by Joe Fitzpatrick

Some years ago the actor David Suchet presented a TV programme called ‘In the steps of St Paul.’  It drew attention to two factors that supported Paul’s mission and the early spread of Christianity: Roman roads and the Greek language.

Paul walked the Roman roads, over 10,000 miles, spreading the word for over 30 years, and travelled even more miles by boat.  Coming from the cosmopolitan port town of Tarsus he spoke Greek as well as Hebrew and Aramaic.  Greek was the lingua franca in the lands surrounding the Mediterranean.  Paul travelled round the coast of Asia Minor and beyond:  Antioch, Ephesus, Philippi, Thessalonika, Athens, Corinth, finally going to Rome by boat. He was shipwrecked on his way to Rome and landed in Malta for a while.

Before his conversion, Paul travelled from Tarsus, where he worked as a tent maker, to Jerusalem, where he studied the religion of his forefathers, trained as a Rabbi and joined the Pharisees.  He became a persecutor of Christians and was present when Stephen, the first Christian martyr, was stoned to death, round about 34 AD, not long after the death of Jesus.

Conversion

Then on the road to Damascus he underwent his famous conversion when he was thrown from his horse and later claimed that he heard Jesus ask him: ‘Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?  I am Jesus whom you persecute.’ (Acts 9.1-9).  He returned to Jerusalem and met Jesus’ disciples.  From them, and through what he referred to as a ‘special revelation,’ he learned about Jesus and the significance of his mission.  The completeness of his conversion was marked by the fact that he changed his name from Saul to Paul.

Joe Fitzpatrick is a writer and author of the Fall and the Ascent of Man: How Genesis Supports Darwin, University Press of America, 2012.