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Paul's Basilica in Rome. Paul, the Apostle, original name Saul of Tarsus, born 4 bce? In his own day, although he was a major figure within the very small Christian movement, he also had many enemies and detractors, and his contemporaries probably did not accord him as much respect as they gave and. Paul was compelled to struggle, therefore, to establish his own worth and authority. His surviving , however, have had enormous influence on subsequent Christianity and secure his place as one of the greatest religious leaders of all time. Caravaggio: The Conversion of St. Paul second version The Conversion of St. Paul second version , oil on canvas by Caravaggio, 1601; in Santa Maria del Popolo, Rome. Thus, about half of the New Testament stems from Paul and the people whom he influenced. Only 7 of the 13 , however, can be accepted as being entirely authentic dictated by Paul himself. The others come from followers writing in his name, who often used material from his surviving letters and who may have had access to letters written by Paul that no longer survive. Although frequently useful, the information in Acts is secondhand, and it is sometimes in direct conflict with the letters. The probable chronological order leaving aside Philemon, which cannot be dated is 1 Thessalonians, 1 Corinthians, 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Philippians, and Romans. Paul the Apostle in prison, writing his epistle to the Ephesians. Two of the main cities of Syria, and , played a prominent part in his life and letters. Although the exact date of his birth is unknown, he was active as a missionary in the 40s and 50s of the 1st century ce. From this it may be inferred that he was born about the same time as c. He was converted to faith in Jesus Christ about 33 ce, and he died, probably in Rome, circa 62—64 ce. His trade, tent making, which he continued to practice after his conversion to Christianity, helps to explain important aspects of his apostleship. He could travel with a few leather-working tools and set up shop anywhere. It is doubtful that his family was wealthy or aristocratic, but, since he found it noteworthy that he sometimes worked with his own hands, it may be assumed that he was not a common labourer. Moreover, he knew how to dictate, and he could write with his own hand in large letters 6:11 , though not in the small, neat letters of the professional scribe. Until about the midpoint of his life, Paul was a member of the s, a religious party that emerged during the later Second Temple period. What little is known about Paul the Pharisee reflects the character of the Pharisaic movement. Pharisees were very careful students of the , and Paul was able to quote extensively from the Greek translation. It was fairly easy for a bright, ambitious young boy to memorize the Bible, and it would have been very difficult and expensive for Paul as an adult to carry around dozens of bulky scrolls. By his own account, Paul was the best Jew and the best Pharisee of his generation 3:4—6; Galatians 1:13—14 , as later he claimed to be the best apostle of Christ 11:22—3; 1 Corinthians 15:9—10 —though he attributed his excellence to the grace of God. Paul spent much of the first half of his life persecuting the Christian movement, an activity to which he refers several times. The chief persecutors of the Christian movement in Jerusalem were the high priest and his associates, who were s if they belonged to one of the parties , and depicts the leading Pharisee, , as defending the Christians Acts 5:34. It is possible that Paul believed that Jewish converts to the new movement were not sufficiently observant of the Jewish law, that Jewish converts mingled too freely with non-Jewish converts, thus associating themselves with idolatrous practices, or that the notion of a crucified was objectionable. The young Paul certainly would have rejected the view that had been raised after his death—not because he doubted as such but because he would not have believed that God chose to favour Jesus by raising him before the time of the Judgment of the world. Disobedient members of synagogues were punished by some form of ostracism or by light flogging, which Paul himself later suffered at least five times 2 Corinthians 11:24 , though he does not say when or where. According to Acts, Paul began his persecutions in , a view at odds with his assertion that he did not know any of the Jerusalem followers of Christ until well after his own conversion Galatians 1:4—17. Paul was on his way to when he had a vision that changed his life: according to Galatians 1:16, God revealed his Son to him. More specifically, Paul states that he saw the Lord 1 Corinthians 9:1 , though Acts claims that near Damascus he saw a blinding bright light. Following this revelation, which convinced Paul that God had indeed chosen Jesus to be the promised messiah, he went into —probably Coele-Syria, west of Damascus Galatians 1:17. He then returned to Damascus, and three years later he went to Jerusalem to become acquainted with the leading there. After this meeting he began his famous to the west, preaching first in his native Syria and Cilicia Galatians 1:17—24. During the next 20 years or so c. Paul the Apostle The conversion of Paul on the road to Damascus. Image from Liber Chronicarum Nuremberg Chronicle by Hartmann Schedel, Nuremberg, 1493. To settle the issue, Paul returned to and struck a deal. It was agreed that would be the principal apostle to Jews and Paul the principal apostle to. In the late 50s Paul returned to Jerusalem with the money he had raised and a few of his Gentile converts. There he was arrested for taking a Gentile too far into the Temple precincts, and, after a series of trials, he was sent to Rome. Later Christian tradition favours the view that he was executed there 1 Clement 5:1—7 , perhaps as part of the executions of Christians ordered by the Roman emperor following the great fire in the city in 64 ce. Moreover, Paul thought that the purpose of this revelation was his own appointment to preach among the Gentiles Galatians 1:16. Paul preaching the gospel, detail of a 12th-century mosaic; in the Palatine Chapel of the Royal Palace, Palermo, Sicily. There is, however, another possibility. Paul conceded that he was not an speaker 2 Corinthians 10:10; 11:6. Moreover, he had to spend much, possibly most, of his time working to support himself. As a tent maker, he worked with leather, and leatherwork is not noisy. While he worked, therefore, he could have talked, and once he was found to have something interesting to say, people would have dropped by from time to time to listen. It is very probable that Paul spread the gospel in this way. Travels and letters During the first two centuries of the , travel was safer than it would be again until the suppression of in the 19th century. Paul and his companions sometimes traveled by ship, but much of the time they walked, probably beside a carrying tools, clothes, and perhaps some scrolls. Occasionally they had plenty, but often they were hungry, ill-clad, and cold Philippians 4:11—12; 2 Corinthians 11:27 , and at times they had to rely on the charity of their converts. Paul's missionary travels in the eastern Mediterranean. Paul wanted to keep pressing west and therefore only occasionally had the opportunity to revisit his churches. Fortunately, after his death one of his followers collected some of the letters, edited them very slightly, and published them. Women were frequently among the major supporters of new religious movements, and Christianity was no exception. Some of the other Christian workers must have been quite important; indeed, an unknown minister of Christ established the church at Rome before Paul arrived in the city. Paul treated some of these possible competitors—such as Prisca, Aquila, Junia, and Andronicus—in a very friendly manner Romans 16: 3, 7 , while he looked on others with suspicion or hostility. He was especially wary of Apollos, a Christian missionary known to the Corinthians 1 Corinthians 3:1—22 , and he vilified competitors in Corinth as false apostles and ministers of 2 Corinthians 11. In the surviving letters, Paul often recalls what he said during his founding visits. He preached the death, resurrection, and lordship of , and he proclaimed that faith in Jesus guarantees a share in his life. In the second, he died so that the believers may die with him and consequently live with him. These two ideas obviously coincide see below. The of Christ was also of primary importance, as Paul revealed in his , the earliest surviving account of conversion to the Christian movement. Since Jesus was raised and still lives, he could return to rescue believers at the time of the Final Judgment. The resurrection is connected to the third major emphasis, the promise of to believers. These and many other passages reveal the essence of the Christian message: 1 God sent his Son; 2 the Son was crucified and resurrected for the benefit of humanity; 3 the Son would soon return; and 4 those who belonged to the Son would live with him forever. Although Paul may have converted some Jews, his mission was directed toward the , who therefore the vast majority of his converts. Pagan was very tolerant: the gods of foreign traditions were accepted as long as they were added to the gods worshipped locally. Civic loyalty, however, included participation in public worship of the local gods. Jews had the privilege of worshipping only the God of Israel, but everyone else was expected to conform to local customs. Paul the Apostle preaching to the Athenians. Although he showed some flexibility on eating food that had been offered to an idol 1 Corinthians 10:23—30 , Paul, a monotheistic Jew, was completely opposed to worship of the idol by eating and drinking in the confines of a pagan temple 1 Corinthians 10:21—22. Thus, his converts had to give up public worship of the local gods. Religiously, they could identify only with one another, and frequently they must have wavered because of their isolation from well-established and popular activities. It was especially difficult for them to refrain from public festivities, since parades, feasts including free red meat , theatrical performances, and athletic competitions were all connected to pagan religious traditions. This social isolation of the early converts intensified their need to have rewarding spiritual experiences within the Christian , and Paul attempted to respond to this need. Although they had to wait with patience and endure suffering 1 Thessalonians 1:6; 2:14; 3:4 , and although salvation from the pains of this life lay in the future 5:6—11 , in the present, Paul said, his followers could rejoice in spiritual gifts, such as healing, prophesying, and speaking in tongues 1 Corinthians 12—14. In fact, Paul saw Christians as beginning to be transformed even before the coming resurrection: the new person was beginning to replace the old 2 Corinthians 3:8; 4:16. Although he placed his converts in a situation that was often uncomfortable, Paul did not ask them to believe many things that would be conceptually difficult. The belief that there was only one true God had a place within pagan philosophy, if not pagan religion, and was intellectually satisfying. By the 1st century, many pagans found lacking in and moral content, and replacing it with the was therefore not especially difficult. The belief that God sent his Son agreed with the widespread view that gods could produce human offspring. The activities of the in their lives corresponded to the common view that spiritual forces control nature and events. The teaching of the resurrection of the body, however, was difficult for pagans to embrace, despite the fact that life after death was generally accepted. Pagans who believed in the immortality of the maintained that the soul escaped at death; the body, they knew, decayed. Moral teachings Although Paul recognized the possibility that after death he would be punished for minor faults 1 Corinthians 4:4 , he regarded himself as living an almost perfect life Philippians 3:6 , and he demanded the same perfection of his converts. Paul regarded suffering and premature death as punishment for those who sinned 1 Corinthians 5:5; 11:29—32 but did not believe that punishment of the sinning Christian meant damnation or eternal destruction. He thought that those who believed in Christ became one person with him and that this union was not broken by ordinary transgression. Paul did regard it as possible, however, for people to lose or completely betray their faith in Christ and thus lose membership in his body, which presumably would lead to destruction at the Judgment Romans 11:22; 1 Corinthians 3:16—17; 2 Corinthians 11:13—15. Paul, like his Jewish contemporaries the scholar and historian and the philosopher , completely opposed a long list of : and the use of prostitutes 1 Corinthians 6:15—20 , activities 1 Corinthians 6:9; Romans 1:26—27 , sexual relations before marriage 1 Corinthians 7:8—9 , and marriage merely for the sake of gratifying physical desire 1 Thessalonians 4:4—5. However, he urged married partners to continue to have sexual relations except during times set aside for prayer 1 Corinthians 7:3—7. These views were not unknown in Greek philosophy, but they were standard in Greek-speaking Jewish communities, and it is probable that Paul acquired them in his youth. Some pagan philosophers, meanwhile, were more inclined than Paul to limit sexual desire and pleasure. For example, the philosopher Musonius Rufus flourished 1st century ce wished to restrict marital sexual relations to the production of offspring. Some aspects of Jewish sexual were not generally accepted among the Gentiles to whom Paul preached. Sexual behaviour, therefore, became a substantial issue between him and his converts, and for that reason his letters frequently refer to sexual ethics. His other moral views were as simple and straightforward to ancient readers as to modern: no murder, no theft, and so on. To all of these issues he brought his own expectation of perfection, which his converts often found difficult to satisfy. Male homosexual activity is condemned in the Hebrew Bible in Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13—teachings that Christianity followed, thanks in part to Paul, even as it disregarded most of the laws of Leviticus. Paul accepted the prohibition but made an exception in the case of Christians who were married to non-Christians 1 Corinthians 7:10—16. The consequence has been that, in some forms of Christianity, the only ground for divorce is adultery by the other partner. Until the 20th century the laws of many state and national governments reflected this view. This view may have been a personal matter for Paul 7:6—7 , and it was an opinion that he did not attempt to enforce on his churches. He was motivated in part by the belief that time was short: it would be good if people devoted themselves entirely to God during the brief interval before the Lord returned 7:29—35. The top tier consisted of those who were entirely celibate such as, at different times in the history of the church, monks, nuns, and priests. Married Christians could aspire only to the bottom, inferior tier. Few Christians were willing to stray from Romans 13 until the 18th century, when the of the United States decided to follow the Enlightenment philosopher rather than Paul on the question of revolt against unjust rulers. Theological views Paul, like other Jews, was a who believed that the God of Israel was the only true God. But he also believed that the universe had multiple levels and was filled with spiritual beings. Despite all this, Paul believed, at the right time the God of Israel will send his Son to defeat the powers of darkness 1 Corinthians 15:24—26; Philippians 2:9—11. Various Jewish groups, however, expected different kings or messiahs or even none at all, and these titles therefore did not have precise meanings when the Christians started using them. He seems not to have defined the person of Jesus metaphysically for example, that he was half human and half divine. God, according to Paul, sent Jesus to save the entire world. His death, in the first place, was a of for the sins of everyone. Early Christians, influenced by the ancient theory that one death could serve as a substitute for others, believed that Jesus died on the so that believers would escape eternal destruction. When the time was right, God would send Christ back to save the cosmos by defeating all the remaining forces of sin and to liberate all of creation. In this grand vision of the redemption of the created order, Paul shows how deeply he believed in one God, maker of heaven and earth, and in the cosmic importance of his Son, Jesus Christ. Mere repentance is not enough to permit escape from the overwhelming power of sin. Timothy reported back that their faith was strong 1 Thessalonians 3:1—13. Circumcision was the sign of the covenant between God and , the first of the Hebrew patriarchs, and it was traditionally required of all Gentiles who wished to worship the God of Israel. The question was whether his Gentile converts would have to accept those parts of the Jewish law that separated Jew from Gentile. Paul opposed making these aspects of the law mandatory for his Gentile converts. Paul employed the language of righteousness and faith when he was using the story of Abraham to argue that circumcision was no longer necessary. The Paul regarded his converts not only as individuals who had been freed from sin but also as organic members of the body of Christ. Only the worst forms of denial of Christ can remove an organic member from the body of Christ. A part of the body of Christ, for example, should not be joined to a prostitute 1 Corinthians 6:15. Besides avoiding the deeds of the flesh, members of the body of Christ receive love as their greatest spiritual gift 1 Corinthians 13. Paul thought that membership in the body of Christ really changed people, so that they would live accordingly. He thought that his converts were dead to sin and alive to God and that conduct flowed naturally from people, varying according to who they really were. This absolutist view—those in Christ are to be morally perfect; those not in Christ are extremely sinful—was not always true in practice, and Paul was often alarmed and offended when he discovered that the behaviour of his converts was not what he expected. It was in this that he predicted suffering and even death or postmortem punishment for transgressions 1 Corinthians 11:30—32; 3:15; 5:4—5. He made people believe that they could really change for the better, and this must often have happened. Paul believed that the God of Israel was the one true God, who had redeemed the Israelites from bondage in Egypt, given the Israelites the law, and sent his Son to save the entire world. Although Paul accepted Jewish behaviour as correct, he thought that Gentiles did not have to become Jewish in order to participate in salvation. These views are not easily. If the one true God is the God of Israel, should not one obey all the commandments in the Bible, such as those regarding the , circumcision, and diet? He states that this single commandment is a fulfillment of the entire Jewish law Galatians 5:14. He was sure that his Gentile converts were not obliged to accept circumcision and many other parts of the law. In his surviving letters, however, he does not work out a principle that would require his converts to observe some but not all of the Jewish law. It is noteworthy that he did not regard Sabbath observance—which is one of the —as obligatory Romans 14:5; Galatians 4:10—11. One point is especially difficult. Paul maintained that the law is part of the world of sin and the flesh, to which the Christian dies. But how could the law, which was given by the good God, be allied with sin and the flesh? Paul, having nearly reached the point of equating the law with the powers of evil Romans 7:1—6 , promptly retracts the equation Romans 7:7—25. What led him to make it in the first place was probably his absolutism. For Paul, everything not immediately useful for salvation is worthless; what is worthless is not on the side of the good; therefore, it is allied with the bad. However, he does maintain that the Jewish law is sacred and that the commandments are righteous and good Romans 7:12. Paul accepted this view, but he believed, probably along with other followers of Jesus, that the figure, the Son of Man, was Jesus himself: Jesus, who had been raised to heaven, would return. This view appears in 1 Thessalonians 4, which proclaims that when the Lord Jesus returns, the dead in Christ will be raised, and they, with the surviving members of the body of Christ, will greet the Lord in the air. In this passage he does not specify what will be raised, but the is corpses. A second problem was the delay: Christ did not immediately return, and the idea that believers would have to remain in the ground until he came was troubling. Paul responded to this by stating that the transformation to a Christ-like spiritual body was already beginning 2 Corinthians 3:18. He restated this view when imprisonment forced him to think that he himself might die before the Lord returned Philippians 1:21—24. Eventually Christianity would systemize these passages: the soul escapes at death and joins the Lord; when the Lord returns, bodies will be raised and reunited with souls. His letters, however, continue to reassure Christian believers that eventually the Lord will return, the dead will be raised, and the forces of evil will be defeated. Achievement and influence Although other early Christian missionaries converted Gentiles, and the Christian movement even without Paul probably would have broken away from its Jewish parent, Paul played a crucial role in those developments and accordingly is regarded as the second founder of the Christian movement. His mission to convert Gentiles helped to achieve the separation of the Christian movement from , but that was not his intention, and the causes of the went well beyond his apostleship. It should be emphasized that he sought to create a new humanity in Christ, including all Jews and all Gentiles. Most Jews, however, did not join the movement, which became largely a Gentile religion. The Sermon of Saint Paul at Ephesus, oil on canvas by Eustache Le Sueur, 1649; in the Louvre Museum, Paris. The statements in his letters have been particularly important in the development of Christian. Although they do not form a complete system, they show a powerful mind grappling with the question of how to express the relationship between Jesus the Christ and God the Father. In the letters, Paul also developed powerful expressions of the human relationship to the divine in his ideas of faith as total commitment to Christ, of Christians as the mystical or metaphorical body of Christ, and of as becoming one person with Christ and sharing his death so as to share his life. On this crucial question of religion, Paul and the author of the are the two great geniuses of the early Christian period. As discussed above, Paul rejected some Jewish law but accepted Jewish teachings on and homosexual activity, and he regarded the Sabbath law as optional. The latter view has generally been taken to mean that Christians are free from strict observance of the Sabbath law, even though it is included among the. The Christian world in general, however, has observed a weekly day of rest without regarding it as absolutely essential and without requiring all the restrictions of the Jewish law. Paul was a master debater and polemicist, though the ancient Jewish modes of argumentation he used make him difficult for modern readers to understand. In his last extant letter he summarized both his total commitment and his complete confidence in God and Christ Romans 8:31—39 : If God is for us, who is against us? Will hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? For I am convinced that neither death, nor life,…nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. The reader of his letters will be convinced that such passages are true to the man himself, who endured suffering and privation and finally died for his cause. The example of commitment, as well as the willingness to suffer and die if need be, were widely imitated in early and helped it to survive and flourish despite periods of persecution.
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