Paul was born at Tarsus, the chief city of Cilicia. This fact is attested only by the Book of Acts, and formerly it did not escape unchallenged. It was called in question, for example, in 1890 by Krenkel, in an elaborate argument.[17] But Krenkel's argument is now completely antiquated, not merely because of the rising credit of the Book of Acts, but also because the birth of Paul in a Greek city like Tarsus is in harmony with modern reconstructions. Krenkel argued, for example, that the apostle shows little acquaintance with Greek culture, and therefore could not have spent his youth in a Greek university city. Such assertions appear very strange to-day. Recent philological investigation of the Pauline Epistles has proved that the author uses the Greek language in such masterly fashion that he must have become familiar with it very early in life; the language of the Epistles is certainly no Jewish-Greek jargon. With regard to the origin of the ideas, also, the tendency of recent criticism is directly contrary to Krenkel; Paulinism is now often explained as being based either upon paganism or else upon a Hellenized Judaism. To such reconstructions it is a highly welcome piece of information when the Book of Acts makes Paul a native not of Jerusalem but of Tarsus. The author of Acts, it is said, is here preserving a bit of genuine tradition, which is the more trustworthy because it runs counter to the tendency, thought to be otherwise in evidence in Acts, which brings Paul into the closest possible relation to Palestine. Thus, whether for good or for bad reasons, the birth of Paul in Tarsus is now universally accepted, and does not require defense. [17] Krenkel, _Beiträge zur Aufhellung der Geschichte und der Briefe des Apostels Paulus_, 1890, pp. 1-17. A very interesting tradition preserved by Jerome does indeed make Paul a native of Gischala in Galilee; but no one to-day would be inclined to follow Krenkel in giving credence to Jerome rather than to Acts. The Gischala tradition does not look like a pure fiction, but it is evident that Jerome has at any rate exercised his peculiar talent for bringing things into confusion. Zahn[18] has suggested, with considerable plausibility, that the shorter reference to Gischala in the treatise "De viris illustribus"[19] is a confused abridgment of the longer reference in the "Commentary on Philemon."[20] The latter passage asserts not that Paul himself but only that the parents of Paul came from Gischala. That assertion may possibly be correct. It would explain the Aramaic and Palestinian tradition which undoubtedly was preserved in the boyhood home of Paul. [18] _Einleitung in das Neue Testament_, 3te Aufl., i, 1906, pp. 48-50 (English Translation, _Introduction to the New Testament_, 2nd ed., 1909, i, pp. 68-70). [19] _De vir. ill._ 5 (ed. Vall. ii, 836). [20] _Comm. in Philem._ 23 (ed. Vall. vii, 762).