But this name must be
fictitious, because it is a direct and express reference to Paul's
theology. It signifies "the saving deity, son of the father god," and
Paul was the author of the "Son of God" doctrine. The fact is, he was
known to the world under his assumed name only.

Nothing is known of his youth, except a few spurious anecdotes recorded
in the _Talmud_. When quite young he studied the law and some Grecian
literature at the feet of Gamaliel in Jerusalem, among the thousand
students who listened to the wisdom of that master. He states that he
was a very zealous Pharisee, who persecuted the Christians. But all of a
sudden he embraced the cause of the persecuted, and became one of its
most zealous apostles. We can easily imagine the nature of that
persecution, although the Stephen story, like the Damascus story and the
vision on the way, as narrated in the Acts, is spurious, because Paul
never alludes to it, and the Jews of Jerusalem had no jurisdiction in
Damascus over anybody. But what caused his remarkable transition from
one extreme to the other? First a Pharisee, with law and nothing but
law, and then the author of the epistles, which reject and abrogate the
entire law. Transitions of this nature require time, and are wrought by
violent agencies only.

A number of stories narrated in the _Talmud_, together with those of the
Acts, point to the fact that the youthful Paul, with his vivid
imagination, witnessed many an act of barbarous violence and outrageous
injustice. Occurrences of this nature were not rare under the military
despotism of Rome in Judea. The soil was saturated with innocent blood.
The world was governed by the sword, and Rome groaned under the
unnatural crimes of her Caesars. There was universal depravity among the
governing class, and endless misery among the governed. The rabbis give
us to understand that this state of affairs misled Paul into the belief
that there was no justice in heaven or earth, no hope for Israel, no
reward and no punishment, that the balance of justice was destroyed. It
is quite natural that under such circumstances such a scepticism should
overpower young and sensitive reasoners.

King Saul, in a state of despair, receiving no reply from the prophets,
none from the Urim and Thumim, deeply fallen as he was, went in disguise
to the Witch of Endor. Goethe's Faust, in imitation thereof, receiving
no answer to his questions addressed to heaven and eternity, no answer