Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 11.djvu/627

 PAUL

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PAUL

the Bible"; Hoaicke, "Die Chronologic des Lebens des Ap. Paulus", Leipzig, 1903.)

II. Life and Work of Padl. — A. Birth and Ed- ucation. — From St. Paul himself we know that he was born at Tarsus in Cilicia (Acts, xxi, 39), of a father who was a Roman citizen (Acts, xxii, 26-28; cf. xvi, 37), of a family in which piety was hereditary (II Tim., i, 3) and which was much attached to Phari- saic traditions and observances (Phil., iii, 5-6). St. Jerome relates, on what ground is not known, that his parents were natives of Gischala, a small town of Galilee, antl that they brought him to Tarsus when Gischala was captured by the Romans ("De vir. ill.", v; "In epist. ad Phil.", 23). This' last detail is cer- tainly an anachronism, but the Galilean origin of the family is not at all improbable. As he belonged to the tribe of Benjamin he was given at the time of his circumcision the name of Saul, which must have been common in that tribe in memory of the first king of the Jews (Phil., iii, 5). As a Roman citizen he also bore the Latin name of Paul. It was quite usual for the Jews of that time to have two names, one Hebrew, the other Latin or Greek, between which there was often a certain assonance and which were joined to- gether exactly in the manner made use of by St. Luke (Acts, xiii, 9: 2aOXo! 6 rai IlaCXos). See on this point IJeissmann, "Bible Studies" (Edinburgh, 1903), 313-17. It was natural that in inaugurating his apostolate among the Gentiles Paul should have adojited his Roman name, especially as the name Saul had a ludicrous meaning in Greek. As every re- spectable Jew had to teach his son a trade, young Saul learned how to make tents (Acts, xviii, 3) or rather to make the mohair of which tents were made (cf. Lewin, "Life of St. Paul", I, London, 1874, 8-9). He was still very young when sent to Jerusalem to receive his education at the school of Gamaliel (Acts, xxii, 3). Possibly some of his family resided in the holy city; later there is mention of the presence of one of his sisters whose son saved his life (Acts, xxiii, 16). From that time it is absolutely impossible to foUov.' him until he takes an active part in the martyrdom of St. Stephen (Acts, vii, 58-60; xxii, 20). He was then qualified as a young man (wai'/as), but this was a very elastic appellation and might be applied to a man between twenty and forty.

B. Conversion and early Labours. — We read in the Acts of the Apostles three accounts of the conversion of St. Paul (ix, 1-19; xxii, 3-21; xxvi, 9-23) presenting some slight differences, which it is not difficult to har- monize and which do not affect the basis of the narra- tive, which is perfectly identical in substance. See J. Massie, "The Conversion of St. Paul" in "The Expositor", 3rd series, X, 1889, 241-62. Sabatier, agreeing with most independent critics, has well said (L'Apotre Paul, 1896, 42): "These differences cannot in any way alter the reality of the fact; their bearing on the narrative is extremely remote; they do not deal even with the circumstances accompanying the mira- cle but with the subjective impressions which the companions of St. Paul received of these circum- stances. ... To base a denial of the historical char- acter of the account upon these differences would seem therefore a violent and arbitrary proceeding." All efforts hitherto made to explain without a miracle the apparition of Jesus to Paul have failed. Naturalis- tic e.xplanations are reduced to two: either Paul be- lieved that he really saw Christ, but was the victim of an hallucination, or he believed that he saw Him only through a spiritual vision, which tradition, recorded in the Acts of the Apostles, later erroneously materialized. Renan explained everything by hallucination due to disease brought on by a combination of moral causes such as doubt, remorse, fear, and of physical causes such as ophthalmia, fatigue, fever, the sudden transi- tion from the torrid desert to the fresh gardens of Damascus, perhaps a sudden storm accompanied by

lightning and thunder. All this combined, according to Renan's theory, to produce a cerebral commotion, a passing delirium which Paul took in good faith for an apparition of the risen Christ.

The other partisans of a natural explanation, while avoiding the word hallucination, eventually fall back on the system of Renan which they merely endeavour to render a httle less complicated. Thus Holsten, for whom the vision of Christ is only the conclusion of a series of syllogisms by which Paul persuaded himself that Christ was truly risen. So also Pfleiderer, who however, causes the imagination to play a more influ- ential part: "An excitable, nervous temperament; a soul that had been violently agitated and torn by the most terrible doubts; a most vivid phantasy, occupied with the awful scenes of persecution on the one hand, and on the other by the ideal image of the celestial Christ ; in addition the nearness of Damascus with the urgency of a decision, the lonely stillness, the scorch- ing and blinding heat of the desert — in fact every- thing combined to produce one of those ecstatic states in which the soul believes that it sees those images and conceptions which violently agitate it as if they were phenomena proceeding from the outward world" (Lectures on the influence of the Apostle Paul on the development of Christianity, 1897, 43). We have quoted Pflciderer's words at length because his "psy- chological" explanation is considered the best ever devised. It will readily be seen that it is insufficient and as much opposed to the account in the Acts as to the express testimony of St. Paul himself. (1) Paul is certain of having "seen" Christ as did the other Apos- tles (I Cor., ix, 1); he declares that Christ "appeared" to him (I Cor., xv, 8) as He appeared to Peter, to James, to the Twelve, after His Resurrection. (2) He knows that his conversion is not the fruit of his reason- ing or thoughts, but an unforeseen, sudden, startling change, due to all-powerful grace (Gal., i, 12-15; I Cor., XV, 10). (3) He is wrongly credited with doubts, perplexities, fears, remorse, before his conversion. He was halted by Christ when his fury was at its height (Acts, ix, 1-2); it was "through zeal" that he perse- cuted the Church (Phil., iii, 6), and he obtained mercy because he had acted "ignorantly in unbelief" (I Tim., i, 13). All ex-planations, psychological or other- wise, are worthless in face of these definite assertions, for all suppose that it was Paul's faith in Christ which engendered the vision, whereas according to the con- cordant testimony of the Acts and the Epistles it was the actual vision of Christ which engendered faith.

After his conversion, his baptism, and his miracu- lous cure Paul set about preaching to the Jews (Acts, ix, 19-20). He afterwards withdrew to Arabia — prob- ably to the region south of Damascus (Gal., i, 17), doubtless less to preach than to meditate on the Scrip- tures. On his return to Damascus the intrigues of the Jews forced him to flee by night (II Cor., xi, 32-33; Acts, ix, 23-25). He went to Jerusalem to see Peter (Gal., i, 18), but remained only fifteen days, for the snares of the Greeks threatened his life. He then left for Tarsus and is lost to sight for five or six years (Acts, ix, 29-30; Gal., i, 21). Barnabas went in search of him and brought him to Antioch where for a year they worked together and their apostolate was most fruit- ful (.\cts, xi, 25-26). Together also they were .sent to Jerusalem to carry alms to the brethren on the occa- sion of the famine predicted by Agabus (Acts, xi, 27- 30). They do not .seem to have found the Apostles there; these had been scattered by the persecution of Herod.

C. Apostolic Career of Paul. — This period of twelve years (45-57) was the most active and fruitful of his life. It comprises three great Apostolic ex-peditions of which Antioch was in each instance the starting-point and which invariably ended in a visit to Jerusalem.

(1) First mission (Acts, xiii, 1-xiv, 27). — Set apart by command of the Holy Ghost for the special evan-