The life and work of St. Paul

86 THE LIFE AND WOBK OF ST. PATH,.
yesterday should dare to move his tongue against that awful name, and
prophesy the abolition of institutions of which some had been delivered to their
fathers of old from the burning cragc of Sinai, and others had been handed
down from the lips of the mighty teacher through the long series of priests
and prophets, was to them something worse than folly and presumption it
was a blasphemy and a crime !
And how did he dare to speak one word against, or hint one doubt as to the
permanent glory of, the Temple ? The glowing descriptions of the Talmud
respecting its colossal size and royal splendour are but echoes of the intense
love which breathes throughout the Psalms. In the heart of Saul any word
which might sound like a slight to " the place where God's honour dwelt "
would excite a peculiar indignation. When the conflagration seized its roofs
of cedar-wood and melted its golden tables, every Jew in the city was fired
with a rage which made him fight with superhuman strength
Through their torn veins reviving fury ran,
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And life's last anger warmed the dying man."
Among those frenzied combatants was a body of Tarsian youths who gladly
devoted their lives to the rescue of Jerusalem. "What they felt at that
supreme moment may show us what such a zealot as Saul of Tarsus would feel,
when ho heard one who called himself a Jew use language which sounded like
disparagement of " the glory of the whole earth."
Foiled in argument, the Hellenists of the synagogues adopted the usual
resource of defeated controversialists who have the upper hand. They appealed
to violence for the suppression of reason. They first stirred up the people
whose inflammable ignorance made them the ready tools of any agitator and
through them aroused the attention of the Jewish authorities. Their plot was
soon ripe. There was no need of the midnight secrecy which had marked the
arrest of Jesus. There was no need to secure the services of the Captain of the
Temple to arrest Stephen at twilight, as he had arrested Peter and John.
There was no need even to suppress all semblance of violence, lest the people
should stone them for their unauthorised interference. The circumstances of
the day enabled them to assume unwonted boldness, because they were at the
moment enjoying a sort of interregnum from Roman authority. The approval
of the multitude had been alienated by the first rumour of defective patriotism.
When every rank of Jewish society had been stirred to fury by false witnesses
whom these Hellenists had suborned, they seized a favourable moment, sud-
denly came upon Stephen, 1 either while he was teaching in a synagogue, or
while he was transacting the duties of an almoner, and led him away
apparently without a moment's pause into the presence of the assembled
Sanhedrin. Everything was ready ; everything seemed to point to a foregone
conclusion. The false witnesses were at hand, and confronted their victim
with the charge of incessant harangues against "this Holy Place" the
expression seems to show that the Sanhedrin were for this timo sitting in their
1 Ada vi, 12, fcr;#Tsvrc ; cf. rrii 6.