Divinity Atlas

Sacred Correspondences
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Paul the Apostle

Also Known As Pauline The adjectival form, as in the Pauline epistles and Pauline theology.
Apostles

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Paul, born Saul of Tarsus, was a zealous Pharisee who persecuted the first Christians until, on the road to Damascus, a blinding vision of the risen Christ struck him down and utterly transformed him. Becoming the great apostle to the Gentiles, he carried the gospel across the Roman world on three missionary journeys, founding churches and writing the letters that form much of the New Testament and shape Christian theology to this day. Tradition holds that he was beheaded in Rome under Nero. As archetype he is the magician and transformer, the persecutor turned apostle whose own conversion became the pattern of a new life in Christ.

Facts
Life
Lifespan or Floruit
5 to 67 CE 1
Place of Activity
Syria, Asia Minor, Greece and Rome 1
Manner of Death
Martyred 1Tradition: Christianity
By tradition beheaded at Rome under Nero; not independently attested
Identity
Gender
Male 1
Origins
Place of Origin
Tarsus in Cilicia 1
Origin of the Name
Born Saul, a Hebrew name, he is called Paul, a Roman cognomen, from the point in Acts where his mission turns toward the Gentile world, a shift tradition reads as marking his identity as apostle to the nations. 2
Practice
Lineage
A Roman citizen by birth and a Pharisee of the tribe of Benjamin, trained, according to Acts, under the eminent rabbi Gamaliel in Jerusalem. 2
Attestation
Historicity
Historically attested 1
Canonization
Pre-Congregation: venerated before any formal process existed 1Tradition: Christianity
Position Profile
Key Text
Thirteen New Testament letters bear his name, though modern scholarship broadly agrees he authored seven of them without dispute, Romans, 1 and 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Philippians, 1 Thessalonians and Philemon, while debating the authorship of the rest. 2
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Seven Letters That Are Certainly His

Paul is the only figure in the New Testament from whom we have documents he wrote himself, and this makes him the best-evidenced person in the first Christian generation, but the collection under his name is not all his, and the division matters.

Seven letters are accepted as authentically Pauline across the scholarly spectrum, including by conservative and confessional scholars: Romans, First and Second Corinthians, Galatians, Philippians, First Thessalonians and Philemon. They date to roughly the fifties, which makes them the earliest Christian writings in existence, earlier than any Gospel by a decade or two.

Six more are disputed on grounds of vocabulary, style, theology and situation. Ephesians, Colossians and Second Thessalonians are contested; the three Pastoral Epistles, First and Second Timothy and Titus, are regarded by a large majority of critical scholars as later, written in his name by admirers. Pseudonymous writing under a revered name was a normal ancient practice and was not necessarily understood as forgery, though some ancient writers plainly did object to it. Hebrews was attributed to Paul for centuries and is anonymous; Origen said in the third century that who wrote it, God knows.

This division is not a marginal technicality. The instruction that women should keep silent and not teach is in First Timothy, a disputed letter. Household codes ordering slaves to obey masters are in Ephesians and Colossians, both disputed. Meanwhile the undisputed Galatians contains the line that in Christ there is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female. Which Paul a reader meets depends on which letters they are handed.

Damascus, and the Argument He Never Stopped Having

Paul's own account of his change is short and strange. In Galatians he says he persecuted the church violently, that God revealed his Son to him, that he did not consult anyone, went into Arabia, and only after three years went up to Jerusalem, where he saw Peter and James and no other apostle. He is at pains to insist he received his commission from no human being, because his standing was under attack.

Acts tells it three times, with growing detail: the light on the Damascus road, the voice, the blindness, Ananias. The three tellings within Acts differ from each other on whether Paul's companions heard the voice or saw the light, and all three differ from Paul's own compressed version in emphasis and sequence. The word conversion fits awkwardly in any case: Paul does not describe leaving one religion for another. He describes being called, in the language the Hebrew prophets use of themselves, and he continues to identify as an Israelite of the tribe of Benjamin.

The argument he never stopped having was about Gentiles. Did a non-Jew joining the movement have to be circumcised and keep the law? Paul said no, and said it with a ferocity that survives translation, in Galatians he wishes those pushing circumcision would go the whole way and castrate themselves. He records confronting Peter to his face at Antioch over table fellowship. Acts smooths this into a council that agrees amicably.

That Paul won this argument is why Christianity became a religion of the empire rather than a Jewish sect. It is also why the New Testament exists in Greek.

Cross-Tradition Connections

Associated With

Antioch, Cities

Antioch was the base from which Paul and Barnabas were sent out.

Athens, Cities

Paul the Apostle preached to the Areopagus council below the Acropolis, per Acts 17.

Corinth, Cities

Two of Paul's letters are addressed to the congregation at Corinth.

Damascus, Cities

Acts places Paul's conversion on the road to Damascus.

Crossed the sea repeatedly on mission, shipwrecked on Malta on the way to trial in Rome

Christian tradition places the martyrdom of Paul the Apostle at Rome during the reign of Nero, a placement the Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church records as the church's standard historical reckoning even though the earliest surviving sources naming Rome and Nero's reign date from a generation or more after the event rather than from a contemporary witness. This evidentiary gap between the event and its earliest surviving record is typical of first century Christian history generally and is not treated by historians as grounds for doubting the tradition, only as a reason to hold the specific date and circumstances loosely.

Source The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 3rd revised editionF. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone (eds.)

This source names Paul the Apostle directly: "papyrus codex carrying most of the Pauline epistles in Greek, Romans, Hebrews, First and Second Corinthians, Ephesians, Galatians, Philippians, Colossians and First Thessalonians, and one of the..."

Rome, Cities

Tradition holds Paul was martyred in Rome under Nero.

Source The Christian Catacombs of Rome: History, Decoration, InscriptionsVincenzo Fiocchi Nicolai, Fabrizio Bisconti and Danilo Mazzoleni

Acts names Saul of Tarsus, later Paul the Apostle, as present at the stoning and consenting to it, holding the cloaks of the men who threw the stones.

Paul gives his own account of the meeting in Galatians 2. It differs in several particulars from the narrative in Acts 15, and the relation between the two accounts is a standing question in New Testament scholarship.

Source The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 3rd revised editionF. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone (eds.)

Quotes the earliest surviving written testimony as material already received

Why this is disputed. Christian tradition holds that Paul was beheaded in Rome under Nero, a method reserved for Roman citizens; Tacitus's own account of the fire names no individual victims, so this is recorded as tradition rather than as part of his near-contemporary report.

This source names Paul the Apostle directly: "return language anywhere in the Pauline corpus, in the apostle's own words."

Source The New Testament, 1 ThessaloniansPaul the Apostle
Thessalonica, Cities

Received the earliest surviving letter of Paul; its Christian community is among the oldest attested in Europe.

Source The Oxford Dictionary of World ReligionsJohn Bowker (ed.)

Belongs to Tradition

Source Encyclopedia of ReligionMircea Eliade (ed.); Lindsay Jones (ed., 2nd ed.)

Commonly Conflated with (See Note)

Saul, Figures

Saul the first king of Israel is not Saul of Tarsus, the apostle Paul, who was named after him.

Depicted In

Depicts the single defining turn of Paul's biography, his conversion on the road to Damascus, arguably the most widely reproduced visual account of that moment.

Source Wikipedia, "Conversion on the Way to Damascus"Wikipedia contributors

Works Attributed

Source Encyclopaedia Britannica (online academic reference)Encyclopaedia Britannica editors
Source Encyclopaedia Britannica (online academic reference)Encyclopaedia Britannica editors

Why this is disputed. Church tradition holds 1 Timothy as Paul's own pastoral instruction to his younger colleague. As one of the three Pastoral Epistles it is widely judged pseudonymous by critical New Testament scholarship, on grounds that include its vocabulary, its concern with church offices such as bishops and deacons that appear more developed than in Paul's undisputed letters, and a historical setting that fits poorly with the movements recorded in Acts. A minority of scholars continue to defend Pauline authorship, some proposing it as a genuinely late letter written near the end of Paul's own career rather than after his death.

Source Encyclopaedia Britannica (online academic reference)Encyclopaedia Britannica editors

Why this is disputed. Church tradition holds 2 Thessalonians as Paul's own letter, written soon after 1 Thessalonians to the same community. It is one of the New Testament's Deutero-Pauline epistles by critical scholarship's own classification: many scholars find its teaching on the end times harder to reconcile with 1 Thessalonians than an authentic sequel should be, and its more formal, less personal tone unlike Paul's undisputed letters, and read it as written by a later follower in Paul's name and tradition. Other scholars, noting how closely it otherwise follows 1 Thessalonians in structure and vocabulary, continue to defend Pauline authorship as the simpler explanation.

Source The Catholic EncyclopediaCharles George Herbermann et al. (eds.)

Why this is disputed. Church tradition holds 2 Timothy as Paul's final letter, written from prison in anticipation of his death, and its personal, valedictory tone is often cited in its favor. Critical scholarship classifies it with 1 Timothy and Titus as one of the Pastoral Epistles, and while some scholars who doubt Pauline authorship of the other two regard 2 Timothy's more personal material as harder to explain as pure invention, the majority position still treats all three as products of the same later hand writing in Paul's name and tradition, decades after his death.

Why this is disputed. Church tradition holds Colossians as Paul's own letter, written from prison to a community he had not personally founded. Critical scholarship classifies it among the Deutero-Pauline epistles: its vocabulary and sentence structure differ measurably from Paul's undisputed letters, and its more developed cosmic Christology, describing Christ as the invisible God's image sustaining creation, sits closer to later theological development than to Paul's own earlier writing. Defenders of Pauline authorship attribute the differences to the letter's unusual subject matter and possible use of a secretary who shaped its wording.

Source The Catholic EncyclopediaCharles George Herbermann et al. (eds.)

Why this is disputed. Church tradition holds Ephesians as Paul's own letter, though early manuscripts lack the words to the Ephesians in its opening line, suggesting to some scholars it may have circulated originally as a general letter meant for several congregations. A majority of critical scholars classify Ephesians as Deutero-Pauline, close in date and outlook to Colossians but stylistically the most distant from Paul's undisputed writing of any letter bearing his name, with an unusually long, formal Greek sentence structure. A minority of scholars, mostly outside the historical critical mainstream, continue to defend direct Pauline authorship.

Source The Catholic EncyclopediaCharles George Herbermann et al. (eds.)
Source Encyclopaedia Britannica (online academic reference)Encyclopaedia Britannica editors
Source Encyclopaedia Britannica (online academic reference)Encyclopaedia Britannica editors
Source Encyclopaedia Britannica (online academic reference)Encyclopaedia Britannica editors
Source Encyclopaedia Britannica (online academic reference)Encyclopaedia Britannica editors
Titus, Scripture Portions

Why this is disputed. Church tradition holds Titus among Paul's genuine letters, addressed to a trusted companion organizing the church on Crete. Along with 1 and 2 Timothy it forms the group critical scholarship calls the Pastoral Epistles, widely judged pseudonymous by the majority of historical critical scholars on the strength of vocabulary substantially different from Paul's undisputed letters, church structures reflecting a later, more institutionalized period, and a theological vocabulary emphasizing sound doctrine unlike Paul's own writing. Defenders of authenticity attribute the differences to subject matter, an amanuensis, or a genuinely late composition within Paul's own lifetime.

Sources
1. The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 3rd revised edition
F. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone (eds.), Oxford University Press, 2005s.v. Canonization of SaintsView the Source
2. The Holy Bible
Anonymous (multiple authors), Robert Barker, 1611Galatians 1:11-19 and 2:11-14; 1 Timothy 2:11-12
Quote, Galatians 1:11-19 and 2:11-14; 1 Timothy 2:11-12
Paul's own compressed account of his call, and the instruction on women's silence which stands in a disputed letter rather than an undisputed one.
View the Source
2. The Holy Bible
Anonymous (multiple authors), Robert Barker, 1611Acts 9, 22 and 26
Quote, Acts 9, 22 and 26
Three tellings within one book, differing on whether the companions heard the voice or saw the light.
View the Source
Encyclopedia of Religion
Mircea Eliade (ed.); Lindsay Jones (ed., 2nd ed.), Macmillan Reference, 2005View the Source
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