But Saul, still breathing murderous threats against the disciples of the Lord, went to the High Priest and begged him for letters to the synagogues in Damascus, so that if he should find there any followers of the Way, whether men or women, he could bring them back to Jerusalem as prisoners.
Even if the equation Paul = Simon Magus was not true (I am open to that possibility), I follow Parvus and Godfrey's view that the passages of Galatians 1 about 'Paul persecutor' are obvious proto-catholic interpolations harmonizing Acts with Galatians.
http://vridar.org/2014/12/20/paul-the-p ... rpolation/
I wrote a comment on Vridar:
http://vridar.org/2014/12/15/paul-the-persecutor/this affair of ”Paul persecutor” is modestly to my eyes the strongest element of all the Pauline letters that lead me to suspect that Roger Parvus may be tremendously right about ”Paul” on the whole line
I allude precisely to Parvus' idea that the real Christian historical Paul was converted by Acts in a pre-Christian 'persecutor' legendary Saul-Paul.
Therefore, in keeping with that line of reasoning, if Paul was best known (perhaps only) in virtue of his letters, then we should expect with moral certainty from the author of Acts that at least when he wrote about Paul the pre-Christian persecutor, then he should at least refer in a veiled way to the historical letters that Paul wrote and for which he was known.
In other words, I'm saying that the author of Acts is more ''historical'' when he speaks of Paul in negative terms rather than the contrary, even when we have already accepted that 'Paul the persecutor' is a pure invention of proto-Catholic and anti-Marcionite propaganda.
Then note the irony:
But Saul, still breathing murderous threats against the disciples of the Lord, went to the High Priest and begged him for letters to the synagogues in Damascus, so that if he should find there any followers of the Way, whether men or women, he could bring them back to Jerusalem as prisoners.
1) The historical Paul wrote in his letters that he received divine revelation from Jesus Christ himself
2) for the proto-catholic author of Acts, the historical Paul was the enemy of the early church, as 'the apostle of the heretics and the apostle of Marcion'.
3) Thus, per 1 & 2, for the author of Acts it was not Jesus Christ who did inspire the letters that Paul wrote.
4) for the proto-Catholic author of Acts, Jesus is the true High Priest (evidence in the proto-catholic Epistle to the Hebrews).
5) therefore, in accordance with points 1, 2, 3 and 4 above, the ironic point behind Acts 9:1 is that it was the false High Priest who inspired letters for the persecutor Paul.
Therefore, Acts of Apostles is evidence that his author knew the epistles of Paul and he didn't like them.