The life and work of St. Paul

THE CONVERSION OF SAUL. 101
times when that Jewish autonomy, which always meant Jewish intolerance,
was repressed witliiu stern limits by the Roman government it would have been
impossible to carry out so cruel a commission. This might have been urged
as an insuperable difficulty if an incidental expression in 2 Cor. xi. 32 had not
furnished a clue in explanation of the circumstances. From this it appears
that at this time the city was more or less in the hands of Aretas or Hareth,
the powerful Emir of Petra. 1 Now there are notices in the Talmud which
prove that Hareth stood in friendly relations to the Jewish High Priest, 2 and
we can see how many circumstances thus concurred to create for Saul an
exceptional opportunity to bring the Christians of Damascus under the
authority of the Sanhedrin. Never again might he find so favourable an
opportunity of eradicating the heresy of these hated Nazarenes.
CHAPTER X.
THE CONVEBSION OF SAUL.
. > . KaTf\r)9T]t' u^b rov Xpiirrov 'liytrou. PHIL. iii. 12.
" Opfert freudig aus was ihr besesscn
Was ihr einst gewesen, was ihr seyd ;
Und in einem seligen Vergessen
Schwinde die Vergangenlieit." SCHILLER.
AEMED with his credentials Saul started from Jerusalem for his journey of
nearly 150 miles. That journey would probably be performed exactly as it is
now performed with horses and mules, which are indispensable to the traveller
along those rough, bad roads, and up and down those steep and fatiguing
hills. Saul, it must be remembered, was travelling in a manner very different
from that of our Lord and his humble followers. They who, in preaching the
Gospel to the poor, assumed no higher earthly dignity than that of the
carpenter of Nazareth and the fishermen of Galilee, would go on foot with
staff and scrip from village to village, like the other " "
people of the land
whom long-robed Scribes despised. Saul was in a very different position,
and the little retinue which was assigned him would treat him with all the
deference due to a Pharisee and a Rabbi a legate a latere of Theophilus, the
powerful High Priest.
But, however performed, the journey could not occupy less than a week,
and even the fiery zeal of the persecutor would scarcely enable him to get rid
true predecessors of those Saints Catherine, and Barbara, and Lucia, and Agnes, and
Dorothea, and Caecilia, and Felicitas, who leave the light of their names on the annals
of Christian heroism.
1 See Excursus VIII. : "Damascus under Hareth."
8 A story is told that on one occasion the High Priest Simeon Ben Kamhith was in,
capacitated from performing the duties of the Day of Atonement, because, while
familiarly talking with Hareth on the previous evening, a drop of the Emir's saliva had
fallen on the High Priest's dress (cf. Ifiddah,, f. 33, 2.)