Acts 23

Acts 23:6

XV PAUL’S EARLY LIFE BEFORE HE ENTERS THE NEW STORYAct_21:39; Acts 22:3; Acts 23:6; Acts 23:34; Acts 26:4-5; 2 Corinthians 11:22; Romans 11:1; Galatians 1:13-14; Philippians 3:4-6; 1 Timothy 1:12-13; 2 Timothy 1:3. This discussion does not make much headway in the text book, but it covers an immense amount of territory in its facts and significance. This section is found in Goodwin’s Harmony of the Life of Paul, pages 15-17, and the theme is Paul’s history up to the time that he enters the New Testament story. Saul, now called Paul, a Jew, of the tribe of Benjamin, of the sect of the Pharisees, yet a freeborn Roman citizen, by occupation a tentmaker, by office a rabbi, and a member of the Sanhedrin, was born in the city of Tarsus, in the province of Cilicia, about the time of our Lord’s birth. Tarsus was situated on the narrow coast line of the eastern part of the Mediterranean, just under the great Taurus range of mountains, and on the beautiful river Cydnus, which has a cataract just before it reaches the city, and a fall, beautiful then and beautiful now, coming down into that fertile plain where the city goes into a fine harbor, which opens the city to the commerce of the world through the Mediterranean Sea. It was on the great Roman thoroughfare, which was one of the best roads in the world. There were two of these mountain ranges, one of them right up above the city through the Taurus range into the coast of Asia Minor, the other following the coast line, which leads into Syria.

This is the way that the mountains came down close to the sea, making a certain point very precipitous, and there was a typical beach between those mountains and the sea. That road into Syria was called the Oriental way.

Over the Roman thoroughfare passed the land traffic, travel and marching armies for centuries. It was in that pass that Alexander fought his first great battle against the Persians, and thus obtained an entrance into the East. It was through that pass that, marching westward, and before Alexander’s time, Xerxes the Great, the husband of Esther (mentioned in the Bible), marched his 5,000,000 men to invade Greece. I could mention perhaps fifty decisive battles in ancient history that were set and were successful conquests by preoccupation of that pass. That shows the strategical position of this city – that it commanded the passes of the Taurus into Asia Minor, and the pass into Syria, and through its fine harbor came in touch with the commerce of the world on the Mediterranean Sea.

Paul says that it was “no mean city,” in size or in population. It was notable, (1) for its manufacture, that of weaving, particularly goat’s hair, for on that Taurus range lived goats with very long hair, and this was woven into ropes, tents, and things of that kind; (2) because it was the capital of the province of Cilicia; (3) because, under Rome, it was a free city, i.e., it had the management of its own internal affairs, which constituted a city a free city, like the free city of Bremer in the early history of Germany. Other cities would be under the feudal lords, but there were a number of cities free, and these elected their own burghers, and governed their own municipal matters – a tremendous advantage.

Tarsus received from the Roman Emperor the privilege of being a free city. Keep these facts well in mind, especially and particularly as regards the land and sea commerce. (4) Because it possessed one of the three great world-famous universities. There were just three of them at that time: One at Tarsus; one at Alexandria, at the mouth of the Nile; and one at Athens. It was not like some other cities, remarkable for its great buildings, its public games and its works of art. You could see more fine buildings in Athens or in Ephesus or in Corinth than you had any right to look for in Tarsus. It celebrated no such games as were celebrated in the May festivals at Ephesus, and in the great Greek amphitheater in that city, or in such games as the Isthmian, celebrated in Corinth.

It was not remarkable for any of these. Its popular religion was a low and mixed order of Oriental paganism. There is this difference between the Oriental and Occidental heathen – the former in the East, and the latter at Rome, and the West. Ephesus had an Oriental religion, though it was a Greek city. Tarsus, too, was a Greek city, but was partly Phoenician and partly Syrian. There were more arts and intellectuality in western paganism than in the Oriental, which was low, bestial, sensual, in every way brutal, shameful, immodest, and outrageous.

The Phoenicians, who had a great deal to do with establishing the city of Tarsus, had that brutal, low form of paganism. That infamous emperor, Sargon, celebrated in the Bible, the Oriental king of the original Nineveh, was worshiped in that city. There never lived a man that devoted himself more than he to luxury in its fine dress, gorgeous festivals, its gluttony, its drunkenness, its beastiality. Paul was born in that city, and he could look out any day and see the heathen that he has so well described in chapter 1 of the letter to the Romans.

Citizenship in a free city under Rome did not make one a Roman citizen, as did citizenship in Philippi, a colony. To be born in a free city did not make one a Roman citizen. It conferred upon its members, its own citizens, the right to manage their own municipal affairs. To be born in Philippi would make one a Roman citizen, because Philippi was a colony. The name of its citizens were still retained on the muster roll in the city of Rome. They had all the privileges of Roman citizenship. Their officers were Roman officers. They had processions, with the magistrates, and the lictors and with the bundles of rods.

But there was nothing like that in Tarsus. The question came up in Paul’s lifetime, when the commander of a legion heard Paul claiming that be was a Roman citizen. This commander says that with a great sum of money he did purchase his citizenship in Rome. Paul says, “But I was freeborn.” If freeborn, how then could he have obtained it? In one of two ways: Before Christ was born, Pompey invaded Jerusalem, and took it. He was one of the first great triumvirate, with Julius Caesar and Marcus L. Crassus. Pompey’s field of labor was in the East, Caesar’s was in the West, and he (Pompey) took Jerusalem and led into slavery many Jews of the best families.

When these slaves were brought to Rome, if they showed culture, social position, educational advantages, they were promoted to a high rank or office, among slaves; and if they particularly pleased their owners they were manumitted, either during the lifetime of their owner, or by will after his death. In this way many noble captives from all parts of the world were carried as slaves to Rome. They were first set free and then had conferred upon them the rights of Roman citizenship. It could have been that Cassius, who with Brutus, after the killing of Julius Caesar, combined against Mark Anthony, and Octavius (Augustus), who became the emperor and was reigning when Christ was born, captured this city of Tarsus and led many of its citizens into Rome as slaves. Paul’s grandfather, therefore, or his father, might have been led away captive to Rome, and through his high social position and culture may have been manumitted, and then received as a citizen. Necessarily it occurred before this boy’s time, because when he was born, he was born a Roman citizen. It could be transmitted, but he had not acquired it.

There is a difference between the terms – Jew, Hebrew, Israelite, Hellenist, and a “Hebrew of the Hebrews.” All these are used by Paul and Luke in Acts. We get our word, “Hebrew” from Heber, an ancestor of Abraham. Literature shows that the descendants of Heber were Hebrews, and in the Old Testament Abraham is called “the Hebrew.” That was not the meaning of the word in New Testament times. We come to the New Testament meaning in Acts 6, which speaks of the ordination of deacons, and uses the word “Hebrew” in distinction from “Hellenist.” They both, of course, mean Jews. While a Hebrew in the New Testament usually lived in Palestine, but not necessarily, he was one who still spoke or was able to read the original Hebrew language and who practiced the strict Hebrew cult. A “Hellenist” was a Jew who had either been led into exile, or who, for the sake of trade, had gone into other nations, and settled among those people and had become liberalized, lost the use of the Hebrew tongue entirely, and neither spoke nor wrote the Hebrew language, but who spoke and wrote mainly in Greek. “Hellenist” is simply another term for “Greek.” Whether used in the New Testament Greek or the Hellenistic Greek, it means Jews living among Greek people, and who had acquired the language, and in the many respects had followed more liberal Greek customs. Then a Hebrew living in Palestine would not allow himself to be liberalized.

Paul lived out of Judea. He, his father, and indeed his grandfather, adhered strictly to all the distinguishing characteristics of the Hebrews. The “Israelite” and the “Jew” mean anybody descended from Jacob. “Israelite” commenced lower down in the descent. “Hebrew” gets its name from the ancestor of Abraham, but an Israelite was a descendant of Jacob. The distinction of “Jew” came a little later to those descendants of Jacob living in Judea. The “Hebrew of the Hebrews” means a Jew-who went to the greatest possible extreme in following the Hebrew language, cult, habits, training, and religion. He was an extremist among them.

Some people would suppose from Paul’s occupation – tentmaking (he worked at that occupation, making tents with Aquila and Priscilla) – that from this unskilled labor his family were low in the social position, and poor. The inference is wholly untenable. In the first place, every Jew had to have a trade, even though he were a millionaire, and Paul’s old teacher, Gamaliel, used this language: “Any kind of learning without a useful trade leads to sin.” Paul took up this trade because he lived at Tarsus. There anybody could go out and learn the trade of weaving ropes and check-cloth made out of the long hair of Mount Taurus goats. The trade would not simply satisfy the Jewish requirement, but a man could make his living by it. We see Paul a little later making his living just that way. Well for Paul that he knew something besides books.

I am more and more inclined to follow an industrial idea in systems of education. We have our schools and universities where the boys and girls learn a great deal about books, and the girl goes home and does not know how to make bread. She does not know how to rear a brood of chickens; she does not know how a house is to be kept clean, nor how to keep windows clean. The floors in the corners and in places under the beds and sofas are unswept. Boys come home that cannot make a hoe handle. They have no mechanical sense, no trade. They can neither make a pair of shoes nor a hat nor a pair of socks, nor anything they wear. And thus graduates of universities stand with their fingers in their mouths in the great byways of the world – practically beggars – not knowing how to do anything.

The Jews guarded against that. Let Paul fall on his feet anywhere, and withdraw from him every outside source of financial support, and he would say, “With these hands did I minister to my necessities.” He could go out and get a piece of work. He knew how to do it. All this is bearing on the social and financial position of Paul’s family. Everything indicates the high social position of his family, and that it occupied a high financial position. They did not take the children of the lowest abode and give them such an ecclesiastical training as Paul had. They did not educate them for the position of rabbi, nor let them take a degree in the highest theological seminary in the world. Paul’s family, then, was a good one.

Paul’s religious and educational advantages were on two distinct lines: Purely ecclesiastical or religious, and I can tell just exactly what it was. A little Hebrew boy five years old had to learn the Ten Commandments, and the hallelujah psalms. When six, he advanced to other things which could be specified particularly. His education commenced in the home and went on until he entered the synagogue, which trained him in all the rudiments of biblical education. When he was twelve or thirteen years old he was called “a son of the commandments.” Just like the occasion suggests when Jesus was twelve years old he had them take him to Jerusalem, and he was allowed to go into the Temple and to be with the great doctors there.

When Paul was twelve or thirteen his influential father sent him to the great theological seminary. There were two of these seminaries. One had a greater influence than the other in the city of Jerusalem. Therefore, he says, “I was brought up in this city. I was born in Tarsus, but brought up in the city of Jerusalem, at the feet of Gamaliel.” He was a very noble character. The opposite seminary differed from this one.

It was the Shammai Seminary, differing from the other on this point: The Shammai Seminary was very narrow; did not allow its pupils to know anything about literature whatsoever except religious literature. But the aged Gamaliel said to Paul and to all his other students, “There are certain classical lines along which you may study and learn.” This is the kind which Paul attended, the school of Gamaliel, graduating there and becoming a doctor of divinity, or a rabbi. He studied profoundly. This religious part of his education he got in the original Hebrew. When he and Jesus met at the time of his conversion, they spoke in the Hebrew tongue to each other. “There came a voice which said in the Hebrew [the old Hebrew tongue], Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?” And he answered in the Hebrew. Then, of course, he spoke and wrote in the Aramaic, which was the common dialect in Judea, and different from the Hebrew, since the Hebrew had gone altogether out of use in the ordinary speech, and almost in the ordinary reading.

The New Testament abounds in evidence of Paul’s general educational advantages. The city of Tarsus possessed one of the three great universities of the world. Did Paul take a course in that? There is no evidence that he did, and no probability that he did. For the universities in that day did not mean as much as they do today in a certain line, though I am sorry to say that the great universities of the present day are dropping back and adopting the old utterly worthless studies of the universities of that day; that is, speculative philosophy about the origin of things, and they do not know anything more when they get through than when they began. Also the Epicurean philosophy, which we now call “Darwinism,” making a speculative study of biology, botany, geology, etc., trying to prove that everything came from a primordial germ, and that man not only developed from a monkey, but from a jellyfish, and that the jellyfish developed from some vegetable, and that the vegetable is a development of some inorganic and lifeless matter.

There never was at any time in the world one particle of truth in the whole business. None of it can ever be a science. It does not belong to the realm of science.

Saul never had a moment’s time to spend in a heathen university, listening to their sophistries, and to these philosophical speculations, or vagaries. If he were living now he would be made president of some university. We learn from the Syrians that one of these universities, the one in Tarsus, had a professor who once stole something, and was put in “limbo.” Their university professors were also intensely jealous. They had all sorts of squabbles, one part in a row with another part; so that after all there was not much to be learned in the universities of those times, and after a while there will not be much in ours, if we go on as we are now going. I am not referring to any university, particularly, but I am referring to any and all, where philosophical speculations are made thee basis of botany, zoology, natural history of any kind, geology, or any kindred thing. Paul struck it in the city of Athens, its birthplace, and smote it hip and thigh.

I do not suppose at all that Paul was a student in the university of Tarsus, but that while he was at Jerusalem, and under the teaching of Gamaliel, he did study such classics as would be permitted to a Jewish mind. Hence we find in his letters expressions like this: “One of themselves, a prophet of their own said, Cretans are always liars,” and when at Athena he says, “Certain, even of your own poets have said, For we are also his offspring.” How could he become acquainted with those classical allusions if he had never studied such things? That chiliarch, who commanded a thousand men – a legion – said to Paul, “Do you speak Greek?” He had heard him speaking Greek. Of course he spoke Greek, and wrote Greek, All of his letters were written in Greek. He had learned that Greek language somewhere. He had not learned it in that university at Tarsus, but in the Seminary at Jerusalem.

Take his letters and see his profound acquaintance with the Greek games of every kind. Some of them he may have attended, but he certainly knew all about them as though he had witnessed them.

He may have seen only an occasional game. So he must have learned it from the literature, for he discusses every phase of it, especially the foot-racing, the combats in the arena between the gladiators, and the wrestling with the lions in the arena. His letters are full of allusions that indicate his acquaintance with the Greek literature. At Alexandria there was one of the other universities, a much greater one in its Greek literature than the university of Tarsus. Alexandria was founded by a Greek, Alexander the Great. One of the Ptolemies had a great library, the greatest library in the world, which was destroyed by the Saracens.

But notice also how Paul puts his finger right upon the very center and heart of every heathen philosophy, like that of Epicureanism – our Darwinism; that he debated in Athens; and note the Stoics whom he met while there, and the Platonians, or the Peripatetics. You will find that that one little speech of his, which he delivered in the city of Athens, contains an allusion which showed that he was thoroughly and profoundly acquainted with every run and sweep of the philosophic thought of the day, and anybody not thus acquainted could not have delivered that address.

This is to show the general culture of his mind.

Take the mountain torrent of his passion in the rapid letter to the Galatians. Take the keen logic, the irresistibility of its reasoning, which appears in the letter to the Romans, or take that sweetest language that ever came from the lips or pen of mortal man, that eulogy on love in 1 Corinthians 13. Then take the letter to Philemon, which all the world has considered a masterpiece in epistolary correspondence. It implies that he was scholarly. Look at these varieties of Saul’s education. He was a man whose range of information swept the world. He was the one scholar in the whole number of the apostles – the great scholar – and I do not see how any man can read the different varieties of style or delicacy of touch, the analysis of his logic or reasoning, which appear in Paul’s letters, and doubt that he had a broad, a deep, a high, and a grand general education.

As to Paul’s family the New Testament tells us in Acts 23:16 that he had a married sister living in Jerusalem, and that that sister had a son, Paul’s nephew, who intervened very heroically to help Paul in a certain crisis of his life. And in Romans 16:7-11 are some other things that give light as to his family: “Salute Andronicus and Junias, my kinsmen, and my fellow-prisoners . . . who also have been in Christ before me.” Here are a man and a woman, Andronicus and Junias, Paul’s kinsfolk, well known to the apostles in Jerusalem, for he says, “Who are of note among the apostles.” They were influential people, and they had become Christians before Paul was a Christian. Take Romans 16:11 : “Salute Herodion my kinsman,” and Romans 16:21 : “Timothy, my fellow worker saluteth you; and Lucius and Jason and Sosipater, my kinsmen.” So here we have found six individuals who are kinspeople to Paul, and who were all members of the church at Rome. We know that much of his family, anyhow.

The things which distinguished a Pharisee from a Sadducee were of several kinds: (1) The latter were materialists, whom we would call atheists. They believed in no spirit; that there was nothing but matter; that when a man died it was the last of him. (2) There were Epicureans: “Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die,” they said. (3) Also in their political views they differed from the Pharisees. The Pharisees were patriotic, and wanted the freedom of their nation. The Sadducees were inclined to the Roman government, and wanted to keep up the servitude to the Romans. (4) The Pharisees also cared more about a ritualistic religion. They were Puritans – stern, and knew no compromise, adhering strictly to the letter of the law, in every respect. If they tithed, they would go into the garden and tithe the cummin and the anise.

The phrase, “Pharisee of the Pharisees,” means one who would whittle all that down to a very fine point, or an extremist on that subject. He said (Galatians 1:14), “I advanced in the Jews’ religion beyond many of mine own age among my countrymen, being more exceedingly zealous for the traditions of my fathers.” They were just Pharisees – he was a Pharisee of the Pharisees. He went all the lengths that they would go, and he topped them. It meant something like this: “I am a son of Abraham; I am freeborn; I have never sinned; I need no vicarious expiation for me; I need no Holy Spirit; I was never in that bunch; you need not talk or present regeneration to me; I am just as white as snow.” It followed that they were not drunkards, they were not immoral; they were chaste, and did not have any of the brutal vices.

Paul had perhaps never met Jesus. They were about the same age. Paul went to Jerusalem when he was thirteen years old, and stayed there until he graduated in the same city. Some contend from certain expressions, as, “I have known Christ after the flesh; henceforth I will know him . . . no more,” that he had known Jesus in the flesh. It will be remembered that in the public ministry of Christ he was very seldom in Jerusalem. He stayed there a very short time when he did go.

His ministry was mainly in Galilee. Even in that last mighty work of his in Jerusalem – there is a big account of it – but it just lasted a week. And Saul may have been absent at Tarsus during that time. I think when he saw Jesus the fact that he did not recognize him is proof enough, for if he had known him in the flesh he would have recognized him. But he said, “Who art thou?” when he saw him after he arose from the dead.

Paul, before conversion, was intensely conscientious in whatever he did – free from all low vice, drunkenness and luxurious gluttony and sensuality of every kind. He was a very chaste man, a very honest man, a very sincere man, a very truthful man, and all this before conversion. I take it for granted that he was a married man. An orthodox Jew would not have passed the age of twenty unmarried. He could not be a member of the Sanhedrin without marrying; and in that famous passage in Corinthians he seems to intimate clearly that he was a married man. Speaking to virgins (that means unmarried men and women and includes both of them that had never married) he says so and so; and to widows and widowers, “I wish they would remain such as I am.” It seems to me that the language very clearly shows that at that time he was a widower.

Luther says that no man could write about the married state like Paul writes if he was an old bachelor. I think Luther is right; his judgment is very sound. Paul did not marry again; he remained a widower, and in the stress of the times advised other widowers and widows to remain in that state; but if they wanted to marry again to go ahead and do so; that it was no sin; but the stress of the times made it unwise; and he boldly took the position that he had a right to lead about a wife as much as Peter had, and Peter had a wife.

1. What the theme of this section?

2. What Saul’s name, nation, tribe, sect, citizenship, occupation, office, birthplace, and date of birth?

3. Give an account of Tarsus as to its political, strategical, commercial, manufacturing, educational advantages, and its popular religion.

4. Did citizenship in a free city under Rome make one a Roman citizen as did citizenship in Philippi, a colony?

5. How, then, could one obtain it?

6. Distinguish the difference between these terms: Jew, Hebrew, Israelite, Hellinist, and a “Hebrew of the Hebrews.”

7. What the social and financial position of Paul’s family, particularly in view of his occupation?

8. What Paul’s religious and educational advantages?

9. What New Testament evidences are there of Paul’s general educational advantages?

10. What do we know about Paul’s family as seen in the New Testament?

11. Was Paul a rabbi? If so, where did he probably exercise his functions as a rabbi?

12. What is the meaning of the phrase, “Pharisee of the Pharisees?”

13. Did Paul ever meet Jesus before his death? If not, how account for it in view of the interest and publicity of the last week of our Lord’s life?

14. What was Paul’s character before conversion?

15. Was he a married man, and what the proof?

Acts 23:31-24

XXX PAUL BEFORE FELIX AND FELIX BEFORE PAULActs 23:31-24:27. There are strange contrasts in this section which awaken certain lines of thought. The first contrast is between Felix and Paul. The one an intensely religious and moral man, and with the greatest possible integrity, the highest moral courage – an innocent man. The other, the one who is acting as judge, one of the greatest rascals that ever went unhung. He had been a slave, and was too vile to talk about. His whole life was offensive to God and man.

How great the contrast with a man innocent of all offense, tried before such a judge! The next contrast is brought out in the case of Felix before Paul. God’s judgment was different from man’s judgment. The lines of thought awakened by this contrast are these: Look at these people to whom Paul was brought to be judged, also Christ in his ministry. Pilate, Herod the Great (that Herod who died and was eaten of worms as related in Acts 12), Felix, Festus, Gallic, and Nero, and just think of that Agrippa the Second, Bernice, and Drusilla, all of them coming in the limelight of personal contact with either the Lord or some of his closest followers, going into history simply because they came into the orbit of that light for a little while.

THE FIRST BEFORE FELIX, Acts 23:33-35 There is a certain force of the compound Greek word, diakousornai (Acts 23:35), rendered, “I will hear thee fully,” and there is a special reason for the employment of that particular word. The use of the preposition, dia, with akouo gives an intensity to the verb. The verb means “to hear”; putting in the preposition dia implies a degree of hearing much stronger than the other: “I will hear thee fully.” That is the force of the word. The reason for the employment of that word is that a Roman officer who stood in judgment on a person who had been commended in a letter that had been sent, was required by Roman law to give a full hearing. Paul reached Felix commended by a letter from Lysias, who stated that he was a Roman citizen, and that there was nothing in the charges against him. That is called a eviogium by the Roman officer that sent him to the judge.

The Roman law was, that if the judge gets a eulogium from the officer that passed the person to him, he must hear the case fully. He must not do it slightingly. That is why Felix uses the expression: “I will hear thee fully.” He did not tell the truth when he said it, but the law required him to say it.

The place of Paul’s confinement was called “Herod’s palace,” or praetorium, i. e., judgment hall. Herod the Great, in order to please the emperor Augustus, built the whole city of Caesarea. He made a magnificent harbor. He built the most stately palaces and buildings, and in the palace that Caesar was to occupy, if he ever came there, was a praetorium, the judgment office in which he might hear cases. There is no Caesarea now – nothing but the ruin of ruins.

THE SECOND BEFORE FELIX, Acts 24:1-23 The value of this section is that it gives most graphically the method of Roman trial. We have the judge, the prosecution, the counsel of the prisoner, the case formally stated by the prosecution, and the defense fairly stated by Paul. The value of it is in giving us a look into a Roman court room.

The speeches of Tertullus and Paul appear here in contrast. Tertullus was employed by the Jews. He was prosecuting this case as a hired lawyer. Let’s look at his speech. His clients present are Ananias, the high priest, and the elders. He is going to speak before them and this is his speech: “Seeing that by thee we enjoy much peace, and that by thy providence evils are corrected for this nation, we accept it in all ways, and in all places, most excellent Felix, with all thankfulness.

But, that I be not further tedious unto thee, I entreat thee to hear us of thy clemency a few words. For we have found this man a pestilent fellow, and a mover of insurrections among all the Jews throughout the world, and a ringleader of the sect of the Nazarenes: moreover assayed to profane the temple: on whom also we laid hold: from whom thou wilt be able, by examining him thyself, to take knowledge of all these things whereof we accuse him. And the Jews also joined in the charge, affirming that these things were so” (Acts 24:1-9).

Let us analyze this speech. It commences in the oratorical method of attempting to conciliate the judge by saying flattering things, and in saying that he does some steep lying. Notice what he says: “Seeing that by thee we enjoy much peace.” No man that had ever been put over that country had stirred up more rows with the people. “And that by thy providence evils are corrected for this nation.” Tacitus, the Roman historian, and Josephus, say that his deeds were infamous. “We accept it in all ways, and in all places, most excellent Felix, with all thankfulness.” They never did accept anything that he did. They hated him worse than they hated the devil. But he put all that into his speech. Tacitus says that everything he did was in the spirit of the slave which he was, and the Jews, instead of accepting his administration thankfully, never did stop until they bad him recalled, and Porcius Festus sent to succeed him.

But anyhow that is the way he commences. That is called the exordium of the speech, in which he placates his audience by saying pleasing things to them, either to make them laugh or tickle their fancy, or gratify their pride. All orators do that.

Notice what the accusation against the prisoner is. There are three points in it: (1) He accuses him of sedition, that is, against the Roman law he created disturbances among the Jews throughout the world.; (2) heresy, which is against the Jewish law, only as a ringleader of the sect of the Nazarenes; (3) his profanation of the Temple, which is against both Jewish and Roman law. Those are the three points, and in a very masterly way he presents the accusation. There is just about as much truth in it as in that flattery in the exordium, but it is certainly done in an orderly way. The next point in his speech is that the Jews, under the Roman law, had a right to try a man for offenses against the Jewish law, and Paul was such an offender, and he alleges that they had arrested him and were proceeding to give him a trial under the Jewish law for offenses that were against the Jewish law, and that a Roman chiliarch came with violence and took him away, when they were about to try him, and commanded them to come and appear before Felix.

That is certainly presented in a masterly way, and equally false. They were not proceeding to try him according to their law. They were proceeding to kill him when Lysias interfered. There was no trial about it. There was a mob putting him to death and they almost succeeded. Notice now what the object of the speaker is.

In the analysis of the address we must know what the lawyer is trying to get at. From this address let us see what object he is after – what it is he wants to get at. “We were trying this man before the Jewish law [which they were continuing under the Roman jurisdiction], and the Roman official, Lysias, snatched him away from that court.” What is he after? He wants Felix to say, “Take him back to Jerusalem and try him under your law.” That’s the point, and they had assassins ready to kill him if they ever got him back there. He wants this procurator to say that his case is not ready yet to come before his court – that Lysias was indiscrete in going into a Jewish court when they were trying him on matters pertinent before their court. “Now take him back and try him.” That is what he wants him to say.

Let us now analyze Paul’s speech: “Forasmuch as I know that thou hast been of many years a judge unto this nation, I cheerfully make my defense [or I do the more cheerfully answer for myself].” That is his exordium. Just as when he makes a speech before Agrippa, he says, “I think myself happy, King Agrippa, that I am to make my defense before thee this day touching all the things whereof I am accused by the Jews: especially because thou art expert in the customs and questions which are among the Jews.” It is a fact that Felix for quite a while had been a judge for the Jewish nation, so that his exordium is truthful: “Because you have had time and opportunity to find out these people here that are making the accusation, and to know something of the merits of the Christian religion for which I am accused.” So that exordium is certainly true in statement, and a fine way to put it. Never begin a case by abusing the court. If you can’t say good things, just speak out what is true. That is what Paul does. Next he says, “Seeing that thou canst take knowledge that it is not more than twelve days since I went up to worship at Jerusalem.” In other words, “Now, you as a judge living here, knowing the country and hearing this string of accusations against me, can find out, if you want to, that I have been in this country but twelve days, going from Caesarea to Jerusalem, and now I am back here again, and in all that time it is only twelve days; so it is very easy to get your facts.” “And neither in the temple did they find me disputing with any man or stirring up a crowd [they accused him of sedition; now he is replying to it], nor in the synagogues, nor in the city. Neither can they prove to thee the things whereof they now accuse me.”

He is here answering the Jewish charge. First charge is that he went about raising disturbances, rousing the people up. He says, “It has been just twelve days; there are plenty of witnesses; you can find out all I did in those twelve days, part of which I consumed in going to Jerusalem and being brought back here. In that time they cannot prove that I was even disturbing, either in the synagogue or in the Temple, or raising any disturbances whatever, and as for profaning the Temple, that is where they arrested me. I was there conforming to the customs of the Mosaic law.” That is the way he answers the first charge. Now he is going to answer as to his being a heretic: “But this I confess unto thee, that after the way which they call a sect so serve I the God of our fathers, believing all things which are according to the law, and which are written in the prophets.”

How are they going to make a heretic out of a man that believes everything that is written, either in the law or the prophets, or in the Bible? He continues: “And having hope toward God, which these also themselves look for, that there shall be a resurrection both of the just and unjust. Herein I also exercise myself to have a conscience void of offense toward God and man always. Now after some years I came to bring alms to my nation, and offerings [to create sedition; I came on a mission of mercy and kindness; I had worked four years to get up these funds]: amidst which they found me purified in the Temple, which was no crowd, nor yet with tumult [not I, but they], but there were certain Jews from Asia who ought to have been here before thee, and to make accusation, if they had aught against me.” In other words, he says, “Why are these witnesses not present? They are the men that raised the row.” Then he goes on, “Or else let these men themselves say what wrongdoing they found when I stood before the council, except it be for this one voice, that I cried standing among them, Touching the resurrection of the dead I am called in question before you this day.”

It is one of the most perfect defenses that was ever delivered in a courtroom. It sticks to the question; it answers the accusation; it points to the crowd of Ananias and the elders that are there: “You can get your witnesses out of that crowd right there for my prosecution; now all I want to do is to have them put on the witness stand. The whole time was twelve days; you can easily find out whether I am guilty of sedition or not. As to my believing in Christ, that is true, but that doesn’t make me a heretic, because I believe in the resurrection of the dead; in fact, they had a row over it when I was tried before this crowd.” That’s the analysis of the two speeches. All who intend to be speakers, should study all cases where great speeches are made to learn how speeches are to be made.

There is a new term of reproach employed by Tertullus, destined to become historic, anticipated by previous scripture, as other names originated by enemies also became historic. The term of reproach is “The sect of the Nazarenes.” From Nazareth! “Did any good thing ever come out of Nazareth?” The scripture that anticipates it is that statement in Matthew 2:23, “That the prophecy might be fulfilled, he shall be called a Nazarene.” The other cases where enemies originated names, are the words “Christian,” originated in Antioch, and “Galilean,” used by an apostate emperor, Julian. When he came to die, after trying so hard to destroy Christianity, he said, “Thou Galilean hast conquered.” “Galilean” means a crude fisherman, and “Nazarene” and “Christian” were all terms of reproach, and all became historic.

There is a certain basis of fact underlying Tertullus’ flattery of Felix. Felix did two things that may have been beneficial. He did suppress the bandits, and he is the man that whipped the impostor, the Egyptian, but it was at a very great cost to the Jews in both cases, and they did not thank him for driving the bandits out, since there were more patriots driven to desperation than bandits, in the present sense of the word. They were very friendly to the Jewish people because they were people that refused to submit to the injustice of the tyrants, a good deal like Judas Maccabaeus. Anyhow, he had done those two things that might be called a basis of fact.

They clamored for the sentence against Paul. The record says that he, “having more exact knowledge concerning the way, deferred them.” The force of it is this: It means that Felix, from his residence there, probably living in Gaesare when Philip the evangelist was there, and since Paul had from time to time been there and preached, knew what that heresy was. The idea is that he had too exact information on that subject to be fooled by those words of Tertullus, and therefore he deferred judgment. They thought they would take Paul back with them, but they did not get him. Felix very plausibly says, “There is no evidence in this case; you have made an accusation against Lysias. Lysias will be here soon and I will just defer it until I hear from him.” That is the ground on which he defers it.

He had the letter of Lysias stating the case, and there was not a bit of reason that Felix should not have ended that whole matter and set Paul at liberty right there. They had utterly failed to establish anything, and he knew it.

But the real motive which prompted him to postpone decision was shekels. He wanted the prisoner, unknown to him, to bribe him, and he deferred the case and left it unsettled, hoping that Paul would pay him some money. Doubtless he had heard of that big collection that Paul had taken up to Jerusalem, and he knew how much devoted to Paul his friends were, and if he would just hold him a while someone would come and pay him a big sum, or else the other crowd would pay him a proper sum to send Paul back to Jerusalem. That is what governed that slave. There is evidence in this section that Felix was assured of Paul’s innocence, viz.: the charge that he gave the centurion. He was not to be put in the prison, and his friends were to have free access to him.

We know by this that he was thoroughly convinced of the falsity of the accusation, but he simply detained him to get shekels. It was detention under pretense, yet he allowed his friends to come and see him just as freely as if he were not a prisoner.

FELIX BEFORE PAUL The record says, “After certain days, Felix came with Drusilla, his wife, who was a Jewess, and he sent for Paul, and heard him concerning the faith in Christ Jesus.” This time it is Felix before Paul. The Herod in Acts 12 imagined himself a god, the angel of the Lord smote him and the worms ate him up. He was the father of the King Agrippa that he we will take up in the next chapter, and of the Drusilla that we will consider in this chapter, and of Bernice – one brother and two sisters. The older sister was Bernice, and Drusilla was the younger sister. And she was a Jewess; so they all were Jews. What is the history of her connection?

She had been married to another man. The Simon Magus that Peter had turned down, given in Acts 8, had come there and gotten the ear of Felix, and, paid by Felix, and using his charms and incantations, he had enticed Drusilla away from her husband to come to Felix. Of course, there was a divorce, but it amounted to stealing a man’s wife. It did not make any difference to Drusilla, or any of her kin, how often that was done; she was ready. There is not known in history any set of women that were more vile in their relations than these two women. These people found their immortality in history by coming in touch with Paul.

This Drusilla, when Felix was driven back to Rome on the importunities of the Jews, drifted out near Naples, and in that great eruption of Mount Vesuvius, was buried under its lava. Those excavators have doubtless come upon the bones of the woman, vile in her life, and who yet once had the opportunity to hear God’s apostle teach righteousness, chastity, and judgment to come.

But this interview was not intended to be judicial. The record says that man and his wife came to hear Paul about the faith of Christ. So it was not a trial. But Paul makes it so, and reverses the relative positions of himself and Felix. He takes Felix and Drusilla and brings them before the great judgment bar of God. He tries them there under that text of righteousness, chastity, i. e., continence (the text says self-control, but it refers to sexual control), and judgment to come. Instead of Paul being tried before Felix, Felix is being tried before Paul. Paul did not tremble when he stood before Felix, but Felix trembled when he stood before Paul.

He knew that Felix and Drusilla were unrighteous from the crown of their heads to the soles of their feet. He knew they were unchaste. He knew that they were amenable to the final and everlasting judgment of God. And they came to find out about the faith in Christ, and he takes that subject and discusses it. Was it polite? Not very, but it certainly was right. Paul was not sent out to be polite – he was sent out to preach the gospel of God. And if he ever did intend to preach on righteousness, continence, and judgment to come, that was the audience for him. The general idea is that when one preaches he must look over his crowd, and never wound anybody in that crowd.

There is a story about a deacon that came to a new preacher, and the deacon says, “Parson, don’t say anything about the Roman Catholics, for there is quite a number of them present in the audience; and don’t say anything about the Episcopalians, for the judge is an Episcopalian, and he has come out to hear you; and don’t say anything about the saloon business, for that man is a wholesale liquor dealer, and he is very liberal.” “Will you please tell me whom I may say something about?” asked the young preacher. The deacon said, “There are no Mormons here – give it to them.” That is the idea that some people have about preaching. That was not Paul. He took a shot at the game in sight. He was ready for anything, whether they were crouched or on the wing. He took a shot at the crowd before him.

The trembling of Felix was not worth a cent religiously. It shows the cowardly apprehension of his peril, but there was no repentance about it. He trembled as the thief trembles when he is caught.

There are parallels to this interest of Felix in the case of Herod and John the Baptist, and Louis XIV and his great court preachers. Herod was the one that beheaded John the Baptist, and the one that mocked Christ, and was just such a rascal as Felix, and there was a bad woman in that case. He had taken his brother Philip’s wife, and he wanted to be patronizing to the great Judean prophet, John the Baptist, and sent for him. John shook his finger in his face and said, “It is not lawful to have your brother’s wife.” That was not polite, was it? Herod was very much stirred by John. He preserved John for a long time, but a woman does not forgive such things.

Man may, but woman never does, and Herod tried to save John from the woman. I will venture that Drusilla did not tremble like Felix. Herod frequently sent for John after that, but at last the woman got his head. And when it was brought to her on a charger she took a bodkin and pierced his tongue with it, and said, “You will never say again, It is not lawful to have your brother’s wife.'”

The case of Louis XIV is one of the most shameful cases in the sight of the moral law. He affected to be the most pious man in the world, the defender of the faith and the cross of the Roman Catholics. The preachers that preached before him were really greater preachers than the Protestants in their day, and yet, though he heard these great sermons, he went right along living his life of shame.

There is a striking example in the case of Louis XIV cited in Strong’s Systematic Theology. One of these great preachers was discussing in the presence of Louis XIV this text: “But I see another law in my members warring against the law of the mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members.” While he was discussing that subject, Louis, who always claimed to have special privileges, cried out aloud in the audience, “Oh, sire, I know those two men, the two are in this man!” The preacher looked down at him and said, “Sire, to know is somewhat, but one or the other of them must die; one or the other must conquer.” He was a brave preacher and he made Louis XIV tremble. Paul made Felix tremble, and John the Baptist made Herod tremble.

There are some great revival texts in this section: (1) Paul’s text: “Righteousness, temperance, and judgment to come.” (2) “Felix trembled,” or the inadequacy of mere trembling without true repentance to save men. (3) “Go thy way for this time, and when I have a more convenient season I will call thee unto me.” How many times has this been preached from! A very fine text, too.

The despicable attitude of Felix is presented in Acts 24:26-27. That says that Felix kept coming to see Paul, hoping he would give him something to let him loose. Now there is the picture of the man holding out one hand to Paul and one to the Jews, say-ing, “I am holding this case in the balance; I do not know how to decide it.” He held a pair of scales in each hand; it depended on which of them would put the most money in it. There is a pertinent passage from Shakespeare on “the law’s delay and the insolence of office.” This man kept Paul there two years when there was not a thing to do but just pronounce him acquitted. The passage is in. Hamlet’s soliloquy (Act III, Scene 1), commencing thus: To be, or not to be, that is the question: – Whether ’tis nobler in the mind, to suffer The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune; Or to take arms against a sea of troubles, And, by opposing, end them? – To die, – to sleep, – No more; – and, by a sleep, to say we end The heart-ache, and the thousand natural shocks That flesh is heir to, – ’tis a consummation Devoutly to be wish’d. To die; – to sleep, – To sleep perchance to dream; – ay, there’s the rub; For in that sleep of death what dreams may come, When we have shuffled off this mortal coil, Must give us pause: There’s the respect, That makes calamity of so long a life: For who would bear the whips and scorns of time, The oppressor’s wrong, the proud man’s contumely, The pangs of despis’d love, the law’s delay, The insolence of office, and the spurns That patient merit of the unworthy takes, When he himself might his quietus make With a bare bodkin? who would fardels bear, To grunt and sweat under a weary life; But that the dread of something after death, – The undiscover’d country, from whose bourn No traveller returns, puzzles the will; And makes us rather bear those ills we have, Than fly to others that we know not of?

In the successful administration of justice three things are fundamental and vital:

(1) That the defendant should be tried where he can have fair hearing. (Paul could not get it in Jerusalem.); (2) that the man who is arrested should have a speedy trial; (3) that in the trial the righteous should be acquitted and the wicked condemned.

If we compare Luke’s “Felix was succeeded by Porcius Festus” (Acts 24:27), with Josephus’ “Porcius Festus was sent as successor to Felix” (Antonym, Book XX, chap. 8), it looks like one copied from the other, but Luke wrote his first, of course. We may compute Paul’s twelve days (v. II) by referring to the textbook, which shows the twelve days and what each day was devoted to. (See Goodwin’s Harmony of the Life of Paul, p. 131).

There is just one allusion in Acts to the great collections by Paul so abundantly discussed in Ins letters, i. e., this one here: “I came to bring alms to my nation.” That is the only time in Acts that we have any reference to it. Luke’s Gospel was probably written at Caesarea during the two years there of Paul’s imprisonment. The traceable effect of Paul’s Caesarean imprisonment on his later writings is ably discussed in Conybeare and Howson, in Stalker’s Life of Paul and in some other works. The date of Festus’ succeeding Felix was A.D. 60 or 61. Luke and Aristarchus were with Paul at Caesarea.

Ananias, the high priest, here appearing against Paul, to whom Paul had said, “God will smite thee, thou whiled wall,” was killed by the assassins. He is here enticing the assassins to kill Paul. Vesuvius got Drusilla, the assassins got Ananias, and Judea just kept on boiling and boiling over everywhere against Felix. Charges going all the time to Rome that were finally successful. At Caesarea, while Paul was a prisoner there, the streets ran with the blood of the Jews stricken down by Roman soldiers. Thus ends the sad story of Felix, the slave.

1. What is the scripture and the theme of this chapter?

2. What strange contrasts does" this section present, and what lines of thought does it awaken?

3. What is the force of the compound Greek word diakousornai, and what the reason for the employment of that particular word?

4. Why was the place of Paul’s confinement called Herod’s palace or praetorium, i. e., judgment hall?

5. What the value of the section – Acts 24:1-23?

6. How did Tertullus introduce his speech, and how many and what lies did he tell in the exordium?

7. What threefold accusation did he make against Paul?

8. What the Roman law with regard to offenses against the Jewish law, what did Tertullus allege concerning Paul’s arrest and trial under the Jewish law?

9. What was the object of Tertullus in his speech?

10. How does Paul begin his speech, and what the contrast between his exordium and that of Tertullus?

11. How does Paul answer the threefold charge against him?

12. What can you say of Paul’s defense in this case?

13. What new term of reproach employed by Tertullus destined to become historic, what previous scripture anticipates it, and what other names originated by enemies also became historic?

14. What basis of fact underlies Tertullus’ flattery of Felix?

15. What the force of the phrase, “Having more perfect knowledge of the Way”?

16. On what alleged ground does Felix defer judgment, and was there any reason to wait for the testimony of Lysias?

17. What real motive prompted Felix to postpone decision?

18. What evidence in this section Felix was assured of Paul’s innocence?

19. What the history of Drusilla’s connection with Felix?

20. Was this interview of Felix before Paul intended to be judicial?

21. How does Paul make it so, and reverse the relative positions of himself and Felix?

22. Was it polite in Paul to discuss such a theme in such a presence, and if not, how may we justify it?

23. What the religious character and value of the “trembling of Felix”?

24. What parallels to this interest of Felix do we find in the case of Herod and John the Baptist, and Louis XIV and his great court preachers?

25. What striking example in the case of Louis XIV cited in Strong’s Systematic Theology?

26. What great revival texts in this section?

27. What the despicable attitude of Felix as presented in Acts 24:26-27?

28. Cite the pertinent passage from Shakespeare on “The law’s delay and the insolence of office.”

29. In the successful administration of justice, what things are fundamental and vital?

30. Compare Acts 24:27, and Josephus’ Antonym Book XX chapter 8, and tell which wrote first, Luke or Josephus.

31. How may we compute Paul’s twelve days?

32. How many allusions in the Acts to the great collections by Paul so abundantly discussed in his letters?

33. What New Testament book was probably written at Caesarea during the two years there of Paul’s imprisonment?

34. What effect of Paul’s Caesarean imprisonment on his later writings?

35. What the date of Festus’ succeeding Felix?

36. Who were with Paul at Caesarea?

37. What became of Ananias, the high priest?

38. What transpired in Judea and at Caesarea during Paul’s two years of imprisonment there?

Acts 23:34

XV PAUL’S EARLY LIFE BEFORE HE ENTERS THE NEW STORYAct_21:39; Acts 22:3; Acts 23:6; Acts 23:34; Acts 26:4-5; 2 Corinthians 11:22; Romans 11:1; Galatians 1:13-14; Philippians 3:4-6; 1 Timothy 1:12-13; 2 Timothy 1:3. This discussion does not make much headway in the text book, but it covers an immense amount of territory in its facts and significance. This section is found in Goodwin’s Harmony of the Life of Paul, pages 15-17, and the theme is Paul’s history up to the time that he enters the New Testament story. Saul, now called Paul, a Jew, of the tribe of Benjamin, of the sect of the Pharisees, yet a freeborn Roman citizen, by occupation a tentmaker, by office a rabbi, and a member of the Sanhedrin, was born in the city of Tarsus, in the province of Cilicia, about the time of our Lord’s birth. Tarsus was situated on the narrow coast line of the eastern part of the Mediterranean, just under the great Taurus range of mountains, and on the beautiful river Cydnus, which has a cataract just before it reaches the city, and a fall, beautiful then and beautiful now, coming down into that fertile plain where the city goes into a fine harbor, which opens the city to the commerce of the world through the Mediterranean Sea. It was on the great Roman thoroughfare, which was one of the best roads in the world. There were two of these mountain ranges, one of them right up above the city through the Taurus range into the coast of Asia Minor, the other following the coast line, which leads into Syria.

This is the way that the mountains came down close to the sea, making a certain point very precipitous, and there was a typical beach between those mountains and the sea. That road into Syria was called the Oriental way.

Over the Roman thoroughfare passed the land traffic, travel and marching armies for centuries. It was in that pass that Alexander fought his first great battle against the Persians, and thus obtained an entrance into the East. It was through that pass that, marching westward, and before Alexander’s time, Xerxes the Great, the husband of Esther (mentioned in the Bible), marched his 5,000,000 men to invade Greece. I could mention perhaps fifty decisive battles in ancient history that were set and were successful conquests by preoccupation of that pass. That shows the strategical position of this city – that it commanded the passes of the Taurus into Asia Minor, and the pass into Syria, and through its fine harbor came in touch with the commerce of the world on the Mediterranean Sea.

Paul says that it was “no mean city,” in size or in population. It was notable, (1) for its manufacture, that of weaving, particularly goat’s hair, for on that Taurus range lived goats with very long hair, and this was woven into ropes, tents, and things of that kind; (2) because it was the capital of the province of Cilicia; (3) because, under Rome, it was a free city, i.e., it had the management of its own internal affairs, which constituted a city a free city, like the free city of Bremer in the early history of Germany. Other cities would be under the feudal lords, but there were a number of cities free, and these elected their own burghers, and governed their own municipal matters – a tremendous advantage.

Tarsus received from the Roman Emperor the privilege of being a free city. Keep these facts well in mind, especially and particularly as regards the land and sea commerce. (4) Because it possessed one of the three great world-famous universities. There were just three of them at that time: One at Tarsus; one at Alexandria, at the mouth of the Nile; and one at Athens. It was not like some other cities, remarkable for its great buildings, its public games and its works of art. You could see more fine buildings in Athens or in Ephesus or in Corinth than you had any right to look for in Tarsus. It celebrated no such games as were celebrated in the May festivals at Ephesus, and in the great Greek amphitheater in that city, or in such games as the Isthmian, celebrated in Corinth.

It was not remarkable for any of these. Its popular religion was a low and mixed order of Oriental paganism. There is this difference between the Oriental and Occidental heathen – the former in the East, and the latter at Rome, and the West. Ephesus had an Oriental religion, though it was a Greek city. Tarsus, too, was a Greek city, but was partly Phoenician and partly Syrian. There were more arts and intellectuality in western paganism than in the Oriental, which was low, bestial, sensual, in every way brutal, shameful, immodest, and outrageous.

The Phoenicians, who had a great deal to do with establishing the city of Tarsus, had that brutal, low form of paganism. That infamous emperor, Sargon, celebrated in the Bible, the Oriental king of the original Nineveh, was worshiped in that city. There never lived a man that devoted himself more than he to luxury in its fine dress, gorgeous festivals, its gluttony, its drunkenness, its beastiality. Paul was born in that city, and he could look out any day and see the heathen that he has so well described in chapter 1 of the letter to the Romans.

Citizenship in a free city under Rome did not make one a Roman citizen, as did citizenship in Philippi, a colony. To be born in a free city did not make one a Roman citizen. It conferred upon its members, its own citizens, the right to manage their own municipal affairs. To be born in Philippi would make one a Roman citizen, because Philippi was a colony. The name of its citizens were still retained on the muster roll in the city of Rome. They had all the privileges of Roman citizenship. Their officers were Roman officers. They had processions, with the magistrates, and the lictors and with the bundles of rods.

But there was nothing like that in Tarsus. The question came up in Paul’s lifetime, when the commander of a legion heard Paul claiming that be was a Roman citizen. This commander says that with a great sum of money he did purchase his citizenship in Rome. Paul says, “But I was freeborn.” If freeborn, how then could he have obtained it? In one of two ways: Before Christ was born, Pompey invaded Jerusalem, and took it. He was one of the first great triumvirate, with Julius Caesar and Marcus L. Crassus. Pompey’s field of labor was in the East, Caesar’s was in the West, and he (Pompey) took Jerusalem and led into slavery many Jews of the best families.

When these slaves were brought to Rome, if they showed culture, social position, educational advantages, they were promoted to a high rank or office, among slaves; and if they particularly pleased their owners they were manumitted, either during the lifetime of their owner, or by will after his death. In this way many noble captives from all parts of the world were carried as slaves to Rome. They were first set free and then had conferred upon them the rights of Roman citizenship. It could have been that Cassius, who with Brutus, after the killing of Julius Caesar, combined against Mark Anthony, and Octavius (Augustus), who became the emperor and was reigning when Christ was born, captured this city of Tarsus and led many of its citizens into Rome as slaves. Paul’s grandfather, therefore, or his father, might have been led away captive to Rome, and through his high social position and culture may have been manumitted, and then received as a citizen. Necessarily it occurred before this boy’s time, because when he was born, he was born a Roman citizen. It could be transmitted, but he had not acquired it.

There is a difference between the terms – Jew, Hebrew, Israelite, Hellenist, and a “Hebrew of the Hebrews.” All these are used by Paul and Luke in Acts. We get our word, “Hebrew” from Heber, an ancestor of Abraham. Literature shows that the descendants of Heber were Hebrews, and in the Old Testament Abraham is called “the Hebrew.” That was not the meaning of the word in New Testament times. We come to the New Testament meaning in Acts 6, which speaks of the ordination of deacons, and uses the word “Hebrew” in distinction from “Hellenist.” They both, of course, mean Jews. While a Hebrew in the New Testament usually lived in Palestine, but not necessarily, he was one who still spoke or was able to read the original Hebrew language and who practiced the strict Hebrew cult. A “Hellenist” was a Jew who had either been led into exile, or who, for the sake of trade, had gone into other nations, and settled among those people and had become liberalized, lost the use of the Hebrew tongue entirely, and neither spoke nor wrote the Hebrew language, but who spoke and wrote mainly in Greek. “Hellenist” is simply another term for “Greek.” Whether used in the New Testament Greek or the Hellenistic Greek, it means Jews living among Greek people, and who had acquired the language, and in the many respects had followed more liberal Greek customs. Then a Hebrew living in Palestine would not allow himself to be liberalized.

Paul lived out of Judea. He, his father, and indeed his grandfather, adhered strictly to all the distinguishing characteristics of the Hebrews. The “Israelite” and the “Jew” mean anybody descended from Jacob. “Israelite” commenced lower down in the descent. “Hebrew” gets its name from the ancestor of Abraham, but an Israelite was a descendant of Jacob. The distinction of “Jew” came a little later to those descendants of Jacob living in Judea. The “Hebrew of the Hebrews” means a Jew-who went to the greatest possible extreme in following the Hebrew language, cult, habits, training, and religion. He was an extremist among them.

Some people would suppose from Paul’s occupation – tentmaking (he worked at that occupation, making tents with Aquila and Priscilla) – that from this unskilled labor his family were low in the social position, and poor. The inference is wholly untenable. In the first place, every Jew had to have a trade, even though he were a millionaire, and Paul’s old teacher, Gamaliel, used this language: “Any kind of learning without a useful trade leads to sin.” Paul took up this trade because he lived at Tarsus. There anybody could go out and learn the trade of weaving ropes and check-cloth made out of the long hair of Mount Taurus goats. The trade would not simply satisfy the Jewish requirement, but a man could make his living by it. We see Paul a little later making his living just that way. Well for Paul that he knew something besides books.

I am more and more inclined to follow an industrial idea in systems of education. We have our schools and universities where the boys and girls learn a great deal about books, and the girl goes home and does not know how to make bread. She does not know how to rear a brood of chickens; she does not know how a house is to be kept clean, nor how to keep windows clean. The floors in the corners and in places under the beds and sofas are unswept. Boys come home that cannot make a hoe handle. They have no mechanical sense, no trade. They can neither make a pair of shoes nor a hat nor a pair of socks, nor anything they wear. And thus graduates of universities stand with their fingers in their mouths in the great byways of the world – practically beggars – not knowing how to do anything.

The Jews guarded against that. Let Paul fall on his feet anywhere, and withdraw from him every outside source of financial support, and he would say, “With these hands did I minister to my necessities.” He could go out and get a piece of work. He knew how to do it. All this is bearing on the social and financial position of Paul’s family. Everything indicates the high social position of his family, and that it occupied a high financial position. They did not take the children of the lowest abode and give them such an ecclesiastical training as Paul had. They did not educate them for the position of rabbi, nor let them take a degree in the highest theological seminary in the world. Paul’s family, then, was a good one.

Paul’s religious and educational advantages were on two distinct lines: Purely ecclesiastical or religious, and I can tell just exactly what it was. A little Hebrew boy five years old had to learn the Ten Commandments, and the hallelujah psalms. When six, he advanced to other things which could be specified particularly. His education commenced in the home and went on until he entered the synagogue, which trained him in all the rudiments of biblical education. When he was twelve or thirteen years old he was called “a son of the commandments.” Just like the occasion suggests when Jesus was twelve years old he had them take him to Jerusalem, and he was allowed to go into the Temple and to be with the great doctors there.

When Paul was twelve or thirteen his influential father sent him to the great theological seminary. There were two of these seminaries. One had a greater influence than the other in the city of Jerusalem. Therefore, he says, “I was brought up in this city. I was born in Tarsus, but brought up in the city of Jerusalem, at the feet of Gamaliel.” He was a very noble character. The opposite seminary differed from this one.

It was the Shammai Seminary, differing from the other on this point: The Shammai Seminary was very narrow; did not allow its pupils to know anything about literature whatsoever except religious literature. But the aged Gamaliel said to Paul and to all his other students, “There are certain classical lines along which you may study and learn.” This is the kind which Paul attended, the school of Gamaliel, graduating there and becoming a doctor of divinity, or a rabbi. He studied profoundly. This religious part of his education he got in the original Hebrew. When he and Jesus met at the time of his conversion, they spoke in the Hebrew tongue to each other. “There came a voice which said in the Hebrew [the old Hebrew tongue], Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?” And he answered in the Hebrew. Then, of course, he spoke and wrote in the Aramaic, which was the common dialect in Judea, and different from the Hebrew, since the Hebrew had gone altogether out of use in the ordinary speech, and almost in the ordinary reading.

The New Testament abounds in evidence of Paul’s general educational advantages. The city of Tarsus possessed one of the three great universities of the world. Did Paul take a course in that? There is no evidence that he did, and no probability that he did. For the universities in that day did not mean as much as they do today in a certain line, though I am sorry to say that the great universities of the present day are dropping back and adopting the old utterly worthless studies of the universities of that day; that is, speculative philosophy about the origin of things, and they do not know anything more when they get through than when they began. Also the Epicurean philosophy, which we now call “Darwinism,” making a speculative study of biology, botany, geology, etc., trying to prove that everything came from a primordial germ, and that man not only developed from a monkey, but from a jellyfish, and that the jellyfish developed from some vegetable, and that the vegetable is a development of some inorganic and lifeless matter.

There never was at any time in the world one particle of truth in the whole business. None of it can ever be a science. It does not belong to the realm of science.

Saul never had a moment’s time to spend in a heathen university, listening to their sophistries, and to these philosophical speculations, or vagaries. If he were living now he would be made president of some university. We learn from the Syrians that one of these universities, the one in Tarsus, had a professor who once stole something, and was put in “limbo.” Their university professors were also intensely jealous. They had all sorts of squabbles, one part in a row with another part; so that after all there was not much to be learned in the universities of those times, and after a while there will not be much in ours, if we go on as we are now going. I am not referring to any university, particularly, but I am referring to any and all, where philosophical speculations are made thee basis of botany, zoology, natural history of any kind, geology, or any kindred thing. Paul struck it in the city of Athens, its birthplace, and smote it hip and thigh.

I do not suppose at all that Paul was a student in the university of Tarsus, but that while he was at Jerusalem, and under the teaching of Gamaliel, he did study such classics as would be permitted to a Jewish mind. Hence we find in his letters expressions like this: “One of themselves, a prophet of their own said, Cretans are always liars,” and when at Athena he says, “Certain, even of your own poets have said, For we are also his offspring.” How could he become acquainted with those classical allusions if he had never studied such things? That chiliarch, who commanded a thousand men – a legion – said to Paul, “Do you speak Greek?” He had heard him speaking Greek. Of course he spoke Greek, and wrote Greek, All of his letters were written in Greek. He had learned that Greek language somewhere. He had not learned it in that university at Tarsus, but in the Seminary at Jerusalem.

Take his letters and see his profound acquaintance with the Greek games of every kind. Some of them he may have attended, but he certainly knew all about them as though he had witnessed them.

He may have seen only an occasional game. So he must have learned it from the literature, for he discusses every phase of it, especially the foot-racing, the combats in the arena between the gladiators, and the wrestling with the lions in the arena. His letters are full of allusions that indicate his acquaintance with the Greek literature. At Alexandria there was one of the other universities, a much greater one in its Greek literature than the university of Tarsus. Alexandria was founded by a Greek, Alexander the Great. One of the Ptolemies had a great library, the greatest library in the world, which was destroyed by the Saracens.

But notice also how Paul puts his finger right upon the very center and heart of every heathen philosophy, like that of Epicureanism – our Darwinism; that he debated in Athens; and note the Stoics whom he met while there, and the Platonians, or the Peripatetics. You will find that that one little speech of his, which he delivered in the city of Athens, contains an allusion which showed that he was thoroughly and profoundly acquainted with every run and sweep of the philosophic thought of the day, and anybody not thus acquainted could not have delivered that address.

This is to show the general culture of his mind.

Take the mountain torrent of his passion in the rapid letter to the Galatians. Take the keen logic, the irresistibility of its reasoning, which appears in the letter to the Romans, or take that sweetest language that ever came from the lips or pen of mortal man, that eulogy on love in 1 Corinthians 13. Then take the letter to Philemon, which all the world has considered a masterpiece in epistolary correspondence. It implies that he was scholarly. Look at these varieties of Saul’s education. He was a man whose range of information swept the world. He was the one scholar in the whole number of the apostles – the great scholar – and I do not see how any man can read the different varieties of style or delicacy of touch, the analysis of his logic or reasoning, which appear in Paul’s letters, and doubt that he had a broad, a deep, a high, and a grand general education.

As to Paul’s family the New Testament tells us in Acts 23:16 that he had a married sister living in Jerusalem, and that that sister had a son, Paul’s nephew, who intervened very heroically to help Paul in a certain crisis of his life. And in Romans 16:7-11 are some other things that give light as to his family: “Salute Andronicus and Junias, my kinsmen, and my fellow-prisoners . . . who also have been in Christ before me.” Here are a man and a woman, Andronicus and Junias, Paul’s kinsfolk, well known to the apostles in Jerusalem, for he says, “Who are of note among the apostles.” They were influential people, and they had become Christians before Paul was a Christian. Take Romans 16:11 : “Salute Herodion my kinsman,” and Romans 16:21 : “Timothy, my fellow worker saluteth you; and Lucius and Jason and Sosipater, my kinsmen.” So here we have found six individuals who are kinspeople to Paul, and who were all members of the church at Rome. We know that much of his family, anyhow.

The things which distinguished a Pharisee from a Sadducee were of several kinds: (1) The latter were materialists, whom we would call atheists. They believed in no spirit; that there was nothing but matter; that when a man died it was the last of him. (2) There were Epicureans: “Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die,” they said. (3) Also in their political views they differed from the Pharisees. The Pharisees were patriotic, and wanted the freedom of their nation. The Sadducees were inclined to the Roman government, and wanted to keep up the servitude to the Romans. (4) The Pharisees also cared more about a ritualistic religion. They were Puritans – stern, and knew no compromise, adhering strictly to the letter of the law, in every respect. If they tithed, they would go into the garden and tithe the cummin and the anise.

The phrase, “Pharisee of the Pharisees,” means one who would whittle all that down to a very fine point, or an extremist on that subject. He said (Galatians 1:14), “I advanced in the Jews’ religion beyond many of mine own age among my countrymen, being more exceedingly zealous for the traditions of my fathers.” They were just Pharisees – he was a Pharisee of the Pharisees. He went all the lengths that they would go, and he topped them. It meant something like this: “I am a son of Abraham; I am freeborn; I have never sinned; I need no vicarious expiation for me; I need no Holy Spirit; I was never in that bunch; you need not talk or present regeneration to me; I am just as white as snow.” It followed that they were not drunkards, they were not immoral; they were chaste, and did not have any of the brutal vices.

Paul had perhaps never met Jesus. They were about the same age. Paul went to Jerusalem when he was thirteen years old, and stayed there until he graduated in the same city. Some contend from certain expressions, as, “I have known Christ after the flesh; henceforth I will know him . . . no more,” that he had known Jesus in the flesh. It will be remembered that in the public ministry of Christ he was very seldom in Jerusalem. He stayed there a very short time when he did go.

His ministry was mainly in Galilee. Even in that last mighty work of his in Jerusalem – there is a big account of it – but it just lasted a week. And Saul may have been absent at Tarsus during that time. I think when he saw Jesus the fact that he did not recognize him is proof enough, for if he had known him in the flesh he would have recognized him. But he said, “Who art thou?” when he saw him after he arose from the dead.

Paul, before conversion, was intensely conscientious in whatever he did – free from all low vice, drunkenness and luxurious gluttony and sensuality of every kind. He was a very chaste man, a very honest man, a very sincere man, a very truthful man, and all this before conversion. I take it for granted that he was a married man. An orthodox Jew would not have passed the age of twenty unmarried. He could not be a member of the Sanhedrin without marrying; and in that famous passage in Corinthians he seems to intimate clearly that he was a married man. Speaking to virgins (that means unmarried men and women and includes both of them that had never married) he says so and so; and to widows and widowers, “I wish they would remain such as I am.” It seems to me that the language very clearly shows that at that time he was a widower.

Luther says that no man could write about the married state like Paul writes if he was an old bachelor. I think Luther is right; his judgment is very sound. Paul did not marry again; he remained a widower, and in the stress of the times advised other widowers and widows to remain in that state; but if they wanted to marry again to go ahead and do so; that it was no sin; but the stress of the times made it unwise; and he boldly took the position that he had a right to lead about a wife as much as Peter had, and Peter had a wife.

1. What the theme of this section?

2. What Saul’s name, nation, tribe, sect, citizenship, occupation, office, birthplace, and date of birth?

3. Give an account of Tarsus as to its political, strategical, commercial, manufacturing, educational advantages, and its popular religion.

4. Did citizenship in a free city under Rome make one a Roman citizen as did citizenship in Philippi, a colony?

5. How, then, could one obtain it?

6. Distinguish the difference between these terms: Jew, Hebrew, Israelite, Hellinist, and a “Hebrew of the Hebrews.”

7. What the social and financial position of Paul’s family, particularly in view of his occupation?

8. What Paul’s religious and educational advantages?

9. What New Testament evidences are there of Paul’s general educational advantages?

10. What do we know about Paul’s family as seen in the New Testament?

11. Was Paul a rabbi? If so, where did he probably exercise his functions as a rabbi?

12. What is the meaning of the phrase, “Pharisee of the Pharisees?”

13. Did Paul ever meet Jesus before his death? If not, how account for it in view of the interest and publicity of the last week of our Lord’s life?

14. What was Paul’s character before conversion?

15. Was he a married man, and what the proof?