e what they seemed
to be; and soon after the thought crossed my mind that if the Nazarenes
were the saints that they seemed to be, bearing their flogging and
imprisonments with fortitude, without complaint, it was of persecuting
God I was guilty, since all goodness comes from God.

I had asked for letters from Hanan, the High Priest, that would give me
the right to arrest all ill thinkers, and to lead them back in chains to
Jerusalem, and these letters seemed to take fire in my bosom, and when
we came in view of the town, and saw the roofs between the trees, I
heard a voice crying to me: Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me? It is
hard for thee to kick against the pricks; and trembling I fell forward,
my face upon the ground, and the Lord said: I am Jesus whom thou
persecutest. Arise, and go into the city and it shall be told to thee
what thou must do; by these words appointing me his apostle and
establishing my rights above those of Peter or John or James or any of
the twelve who walked with him whilst he lived as a man in Galilee. My
followers, who were merely stricken, but not blinded as I was, took me
by the arm and led me into Damascus, where I abode as a blind man till
Ananias laid his hands upon me and the scales fell from my eyes, and I
cried out for baptism, and having received baptism, which is spiritual
strength, and taken food, which is bodily, I went up to the synagogue to
preach that Jesus is the son of God, and continued till the Jews in that
city rose up against me and would have killed me if I had not escaped by
night, let down from the wall in a basket.

From Damascus I went into Arabia, and did not go up to Jerusalem for
three years to confer with the apostles, nor was there need that I
should do so, for had I not received my apostleship by direct
revelation? But after three years I went thither, hearing that the
persecutions had ceased, and that some of those whom I had persecuted
had returned. The brother of Jesus, James, had come down from Galilee
and as a holy man was a great power in Jerusalem. His prayers were
valued, and his appearance excited pity and belief that God would
hearken to him when he knelt, for he was naked but for a coarse cloth
hanging from his neck to his ankles. Of water and cleanliness he knew
naught, and his beard and hair grew as the weeds grow in the fields.
Peter, too, was in Jerusalem, and come into a great girth since the toil
of his craft, as a fisher, had been abandone