The Scholar

Fair boy! the wand’rings of thy way

It is not mine to trace.
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.

historian of the Reformation, in speaking of the boyhood of Luther, tells us that his father had, in a little time, saved as much money by hard labour as enabled him to erect two furnaces at his native Mansfield; and from the profits arising from his new trade, he began to think of a better education for his boy. “He wished to make his son a man of learning; the boy’s remarkable aptness and persevering industry inspired John (the honest miner) with lively hopes. When Martin, therefore, in 1497, had attained the age of fourteen, he resolved to part with him, and send him to Magdeburg to the school of the Franciscans. His mother was obliged to consent, and Martin prepared to quit his father’s house.” *

Such a time had now arrived for young Saul of Tarsus. He had got what education a Jewish school in the city of his birth could afford. He might doubtless have carried on his studies much further in the celebrated Tarsus university; but his father would probably, for the reason given at the close of last chapter, be averse to his boy mixing with Gentile youths. He might be afraid, lest in a heathen seminary any influence might be used to abate his love and reverence for the faith of his ancestors; he therefore determined to send him away for some years to complete his education, probably sharing in the ambition of the humble miner of Germany to make him a distinguished scholar; or rather, what to a Jew was the highest of all honours, that he should become a scribe or doctor of the law.

I daresay some of my young readers may remember with what sorrowful feelings they found themselves for the first time going far away from the happy scenes of their infancy to a strange place, and among strange faces and friends. I doubt not Saul, who, when he was an older man, chided those who would “make him weep, and break his heart,” f had his own mingled thoughts in going from that happy mountain home where the morning of life had been spent. But there were joyous feelings also at the prospect of this long journey; he was going not so much away from home as to home; for although he never had seen it, Jerusalem was always a happy “homeword” to every Jew. From their earliest childhood they were taught to feel

* D’Aubigne’s History, book ii. f Acts xxi. 13. it as such. The gladdest day of their lives was that on which they were able to say, “Our feet shall stand within thy gates, 0 Jerusalem!” Every thought about Palestine, its hills, valleys, cities, villages, were holy thoughts. Often would the Jews of Asia Minor, as they returned year after year from the feasts, pause at Saul’s father’s dwelling, and lodge for the night, before crossing the heights of Mount Taurus to their own homes. While seated there, we may well believe the young listener would often and again have heard them speak of the glories of Zion and the temple. When his school-days at Tarsus, therefore, were about to be concluded, we may imagine, in such an ardent mind as his, with what feelings he would hear his father telling him — “I am going ere long to take you to see all the glorious things spoken of the city of God!”

It must have been when he was between the age of eleven and fourteen that Saul set out to his new abode. We cannot suppose it likely that one so young would be allowed to go alone. His father would himself most probably be too glad to have the opportunity of visiting the city of his people, and would delight to be the first to point out the wonders of the land of promise to his dear boy.* Neither is it likely, when they were so near the sea, that they would attempt the long journey by land. If you look again to the map, you will see how easily they could sail by vessel. We may imagine the Hebrew youth bidding an affectionate farewell to his old friends at Tarsus; his little sister, it may be, accompanying him to the ship in the docks, and, with a tear in her eye, following him, after the anchor was weighed, till he was lost from her sight amid the other

* Howsou and Conybeare, vol. i. p. 56.

vessels that crowded the harbour. We may imagine him sailing slowly down the river, which, near the town, was still and motionless; some hardy Phoenician captain at the helm, perhaps, struck with the sharp and intelligent features of the Jewish boy, delighting to give him his first ideas of a seafaring life. We may suppose him wandering on the deck until the sun has set behind the mountains of his childhood. They have now reached the mouth of the Cydnus, twelve miles below Tarsus. Here the river swells out, before joining the sea, into a large basin or lake, which by art had been made into docks, and was called the port of Tarsus.* By and by, they have passed the promontory which encloses it, and the silvery moon has risen on the great wilderness of waters all around.

Another day finds them gliding along the waves of the Mediterranean. Its surface may 1 ave been the calm, deep blue for which it is remaikible, with an unclouded sky looking down into it. Or the young voyager may have had the words of the Psalmist of Israel often in his mind — “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 commandeth, and raiseth the stormy wind, which lifteth up the waves thereof. They mount up to the heaven, they go down again to the depths.... They reel to and fro, and stagger like a drunken man, and are at their wit’s end. ... He maketh the storm a calm, so that the waves thereof are still. “t

“See!” we may imagine his father saying to him, as he points his eye to something in the far east,” seest thou yonder white mountain peaks like our own

* Slrabo, quoted by Lewin. t Ps. cvii. 23-29,

Taurus 1 — these are the heights of Lebanon; “and the boy’s thoughts wander up and down the hazy steeps, till he imagines he sees them clothed with dark cedars, and then he remembers he is sailing on the very waters by which Solomon got these giants of the forest floated on rafts for the building of the temple. No scene in the holy land can have undergone so little change since the days of Saul as the appearance of this “goodly mountain.” The picture given, therefore, by a recent writer, of the view of Lebanon from the sea, describes with accuracy what the eye of the youth of Tarsus then gazed on. “At sea the mountain rises before the spectator as a whole, and the eye can pass leisurely from its snowy peaks to the rich gardens at its bottom. The spectator never wearies in gazing on the goodly prospect before him. The undulating line of its promontories and bays extends for many a mile along the coast. On the mountain itself terrace rises above terrace, displaying at once the industry of the inhabitants, and the fertility of the mountain. Villages, with their flat-roofed houses, are seen sweetly placed amidst groves of vines and mulberries, or plantations of sugar-cane, oranges, and lemons.” *

But they have passed Lebanon — its heights are receding in the distance, and by and by they come to a bold mountain, with rocky front jutting out into the sea. “This,” his father would again say, “is Mount Carmel, — yonder is where our father Elijah stood. From this very sea he brought up his barrels of salt water to pour into his dug trenches, and from yonder top the smoke of his sacrifice ascended to heaven! “Shepherds, who were attracted to Carmel by the” ex-

* Seo Wylie’s Modern Judea, p. 70.

cellency” of its pastures, may have been looking down at the moment from its heights of pine and olive on the lonely vessel that was now sailing by its base. Little did they know the value of the youngest member of that crew, or the influence that one life in its manhood was yet to exercise on the world. As little did the young voyager himself foresee with what different feelings he would make the same voyage in after times! He was now full of boyish glee — a bright world before him! Forty years later, a care-worn missionary, his back marked with scourging, and his hands hardened with toil, would be seen, as he bounded over these same waves, lifting up his dimmed eye, not to Carmel nor to Lebanon, but to the “everlasting hills,” from whence alone came his aid.

A few hours more, and the sails are lowered. With a joyous heart, Saul sees the land coming nearer and nearer; they are within sound of Jewish voices on the shore; and entering among many vessels into a spacious harbour, they find themselves safely moored, probably in the newly-built town of Cesarea, one of the last and greatest of the works of Herod. The Hebrew boy is treading the sacred soil of Judea.*

Soon he commences the remaining land journey. We need not pause to describe it, — the more so as the last of its many interesting scenes casts all the others into the shade. We may think of the two travellers standing on the eastern slope of a gentle eminence, where for the first time the glories of Jerusalem open before them. — What three-topped hill is this, its

* We need not say that, in describing Saul’s journey, only a probable account of his route, and the incidents that took place in it, can be given, la this we have followed Howson and Conybeare in their interesting na. -ration — pp. 57, 58.

sides partially clothed with wood, rising immediately

behind the city 1 It is the green Mount of Olives the

same mountain across which old King David went weeping and bare-foot, and which was ere long to bo trodden (if it had not been trodden already) by Holier footsteps. What stately roof is that, which seems like a sheet of solid gold glittering in the sun, with pillars and porticoes all round about it? It is Solomon’s famous temple, with the holy of holies, — where the God of Israel dwelt in visible glory! Perhaps at the moment Saul saw it, the smoke of the morning or evening sacrifice was ascending. And what is that, towering high on the right, nearer where they are standing — a noble pile of building, with ranges of pillars, and surrounded wit! lovely gardens? It is the royal palace — the same in which David and Solomon once lived — where the latter erected his house of the forest of Lebanon, and which King Herod had now rebuilt in more than its former splendour. Soon the western gateway is passed, and the feet of the young Cilician boy are standing within “the joy of the whole earth” — “the city of the Great King.”

Without pausing to describe more particularly the sacred spot which Saul was now for several years to make his home, let us at once accompany him to the place where most of his time was to be spent. It was at a celebrated school in Jerusalem. There were several of these within the city famous for their learning. But one of the chief (if not the very chief) was that of Hillel, which dated its origin about sixty years before the birth of Christ. Hillel, the founder, is supposed to be the father of old Simeon, who took the child Jesus in his arms in the temple, and blessed him.

26 THE FOGTtTEFS OF ST PAUL.

The grandson of Hillel, and probably the son of Simeon, was a very learned and eminent Rabbi of the name of Gamaliel. To shew in what esteem his learning was held by the Jews, we are told that they designated him “the beauty of the law.” We know from the Acts of the Apostles that “he was had in reputation of all the people.”“”’ We have reason to believe he was a candid, upright, honourable man — amiable in himself, and beloved by all who were acquainted with him. There is a tradition which says that he was afterwards converted to Christianity by the preaching of Peter and John; but this does not seem likely. Indeed, it is to be feared he lived and died a zealous Pharisee. Had it been otherwise, we could not well credit what is said in the Targum, that another learned pupil, named Onkelos, spent seventy pounds of incense at his tomb, out of respect for his memory.

Such was Saul’s teacher. We may follow the pupil to the school, where, morning after morning, he was found “at the feet of Gamaliel,” along with a group of other ardent students like himself. Among his other school-fellows was very possibly Barnabas, who was, in future years, his travelling companion and fellow-labourer; also, the sons of Gamaliel, Jesus and Simon — the former of whom became high priest. The learned teacher, with his quick eye and long flowing beard, is seated in the centre. At one time he instructs them in Greek, at another in Hebrew; more seldom, perhaps, in Latin. By far the greater portion of their time is devoted to the well-used scroll he has by him, out of which he teaches the Jewish law. He explains its precepts and promises, its ceremonies, pro-

* Acts v. 34.

phecies, and types; although the Rabbi, with all his wisdom, had his own eyes blinded to the greatest of the truths he was trying to unfold.

It was fortunate Saul had a liberal instructor like Gamaliel, who did not object to impart to his scholars a knowledge of the Greek language. Many others in Jerusalem, at that time, would on no account have done so. In the case of Saul, it formed a very important part of his training for the great work of his future life, in preaching to the Gentiles. Greek, as I have already said, was then understood and spoken hi many countries of the Roman empire; and we find him afterwards, when, on different occasions, he addresses Athenians, Corinthians, and Cretans, making quotations to them from their own poets, shewing that he must have been familiar with their writings. We can trace, also, in his future epistles and letters, the peculiar way in which he had been trained by Gamaliel to argue. When we think of such Jewish schools, we must not imagine them similar to our own, or our own colleges, where the master or professor only is the examinator. The Jewish doctor encouraged the youths under him to question and cross- question one another — he himself, too, being asked by them in turn about anything they did not understand. It was a school for debate, for, in this way, the Jews considered the minds of their youth to be best trained for sharpness and acuteness. A question was started, objections were raised to it, and then these objections were answered. If you look to the Epistle to the Romans, you will see more than one example of how Paul used this form of debate or dialogue for the defence and explanation of Christian doctrine. “What advantage, then, hath the Jew, and what profit is there of circumcision 1” * “What shall we say, then 1 Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound?”t

We have good reason to imagine that the young Tarsus stranger, as well as his companions in the school of Hillel, loved their master, and listened with attention and reverence to his instructions. The quick mind of Saul grew more in love every day with the law and the religion of his fathers. As he himself tells us, “I made progress in the Jews’ religion above many my equals (those of the same age and standing with me) in my own nation, being more exceedingly zealous of the traditions of my fathers.”^. The thorough study of the ancient Scriptures in such schools accounts for the readiness he shews in his after life in quoting passages from the Old Testament. Writers have noted no less than eighty-eight quotations, one half of which seem to have been from memoiy. I doubt not the eye of the old Rabbi, as he surveyed the little countenances that surrounded him, often fell with peculiar hope upon that of the Cilician youth. Perhaps he expected that, when his own head was laid in the grave, the young Tarsian would take his place as a great Jewish doctor. But “God’s thoughts are not as man’s thoughts.” That studious boy was training for a nobler use!

The thought may occur — did Saul at this time, when he was in Jerusalem, never meet any of those with whom he was afterwards to be joined in such sacred bonds *? Did he never see any of the young fishermen of Galilee, when they came with their fathers and friends to attend the great annual feasts 1 Did he

* Romans iii. 1.

t Rom. vi. 1. Sec also Rom iii. 9, iv. 1, ix. 14; Lewiu, vol. i. p. 11.

J Gal. i. 14. never see the young Baptist, before his voice was heard in the deserts of Jordan? or, more than all, did he never see the blessed Saviour — “the holy child Jesus” — as he came, year after year, with Joseph and Mary, and mingled in the crowds at the temple’? Most probably he did see one or all; but if so, they were unknown to one another. It has been thought by some, that Gamaliel was more than probably one of the doctors in the temple whom Jesus, when he was twelve years of age, astonished by asking questions. If this be the case, possibly Saul may have been there in company with his teacher, and heard the tender voice of one who was afterwards to claim him as his most “chosen vessel.” * But, be this as it may, the occasion passed by; and we shall end this chapter by leaving our readers to imagine the future apostle, seated, year after year, at the feet of his instructor, having his head stored with learning, and his faculties ripened and matured, for great duties and great services, which at the time he little dreamt of.

What a bright future must have seemed to his companions, and perhaps to himself, to be opening before him! God had given him, as his inheritance, the greatest of all wealth — the wealth of intellect — the riches of a cultivated mind. He was active, bold, eloquent, virtuous, learned. He gives every promise of future greatness. The army of Titus is, in a few brief years, to be with their battering-rams at the gates of Jerusalem; and if we wrere asked to point out one in the whole nation of Israel, who gives best promise of acting the hero in that terrible conflict — heading the ranks of his desponding countrymen, and keep-

* Acts ix. 15, ing back, for a while at least, the Roman eagles from their prey — we should, without doubt, point to that quick-eyed youth who has battle-fields marked out for him, nobler far than Roman valour ever contested. A conquest is to be his, greater than the world’s greatest victors. Meanwhile, he is learning lessons of bitterest hatred to that truth which he was afterwards to proclaim with a giant’s voice. He was now taught to boast of nothing, save the traditions of his fathers — the pride of his birth — the distinction of his sect — the glory of his nation. We know not if Gamaliel lived to read in a letter, sent by this boy or Tarsus, in after years, to some poor Christians,” God forbid that I should

glory, SAVE IN THE CROSS OF THE LORD JESUS CHRIST!”