Paul at Jerusalem. This visit is understood to have taken place very shortly after Saul's conversion; the brethren there have not heard of his conversion, nor of his preaching in Damascus. Barnabas has to tell them of it. He associates freely with them, and preaches freely as a disciple of Jesus (in the name of the Lord); he also took the step, repeated again and again, of discussing, like Stephen (Acts 6:9), with Hellenists (mg.) instead of addressing himself, as the apostles did, to the Jews. They, far from being conciliated, lay their plans for his destruction, and the brethren rescue him as had been done at Damascus; he is sent to Tarsus, his native city.
The account in Galatians 1* is very different. After his conversion he held no converse with men but went to Arabia. From there he returned to Damascus, and after three years he went, for the first time after the conversion, to Jerusalem, a visit which lasted a fortnight and made him acquainted with Peter and James, the Lord's brother, only; then he went on to Syria and Cilicia. The places are the same, but the times are completely altered, and the motive of the visit to Jerusalem is omitted; it is not till he has gone to Tarsus that the churches of Judæ a, personally unacquainted with him, realise the fact of his conversion and of his being now a Christian missionary (p. 858).