The Life of St. Paul | Page 6

evenings, to watch from the flat roofs of their
houses the glow of the sunset. Not far above the town the river poured
over the rocks in a vast cataract, but below this it became navigable,
and within the town its banks were lined with wharves, on which was
piled the merchandise of many countries, while sailors and merchants,
dressed in the costumes and speaking the languages of different races,
were constantly to be seen in the streets. The town enjoyed an extensive
trade in timber, with which the province abounded, and in the long fine
hair of the goats kept in thousands on the neighboring mountains,
which was made into a coarse kind of cloth and manufactured into
various articles, among which tents, such as Paul was afterward
employed in sewing, formed an extensive article of merchandise all
along the shores of the Mediterranean. Tarsus was also the center of a
large transport trade; for behind the town a famous pass, called the
Cilician Gates, led up through the mountains to the central countries of
Asia Minor; and Tarsus was the depot to which the products of these
countries were brought down, to be distributed over the East and the
West.
The inhabitants of the city were numerous and wealthy. The majority of
them were native Cilicians, but the wealthiest merchants were Greeks.
The province was under the sway of the Romans, the signs of whose
sovereignty could not be absent from the capital, although Tarsus itself
enjoyed the privilege of self-government. The number and variety of
the inhabitants were still further increased by the fact that, like the city
of Glasgow, Tarsus was not only a center of commerce, but also a seat
of learning. It was one of the three principal university cities of the
period, the other two being Athens and Alexandria; and it was said to
surpass its rivals in intellectual eminence. Students from many
countries were to be seen in its streets, a sight which could not but
awaken in youthful minds thoughts about the value and the aims of
learning.

16. Who does not see how fit a place this was for the Apostle of the
Gentiles to be born in? As he grew up, he was being unawares prepared
to encounter men of every class and race, to sympathize with human
nature in all its varieties, and to look with tolerance upon the most
diverse habits and customs. In after life he was always a lover of cities.
Whereas his Master avoided Jerusalem and loved to teach on the
mountainside or the shore of the lake, Paul was constantly moving from
one great city to another. Antioch, Ephesus, Athens, Corinth, Rome, the
capitals of the ancient world, were the scenes of his activity. The words
of Jesus are redolent of the country, and teem with pictures of its still
beauty or homely toil--the lilies of the field, the sheep following the
shepherd, the sower in the furrow, the fishermen drawing their nets; but
the language of Paul is impregnated with the atmosphere of the city and
alive with the tramp and hurry of the streets. His imagery is borrowed
from scenes of human energy and monuments of cultivated life--the
soldier in full armor, the athlete in the arena, the building of houses and
temples, the triumphal procession of the victorious general. So lasting
are the associations of the boy in the life of the man.
17. Paul's Home.--Paul had a certain pride in the place of his birth, as
he showed by boasting on one occasion that he was a citizen of no
mean city. He had a heart formed by nature to feel the warmest glow of
patriotism. Yet it was not for Cilicia and Tarsus that this fire burned.
He was an alien in the land of his birth. His father was one of those
numerous Jews who were scattered in that age over the cities of the
Gentile world, engaged in trade and commerce. They had left the Holy
Land, but they did not forget it. They never coalesced with the
populations among which they dwelt but, in dress, food, religion and
many other particulars remained a peculiar people. As a rule, indeed,
they were less rigid in their religious views and more tolerant of foreign
customs than those Jews who remained in Palestine. But Paul's father
was not one who had given way to laxity. He belonged to the straitest
sect of his religion. It is probable that he had not left Palestine long
before his son's birth, for Paul calls himself a Hebrew of the
Hebrews--a name which seems to have belonged only to the Palestinian
Jews and to those whose connection with Palestine had continued very
close.

Of his mother we hear absolutely nothing, but everything seems to