Saint Paul

Saul was born at Tarsus in Cilicia, a Jew of the tribe of Benjamin and a Roman citizen by birth. He studied the Law in Jerusalem “at the feet of Gamaliel” and became a zealous Pharisee (Acts 22). He approved of the stoning of Saint Stephen and set out to arrest the Christians of Damascus.

On the road a light from heaven threw him to the ground, and a voice said, “Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?” Blind for three days, he was baptized by Ananias and began at once to preach that Jesus is the Son of God (Acts 9). The Church keeps the feast of his conversion on 25 January.

For some thirty years he travelled the Roman world by land and sea: Cyprus, Asia Minor, Macedonia and Greece. He founded churches in cities such as Philippi, Thessalonica, Corinth and Ephesus, and wrote to them letters that are among the most precious writings of the Church, among them Romans, Corinthians, Galatians and Ephesians. He was beaten, stoned, shipwrecked and imprisoned (2 Corinthians 11). It was Paul who wrote the hymn to charity: “Charity is patient, is kind” (1 Corinthians 13).

Arrested in Jerusalem, he appealed as a citizen to Caesar and was taken to Rome, surviving a shipwreck on Malta on the way. Tradition says he was beheaded outside Rome under Nero, and he is buried beneath the basilica of Saint Paul Outside the Walls. “I have fought a good fight,” he wrote near the end, “I have finished my course, I have kept the faith” (2 Timothy 4).