ndividual now appeared upon the scene who was to be the leader of this
new movement. He is "a citizen of no mean city" [58:2]--a native of
Tarsus in Cilicia, a place famous for its educational institutes
[58:3]--and he is known, by way of distinction, as "an apostle of _the
nations_." [58:4]

The apostles were at first sent only to their own countrymen; [58:5] and
we have seen that, for some time after our Lord's death, they do not
appear to have contemplated any more comprehensive mission. When Peter
called on the disciples to appoint a successor to Judas, he seems to
have acted under the conviction that the company of the Twelve must
still be maintained in its integrity, and that its numbers must still
exactly correspond to the number of the tribes of Israel. But the Jews,
after the death of Stephen, evinced an increasing aversion to the
gospel; and as the apostles were eventually induced to direct their
views elsewhere, they were, of course, also led to abandon an
arrangement which had a special reference to the sectional divisions of
the chosen people. Meanwhile, too, the management of ecclesiastical
affairs had partially fallen into other hands; new missions, in which
the Twelve had no share, had been undertaken; and Paul henceforth
becomes most conspicuous and successful in extending and organising the
Church.

Paul describes himself as "one born out of due time." [59:1] He was
converted to Christianity when his countrymen seemed about to be
consigned to judicial blindness; and he was "called to be an apostle"
[59:2] when others had been labouring for years in the same vocation.
But he possessed peculiar qualifications for the office. He was ardent,
energetic, and conscientious, as well as acute and eloquent. In his
native city Tarsus he had probably received a good elementary education,
and afterwards, "at the feet of Gamaliel," [59:3] in Jerusalem, he
enjoyed the tuition of a Rabbi of unrivalled celebrity. The apostle of
the Gentiles had much the same religious experience as the father of the
German Reformation; for as Luther, before he understood the doctrine of
a free salvation, attempted to earn a title to heaven by the austerities
of monastic discipline, so Paul in early life was "taught according to
the perfect manner of the law of the fathers," [59:4] and "after the
strictest sect of his religion lived a Pharisee." [59:5] His zeal led
him to become a persecutor; and when Stephen was stoned, the witnesses,