The Conversion of the Persecutor Saul

(9:1-25)

The spread of Christianity in Samaria and the conversion to Christ of the proselyte eunuch marked the beginning of the preaching of the Gospel beyond the boundaries of pure Judaism. Soon, by God's providence, there was to be an even greater expansion of the scope of the Gospel preaching by transferring it to the pagan world. For this purpose, the Lord chooses a useful vessel for Himself in the person of His worst enemy Saul, who becomes the great Apostle of the Gentiles, Paul.

This is the same Saul who took an active part in the murder of the first martyr Archdeacon Stephen and the great persecution of the Church in Jerusalem that began after that (Acts 8:1-3) [48]. Not content with Jerusalem, he decided to take his vicious persecution of Christians beyond the capital of the Jewish world. He begged the high priest for letters to the synagogues in Damascus in order to obtain authority there to persecute Christians. Saul's state of mind was such that, for human reasons, it excluded any possibility of any change in him.

With this mood he went to Damascus, the ancient main city of Syria, located 200 versts northeast of Jerusalem. Since the time of the Seleucids, a lot of Jews lived in it, so Nero could have killed up to 10 there. 000 of them, according to the testimony of Josephus. The Jerusalem Sanhedrin considered all Jews in all countries of the world to be subject to its judicial authority in matters of faith, and therefore Saul, having letters from the high priest, could bring Christians to Jerusalem to be brought before the Sanhedrin as blasphemers and apostates.

The grace of God, however, produced a decisive revolution in this malicious mood of Saul. As he was approaching Damascus, a light from heaven shone upon him, so bright and dazzling that it threw him to the ground by its surprise. The writer does not say directly that in the radiance of this light Saul saw the heavenly image of Jesus Christ Himself, but the further features of the narrative confirm this, and the Apostle Paul himself testifies in 1 Corinthians 9:1 [49] and 15:8 [50] that in the light that shone on him, he saw the Lord.

Shocked by this, Saul fell down and, no longer seeing anything, heard only a voice saying to him: "Saul, Saul! why persecute me?" Saul was so unprepared for this miraculous manifestation that he asked, "Who art thou, Lord?" The Lord directly calls His Name and adds: "It is difficult for you to go against the." This is a popular proverb that expresses the idea of the futility of efforts to oppose the irresistible: you are powerless with all your malice against the work done by the Divine power.

Saul, horrified and trembling by what happened, humbly acknowledges Him who has appeared as his Lord, and himself as His servant, and asks: "What wilt thou command me to do?" The Lord commanded him to go to Damascus, where he would be told what he should do. The high priest and the Sanhedrin, apparently, gave Saul guides and assistants, who were witnesses to this extraordinary events, although they did not see anyone, but only heard the voice. Saul was blinded by the light that shone upon him: this was partly a punishment for the persecutor, partly a symbolic signification of the fact that he was blind with his eyes open in relation to the truth of Christ's teaching. After his companions had brought him, blind, by the hand to Damascus, in a deep feeling of repentance, he did not eat or drink for three days.

"There was a certain disciple in Damascus, whose name was Ananias" — judging by the name, a Christian from the Jews. The Apostle Paul himself later characterizes him as a pious man, who lived according to the law and enjoyed the respect of all the Jews of Damascus (Acts 22:12). According to tradition, he was later bishop of Damascus and died a martyr's death in Eleutheropolis. His feast day is 1 (14) October.

The Lord in a vision told him to go to Saul and lay his hand on him so that he could see. With childlike frankness, Ananias contradicts the Lord on the basis of rumors known to him about Saul as a persecutor of the Church. The Lord calms Ananias, pointing to the future great destiny of Saul: "For he is My chosen vessel."

Through the laying on of Ananias' hands, Saul received his sight and was filled with the Holy Spirit. This was an extraordinary miracle of God's special mercy over Saul: like the centurion Cornelius later, he was vouchsafed the grace of the Holy Spirit even before his baptism, and this grace was brought down upon him by a disciple who did not belong to the number of the 12 Apostles. "Thus, everything concerning Paul," notes St. John Chrysostom, "was inhuman and was not done through man, but God Himself was the perpetrator of it."

"And immediately it was as if the scales fell from his eyes" — it is impossible to think that any real substance in the kind of scales fell from Saul's eyes: it was only an internal personal sensation of him. Then he was baptized, no doubt, at the hands of the same Ananias. "And having eaten, he was strengthened," says Chrysostom, "for he was faint," says Chrysostom, "from travel, from fear, from fasting, and from sorrow."

"Saul was in Damascus several days." This does not contradict Paul's own statement in Galatians 1:17 [51] etc., that on his conversion he immediately went to Arabia. The writer does not mention Saul's journey from Damascus to Arabia and his return to Damascus. This is usual for St. Luke: he omits the description of the event, the news of which has not been preserved. There is, however, an indication here that after a few days in Damascus, Saul then "stayed there for a long time time," i.e., a long period (v. 23).

The fiery spirit of Saul did not tolerate delay, and he, having become a Christian, with the same zeal with which he had persecuted Christians before, began to preach Christianity in the synagogues. The main point of his preaching was that Jesus is the Son of God. All who heard were amazed at this extraordinary change that took place in Saul. Saul, on the other hand, was "strengthened more and more," probably after his return from Arabia, where he apparently devoted himself in silence and solitude to the study of the Holy Scriptures, already from the Christian point of view, illumined by the Holy Spirit.