It was in 34 CE, not long after his tent business collapsed, that Saul first heard about "Christianity," a new and controversial Jewish sect coming out of Nazareth, Galilee. Saul was skeptical. For Saul of Tarsus to believe that a Jewish Messiah could come from the hillbilly region of Galilee was a little like asking a modern high school graduate to believe that an ingenious world leader could come from Crawford, Texas – not impossible, but not too bloody likely.
Every Jew in the Roman empire – especially those who, like Saul, had suffered financial setbacks under Rome – was praying for the Messiah to come, and to come soon. But this new Jewish sect believed that their Messiah, "a Galilean yokel who never even washed his hands before lunch," had already come and gone, four years ago! With a promise to return shortly, with reinforcements. And when he came back, the heretic Jews were saying, their alleged Messiah would take revenge on the Pharisees for various indignities inflicted on him in Jerusalem.
Tents or no tents, Saul was still a Pharisee. His father had been a Pharisee. Many civic leaders of Tarsus were Pharisees. The news of this Jesus rankled. Self-styled messiahs were a dime a dozen in those days, and here was one more. Saul wished he could have been in Jerusalem on 30 March, 31 CE (Good Friday) to help nail that messianic impostor to the Cross; or at least, to run a coat-check while other people nailed him (Acts 22:20).
But it was the advent of Christianity that gave Saul Junior an idea for his next business: he organised the soon-to-be-feared "Tarsus Posse," a group of Bible-believing middle-aged Jews whose secondary purpose would be social, but whose primary purpose would be to persecute those Jews who accepted Jesus Christ as their personal lord and saviour. Saul with his band of vigilantes would either chase the heretic Jews from Asia Minor, or catch them. Those he caught, he would turn over to the local Roman magistrates for a bounty, with payments to be negotiated. The heretic Jews could then do service in the Ephesus Stadium as amateur gladiators; or, if they were poor fighters, they could simply be fed to the lions, between performances, as catfood (Acts 22:4).
Even Saul's elderly mother thought it sounded like a plan. In fact, it was old Mrs. Abbaskoptzi who first suggested to her son that he adopt the professional nickname, "Saul the Persecutor" – which I thought sounded stupid, but it grew on me. Believe me, I have heard worse. "Saul the Persecutor" is no worse than "Richard the Lion-Hearted," or "Conan the Barbarian," "King Ethelred the Unready," or "Rev. Jerry Falwell the Teletubby Tinky Winky."
Saint Luke chooses his words carefully: thus "Saul began to destroy Christianity" (Acts 8:1).
If Saul had finished the assignment, I'd have been the first to nominate him for a Nobel Peace Prize. But destroying Christianity was not Saul's top priority. As a man of God, what Saul the Persecutor mostly wanted to do, was to kill people who didn't believe the same way he did.
The vigilante work – which was funded by Saul on borrowed money at an exorbitant interest rate – brought only a disappointing return. The Christian Jews of Tarsus, fewer than a dozen, were rounded up the first week. After that, the Posse had to roam as far as Colossae, Galatia, and Ephesus for fresh victims, with Saul picking up the travel tab. Moreover, the Romans refused to pay much for the "bad Jews" whom Saul kidnapped, on the theory that Christianity was not a security threat to the Empire but just another "silly Hebrew superstition" (Acts 25:19).
The fun, for Saul's colleagues, was mostly in the chase; but often, after making an arrest, the Tarsus Posse would receive free admission to the Ephesus Stadium, to watch their captives face the lions. "Saul the Persecutor" always rooted for the cats (Acts 8:2-3, 22:4).
– L.
(To be continued!)
