Apostle Paul

Paul of Tarsus, known in Christian tradition as the Apostle Paul and originally named Saul, was a first-century Jew from Tarsus in Cilicia, a prominent city of the eastern Roman Empire in Asia Minor. According to the Acts of the Apostles he was a Roman citizen by birth and a Pharisee, having studied in Jerusalem under Gamaliel. In letters generally accepted as his own he describes himself as a Hebrew of the tribe of Benjamin, zealous for the ancestral law, and formerly a violent persecutor of the church of God. The New Testament narrative places him at the stoning of Stephen, the first Christian martyr, and depicts him as seeking to suppress the Jesus movement in Jerusalem and in cities as far as Damascus before a sudden reversal of his course. Precise years of birth and death are not recorded in contemporary sources and remain unknown.

That reversal is recounted in Acts as a visionary encounter with Jesus on the road to Damascus, after which Saul was baptized and began to preach that Jesus was the Messiah. Paul's own account speaks of a revelation of God's Son and of a commission to proclaim him among the Gentiles, followed by time in Arabia, a return to Damascus, a visit to Cephas in Jerusalem, and then a long period in the regions of Syria and Cilicia. From roughly the middle of the first century he traveled widely in Asia Minor, Macedonia, and Achaia, founding or consolidating communities at places such as Philippi, Thessalonica, Corinth, and Ephesus. Acts states that he worked as a tentmaker. He stayed in contact with these churches by letter; the surviving Pauline epistles are among the earliest Christian writings and address both doctrine and the practical life of mixed Jewish and Gentile congregations.

Central themes of the letters include the death and resurrection of Christ, justification apart from works of the Mosaic law, the unity of Jew and Gentile in one body, and ethical instruction on marriage, food, worship, and care for the poor. In 1 Corinthians he presents himself as unmarried and advises the unmarried and widows to remain as he is. The Epistle to the Romans, written in anticipation of a visit to Rome and a hoped-for mission to Spain, is his most sustained theological argument. Conflict over whether Gentile converts must be circumcised and keep the law is attested both in Galatians and in the Jerusalem meeting described in Acts. A number of letters attributed to Paul in the New Testament, notably the Pastoral Epistles, are regarded by many modern scholars as later compositions in his name; the seven letters whose authenticity is least disputed remain the primary source for his thought and career.

Acts reports that Paul was seized in Jerusalem after a disturbance in the Temple, detained at Caesarea, and, having appealed to Caesar as a Roman citizen, was conveyed to Rome, where the book leaves him under house arrest, preaching freely. Near the end of the first century, Clement of Rome referred to Paul's struggles and his departure from this world, language usually taken to indicate martyrdom. Later ecclesiastical tradition holds that he was beheaded in Rome during the persecution under Nero in the mid-60s of the first century and buried along the Via Ostiensis, where the Basilica of Saint Paul Outside the Walls later rose over the tomb. He did not hold the office of bishop of Rome or of patriarch, and he belonged to no later religious order. He was venerated as a saint from the earliest Christian centuries, long before formal papal canonization existed. The Latin and Greek churches keep his principal feast with Saint Peter on 29 June and commemorate his conversion on 25 January. His writings became a foundation of Christian theology in East and West, and he is invoked as patron of missionaries, theologians, evangelists, tentmakers, the city of Rome, the island of Malta, and the work of conversion and the lay apostolate.