The life and work of St. Paul

CHE CONVERSION OF SAUL, 1Q5
their own law of nature P Did he see it in the Jewish world ? alas, what a
depth of disappointment was involved in the very question! Was Hanan,
was Caiaphas, was Theophilus, was Ishmael Ben Phabi a specimen of the
righteousness of the Law ? And if, as was too true, Israel had not attained
if he himself had not attained to the law of righteousness, what hope was
there? 1
Oh, the blessedness of him whoso unrighteousness was forgiven,
whoso sin was covered ! Oh, the blessedness of him to whom the Lord
would not impute sin ! Oh, to have the infinite God who seemed so far away
brought near, and to see His face not darkened by the cloud, not glaring
through the pillar of fire, but as a man seeth the face of his friend ! Oh,
that a Man were a hiding-place from the wind, and a covert from the tempest,
as the shadow of a great rock in a weary land ! a
And so, again and again, he would realise with a sense of remorse that he
was yearning for, that he was gliding into, the very doctrines which he was
persecuting to the death. For to those Nazarenes their Son of Man was indeed
the image of the Invisible God. Could he be right in thus striving to stamp
out a faith so pure, so ennobling ? For whether it was heresy or not, that it
was pure and ennobling he could not fail to acknowledge. That face of Stephen
which he had seen bathed as with a light from heaven until it had been dimmed
in blood, must have haunted him then, as we know it did for long years after-
wards. Would the Mosaic law have inspired so heavenly an enthusiasm ?
would it have breathed into the sufferers so infinite a serenity, so bright a
hope ? And where in all the Holy Pentateuch could he find utterances so
tender, lessons so divine, love so unspeakable, motives which so mastered and
entranced the soul, as these had found in the words and in the love of their
Lord ? Those beatitudes which he had heard them speak of, the deeds of
healing tenderness which so many attested, the parables so full of divine illumination
the moral and spiritual truths of a Teacher who, though His nation
had crucified Him, had spoken as never man spake oh, Who was this who
had inspired simple fishermen and ignorant publicans with a wisdom unattainable
by a Hillel or a Gamaliel ? Who was this to whom His followers turned
who seemed to breathe
their last gaze and uttered their last prayer in death ;
upon them from the parted heavens a glory as of the Shechinah, a peace that
passed all understanding ? Who was this who, as they deckred, had risen
from the dead; whose body certainly had vanished from the rock-hewn sepulchre
in which it had been laid whom ; these good Galilseans these men who would
rather die than lie witnessed that they had seen, that they had heard, that He
had appeared to them in the garden, in the upper chamber, on the public road,
to four of them upon the misty lake, to more than five hundred of them at once
upon the Galilaean hill ? Could that have been a right path which led him to
because he feared
1 Rom. Ix. 31. When Rabbi Eleazar was sick, and Akibha rejoiced
that Eleazar had
"
been receiving his good things in this life, Akibha," exclaimed the
sufferer, " "
is there anything in the whole Law which I have failed to fulfil? "Rabbi,"
replied Akibha, "thou hast taught me 'There is not a just man upon earth that doeth
good, and sinneth not.'" Eccles. vii 20. (Sanhedr. f. 101, 1.)
3
Isa. xxxii. 2.
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