Acts 9:17

Acts 9:17. And Ananias went his way. The hesitation, the doubts and fears of Ananias, the Jewish Christian, and his subsequent visit and complete acceptance of the persecutor Saul as a brother saint chosen by the Master for a great and mighty work, are well illustrated by an interesting and beautiful passage in that ancient apocryphal book, the Testament of the Twelve Patriarchs, written most probably very early in the second century between A. D. 100 and A.D. 130 by a Christian Jew, a believer in Jesus, but still zealous for the law of Moses and the traditions of Israel. In the mouth of the dying patriarch Benjamin, the writer puts the following prophecy, which gives a fair idea of the estimation in which the work and labours of Paul were held by the orthodox school of rigid Jewish Christians: ‘I shall no longer be called a ravening wolf on account of your ravages [referring to Genesis 49:27], but a worker of the Lord, distributing goods to those who work that which is good. And there shall arise from my seed in after times one beloved of the Lord, hearing His voice, enlightening with new knowledge all the Gentiles... and till the consummation of the ages, shall he be in the congregations of the Gentiles, and among their princes, as a strain of music in the mouth of all. And he shall be inscribed in the Holy Books, both his work and his word, and he shall be chosen of God for ever.' A very different view of the work of the great Gentile Apostle Paul was taken, as we shall see, very early in the Church's history by another Jewish Christian school, which, however, goon parted company with the orthodox Church.

Brother Saul. The words of the Master in the vision had done their work with Ananias. He at once proceeded to the house indicated to him in the vision, and going up to the dreaded inquisitor, now blind and humbled, greeted him with love and tenderness as one of the brotherhood of Jesus, and told him he was charged by the One who appeared to him in the way to Damascus to restore his sight, and to bestow upon him the gift of the Holy Ghost.

That appeared unto thee in the way as thou camest. Here Ananias directly refers to the appearance of the glorified Jesus to Saul ‘in the way.' These and similar declarations are important (see note on Acts 9:3), as in later days Paul, in speaking of the evidences, seems to have attached the deepest importance to the fact that he had seen the Lord (see 1 Corinthians 9:1; 1 Corinthians 15:8).