Saint Paul
(d. c. 62–68 CE), early Christian saint, apostle to Gentiles. Saint Paul converted the Jews and Christians of the Roman empire to Christianity from about 40 to 64 CE. He undertook three missionary journeys in Asia Minor and Greece and traveled to Rome to appeal his death sentence. His efforts resulted in the expansion of the Church to include Gentile converts based in southern Asia Minor, Greece, and Rome, thus changing the nature of the Church members from the original congregants of Jewish Christians. He probably died for his beliefs in Rome. His conversion and mission are described in the Bible in both the Acts of the Apostles (written by Luke) and Paul's own letters to the churches.
Paul (or Saul) was born in Tarsus, in today's Turkey, and was trained as a rabbi and a tent maker. Educated in Jerusalem as a strict Pharisee, he purged heresy from the Jewish faith by persecuting the followers of Jesus. Later he had a mystical experience, a vision of Jesus on the road to Damascus, which completely recast his beliefs. He became a leading member of the Church in Antioch, the second Christian community after Jerusalem.
As a church official, Paul, with Barnabas, made the first journey to Cyprus, Antalya, Perge, Antioch in Pisidia, Iconium (now Konya), Lystra, and Derbe, founding churches along the way, and returning by the same route. The message that Jesus was the Messiah promised by God to the prophets was adapted for Gentile consumption to proclaim Jesus as son of a selfevident supreme deity who provided eternal life for his believers. Paul's Christianity diverged from Jesus' message of righteous behavior within Jewish law. On his return, Paul and Peter (then primate of Antioch) obtained permission from the Church in Jerusalem to admit uncircumcised Gentiles to the Church, which thus lost its Jewish links.
Paul revisited his congregations in Asia Minor and continued to Troas, Philippi, Thessalonica, Athens, and Corinth. Returning, he paused at Ephesus and Caesarea en route to Antioch. On the third journey, a reprise of the second, he spent three years in Ephesus, where the most important letters were written and funds were collected to support Jewish Christians in Jerusalem. His preaching provoked an attack from worshipers of Artemis, one of several attacks on his person.
Back in Jerusalem, Paul was attacked by "Jews of Asia," imprisoned for two years, and tried by successive Roman governors of Caesarea; appealing (as a Roman citizen) to the emperor, he spent two years in Rome under house arrest. According to the Palestinian historian Eusebius (c. 260–c. 339), Paul was beheaded during Nero's persecutions of 64 CE.
Paul was the best known and hardest working of the Christian fathers; Christianity in Jerusalem almost perished in the Jewish revolt of 70 CE and was kept alive largely by Paul's beleaguered communities of Gentile converts.
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