St. Paul or The Fall from Heavens

Saul, the historic persona (approx. 10-67 BC.), became Paul after his exemplary conversion in 36 BC. He was one of the greatest and most troubled men on the Damascus Road. He was a Jew from Tars in Ciliciabut, he was also a Roman citizen, an erudite, former disciple of Rabbi Gamaliel, and he preached in Hebrew, Latin and he wrote his “Letters” in Greek. He was very different from the other apostles who lived near the Saviour. According to the tradition, Saint Paul’s first missionary voyages were full of dramatic happenings. He went from town to town and entered the synagogues where he preached the Gospel every Sunday. Those times, the Jews saw religion as the only factor of social cohesion. The slightest deviation from the preset line of belief was considered a flagrant transgression. Thus, everywhere Paul went, he was met with disapproval and usually, his “sessions” ended in a general brawl. Apparently he was blaspheming. The truth was that the old ways were hard to bring down and the stakes were high – the survival of the Jew people. Paul fled Damascus at night, lowered over the city wall in a basket by a few faithful adepts. In Cyprus he faced the wrath of Elimas. In Antioch, in Pisida and Iconiu he was chased with rocks out of the city. In Listra he was flagellated. In Filippi he was beaten with sticks and jailed. In Thessaloniki and Bereea he was again beaten and chased out of the city. In Athens he was not thrown out but he was laughed at and ironies were thrown at him instead of rocks. It is possible that his failure in Athens hurt him more than all the others – he never built a church in the capital of Greece and he never preached here again. In Corinth he initiated an event that was of the utmost importance for the history of Christianity. Paul decided to speak to the non-Jew nations from then on. The new religion became universal. Christians were no longer forced to circumcise their young. Breaking away from the Law does not imply the loss of norms. Men are not in an ethic void but in a place where belief has to be assumed. Instead of the religious constraints of the Law, we now have an “imitatio Christi,” the role model of Christ. We are not free from, or above justice. We are free from the Law, so that we can forge a new kind of justice, the Christian one. Belief is not just a matter of free will; it comes as a fulfillment of man’s efforts to do God’s will. A stretched hand destined to free the people, to save them. Although the apostle Paul does not speak with the divine authority of the ancient prophets from the Old Testament – he even said sometimes that he was exposing his own opinions – he had his own theology and he brought his share in fundamenting Christianity and he is sometimes considered a co-founder of the religion.