The hallowed place of the translation is now marked by the magnificent church—resplendent with colored marbles of great richness—of San Paolo fuori le Mura.
Footnotes
[1.] Besides the history contained in the New Testament Scriptures, the grateful obligations of the author are due, in varying degree, to Farrar’s “Life and Work of St. Paul,” his “Darkness and Dawn;” the “Life and Epistles of St. Paul,” by Conybeare and Howson; “Paul the Missionary,” by the Rev. W. M. Taylor, D.D.; “The Ideas of the Apostle Paul,” by Rev. James Freeman Clarke, D.D.; various works by Stanley, Jowett, Arnold, Martineau, Lytton, and Brewer; besides Josephus, Strabo, and other ancient historical authorities. [2.] There were only seven of the Rabbis to whom the Jews gave the title of Rabban; and three of these were Gamaliels of this family, who each in turn rose to the high distinction of Nasî, or President of the School. [3.] A ten-minute hour-glass. [4.] Professor Plumptre supposes the Urim to have been “a clear and colorless stone set in the breastplate of the high priest as a symbol of light, answering to the mystic scarab in the pectoral plate of the ancient Egyptian priests, and that the Thummim was an image corresponding to that worn by the priestly judges of Egypt, as a symbol of truth and purity of motive. By gazing steadfastly on these, he may have been thrown into a mysterious, half-ecstatic state, akin to hypnotism, in which he lost all personal consciousness, and received a spiritual illumination and insight.” [5.]
It is probable that no race—whatever its religion—ever existed, among which there were not some who craved mystical and psychical developments, and who often carried them to excess. Temperaments of ardent and imaginative quality are swayed with an overpowering desire to delve into the future and unseen. We may well suppose that the Rabban would have disapproved of the excesses of this society had he been aware of them; but what teacher, ancient or modern, was ever able to curb and control, or even to find out, the devices of his youthful students?
It is well known that crystal-gazing and some other mechanical expedients, under certain conditions, produce hypnosis, clairvoyance, visions, trances, and other unusual and abnormal psychical phenomena. In many cases they seem to include truthful hints and foregleams of future events or distant scenes. Like attracts like, and sometimes gives it symbolic embodiment. An objective vision may come from subjective roots, and its creations often haunt the consciousness.
Canon Farrar, in his “Life and Work of St. Paul,” says, “The part which he [Saul] played at this time in the horrid work of persecution has, I fear, been always underrated.... So thorough was his search, and so deadly were its effects, that, in referring to it, the Christians of Damascus can only speak of Saul as ‘he that devastated in Jerusalem them that call on this name,’ using the strong word which is strictly applicable to an invading army which scathes a conquered country with fire and sword.”
Conybeare and Howson, in their “Life and Epistles of St. Paul,” say, “That temporary protection which had been extended to the rising sect by such men as Gamaliel was now at an end. Pharisees and Sadducees, priests and people, alike indulged the most violent and ungovernable fury.... The eminent and active agent in this persecution was Saul.... His fame as an inquisitor was notorious far and wide.”
A few passages from the New Testament (Revised Edition) are noted:—