But, at this visit, it seems altogether natural, that, with more or less of these same qualities, a treaty of this sort took place. By the sort of relation, produced between them, by the state of interests,--the existence of an agreement of this sort seems sufficiently probabilized: and, from the few words, in which, by the author of the Acts, mention is made of the Grecians, and of Paul's disputes with them,--the inference receives the confirmation afforded by _direct_ evidence. With the Grecians then it was, that these disputations of Paul were held. Why with the Grecians, and no other? The reason is no mystery. Greek was the language of Paul: Greek, for anything that appears, was not the language of Peter, or of any other of the Apostles. Applying himself to the Grecians, and to them alone,--Paul might, to any amount, have given additional extent to his own dominion, without subtracting anything from theirs. Not productive, it should seem, of much fruit,--was this portion, of the new Apostle's labours. No sooner are we informed, of the boon thus offered to these Grecian Gentiles, than comes, moreover, the further information, that some there were, that "went about to slay him. Which when the brethren knew, they brought him," it is added, "to Cæsarea, and sent him forth to Tarsus." Acts 9:29. Meantime, those men, who went about to slay him,--who were they? Possibly they were Grecians, if by the disputation in question, the annoyance produced was so intolerable to them, as to be productive of a wish and enterprise thus flagitious: and, if the evidence afforded by the rules of grammar be in this case regarded as conclusive,--the pronoun _they_ having for its last possible antecedent the substantive _Grecians_--these, and no other, must have been the intended murderers. On the other hand, among the heathen--the philosophical disputants of this nation,--disputations, having any such abstractions for their subject, were not wont to be productive, of any such practical and flagitious consequences. Among the heathens, moreover, it appears not, that, antecedently to his conversion, the zeal of Paul had led him to put any to death: on the other hand among the Christianized Jews, his fellow-religionists, the number of persons, of whom he had put to death some, and in other ways plagued others, was unhappily but too great. By the religion _into_ which they had been converted,--revenge, it is true, was not (as in that which they were converted _from_) magnified, but prohibited: but, the influence of it has never been equally efficient upon all minds.