Acts 9:1

IX: 1, 2. These is a sudden transition in our narrative at this point, and it assumes more the character of a biography. The writers of sacred history, in both Testaments, devote the greater part of their space to biographical sketches. The greater familiarity of the masses of the people with such portions of the Bible fully attests the wisdom of this course. This familiarity is the result of a deeper impression made upon the heart, and, consequently, upon the memory. We accept it, therefore, thankfully, that Luke, in his sketch of apostolic labors, was directed to record, somewhat connectedly, the labors of Paul, rather than detached sketches from the lives of all the apostles. What is lost to our curiosity in reference to the other apostles is far overbalanced by the more thrilling effect of a continuous personal narrative. This effect is all the more thrilling, from the selection of him, who, among all the apostles, was “in labors most abundant.”Cilicium, from the name of the province. The wisdom of his parents in teaching him this trade as a means of providing against the unfortunate contingencies of life, will be fully exemplified in the course of this narrative.

The child was being educated, under the eye of an overruling Providence, for a future unthought of by either himself or his parents. His residence in a city where the Greek language prevailed was not the least important circumstance bearing upon his education. Like the children of foreigners in our own country, though the ancestral tongue was the language of the fireside, on the streets and in all places of public resort he was compelled to employ the language of the adopted country. In this way he acquired that familiarity with the Greek, which enabled him, in after-life, to employ it with facility both in writing and speaking.

If the usual supposition concerning Saul's age is correct, it is not probable that he was in Jerusalem at the time of the crucifixion, or for several years previous. If he had been, it would be unaccountable that in all his epistles he makes no allusion to a personal knowledge of Jesus. The supposition that he was at that time still confined in the school of Gamaliel is not only inconsistent with his supposed age, which could not have been less than thirty at the time he is introduced to us, but it is insufficient to account for his ignorance of events over which the every children of Jerusalem rejoiced. The supposition that he left the school and returned to Tarsus previous to the immersion preached by John, and reappeared in Jerusalem after the ascension of Jesus, is most agreeable to all the known facts in the case. By an absence of a few years he had not forfeited his former reputation, but appears now as a leader in the movements against the Church. We have already, in commenting on Acts 6:9 Acts 6:9>, ventured the assumption, that among the Cilicians there mentioned as opponents of Stephen, Saul bore a leading part as a disputant. Such a position of his superior learning and piety would naturally assign him, and his prominence at the stoning of Stephen affords evidence in favor of this assumption. The law required that the witnesses upon whose testimony an idolater was condemned to death should throw the first stones, in the execution of the sentence. In accordance with this law, the witnesses against Stephen, preparatory to their cruel work, laid off their cumbrous outer-garments, at the feet of Saul, who “was consenting of his death.” After the death of Stephen, he still maintained the position of a leader, and continued to commit men and women to prison, until the Church was entirely dispersed. Many of those committed to prison met with the fate of Stephen. This fact is not stated by Luke, but is confessed by Paul in his speech before Agrippa. Many others were beaten in the synagogues, and compelled to blaspheme the name of Jesus as the condition of release from their tortures.

After the congregation in Jerusalem had been dispersed, Saul doubtless thought that the sect was effectually crushed. But soon the news came floating back from every quarter, that the scattered disciples were building up congregations in every direction. One less determined than Saul might have despaired of final success is destroying a cause which had thus far been promoted by every attack made upon it, and which even sprung up with increasing strength from apparent destruction. But his was a nature which gathered new resolution as obstacles multiplied before him; and thus he appears in the present text, which, after so long delay, we must now have before us. (1) “But Saul, yet breathing out threatening and slaughter against the disciples of the Lord, went to the high priest, (2) and requested from him letters to the synagogues in Damascus, that, if he found any of that way, whether men or women, he might bring them bound to Jerusalem.”

Why he selected Damascus as the scene of his first enterprise, rather than some of the cities of Judea, is acknowledged by Olshausen as “difficult to determine.” But when we remember the sensitiveness of patriots, in reference to the reputation of their country and its institutions in foreign lands, the difficulty disappears. The ancestral religion of the Jew was his pride and boast in every land. It was bitter enough to the proud Pharisee that it should be brought into disrepute among a portion of the population at home; but when the hated authors of this reproach began to spread it abroad in surrounding kingdoms, it was beyond endurance. When the news reached Jerusalem that this dishonoring heresy had begun to spread in the ancient and celebrated city of Damascus, where thousands of Jews then lived, and had obtained a religious influence over a large portion of the population, the exasperation of the Pharisees knew no bounds, and Saul, with characteristic ardor, started in pursuit of the fugitives. He had reason, of course, to believe, that, upon requisition of the high priest, the authorities of Damascus, which was then embraced within the dominions of the Arabian king Aretas, would deliver up the disciples as fugitives from justice. That he was correct in this is sufficiently demonstrated by the zeal with which the governor afterward lent the aid of his guards to the orthodox Jews, for the purpose of seizing Paul himself.