[16] Yet, for even at the outset, after certain "days spent with the disciples," and employed of course in receiving from them the necessary instructions, he preached Jesus with such energy and success as not only to "confound," Acts ix. 19 to 24, the unbelieving among the Jews, but to provoke them to "take counsel to kill him."
[17] Paul, says—2nd Cor. 11:6—"For though I be rude in speech yet am I not in knowledge nay, in everything we have made it manifest among all men to you-ward, or did I commit a sin in abasing myself that ye might be exalted, because I preached to you the Gospel of God for naught? I robbed other Churches, taking wages of them that I might minister unto you; and when I was present with you I was in want, I was not a burden on any man; for the brethren, when they came from Macedonia supplied the measure of my want, and in everything I kept myself from being burdensome unto you and so I will keep myself. As the truth of Christ is in me no man shall stop me of this glorying in the regions of Achaia, &c."
When ever we get a Temperamental and psychological view of Paul, we see verified the deductions of the author of this treatise, that he was a transparent imposter. An unscrupulous adventurer. With talent well adapted to dogmatically command the attention of the ignorant and especially those of organized hereditary idolatry, the extreme vanity, the vain glorious pretensions of this new priest was well adapted to obtain obsequious complacence from such people. He always presents himself in a controversial spirit of self-exaltation.
His egotistic diction could hardly be made more manifest than in the terms above quoted, to wit:—"I robbed other Churches taking wages of them that I might minister unto you, &c." It presents a striking contrast to the benevolent and fraternal spirit of Christ and his disciples.
[18] N.B. The editor at this place inserts pages of discussion—which the author exhibited by way of an appendix. At the expense of a little redundancy and incongruity the editor inserts it in this place.—Ed.
[19] According to the Acts' account, this same stoning, if it was the same, was much in the style of that same resurrection of Eutychus, which we have seen in Chapter xiii. §. 10. As to Paul, when this martyrdom had been suffered by him,—"some" says Acts xiv. 19, were "supposing he had been dead:" and on that supposition, "drew him out of the city." Paul, on the other hand, thought otherwise: he supposed himself alive, and, on that supposition, he walked off, as if nothing had been the matter with him. "Certain Jews ... say verses 19 and 20, having stoned Paul, drew him out of the city, supposing he had been dead. Howbeit, as the disciples stood round about him, he rose up, and came into the city: and the next day he departed with Barnabas to Derbe."