Let us now turn to the other side of Paul's world training. I refer to the Greek influence to which he was subjected, as indeed were all the Jews from the time of the dispersion.1 Let us take first his education proper. We are told (Acts 22:3) that he sat at the feet of Gamaliel. This may have some significance. One instance of the broadness of mind of Gamaliel is recorded for us in Acts 5:24–39. When certain of the disciples were being attacked for their Christian propaganda he suggested that they should not be disturbed because, if their work was of God it should not be opposed, and if it was not of God it would come to naught. This, upon analysis, may not prove to be a rule of behaviour of very high order; but at least it shows a breadth of mind sufficient to appreciate that the other man may be right. There is a Jewish record that a Gamaliel taught one thousand students and that half of them studied the Greek classics. It has been assumed that this was the Biblical Gamaliel and that with such a man Paul's education could not have been a narrow one. But modern scholars tell us that the reference is to Gamaliel II, the grandson of Paul's Gamaliel.
However this may be, we find in Paul's writings certain echoes from Greek literature which seem to indicate that he could not have been entirely unacquainted with that literature. Of course he may not have quoted directly, but then in that case these things must have been current in common speech, and if he got them in that indirect way, all the more it is shown how Paul was in touch with Greek life. Perhaps the best known of his quotations is found in the speech on Mars Hill (Acts 17:28), "For we too are his offspring." It has a very good ring in Greek:—Tou gar kai genos esmen.
This line is found in two different philosophical poems, one by Aratus, and one by Cleanthes, both of whom came from the district around Tarsus, where Paul was brought up.2 It is interesting to think that, even if Paul in his Hebrew household, never read Aratus or Cleanthes, nevertheless this line occurred in conversation so that he became familiar with it in the ordinary intercourse of life. We know that he recognised it as a line of poetry, and not merely as a maxim of common speech, because he said concerning it, "As one of your own poets has said."
A second quotation is found in I Cor. 15:33. It is translated, "Evil communications corrupt good manners." This is a part of a line from Menander and has the true swing of the classical hexameter: Phteirousin ethe chresth' homiliai kakai.
He also quotes from Epimenides, in the Epistle to Titus, I:12: "The Cretans are always liars, noxious beasts, idle gluttons" (or "slow bellies" as the Authorized Version used to put it).
Perhaps a more important indication of the fact that Paul was very much at home in the Greek language is his use of the Septuagint. This is the Greek translation of the Old Hebrew Bible, and almost all Paul's quotations from the Old Testament are couched in the language of the Septuagint, rather than being direct quotations from the Hebrew.
But it was not only the Greek language which influenced Paul. There was the even greater influence of the Greek life about him. He said that he was a citizen of no mean city, and he said well. Tarsus does not mean much to us, but it was a very important city in its day. We may perhaps picture this to ourselves best by recalling that through Tarsus flowed the river Cydnos. This was the river where Cleopatra met Antony, and we are all familiar with the pageant of her barge upon the river as pictured by Shakespeare.
Tarsus was also probably the foremost seat of the Stoic philosophy. I have already referred to Paul's quotation from Cleanthes, the Stoic.3 But more important still, we find continually through Paul's Epistles the use of the technical terms of Stoic philosophy and a Stoic point of view which is quite un-Hebrew, and also quite foreign to the ordinary classical methods of thought.
Tarsus, also, we must remember, was a large city, and the Hebrew boy came into close contact with soldiers, slaves, shops, theatres, games and buildings. Many evidences of this appear in the language used by Paul and in the illustrations which he employed. Again and again he couches the Christian struggle in terms of the soldier. The little shops with their oriental chaffering had a great influence upon him. He tells us in one place that we must not "huckster" the word of God. The phenomenon of slavery greatly impressed him. He speaks continually of the branding of slaves, of the emancipation of slaves. In fact a number of times he expresses the new life by saying that we have become slaves of God. Games and sports appear again and again in Paul's letters. Even if Paul, with his Hebrew inheritance, was not particularly impressed with this feature of contemporary Greek life, he knew that his hearers were greatly interested in it, and that in itself was enough to explain his use of words chosen from sporting language and illustrations which make the Christian life analogous to the struggle of the athlete. A very striking example is given in I Cor. 0:24–27. He starts first with a reference to the foot race:
"Do you not know that of all the runners in the race only one receives the prize? Well, then, run so that you can get the prize."
In the next verse he speaks of the training of the athlete. Then he speaks of the fact that the Greeks used to run for a prize of fading laurel, "but we are looking for an incorruptible crown." In the next verse he changes the figure and depicts himself as a boxer bringing his body into condition, "lest" says the Authorized Version, "having preached the gospel, I myself should be a castaway." But what Paul really said, using two technical terms of the arena, was this: "lest, after being a starter, I myself should be disqualified." You can imagine how this appealed to the sporting audience at Corinth.
Another characteristic instance of Paul's use of sporting terms is found at the beginning of the second chapter of the first letter to the Thessalonians. There he speaks of a former "visit" to them when he preached amid great "struggle." The word for "visit" is eisodos. It means literally the "way in," but it is the technical sporting term for entering a race or other athletic contest. And the word for "struggle" is agony, just the word which was used for the straining and struggling of athletics. So Paul presented to his Thessalonian readers a picture of himself entering a wrestling match with them.
1 By 'the dispersion' Mr. Brown refers to the Greek diaspora, particularly as it affected the eastern Mediterranean even before Alexander's conquests. He would not be referring to the Jewish diaspora that began with the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 C.E. since Paul had come to maturity decades earlier.
2 As it happens, Paul's Tarsus lay (and lies) on the southern Mediterranean coast of modern Turkey; the philosopher Cleanthes was from Assos, on the northwestern Mediterranean coast of Turkey; the poet Aratus hailed from Soli, on the northern coast of Cyprus.
3 PtS-32 has 'Cleanthes, the stoic'.