in rank in the
Roman Empire, and afterwards the mother of Gentile Christendom, that
the first branch of the Church speaking Greek as its original tongue,
was now beginning to have its foundation; and it was also here that the
disciples were first called by the honourable name of Christians[55].

Section 10. _The Conversion of St. Paul._

[Sidenote: A.D. 34.]

It has been said "that, to combine the ceremonial shortcoming of the
eunuch with the imperfect faith of the Samaritan, is to arrive at the
admission of the Gentiles[56]." Preparation had been made in both
these instances for the carrying out of the Divine scheme by means of
St. Philip, whose fellow-Deacon had gladly laid down his life in
witnessing to the truth of it; and now God's great instrument for the
conversion of the gentile world was to appear.

[Sidenote: Conversion of Saul.]

The furious persecutor Saul was struck to the earth by the sight and
voice of the Lord, whose disciples at Damascus he was bent upon
ill-using; and his miraculous conversion was followed by his baptism
and the devotion of all his powers to the promulgation of that "Faith
which once he destroyed."

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[Sidenote: His fitness for his mission.]

It is not hard to perceive in St. Paul a peculiar fitness for the work
to which God called him. His zeal and self-devotion, deep affections,
and warm sympathies, were joined to clearness of judgment and great
intellectual powers; whilst, from the circumstances of his birth and
education, he had much in common with both Hebrew and Hellenist Jews.
Though born in the Greek city of Tarsus, where he came in contact with
the classical ideas and learning of which traces appear in his
writings, his father was a Hebrew, and sent him to finish his education
at Jerusalem under the care of the learned Pharisee Gamaliel. Thus he
became zealous in the Law; and hence his deep tenderness for his
brethren of the seed of Israel, and his thorough insight into their
feelings and prejudices, were united to an acquaintance with gentile
ways of life, classic learning, and foreign modes of thought.

With St. Paul's conversion came a time of peace and increase to the
Church, during which St. Peter's first Apostolic journey took place,
undertaken with the especial view of strengthening, by the Laying on of
Hands and by Apostolic preaching and counsel, those who, throughout
Judea and Samaria, had been regenerated and made "saints" by Holy
Baptism[57].