The life and work of St. Paul

THE CONVEE8ION OF SAUL. Ill
1
the earth, Saul saw a mortal shape and heard a human voice syaing to
"
Shaul, Shaul "
for it is remarkable how the vividness of that impression is
2
incidentally preserved in each form of the narrative " why persecutest thou
3 Me P It is hard for thee to kick against the goads." But at that awful moment
Saul did not recognise the speaker, whom on earth he had never seen.
" Who art Thou, Lord ? " he said. And He " I am Jesus of Nazareth whom
thou persecntest."
"
Jesus of Nazareth 1" Why did the glorified speaker here adopt the name
of His obscurity on earth P Why, as St. Chrysostom asks, did He "
not say, I
am the Son of God the ; Word that was in the beginning He that sitteth at
;
the right hand of the Father ; Ho who is in the form of God ; He who stretched
out the heaven ; Ho who made the earth ; He who levelled the sea ; He who
created the angels ; He who is everywhere and filleth all things ; He who was
pre-existent and was begotten P" Why did He not utter those awful titles, but
" I am Jesus of Nazareth whom thou perseeutest "
from the earthly city,
from the earthly home ? Because His persecutor know Him not ; for had he
known Him he would not have persecuted Him. He knew not that He had
been begotten of the Father, but that He was from Nazareth he knew. Had
He then said to him, " I am the Son of God, the Word that was in the begin-
ning, He who made the heaven," Saul might have said, " That is not He whom
I am persecuting." Had He uttered to him those vast, and bright, and lofty
titles, Saul might have said, " This is not the crucified." But that he may
know that he is persecuting Him who was made flesh, 4 who took the form of a
servant, who died, who was buried, naming Himself from the earthly place,
He says, " I am Jesus of Nazareth whom thou persecutest." This, then, was
the Messiah whom he had hated and despised this was He who had been the
Ho who to guide back his wandering foot-
Heavenly Shepherd of his soul ;
steps into the straight furrow had held in His hand that unseen goad against
which, like some stubborn ox, he had struggled and kicked in vain.
And when the Voice of that i speaker from out of the unapproachable
l i
This, though not in the Acts asserted in so many words in the direct narrative,
seems to be most obviously implied in the u^>6ijv but this I believe to be ft
t mistake,