"Down with our enemies of the New Faith!" he cried, showing that when himself he was in earnest accord with the spirit of the Inner Circle.
The Rabban Gamaliel was astounded at the action of the Sanhedrin in the case of Stephanos. As the head of the most noted training school in Jerusalem, where Hebrew youth were transformed into teachers and Rabbis, his influence with the chief priests and elders was ordinarily undoubted. But against the wave of fanaticism and persecution which was now surging through the Holy City, he felt himself utterly powerless. While thoroughly loyal to the Chosen People, he, with a few of the more liberal Pharisees, had faithfully striven to stem the tide, calm the fierce and turbulent spirit, and prevent any physical violence toward the members of the New Faith. While he detested their doctrines, believed them to be the victims of delusion, and ridiculed the claims of the Nazarene as put forth by his disciples, he also counselled forbearance, and believed that such superstition would soon wear itself out, and come to naught if let alone. His advice was entirely unheeded. The worst passions of the Sanhedrin, their followers, and the rabble were aflame, and logic and lore availed nothing. The stoning of Stephanos had been like the scent of fresh blood to a wolf.
The study of great psychological waves which sometimes roll over a community, and even a nation, is most interesting and instructive. A vast pent-up mass of human passion, perhaps long in accumulating, like the lava of a volcano, will occasionally find some outlet, and all pour out in that particular direction. It is thus that riots, mobs, revolutions, and wars originate. Like some strange epidemic they steal in, and gather momentum until they sweep everything before them. War between nations, which often comes from religious prejudice, is simply brute force and animal ferocity exercised on a colossal scale. There is no tiger more cruel than intolerant fanaticism, and the murder of Stephanos was like the unchaining of such a beast. It was the starting-point of a contagion of insanity, and Saulus was the fittest leader in which it found embodiment. Under the general support and sanction of the Sanhedrin, he became for the time commander, and directed its forces.