The Life and Prayers of Saint Paul the Apostle (2 page)

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The Early Life of Saint Paul

 

 

Very little is known about the early life of Saint Paul. We do not know exactly when he was born or who his parents were. We do not know of his childhood exploits, or his relationship to his family and teachers. But there is much that we can infer from the little details given, primarily, in the New Testament.

 

The year of Paul's birth can only be derived from the dating of his letters, through references to historical people and events, and educated guesses about Paul's age when writing them. Most likely, he was born sometime around 3-10 AD. The Bible tells us that he was born in the city of Tarsus.

 

Tarsus lay, as is stated several times in the
Acts of the Apostles
, in Cilicia. It was a region of modern Turkey whose cities had been culturally Greek since Alexander the Great took it from the Persian Empire in 333 BC. By the time that Paul was born there, it had been annexed by the Roman Empire, and then largely abandoned again to be ruled by local princes and priests.

 

Much of Cilicia was considered hostile outback by the Romans, but Tarsus itself was a bustling capital. The city was a prosperous center for textile production, in particular the goat-hair cloth, called
Cilicium
after the region, that the Romans imported for tent-making.

 

The Greek geographer Strabo, an older contemporary of Saint Paul, wrote that “the people at Tarsus have devoted themselves so eagerly, not only to philosophy, but also to the whole round of education in general, that they have surpassed Athens, Alexandria, or any other place that can be named where there have been schools and lectures of philosophers.”

 

But, Strabo also wrote that Tarsus was different from other scholarly cities in that the people of Tarsus tended to complete their education elsewhere, and then rarely go home again. Of this, we shall see, Paul is an excellent example.

 

The language used in Paul's letters make it clear that Paul spoke Greek on a native level, as might be expected of a man from Tarsus. He read and quoted from the Old Testament in its Greek translation, and used the rhetorical and oratory clichés of the eastern Roman schools. He was clearly at home in the Greek world and often made references to elements of a wholly Greek culture.

 

He was also a Jew. In Philippians 3 he tells us that he was of the Tribe of Benjamin, circumcised on the 8th day after his birth as per Jewish law. The multiple layers of cultural identity can seem positively modern, but in the same way that Polish Jews might have banded together in the United States after the Holocaust or Italian Americans may long have stayed true to their culture and language while also being Americans, so was the ancient world full diasporic communities with several simultaneous cultures.

 

In addition to being a culturally Greek Jew, Paul might have been a Roman citizen. In Acts, he calls upon his Roman birthright twice, but many historians doubt the veracity of these passages. However, there are several problems with the idea that Paul was a Roman citizen.

 

First, the way this is presented in Acts appears to be a literary device to add suspense; many readers find it improbable that Paul should wait until after he has been mistreated, even brutally beaten, for a long time to mention to anyone that he is a Roman citizen, and then even more unlikely that everyone should then believe him and fall over themselves to do him right.

 

Second, Paul's Roman identity appears to be used in an attempt to aggrandize Paul; he is very clearly made out to be more legitimately Roman than even the Romans themselves. Third, it is very unlikely historically speaking that Paul should be a Roman; less than 1% of the inhabitants of the Roman Empire were in fact citizens and Paul was a Jew from merely a formerly Roman fringe area.

 

Finally, Paul himself never mentions this improbable citizenship in any of his own writings. This, of course, does not mean that Paul could not have been a Roman. Improbable things do happen, and truths too can be unveiled at opportune moments.

 

More certain is Paul's identity as a Pharisee, which he tells us of himself in Philippians 3. The Pharisees were a school of thought, as well as a social and political movement, that, among other things, wished to expand observance of the Torah into the daily lives of common people, not merely the priests, and believed in the bodily resurrection of the righteous dead in the age of the Messiah. Acts 22 tells us that Paul received his Pharisaic education from Gamaliel the Elder, a highly celebrated scholar of Jewish Law in Jerusalem. Most likely, this education started when Paul became a Bar Mitzvah, a son of the law, at the age of 13.

 

With these many different identities in mind, we will consider one of the best known ideas of Paul's young life: his name was Saul. There is an old tradition that maintains that Saint Paul was originally Saul the Jew, and on the fateful day that he converted to Christianity he became Paul the Apostle. This is not really supported by the Bible. In Acts we find that Paul is called Saul even after his rebirth as a Christian. Having considered already his many identities, it is perhaps possible that Saul and Paul were two names that co-existed and were used both within different contexts. This was certainly the case of many immigrants in the Greek and Roman world, and it is certainly the case of many people in the Bible.

 

The only direct reference to Paul's family comes from Saint Jerome, who tells us that there was a tradition among Christians in Jerusalem that Paul's parents came from the city of Gischala in Galilee, but were forced to flee to Tarsus when Gischala was devastated by the Romans. If Paul were indeed a Roman citizen, this tradition cannot be true. A Roman citizen would not need to flee a Roman invasion. Curiosity also raises the question: which devastation of Gischala did the parents of Paul flee from? Gischala was still one of the last Jewish strongholds during the First Jewish Revolt, after Paul's death.

 

Paul's education, both his studies with Gamaliel the Elder and his apparent studies of Greek oratory and playwrights, however, indicates a relatively wealthy family. It is quite possible that they had slaves, including a
pedagogos
whose duty it would be to oversee young Paul's education and accompany him in Jerusalem. The family wealth most likely came from trade; as a missionary Paul supported himself as a traveling artisan. The trade, which he would have learned from his father, Acts 18 tells us, related to tent-making. Perhaps he was skilled in working leather, textiles, or wood.

 

The education afforded by the family's wealth is probably what set Paul off on the destructive path of his youth. Like so many Pharisees, Paul must have felt that the inclusion of Gentiles, that is uncircumcised foreigners, into Synagogues by sectarians following a Jesus of Nazareth was highly problematic and divided not only congregations, but also families. He grew incredibly hostile towards these sectarians, and campaigned vigorously to eradicate them. He even received authorization from the priests in Jerusalem to go to the city of Damascus, where there were many Jesus followers at the time, and bring them back in chains.

Paul's Damascus Experience

 

 

Of all the events in Paul's life, the one with which most people are familiar is his experience on the road to Damascus. Even so, this is one event that Paul himself says nothing about. Our main source is
Acts of the Apostles
.

 

Having received the authorization from the priests at Jerusalem to imprison the followers of Jesus Christ in Damascus, Paul set off for the city with a number of traveling companions.

 

It was a long road to travel, but as they were nearing the city one day, at midday, when Paul saw a light that shone much brighter than the sun had ever shone. It shone around him, and around his traveling companions. They all fell to the ground, and Paul could hear an unfamiliar voice speaking to him in Hebrew.

 

The voice said: “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? It is hard for you to kick against the goad.” Paul responded: “Who are you, sir?”

 

The voice said: “I am Jesus the Nazorean whom you are persecuting.”

 

We have no way of knowing what Paul felt in this moment, or what he believed. He knew that the Jesus, whose followers he was persecuting, was dead. Did he know about their belief in a resurrection? Paul's experience took place not very long after the crucifixion of Christ, so the tenets of this small new sect may not have yet been widely known, but on the other hand Paul had watched Saint Stephen being martyred for blasphemy, a trial which must have brought to light many of the early church beliefs.

 

If he was unaware of their faith in a Risen Christ, he must have been aware of their faith that Jesus was the Son of God and his presence in Heaven. Such knowledge may explain Paul's apparent acceptance that the voice was indeed Jesus, a man he knew to be dead.

 

“What shall I do, sir?” Paul asked, and the voice commanded: “Get up and go into Damascus, and there you will be told about everything appointed for you to do.”

 

However, Paul could not rise from the ground or go into the city on his own, for the brilliant light had completely blinded him. He opened his eyes and he saw nothing.

 

He had to be led into the city by his companions, and for as long as he was blind he did not eat nor drink.

 

In Damascus there was a disciple of Jesus called Ananias. After Paul had been blinded, the Lord spoke to this disciple through a vision. The Lord told him “Get up and go to the street called Straight and ask at the house of Judas for a man from Tarsus named Saul. He is there praying, and [in a vision] he has seen a man named Ananias come in and lay [his] hands on him, that he may regain his sight.”

 

However, Ananias knew Paul well by reputation and he feared the imprisonment and potential death that would follow meeting such a man. So, the Lord told Ananias: “Go, for this man is a chosen instrument of mine to carry my name before Gentiles, kings, and Israelites, and I will show him what he will have to suffer for my name.”

 

Ananias did what he had been told. He laid his hand on Paul and he told him: “Saul, my brother, the Lord has sent me, Jesus who appeared to you on the way by which you came, that you may regain your sight and be filled with the holy Spirit.”

 

Immediately, Paul regained his sight and Ananias said: “The God of our ancestors designated you to know his will, to see the Righteous One, and to hear the sound of his voice; for you will be his witness before all to what you have seen and heard. Now, why delay? Get up and have yourself baptized and your sins washed away, calling upon his name.”

 

Although the outlines of Paul's Damascus experience in Acts 9 and Acts 22 are roughly the same, they differ in the details. It would seem as if though the two accounts came from two similar but slightly different sources. The dialogue differs in content, and in some details the two accounts are even completely contradictory.

 

This is the case of Paul's companions. In Acts 9, Paul's companions could hear the voice of Jesus, but were confused as they could not see what Paul was seeing. In Acts 22, Paul's companions were awed by the same vision that Paul was experiencing, but they were confused because they could not hear the voice of Jesus.

 

How would Paul himself have understood the incident on the road to Damascus?

 

Although today we call it a conversion experience, it is not certain that Paul himself would have felt the same way. He never referred to it as such. In Paul's own words, he was “taken possession of by Christ.”

 

Many historians feel that Paul did not speak of conversion in the sense that we speak of it today because “being taken possession of by Christ” did not mean a tremendous change in Paul's life. Certainly, joining those whom he had wished dead as an adjustment, but they argue that when it came to Paul's philosophy, his eschatology, that is to say: his belief in Judgment and Paradise, and the way in which his religion expressed itself physically, Paul was very much the same man before and after his Damascus experience. They say that Paul was very much a Pharisee when he started walking to Damascus, and he was very much a Pharisee on the day he died, although he had come to feel that the Messianic Age had already been ushered in.

 

Others have understood Paul's experience as less of a conversion and more as a rebirth through Christ. Pope Benedict XVI is among them. He sees Paul's transformation as a death of one existence, symbolized through his blindness, and the birth of another, when the Lord once again opened his eyes. A conversion, the Pope maintains, is a psychological maturation and a development of the ego through human effort – Paul's experience at Damascus contained none of these ingredients.

 

As one considers Paul's experience on the road to Damascus as a conversion, it is easy to get lost in the maze of personal implications, what this intimately would have meant for Saint Paul. A perhaps even more important aspect is its very public implications for the whole of the Christian community.

 

When Jesus revealed himself directly to Paul and called Paul into his service that set Paul apart from other disciples who had come into the faith since the crucifixion.

 

Paul was not merely chosen to be a disciple, he had been appointed by Jesus himself.

 

That made Paul an Apostle, every bit as legitimate as the Twelve in Jerusalem.

Paul and the Twelve

 

 

Having turned his hate of Christ into love, the 25-30 year old Paul went away to Arabia. He does not tell us what he did there, but there are some who have speculated that he went to Mount Sinai to meditate on his revelation on the road to Damascus. In any case, after an uncertain amount of time, he returned to Damascus and began to proselytize.

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