CHAPTER IV. Life of St. Paul, according to the Acts of the Apostles
I have thus far shewn that nothing was more destitute of proof than the authenticity of the books which contain the life and writings of St. Paul. I have shewn that the Acts of the Apostles, and the Epistles of St. Paul, were rejected by some Christian sects which subsisted from the earliest times of the church. It must have been seen that the opinion of the authenticity of these books was founded solely on traditions, to which it is very difficult to give credit, considering the characters of those by whom these traditions have been transmitted, it is however upon such suspicious guarantees, that the authority of these works has been pretended to be established; it will then be necessary to admit them at once and without examination, or else recur to reason in order to examine for ourselves, what we ought to think concerning them.
To form our ideas of St. Paul, let us then consult only these works, however suspected their origin may appear to us, which contain the detail of his life; there are no others to which we can have recourse.
The author of the Acts of the Apostles, whoever he be, relates the miraculous conversion of Saul, afterwards called Paul, in the ninth chapter. We find him already named in the two preceding chapters, first as approving of the death of St. Stephen, the first martyr for the Christian religion, and next as persecuting and desolating the church. Not contented with tormenting the Christians of Jerusalem, he furnished himself with letters from the High Priest which authorised him to seize those whom he might find at Damascus; but, while on the road a miracle caused him to change all his projects; he is suddenly surrounded by a divine light, without seeing any one, he hears the voice of Jesus of Nazareth, who demands of him the motives of his persecutions. Saul trembling enquired what conduct he ought to pursue. Jesus tells him, that at Damascus he would be informed of his intentions. Our persecutor on this occasion is struck blind, but his heart is converted, and sight is miraculously restored to him by a Christian of Damascus named Ananias, who had been, by a particular revelation informed of his hostile designs against the church, and of the great designs of God, who, of this persecutor, would form a vessel of election, that is to say the Apostle of the Gentiles.
Soon after this conversion and cure, Saul is baptized and commences preaching Christ in the synagogues, confounding the Jews to such a degree that they came to the resolution to take away his life. But the new missionary deceived their vigilance by saving himself during the night by means of a basket, in which he was lowered, and made his escape from Damascus. He returned to Jerusalem where the disciples of Jesus were thrown into consternation at his appearance; but Barnabas presented him to the Apostles, informed them of his conversion, and enrolled him to their college. In consequence he preached the Gospel; this conduct soon raised troubles and persecutions against him on the part of the Jews, who again formed the design of putting him to death. But he found means of escaping from their fury by the assistance of some disciples who conducted him to Cesarea, whence they afterward sent him to Tarsus. Barnabas came and joined Saul in the latter city, whence he led him to Antioch. Here Saul and Barnabas remained during a year, they there made a great number of converts; it was there that the proselytes first took the name of Christians. To warm the zeal of the new converts, they sent for prophets from Jerusalem, one of these named Agabus predicted a great famine, which determined the disciples of Antioch to distribute alms to their brethren of Judea; Saul and Barnabas were the bearers of these marks of generosity, and the Apostles, whom the first faithful made the depositaries of their riches, knew, without doubt, the price of the acquisition that the sect had made in the person of the new missionary*.
* Acts of Apostles, chap. 12.
CHAPTER V. St. Paul styles himself the Apostle of the Gentiles—Causes of his Success.
All proves to us that Paul and his associate Barnabas found it much easier to convert the Gentiles than the Jews, who showed themselves almost always rebels to their lessons. The docility of the first, and indocility of the latter may be traced to very natural causes; the idolators were destitute of instruction, their priests, content with exacting from them their offerings and sacrifices, never thought of instructing them in their religion; thus our missionaries encountered few obstacles in persuading them of the truth of the novelties which they came to announce to them. It was not thus with the Jews, who had a law, to which they were very strongly attached, since they were convinced that it had been dictated by God himself. In consequence our preach-. ers could not make themselves listened to, but, in proportion, as the doctrine they preached agreed with the notions with which the Jews were previously imbued. The Apostles were therefore compelled to reason with the Jews, according to their own system, to shew them that the Christ whom they announced was the Messiah which they expected from their own prophets; in a word, in preaching the Gospel to the Jews, the preachers were driven into embarrassing discussions, and perpetually exposed to cavils and contradictions which they had no fear of on the part of the Gentiles, who received without disputing the novelties which they broached to them, and which besides agreed well enough with the notions of the pagan mythology, as we have shewn in another work.
On the other side also, the idolators had not the exclusive ideas of religion peculiar to the Jews; they were tolerant, they admitted every species of worship, and were disposed to pay homage to every God that was proposed to them. The Hebrews were not of this disposition, they believed themselves alone in the possession of the knowledge of the true God, and rejected with horror strange Gods and worships.
These reflections are sufficient to explain to us the reason of the great success that the Apostles had in preaching to the Gentiles, compared with their endeavours amongst the Jews; they likewise show us especially the true motives of Paul's conduct. In fact, repulsed by the cavils and opposition of the Jews, we see Paul and Barnabas turn themselves to the side of the Pagans, who listened to them with more attention and declared to the Jews, that God had forsaken them*.
* Acts of Apostles, chap. xiii. ver. 45, &c,
The Gentiles were apparently flattered by the preference; numbers of them adopted the religion announced to them, which did not hinder the Jews from exciting, against our missionaries, the zeal of the female devotees whose clamour obliged them to quit Antioch.
From thence our two associates, after having shook the dust of their feet against their opposers, repaired to Iconium, where they again met with opposition on the part of the Jews who even irritated the Gentiles against them, which compelled them to fly to Lystra in Lycaonia. There according to the Acts of the Apostles, Paul thought it necessary to perform a miracle, well knowing that nothing is more efficacious than a prodigy in making an impression on the minds of the vulgar.
He then cured a lame man. This miracle convinced the idolators, who took Paul and his comrade for Gods, and under this idea would have offered them sacrifices. However this wonder did not produce the same effect upon the Jews; these apparently regarded it as a deception, or some trick of which they were not the dupes. In fact we see that the Jews, who nevertheless yielded to no people in credulity, so far from being moved by Paul's miracle, that they stoned him as a malefactor and left him for dead. From this unlucky affair he however extricated himself and returned to Antioch, whence he set out in order to give an account of the success of his mission, from which it appears that he had no reason for self congratulation, since, if he made a number of recruits for Jesus, he had succeeded at the expence of much personal ill usage.
Nevertheless the Nazarenes, or Ebionites, i. e. the first of the Jews, who had embraced the doctrine of the Apostles, were persuaded that the religion of Christ was merely a reformed Judaism. Always attached to the practices of the Mosaic law, they believed themselves called upon to evince their zeal in its favour; in consequence of which they pretended that the Gentiles, converted by the Apostles, ought, like themselves, to submit to the rite of circumcision. But Paul and Barnabas strongly opposed this opinion*; they were well aware that so painful an operation, especially after a certain age, would be very likely to dishearten the heathen whom they had drawn to their sect. But as the affair appeared very important they referred the decision to the Apostles who remained at Jerusalem. In consequence Paul and Barnabas, and also the partisans of circumcision, repaired, thither, each with the view of maintaining their own opinion. The question was argued, and our two missionaries convinced the Apostolic College of the necessity of freeing the Gentiles from a rite at which they revolted. Thus, according to the author of the Acts of the Apostles, (who appears to have been devoted to St. Paul's party) it was decided, that the newly converted Gentiles should be exempted from a ceremony which, until now, had been regarded as highly essential, since it had been ordained by the Divinity himself.
* See Acts of Apostles, chap. xv. ver. 5; see also in the
second chapter, of this work what is said of the Nazarenes.
There is reason to believe that the old Apostles did not subscribe without great reluctance to a decision which seemed to annul one of the capital points of the Mosaic law, and had the appearance of rectifying the ordinances, of the Most High. Jesus himself in his infancy underwent the ceremony of circumcision; during his life he practised the customs prescribed to his nation; he formerly declared that he was come, not to destroy, but to accomplish the law of the Jews; and nevertheless we see St. Paul and his adherents, of their own authority, annul at one blow a ceremony of divine institution, approved of and observed by their master and that for political and worldly considerations, which saints ought never to regard.
However this may be, by this decision, which Paul extorted from the Apostles, it seemed from that time to give the signal of the schism, which in the end totally separated the Jews from the Christians. Nevertheless we shall soon see Paul, who on this occasion took in hand the cause of the Gentiles, prepare (resuming the old errors) and circumcise a disciple himself. So true it is, that the greatest saints are not always consistent in their opinions, nor uniform in their conduct.
The Apostles having shewn so much indulgence in the article of the circumcision of the Gentiles, were, however desirous of giving a kind of satisfaction to the partisans of Judaism; with this view they prohibited the new converts from worshipping idols, from giving themselves up to fornication; and ordered them to abstain from things strangled and from the blood of animals. By these means they sought to conciliate every one; the Gentiles were not circumcised, and submitted themselves, in part, to the ordinances of the Jews, who thus saw a deference always paid to the law of their fathers, to which they were ever strongly attached *.
* See Acts of Apostles, chap. xv. All seems to prove that
the Apostles soon repented of the weakness they had been
guilty of in ceding to St. Paul, for we find he formed a
separate party, who preached the Gospel in his own manner,
that is to say, the Gospel of the uncircumcision.
Furnished with this decision of the council of Jerusalem, in which the Apostles declare themselves authorised by the Holy Spirit, Paul and Barnabas returned to Antioch, whence they were desirous of visiting the towns where they had already preached; but a contest respecting the choice of an associate of their labours, made a breach between our two missionaries and caused a separation between them. Barnabas accompanied by Mark embarked for the Isle of Cyprus, whilst Paul with Silas, his new companion, traversed Syria and Cilicia to confirm in the faith those who had been recently converted *.
* It ought here to be remarked, that there exists yet a
Gospel of the Nazarenes, the honour of which has been
decreed to St. Barnabas, and in which Paul is roughly
handled. In fact this Apostle preached, as we have shewn,
besides uncircumcision, a doctrine very different from that
of the Nazarenes, Ebionites, or first Christians, who,
according to St. Irenæus, St. Epiphanius, and Eusebius,
regarded Jesus merely as a man, the son of Joseph and Mary,
and who was called the Son of God, only on account of his
virtues. This may enable us to guess at the cause of Paul's
quarrel with Barnabas, whose Gospel insinuates that Paul was
in error in teaching that Jesus was God.