Lives of Great Men
47
Paul, Joyful in Service
With the faith and experience of the Galilean disciples who had
companied with Jesus were united, in the work of the gospel, the fiery
vigor and intellectual power of a rabbi of Jerusalem. A Roman citizen,
born in a Gentile city; a Jew, not only by descent but by lifelong
training, patriotic devotion, and religious faith; educated in Jerusalem
by the most eminent of the rabbis, and instructed in all the laws and
traditions of the fathers, Saul of Tarsus shared to the fullest extent the
pride and the prejudices of his nation. While still a young man, he
became an honored member of the Sanhedrin. He was looked upon as
a man of promise, a zealous defender of the ancient faith.
In the theological schools of Judea the word of God had been
set aside for human speculations; it was robbed of its power by the
interpretations and traditions of the rabbis. Self-aggrandizement, love
[65]
of domination, jealous exclusiveness, bigotry and contemptuous pride,
were the ruling principles and motives of these teachers.
The rabbis gloried in their superiority, not only to the people of
other nations, but to the masses of their own. With their fierce hatred
of their Roman oppressors, they cherished the determination to recover
by force of arms their national supremacy. The followers of Jesus,
whose message of peace was so contrary to their schemes of ambition,
they hated and put to death. In this persecution, Saul was one of the
most bitter and relentless actors.
In the military schools of Egypt, Moses was taught the law of force,
and so strong a hold did this teaching have upon his character that it
required forty years of quiet and communion with God and nature to
fit him for the leadership of Israel by the law of love. The same lesson
Paul had to learn.
At the gate of Damascus the vision of the Crucified One changed
the whole current of his life. The persecutor became a disciple, the
teacher a learner. The days of darkness spent in solitude at Damascus
were as years in his experience. The Old Testament Scriptures stored
in his memory were his study, and Christ his teacher. To him also
nature’s solitudes became a school. To the desert of Arabia he went,
there to study the Scriptures and to learn of God. He emptied his
soul of prejudices and traditions that had shaped his life, and received
instruction from the Source of truth.