The narrative in the Acts tells us simply that he was occupied in this work, with increasing vigor, for "many days," up to the time when imminent danger drove him from Damascus. From the Epistle to the Galatians (i, 17, 18) we learn that the many days were at least a good part of " three years," and that Saul, not thinking it necessary to procure authority to preach from the apostles that were before him, went after bis conversion into Arabia, and returned from thence to Damascus. We know nothing whatever of this visit to Arabia — to what district Saul went, how long he stayed, or for what purpose he went there. (Stanley suggests, Sin. and Pal. p. 50, that he may even have visited Mount Sinai.) From the antithetical way in which it is op- posed to a visit to the apostles at Jerusalem, we infer that it took place before he deliberately committed himself to the task of proclaiming Jesus as the Christ; and also, with some probability, that he was seeking seclusion, in order that, by conferring " not with flesh and blood," but with the Lord in the Spirit, he might receive more deeply into his mind the commission given him at his conversion. That Saul did not spend the greater portion of the '• three years" at Damascus seems probable, for these two reasons: (1) that the anger of the Jews was not likely to have borne with two or three years of such a life as Saul's now was without coming to a crisis; and (2) that the disciples at Jerusalem would not have been likely to mistrust Saul as they did if they had heard of him as preaching Jesus at Damascus for the same considerable period. We can hardly resist the conviction that the time was spent in private preparation, perhaps in receiving those remark- able disclosures which he afterwards called "my gos- pel" (2 Tim. ii, 8). analogous to the corresponding pe- riod of the other apostles' personal intercourse with the Lord. Thus we may venture to suppose he received that Gospel which afterwards he preached " by revela- tion" from Christ (Gal. i, 12). Neander {I. c. sec. 121) and Anger {De Temjip. in Actis App. Ratione, p. 123) have endeavored to show that Paul went into Arabia to preach the Gospel ; but the reasons they adduce have little weight (comp. Olshausen, on Acts ix, 20-25).
Now that we have arrived at Saul's departure from Damascus, we are again upon historical ground (A.D. 33), and have the double evidence of Luke in the Acts (ix, 21 sq.) and of the apostle in his Second Epistle to the Corinthians (xi, 32). According to the former, the Jeivs lay in wait fo^ Saul, intending to kill him, and watched the gates of the city that he might not escape from them. Knowing this, the disciples took him by night and let him down in a basket from the wall. Ac- cording to Paul (2 Cor. xi, 32), it was the ethnarch un- der Aretas the king who watched for him, desiring to apprehend him. There is no dilhculfy in rcconciliiKi the two statements. We miglit similarly say that our Lord was put to death either by the Jews or by the Roman governor. There is more difficidty in ascer- taining how an officer of king Aretas should he govern- ing m Damascus, and why he should lend himself to
the designs of the Jews. But we learn from secular histor}- that the affairs of Damascus were, at the time, in such an unsettled state as to make the narrative not improbable. See Akktas. Having escaped from Da- mascus, Saul betook himself to Jerusalem, and there "assayed to join himself to the disciples; but they were all afraid of him, and believed not that he was a disciple." In this natural but trying difhculty Saul was befriended by one whose name was henceforth closely associated with his. Barnabas became his sponsor to the apostles and Church at Jerusalem, as- suring them — from some personal knowledge, we must presume — of the facts of Saul's conversion and subse- quent behavior at Damascus. It is noticeable that the seeing and hearing are still the leading features in the conversion, and the name of Jesus in the preaching, Barnabas declared how "Saul had seen the Lord in the way, and that he had spoken to him, and how that he had preached boldly at Damascus in the name of Jesus." Barnabas's introduction removed the fears of the apos- tles, and Paul "was with them coming in and going out at Jerusalem." His Hellenistical education made him, like Stephen, a successful disputant against the "Grecians;" and it is not strange that the former per- secutor was singled out from the other believers as the object of a murderous hostilit}'. He was therefore again urged to tiee; and by way of Casarea took him- self to his native city. Tarsus (Acts ix, 26-30. In Gal. i, 20, the order of the localities is not strictly observed).
In the Epistle to the Galatians (i, 17-23) Paul adds certain particulars, in which only a perverse and cap- tious criticism could see anything contradictorj' to the facts just related. He tells us that his motive for go- ing up to Jerusalem rather than anjwhere else was that he might see Peter; that he abode with him fif- teen days; that the only apostles he saw were Peter and James the Lord's brother; and that afterwards he came into the regions of Syria and Cilicia, remaining unknown by face, though well known for his conver- sion, to the churches in Judiea which were in Christ. Paul's object in referring to this connection of his with those who were apostles before him was to show that he had never accepted his apostleship as a commission from them. On this point the narrative in the Acts entirely agrees with Paul's own earnest asseverations in his Epistles. He received his commission from the Lord Jesus, and also mediately through Ananias. This commission included a special designation to preach Christ to the Gentiles. Upon the latter designation he did not act until circumstances opened the way for it. But he at once began to proclaim Jesus as the Christ to his own countrymen. Barnabas introduced him to the apostles, not as seeking their sanction, but as having seen and heard the Lord Jesus, and as hav- ing holdh' spoken already in his name.