter must close, while Saul is in exile from the earthly Jerusalem, but diligently occupied in building up the walls of the "Jerusalem which is above." And it was not without one great and important consequence that that short fortnight had been spent in Jerusalem. He was now known to Peter and to James. His vocation was fully ascertained and recognized by the heads of the Judaean Christians. It is true that he was yet "unknown by face" to the scattered Churches of Judaea. (f241) But they honored him of whom they had heard so much. And when the news came to them at intervals of all that he was doing for the cause of Christ, they praised God and said, "Behold! he who was once our persecutor is now hearing the glad tidings of that faith which formerly he labored to root out;" "and they glorified God in him."

(f176) Act. 8:2. Probably they were Hellenistic Jews impressed in favor of Christianity. It seems hardly likely that they were avowed Christians. There is nothing in the expression itself to determine the point.

(f177) The word "voice" in the Auth. Vers. should be "vote." Act. 26:10. If this inference is well founded, and if the qualification for a member of the Sanhedrin mentioned in the last chapter (p. 67, n. 2), was a necessary qualification, Saul must have been a married man, and the father of a family. if so, it is probable that his wife and children did not long survive; for otherwise, some notice of them would have occurred in the subsequent narrative, or some allusion to them in the Epistles. And we know that, if ever he had a wife, she was not living when he wrote his first letter to the Corinthians. (1 Corinthians 7.) It was customary among the Jews to marry at a very early age. Baron Bunsen has expressed his belief in the tradition that St. Paul was a widower. Hippol. 2:344.

(f178) "I persecuted this way unto the death, binding and delivering into prisons both men and women" (Act. 22:4); "and when they were put to death. I gave my vote against them" (Act. 26:10).

(f179) (Act. 26:11.) It is not said that he succeeded in causing any to blaspheme. It may be necessary to explain to some readers that the Greek imperfect merely denotes that the attempt was made; so in Gal. 1:23, alluded to at the end of this chapter.

(f180) 1Co. 15:9. It should be observed that in all these passages from the Epistles the same word for "persecution" is used.

(f181) (Act. 8:5.) This was probably the ancient capital, at that time called "Sebaste." The city of Sychar (Joh. 4:5) had also received a Greek name. It was then "Neapolis," and is still "Nablous."

(f182) The original word shows that Simon was in Samaria before Philip came, as Elymas was with Sergius Paulus before the arrival of St. Paul. Compare Act. 8:9- 24 with Act. 13:6-12. There is good reason for believing that Simon Magus is the person mentioned by Josephus (Ant. 20:7, 2), as connected with Felix and Drusilla. See Act. 24:24.

(f183) For Gaza and the phrase "which is desert" we may refer to the article in Smith’s Dict. of the Bible.

(f184) Candace is the name, not of an individual, but of a dynasty, like Aretas in Arabia, or like Pharaoh and Ptolemy. By AEthiopia is meant Meroe on the Upper Nile. Queens of Meroe with the title of Candace are mentioned by Greek and Roman writers. Probably this chamberlain was a Jew.

(f185) "But Philip was found at Azotus; and, passing through, he preached in all the cities, till he came to Caesarea." (Act. 8:40.) "And the next day we that were of Paul’s company departed, and came to Caesarea; and we entered into the house of Philip the Evangelist, which was one of the seven, and abode with him." (Act. 21:8.)

(f186) In this mountainous district of Arabia, which had been the scene of the wanderings of the Israelites, and which contained the graves both of Moses and Aaron, the Nabathaean Arabs after the time of the Babylonian captivity (or, possibly, the Edomites before them. See Robinson, Bib. Res. vol. 2, pp. 557, 573) grew into a civilized nation, built a great mercantile city at Petra, and were ruled by a line of kings, who bore the title of "Aretas." The Aretas dynasty ceased in the second century, when Arabia Petraea became a Roman province under Trajan. In the Roman period, a great road united Ailah on the Red Sea with Petra, and thence diverged to the left towards Jerusalem and the ports of the Mediterranean; and to the right towards Damascus, in a direction not very different from that of the modern caravan-road from Damascus to Mecca. This state of things did not last very long. The Arabs of this district fell back into their old nomadic state. Petra was long undiscovered. Burckhardt was the first to see it, and Laborde the first to visit it. Now it is well known to Orienta travelers. Its Rock-theatre and other remains still exist, to show its ancient character of a city of the Roman Empire.

(f187) 2Co. 11:32. On the title "Ethnarch" see note at the end of this Chapter.

(f188) This is argued with great force by Wieseler, who, so far as we know, is the first to suggest this explanation. His argument is not quite conclusive; because it is seldom easy to give a confident opinion on the details of a campaign, unless its history is minutely recorded. The strength of Wieseler’s argument consists in this, that his different lines of reasoning converge to the same result.

(f189) See, for instance, what is said by Josephus (Ant. 18:5, 4), of various arrangements in the East at this very crisis. Similar changes in Asia Minor have been alluded to before, Ch. I. p. 21.

(f190) Wieseler justly lays some stress on the circumstance that there are coins of Augustus and Tiberius, and, again, of Nero and his successors, but none of Caligula and Claudius, which imply that Damascus was Roman.

(f191) In pictures, St. Paul is represented as on horseback on this journey. Probably this is the reason why Lord Lyttelton, in his observations on St. Paul’s conversion, uses the phrase — "Those in company with him fell down from their horses, together with Saul," p. 318. (Works, 1774.) There is no proof that this was the case, though it is very probable.

(f192) The next historical notice of the Sea of Tiberias or Lake of Genesareth after that which occurs in the Gospels is in Josephus.

(f193) It is very conceivable that he traveled by Caesarea Philippi, the city which Herod Philip had built at the fountains of the Jordan, on the natural line of communication between Tyre and Damascus, and likely to have been one of the "foreign cities" (Act. 26:11) which harbored Christian fugitives. Here, too, he would be in the footsteps of St. Peter; for here the great confession (Mat. 16:16) seems to have been made; and this road also would probably have brought him past Neapolis. It is hardly likely that he would have taken the Petra road (above, p. 75, n. 8), for both the modern caravans and the ancient itineraries cross the Jordan more to the north.

(f194) Bib. Res. 3:77. More will be said on this subject, when we come to Act. 23:23- 31. See p. 25.

(f195) See above, p. 74.

(f196) Josephus makes it even older than Abraham. (Ant. 1:6, 3.) For the traditions of the events in the infancy of the human race, which are supposed to have happened in its vicinity, gee Pococke, 2:115, 116. The story that the murder of Abel took place here is alluded to by Shakspeare, 1 K. Hen. VI. 1:3.

(f197) The port of Beyroot is now to Damascus what Tyre was of old.

(f198) See above, Ch. I. p. 24. Its relative importance was not so great when it was under a Western power like that of the Seleucids or the Romans; hence we find it less frequently mentioned than we might expect in Greek and Roman writers. This arose from the building of Antioch and other cities in Northern Syria.

(f199) Strabo and Ptolemy.

(f200) Act. 22:6, 26:13. Notices of the traditionary place where the vision was seen are variously given both by earlier and later travelers. The old writer, Quaresmius, mentions four theoretical sites:(1) twelve miles south of Damascus, where there is a stream on the right of the road, with the ruins of a church on a rising ground; (2) six miles south on the left of the road, where there are traces of a church and stones marked with crosses; (3) two miles south on the same road; (4) half a mile from the city: and this he prefers on the strength of earlier authorities, and because it harmonizes best with what is said of the Apostle being led in by the hand. In one of these cases there is an evident blending of the scene of the Conversion and the Escape: and it would appear from Mr. Stanley’s letter (quoted below, p. 93) that this spot is on the east and not the south of the city.

(f201) It has been thought both more prudent and more honest to leave these well-known discrepancies exactly as they are found in the Bible. They will be differently explained by different readers, according to their views of the inspiration of Scripture. Those who do not receive the doctrine of Verbal Inspiration will find in these discrepancies a confirmation of the general truth of the narrative. Those who lay stress on this doctrine may fairly be permitted to suppose that the stupefied companions of Saul fell to the ground and then rose, and that they heard the voice but did not understand it. Dr. Wordsworth and Prof. Hackett point out that the word "stood" in Act. 9:7, need only mean that their progress was arrested.

(f202) It is evident from Act. 9:6, 8, 26:16, that Saul was prostrate on the ground when Jesus spoke to him.

(f203) It is only said in one account (Act. 26:14) that Jesus Christ spoke in Hebrew. But this appears incidentally in the other accounts from the Hebrew form of the name "Saul" being used where our Lord’s own words are given (Act. 9:4, 22:8). In the narrative portion (Act. 9:1, 8, &c.) it is the Greek, a difference which is not noticed in the Authorized Version. So Ananias (whose name is Aramaic) seems to have addressed Saul in Hebrew, not in Greek (Act. 9:17, 22:13).

(f204) The "prick" of Act. 26:14 is the goad or sharp-pointed pole, which in southern Europe and in the Levant is seen in the hands of those who are ploughing or driving cattle.

(f205) Chrysostom.

(f206) See Rom. 1:1; 1Co. 1:1; 2Co. 1:1; Eph. 1:1; Col. 1:1. These expressions are not used by St. Peter, St. James, St. Jude, or St. John. And it is remarkable that they are not used by St. Paul himself in the Epistles addressed to those who were most firmly attached to him. They are found in the letters to the Christians of Achaia, but not in those to the Christians of Macedonia. (See 1Th. 1:1; 2Th. 1:1; Php. 1:1). And though in the letters to the Ephesians and Colossians, not in that to Philemon, which is known to have been sent at the same time. See Phm. 1:1.

(f207) It did not fall in with Paul’s plan in his speech before Agrippa (Acts 26.) to mention Ananias, as, in his speech to the Jews at Jerusalem (Acts 22.), he avoided any explicit mention of the Gentiles, while giving the narrative of his conversion.

(f208) See notes on the passage in Chap. 22.

(f209) This is the expression in his own speech. (Act. 22:10.) See Act. 9:6, and compare Act. 26:16.

(f210) See Mr. Porter’s Five Years in Damascus (1856). Recent excavations show that a magnificent street with a threefold colonnade extended from the Western gate to the Eastern (where a triple Roman archway remains). Mr. Porter observes that this arrangement of the street is a counterpart of those of Palmyra and Jerash. We may perhaps add Antioch. See below, p. 115.

(f211) See The Christian Year; Monday in Easter week.

(f212) See Lord Nugent’s remarks on the Jerusalem Bazaar, in his Sacred and Classical Lands, vol. 2, pp. 40, 41. Quaresmius says that the Straight Street at Damascus is the bazaar, which he describes as a street darkened and covered oyer, a mile long and as straight as an arrow. He adds that there the house of Judas is shown, a commodious dwelling, with traces of haying been once a church, and then a mosque. The place of Baptism, he says, is a fountain not far off, near the beginning of the street, where a handsome church has been turned into a mosque. He enters also very fully into the description of the traditionary house of Ananias, and gives a ground plan of it.

(f213) Compare, among the older travelers, Thevenot, parts 1. and ii.; Maundrell (1714), p. 36; Pococke, 2:119. Mr. Stanley says, in a letter to the writer, that there is no street low called Straight except by the Christians, and that the street so called by them does not contain the traditional house of Judas or of Ananias, which are both shown elsewhere. See below, p. 93, n. 8.

(f214) Tradition says that he was one of the seventy disciples, that he was afterwards Bishop of Damascus, and stoned after many tortures under Licinius (or Lucianus) the Governor.

(f215) Ananias, as Chrysostom says, was not one of the leading Apostles, because Paul was not to be taught of men. On the other hand, this very circumstance shows the importance attached by God to baptism. Olshausen, after remarking that Paul was made a member of the Church not by his Divine Call, but by simple baptism, adds that this baptism of Paul by Ananias did not imply any inferiority or dependence, more than in the case of our Lord and John the Baptist. Observe the strong expression in Act. 22:16.

(f216) It is difficult to see why the words "there fell from his eyes as it had been scales," should be considered merely descriptive by Olshausen and others. One of the arguments for taking them literally is the peculiar exactness of St Luke in speaking on such subjects. See a paper on the medical style of St. Luke in the Gentleman’s Magazine for June, 1841.

(f217) Act. 9:20. Where "Jesus" and not "Christ" is the true reading. Verse 22 would make this probable, if the authority of the MSS. were not decisive.

(f218) Strabo, in his description of Petra, says that his friend Athenodorus found great numbers of strangers there. In the same paragraph, after describing its cliffs and peculiar situation, he says that it was distant three or four days journey from Jericho. See above, p. 75, n. 8.

(f219) Gal. 1:1. This retirement into Arabia is itself an indication of his independent call. See Prof. Ellicott on Gal. 1:17.

(f220) Epiphanius, after telling the story, argues its impossibility from its contradiction to Philippians 3, and 2 Corinthians 11, Barnabas, though a Cyprian, was a Levite, and why not Paul a Jew, though a Tarsian? And are we to believe, he adds, what Ebion says of Paul, or what Peter says of him? (2 Peter 3.)

(f221) Lord Lyttelton’s Observations on the Conversion and Apostleship of St. Paul.

(f222) 1Ti. 1:13. See Luk. 12:48, 23:34; Act. 3:17; 1Co. 2:8. On the other hand, "unbelieving ignorance" is often mentioned in Scripture as an aggravation of sin: e. g . Eph. 4:18, 19; 2Th. 1:7, 8. A man is deeply wretched who sins through ignorance; and, as Augustine says, Paul in his unconverted state was like a sick man who through madness tries to kill his physician.

(f223) A. Monod’s "Cinq Discours" on St. Paul (Paris, 1852) were published shortly before the completion of the first edition of this work. We have much pleasure here in referring to the third of these eloquent and instructive sermons, on the character and results of St Paul’s conversion.

(f224) In Act. 9:23, the time is said to have been "many days." Dr. Paley has observed in a note on the Horce Paulinoe a similar instance in the Old Testament (1Ki. 2:38, 39), where "many days" is used to denote a space of "three years:" — "And Shimei dwelt at Jerusalem many days; and it came to pass, at the end of three years, that two of the servants of Shimei ran away."

(f225) Chrysostom.

(f226) See above, p. 76.

(f227) Some have supposed that this Ethnarch was merely an officer who regulated the affairs of the Jews themselves, such as we know to have existed under this title in cities with many Jewish residents (p. 100). See Joseph. Ant. 19:7, 2, and 8, 5; War, 2:6, 3. Anger imagines that he was an officer of Aretas accidentally residing in Damascus, who induced the Roman government to aid in the conspiracy of the Jews. Neither hypothesis seems very probable. Schrader suggests that the Ethnarch’s wife might, perhaps, be a Jewish proselyte, as we know was the case with a vast number of the women of Damascus.

(f228) Quaresmius leaves the place in doubt We conclude our notices of these traditional sites, by an extract from a letter received from the Rev. A. P. Stanley, shortly before the publication of his Sinai and Palestine. "The only spot now pointed out is a few hundred yards from the town walls, on the eastern side of the city, near the traditional scene of the Escape over the wall. It is only marked by a mass of cement in the ground, with a hollow underneath, which the Damascus guides represent as a hole in which after his escape the Apostle concealed himself — and this is the only tradition which in the popular mind attaches to the place. All knowledge or imagination of the Conversion or of its locality has entirely passed away. But the French monks in the Latin convent maintain (and no doubt truly) that this was the spot in earlier times believed to be the scene of that event, and that the remains of cement and masonry round about are the ruins of a Christian church or chapel built in memorial. It is, if I remember right, the fourth of the four places mentioned by Quaresmius. It is highly improbable that it can be the true place [of the Conversion], because there is no reason to believe that the road from Jerusalem should have fetched such a compass as to enter Damascus on the east, instead of (as at present) on the west or south." Mr. Porter (p. 43) says that it is only within the last century that the scene of the Conversion has been transferred, from interested motives, to the east from the west side of the city. His plan of Damascus now gives the means of seeing the traditionary localities very clearly.

(f229) 2Co. 11:33. So Rahab let down the spies; and so David escaped from Saul. St. Paul’s word is used in the LXX in both instances. The preposition "through" being used both in Acts and 1 Cor., it is possible that the most exact explanation is that suggested by Prof. Hackett. He observed at Damascus "windows in the external face of the wall, opening into houses on the inside of the city." (Comm. on Acts.) In the larger editions is a view of a portion of the wall of modern Damascus, supporting houses which project and face the open country.

(f230) 2Co. 11:30, 12:1-5. Both Schrader and Wieseler are of opinion that the vision mentioned here is that which he saw at Jerusalem on his return from Damascus (Act. 22:17; see below, p. 97), and which was naturally associated in his mind with the recollection of his escape.

(f231) Scripture Biography, by Archdeacon Evans, second series, p. 337.

(f232) The argument used in his ecstasy in the Temple (Act. 22:17-21), when it was revealed to him that those in Jerusalem would not receive his testimony.

(f233) "When Saul was come to Jerusalem… Barnabas took him and brought him to the Apostles… and he was with them coming in and going out at Jerusalem." (Act. 9:26-28.) "After three years I went up to Jerusalem to see Peter, and abode with him fifteen days. But other of the Apostles saw I none, save James the Lord’s brother." (Gal. 1:18, 19.)

(f234) See Act. 22:17-21. Though Schrader la sometimes laboriously unsuccessful in explaining the miraculous, yet we need not entirely disregard what he says concerning the oppression of spirit, under the sense of being mistrusted and opposed, with which Saul came to pray in the Temple. And we may compare the preparation for St. Peter’s vision, before the conversion of Cornelius.

(f235) Compare the similar expostulations of Ananias, Act. 9:13, and of Peter, Act. 10:14.

(f236) Olshausen is certainly mistaken in supposing that Caesarea Philippi is meant. Whenever "Caesarea" is spoken of absolutely, it always means Caesarea Stratonis. And even if it is assumed that Saul traveled by land through Syria to Tarsus, this would not have been the natural course. It is true enough that this Caesarea is nearer the Syrian frontier than the other; but the physical character of the country is such that the Apostle would naturally go by the other Caesarea, unless, indeed, he traveled by Damascus to Antioch, which is highly improbable.

(f237) This is well illustrated by the hopeless feeling of the Greek soldiers in the Anabasis, when Cyrus had drawn them into Cilicia; by various passages in the history of the Seleucids; by the arrangements of the Romans with Antiochus; by the division of provinces in the Later Empire; and by the course of the Mohammedan conquests.

(f238) Act. 15:23, 41. When we find the existence of Cilician Churches mentioned, the obvious inference is that St. Paul founded them during this period.

(f239) The passage in Strabo, referred to above, Ch. I. p. 21, is so important that we give a free translation of it here. "The men of this place are so zealous in the study of philosophy and the whole circle of education, that they surpass both Athens and Alexandria and every place that could be mentioned, where schools of philosophers are found. And the difference amounts to this. Here, those who are fond of learning are all natives, and strangers do not willingly reside here: and they themselves do not remain, but finish their education abroad, and gladly take up their residence elsewhere, and few return. Whereas, in the other cities which I have just mentioned, except Alexandria, the contrary takes place: for many come to them and live there willingly; but you will see few of the natives either going abroad for the sake of philosophy, or caring to study it at home. The Alexandrians have both characters; for they receive many strangers, and send out of their own people not a few."

(f240) About twenty years after this time (Act. 23:17, 23) he is called "a young man," the very word which is used of Saul himself (Act. 7:58) at the stoning of Stephen. It is justly remarked by Hemsen that the young man’s anxiety for his uncle (Act. 23:16-23) seems to imply a closer affection than that resulting from relationship alone.

(f241) See Gal. 1:21-24. The form of the Greek words seems to imply a continued preaching of the Gospel, the intelligence of which came now and then to Judaea. From what follows, however (" Then fourteen years afterwards "), St. Paul appears to describe in Gal. 1:23, 24, the effect produced by the tidings not only of his labors in Tarsus, but of his subsequent and more extensive labors as a missionary to the Heathen. It should be added, that Wieseler thinks he staid only half a year at Tarsus.

(f242) Three members of this dynasty come prominently before us in history. The first is mentioned in the annals of the Maccabees. The second was contemporary with the last of the Seleucids. Damascus was once in his power (Joseph. Ant. 13:13, 3; War, 1:6, 2), and it is his submission to the Roman Scaurus which is represented in the coin. The third is that of St. Paul.

As to the Aretas, who is mentioned in 2 Macc. v. 8, the words used there of the innovating high priest Jason are so curiously applicable to the case of St. Paul, that we cannot forbear quoting them. "In the end, therefore, he had an unhappy return, being accused before Aretas the king of the Arabians, fleeing from city to city, pursued of all men, hated as a forsaker of the laws, and being had in abomination as an open enemy of his country."

A few words concerning the meaning of the word Ethnarch may fitly conclude this note. It properly denoted the governor of a dependent district, like Simon the high priest under Syria (1 Macc. 14:47), or Herod’s son Archelaus under Rome (Joseph. Ant. 17:11, 4). But it was also used as the designation of a magistrate or consul allowed to Jewish residents living under their own laws in Alexandria and other cities. (See Strabo, as quoted by Josephus, Ant. 14:7, 2.) Some writers (and among them Mr. Lewin, Life and Epistles of St. Paul, vol. 1, p. 70) think that the word is used in that sense here. But such a magistrate would hardly have been called "the Ethnarch of Aretas," and (as Dean Al-ford observes on 2Co. 11:32) he would not have had the power of guarding the city.