who was justly condemned to death. And he acted according to his conviction. He took the most
prominent part in the persecution of Stephen and delighted in his death. Not satisfied with this, he
procured from the Sanhedrin, which had the oversight of all the synagogues and disciplinary
punishments for offences against the law, full power to persecute and arrest the scattered disciples.
Thus armed, he set out for Damascus, the capital of Syria, which numbered many synagogues. He
was determined to exterminate the dangerous sect from the face of the earth, for the glory of God.
But the height of his opposition was the beginning of his devotion to Christianity.
His External Relations and Personal Appearance.
On the subordinate questions of Paul’s external condition and relations we have no certain
information. Being a Roman citizen, he belonged to the respectable class of society, but must have
been poor; for he depended for support on a trade which he learned in accordance with rabbinical
custom; it was the trade of tent-making, very common in Cilicia, and not profitable except in large
cities.^356
He had a sister living at Jerusalem whose son was instrumental in saving his life.^357
He was probably never married. Some suppose that he was a widower. Jewish and rabbinical
custom, the completeness of his moral character, his ideal conception of marriage as reflecting the
mystical union of Christ with his church, his exhortations to conjugal, parental, and filial duties,
seem to point to experimental knowledge of domestic life. But as a Christian missionary moving
from place to place, and exposed to all sorts of hardship and persecution, he felt it his duty to abide
alone.^358 He sacrificed the blessings of home and family to the advancement of the kingdom of
Christ.^359(^356) He is called a tent-maker, σκηνοποιός, Acts 18:3. Tents were mostly made of the coarse hair of the Cilician goat (Κιλίκιος
τράγος, which also denotes a coarse man), and needed by shepherds, travellers, sailors, and soldiers. The same material was also
used for mantelets, shoes, and beds. The Cilician origin of this article is perpetuated in the Latin cilicium and the French cilice,
which means hair-cloth. Gamaliel is the author of the maxim that " learning of any kind unaccompanied by a trade ends in
nothing and leads to sin."
(^357) Acts 23:16.
(^358) In 1 Cor. 9:5 (written in 57) he claims the right to lead a married life, like Peter and the other apostles, and the brethren of
the Lord; but in 1 Cor. 7:7, 8 he gives for himself in his peculiar position the preference to single life. Clement of Alexandria,
Erasmus, and others supposed that he was married, and understood Syzyge, in Phil. 4:3, to be his wife. Ewald regards him as a
widower who lost his wife before his conversion (VI. 341). So also Farrar (I. 80) who infers from 1 Cor. 7:8 that Paul classed
himself with widowers: "I say, therefore, to the unmarried [to widowers, for whom there is no special Greek word] and widows,
it is good for them if they abide even as I." He lays stress on the fact that the Jews in all ages attached great importance to
marriage as a moral duty (Gen. 1:28), and preferred early marriage; he also maintains (I. 169) that Paul, being a member of the
Sanhedrin (as he gave his vote for the condemnation of the Christiana, Acts26:10), must have had, according to the Gemara, a
family of his own. Renan fancies (ch. VI.) that Paul contracted a more than spiritual union with sister Lydia at Philippi, and
addressed her in Phil. 4:3 as his σύζυγε γνήσιε, that is, as his true co-worker or partner (conjux), since it is not likely that he
would have omitted her when he mentioned, in the preceding verse, two deaconesses otherwise unknown, Euodia and Syntyche.
The word σύζυγος,as a noun, may be either masculine or feminine, and may either mean generally an associate, a co-worker
("yoke -fellow" in the E. V.), or be a proper name. Several persons have been suggested, Epaphroditus, Timothy, Silas, Luke.
But Paul probably means a man, named Σύζυγοςand plays upon the word: "Yokefellow by name and yoke-fellow in deed."
Comp. a similar paronomasia in Philem. 10, 11̓Ονήσιμον, i.e., Helpful,-ἄχρηστον, εὔχρηστον , unprofitable, profitable). See the
notes of Meyer and Lange (Braune and Hackett) on these passages.
(^359) This sublime loneliness of Paul is well expressed in a poem, Saint Paul, by Frederic W. H. Myers (1868), from which we
may be permitted to quote a few lines:
"Christ! I am Christ’s! and let the name suffice you;
Aye, for me, too, He greatly hath sufficed;
Lo, with no winning words I would entice you;
Paul has no honor and no friend but Christ.
A.D. 1-100.