moot point since the days of the second century, when Irenæus of Lyons discussed it in his great work against Heresies, book v., ch. iii., and Tertullian suggested that St. Paul's stake in the flesh was simply an exaggerated head-ache or ear-ache.[41] [40] See Tertullian's _De Pudicitia_, § 13, and compare Bishop Lightfoot's _Galatians_, p. 183 note. [41] See Dr. Farrar's long Excursus X., vol. i., p. 652, in his _Life of St. Paul_, for a discussion of this question. There is a portrait of St. Paul in Lewin's _St. Paul_, ii., 210, which shows him as blear-eyed. It is engraved from a Roman diptych of the fourth century. Lightfoot takes quite another view of the thorn in his _Galatians_, pp. 183-8. Let us now, however, turn to the more certain facts brought before us in the words of the sacred narrative. St. Paul was led by the hand into Damascus just as afterwards, on account, doubtless, of the same bodily infirmity dating from this crisis, he "was sent forth to go as far as to the sea," and then "was conducted as far as Athens" (cf. Acts xvii. 10, 14, 15). From this time forth the kindly assistance of friends and companions became absolutely necessary to the Apostle if his footsteps were to be guided aright, and hence it is that he felt solitude such as he endured at Athens a very trying time because he had no sense of security whenever he ventured to walk abroad. He became, in fact, a blind man striving to thread his way through the crowded footpaths of life. The high priest's commissary must then have drawn near to Damascus under very different circumstances from those which fancy pictured for him a few days before. We know not by what gate he entered the city. We only know that he made his way to the house of Judas, where he remained for three days and three nights, with his whole soul so wrapt up in the wonders revealed to him that he had no thoughts for bodily wants and no sense of their demands.