Paul the Apostle

• 1. Introduction

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  Paul the Apostle was born Saul of Tarsus around 5 AD, into a devout Jewish family in one of the busiest port cities on the Mediterranean coast. Tarsus had been a major center since the time of Alexander the Great and was known for its academy. The man who would go on to shape Christian theology across the Roman world started out not as a follower of Jesus, but as one of his persecutors.

  He was a Pharisee, educated in Jerusalem under Gamaliel, one of the most noted teachers of Jewish law in history. He spoke Koine Greek and likely Aramaic. He made tents for a living. And yet, on a road to Damascus, something happened that redirected the rest of his life entirely.

  Half of the Acts of the Apostles documents Paul's travels, preaching, and miracles. Fourteen of the twenty-seven books of the New Testament have traditionally been attributed to him. His letters continue to shape Christian theology in the Catholic, Protestant, Orthodox, and Eastern traditions to this day. How did a tent-maker from Tarsus become one of the most consequential figures in religious history? That is the question at the center of everything that follows.

• 2. Two Names, One Strategy

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  "Saul" was his Hebrew name, likely drawn from the biblical King Saul, the first king of Israel and, like Paul, a member of the Tribe of Benjamin. "Paulus" was his Latin name, meaning small, and it was not, as is commonly believed, adopted at his conversion. It was a second name he already carried, suited for communicating with a Greco-Roman audience.

  In the Acts of the Apostles, Jesus called him "Saul, Saul" in the Hebrew tongue during the Damascus vision. When Ananias of Damascus came to restore his sight, he called him "Brother Saul." It was not until Acts 13:9, on the island of Cyprus, that he is referred to as Paul for the first time. The author of Luke-Acts signals the equivalence plainly: "Saul, who also is called Paul."

  Paul himself preferred that Latin name. He uses it eighteen times in the letters scholars regard as genuinely his, and ten more times in the disputed letters attributed to him. This was deliberate. His method, as illustrated in 1 Corinthians 9, was to approach people in a language and style they found relatable. Choosing the Roman name was part of that same strategy. If he was indeed a Roman citizen by birth, as Acts 22 claims, he may have had a full Latin name from the start, with Paulus as his cognomen.

• 3. Before the Road to Damascus

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  Paul says in his own letters that before his conversion, he persecuted early Christians "beyond measure." Scholars identify his targets as Hellenised diaspora Jews who had returned to Jerusalem, Greek-speaking members of the early movement who held anti-Temple views. According to James Dunn, the Jerusalem community was divided between "Hebrews," Jews speaking both Aramaic and Greek, and "Hellenists," Jews speaking only Greek. Paul's persecution appears to have been aimed at the second group.

  His education under Gamaliel was thorough, though scholars note he was not being trained as a scholar of Jewish law. In his letters, Paul drew on Stoic philosophy, using its terms and metaphors to explain the Gospel to Gentile converts. He was fluent in Koine Greek and wrote his letters in it. His family had been attached to Pharisaic traditions for generations, and Acts quotes him calling himself "a Pharisee, born of Pharisees."

  His trade as a tent-maker or leather craftsman was the same occupation that would later connect him to Priscilla and Aquila, who became key missionary partners. The practical world of craft and commerce was the environment Paul moved through before the events on the road to Damascus changed everything.

• 4. The Conversion

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  In Galatians 1:16, Paul writes that God "was pleased to reveal his son to me." In 1 Corinthians 15:8, listing appearances of the risen Jesus to his disciples, Paul says, "last of all, as to one untimely born, He appeared to me also." He dates his conversion to between 31 and 36 AD, placing it within a few years of the crucifixion, which scholars date to around 30-33 AD.

  The detailed account appears only in Acts, not in Paul's own letters. Acts 9 describes Paul falling to the ground, hearing a voice say, "Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?" and answering, "Who are you, Lord?" The voice replies, "I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting." Paul was blinded for three days, taking no food or water during that time. Ananias of Damascus came to him, laid hands on him, and restored his sight. Paul was then baptized.

  Some scholars, including John Bowker, Alan Segal, and Daniel Boyarin, have argued that Paul's account of this experience and his later ascent to the heavens described in 2 Corinthians 12 represent the earliest surviving first-person accounts of a Merkabah mystic in Jewish or Christian literature. Timothy Churchill has argued against this, saying the Damascus encounter does not fit the Merkabah pattern. The debate remains open.

• 5. The Missionary Journeys

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  Scholars estimate that Paul traveled over twelve thousand kilometres by land and more than eight thousand kilometres by sea on the journeys recorded in Acts alone. The Acts of the Apostles groups these into three separate accounts.

  The first journey, led initially by Barnabas and commissioned by the community at Antioch, took them from Antioch to Cyprus, then into southern Asia Minor, and back. In Cyprus, Paul rebuked and blinded a magician named Elymas who was obstructing their teaching. A traditional dating places this journey from 46 to 49 AD.

  The second journey began in late Autumn 49 AD, after the Council of Jerusalem. It was on this journey that Paul split from Barnabas over the question of bringing John Mark along. Barnabas took John Mark; Paul took Silas. They collected Timothy at Lystra. In Philippi, Paul and Silas were jailed, and an earthquake opened the prison gates, leading to the conversion of the jailer. Around 50-51 AD, Paul arrived at Corinth and stayed for eighteen months, founding the Church of Corinth. In 52, departing from Corinth, Paul stopped at Cenchreae to have his hair cut because of a vow he had taken.

  The third journey took Paul to Ephesus, where he stayed for nearly three years, probably working as a tent-maker as he had done in Corinth. He is said to have performed miracles and organized mission activity across the region. His stay in Ephesus ended when a silversmith incited a pro-Artemis riot against his preaching. Paul then traveled through Macedonia and Achaea, staying in Greece for three months during 56-57 AD, during which time he is generally believed to have dictated his Epistle to the Romans.

• 6. Jerusalem, Arrest, and Rome

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  In 57 AD, upon completing his third missionary journey, Paul arrived in Jerusalem for what would be his final visit, bringing a collection of money for the local community. Acts reports he was initially received warmly, but James and the church elders warned him that he had gained a reputation for teaching Jews to abandon the law of Moses.

  Paul undertook a purification ritual to counter that reputation. Before it was completed, Jews from Asia accused him of bringing Gentiles into the temple, and he was seized by a mob. Roman soldiers placed him in chains. When threatened with flogging, Paul invoked his Roman citizenship. He was held in Caesarea for two years under Governor Felix, then transferred to Governor Porcius Festus. When Festus suggested sending him back to Jerusalem, Paul exercised his right as a Roman citizen to appeal to Caesar.

  On the voyage to Rome, Paul was shipwrecked on Melita, present-day Malta, where the islanders showed him what Acts calls "unusual kindness." A poisonous snake fastened onto his hand from the fire, and the islanders assumed he was being punished by divine justice. He shook it off and suffered no ill effects. He arrived in Rome around 60 AD and spent two years there under house arrest, preaching from his rented home while awaiting trial.

  Paul's death is believed to have occurred after the Great Fire of Rome in July 64 AD but before the last year of Nero's reign in 68 AD. Eusebius of Caesarea states that Paul was beheaded in the reign of Nero. According to Jerome, he was buried on the Via Ostiensis, in what is now the site of the Basilica of Saint Paul Outside the Walls. In 2002, an eight-foot marble sarcophagus inscribed with the words "PAULO APOSTOLO MART" was found during excavations at the basilica. In 2009, Pope Benedict XVI announced that radiocarbon dating of bone fragments from the sarcophagus indicated they were from the first or second century.

• 7. Letters and Legacy

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  Seven of the thirteen New Testament letters that carry Paul's name are almost universally accepted as authentically his: Romans, 1 Corinthians, 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Philippians, 1 Thessalonians, and Philemon. Theologian Mark Powell notes that Paul wrote these letters in response to specific situations at particular churches. If the Corinthian church had not encountered problems with the Lord's Supper, Paul's views on that observance would have gone entirely unrecorded.

  Four letters - Ephesians, 1 Timothy, 2 Timothy, and Titus - are widely considered pseudepigraphical, meaning they were probably written by followers in Paul's name after his death. Colossians and 2 Thessalonians occupy a disputed middle ground. The Epistle to the Hebrews is almost universally rejected by scholars as Pauline. These scribes may have drawn on letters that Paul wrote but that no longer survive.

  The debates over Paul's relationship to Judaism have run for centuries. F. C. Baur, the founder of the Tubingen School and the first scholar to critically examine Acts and the Pauline Epistles, argued in the early nineteenth century that Paul was in violent opposition to the original twelve apostles. E. P. Sanders, with his 1977 publication Paul and Palestinian Judaism, opened what became known as the New Perspective on Paul, arguing that Paul's insistence on salvation by grace was consistent with Jewish theology of the period, not a rejection of it. James Dunn later coined the phrase "New Perspective on Paul" and extended Sanders' work. More recently, the movement known as "Paul Within Judaism" has pushed further, reading Paul as a fundamentally Jewish figure aligned with the original disciples in Jerusalem rather than a figure in opposition to Judaism. The skull claimed to be Paul's has resided in the Archbasilica of Saint John Lateran since at least the ninth century, alongside the skull of Saint Peter.