Damascus lay some 140 miles [220 kilometers]​—a seven- or eight-day walk—​from Jerusalem. Yet, “breathing threat and murder against the disciples,” Saul went to the high priest and asked him for letters to the synagogues in Damascus. Why? So that Saul might bring bound to Jerusalem any whom he found who belonged to “The Way.” With official approval, he ‘began to deal outrageously with the congregation, invading one house after another, dragging out both men and women to turn them over to prison.’ Others he had ‘flogged in the synagogues,’ and he ‘cast his vote’ (literally, his “voting pebble”) in favor of their execution.​—Acts 8:3; 9:1, 2, 14; 22:5, 19; 26:10, footnote.

Considering the schooling Saul received under Gamaliel and the powers he now wielded, some scholars believe that he had progressed from being a mere student of the Law to the point of exercising a measure of authority in Judaism. One supposed, for example, that Saul may have become a teacher in a Jerusalem synagogue. However, what is meant by Saul’s ‘casting his vote’​—whether as a member of a court or as one expressing his moral support for the executions of Christians—​we cannot be certain.a