The very active share which Saul took in this and the subsequent
cruelties of a similar nature, is in itself a decided though terrible
proof of that remarkable independence of character, which was so
distinctly displayed in the greatest events of his apostolic career.
Saul was no slave to the opinions of others; nor did he take up his
active persecuting course on the mere dictation of higher authority.
On the contrary, his whole behavior towards the followers of Jesus was
directly opposed to the policy so distinctly urged and so efficiently
maintained, in at least one instance, by his great teacher, Gamaliel,
whose precepts and example on this subject must have influenced his
bold young disciple, if any authority could have had such an effect
on him. From Gamaliel and his disciples, Saul must have received his
earliest impressions of the character of Christ and his doctrines; for
it is altogether probable that he did not reach Jerusalem until some
time after the ascension of Christ, and there is therefore no reason
to suppose that he himself had ever heard or seen him. Nevertheless,
brought up in the school of the greatest of the Pharisees, he would
receive from all his teachers and associates, an impression decidedly
unfavorable, of the Christian sect; though the uniform mildness of the
Pharisees, as to vindictive measures, would temper the principles of
action recommended in regard to the course of conduct to be adopted
towards them. The rapid advance of the new sect, however, soon brought
them more and more under the invidious notice of the Pharisees, who in
the life-time of Jesus had been the most determined opposers of him and
his doctrines; and the attention of Saul would therefore be constantly
directed to the preparation for contest with them.
Stephen’s murder seems to have unlocked all the persecuting spirit
of Saul. He immediately laid his hand to the work of persecuting the
friends of Jesus, with a fury that could not be allayed by a single act.
Nor was he satisfied with merely keeping a watchful eye on everything
that was openly done by them; but under authority from the Sanhedrim,
breaking into the retirement of their homes, to hunt them out for
destruction, he had them thrown into prison, and scourged in the
synagogues, and threatened even with death; by all which cruelties
he so overcame the spirit of many of them, that they were forced to
renounce the faith which they had adopted, and blaspheme the name of
Christ in public recantations. This furious persecution soon drove them
from Jerusalem in great numbers, to other cities. Samaria, as well as
the distant parts of Judea, are mentioned as their places of refuge,
and not a few fled beyond the bounds of Palestine into the cities of
Syria. But even these distant exiles were not, by their flight into
far countries, removed from the effects of the burning zeal of their
persecutor. Longing for an opportunity to give a still wider range to
his cruelties, he went to the great council, and begged of them such
a commission as would authorize him to pursue his vindictive measures
wherever the sanction of their name could support such actions. Among
the probable inducements to this selection of a foreign field for
his unrighteous work, may be reasonably placed, the circumstance that
Damascus was at this time under the government of Aretas, an Arabian
prince, into whose hands it fell for a short time, during which the
equitable principles of Roman tolerance no longer operated as a check
on the murderous spite of the Jews; for the new ruler, anxious to
secure his dominion by ingratiating himself with the subjects of
it, would not be disposed to neglect any opportunity for pleasing
so powerful and influential a portion of the population of Damascus
as the Jews were,――who lived there in such numbers, that in some
disturbances which arose a few years after, between them and the other
inhabitants, ten thousand Jews were slain unarmed, while in the public
baths, enjoying themselves after the fatigues of the day, without any
expectation of violence. So large a Jewish population would be secure
of the support of Aretas in any favorite measure. Saul, well knowing
these circumstances, must have been greatly influenced by this motive,
to seek a commission to labor in a field where the firm tolerance of
Roman sway was displaced by the baser rule of a petty prince, whose
weakness rendered him subservient to the tyrannical wishes of his
subjects. In Jerusalem the Roman government would not suffer anything
like a systematic destruction of its subjects, nor authorize the
taking of life by any religious tribunal, though it might pass over,
unpunished, a solitary act of mob violence, like the murder of Stephen.
It is perfectly incontestable therefore, that the persecution in
Jerusalem could not have extended to the repeated destruction of
life, and that passage in Paul’s discourse to Agrippa; which has been
supposed to prove a plurality of capital punishments, has accordingly
been construed in a more limited sense, by the ablest modern
commentators.
Kuinoel on Acts xxv. 1, 10, maintains this fully, and quotes
other authorities.
“It seems to some a strange business, that Paul should have had
the Christians whipped through the _synagogues_. Why, in a house
consecrated to prayer and religion, were sentences of a criminal
court passed, and the punishment executed on the criminal? This
difficulty seemed so great, even to the learned and judicious
Beza, that in the face of the testimony of all manuscripts, he
would have us suspect the genuineness of the passage in Matthew
x. 17, where Christ uses the same expression. Such a liberty as
he would thus take with the sacred text, is of course against
all modern rules of sacred criticism. For what should we do
then with Matthew xxiii. 34, where the same passage occurs
again? Grotius, to explain the difficulty, would have the word
synagogues understood, not in the sense of houses of prayer, but
of civil courts of justice; since such a meaning may be drawn
from the etymology of the Greek word thus translated. (συναγωγη,
a gathering together, or assembling for any purpose.) But that
too is a forced construction, for no instance can be brought out
of the New Testament, where the word is used in that sense, or
any other than the common one. What then? We cannot be allowed
to set up the speculations which we have contrived to agree with
our own notions, against accounts given in so full and clear
a manner. Suppose, for a moment, that we could find no traces
of the custom of scourging in the synagogues, in other writers;
ought that to be considered doubtful, which is thus stated by
Christ and Paul, in the plainest terms, as a fact commonly and
perfectly well known in their time? Nor is there any reason why
scourging in the synagogues should seem so unaccountable to us,
since it was a grade of discipline less than excommunication,
and less disgraceful. For it is made to appear that some of
the most eminent of the wise, when they broke the law, were
thus punished,――not even excepting the head of the Senate, nor
the high priest himself.” (Witsius, § 1, ¶ xix.‒xxi.) Witsius
illustrates it still farther, by the stories which follow.
“But there are instances of flagellation in synagogues found in other
accounts. Grotius himself quotes from Epiphanius, that a certain Jew
who wished to revolt to Christianity, was whipped in the synagogue. The
story is to the following purport. ‘A man, named Joseph, a messenger of
the Jewish patriarch, went into Cilicia by order of the patriarch, to
collect the tithes and first-fruits from the Jews of that province; and
while on his tour of duty, lodged in a house near a Christian church.
Having, by means of this, become acquainted with the pastor, he
privately begs the loan of the book of the gospels, and reads it. But
the Jews, getting wind of this, were so enraged against him, that on a
sudden they made an assault on the house, and caught Joseph in the very
act of reading the gospels. Snatching the book out of his hands, they
knocked him down, and crying out against him with all sorts of abuse,
they led him away to the synagogue, where they whipped him with rods.’
“Very much like this is the more modern story which Uriel Acosta tells
of himself, in a little book, entitled ‘the Pattern of Human Life.’ The
thing took place in Amsterdam, about the year 1630. It seems this Uriel
Acosta was a Jew by birth, but being a sort of Epicurean philosopher,
had some rather heretical notions about most of the articles of the
Jewish creed; and on this charge, being called to account by the
rulers of the synagogue, stood on his trial. In the end of it, a
paper was read to him, in which it was specified that he must come
into the synagogue, clothed in a mourning garment, holding a black
wax-light in his hand, and should utter openly before the congregation
a certain form of words prescribed by them, in which the offenses he
had committed were magnified beyond measure. After this, that he should
be flogged with a cowskin or strap, publicly, in the synagogue, and
then should lay himself down flat on the threshhold of the synagogue,
that all might walk over him. How thoroughly this sentence was executed,
is best learned from his own amusing and candid story, which are given
in the very words, as literally as they can be translated. ‘I entered
the synagogue, which was full of men and women, (for they had crammed
in together to see the show,) and when it was time, I mounted the
wooden platform, which was placed in the midst of the synagogue for
convenience in preaching, and with a loud voice read the writing drawn
up by them, in which was a confession that I really deserved to die
a thousand times for what I had done; namely, for my breaches of the
sabbath, and for my abandonment of the faith, which I had broken so far
as even by my words to hinder others from embracing Judaism, &c. After
I had got through with the reading, I came down from the platform,
and the right reverend ruler of the synagogue drew near to me, and
whispered in my ear that I must turn aside to a certain corner of
the synagogue. Accordingly, I went to the corner, and the porter
told me to strip. I then stripped my body as low as my waist,――bound
a handkerchief about my head,――took off my shoes, and raised my
arms, holding fast with my hands to a sort of post. The porter of
the synagogue, or sexton, then came up, and with a bandage tied up
my hands to the post. When things had been thus arranged, the clerk
drew near, and taking the cowskin, struck my sides with thirty-nine
blows, according to the _tradition_; while in the mean time a psalm
was chanted. After this was over, the preacher approached, and absolved
me from excommunication; and thus was the gate of heaven opened to
me, which before was shut against me with the strongest bars, keeping
me entirely out. I next put on my clothes, went to the threshhold of
the synagogue and laid myself down on it, while the porter held up my
head. Then all who came down, stepped over me, boys as well as old men,
lifting up one foot and stepping over the lower part of my legs. When
the last had passed out, I got up, and being covered with dust by him
who helped me, went home.’ This story, though rather tediously minute
in its disgusting particulars, it was yet thought worth while to copy,
because this comparatively modern scene seemed to give, to the life,
the old fashion of ‘scourging in the synagogues.’”