The Life of St. Paul | Page 8

began to handle the
disagreeable material, of what importance this handicraft was to be to
him in subsequent years: it became the means of his support during his
missionary journeys, and, at a time when it was essential that the
propagators of Christianity should be above the suspicion of selfish
motives, enabled him to maintain himself in a position of noble

independence.
21. Education.--It is a question natural to ask, whether, before leaving
home to go and get his training as a rabbi, Paul attended the University
of Tarsus. Did he drink at the wells of wisdom which flow from Mount
Helicon before going to sit by those which spring from Mount Zion?
From the fact that he makes two or three quotations from the Greek
poets it has been inferred that he was acquainted with the whole
literature of Greece. But, on the other hand, it has been pointed out that
his quotations are brief and commonplace, such as any man who spoke
Greek would pick up and use occasionally; and the style and
vocabulary of his Epistles are not those of the models of Greek
literature, but of the Septuagint, the Greek version of the Hebrew
Scriptures, which was then in universal use among the Jews of the
Dispersion. Probably his father would have considered it sinful to allow
his son to attend a heathen university. Yet it is not likely that he grew
up in a great seat of learning without receiving any influence from the
academic tone of the place. His speech at Athens shows that he was
able, when he chose, to wield a style much more stately than that of his
writings, and so keen a mind was not likely to remain in total ignorance
of the great monuments of the language which he spoke.
22. There were other impressions, too, which the learned Tarsus
probably made upon him: its university was famous for those petty
disputes and rivalries which sometimes ruffle the calm of academical
retreats; and it is possible that the murmur of these, with which the air
was often filled, may have given the first impulse to that scorn for the
tricks of the rhetorician and the windy disputations of the sophist which
form so marked a feature in some of his writings. The glances of young
eyes are clear and sure, and even as a boy he may have perceived how
small may be the souls of men and how mean their lives, when their
mouths are filled with the finest phraseology.
23. The college for the education of Jewish rabbis was in Jerusalem,
and thither Paul was sent about the age of thirteen. His arrival in the
Holy City may have happened in the same year in which Jesus, at the
age of twelve, first visited it, and the overpowering emotions of the boy

from Nazareth at the first sight of the capital of his race may be taken
as an index of the unrecorded experience of the boy from Tarsus. To
every Jewish child of a religious disposition Jerusalem was the center
of all things; the footsteps of prophets and kings echoed in the streets;
memories sacred and sublime clung to its walls and buildings; and it
shone in the glamor of illimitable hopes.
24. It chanced that at this time the college of Jerusalem was presided
over by one of the most noted teachers the Jews have ever possessed.
This was Gamaliel, at whose feet Paul tells us he was brought up. He
was called by his contemporaries the Beauty of the Law, and is still
remembered among the Jews as the Great Rabbi. He was a man of lofty
character and enlightened mind, a Pharisee strongly attached to the
traditions of the fathers, yet not intolerant or hostile to Greek culture, as
were some of the narrower Pharisees. The influence of such a man on
an open mind like Paul's must have been very great; and, although for a
time the pupil became an intolerant zealot, yet the master's example
may have had something to do with the conquest he finally won over
prejudice.
25. The course of instruction which a rabbi had to undergo was
lengthened and peculiar. It consisted entirely of the study of the
Scriptures and the comments of the sages and masters upon them. The
words of Scripture and the sayings of the wise were committed to
memory; discussions were carried on about disputed points; and by a
rapid fire of questions, which the scholars were allowed to put as well
as the masters, the wits of the students were sharpened and their views
enlarged. The outstanding qualities of Paul's intellect, which were
conspicuous in his subsequent life--his marvelous memory, the
keenness of his logic, the super-abundance of his ideas, and his original
way