His theology, from his natural temperament and the circumstances of his conversion, took an austere cast, which made the relation between man and the Creator that of guardian and ward. God himself, in the mind of Paul, is almost hideous. Some are given over to damnation before they are born; while others are destined to be saved before they have had a chance to sin.
It is difficult to tell whether the religious faith of Paul was fully fixed and determined before he left his retreat in Arabia and returned to Damascus, or whether it was the growth of after experience and reflection. At some period of his life, and early too, he had settled in his mind the true relation which Christ bore to humanity. He had the best of reasons for his belief on that subject. He was in Jerusalem at a time when it was not impossible that Mary herself was living; and if not, he saw Peter and was with him fifteen days, when he had every opportunity to inform himself about the early history of Christ. Will any one say that Paul, with a mind awake to everything that related to Christ, would not inquire and find out all that was known about Him who had spoken to him from the clouds, when he was in Jerusalem, and could question those who had been his companions on this earth? If there was anything remarkable about his birth or death, Peter would have told it, and Paul would have repeated it all along the shores of the Archipelago, or wherever he went.
But Paul, from first to last, preached that Christ was born of woman, and was of the seed of Abraham according to the flesh. Upon this point he yielded nothing, and stood to it to the death. Paul was a man of learning, and wrote with great power. Longinus classed him among the great men of Greece. But in action and in deeds is where he went beyond all other men. Upon his shoulders, as he believed, was left the conversion of the world; and he had a will and energy equal to the task. Believing that the Son of God stood at his side, as he performed the mission which had been assigned him, he neither feared nor trembled, but stood up with a bold front in the presence of Festus and King Agrippa. The unsparing cruelty of Nero had no terrors for him.
After Paul had remained in Arabia long enough to collect his thoughts, and determine the course he should pursue, he went back to Damascus. At last he made up his mind to go to Jerusalem and see Peter. What must have been his feelings as he approached the holy city, and passed along the place where he assisted, three years before, in the death of Stephen! Paul never forgave himself for the part he took in this murder.
Can we imagine with what feelings he approached Peter, or why he approached him at all? If he felt sad and grieved at the part he took in the death of Stephen, he did not feel as if he met Peter as his superior, for he conceded nothing to any of the Apostles. There was no point upon which he was more sensitive. Paul did not visit Peter to be taught and instructed as to his duties, nor to learn from him the great truths of Christianity; for he had learned all this from a higher source, and felt himself more able to give instruction than to receive it from others. Speaking of his doctrines, he says: "For I neither received it of man, neither was I taught it, but by the revelation of Jesus Christ" (Galatians i. 12). Doubtless he came to learn from Peter everything he knew of the personal history of Christ. He had many questions to ask about his habits—mode of life—his employments—about Mary, Joseph, and the whole family of Jesus. The smallest incident in his early life would be dear to Paul, and he would lock the remembrance of it in his bosom, as a sacred treasure.
In this way fifteen days passed over, when Paul again left Jerusalem, and afterwards went into Syria and Cilicia, where he was followed by divine visions and revelations. He spent the year A.D. 42 in Antioch, where he taught, assisted by Barnabas. Here he took up a collection for the brethren of Judea, who were suffering from the effects of a famine which took place during the reign of Claudius Caesar, and returned with it to Jerusalem. Having discharged his trust, he went back to Antioch, accompanied by Barnabas and Mark. All we know with certainty about Paul, from this time forward, we must gather, for the most part, from his Epistles to the churches; for all other sources of information are suspicious and doubtful. An act, especially one of importance connected with his labors as an Apostle, attributed to him by others, and not spoken of at all by himself, should be excluded from the pages of authentic history.
CHAPTER II.
Paul and Barnabas start west to preach the Gospel.—The
prevailing ideas on religion in Asia Minor.—Theology of
Plato and Philo.—The effect produced by the preaching of
Paul.
Paul, in the year A.D. 45, with Barnabas and Mark as his companions, set his face west in the direction of Asia Minor. The people who inhabited the country from Antioch in Syria along the north coast of the Mediterranean and the Ægean, or the Archipelago, to Thessalonica in Macedonia, were for the most part descendants of the early colonists from Greece. A large number of cities were scattered along the shores, which had been enriched by commerce, and were the seats of learning and luxury. The Greek of Asia Minor, in the latter part of the first century, was not the Greek of the time of Pericles and Epaminondas.