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Justin Martyr, argues, "that Damascus belongs and did belong to Arabia, though now
it has been assigned to Syrophoenicia", and so it is just possible that Paul retired to some
spot in the immediate neighbourhood of Damascus. Yet, seeing that "Arabia" is
mentioned in the allegory of Gal. 4::
"For this Agar is Mount Sinai in Arabia, and answereth to Jerusalem which now is,
and is in bondage with her children" (25),
it seems almost a necessity that the Arabia to which Paul withdrew should be the Arabia
of Sinai and bondage too.
Elijah, as Paul would well know, had been forced to withdraw into the region of
Horeb the Mount of God, there to learn a needful lesson, and when the lesson was
learned, to receive the command:
"Go, return on thy way to the wilderness of Damascus" (I Kings 19: 15),
even as of Paul it is written "I went into Arabia, and returned gain unto Damascus"
(Gal. 1: 17).
There at the seat of the old covenant which gendered to bondage, Paul learned the
wonder of the gospel of liberty which had been entrusted to him, and like Elijah, he
listened to the "still small voice" and returned equipped for the fight of faith which
occupied the remainder of his pilgrim days. Three years were allowed to elapse between
this experience in Arabia, and his acquaintance with Peter.
"Then after three years I went up to Jerusalem to see Peter, and abode with him
fifteen days" (Gal. 1: 18).
Historeo means "to see or visit a person in order to make his acquaintance"
(Dr. E. W. Bullinger, "Critical Lexicon").
From this Greek word our own word
"history" is derived. While Paul owed his Gospel and Commission to no man, it was the
most natural thing in the world that he should desire to make the acquaintance of one who
not only was a prominent fellow apostle, but one whose rich experiences and personal
associations with the Lord would make such an acquaintance valuable beyond estimation.
We are sure that Paul would follow with a full heart, the earthly footsteps of the Son of
God as conducted over the ground by such a fellow disciple as Peter. Yet this could not
and did not add one iota either to his gospel or his authority.
So near to the heart of things was this independence of the apostle that more than once
we find him approaching the solemnity of an oath as he asserts it:
"Now the things which I write unto you, behold, before God, I lie not" (Gal. 1: 20).
"I am ordained a preacher, and an apostle (I speak the truth in Christ, and lie not); a
teacher of the Gentiles in faith and verity" (I Tim. 2: 7).
The persecutor had become the preacher, but no human instrumentality had been
permitted, lest the opposition to such a ministry as had been entrusted to him should have