Apostle Paul

Paul the Apostle, called Saul before his conversion, was a Jew of the first century born in Tarsus, the principal city of Cilicia in the eastern Roman Empire. In his letters he describes himself as of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew born of Hebrews, and as to the law a Pharisee. The Acts of the Apostles adds that he was a Roman citizen from birth and that he was educated in Jerusalem at the feet of Gamaliel, a leading Pharisaic teacher. Before he became a proclaimer of Jesus, he was a violent opponent of the early believers. He writes that he persecuted the church of God beyond measure and tried to destroy it; Acts depicts him as consenting to the death of Stephen and obtaining authority to arrest disciples in Damascus.

The turning point of his life is described both in Acts, which narrates a vision of the risen Jesus on the road to Damascus, and in his own letters, which speak of God’s revelation of his Son to him and of his call to preach among the Gentiles. After time in Arabia, a return to Damascus, and a visit to Jerusalem where he stayed with Cephas (Peter) and met James the Lord’s brother, he worked in Syria and Cilicia and then, based for years at Antioch, undertook the journeys that established Christian communities across Asia Minor and Greece. He labored in, among other places, Galatia, Philippi, Thessalonica, Corinth, and Ephesus, often meeting hostility from both Jewish and civic authorities. He earned his living at times as a tentmaker, a trade associated with Tarsus, so as not to burden the churches. A major concern of his mature ministry was a collection for the poor among the saints in Jerusalem, which he brought or sent to that city.

His letters, written in Greek in the middle decades of the first century, are the oldest Christian documents that survive. Seven are widely accepted as authentic: Romans, 1 Corinthians, 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Philippians, 1 Thessalonians, and Philemon. In them he addresses the terms on which Gentiles may belong to the people of God, arguing that both Jew and Gentile are justified by faith in Jesus Christ and not by works of the law, and that in Christ there is a new creation in which former distinctions do not determine standing before God. He treats the church as the body of Christ, discusses spiritual gifts, the Lord’s Supper, resurrection, and the expected coming of the Lord, and offers practical counsel on marriage, conscience, and communal discipline. In 1 Corinthians he presents himself as unmarried. Other New Testament writings attributed to him—Colossians, Ephesians, 2 Thessalonians, and the Pastoral Epistles—are regarded by many modern scholars as later compositions in his name; their authorship remains debated. The Acts of the Apostles, composed later in the first century, presents a more irenic and itinerary-focused portrait that cannot always be reconciled in detail with the letters.

Paul’s final years are known only in outline. After a confrontation in the Jerusalem Temple he was taken into Roman custody, held at Caesarea, and, having appealed to the emperor as was his right as a citizen, was sent to Rome. Acts ends with him living under house arrest in the capital for two years, receiving visitors and teaching. Later Christian tradition, already alluded to in the letter known as 1 Clement near the end of the first century and reported by Eusebius and other church historians, holds that he was martyred in Rome under Nero, generally dated to the mid-60s of the first century, and that he was beheaded—an execution consistent with citizen status—on the Ostian Way. A shrine on that road became the site of the Basilica of Saint Paul Outside the Walls, long identified as his burial place. Venerated from antiquity as the Apostle to the Gentiles and, with Peter, as a foundational figure of the Roman church, he is commemorated on 29 June; his conversion is observed on 25 January. His thought has shaped Christian doctrine, liturgy, and ethics in both East and West across nearly two millennia.