of Paul has additional weight, because, as is apparent from the passages before quoted in the Second Epistle to the Corinthians, he could so accurately distinguish an ecstatic state from a state of ordinary self-consciousness. Hence we also see how important it was for him, as well as the other apostles, to be enabled to testify, on the evidence of their own senses, of that great fact, the foundation of Christian faith and Christian hope-the real resurrection of Christ and his glorified personal existence. Lastly, we by no means suppose a magical influence on Paul, by which he was carried away, and converted against his will. According to the view we have taken of this event, we suppose an internal point of connexion, without which, no outward revelation or appearance could have become an inward one; without which, any outward impression that could have been made, however powerful, would have been transient in its results. But in his case, the love for the true and the good discernible even through his errors, though repressed by the power of his passions and prejudices, was to be set free from its thraldom only by a mighty impression. Yet no external miracle whatever could have converted a Caiaphas into a preacher of the gospel. He was It might be expected, that Paul could not at once, after such an impression, enter on a new course of action. Every thing which hitherto had been the motive and aim of his conduct, now seemed as nothing. Sorrow must have been the predominant feeling of his crushed spirit. He could not instantaneously recover from so overwhelming an impression, which gave a new direction to his whole being. reduced to a state of mental and bodily weakness, from which he could not restore himself. He passed three days without food. This was for him the point of transition from death to a new life; and nothing can so vividly express his feelings at this awful crisis, as the exclamation which he himself, reverting to his earlier state, puts in the lips of the man who, with the deepest consciousness of inward slavery under the violated law, and with earnest aspirations after freedom, pours forth his whole heart in the words, "O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me?"-Nor is it at all probable that, in this state, he would seek for social intercourse. Nothing could less agree with his feelings than intercourse with the Jews; nor could he easily prevail on himself to seek out the Christians, whom he had hitherto persecuted. To a man in this state of mind, nothing could be so welcome as solitude. Hence it is by no means probable, that information of the great change that had passed upon him would be conveyed by other persons to Ananias. It is worthy of notice, that, in order to attain a full consciousness of his new life, and to make the transition from this intermediate state of contrition, to a new life of active exertion in communion with Christ, he was brought into connexion with the existing Christian church, by the instrumentality of one of its members. In communion with other believers, he first obtained what he could not find in his solitude. When he prayed to Christ who had appeared to him, that he would help him in his distress, that he would enlighten both his bodily and mental eyes; it was promised to him in a vision, that a well-known enlightened man, belonging to the church at Damascus, whom he probably knew by name and sight, should be the instrument of his spiritual and bodily restoration. When Ananias, in obedience to a divine call, visited him, Paul recognised the person to whom the vision had referred him, and hence felt the fullest assurance, that in communion with him he should be made partaker of a new and higher principle of life. Ananias introduced Paul to the other Christians in the city; after he had been strengthened by spending several days in their society, he felt himself impelled to enter the synagogues, and testify in behalf of that cause, which heretofore he had fiercely persecuted.' Whether he considered it best, after bearing this first testimony among the Jews, to 1 It is difficult to consider uépaι Tivès in Acts ix. 19, and μépais ikavaîs in the 23d verse, as equivalent terms. Yet it cannot be proved from these words, that Luke by the latter meant to make a break in Paul's residence at Damascus, occasioned by a journey into Arabia, but the succession of events as narrated in the Acts leads to consider this as most natural. The quépai Tivès merely expresses the few days which Paul, just after his baptism, spent in the fellowship of the Christians at Damascus. The following phrase, xal eveéws, intimates, that immediately after he had spent some days with the disciples he entered into the synagogues; and the uépaι ikaval denote the whole period of Paul's stay at Damascus. Within this whole period of ἡμέραι ἱκαναὶ, of which nothing more is told in the Acts, we must place Paul's journey into Arabia, of which we should not have known but for the mention of it in the Epistle to the Galatians. allow its impression to work silently on their minds, without personally attempting to enforce it; or whether the plots of the Jews induced him to quit the place, we are not certain ;' be this as it may, he visited the neighbouring parts of Arabia, where he found opportunities for publishing the gospel among the Jews, who were spread over the country. He then returned again to Damascus. Whether the Jews, whose anger he had already excited by his former preaching, as soon as they heard of his coming, endeavoured to lay hold of a person who was so capable of injuring Judaism; or whether they were exasperated by his renewed addresses in their synagogues, he was obliged to consult his safety by flight, as his life was threatened by their machinations.-So far was this man, who shunned no danger in his subsequent career, though now in the first glow of conversion, a season when the mind is generally most prone to extravagance—so far was he from indulging in that enthusiastic ardour which seeks and craves for martyrdom!" He was let down by his friends in a basket, through the window of a house, built 1 Schrader, in his Chronological Remarks on the Life of Paul, has lately maintained that the words of Paul in Gal. i. 16, must be thus explained by means of the antithesis; he had not been instructed by men for his apostolic calling, but had retired to the neighbouring district of Arabia, in order to prepare himself in an independent manner, and in solitude. But had he meant to say this, he would scarcely have chosen the general designation 'Apaßía, but rather have substituted for it ἔρημον ̓Αραβίας, or simply ἔρημον, by which he would have marked more distinctly the object of this aπépxeobal. It is psychologically most probable that Paul, after Ananias had visited him in his solitude, and revived his spirit, would not go again into retirement, but rather would seek the communion of other believers, and, after he had been edified and strengthened by them, would feel himself impelled forthwith to bear his testimony before those who held his former faith. This view is also strongly confirmed by the passage in the Epistle to the Galatians, for the connected sense seems to be as follows: As soon as God revealed his Son to me, that I might publish him among the Gentiles, I published the gospel in an independent manner, according to this revelation. Paul expresses this sentiment both in a positive and negative form. I was not intrusted for my calling, by any human authority whatever, by none of the apostles at Jerusalem, but immediately travelled into Arabia, there to proclaim the gospel. Compare Auger's profound and acute inquiry, "De Temporum in Actis Apostolorum Ratione," Lipsiæ, 1833, p. 23. "The glorying in infirmities," (among which he reckons this flight,) τὰ τῆς ἀσθενείας καυχάσθαι, is one feature in his character which distinguished him from enthusiasts: 2 Cor. xi. 30. against the wall of the city, that he might escape unnoticed by the Jews, who were lying in wait for him at the gates. After three years had thus expired from the time of his conversion,' he resolved, about the year 39,2 once more to return to Jerusalem, that he might become personally acquainted 1 Three years after his conversion, namely, on the supposition that the terminus a quo the years are reckoned in the passage of the Epistle to the Galatians, is the date of his conversion. 2 This circumstance in Paul's life furnishes one of the few chronological marks for its history. When Paul fled from Damascus three years after his conversion, that city was under the government of King Aretas of Arabia Petræa, 2 Cor. xi. 32. But since Damascus belonged to a Roman Province, Aretas must have been in possession of this city under very peculiar circumstances. Süsskind in his essay in Bengel's Archiv. 1. 2. p. 314; Wurm in his essay on the Chronology of Paul's life, in the Tubinger Zeitschrift für Theologie, 1833, 1st part, p. 27; and Auger, p. 161, agree in thinking, that we are not quite justified in admitting that Aretas was at that time in possession of Damascus, as it is a conclusion nowise favoured by other historical accounts; for if Damascus was then under the Roman government, the Ethnarch of Aretas might have ventured to place a watch before the gates of the city, or, through his influence with the Roman authorities, have obtained permission for the Jews to do this. Yet it is difficult to believe, that if Damascus belonged to a Roman province, the Arabian Ethnarch would venture to surround the city with a watch, in order to get the Roman citizen into his power; or that the Roman authorities would allow of his doing so, or at his request expose a Roman citizen to the wrath of the Jews. Although the history, in which there are besides so many breaks, does not inform us of such an occupancy of Damascus, yet the consideration of this passage favours this supposition. Now the circumstances by which Aretas might have gained possession of the city were probably these. The Emperor Tiberius, as the ally of King Herod Agrippa, whose army had been defeated by Aretas, commanded Vitellius, the governor of Syria, to get possession of him either dead or alive. But while Vitellius was preparing to execute these orders, and various circumstances delaying his entering on the campaign, news arrived of the Emperor's death, which took place in March of the year 37, and Vitellius was thus stopped in his military movements. Aretas might take advantage of this interval to gain possession of the city. But we must not suppose that the city thus snatched from the Romans remained long in his hands, and it is probable that, as in the second year of the reign of the Emperor Caligula, A.D. 38-39, the affairs of Arabia were settled, Damascus also was not left unnoticed. If we place the flight of Paul from Damascus in 39, then his conversion must have been in A.D. 36, since it must have occurred three years before, and we also fix the same date for Stephen's martyrdom. From the absence of chronological information respecting the events of those times, we cannot fix with certainty the date of Paul's conversion; yet the computation which places it in A.D. 36 has this in its favour, that it allows neither too long nor with Peter, as the individual who at that time maintained the highest reputation in the new church, and exercised the greatest influence in all its concerns. But as he was known at Jerusalem only as the persecutor, every one avoided him, till Barnabas, a distinguished teacher of the church, who, as a Hellenist, felt less a stranger to him, and might formerly have had some connexion with him, introduced him to the rest. His Hellenistic origin occasioned his holding many conversations and disputations on Judaism and the Christian doctrine with the Hellenistic Jews. It may be asked, whether Paul took the same ground in his controversies with his countrymen at this early period, as in later times; and this is connected with the mode of the development of his Christian convictions and doctrinal views. When he first came to the knowledge of the gospel, did he recognise at the same time its independence of the Mosaic law? To do this, must have been most difficult for one who had so lately renounced the principles of Pharisaism: for we generally find that others of this sect who embraced Christianity, attempted to combine their former tenets with those of the gospel. Ananias, the first instructor of the apostle, was universally reverenced on account of his legal piety such an individual, therefore, must have been very far from wishing to effect a disruption of Christianity from the Mosaic ceremonial law. At the time of Paul's conversion, this was the tone of sentiment universally prevalent among Christians; for, as we have remarked, it was only after the martyrdom of Stephen, and owing to the results of that event, that new light on this subject from various quarters gradually broke in upon them. But we are not justified in assuming, that the same causes led Paul to the views he adopted. We cannot attribute much efficacy to influences from without, by the communication of doctrines and views, in the case of a man so distinguished for his great independent peculiarity of character. We are compelled to believe him, when he testifies so undoubtingly, that he received the gospel, in the manner he was wont to publish it, not by human instruction, but only by a communication of the Spirit of Christ. Some exception, short a time for the events which took place in the Christian church, from the period of Christ's Ascension, to the martyrdom of Stephen and the conversion of Paul |