But, whatever may be the difference of opinions upon this point, it appears impossible that the fame of Jesus' teaching and miracles did not reach the ears of Saul, while living in Judea: it is even probable that Saul might have endeavored to see him. "We have known the Christ according to the flesh," he himself wrote to the Corinthians. [Footnote 110] This last testimony leaves yet some doubt as to the interpretation; but, when one reflects on the repeated utterance of these expressions, as well as upon the coincidence of dates and names, one cannot help starting at the thought, that on some unknown hour the God and the apostle must have met, and that Jesus, piercing into the future, bestowed on the youth that deep and tender look which he gave the young man spoken of in the Gospel; and that the Pharisee, who was to become a vessel of election, then condemned himself to the regret of having that day neglected and mistaken the blessed God, of whom he was afterward to say in that language invented by love, "Mihi vivere Christus est," "For me to live, is Christ."
[Footnote 110: 1 Cor. ix. 1 and 2 Cor. v. 16]
When Saul entered Jerusalem for the first time, the pious Israelite must doubtless have been astonished and saddened at the same time. Herod the Ascalonite had rendered her, according to Pliny's testimony, the most magnificent city of the East; but by the profane character of her embellishments, she had lost much of her holy originality. The prince courtier had erected near by a circus and a theatre, where festivals in honor of Augustus were celebrated every fifth year. He had repaired and transformed the temple, but also profaned it; and over the principal gate of the holy place one saw the glitter of the golden eagle of Rome and of Jupiter, a double insult to religion and liberty. Jerusalem was likely to become a Roman city; her part was on the point of being played out; her priesthood was expiring, she began to cast off its insignia, and one saw the line gradually disappear which separated her from the cities of paganism.
Beside, Saul found her torn in pieces by religious sects which had in these latter times fastened to the body of Judaism, as parasitical plants stick to the trunk of an old tree. Religious opinion was divided between the Pharisees and the Sadducees. I speak not of the Herodians, for in the order of ideas flatteries are not taken into account, for this reason--because to flatter is not to dogmatize. Sadduceeism, a sort of Jewish Protestantism, rejected all tradition; would admit of nothing but the text of the Pentateuch; denied an after-life because it was not found formally enough inculcated by Moses, and consequently endeavored to make this present one as comfortable as possible. It was Epicureanism under the mask of religion. Pharisaism, on the contrary, was the double reaction both in religion and nationality. In order to enhance the law, it multiplied practices and rites; in order to save the dogma, it burdened it with an oral tradition, to serve as a commentary, an interpreter, and a supplement to the law. Under the name of Mishna, this tradition proceeded, according to her account, from secret instructions of Moses himself, and composed a kind of sacred science, of which the doctors only possessed the key.
The sect of the Pharisees was, on the other hand, the great political as well as doctrinal power of the nation. The people venerated them, the inces [sic] treated them with regard, and Josephus informs us that Alexander Jannacus, being at the point of death, spoke of them to his wife in the following manner: "Allow the Pharisees a greater liberty than usual; for they," he told her, "would, for the favor conferred on them, reconcile the nation to her interest; that they had a powerful influence over the Jews, and were in [{537}] a capacity to prejudice those they hated and serve those they loved." [Footnote 111]
[Footnote 111: "Antiq.," liv. xili. eh, xv. p. 565.]
The Young Saul enrolled himself with the Pharisees: among them, however, he chose his school. Being sensible of the fact that foreign ideas were insinuating themselves into the bosom of Judaism, some choice minds were at this epoch in search of I know not what compromise between Moses's doctrine and philosophy, in which compromise the two elements might be fused together, and thus form a religion at the same time rational and mystic. This fusion is one of the signs by which this period is distinguished. Uneasy and attentive, every mind was laboring under the want of a universality and unity of belief, whose painful child-birth, twenty times miscarried, was yet submitted to without relaxation. One hundred and fifty years before the epoch we are now in, Aristobulus had attempted this eclecticism, and Philo was soon after to reduce it to system in Alexandria and give it a widely spread popularity in Egypt. Another man, however, took upon himself the business of planting it in the very heart of Palestine.
This man was the famous rabbi Gamaliel, the beloved teacher of Saint Paul. It must be admitted that no man could be better qualified to render it acceptable than he was, on account of his position and character. He was the grandson of Doctor Hillel, whose science as well as his consideration and holiness he had inherited. He was the oracle of his time, and "on his death," the Talmud says, "the light of the law was extinguished in Israel." The Talmudists add that he had been vested with the title of Nasi, or chief of the council, and the Gospel agrees with the Jewish authors, recognizing in him a just man, wise, moderate, impartial, an enemy to violence, and ruling the different parties by a moral greatness, which secured to him the confidence of all and the unanimity of their regards. He was the first who caused the text of the Bible to be read in Greek at Jerusalem. This innovation was of itself an immense progress, as it removed that barrier which Pharisaism had raised between the Hellenist and the Judaizing Jews. He dreamed not, however, of transforming Moses into a Socrates. He gave up nothing of pure Judaism. But, having a thorough knowledge of the Greek, Oriental and Egyptian philosophies, he held them all in check; he took out of each of them what could be reconciled with the law of God, enriched with it the inheritance of tradition, and boldly applying to ideas that generous and accommodating toleration which he made use of in social life, he allowed them entrance into the Synagogue. [Footnote 112]
[Footnote 112: Niemeyer, "Characteristik der Bibel," p. 638.]
Gamaliel, it seems, kept in Jerusalem what certain authors call an academy. It was frequented, for men of such a character possess a great power of attraction. Young Israelites brought to his feet, and placed at his disposal, for the service of his and their ideas, the intemperate zeal and warm convictions of their age--Christian tradition acquaints us with the names of some of them; among others, of Stephen and Barnabas, whom we shall soon see disciples of a greater master. [Footnote 113] But the most ardent of them all was, without contradiction, the young Saul of Tarsus. Proud, fiery, enthusiastic, he seems to have been passionately fond of the Pharisaism of Gamaliel, but mixing with the zeal a violent asperity which, certainly, he had not from his master. No man could be more attached, than he was, to the ancient traditions; it is himself who says so, adding that his proficiency in the interpretation of the law placed him at the head of the men of his time. [Footnote 114]