The life and work of St. Paul

THE SCHOOL OF THE RABBI.
merely enfeebled and conventionalised if he bad gone tnrough any prolonged
course of tbe only training wbich tbe Sophists of Tarsus could have given
him. 1
CHAPTER in.
THE SCHOOL OP THE EABBI.
'H/covaare yelp TT\V ^UTJP waarpo(pi)v irore tv 'louSai'a'/uip, #TI ... vpotKOVTOV
iv T(JJ 'lovticiiff/Ay virep iroAAotis ffvi'rj\iKid>Tas ev Tq> yevn pav. GAL. i. 13, 14.
" Let thy house he a place of resort for the wise, and cover thyself with the
dust of their feet, and drink their words with thirstincss." fir fit AbhSth, i. 4.
"The world was created for the sake of the Thorah." Nedarim, 32, 1.
"Whoever ia husied in the law for its own sake is worth the whole world."
PEREK R. MEIR, 1.
So far, then, we have attempted to trace in detail, by the aid of St. Paul's
own writings, the degree and the character of those influences which were
exercised upon bio mind by the early years which he spent at Tarsus, modified
or deepened as they must have been by long intercourse with heathens, and
with converts from heathendom, in later years. And already we have seen
abundant reason to believe that the impressions which he received from
Hellenism wore comparatively superficial and fugitive, while those of his
Hebraic training and nationality worked deep among the very bases of his
life. It is this Hebraic side of his character, so important to any understanding
of his life and writings, that we must now endeavour to trace and
estimate.
That St. Paul was a Roman citizen, that he could go through the world
and say in his own defence, when needful or possible, Oivis Romanus sum, is
stated so distinctly, and under circumstances so manifestly probable, that the
fact stands above all doubt. There are, indeed, some difficulties about it
which induce many German theologians quietly to deny its truth, and attribute
the statement to a desire on the part of the author of the Acts " to
recommend St. Paul to the Romans as a native Roman," or " to remove the
reproach that the originators of Christendom had been enemies of the Roman
State." It is true that, if St. Paul was a free-born Roman citizen, his legal
rights as established by the Lex Porcia 2 must, according to his own statement,
have been eight times violated at the time when he wrote the Second
1 See Excursus I.,
"
The Style of St. Paul "
; Excursus
"
II., Rhetoric of St. Paul
"
;
and Eicursiis III., "The Classic Quotations and Allusions of St. Paul." I may sum up
the conclusion of these essays by stating that St. Paul had but a slight acquaintance
with Greek literature, but that he had very probably attended some elementary classes
in Tarsus, in which he had gained a tincture of Greek rhetoric, and possibly even of
Stoic principles.
2 Porcia lex virgaa ab omnium oivium Komanorum corpora amovet " (do. n, *b,
Sj Liv. x, 9),