Acts 22:21Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

It is very likely that the Cilician churches, formed from the Gentiles and found by us later, owed their beginning to Paul. It cannot be thought that, after the command of Jesus Christ, Paul remained silent in his homeland about Jesus Christ.

He had preached Him in other cities even before that command. Concerning the churches in Cilicia, see the letter of the apostolic council, Acts 15:23. The Apostle himself surely means preaching, not a mere journey to Syria and Cilicia, in Gal 1:21.

The question arises: did Paul’s Christian polemic against Judaism now stand in the same relation as it did later? Or, what is the same thing, did he begin to affirm the Gospel’s independence from the Law of Moses from the very time he learned the Gospel?

To affirm this immediately after he had broken free from the principles of Pharisaism could have been very difficult. We see that those entering Christianity from this sect were strongly inclined to mix the Gospel with Pharisaic positions.

Ananias, the Apostle’s first teacher, was respected by all for his lawful piety. Therefore, he was certainly far from wishing to detach the Gospel from the ceremonial Law of Moses.

In general, around the time of Paul’s conversion, this was the prevailing tendency among Christians. Only the events after Stephen’s martyrdom gradually began to disclose, from various sides, a new point of view.

Yet we have no right to assert that this very event served to determine Paul’s way of thinking. In general, with Paul and his great independent spirit, we should not place too high a value on the definite influence of external communication of doctrine and ideas.

It is better to believe him himself, when he testifies with such strong assurance that he received his manner of preaching not from human instruction, but only from the Spirit of Christ.

Yet the Spirit of Christ, who enlightened him independently of human instruction, led him into a special understanding and a special development of the letter and the subject matter.

In one in whom Pharisaic Judaism gradually passed into Christianity, no little time had to pass before the spirit of the Gospel destroyed the Pharisaic-Jewish form.

It was otherwise with Paul. In him Pharisaism showed itself from the side most opposed to Christianity. But now, without any gradual transition, after one sudden break, he was seized by the power of the Gospel.

From the strongest persecutor, he became the most zealous confessor. When the sense of bondage reached its highest degree in him, he was already wholly penetrated by faith in the Redeemer, that he might receive freedom from Him.

Naturally, all his ties with Pharisaism were broken at once. The persecution of the Gospel was replaced by the persecution of Pharisaic Judaism, as he himself says in Phil 3:8.

“I count all things as loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things. I count them as refuse, that I may gain Christ.”

Thus Paul, from the very beginning, understood freely and deeply the relation of the Gospel to Judaism. This came through the action of enlightenment by the Spirit alone.

It did not come through any instruction from Peter, or from those Christians of Hellenistic origin who had already preached the Gospel to the Gentiles.

Gal 1:12 apparently should be referred to that part of Paul’s preaching which Paul’s opponents especially attacked. Paul means that the teaching on the Christian’s complete freedom from the Law of Moses is not his own invention, nor anyone else’s human production.

Rather, it was communicated to him through revelation by Jesus Christ. Yet, first, when the Apostle says that he could not have learned it from any man, even from the apostles themselves, or from any Jewish Christian, he speaks very broadly.

Therefore one cannot understand only the doctrine of freedom from the Law and justification by faith apart from works of the Law. He means the whole doctrine as first preached by Paul.

Second, Παρέλαβον in verse 12 is repeated by the Apostle Paul in 1 Cor 2:23 with reference to the history of Jesus Christ. Third, regarding the form of Paul’s preaching, the Apostle did not need to prove that it did not come from the apostles.

His enemies attacked him chiefly on this point.

Some of the other apostles were not in Jerusalem at that time. Others still regarded the converted fierce persecutor with distrust. They supposed that his conversion was only a treacherous device to discover all the secrets of life among the Christians.

But the generous Barnabas, himself a Hellenist, became closely acquainted with Saul. At last he convinced the apostles that before them stood no longer the former persecutor, but a humble Christian, counted worthy of a dread revelation on the road to Damascus.

Then Saul, having been received into the company of the apostles, was fully strengthened morally. Once more he came forward to preach Christ in the Jewish synagogues. He boldly disputed with the Hellenists, at whose head he had once defended the Old Covenant against Stephen.

This passing over to the side of his former opponents naturally aroused extreme irritation among the Jews. The lot of Saint Stephen threatened him.

Saul was in deep despondency. Once, while praying in the temple, he was carried so far in prayer that he fell into a trance. At that time he received a new revelation of Christ. Christ commanded him to depart from Jerusalem and at the same time gave him the great commission to be an apostle to the Gentiles.

“Go,” Christ said, “for I will send you far away to the Gentiles.”

Humbly accepting this great commission, Saul, with the help of the disciples, secretly boarded a ship. Thus escaping the danger that threatened him, he went to Caesarea. From there he was sent on to Tarsus, where he remained fourteen years, preparing for his great calling, the apostleship among the Gentiles.

“Where they especially ought to have been convinced, knowing his former zeal, there they were not convinced. See,” says Saint John Chrysostom, “with what he ends his speech: with the strongest proof. He says that he himself was a persecutor of Christ. He not only persecuted, but with a thousand hands slew Stephen. Here he reminds them of that most inhuman murder. After this they could no longer endure it, for they felt the reproof and saw the fulfillment of the prophecy.

Great is the zeal, strong is the reproof, bold is the speech of the witnesses of Christ’s truth! The Jews could no longer listen to the whole speech. Inflamed with anger, they cried out loudly.”