Who was before a blasphemer, and a persecutor, and insolent: but I obtained mercy, because I did it ignorantly in unbelief.
All Commentaries on 1 Timothy 1:13 Go To 1 Timothy 1
Cyril of Jerusalem
AD 386
At this point in my discourse I confess my amazement at the wise dispensation of the Holy Spirit, in limiting the epistles of the others to a small number but granting grace to Paul, the former persecutor, to write fourteen. For it was not as though Peter and John were less than Paul that he withheld the gift in their case—God forbid!—but that his doctrine might be beyond question, he gave the grace to the former enemy and persecutor to write more, that thus we might all be confirmed in our faith. Indeed, all were astonished at Paul and said, “Is not this he who used to make havoc” previously “and who has come here for the purpose of taking us in bonds to Jerusalem?” Do not be astonished, Paul says, “I know that ‘it is hard for me to kick against the goad.’ I know that ‘I am not worthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God,’ but ‘I acted ignorantly.’ For I considered the preaching of Christ to be the destruction of the law, for I did not know that he came ‘to fulfill the law, not to destroy it.’ But ‘the grace of our Lord has abounded beyond measure in me.’”
