MIRACULOUS MIRACLES™

Saint — Paul the Apostle

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St. Paul the Apostle
c. AD 5, Tarsus — c. AD 64–67, Rome
Apostle to the Gentiles
Basilica of St. Paul Outside the Walls, Italy
Feast
June 29 (with St. Peter); Conversion of St. Paul, January 25
Life

Saul of Tarsus was born to a Jewish family of the diaspora — a Pharisee, a Roman citizen by birth, trained at the feet of Gamaliel in Jerusalem. He held the cloaks of those who stoned Stephen and 'breathed threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord' (Acts 9:1), bearing letters of authority to arrest Christians at Damascus.

On the road to Damascus he was struck blind by a light from heaven; a voice called: 'Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me? I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting.' Three days later, in Damascus, a Christian named Ananias laid hands on him; the scales fell from his eyes, and he was baptised.

Over the next thirty years he made three great missionary journeys across Asia Minor, Greece, and the Aegean, planting churches that he then kept by his letters — thirteen of which are preserved in the New Testament. He was shipwrecked, beaten, imprisoned, stoned, and ultimately taken to Rome under arrest as a citizen appealing to Caesar. There, sometime in the mid-60s under Nero, he was beheaded at the place now called Tre Fontane.

Miracles & Phenomena

  • The Conversion on the Road to Damascus

    c. AD 33–36

    The defining miracle of his life — the blinding light and the voice of the risen Christ on the road to Damascus (Acts 9; 22; 26). Recounted three times in Acts and alluded to throughout his own letters.

  • The Earthquake at the Philippian Jail

    Imprisoned at Philippi after exorcising a slave-girl, Paul and Silas sang hymns in their stocks at midnight. A sudden earthquake shook the foundations of the prison; the doors opened, the chains fell off. The Roman jailer drew his sword to kill himself, but Paul cried out, and the jailer that night was baptised with his whole household (Acts 16).

  • The Viper at Malta

    Shipwrecked on Malta, Paul gathered sticks for a fire. A viper, driven out by the heat, fastened on his hand. The islanders waited for him to swell up and die. He shook off the snake into the fire and was unharmed (Acts 28:1–6). Many sick of the island were then brought to him and healed.

  • Raising Eutychus at Troas

    Preaching late into the night at Troas, Paul kept the assembly until midnight. A young man named Eutychus, sitting in a third-storey window, fell asleep, fell out, and was picked up dead. Paul went down, took him in his arms, and said: 'Do not be alarmed, for his life is in him' (Acts 20:7–12). The young man was alive.

Relics
  • Body
    Tomb of St. Paul
    Beneath the high altar of St. Paul Outside the Walls, Rome

    In December 2006 Vatican archaeologists confirmed a white marble sarcophagus 1.37 m below the altar of the basilica Constantine built in 324. In 2009 radiocarbon dating of bone fragments through a probe in the sarcophagus returned a 1st–2nd-century date, consistent with the apostle.

  • Bodily relic
    Skull of St. Paul
    Reliquary above the high altar, St. John Lateran, Rome

    Displayed together with the skull of St. Peter in twin gilded reliquaries high above the papal altar.

Iconography
  • St. Paul with the Sword and the Book

    His standard attributes — a sword (instrument of his beheading and, in his own words, 'the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God'); a book or scroll for his letters; a balding crown of high forehead.

  • The Conversion of St. Paul
    Caravaggio (1600–1601); also Michelangelo, Rubens

    An iconographic type developed especially in the Baroque — Paul thrown from his horse, blinded by light. Caravaggio's two versions (one in Santa Maria del Popolo, Rome) are the most famous.

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