Page:History of Joseph and his brethren.pdf/19

19 Having at Tarsus attained to a great perfection in the liberal arts and sciences. He was sent to Jerusalem to be instructed in the knowledge of the laws ; and for the hetter accomplished him in that study, was put under the tuition of Raban Gamaliel the son of Simon, (the same probably that took up our Saviour in his arm). He was an eminent doctor of the law, one of the families of the schools at Jerusalem, and a person of principal note, and authority in the Jewish Sanhedrim, in which that grave and prudent speech, before mentioned in the Life of St. Peter, which he made in behalf of the apostles, and their doctrine took great effect. At the feet of this great doctor St. Paul was brought up, as he himself testifies ; and by his instructions he soon advanced to that degree, that he gained himself a reputation above all his fellow scholars. Moreover he was a strict professor of the sect of the pharisees, which of all others amongst the Jews, was the severest and most magisteral ; and the professors thereof, generally great applauders of themselves for their sanctity, despising and censuring all others as reprobates, and unworthy of their society, and presuming (as Josephus writes) to govern even princes themselves. With the fiery genius of this sect, our apostle was too deeply infected, which made him a most zealous Persecuter of the Saints, so that when the blood of the Martyr Stephen was shed, I (saith be with sorrow after his conversion), was standing by, consented to his death, and kept the Raiment of them that slew him. Nay, of all the Apparators, and Inquisitors employed by the Sanhedrim, to execute their Warrants ; upon those upstart Heretics, as they called them, who preached against the law of Moses, and the tradition of the Fathers : he was the Man that strove to he the forwardest. In this zeal to execute his office, as he was on his way to Damascus, with some others of his fellow officers, breathing out vengeance and destruction against the poor christians, there was on a sudden a most glorious light shot full upon him, and the rest that were with him, so that they fell to the ground in great amazement, and at the same time a voice from heaven was directed to him, saying. " Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me ?" to which as amazed as he was answered, Lord who art thou ? the