The life and work of St. Paul

128 THE LIFE AND WOEK OF ST. PAUL.
durance at one whom they hated as a renegade, and whom they could uot even
enjoy the luxury of despising as a heretic, they made a secret plot to kill him. 1
The conspiracy was made known to Saul, and he was on his guard against it.
The Jews then took stronger and more open measures. They watched the
gates night and day to prevent the possibility of his escape. In this they
were assisted by the Ethnarch, who supplied them with the means of doing it.
This Ethnarch was either the Arab viceroy of Hareth, or the chief official of the
Jews themselves, 2 who well might possess this authority under a friendly prince.
There was thus an imminent danger that Saul would be cut off at the
very beginning of his career. But this was not to be. The disciples " took
Saul " 3 another of the expressions which would tend to show that he was
exceptionally in need of help and putting him in a large rope basket, 4
let him down through the window of a house which abutted on the wall. 6
It may be that they chose a favourable moment when the patrol had
passed, and had not yet turned round again. At any rate, the escape was
full of ignominy ; and it may have been this humiliation, or else the fact of
its being among the earliest perils which he had undergone, that fixed it
so indelibly on the memory of St. Paul. Nearly twenty years afterwards
he mentions it to the Corinthians with special emphasis, after agonies and
hair-breadth escapes which to us would have seemed far more formidable. 6
Here, then, closed in shame and danger the first page in tliis chequered
and sad career. How ho made his way to Jerusalem must bo left to con-
jecture. Doubtless, as he stole through the dark night alone above all,
as he passed the very spot where Christ had taken hold of him, and into
one moment of his life had been crowded a whole eternity his heart
would be full of thoughts too deep for words. It has been supposed, from
the expression of which he makes use in his speech to Agrippa, that
he may have preached in many synagogues on the days which were occu-
pied on his journey to Jerusalem. 7 But this seems inconsistent with his
own statement that he was " unknown by face to the churches of Judaea
which were in Chi-ist." 8
It is not, however, unlikely that he may some-
times have availed himself of the guest-chambers which were attached to
Jewish synagogues j and if such was the case, he might have taught the
first truths of the Gospel to the Jews without being thrown into close
contact with Christian communities.
1 These secret plots were fearfully rife in these days of the Sicarii (Jos. Antt. xi. 8, 5).
* 2 Cor. xi. 32, o cflpapxi? t^poupei rrji' TroAii/ ; Acts IX. 24, 01 'lovSaioi Trapenjpovi' ras TrvAas.
Ethnarch, as well as Alabarch, was a title of Jewish governors in heathen cities.
3 Acts ix. 25. The reading ol paJBrfrcu, ovroC, though well attested, can hardly be
correct.
4 On oTrvpis see my Life of Christ, i. 403, 480. In 2 Cor. xi. 33 it is called r/,
which is denned by Hesych. as wX^a TI o^ou/iow.
s Such windows are still to be seen at Damascus. For similar escapes, see Josh. ii. 15 ;
1 Sam. xix. 12.
6 2 Cor. xi. 32. St. Paul's conversion was about A.D. 37. The Second Epistle to the
Corinthians was written A.D. 57, or early in A.D. 58.
7 Acts xxvi 20.
8 Gal. i. 22.