From �The Life and Epistles of St. Paul� by W. J. Conybeare and J. S. Howson, Eerdmans
There is therefore little doubt that, though the native of a city filled with a Greek population and incorporated with the Roman Empire, yet Saul was born and spent his earliest days in the shelter of a home which was Hebrew, not in name only but in spirit. The Roman power did not press upon his infancy; the Greek ideas did not haunt his childhood; but he grew up an Israelitish boy, nurtured in those histories of the chosen people which he was destined so often to repeat in the synagogues, with the new and wonderful commentary supplied by the life and resurrection of a crucified Messiah. �From a child he knew the Scriptures,� which ultimately made him �wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus,� as he says of Timothy (2 Tim. 3:15). And the groups around his childhood were such as that which he beautifully describes in another part of the same letter to that disciple, where he speaks of �his grandmother Lois, and his mother Eunice.� (1:5)
We should be glad to know something of the mother of St. Paul. But though he alludes to his father, he does not mention her. He speaks of himself as set apart by God �from his mother�s womb,� that the Son of God should in due time be revealed in him, and him preached to the heathen. But this is all. We find notices of his sister and his sister�s son (Acts 23:16), and of some more distant relatives (Rom. 16:7, 11, 21); but we know nothing of her who was nearer to him than all of them. He tells us of his instructor Gamaliel; but of her, who, if she lived, was his earliest and best teacher, he tells us nothing. Did she die like Rachel, the mother of Benjamin, the great ancestor of his tribe; leaving his father to mourn and set a monument on her grace, like Jacob, by the way of Bethlehem (Gen. 35:16-20; 48:7)? Or did she live to grieve over he son�s apostasy from the faith of the Pharisees, and die herself unreconciled to the obedience of Christ? Or did she believe and obey the Savior on her own? These are questions which we cannot answer. If we wish to realize the earliest infancy of the apostle, we must be content with a simple picture of a Jewish mother and her child. Such a picture is presented to us in the short history of Elizabeth and John the Baptist, and what is wanting in one of the inspired books of St. Luke may be supplied, in some degree, by the other.
The same feelings which welcomed the birth and celebrated the naming of a son in the �hill country� of Judea (Luke 1:39), prevailed also among the Jews of the dispersion. As the �neighbors and cousins� of Elizabeth �heard how the Lord had showed great mercy upon her, and rejoiced with her,� so it would be in the household at Tarsus when Saul was born. In a nation to which the birth of a Messiah was promised, and at a period when the aspirations after the fulfillment of the promise were continually becoming more conscious and more urgent, the birth of a son was the fulfillment of a mother�s highest happiness; and to the father also (if we may thus invert the words of Jeremiah) �blessed was the man who brought tidings, saying, A man child is born unto thee, making him glad.� (Jer. 20:15)
On the eighth day the child was circumcised and named. In the case of John the Baptist, �they sought to call him Zacharias, after the name of his father. But his mother answered and said, Not so; but he shall be called John.� And when the appeal was made to his father, he signified his assent in obedience to the vision. It was not unusual to call a Jewish child after the name of his father; but it was a common practice, in all ages of Jewish History, even without a prophetic intimation, to adopt a name expressive of religious feelings. When the infant at Tarsus receive the name of Saul, it might be �after the name of his father;� and it was a name of traditional celebrity in the tribe of Benjamin, for it was that of the first king anointed by Samuel. Or, when his father said �his name is Saul,� it may have been intended to denote (in conformity with the Hebrew derivation of the word) that he was a son who had long been desired, the first born of his parents, the child of prayer, who was thenceforth, like Samuel, to be consecrated to God. �For this child I prayed,� said the wife of Elkanah, �and the Lord hath given me my petition which I asked of Him; therefore also I have lent him to the Lord; as long as he lives he shall be lent to the Lord.� (1 Sam. 1:27,28)
Admitted into covenant with God by circumcision, the Jewish child had thenceforward a full claim to all the privileges of the chosen people. His was the benediction of the 128th Psalm, �The Lord shall bless thee out of Zion; thou shalt see the good of Jerusalem all the days of thy life,� From that time, whoever it might be who had watched over Saul�s infancy, whether, like king Lemuel, [1] he learned �the prophecy that his mother taught him,� or whether he was under the care of others, like those who were with the sons of king David and king Ahab (1 Chron. 27:32; 2 Kings 10:1,5), we are at no loss to learn what the first ideas were with which his early though was made familiar. The rules respecting the diligent education of children, which were laid down by Moses in the 6th and 11th chapters of Deuteronomy, were doubtless carefully observed; and he was trained in that peculiarly historical instruction, spoken of in the 78th Psalm, which implies the continuance of a chosen people, with glorious recollections of the past, and great anticipations for the future; �The Lord made a covenant with Jacob, and gave Israel a law, which He commanded our forefathers to teach their children; that their posterity might know it, and the children which were yet unborn, to the intent that when they came up, they might show their children the same; that they might put their trust in God, and not to forget the works of the Lord, but to keep his commandments (vv. 5-7).
The histories of Abraham and Isaac, of Jacob and Samuel, Elijah, Daniel, and the Maccabees, were the stories of his childhood. The destruction of Pharaoh in the Red Sea, the thunders of Mount Sinai, the dreary journeys in the wilderness, the land that flowed with milk and honey, this was the earliest imagery presented to his opening mind. The triumphant hymns of Zion, the lamentations by the waters of Babylon, the prophetic praises of the Messiah, were the songs around his cradle.
Above all, he would be familiar with the destinies of his own illustrious tribe. [2] The life of the timid Patriarch, the father of the Twelve; the sad death of Rachel near the city where the Messiah was to be born; the loneliness of Jacob, who sought to comfort himself in Benoni �the son of her sorrow,� by calling him Benjamin [3] �the son of his right hand;� and then the youthful days of this youngest of the twelve brethren, the famine, and the journeys into Egypt, the severity of Joseph, and the wonderful story of the silver cup in the mouth of the sack; these are the narratives to which he listened with intense and eager interest. How little was it imagined that, as Benjamin was the youngest and most honored of the Patriarchs, so this listening child of Benjamin should be associated with the twelve servants of the Messiah of God, the last and most illustrious of the apostles!
But many years of ignorance were yet to pass away before the mysterious Providence, which brought Benjamin to Joseph in Egypt, should bring his descendant to the knowledge and love of Jesus, the Son of Mary. Some of the early Christian writers see in the dying benediction of Jacob, when he said that �Benjamin should ravin as a wolf, in the morning devour the prey, and at night divide the spoil,� a prophetic intimation of him who, in the morning of his life, should tear the sheep of God, and in its evening feed them, as the teacher of the nations. When St. Paul was a child and learned the words of this saying, no Christian thoughts were associated with it, or with that other more peaceful prophecy of Moses, when he said of Benjamin, �The beloved of the Lord shall dwell in safety by Him; and the Lord shall cover him all the day long, and he shall dwell between His shoulders.� (Deut. 33:12)
But he was familiar with the prophetical words and could follow in the imagination the fortunes of the sons of Benjamin, and knew how they went through the wilderness with Rachel�s other children, the tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh, forming with them the third of the four companies on the march, and reposing with them at night on the west of the encampment. (Num. 2:18-24; 10:22-24) He heard how their lands were assigned to them in the promised country along the borders of Judah (Josh. 18:11); and how Saul, whose name he bore, was chosen from the tribe which was the smallest (1 Sam. 9:21), when �little Benjamin� (Psalm 68:27) became the �ruler� of Israel. He knew that when the ten tribes revolted, Benjamin was faithful (2 Chron. 11; see 1 Kings 12); and he learned to follow its honorable history even into the dismal years of the Babylonian Captivity, when Mordecai, �a Benjamite who had been carried away� (Esther 2:5,6), saved the nation; and when, instead of destruction, �the Jews,� through him, �had light, and gladness, and joy, and honor;� and in every province, and in every city, wherever the king�s commandment and his decree came, the Jews had a joy and gladness, a feast and a good day. And many of the people of the land become Jews, for the fear of the Jews fell upon them.� (Esther 8:16,17)
Such were the influences which cradled the infancy of St. Paul; and such was the early teaching under which his mind gradually rose to the realization of his position as a Hebrew child in a city of Gentiles. Of the exact period of his birth we possess no authentic information. span style="mso-special-character: footnote; font-si