Acts 22:5
As also the high priest doth bear me witness, and all the estate of the elders: from whom also I received letters unto the brethren, and went to Damascus, to bring them which were there bound unto Jerusalem, for to be punished. As also the high priest doth bear me witness, and all the estate of the elders: from whom also I received letters unto the brethren, and went to Damascus, to bring them which were there bound unto Jerusalem, for to be punished.
This verse belongs to Paul's defense before the Jerusalem crowd, where he openly acknowledges that he had zealously persecuted followers of Jesus. The high priest and all the estate of the elders could bear witness to his former authority, for from them he received letters unto the brethren, to the synagogues at Damascus against any of this way. Those authorities were not the lower class but the highest religionists in the world. They were men who had acted a part in putting Christ to death and who possessed the spirit and sentiment of Caiaphas and his confederacy.
His zeal was energetic, conscientious, bigoted, and exceedingly mad against believers. He persecuted the saints of God unto death, even to death, by binding both men and women and delivering them into prisons at Jerusalem. He went to Damascus to bring those who were there bound unto Jerusalem for to be punished.
His own hand did not do the work of murder, but he had a voice in the decisions, zealously sustained them, prepared the way, and gave believers of the gospel into the hands that took their lives. He honestly thought he was prosecuting an ignorant, poor, fanatical sect lacking culture and authority. Without realizing it he himself was deluded, blinded, and ignorantly following the banner of the prince of darkness.
Remembering that commission from the high priest and his former hostility afterward filled him with remorse and pity for the people he had once persecuted. Recounting that persecuting past and his conversion helped his hearers understand that his work among the Gentiles was not his own choice but that God directed him in a vision to go to them. His former mission to persecute believers made his conversion and later preaching about Jesus especially convincing to those who knew his past.