Biography of St. Paul

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Catholic Community of

St. Peter and St. Paul

9135 Banyan St | Alta Loma, Ca 91737

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SAINT PAUL, the second patron of our parish, is the pre-eminent "apostle to the Gentiles" of the New Testament. Because the first Christians were few in number, everyone of them were missionaries, but Saint Paul had the zeal and eloquence that took the pagans by storm with the baptism and teachings of Jesus Christ. He received the name Saul from Jewish parents, who were also Roman citizens in Tarsus, capital of Cilicia in Asia Minor. He was a member of the strictest Jewish sects, the Pharisees, and he received not only an education in rigid Pharisaic teachings, but also a Greek education as well. He was a student of Gamaliel about 30 A.D. in Jerusalem, but had probably finished studies and returned home by the time Christ began His public life. He was trained as well in tent-making, his father’s occupation. Paul was not only brilliant and well educated, he was filled with energy. In his zeal and energy, he began persecuting the early believers of Jesus for their lack of fidelity to Jewish orthodoxy. He saw them as corrupters of the true religion and wanted them wiped out. He is mentioned in the New Testament as watching and approving of the stoning of Saint Stephen, the first martyr of the early Catholic Church.

He reports his attitude and practice himself in Acts of the Apostles: ". . . I then thought it my duty to do many things contrary to the name of Jesus of Nazareth . . . . many of the saints I shut up in prison, having received authority from the chief priests to do so; and when they were put to death, I cast my vote against them; and oftentimes in all the synagogues I punished them and tried to force them to blaspheme; and in my extreme rage against them I even pursued them to foreign cities " (Acts 26:9-11).

Saul would arrest Christians in these other cities and bring them back to trial in Jerusalem before the Sanhedrin. On his way to one of those cities, Damascus, to continue his goal of wiping out Christians, Paul was thrown from his horse and experienced a personal encounter with the risen Jesus, Who told him to continue into Damascus and wait for instructions. Following three days of blindness and a meeting with a holy Christian named Ananias, Paul was baptized Christian himself and then lived in the desert of Arabia in prayer and preparation for some three years.

When Saul returned to Damascus to preach his new faith three years later, his former Jewish and Pharisaical friends tried to kill him for his traitorous change of heart. His escape from the city was through new Christian friends letting him down over the wall of the city in a basket. Saul then traveled to Jerusalem and became a student again, this time of Peter and the other Apostles there. He committed to memory many of the sayings of Jesus and details about His life. He also absorbed the principles and practices of living in Christian community. Although Paul tried to preach to the Jews in Jerusalem, he was unsuccessful in turning aside their thoughts of vengeance against him. He returned to his home in Tarsus for quiet, prayer, and contemplation. Far from wasted time, this period solidified his deep understandings of the mystery of Christ. His would be an influence on Christianity of immense and lasting value.

After another visit to Jerusalem, he spent the next ten years (A.D.38 - 48) on his first missionary journey to parts of Syria and Asia Minor. He had come to Antioch at the request of Barnabas from where he set out. Paul began to use his Roman name about this same time. In A.D. 48, Paul was part of a group sent back to Jerusalem to discuss the relationship between Gentile and Jewish Christians.

Paul spent eight more years establishing churches in the eastern Mediterranean area, traveling with various others, including St. Barnabas, St. Mark, and St. Luke. He visited the major places in Phoenicia, Asia Minor, Greece, and Macedonia. Paul’s central point in Greece during his second journey was Corinth (A.D. 49-52), and in Asia Minor during his third was Ephesus (A.D. 53-57). His intelligence and energy led him to adopt a certain style. He almost always confronted religious leaders, often in the synagogue, and boldly told the story and requirements of Christ to them. He was often punished: whipped, expelled from the city, or stoned. However, his preaching made hundreds of conversions and founded many hardy Christian communities. He also preached to Gentiles, agreeing with Peter’s edict at the Council of Jerusalem to release Gentiles from the Jewish Law. Paul wrote letters during all of these journeys which form a good portion of the New Testament.

In 57, ending his third journey in Jerusalem, Paul was again in reach of the Sanhedrin. He was arrested and would have been put to death, but he appealed to Caesar as his Roman citizenship would allow. Roman officials sent him to Rome, where he was kept under house arrest and where he preached to all who came to him. Then he was released. Tradition tells us that he traveled again, this time to Spain, and that he visited again all the churches he had established. When he returned to Rome, sometime between A.D. 62 and 67, he was arrested and beheaded during the persecution of Emperor Nero.