Life of St. Paul for the Young, I–IV

LIFE OF ST. PAUL FOR THE YOUNG, BY GEORGE LUDINGTON WEED.

CHAPTER I.

BOYHOOD HOME IN TARSUS. The Homes of Jesus and of Saul — Plain of —River Cydnus— Tarsus — Roman Cilicia

—Saul a Roman Citizen— City CivilizedNations — Jews — Gentiles— Greeks — Romans — Augustus Caesar—Pagan Religion "The Boy the Father of the Man" — Saul's Parents and Sister— The Tribe of Benjamin — The Name Saul — Language of Saul— Golden Texts— Sayings of Rabbis — Psalms— Old Testa- ment Scriptures.

Palestine lies on the east of the Mediterranean sea. North- west of it, bordering on the same sea, is Asia Minor. Two thou- sand years ago a division of Palestine was called Galilee; and a division of Asia Minor, Cilicia. They were provinces of the Roman Empire; by which we mean that their people had been conquered and were governed by an emperor in the distant city of Rome. In Galilee was the town of Nazareth; and in Cilicia, the town of Tar- sus. In Nazareth lived the boy Jesus; and in Tarsus the boy Saul, afterward known as Paul. Little did the people of Nazareth think

Copyright, 1899, Dy George W. Jacobs & Co., Philadelphia.

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that the most marvelous being of our world lived among them; and as little did the people of Tarsus think that young Saul was to be one of the most wonderful of men. In following Saul so far as we can. from his childhood to his we must remember some death, things about his country and home, the people among whom he lived, his education, and many other things which helped to make

— him what he became the great apostle of Jesus Christ. In Cilicia the Taurus mountains run parallel to the Mediterra- nean coast. Between the range and the sea is a fertile plain, whose great heat in the summer drives most of the people to the cooler air of the mountain slopes. Many streams are formed or fed by the melted snows. One of the largest is the Cydnus, a cold and rapid stream, which dashes over the rocks, and winds among the valleys, and flows through the plain where palm-trees and beauti- ful gardens line its banks until it enters into the sea. On this Cilician plain, near the Taurus mountains, on the Cydnus river, twelve miles from its mouth, was the city of Tarsus. It was a center of business, education, and political power. Vast quantities of timber cut in the mountain forests were floated from it to the Mediterranean. Vessels brought to it treasures from Europe. Riches from the regions around it vv^ere here gathered to be sent to Greece and Italy. Its streets and markets and bazaars were scenes of busy life. Varied kinds of dress and different lan- guages showed that people of different nations lived within its

walls. It was a great contrast to the squalid Mohammedan city of to-day. Tarsus was the Roman capital of Cilicia. The people were compelled to obey Roman laws and to aid in fighting the enemies of Rome. Yet they were allowed to make some laws for themselves and to choose some of their officers. So Tarsus was called a free city.

Saul's father was probably a Roman citizen: so was he. This gave him protection in times of trouble, as we shall see. When Tarsus was no longer his home, he remembered it with interest and honest pride. He spoke of it as "no mean city." Ever since his day its name has been linked with his. If we would understand the life of Saul, we must remember

some things about the nations that lived two thousand years ago.

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Only three of them were civilized — having learning, refinement and good government. They were the Jews, Greeks and Romans. The Jews were the worshipers of the true God, having the Old Testament Scriptures, which taught them about him and Jesus Christ whom they called the Messiah. All other nations were Gen- tiles. — They were Pagans worshipers of false gods. Such were the Greeks and Romans. The Greeks were noted for their learn- — ing not the wise things taught in the Scriptures, but what they learned without the Bible, much of which was contrary to its teachings. The Roman nation was noted for its vast dominion, its power over other nations, and its great wealth. Augustus Caesar, the greatest of the Roman emperors, ruled over a very large part of mankind. Rome, his capital, was full of riches obtained of the nations he had conquered. It was adorned with magnificent temples

and palaces. Though civilized nations have much that is good, they may have much that is evil. Wherever God is not worshiped and obeyed, wickedness abounds. Mere learning will not make a people good, nor will the power and riches of the mightiest kingdom. So it was with the nations of Greece and Rome. Their Pagan religion was a strange mixture of beliefs which did not help to make them better. They gave to idols the reverence and worship which are due to God alone. Jews, Greeks and Romans lived in Tarsus. Saul was a Jewish boy in a heathen city. We do not often think of him as a boy, but as a man or as ' * 'Paul the Aged. But those younger days were ever fresh in his '

memory. After fifty years he recalled the time when he "was a child, and spake as a child, and understood as a child, and thought

as a child." , "The childhood shows the man, As morning shows the day."

When we remember that "the boy is the father of the man" — that the man what the boy was we are interested will become — in the early life. was the honest, diligent, faithful, studious It

boy George Washington who became the great general and presi- dent. It was the boy Napoleon, interested in his toy-cannon, that

became the conqueror and emperor. It is probable that Saul's father moved from Palestine to Tar-

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sus where the future apostle was born. Some scholars place the date of his birth before that of Christ, and some place it after. Of Saul's mother we know nothing. We wish we did. We love to think of the boy Samuel with his mother Hannah; and John— after- ward the Baptist — with Elizabeth; and Timothy with Eunice; and Jesus with Mary. We know Saul had a sister, to whom we can be- lieve he was a true and noble brother. We shall see how her son cared for his uncle in a time of trouble in Jerusalem. The Jews were divided into twelve tribes. One of these was Benjamin. The first Jewish king was Saul— a favorite name by which many a boy was called.* Little Saul of Tarsus was also of the tribe of Benjamin, and perhaps was named after the king v/ho had lived eleven hundred years before him. Many names, espe- ' cially among the Jews, had a meaning. Saul means ' 'the desired, ' or ' 'prayed for, " or ' 'asked of God. ' Perhaps he was the first- born son in whom his parents so rejoiced that they gave him that name. Young Saul was taught to speak Hebrew, the language of the Jews. It is almost certain that he also learned Greek which was

much used in Tarsus. We know something of life in the Jewish homes, and so we can think of much that was done for Saul, and of what he did for himself. The first words which many a child in a Christian home now learns before it can read, are those of Jesus, 'Suffer little '

children to come unto me and forbid them not, for of such is the kingdom of heaven." But Jesus had not spoken these words when Saul was a boy. His first golden text was probably one given by God to Moses. It was this: "The Lord our God is one Lord. And thou Shalt love the Lord thy God v/ith all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might." The child was taught this text before he was five years old. A Rabbi— a learned Jewish teacher —who lived long ago said, "The boy of five years of age ought to apply to the study of the Sacred Scriptures." Another Rabbi said, 'When the boy begins to talk, his father ought to converse '

with him in the sacred language, and teach him the law." At that early age his parents would also teach him a part of the one hun-

Jews and Jewish, as here used, means Israel and Israelitish.— Editor Era.

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dred and thirteenth Psalm, giving him an idea of the greatness of God who is worthy of the highest praise; and also a part of the one hundred and eighteenth Psalm, especially its first and last

verses whose words are the same, "Oh give thanks unto the Lord; for he is good; because his mercy endureth forever," At five the boy himself began to read the Old Testament Scriptures in Hebrew, the language in which they were written. Saul also learned at some time to read a translation of them into the Greek language. When he became Paul the Apostle he wrote to Timothy, "From a child thou hast known the Holy Scriptures." The same might have been said to him. He became familiar with the stories of Moses, and .Joseph, and Samuel and David. He had not the aid of pictures that so interest the child of to-day, and help- him to understand the story. He read and heard of the Messiah that was to come. There was no New Testament telling of the angels, and the shepherds, and the Babe of Bethlehem; of the wonderful Child in the Temple ; of the miracles in Galilee and Jeru- salem; of the death, resurrection and ascension of Jesus Christ. These things happened during the life of Saul.

CHAPTER II.

SAUL THE SCHOOLBOY. "A Vineyard" — "A Son of the Commandment" —Studies—The Messiah—The Land —Gentile Schools — School Friendships—Barnabas— Pharisees of the Jews Some Good Pharisees — Boy .Jewish Heathen City — Tentmaking —Trade in a Proverbs — Trade —The Boy Saul's the Home — Views from the Roof— Boy in

Wanderings— Memory Childhood Scenes — Games — of the Schoolroom. In

' At six years of age a Jewish boy went to a ' Vineyard, ' as the Jewish teachers called their schools, to be trained with more faith- fulness than the most careful vine dresser bestows on the most precious clusters of his grapes. At ten he began to learn the simpler of the Jewish laws, con- tinuing studies of this kind until he was thirteen, when he was promoted and called a "Son of the Commandment." At fifteen he was promoted again for harder study. There were no school books. The pupils would listen to all the teacher said, remember it and be able to tell it afterward. They

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studied arithmetic, history of the Jewish nation, and natural his- tory: but the chief study was the Scriptures, and the chief subject was the Messiah. Young Saul, like other Jews, thought of Him chiefly as a great earthly king who would come and drive the Romans from Palestine, and reign there as Saul and David and Solomon had done a thousand years before. He had no thought that the Messiah had come to be a king of another kind, and was even then a boy in the land of the Jews. Through hundreds of years it had been the'home of his ancestors. All through his early

life he was told of its beauties and wonderful history. He learned of Jerusalem its holy city, and the Temple the holy house of God. Visitors from there to his home would kindle the desire and inspire the hope that some day he would see them for himself. Meanwhile he was a Jewish schoolboy. There were Gentile schools, but his parents would not send him where so much of the teaching was false, and so many of the influences were for evil. Friendships are often formed in school days that last through life; among the most precious. In some respects they they are are unlike any others. Two boys in the same school, familiar with the same surroundings, having the same studies and keeping up in them, then going to the same college or university to fit them- selves for the same profession, and so having the same plans for life, helping and encouraging each other through all of their grow- ing years —such students have so much in common that their friendship grows stronger and stronger. It is often helpful in later life, especially in times of trouble. Such a friendship had Saul. Seventy miles from his home, on the island of Cyprus, was a boy of kindred spirit and purposes, who was sent to Tarsus to be educated in a Jewish school. There he would meet with Saul. Even when the two planned to be together some day in the University of Jerusalem, they had no thought of the time when the one would be almost the only friend the other had in that city, or when for two years they would live together, or how they would travel and labor together for Him who was then a boy in Nazareth, of whom they knew not, but whom they would some day own as their Lord and Master. Saul's friend was named Barnabas. Some of the Jews were called Pharisees. They were very

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careful to do some things which God commanded by Moses. They also taught the people to obey other laws which God had not given. Some of these were very foolish and hard to obey. The Pharisees pretended to be very good, better than other Jews. They some- times made long prayers and gave money for the Temple and the poor, not to please God, but to be seen of men who would call them good. They despised those who were not like themselves. Their thoughts and feelings were often wrong even when they ap- peared to be doing right. They were proud, unjust, selfish, covet- ous, deceitful. Christ often reproved them for their sins. They hated him, and some of them helped to put him to death. Yet among the Pharisees were some good men. One is known as Joseph of Arimathea; another was Nicodemus. Saul's grand- father was a Pharisee: so was his father, who perhaps was a good man. He trained his son to be a little Pharisee who should be very strict in obeying the two kinds of laws of which we have spoken those of God and those of men. The boy tried to be good, but not always in the right way. He thought himself righteous, but found at last that he was not so in the sight of God.He learned that if — he would do good, he must be good loving God and obeying Him because this is right. When we read his speeches and letters, we shall see what he thought of himself as a little Pharisee. When Jews moved from Palestine to other countries they wor- shiped God as they had done in their own country. They built synagogues in which to do it. So in Tarsus there were Jewish synagogues as well as Greek and Roman heathen temples. As Saul noticed the difference in the faces, dress and language of the peo- ple of different nations, he would think much more of the greater difference between his religion and theirs. We think of him as a worshiper of God in a heathen city. He was like the lily-of-the- valley, fragrant and white, growing among unpleasing and poison- ous weeds. On the Taurus mountains were raised great flocks of goats whose long, beautiful hair was used in the manufacture of various kinds of articles by many of the people of Tarsus. They braided it into ropes, and weaved it into tent-covers, and into garments espe- cially for sailors because of it being waterproof. Tentmaking was an honorable trade, though the tentmaker was poorly paid. Saul's

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father was such. He may have received money in other ways. We shall find reason to believe that he was not very poor. The father of every Jewish boy was taught by the Rabbis that it was his duty to teach his son a trade. This was wise, because then the son could do something for a living, if, no longer sup- ported by his father, he became poor. There was a Jewish prov- 'If a man does not teach his son a trade, he teaches him to * erb,

steal." Another proverb was, ''A man should not change his trade, nor that of his father." As we remember the young Jesus becoming a carpenter, we may think of Saul becoming a tentmaker, first watching his fa- ther's work, helping him as a boy could, and at last spinning, plait- ing and weaving the goat's hair with those hands which he long after declared ministered to his necessities; helping him to obtain the things he needed. For the last twenty-nine years of his life, when not in prison or supported by Christians among whom he labored, he was Paul the Apostle and Paul the Tentmaker. Remembering the things of which we have spoken, we can picture the boyhood of Saul in Tarsus. So far as we know, he was the only, the beloved son, the joy of father, mother and sister. In that Jewish home, his red cap, and loose jacket of white and blue, his sash of different colors, would tell of his belonging to the same race as that of the boy Jesus, dressed in the same way at the same time in the land of the Jews. In the great, crowded, idolatrous capital of Cilicia, Saul increased in wisdom and stature as did Jesus in the lonely town of Nazareth, hidden among the Galilean hills where the true God only was worshiped. From the flat roof of his home, year after year, he gazed upon the Taurus range, stretching eastward and westward, whose loftiest peaks in the win- ter were white with snow on which the sun sparkled, and along which the shadows of the clouds played; but whose slopes in sum- mer were clothed with a forest of green. The extended plain was divided by the swiftly flowing Cydnus, bordered by lofty palms which stood like sentinels over the gardens that showed the richness of the soil. Sometimes Saul would climb the ragged slopes like the mountain goats that gathered there ; and follow the river, perhaps bathing in the icy waters which almost cost Alexander his life. A mile north of the city, he would visit the waterfall, especially when

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its grandeur was increased by the melting of the mountain snows. At a later day we seem to hear him sing, "Sweetly wild! sweetly wild! Were the scenes that charmed me when a child. Rocks —grey rocks, with their tracery dark, Leaping rills, like the diamond spark, Torrent voices thundering by.

"It was sweet to sit till sunset laid down At the gate of the west his golden crown. Sweetly wild ! sweetly wild Were the scenes that charm' d me when a child."

On the wharf he would watch the coming and going of the ships of different countries, to which he himself was to be carried through dangers and sufferings for Christ of which he then could not know; for it was

"He who should carr}- far and wide. The banner of the Crucified."

Through all these boyhood years, we see him the earnest pupil, one of a circle of boys seated on the floor or ground, clad in their white cloaks, around the teacher of the grade he had reached. But there was one thing he would have us notice most of all about ' 'his ' manner of life from his youth. To use his own words spoken '

when he became a good man it was this, 'I was a Pharisee. ' '

Sometimes he would go to the g\Tnnasium and watch the young men running, leaping, boxing and wrestling, striving for the olive or laurel wreath with which the victor was crowned. When we read his speeches and letters of many years after, we see how deep were the impressions these things made upon him.

CHAPTER III.

LEAVING HOME FOR JERUSALEM. Four Universities —Plans for -Jerusalem—Farewell Tarsus — Storm to at Sea —Le- banon —Villages—Carrael—Nazareth— Ctesarea. There is no doubt that Saul was a bright boy, a child of prom- ise, a good scholar who might become a scribe able to teach the •Jewish law and traditions to the people. At that time there was a

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great school called a university at Athens in Greece; another at Alexandria in Egypt; and another at Tarsus in Cilicia. But in none of them could Saul have the right kind of training for the work planned for him. He must go to a university in Jerusalem. The time had come. His school days in Tarsus were ended. We do not know exactly at what age this great change in his life was made. He must have been somewhere between ten and fourteen. That decision to have him make his first visit to the Holy Land must have filled him with all the enthusiasm of his boy nature. He would see the land of his fathers. He would visit the places of Jewish history, and live among people of his own nation. He would see the places whose names he had known with tender and increasing interest. Above all the Holy City and its Holy House would become familiar to him as Tarsus and its humble synagogue. Jerusalem was a home word to every Jew. In going thither, though from his home, he felt that he was going homeward. Yet on leaving such a home as we imagine his to have been, he must have had a mingled feeling of gladness and sadness. It was not

easy to break the ties of a place where a joyous boyhood had been spent. No one in Jerusalem could take the place of father, moth- er and sister still living in Tarsus. In the story of his life, we shall find his heart very tender when parting with friends.

We may suppose Saul's father went with him to the land of his fathers. If he had gone from there to Tarsus, he would be glad to revisit the scenes of his younger day. If, like his little son, he was making his first visit, they would alike rejoice in seeing for themselves the places with whose names and history they had be- come familiar in their distant home. The vessel sailed down the Cydnus, twelve miles to its mouth which widens into a lake or basin into the wider sea. We can im- agine the young voyager taking a farewell look at the city of his childhood. The familiar mountains fade from his view until only the snowy tops are seen. Trees, gardens, flowers, towns, and at last the shores of Cilicia disappear. He is upon the great sea, and with boyish excitement feels the swell of its waters. The first night is past, and for the first time he beholds the sun appearing to rise out of the waters, stretching as far as he can see in every di- rection with nothing else in sight but the sky, and the birds that

LIFE OF ST. PAUL FOR THE YOUNG. 11

have wandered far from their nests, and the fishes that leap for a moment above the waves. Perhaps a storm arises and he understands as he never had before what he had learned in the synagogue : * They that go down to the sea in ships, that do business in great waters; these see the works of the Lord, and his wonders in the deep. For he com- mandeth, and raiseth the stormy wind, and lifteth up the waves thereof. He maketh the storm a calm, so that the waves thereof are still." We cannot follow Saul on this his first voyage as certainly as we can on his future journeys: but, of what we know of that time, and what nations were trading in the Mediterranean, and the ports for which they must have sailed, we can judge very nearly in what way he went. His voyage was nearly ended. Suddenly their appeared in the distance snow-covered peaks like those of the Taurus mount- ains. They were the heights of Lebanon. A nearer view revealed terrace above terrace, on which stood the flat roofed villages, in the midst of plantations of sugar cane, and groves of mulberry, orange and lemon trees. The travelers passed the bold mountain of Carmel where Elijah boldly showed the God of the Jews to be the only living and true God. Twenty miles from it, nestled among the hills of Nazareth, was the Son of God, not yet revealed to the world. Saul's voyage ended at Caesarea. Before him was the land which the Lord told Moses beside the burning bush was "a good ' ' land, ' and told Ezekiel was ' Such every 'the glory of all lands. '

Jew thought. So young Saul as he stepped from the vessel felt

and trod for the first time the country in which he was to live and labor, suffer and rejoice. At last from an eminence he gains his first view of the Holy City; the temple with its glittering roof, porticoes and columns; and the royal palace in which David and Solomon once lived. He enters the city called ''the joy of the — whole earth the City of the Great King." He is permitted to say, ' 'My feet stand within thy gates, Jerusalem. ' ' How little he knows of what the years will bring to him therein! Fair boy! the wand' rings of thy way It is not mine to trace,

12 IMPROVEMENT ERA. Through buoyant youth's exulting day, Or manhood's bolder race.

What discipline thy heart may need. What clouds may veil thy sun, The eye of God alone can read; And let his will be done.

CHAPTER IV.

IN THE SCHOOL OF GAMALIEL. —School of —Scripture Studies—Messiah—Savior—Simeon Synagogue Schools Hillel

—Simeon's Son—Gamaliel, the Great Rabbi—The Bright Pupil—School Work —Barnabas and Saul —Saul and the Scriptures.

Jewish synagogues were often divided into two parts. One was for prayer and preaching and other forms of worship; the other part was for schools. In them learned men met to talk together about religious things and to teach the young. In Jerusalem there were two schools higher than any others, called colleges or universities. The most celebrated was the School of Hillel, so named because founded by him, sixty years before Christ. It was for young students who expected to become rabbis.

They were not only taught, but also encouraged to take part in discussions with each other, and with their teachers, 'both hear- '

ing them and asking them questions, " as we are told Jesus did in the school in the temple. The scriptures they studied were especially the five books of Moses, the Psalms, and the books of the prophets through whom God told the people of things that would happen. He promised that Christ, whom the Jews called the Messiah, should come to be the Savior of the world. So the Jews were watching for his coming, but not in the way God intended. We know the Savior to be a little child born in Bethlehem. There were a few people more truly wise than the wdsest rabbis who were ready to believe that the child Jesus was the promised Messiah. One of these named Simeon was probably a son of Hillel. He understood the scriptures about the coming of Christ better than his father did. He lived to be an old man waiting to see the promised One. God had told him in some way that he should not die until that hour had come. It did come when Joseph and Mary brought the infant Jesus into

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the temple. The old man, taking it up in his arms, ' 'blessed God and said, Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace; for mine eyes have seen thy salvation;" by which he meant the prom- ised Messiah. A very wise rabbi, a son, as is supposed, of Simeon, and so gransdon of became president of the college in Jerusalem Hillel,

which his grandfather had founded. Simeon must have told him of the infant Jesus in the temple and of how God had revealed to him that this was the Messiah for whom all were looking; but the son probably thought it was an old man's fancy, and so did not believe the stor>. He trusted rather to his rabbi- wisdom. This was sad indeed, for if he had believed that Simeon had seen the Lord's Christ, and taught his pupils that their Messiah had come, he might have saved many of them from becoming the enemies of Jesus and plotters of his death. He is described in Acts (5: 34) as "a Pharisee named Gama- ' liel, a doctor of the law had in reputation among all the people. Though a zealous Pharisee, blinded to the greatest truths, he was somewhat like Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea, who were bet- ter than he, because they became the friends of Jesus. Gamaliel was "had in reputation" because he was wnse, candid, honest, up- right, amiable, kind and charitable and because he was the most ;

learned man of his day, and the most noted teacher the Jews ever had. Among them he is still knowTi as the 'Great Rabbi. ' Be- ' '

cause of his learning and character, he was so revered that he re- ceived the highest Jewish title, that of Rabban. He was one of the only seven to whom it was ever given. He was also called ' 'The Beauty of the Law. ' ' We know not that any other had that honorable name. The most distinguished pupil of this most distinguished teacher was Saul of Tarsus, who came under his instruction when probably thirteen years of age, and remained with him many years. With ' honest pride he said he was ' 'brought up at the feet of Gamaliel, by which he meant that he had long been taught by this great teacher. The words "at the feet of Gamaliel' remind us of the '

position of the pupils as they encircled him. Gamaliel ^A^ith his long flowing robe of rabbi, surrounded by youths who expected to become rabbis, was a special object of interest in Jerusalem.

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There was no other school like it: in teacher, pupils and studies it was the best of all. The course of study required the diligence and faithfulness of many years. Lessons in Hebrew and Greek and sometimes Latin were given, but the chief subject was the Jewish Law written on scrolls daily unrolled before them. The pupils were trained to commit large portions of scripture. The teacher explained the commandments which the scripture taught; the traditions; the promises made to the good; the meaning of ceremonies, of certain things required in worship; the prophecies, or things that would happen; and the types, or something to help to understand future things. As the teacher made these explanations, the bright boys would think of many things about which they asked questions, which the teacher was ever ready to answer. Much of the school exercise was a kind of conversation between teacher and pupils. In that group around Gamaliel were Barnabas and Saul, fel- low-students in Tarsus, reunited in Jerusalem, in study, and in friendship which was yet longer to be continued, closer than ever before. We may think of Saul as the brighter pupil, and the fav- orite of his delighted teacher. We know what he thought about the scriptures. In one of his letters he called them the "oracles ' of God, ' and said that of all the good things that the Jews pos- sessed these were the best. Beginning at five years of age, he had made the scriptures the great study of his life — in his home and in the synagogue, in the school in Tarsus, in the college in Jerusa- lem, and wherever he lived. He began to commit passages at an early age, when this is most easily done. He had a marvelous memory, long remembering what he had learned. In his speeches in later life, he quoted from memory, showing how familiar he had become with the word of God. Year after year while in the school of Gamaliel he ''increased in wisdom and stature," as did at the same time the boy in Nazareth whose wisdom was greater than that of Saul, he being taught, not by the wisest rabbi, but by his Father, the All-wise God.

(to be continued.)