Wyatt North - The Life and Prayers of Saint Paul the Apostle

The new Quick Facts section in The Life and Prayers collection provides the reader with a collection of facts about each saint!

Born:

c.3 at Tarsus, Cilicia (modern Turkey) as Saul

Died:

beheaded c.65 at Rome, Italy

Memorial:

25 January (celebration of his conversion)

16 February (Saint Paul Shipwrecked)

29 June (celebration of Saint Peter and Saint Paul as co-founders of the Church)

18 November (feast of the dedication of the Basilicas of Peter and Paul)

Attributes:

book

sword

man holding a sword and a book

man with three springs of water nearby

There are a great many men and women who have forever influenced and changed the course of Christian history, but one might ask whether any have made such a profound impact as Saint Paul the Apostle.

Saint Paul's view of what it means to be a Christian, through his many letters, has been made canon, bringing his words to new generations of Christians for millennia to follow. Now that his words are canon, it is easy to imagine Paul as a mere compiler of Christian tenets, but Paul's influence goes far beyond his words.

Paul did not merely write down what being a Christian meant to everyone, he wrote down what it meant to him and Paul was a controversial figure who shook the not yet settled foundations of the early Church. He was a proponent of intense change, and if it cannot be said that he took a small Middle Eastern sect and made it a blossoming Roman religion, it must at least be said that he worked fervently for the changes that made such growth possible.

It is through the ardent work of Paul that we know the path to Salvation, one which leads us and binds us to God through the love of Christ.

Saint Paul's influence can be felt throughout all of Christendom, but his story can also be very touching on a personal level. He was a very unlikely apostle, a persecutor of Christians who had a profoundly powerful experience and was symbolically born again through Christ, casting off his hatred in favor of love.

When we seek to know Paul through his life and deeds, rather than through his beliefs alone, we find him in canonical, as well as apocryphal and historical sources. Naturally, there are numerous quite complete explorations on the life and legacy of Saint Paul, including the inspiring Saint Paul by Pope Benedict XVI, but these are usually medieval or modern in origin and use sources that are equally readily available to us. As we seek Paul, we will consider the contemporary and near-contemporary sources first.

The canonical sources begin, chronologically, with the Pauline epistles. These are the letters that Paul sent to various congregations that he had helped develop, often to instruct them on matters of good Christian conduct. We know them, named after their recipients, as: the Epistle to the Romans , the First Epistle to the Corinthians , the Second Epistle to the Corinthians , the Epistle to the Galatians , the Epistle to the Ephesians , the Epistle to the Philippians , the Epistle to the Colossians , the First Epistle to the Thessalonians , the Second Epistle to the Thessalonians , and the Epistle to Philemon .

Of these, the letters to the Ephesians, the Colossians, and the second letter to the Thessalonians are sometimes thought by modern Biblical scholars to have been written by someone else. Traditionally, the First Epistle to Timothy , the Second Epistle to Timothy , and the Epistle to Titus , sometimes also the Epistle to the Hebrews , have been considered the works of Paul, but today many Bible scholars believe them, based on their content and language, to be later works of someone else merely attributed to Paul.

The Pauline epistles are chronologically followed by the Acts of the Apostles , although this book actually precedes Paul's letters in the Bible. The traditional view is that this work was written by Luke the Evangelist, a friend of Paul's. On this matter, modern scholars are more or less evenly divided. If it is written by Luke, it may date as early as the 60s AD, around or just after the death of Paul. If it is the work of another author, it may have been written as late as 100 AD, but with the help of a source that was present during Paul's travels. As a source for the life of Paul it is the most complete, but it can be a complicated work. It does on occasion directly contradict Paul's own writings. At other times, the historian may ask whether its details are plausible events or a literary device, and indeed whether the author's goal is not to aggrandize Paul and draw a parallel to the life of Christ. These are questions that the reader must ask, and come up with their own answer.

Outside of the canonical sources, we find several apocryphal as well as gnostic texts. The earliest work dedicated to the life of Saint Paul was written between 160 and 190 AD, and is mentioned by the famous 2nd century Christian author Tertullian. It was called the Acts of Paul and comes down to us, in its entirety, only in fragments.

Its main constituent parts, however, were so popular individually that they were often copied and distributed on their own. They are the Acts of Paul and Thecla , and the Martyrdom of Paul . In addition to these two works, the Acts of Paul consist of letters and prayers, as well as several shorter narratives of Paul's preaching and miraculous healings.