Galatians 1:13

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For you have heard of my manner of life in time past in the Jews' religion, how that beyond measure I persecuted the church of God, and wasted it:

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Augustine of Hippo

AD 430

If therefore he showed prowess in Judaism by persecuting and wasting God’s church, it is obvious that Judaism is contrary to the church of God, not through that spiritual law which the Jews had received but through their carnal habit of servitude. And if Paul as a zealot—that is, an imitator of late Judaic traditions—persecuted the church of God, his paternal traditions are contrary to God’s church, but the blame does not belong to the law itself. For the law is spiritual and does not allow itself to be interpreted carnally. That is the fault of those who understand carnally the things that they have received and who also have handed down many things of their own, undermining, as the Lord said, the command of God through their traditions.

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Cornelius a Lapide

AD 1637

I persecuted the Church of God and wasted it. That Isaiah , I did my best to storm it and overturn it. Cf. Psalm 129:1-2, The word translated waste here comes, as some think, from a word denoting the burning of a town by an enemy, or else, as Erasmus held, from one denoting the surrounding of it. Either way Paul"s meaning is clear. He says this to remove from himself all suspicion of hatred of the Jews. Though they inveigh against me, he says, as their foe, yet my past life is sufficient answer. For I am myself a Jew, and fought more vigorously for Judaism than they, before God, by His call, changed my heart and enlightened it by faith in Christ.

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Gaius Marius Victorinus

AD 400

The point of telling this about himself is to show that he did not learn from a man or through man but from God and Jesus Christ. The aim of this is to prevent the Galatians from entertaining another opinion or supposing that anything needs to be added to the gospel. –.

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John Chrysostom

AD 407

Observe how he shrinks not from aggravating each point; not saying simply that he persecuted but beyond measure, and not only persecuted but made havoc of it, which signifies an attempt to extinguish, to pull down, to destroy, to annihilate, the Church.

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John of Damascus

AD 749

The whole construction is a demonstration that he did not receive the mystery from a man; for such an abrupt conversion could not possibly have taken place through a man. The teaching of men makes progress little by little. But there is also another underlying construction, in that he gently teaches them not to do the things of law; for he says, if he who showed such a great diligence in connection with the law, abandoned the things of law and turned to the salvation which is from faith, it is obvious that he abandoned the law as being unable to lead to perfection. How much more fitting, then, should it be for those who have turned to the faith not to seek to follow what is unable to lead to perfection!

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Tertullian of Carthage

AD 220

: "It is first necessary that you shows us who this Paul was,-both what he was before he was an apostle, and how he became an apostle"-so very great is the use which they make of him in respect of other questions also. It is true that he tells us himself that he was a persecutor before he became an apostle,

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Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation - 2 Peter 1:20