Arriving in the city, whence only three years before he had set out, in
a frame of mind so different from that in which he returned, and with
a purpose so opposite to his present views and plans,――he immediately,
with all the confidence of Christian faith, and ardent love for those
to whom his religious sympathies now so closely fastened him, assayed
to mingle in a familiar and friendly manner with the apostolic company,
and offered himself to their Christian fellowship as a devout believer
in Jesus. But they, already having too well known him in his previous
character as the persecutor of their brethren, the aider and abettor in
the murder of the heroic and innocent Stephen, and the greatest enemy
of the faithful,――very decidedly repulsed his advances, as only a new
trick to involve them in difficulties, that would make them liable to
punishment which their prudence had before enabled them to escape. They
therefore altogether refused to receive Saul; for “they were all afraid
of him, and believed not that he was a disciple.” In this disagreeable
condition,――cast out as a hypocrite, by the apostles of that faith,
for which he had sacrificed all earthly prospects,――he was fortunately
found by Barnabas, who being, like Saul, a Hellenist Jew, naturally
felt some especial sympathy with one whose country was within a few
miles of his own; and by this circumstance, being induced to notice
the professed convert, soon recognized in him, the indubitable signs
of a regenerated and sanctified spirit, and therefore brought him to
the chief apostles, Peter, and James, the Lord’s brother; for with
these alone did Saul commune, at this visit, as he himself distinctly
testifies. Still avoiding the company of the great mass of the apostles
and disciples, he confined himself almost wholly to the acquaintance
of Peter, with whom he abode in close familiarity for fifteen days.
In order to reconcile the narrative of Luke in the Acts, with the
account given by Saul himself, in the first chapter of the epistle
to the Galatians, it must be understood that the “_apostles_”
spoken of by the former are only the two above-mentioned, and it was
with these only that he “went in and out at Jerusalem,”――the other
apostles being probably absent on some missionary duties among the new
churches throughout Judea and Palestine. Imitating the spirit of the
proto-martyr, whose death he had himself been instrumental in effecting,
“he spoke boldly in the name of the Lord Jesus, and disputed against
the Hellenists,” doubtless the very same persons among whom he himself
had formerly been enrolled as an unshrinking opposer of that faith
which he was now advocating. By them he was received with all that
vindictive hate which might have been expected; and he was at once
denounced as a vile renegade from the cause which in his best days he
had maintained as the only right one. To show most satisfactorily that,
though he might change, they had not done so, they directly resolved
to punish the bold disowner of the faith of his fathers, and would soon
have crowned him with the fate of Stephen, had not the disciples heard
of the danger which threatened the life of their new brother, and
provided for his escape by means not less efficient than those before
used in his behalf, at Damascus. Before the plans for his destruction
could be completed, they privately withdrew him from Jerusalem, and
had him safely conducted down to Caesarea, on the coast, whence, with
little delay, he was shipped for some of the northern parts of Syria,
from which he found his way to Tarsus,――whether by land or sea, is
unknown.