Strabo, in speaking of the remarkable literary and philosophical zeal
of the refined inhabitants of Tarsus, says that “after having well laid
the foundations of literature and science in their own schools at home,
it was usual for them to resort to those in other places, in order
to zealously pursue the cultivation of their minds still further,”
by the varied modes and opportunities presented in different schools
throughout the Hellenic world,――a noble spirit of literary enterprise,
accordant with the practice of the most ancient philosophers, and like
the course also pursued by the modern German scholars, many of whom
go from one university to another, to enjoy the peculiar advantages
afforded by each in some particular department. It was therefore, only
in a noble emulation of the example of his heathen fellow-townsmen,
in the pursuit of profane knowledge, that Saul left the city of his
birth and his father’s house, to seek a deeper knowledge of the sacred
sources of Hebrew learning, in the capital of the faith. This removal
to so great a distance, for such a purpose, evidently implies the
possession of considerable wealth in the family of Saul; for a literary
sojourn of that kind, in a great city, could not but be attended with
very considerable expense as well as trouble.