Lives of the apostles of Jesus Christ

by David Francis Bacon

“But there are instances of flagellation in synagogues found in other accounts. Grotius himself quotes from Epiphanius, that a certain Jew who wished to revolt to Christianity, was whipped in the synagogue. The story is to the following purport. ‘A man, named Joseph, a messenger of the Jewish patriarch, went into Cilicia by order of the patriarch, to collect the tithes and first-fruits from the Jews of that province; and while on his tour of duty, lodged in a house near a Christian church. Having, by means of this, become acquainted with the pastor, he privately begs the loan of the book of the gospels, and reads it. But the Jews, getting wind of this, were so enraged against him, that on a sudden they made an assault on the house, and caught Joseph in the very act of reading the gospels. Snatching the book out of his hands, they knocked him down, and crying out against him with all sorts of abuse, they led him away to the synagogue, where they whipped him with rods.’

“Very much like this is the more modern story which Uriel Acosta tells of himself, in a little book, entitled ‘the Pattern of Human Life.’ The thing took place in Amsterdam, about the year 1630. It seems this Uriel Acosta was a Jew by birth, but being a sort of Epicurean philosopher, had some rather heretical notions about most of the articles of the Jewish creed; and on this charge, being called to account by the rulers of the synagogue, stood on his trial. In the end of it, a paper was read to him, in which it was specified that he must come into the synagogue, clothed in a mourning garment, holding a black wax-light in his hand, and should utter openly before the congregation a certain form of words prescribed by them, in which the offenses he had committed were magnified beyond measure. After this, that he should be flogged with a cowskin or strap, publicly, in the synagogue, and then should lay himself down flat on the threshhold of the synagogue, that all might walk over him. How thoroughly this sentence was executed, is best learned from his own amusing and candid story, which are given in the very words, as literally as they can be translated. ‘I entered the synagogue, which was full of men and women, (for they had crammed in together to see the show,) and when it was time, I mounted the wooden platform, which was placed in the midst of the synagogue for convenience in preaching, and with a loud voice read the writing drawn up by them, in which was a confession that I really deserved to die a thousand times for what I had done; namely, for my breaches of the sabbath, and for my abandonment of the faith, which I had broken so far as even by my words to hinder others from embracing Judaism, &c. After I had got through with the reading, I came down from the platform, and the right reverend ruler of the synagogue drew near to me, and whispered in my ear that I must turn aside to a certain corner of the synagogue. Accordingly, I went to the corner, and the porter told me to strip. I then stripped my body as low as my waist,——bound a handkerchief about my head,——took off my shoes, and raised my arms, holding fast with my hands to a sort of post. The porter of the synagogue, or sexton, then came up, and with a bandage tied up my hands to the post. When things had been thus arranged, the clerk drew near, and taking the cowskin, struck my sides with thirty-nine blows, according to the tradition; while in the mean time a psalm was chanted. After this was over, the preacher approached, and absolved me from excommunication; and thus was the gate of heaven opened to me, which before was shut against me with the strongest bars, keeping me entirely out. I next put on my clothes, went to the threshhold of the synagogue and laid myself down on it, while the porter held up my head. Then all who came down, stepped over me, boys as well as old men, lifting up one foot and stepping over the lower part of my legs. When the last had passed out, I got up, and being covered with dust by him who helped me, went home.’ This story, though rather tediously minute in its disgusting particulars, it was yet thought worth while to copy, because this comparatively modern scene seemed to give, to the life, the old fashion of ‘scourging in the synagogues.’”

HIS JOURNEY TO DAMASCUS.

Thus equipped with the high commission and letters of the supreme court of the Jewish nation, Saul, breathing out threatenings and slaughter against the disciples of the Lord, went on his way to Damascus, where the sanction of his superiors would have the force of despotic law, against the destined victims of his cruelty. The distance from Jerusalem to this great Syrian city, can not be less than 250 or 300 miles, and the journey must therefore have occupied as many as ten or twelve days, according to the usual rate of traveling in those countries. On this long journey therefore, Saul had much season for reflection. There were indeed several persons in his company, but probably they were only persons of an inferior order, and merely the attendants necessary for his safety and speed in traveling. Among these therefore, he would not be likely to find any person with whom he could maintain any sympathy which could enable them to hold much conversation together, and he must therefore have been left through most of the time to the solitary enjoyment of his own thoughts. In the midst of the peculiar fatigues of an eastern journey, he must have had many seasons of bodily exhaustion and consequent mental depression, when the fire of his unholy and exterminating zeal would grow languid, and the painful doubts which always come in at such dark seasons, to chill the hopes of every great mind,——no matter what may be the character of the enterprise,——must have had the occasional effect of exciting repentant feelings in him. Why had he left the high and sacred pursuits of a literary and religious life, in the refined capital of Judaism, to endure the fatigues of a long journey over rugged mountains and sandy deserts, through rivers and under a burning sun, to a distant city, in a strange land, among those who were perfect strangers to him? It was for the sole object of carrying misery and anguish among those whose only crime was the belief of a doctrine which he hated, because it warred against that solemn system of forms and traditions to which he so zealously clung, with all the energy that early and inbred prejudice could inspire. But in these seasons of weariness and depression, would now occasionally arise some chilling doubt about the certain rectitude of the stern course which he had been pursuing, in a heat that seldom allowed him time for reflection on its possible character and tendency. Might not that faith against which he was warring with such devotedness, be true?——that faith which, amid blood and dying agonies, the martyr Stephen had witnessed with his very last breath? At these times of doubt and despondency would perhaps arise the remembrance of that horrible scene, when he had set by, a calm spectator, drinking in with delight the agonies of the martyr, and learning from the ferocity of the murderers, new lessons of cruelty. to be put in practice against others who should thus adhere to the faith of Christ. No doubt too, an occasional shudder of gloom and remorse for such acts would creep over him in the chill of evening, or in the heats of noon-day, and darken all his schemes of active vengeance against the brethren. But still he journeyed northward, and each hour brought him nearer the scene of long-planned cruelty. On the last day of his wearisome journey, he at length drew near the city, just at noon; and from the terms in which his situation is described, it is not unreasonable to conclude that he was just coming in sight of Damascus, when the event happened which revolutionized his purposes, hopes, character, soul, and his whole existence through eternity,——an event connected with the salvation of millions that no man can yet number.

DAMASCUS.

Descending from the north-eastern slope of Hermon, over whose mighty range his last day’s journey had conducted him, Saul came along the course of the Abana, to the last hill which overlooks the distant city. Here Damascus bursts upon the traveler’s view, in the midst of a mighty plain, embosomed in gardens, and orchards, and groves, which, with the long-known and still bright streams of Abana and Pharphar, and the golden flood of the Chrysorrhoas, give the spot the name of “one of the four paradises.” So lovely and charming is the sight which this fair city has in all ages presented to the traveler’s view, that the Turks relate that their prophet, coming near Damascus, took his station on the mountain Salehiyeh, on the west of the hill-girt plain in which the city stands; and as he thence viewed the glorious and beautiful spot, encompassed with gardens for thirty miles, and thickly set with domes and steeples, over which the eye glances as far as it can reach,——considering the ravishing beauty of the place, he would not tempt his frailty by entering into it, but instantly turned away with this reflection: that there was but one paradise designed for man, and for his part, he was resolved not to take his, in this world. And though there is not the slightest foundation for such a story, because the prophet never came near to Damascus, nor had an opportunity of entering into it, yet the conspiring testimony of modern travelers justifies the fable, in the impression it conveys of the surpassing loveliness of the view from this very spot,——called the Arch of Victory, from an unfinished mass of stonework which here crowns the mountain’s top. This spot has been marked by a worthless tradition, as the scene of Saul’s conversion; and the locality is made barely probable, by the much better authority of the circumstance, that it accords with the sacred narrative, in being on the road from Jerusalem, and “nigh unto the city.”

“Damascus is a very ancient city, which the oldest records and traditions show by their accordant testimony to have been founded by Uz, the son of Aram, and grandson of Shem. It was the capital or mother city of that Syria which is distinguished by the name of Aram Dammesek or Damascene Syria, lying between Libanus and Anti-Libanus. The city stands at the base of Mount Hermon, from which descend the famous streams of Abana and Pharphar; the latter washing the walls of the city, while the former cuts it through the middle. It was a very populous, delightful, and wealthy place; but as in the course of its existence it had suffered a variety of fortune, so it had often changed masters. To pass over its earlier history, we will only observe, that before the Christian era, on the defeat of Tigranes, the Armenian monarch, it was yielded to the Romans, being taken by the armies of Pompey. In the time of Paul, as we are told in [♦]2 Corinthians xi. 32, it was held under the (temporary) sway of Aretas, a king of the Arabians, father-in-law of Herod the tetrarch. It had then a large Jewish population, as we may gather from the fact, that in the reign of Nero, 10,000 of that nation were slaughtered, unarmed, and in the public baths by the Damascenes, as Josephus records in his history of the Jewish War, II. Book, chapter 25. Among the Jews of Damascus, also, were a considerable number of Christians, and it was raging for the destruction of these, that Saul, furnished with the letters and commission of the Jewish high priest, now flew like a hawk upon the doves.” (Witsius, § 2, ¶ 1.)

[♦] “2” omitted in the original text.

The sacred narrative gives no particulars of the other circumstances connected with this remarkable event, in either of the three statements presented in different parts of the book of Acts. All that is commemorated, is that at mid-day, as Saul with his company drew near to Damascus, he saw a light exceeding the sun in brightness, which flashed upon them from heaven, and struck them all to the earth. And while they were all fallen to the ground, Saul alone heard a voice speaking to him in the Hebrew tongue, and saying, “Saul! Saul! Why persecutest thou me? It is hard for thee to kick against thorns.” To this, Saul asked in reply, “Who art thou, Lord?” The answer was, “I am Jesus the Nazarene, whom thou persecutest.” Saul, trembling and astonished, replied, “Lord, what wilt thou that I should do?” And the voice said, “Rise and stand upon thy feet, and go into the city; there thou shalt be told what to do, since for this purpose I have appeared to thee, to make use of thee as a minister and a witness, both of what thou hast seen and of what I will cause thee to see,——choosing thee out of the people, and of the heathen nations to whom I now SEND thee,——to open their eyes,——to turn them from darkness to light, and from the dominion of Satan unto God, that they may receive remission of sins, and an inheritance among them that are sanctified, by faith in me.”