The claim that a rabbi from Galilee was the long-awaited Messiah was one that Saul heard some time around the year 35 AD. His rejection of such a blasphemous claim came to a head and boiled over when the young Greek-speaking deacon Stephen made his daring defense of that claim before the Sanhedrin, the same council of high priest and Jewish elders who had handed Jesus over to the Romans for capital punishment. So much did his defense enrage them that he was stoned to death and Saul, guarding the outer clothing of those who did the crime, stood there and approved (Acts 8:1).

On the day of Stephen’s death a great persecution erupted in Jerusalem against all the followers of Jesus, and a fanatic Saul joined the zealots. Making no distinction between men and women, he went from house to house looking for Christians (like the fanatic policeman Jabert in Les Miserables). He did not rest until he saw them thrown into prison. But the little group of those who followed Jesus had scattered, and soon Jerusalem was too small a place for Saul’s fanaticism. Hearing that the group had members in the much more important city of Damascus, Saul secured letters of introduction to the Jewish authorities there and — as St. Luke would later describe it — “breathing out murderous threats” (Act 9:1) traveled the approximately 150 miles on foot to take more prisoners. He would say later, “I was so enraged at these people that I followed them even to foreign cities” (Acts 26:11).

Saul’s religious fanaticism cannot be ascribed to Judaism. Even his great teacher Gamaliel had counseled patience in dealing with the followers of Jesus — but Saul would have none of that. He can justly be compared with the extremists of our own time who, whether religiously misguided or sociopaths, persecute, terrorize and/or kill others, claiming they do so for the sake of their god. We can imagine this young man, going “door to door” in Jerusalem, morbidly happy every time he entraps another Jesus-follower. We can imagine, too, the terror of those who dreaded his knock at the door.

In later years he would openly repent of his former way of life. “I do not deserve to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the Church of God” (1 Cor.15:9). But, in the mid 30’s, he was a hot-head in his mid 20’s, confident that he knew right from wrong, determined that he would impose his way of looking at Judaism on all Jews. Undoubtedly he had heard the Christians he had arrested defend themselves. In his pride, such defense would be swept away by his own acute intelligence. Only later would he reflect upon the words of Isaiah: “I, God, will destroy the wisdom of the wise; the intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate.” (Is. 29:14; Paul quotes it in 1 Cor. 1:19). But, before changing, he would have to be brought low.