RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Paul the Apostle
13-15, show that Paul was not ashamed of his earlier pharisaic life.
3. Conversion and Preparation for Missionary Service: Paul's conversion was no gradual development, but a sudden and violent rupture with all his past thinking and activity; the light broke upon him, not like the dawn of day, but as a lightning flash, which revealed the glory of God shining in the face of Christ (II Cor. iv. 6) and at the same time illumined all other things and displayed his previous striving in its true character (II Cor. v. 16 sqq.; Phil. ii. 7-10). He cites his pharisaic training and bias as proof that his faith and understanding of the Gospel were not due to human agency, but were a direct revelation of Christ (Gal. i. 11-16). He gives no information in his writings concerning the outward media and circumstances except that immediately after the event he went to Arabia and Damascus (Gal. i. 17). He saw a vision (optasia, Acts xxvi. 19), which resembled other visions in that the supersensuous was perceived by the senses; but both Paul and the Acts (ix. 3-18, xxii. 6-16, xxvi. 9-20) distinguish it sharply from all later " revelations," " visions," and " trances " (Gal. ii. 2; I Cor. xii. 1-4; Acts xvi. 9, xviii. 9, xxii. 17-21, xxiii. 11, xxvii. 23) as something unique. Paul believed that he actually saw Jesus as the older disciples had seen him after his resurrection (I Cor. xv. 8) and that for this reason his apostolate, like theirs, rested on personal intercourse with the Lord (I Cor. ix. 1). He received the call to preach at this time (Acts ix. 15, xxii. 15, xxvi. 16-18); but nothing is said about a command to begin at once or a mission exclusively to the Gentiles (cf. the present, euangelizomai, instead of the future, euangelisomai, in Gal. i. 16). The latter was first committed to him three years later (Acts xxii. 21), and he preached first to the Jews in Damascus, Jerusalem, and Judea (Acts ix. 20, 27, 29, xxvi. 20). After three years in Damascus, during which Paul doubtless received from the Christians in the city such instruction as he needed in the Gospel tradition, he returned to Jerusalem (Acts ix. 23-28; Gal. i. 18). Conditions there were more favorable than they would have been earlier. Caiaphas, who had given Paul his commission as persecutor (Acts ix. 1-2), had been removed from office, and Vitellius had succeeded Pilate and established better government (36 a.d.). Nevertheless, the renegade naturally encountered hatred, and the counsel of the Jerusalem Christians and a divine command determined him to leave Palestine and go to the home of his boyhood (Acts ix. 29-30, xxii. 17-21; Gal. i. 21). If Paul was converted in the beginning of 35 and went to Antioch in the summer of 43 a.d. (see 1, §§2, 6, above), he must have remained in Tarsus more than five years. There is no reason to believe that he traveled in Cilicia and Syria or that he preached to the Gentiles in Tarsus. It was a time of waiting and preparation for the future. He now understood his mission to the Gentiles (Acts xxii. 21); and it was natural that he should devote himself to study preparatory to that work. He was called from his retirement by Barnabas and resumed active work in Antioch (Acts xi. 25-26). According to the chronology here followed, the experiences I VIII.— 26
described in II Cor. xii. 1-5 occurred in or before the autumn of 43 a.d., and doubtless they contributed to his decision to go to Antioch with Barnabas.
4. Paul the Missionary: It is impossible here to follow Paul's far-reaching missionary journeys or to depict his work, surpassing all previously accomplished for the spread of Christianity, in detail; no more will be attempted than a characterization of the work. Paul's teaching in Antioch (Acts xi. 26, xiii. 3) from the summer of 43 to about the spring of 50 a.d. was essentially missionary work. It resulted even in the first year in so notable accessions to the already flourishing congregation, especially of Greeks, that the Antiochians coined the name " Christians " in distinction from the synagogue (Acts xi. 19-26). If the visit of Peter to Antioch, mentioned in Gal. ii. 11-14, is rightly placed in this time (cf. NKZ, 1894, 435-448), it shows that Paul already had the conception of the Gospel and of the principles to be followed in a Gentile congregation which he developed later in the epistles. When he was sent out to preach by the Antioch congregation (Acts xiii. 2-4) he felt himself an apostle according to the original meaning and current application of the word — one commissioned by Christ to preach the Gospel to non-believers. Barnabas accompanied him and worked with him at this time, and he had other associates in this journey and later ones. The methods and principles which Paul followed are seen in this first missionary journey (Acts xiii. 4, xiv. 26). The evangelists went rapidly from town to town and district to district, avoiding the smaller places and preaching only in the large cities. In the larger cities there were generally Jewish congregations and synagogues, and many Gentiles who " feared God " (Acts xiii. 16, 26, 42, 43) were in the habit of attending the Sabbath services. Thus there was opportunity to preach to both Jews and Gentiles; it is a mistake to think that Paul from the very first interpreted his mission to the Gentiles as exclusive of the Jews. Another principle was the consistent refusal of all material support. It was customary for traveling preachers to accept the freely offered gifts of those among whom they tarried, and Paul recognized their right to receive (I Cor. ix. 4-18) and emphasized the duty of the congregations to support their permanent teachers (Gal. vi. 6; I Tim. v. 17-18). But for himself he wished to avoid all appearance that his preaching was a profit-bringing business (I Cor. ix. 18; I Thess. ii. 3-12). Yet he did not refuse contributions offered in a spirit like his own to meet the expenses of journeys to spread the Gospel, or to solicit for his personal needs when, as in imprisonment, he could not work at his trade (II Cor. xi. 8; Phil. i. 3-7, ii. 25-30, iv. 10-19). In nothing is Paul's good sense more apvarent than in his readiness to invoke the aid of the Jvil authorities and to claim his legal rights as a Roman citizen when attacked by the Jews or the heathen populace; and in noteworthy instances he found efficient protection (Acts xvi. 36-39, xxii. 25-29, xxiii. 27, xxv. 9-12, xxvi. 32). While petty officials sometimes showed a disposition to curry popular favor, it was Paul's good fortune that most of the higher representatives of the Roman government with
Paul the Apostle