Saint Paul the Apostle

Saint Paul the Apostle, known first as Saul of Tarsus, was a Pharisee and a persecutor of Jesus’ disciples who, after his encounter with the risen Christ, became the Apostle of the Gentiles. He suffered martyrdom in Rome under Nero. The Church celebrates his solemnity on June 29, together with Saint Peter the Apostle.

He was born in Tarsus in Cilicia, into a Jewish family of the tribe of Benjamin, and he was a Roman citizen from birth. He bore the Hebrew name Saul and the Latin name Paul. Historians place his birth between the years 7 and 10 AD, and for its two-thousandth anniversary Benedict XVI proclaimed the Pauline Year, which ran from June 2008 to June 2009. He learned the trade of tentmaking, and in Jerusalem he studied the Law under Gamaliel.

He regarded the movement of Jesus’ disciples as a threat to the faith of the fathers and, as he himself admits, persecuted the Church of God. He was present at the stoning of Stephen. In the early 30s, on the road to Damascus, he encountered the risen Christ: a light from heaven threw him to the ground and he heard his voice. In Damascus Ananias restored his sight, and Saul received baptism. He himself writes that God revealed his Son to him so that he might proclaim him to the Gentiles. Three years later he went up to Jerusalem to get to know Peter.

Barnabas brought him to the community in Antioch, from where the two set out on the first missionary journey to Cyprus and Asia Minor. At the assembly of the apostles in Jerusalem it was recognized that converted Gentiles were not bound to observe the Law of Moses. On his later journeys Paul proclaimed Christ in Macedonia and Greece, spoke on the Areopagus in Athens, spent a year and a half in Corinth and more than two years in Ephesus. The New Testament contains thirteen letters that bear his name.

In Jerusalem he was arrested, and after a long imprisonment in Caesarea he appealed, as a Roman citizen, to the emperor. On the way to Rome he survived a shipwreck off the coast of Malta. In Rome he lived for two years under guard. The New Testament is silent about his death, but ancient tradition unanimously holds that he suffered martyrdom in Rome. According to the account preserved by Eusebius of Caesarea, he was beheaded with the sword under Nero. A later legend points to Tre Fontane as the place of execution. The year of his death is not known precisely: ancient sources give the years from 64 to 68, and tradition indicates the year 67.

He was buried along the road to Ostia, where the Basilica of Saint Paul Outside the Walls stands today. Beneath its papal altar rests a sarcophagus that tradition holds to be the Apostle’s tomb. In 2009 Benedict XVI announced that an examination of its interior had revealed bone fragments dated to the first or second century, which agrees with that tradition.

Paul has been venerated as a saint since antiquity, without a formal canonization. A Roman list of martyrs from the year 336 commemorates him on June 29 together with Peter. On January 25 the Church also celebrates the feast of the Conversion of Saint Paul.