You have heard, indeed, of my former conduct as an adherent of the Jewish religion, how I kept on furiously persecuting the church of God, and tried to destroy it,

and how I outstripped many of my own age among my people in my devotion to the Jewish religion, because I surpassed all others in my zeal for the traditions handed down by my forefathers.

The rest of the Jewish Christians, too, joined him in this pretense so that even Barnabas was influenced to join them in their pretense.