Why Did Saul Persecute Christians?

'I REALLY THOUGHT I OUGHT to commit many acts of opposition against the name of Jesus the Nazarene; which, in fact, I did in Jerusalem.  Many of the holy ones I locked up in prisons, as I had received authority from the chief priests.  When the disciples were to be executed, I cast my vote against them.  By punishing them many times in all the synagogues, I tried to force them to make a recantation.  Since I was extremely mad against them, I went so far as to persecuting them even in outside cities.' -Acts 26:9-11.


SO SAID Saul of Tarsus, also known as the apostle Paul.  By the time he said this, of course, he was a new man.  No longer an opposer of Christianity, he was not one of its most ardent promoters.  But what had formerly motivated Saul to persecute Christians?  Why did he think 'he ought to commit ' such deeds? And is there any lesson to be drawn from his story?


The Stoning of Stephen

Saul enters the Bible record among those killing Stephen.  "After throwing [Stephen] outside the city, they began casting stones at him.  And the witnesses laid down their outer garments at the feet of  a young man called Saul."   "Saul, for his part, was approving of the murder of him."  (Acts 7:58; 8:1)  What led to that assault?  Jews, including some from Cilicia, disputed with Stephen but were unable to hold their own against him.  Whether Saul, also a Cilician, was among them is not stated.  In any case, they used false witnesses to accuse Stephen of blasphemy and dragged him before the Sanhedrin.  (Acts 6:9-14) This assembly, presided over  by the high priest, acted as the Jewish  high court.  as the ultimate religious authority, its members also safeguarded what they held to be doctrinal purity.  In their view Stephen was deserving of death.  He dared to accuse  them of not observing the law, did he?  (Acts 7:53)  They would show him how it was to be observed!

Saul's approval of that opinion was a logical consequence of his convictions.  He was a Pharisee.  This powerful sect demanded  strict observance of law and  tradition.  Christianity was held to be the antithesis of those tenets, teaching a new way to salvation through Jesus.  First-century Jews expected the Messiah to be a glorious King who would free them from the hated yoke of Roman domination.  That the one who was condemned by the Great Sanhedrin on a charge of blasphemy and thereafter impaled on a torture stake like the accursed Criminal could be the  Messiah was thus completely alien, unacceptable, and repellent to their mentality.

The Law stated that a man hung upon a stake was "accursed of God."  (Deuteronomy 21:22, 23; Galatians 3:13) From Saul's viewpoint,  "these words were clearly applicable to Jesus,"  comments Frederick F. Bruce.  "He had died under the curse of God, and therefore could not conceivably be the Messiah, upon whom, almost by definition, the blessing of God rested in unique measure.  To claim that Jesus was the Messiah was therefore blasphemous; those who made such  a preposterous claim deserved to suffer as blasphemers." As Saul himself later acknowledged, the very idea of the "Christ impaled [was] tot he Jews a cause for stumbling." -1 Corinthians 1:23.

Saul's reaction to such a teaching was to oppose it with the greatest possible determination.  Even brute force was to be used in an effort to stamp it out.  He was sure that this was what God wanted.  Describing the spirit he nurtured, Saul said:  "As respects righteousness that is by means of law, one who proved himself blameless."  to the point of excess I kept on persecuting the congregation of God and devastating it, and I was making greater progress in Judaism than many of my own age in my race, as I was far more zealous for the traditions of my fathers." -Philippians 3:6; Galatians 1:13, 14.

Next time: Protagonist in Persecution

The Watchtower, 1999