Having escaped this danger, Paul turned his eyes towards Jerusalem. He had been a Christian for three years,[11.33] and had not yet seen the apostles. His rigid, unyielding character, prone to isolation, had made him at first turn his back as it were upon the great family into which he had just entered in spite of himself, and prefer for his first apostolate a new country, in which he would find no colleague. There was awakened in him, however, a desire to see Peter.[11.34] He recognised his authority, and designated him, as every one did, by the name of _Cephas_, "the stone." He repaired then to Jerusalem, taking the same road, but in an opposite direction to that he had traversed three years before in a state of mind so different. His position at Jerusalem was extremely false and embarrassing. It had been understood there, no doubt, that the persecutor had become the most zealous of evangelists, and the first defender of the faith which he had formerly sought to destroy.[11.35] But there remained great prejudices against him. Many feared some horrible plot on his part. They had seen him so enraged, so cruel, so zealous in entering houses and rending open family secrets in order to find victims, that he was believed capable of playing an odious farce in order to destroy those whom he hated.[11.36] He stayed, as it seems, in the house of Peter.[11.37] Many disciples remained deaf to his advances, and shrank from him.[11.38] A man of courage and will, Barnabas, played at this moment a decisive part. As a Cyprian and a new convert, he understood better than the Galilean disciples the position of Paul. He came to meet him, took him in a manner by the hand, introduced him to the most suspicious, and became his surety.[11.39] By this act of wisdom and penetration, Barnabas won at the hands of the Christian world the highest degree of merit. It was he who appreciated Paul; it was to him that the Church owes the most extraordinary of her founders. The fruitful friendship of these two apostolic men, a friendship that no cloud ever tarnished, notwithstanding many differences in opinion, afterwards led to their association in the work of missions to the Gentiles. This grand association dates, in one sense, from Paul's first sojourn at Jerusalem. Among the causes of the faith of the world we must count the generous movement of Barnabas, stretching out his hand to the suspected and forsaken Paul; the profound intuition which led him to discover the soul of an apostle under that humiliated air; the frankness with which he broke the ice and levelled the obstacles raised between the convert and his new brethren by the unfortunate antecedents of the former, and perhaps, also, by certain traits of his character.