On his escape from this murderous plot, Saul, having now received from God, who called him by his grace, the revelation of his Son, that he might preach him among the heathen, immediately resolved not to confer with any mortal, on the subject of his task, and therefore refrained from going up to Jerusalem, to visit those who were apostles before him. Turning his course southeastward, he found refuge from the rage of the Damascan Jews, in the solitudes of the eastern deserts, where, free alike from the persecutions and the corruptions of the city, he sought in meditation and lonely study, that diligent preparation which was necessary for the high ministry to which God had so remarkably called him. A long time was spent by him in this wise and profitable seclusion; but the exact period cannot be ascertained. It is only probable that more than a year was thus occupied; during which he was not a mere hermit, indeed, but at any rate, was a resident in a region destitute of most objects which would be apt to draw off his attention from study. That part of Arabia in which he took refuge, was not a mere desert, nor a wilderness, yet had very few towns, and those only of a small size, with hardly any inhabitants of such a character as to be attractive companions to Saul. After some time, changes having taken place in the government of Damascus, he was enabled to return thither with safety, the Jews being now checked in their persecuting cruelty by the re-establishment of the Roman dominion over that part of Syria. He did not remain there long; but having again displayed himself as a bold assertor of the faith of Jesus, he next set his face towards Jerusalem, on his return, to make known in the halls of those who had sent him forth to deeds of blood, that their commission had been reversed by the Father of all spirits, who had now not only summoned, but fully equipped, their destined minister of wrath, to be “a chosen instrument of mercy” to nations who had never yet heard of Israel’s God.
The different accounts given of these events, in Acts ix. 19–25, and in Galatians i. 15–24, as well as 2 Corinthians xi. 32–33, have been united in very opposite ways by different commentators, and form the most perplexing passages in the life of Saul. The journey into Arabia, of which he speaks in Galatians i. 17, is supposed by most writers, to have been made during the time when Luke mentions him as occupied in and about Damascus; and it is said that he went thence into Arabia immediately after his conversion, before he had preached anywhere; and such writers maintain that the word “straightway,” or “immediately,” in Acts ix. 20, (ευθεως,) really means, that it was not until a long time after his conversion that he preached in the synagogues!! Into this remarkable opinion they have been led by the fact, that Saul himself says, (Galatians i. 16,) that when he was called by God to the apostleship, “immediately he conferred not with flesh and blood, nor went up to Jerusalem, but went into Arabia.” All this however, is evidently specified by him only in reference to the point that he did not derive his title to the apostleship from “those that were apostles before him,” nor from any human authority; and full justice is therefore done to his words, by applying them only to the fact, that he went to Arabia before he went to Jerusalem, without supposing them to mean that he left Damascus immediately after his baptism by Ananias. All the historical writers however, seem to take this latter view. Witsius, Cappel, Pearson, Lardner, Murdock, Hemsen, &c. place his journey to Arabia between his baptism and the time of his escape, and suppose that when he fled from Damascus, he went directly to Jerusalem. In the different arrangement which I make of these events, however, I find myself supported by most of the great exegetical writers, as Wolf, Kuinoel, and Bloomfield; and I can not better support this view than in the words of the latter.
Acts ix. 19. “ἐγένετο δὲ ὁ Σαῦλος. Paul (Galatians [♦]i. 17,) relates that he, after his conversion, did not proceed to Jerusalem, but repaired to Arabia, and from thence returned to Damascus. Hence, according to the opinion of Pearson, in his Annales Paulini, p. 2. the words ἐγένετο δὲ ὁ Σαῦλος are to be separated from the preceding passage, and constitute a new story, in which is related what happened at Damascus after Saul’s return from Arabia. But the words ἱκαναὶ ἡμέραι may and ought to be referred to the whole time of Paul’s abode at Damascus, before he went into Arabia; and thus with the ἱκαναὶ ἡμέραι be numbered the ἡμέραι τινὲς mentioned at verse 19: for the sense of the words is this: ‘Saul, when he spent some days with the Damascene Christians, immediately taught in the synagogues. Now Luke entirely passes by Paul’s journey into Arabia. (Kuinoel.) Doddridge imagines that his going into Arabia, (to which, as he observes, Damascus now belonged,) was only making excursions from that city into the neighboring parts of the country, and perhaps taking a large circuit about it, which might be his employment between the time in which he began to preach in Damascus, and his quitting it after having been conquered by the Romans under Pompey.’ But in view of this subject I cannot agree with him. The country in the neighborhood of Damascus is not properly Arabia.”
[♦] “1, 17” replaced with “i. 17”
22–24. “ὡς δὲ ἐπληροῦντο——ἀνελεῖν αὐτόν. In 2 Corinthians xi. 32, we read that the Ethnarch of Aretas, king of Arabia, had placed a guard at the gates of Damascus, to seize Paul. Now it appears that Syria Damascene was, at the end of the Mithridatic war, reduced by Pompey to the Roman yoke. It has therefore been inquired how it could happen that Aretas should then have the government, and appoint an Ethnarch. That Aretas had, on account of the repudiation of his daughter by Herod Antipas, commenced hostilities against that monarch, and in the last year of Tiberius (A. D. 37,) had completely defeated his army, we learn from Josephus Antiquities, 18, 5, 1. seqq. Herod had, we find, signified this by letter to Tiberius, who, indignant at this audacity, (Josephus L. c.) gave orders to Vitellius, prefect of Syria, to declare war against Aretas, and take him alive, or send him his head. Vitellius made preparations for the war, but on receiving a message acquainting him with the death of Tiberius, he dismissed his troops into winter quarters. And thus Aretas was delivered from the danger. At the time, however, that Vitellius drew off his forces, Aretas invaded Syria, seized Damascus, and continued to occupy it, in spite of Tiberius’s stupid successor, Caligula. This is the opinion of most commentators, and among others, Wolf, Michaelis, and Eichhorn. But I have already shewn in the Prolegomena § de chronologia lib. 2, 3, that Aretas did not finally subdue Damascus until Vitellius had already departed from the province.” (Kuinoel.) (Bloomfield’s Annotations, Vol. IV. pp. 322–324.)
HIS RETURN TO JERUSALEM.
Arriving in the city, whence only three years before he had set out, in a frame of mind so different from that in which he returned, and with a purpose so opposite to his present views and plans,——he immediately, with all the confidence of Christian faith, and ardent love for those to whom his religious sympathies now so closely fastened him, assayed to mingle in a familiar and friendly manner with the apostolic company, and offered himself to their Christian fellowship as a devout believer in Jesus. But they, already having too well known him in his previous character as the persecutor of their brethren, the aider and abettor in the murder of the heroic and innocent Stephen, and the greatest enemy of the faithful,——very decidedly repulsed his advances, as only a new trick to involve them in difficulties, that would make them liable to punishment which their prudence had before enabled them to escape. They therefore altogether refused to receive Saul; for “they were all afraid of him, and believed not that he was a disciple.” In this disagreeable condition,——cast out as a hypocrite, by the apostles of that faith, for which he had sacrificed all earthly prospects,——he was fortunately found by Barnabas, who being, like Saul, a Hellenist Jew, naturally felt some especial sympathy with one whose country was within a few miles of his own; and by this circumstance, being induced to notice the professed convert, soon recognized in him, the indubitable signs of a regenerated and sanctified spirit, and therefore brought him to the chief apostles, Peter, and James, the Lord’s brother; for with these alone did Saul commune, at this visit, as he himself distinctly testifies. Still avoiding the company of the great mass of the apostles and disciples, he confined himself almost wholly to the acquaintance of Peter, with whom he abode in close familiarity for fifteen days. In order to reconcile the narrative of Luke in the Acts, with the account given by Saul himself, in the first chapter of the epistle to the Galatians, it must be understood that the “apostles” spoken of by the former are only the two above-mentioned, and it was with these only that he “went in and out at Jerusalem,”——the other apostles being probably absent on some missionary duties among the new churches throughout Judea and Palestine. Imitating the spirit of the proto-martyr, whose death he had himself been instrumental in effecting, “he spoke boldly in the name of the Lord Jesus, and disputed against the Hellenists,” doubtless the very same persons among whom he himself had formerly been enrolled as an unshrinking opposer of that faith which he was now advocating. By them he was received with all that vindictive hate which might have been expected; and he was at once denounced as a vile renegade from the cause which in his best days he had maintained as the only right one. To show most satisfactorily that, though he might change, they had not done so, they directly resolved to punish the bold disowner of the faith of his fathers, and would soon have crowned him with the fate of Stephen, had not the disciples heard of the danger which threatened the life of their new brother, and provided for his escape by means not less efficient than those before used in his behalf, at Damascus. Before the plans for his destruction could be completed, they privately withdrew him from Jerusalem, and had him safely conducted down to Caesarea, on the coast, whence, with little delay, he was shipped for some of the northern parts of Syria, from which he found his way to Tarsus,——whether by land or sea, is unknown.
HIS VISIT TO TARSUS.
This return to his native city was probably the first visit which he had made to it, since the day when he departed from his father’s house, to go to Jerusalem as a student of Jewish theology. It must therefore have been the occasion of many interesting reflections and reminiscences. What changes had the events of that interval wrought in him,——in his faith, his hopes, his views, his purposes for life and for death! The objects which were then to him as idols,——the aims and ends of his being,——had now no place in his reverence or his affection; but in their stead was now placed a name and a theme, of which he could hardly have heard before he first left Tarsus,——and a cause whose triumph would be the overthrow of all those traditions of the Fathers, of which he had been taught to be so exceeding zealous. To this new cause he now devoted himself, and probably at this time labored “in the regions of Cilicia,” until a new apostolic summons called him to a distant field. He was yet “personally unknown to the churches of Judea, which were in Christ; and they had only heard, that he who persecuted them in times past, now preached the faith which once he destroyed; they therefore glorified God on his account.” The very beginnings of his apostolic duties were therefore in a foreign field, and not within the original premises of the lost sheep of the house of Israel, where indeed he was not even known but by fame, except to a few in Jerusalem. In this he showed the great scope and direction of his future labors,——among the Gentiles, not among the Jews; leaving the latter to the sole care of the original apostles, while he turned to a vast field for which they were in no way fitted, by nature, or by apostolic education, nor were destined in the great scheme of salvation.
HIS APOSTOLIC LABORS IN ANTIOCH.