The alleged house of St. Ananias in Damascus.

Bab Kisan, where Paul escaped from Damascus

Top brand healthcare and beauty supplies at bargain prices, oral care, skin care, nail care, bath body and much more.

Paul Mitchell

Paul of Tarsus (b. c. 10, d. c. 67), the Apostle to the Gentiles (Romans 11:13, Galatians 2:8) was, together with Simon Peter, the most notable of Early Christian missionaries. more...

Home

Bath & Body

Dietary Supplements,...

Alterna

Aveda

Biosilk

Bumble & Bumble

Joico

KMS

Matrix

Nick Chavez

Other Brands

Paul Mitchell

Redken

SAMY

Tigi

Shampoo

Massage

Medical, Special Needs

Nail

Natural Therapies

Oral Care

Other Health & Beauty Items

Wholesale Lots

Unlike the Twelve Apostles, Paul did not know Jesus in life; he came to faith through a vision of the resurrected Jesus (1 Cor 15:8-9). As he wrote, he "received it by revelation from Jesus Christ" (Gal 1:11-12); according to Acts, his conversion was on the Road to Damascus.

Paul was the second most prolific contributor to the New Testament, after Luke the Evangelist. Fourteen letters are attributed to him, with varying degrees of confidence. The undisputed Pauline epistles contain the earliest systematic account of Christian doctrine, and provide information on the life of the infant Church. They are arguably the oldest part of the New Testament. Paul also appears in the pages of the Acts of the Apostles, attributed to Luke, so that it is possible to compare the account of his life in the Acts with his own account in his various letters. His letters are largely written to churches which he had founded or visited; he was a great traveller, visiting Cyprus, Asia Minor (modern Turkey), mainland Greece, Crete, and Rome bringing the Gospel of Jesus Christ, first to Jews and then to Gentiles. His letters are full of expositions of what Christians should believe and how they should live. What he does not tell his correspondents (or the modern reader) is much about the life and teachings of Jesus— his most explicit references are to the Last Supper (1 Cor 11:17-34) and the crucifixion and resurrection (1 Cor 15). His references to Jesus' teaching are likewise sparse: that against divorce (1 Cor 7:10-16), the commandment to love one another (Romans 13:8-10, Gal 5:14), and the commandment against idolatry; raising the question, still disputed, as to how consistent his account of the faith is with that of the four canonical Gospels, Acts, and the Epistle of James. The view that the Paul's Christ is very different from the historical Jesus has been expounded by Adolf Harnack among many others. Nevertheless, he provides the first written account of the relationship of the Christian to the Risen Christ - what it is to be a Christian - and thus of Christian spirituality.

Paul's influence on Christian thinking has, arguably, been more significant than any other single New Testament author. His influence on the main strands of Christian thought have been massive, from St. Augustine of Hippo to the controversies between Gottschalk and Hincmar of Reims, between Thomism and Molinism, Martin Luther, Calvin and the Arminians, Jansenism and the Jesuit theologians and even to the German church of the twentieth century through the writings of the scholar Karl Barth, whose commentary on the Letter to the Romans had a political as well theological impact.

Early life

Paul was born in Tarsus in Asia Minor, or modern-day Turkey, under the name Saul, "an Israelite of the tribe of Benjamin, circumcised on the eighth day" (Phil.3:5). Acts records that Paul was a Roman citizen—a privilege he used a number of times in his defence, appealing convictions in Judea to Rome (Acts 22:25 and 27–29). According to Acts 22:3, he studied in Jerusalem under the Rabbi Gamaliel, well known in Paul's time. He supported himself during his travels and while preaching — a fact he alludes to a number of times (e.g., 1 Cor 9:13–15); according to Acts 18:3, he worked as a tentmaker.