ea and on land. Tarsus, while one of three
university centers of the period, ranking with Athens and
Alexandria, was an exceedingly corrupt city. It was the
chief seat of "a special Baal worship of an imposing but
unspeakably degrading character."

+Time.+--The date of Paul's birth is nowhere recorded,
but from certain dates given in the Acts, from which we
reckon back, it is thought that he was born about the
same time as Jesus Christ.

+Family.+--We are left, in this matter, without any
uncertainty. Paul says, "I am a Pharisee, the son of a
Pharisee" (Acts 23:6). I was "circumcised the eighth
day, of the stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, an
Hebrew of the Hebrews, as touching the law, a Pharisee"
(Phil. 3:5). Paul's father and mother were Jews
of the stricter sort. The expression which Paul uses, "An
Hebrew of the Hebrews" is very significant. The Jews
of the Dispersion were known at this time as Hebrews
and Hellenists. The Hebrews clung to the Hebrew
tongue and followed Hebrew customs. The Hellenists
spoke Greek by preference and adopted, more or less,
Greek views and civilization. Paul had a married sister
who lived in Jerusalem (Acts 23:16) and relatives in Rome
(Rom. 16:7, 11).

TRAINING

+Home.+--The instruction received in the home has often
more influence and is more lasting than any other. Paul
received the usual thorough training of the Jew boy
accentuated in his case, in all probability, by the open iniquity
which was daily practised in his native city. We never
hear him expressing any regret that he received such
thorough religious instruction at the hands of his parents.

+Mental, Moral, and Religious.+--Good teachers were
employed to instruct the boy, who was afterwards to make
such a mark in the world. After going through the
school, under the care of the synagogue at Tarsus, he
was sent to Jerusalem to complete his education. Paul,
speaking in this chief Jewish city, says, I was "brought
up in this city at the feet of Gamaliel, and taught
according to the perfect manner of the law of the fathers"
(Acts 22:3). It is very evident that He had a profound
knowledge of the Scriptures from the large use he makes
of them in his Epistles. He seems also to have been
quite well acquainted with Greek philosophy and
literature. He quotes from the Greek poets, Aratus,
Epimenides, and Menander. No man ever studied men and the
motives which actuate them more than he. His inwar