From Damascus I went into Arabia, and did not go up to Jerusalem for three years to confer with the apostles, nor was there need that I should do so, for had I not received my apostleship by direct revelation?  But after three years I went thither, hearing that the persecutions had ceased, and that some of those whom I had persecuted had returned.  The brother of Jesus, James, had come down from Galilee and as a holy man was a great power in Jerusalem.  His prayers were valued, and his appearance excited pity and belief that God would hearken to him when he knelt, for he was naked but for a coarse cloth hanging from his neck to his ankles.  Of water and cleanliness he knew naught, and his beard and hair grew as the weeds grow in the fields.  Peter, too, was in Jerusalem, and come into a great girth since the toil of his craft, as a fisher, had been abandoned, as it had to be, for, as ye know, it is dry desert about Jerusalem, without lakes or streams.  But he lived there better than he had ever lived before, by talking of our Lord Jesus Christ, of whom it was no longer a danger to talk, for James had made his brother acceptable in Jerusalem by lopping from him all that was Jesus, making him according to his own image; with these Christians he no longer stood up as an opponent of the law, but as one who believed in it, who had said:  I come not to abolish the law but to confirm it.  So did his brother James interpret Jesus to me who had heard Jesus speak out of the spirit, and when I answered that he had said too that he had come to abolish the law, James answered only that his brother had said many things and that some were not as wise as others.  Peter, who was called upon to testify that Jesus wished the Jews to remain Jews, and that circumcision and all the observances were needed, answered that he did not know which was the truth, Jesus not having spoken plainly on these matters, and neither one nor the other seemed to understand that it was of no avail that Jesus should have been born, should have died and been raised from the dead by his Father if the law were to prevail unchanged for evermore.  To James and to Peter Jesus was a prophet, but no more than the prophets, and unable to understand either Peter or Jesus, I returned to Tarsus broken-hearted, for there did not seem to be on earth a true Christian but myself, and I knew not whom to preach to, Gentiles or Jews.  Only of one thing was I sure, that the Lord Jesus Christ had spoken to me out of the clouds and ordained me his apostle, but he had not pointed out the way, and I mourned that I had gone up to Jerusalem, and abode in Tarsus disheartened, resuming my loom, sitting at it from daylight till dark, waiting for some new sign to be given me, for I did not lose hope altogether, but, knowing well that the ways of Providence are not immediate, waited in patience or in such patience as I might possess myself.  Barnabas I had forgotten, and he was forgotten when I said that I had met none in Jerusalem that could be said to be a follower of the Master.