[Footnote 113: Cornel. a Lapide, in Act. v. 34.]
[Footnote 140: See Epist. to the Galatians, i. 14.]
These Jewish as well as these Greek studies were not lost time in the education of the apostle. They [{538}] made Saul sensible of the pressing need of a revealer which the world was then laboring under; and they caused those groanings to reach his ears from all parts, which he himself called the groaning of creation in childbed of her redeemer. They did also reveal to him, seeing the inability of sects for it, that redemption could not be the work of man, and they left in his mind that haughty contempt of human wisdom, which would be despair, if God had not come to reveal a better one possessing the promises both of this world and of the next.
Now, whilst young Saul and the Jewish rabbins were agitating these questions in the dust of schools and synagogue, our Lord Jesus Christ was giving the solution of them in his own life and by his death. His death was even more fruitful than his life, and when the Pharisees believed they had put an end to his doctrine, as they had to his life, it was a great surprise to them to see twelve fishermen, wholly unknown the day before, suddenly appear, preaching that the Son of God had risen from the dead, that they had seen him gloriously ascending into heaven, and that, in order to give testimony of it to the world, they were ready and would be happy to die. Their miracles, their doctrine, the conversions which they wrought by multitudes, their baptism conferred on thousands of disciples, the enthusiasm of some, the perplexity of others, the hatred of many, stirred up the politicians and the magistrates. The great council met under these circumstances. It seems that there was held in it a decisive deliberation, in which the destinies of Christianity were solemnly discussed. The question was to know, whether the new religion should be drowned in blood, or whether it should be allowed the liberty and time of dying by a natural death. It did not occur to any one's thought that it could live; and much less that it could be true: and it is remarkable that not a word was said on the doctrinal question, the most important of all! Thus some of them advised to put those men to death, others feared lest violence should excite a sedition, and there was division of counsel in the assembly, when Gamaliel rose up in it. Silence followed, the Scripture relates, because he was the sage of the nation. He made no speech. He cited only the names of some seditious men very well known in the city, the false prophet Theodas, and Judas of Galilee, who, after a little noise, had left no trace behind them. Hence he concluded that the new religion would have the same fortune if it was from man, and that if it was, on the contrary, the work of God, it would prove invincible against all human efforts. His advice appeared for a moment to prevail, on account of its wisdom; and the apostles, confiding in the future, readily accepted the challenge.
God had other designs in regard to his church, and it was not peace but war that he had come to bring with him. Wisdom had decided; passion executed. After reciting the advice of Gamaliel, the Scripture adds that, before being dismissed, the Apostles were scourged, and that "they went from the presence of the council rejoicing that they were accounted worthy to suffer reproach for the name of Jesus." The signal had thus been given, and a pure victim was about to open the era of the martyrs.
We have thus far related only the human history of St. Paul. We now begin to enter into his supernatural and divine history.
Saul had put himself at the head of those who persecuted the Christians. Hence it is that the Scripture represents him to us as laying everything waste, like a rapacious wolf, spreading consternation amidst the flock. His very name was terror to the newly born church; above all the others, however, one Christian roused his jealous rancor.
It was a young man whose name I have already mentioned, and who is believed to have been of the same [{539}] country with Saul, and his relative. [Footnote 115] He was called Stephanos, which we have modified into Stephen.
[Footnote 115: Corn. a Lapide, in Act. Apost. vi. 18.]
Stephen, as everything indicates, was a Greek, and of the number of those who were then called Hellenistic Jews. In all probability, he belonged to that synagogue of Cilicians of which Saul, his friend and countryman, must likewise have been a member. Some of the ancients have even believed that he also belonged to the school of Gamaliel; and this is confirmed by the old tradition, which makes the remains of the great rabbin and those of the first martyr rest in the same grave. [Footnote 116] All these relations between Stephen and Saul, who persecuted him, are worthy of being taken into account. They throw a great light over those events, and define with precision the circumstances of which they give the key.