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What is said of the persecutions of Paul?
“And Saul, yet breathing out threatenings and slaughter against the disciples of the Lord, went unto the high priest, and desired of him letters to Damascus to the synagogues, that if he found any of this way, whether they were men or women he might bring them bound unto Jerusalem” ([Acts ix, 1, 2]).
This was Saul the Jew.
“But there be some that trouble you, and would pervert the gospel of Christ.... If any man preach any other gospel than that ye have received, let him be accursed” ([Galatians i, 7, 9]).
“I would they were even cut off which trouble you” ([v, 12]).
This was Paul the Christian.
The leopard changed his name but did not change his spots.
The alleged cause of Paul’s sudden conversion and the transference of his hatred from Christianity to Judaism may well be questioned. The story of the apparition will not account for it. A genuine change of belief is not usually effected suddenly. Men sometimes change their religion for gain or revenge. It has been charged that Paul twice changed his, the first time for the hope of gain, the second from a desire for revenge. The Ebionites, one of the earliest of the Christian sects, claimed that Paul was originally a Gentile, that becoming infatuated with the daughter of the high priest he became a convert to Judaism for the purpose of winning her for a wife, but being rejected, he renounced the Jewish faith and became a vehement opponent of the law, the Sabbath, and circumcision (Epiphanius Against Heresies, chapter xxx, sec. 16).