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Apostle to the Gentiles The other apostles could hardly have known what had hit them when Paul, the persecutor of the followers of Jesus, joined them and told them they were doing it all wrong. There was this upstart who had never known Jesus when he was alive, had never seen Jesus or listened to his teaching, telling those who had seen, had walked and talked with him, had been with him when he was arrested and tried and sentenced to death, what they ought to be doing. But the whirlwind entry of the energetic Paul transformed the shape of Christianity. It would be impossible to imagine Christianity without him, and his own conversion from a leading persecutor of the early followers of Jesus Christ to an essential shaper of the Church is one of the most remarkable stories in history. We don't really know a lot about Paul's life. We know he was born in Tarsus, the prosperous capital of the Roman Province of Cilicia, now south-eastern Turkey, during the first ten years of what was to become the Christian era. Saul, as he was called, was born into a highly religious Jewish family who spoke Aramaic at home and Greek outside it. He grew up exposed to both his family's Jewish religious heritage and the non-Jewish culture around him. As a youth, Paul went to Jerusalem and was brought up as a pharisee by the famous rabbi Gamaliel under whom he studied. At this time, Paul believed deeply in Judaism. In conformity with the Talmud, the Jewish code of living, he also learnt a trade and became a tent-maker. In Jerusalem, Paul met Jews who had become Christians. They believed that Jesus, who had been crucified, was the Messiah, the promised saviour of the Jews. Paul began to persecute these Jews because their beliefs and behaviour offended him, regarding them as heretics, if not worse. A passage in the Acts of the Apostles portrays him as a supportive witness to the stoning of St. Stephen, the first Christian martyr. Paul became a Christian after experiencing a vision of Christ during a journey from Jerusalem to Damascus. While on the road to Damascus, where he intended to bring Christians to trial, he experienced a blinding light, fell to the ground and heard the voice of Jesus saying. "Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?" In referring to this event, Paul never used the term 'conversion', which implies shifting allegiance from one religion to another. Instead, he consistently spoke of God having "called" him. Paul viewed his call to be a Christian and his call to be an evangelist to the Gentiles as a one single and indivisible event. He recognized the legitimacy of a mission to the Jews, as carried out by Peter, but he was convinced that Christianity was God's call to all the world. But no matter how he regarded it, the change that came over him was profound. Still unsure of himself, he spent a period of isolation in Arabia before he felt able to work on his own account in Damascus. But after three years there he fell foul of the local ruler and had to escape over the walls in a basket. He then went to Jerusalem, where he sought out Peter, the leader of the first followers of Jesus, and James, who was the head of the Christian community in Jerusalem. He was at first received with some hesitation, no doubt because of his reputation as a persecutor, though maybe it was his physical appearance that put them off. Many pictures of Paul show him as having a long face and a long beard with deep-set eyes and a bald head. But there is a report that he was small of stature, bald and bandy-legged, with a long nose and eyebrows that met over his nose. Anyway, Barnabas spoke out for him and he was finally accepted as a genuine Apostle of Jesus. But Paul did not quite hit it off with the Christian leaders in Jerusalem, and before long he left and began to spread his doctrine about Jesus in his native Cilicia, and then, accompanied by Barnabas, he went to Antioch in Syria where he established his headquarters. It was in Antioch that the followers of Jesus first became known as 'Christians', and it was there that large numbers of non-Jewish followers were recruited. Paul took Barnabas with him when, in 49AD, he went to Jerusalem to consult with the Church leaders in an attempt to close the serious divisions in the Church about how far followers of Jesus should conform to Judaic practices. When he left Jerusalem he had a clear mandate from James, Peter and John to preach among the non-Jewish heathen. For the next ten years, until his arrest in 58AD, Paul travelled ceaselessly throughout the eastern Mediterranean, from Antioch to Greece, setting up Christian communities and then revisiting them. For years he travelled by sea and through mountainous territory, often in danger from bandits in the wilds and from religious opponents in the cities. Two things made his travels possible at all. First, the 'Pax Romana' held sway; throughout the Roman Empire there were established highways. Paul was proud to be a Roman citizen. Secondly, ever since Alexander the Great had first encouraged Jewish traders to settle in his new Hellenic towns, Jewish communities had become established all over the place. And where there was a Jewish community there was a synagogue, which was where Paul would often begin his preaching. Paul made three main tours. On his return to Antioch after the first he had a terrific row with Peter. Peter could see nothing wrong in inviting Gentiles to become Christians, but, while staying in Antioch, supporters of James convinced him that he should refuse, on ritual grounds, to eat with Christians who were not of Jewish descent. To Paul, this refusal was utterly wrong. He felt it went against a central point of Christ's teachings, namely that salvation was for all. All who professed to Christ were equal - they could not be divided into Class I and Class II Christians. After his third journey, Paul returned to Jerusalem, a bad mistake. The Jews there had grown to loathe Paul, and if he had not been arrested by Roman soldiers he would probably have been lynched in the streets. His Roman citizenship guaranteed him official protection, and with rumours circulating of a plot to murder him, the Roman authorities decided to put him out of harm's way in Caesarea. He was kept in prison there for two years until 60AD, when the procurator of Caesarea decided to send him back to Jerusalem for trial. Paul avoided this by appealing to Caesar for a trial in Rome. His journey to Rome was interrupted by a shipwreck off Malta. The ship ran aground and its stern was smashed by high seas. A centurion saved Paul and the other prisoners by ordering the soldiers not to kill them. They got ashore on broken timber from the ship. There, gathering sticks for a fire, Paul was bitten by a viper. The barbarians saw this as a sure sign he was a wicked man, but when he came to no harm they took him for a god. At last in Rome, where the account of the Acts of the Apostles breaks off, he lived at his own expense under house arrest for two years and was able to write further letters to Christian communities. Presumably he was acquitted at his trial, for it appears that he revisited Ephesus and may even have gone to Spain.. Although little is known about his last days, there is a tradition that the Emperor Nero had him beheaded (as befitted a citizen of Rome) at Tre Fontane, probably in 62AD, and that he is buried where the basilica of St Paul 'outside the walls' now stands; Christian tradition from the 4th century fixes the day as February 22. The belief that Peter and Paul both died on the same day was caused by their sharing the same feast day: 29th. June. Bill Hutchings |
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page last updated 1 APRIL 2001 |
