Did Saint Paul, native of Tarsus and Roman citizen as he claimed, really make the journeys ascribed to him – or are they just a frame upon which to hang his seminal epistles? Did this erstwhile Rabbi Saul, student of Gamaliel and Pharisaic Jew, really sally forth over sea and mountain – or could the story of his travels have been concocted precisely to framework missives of orthodoxy aimed at recalcitrant synagogues of the Jewish diaspora? A century of archaeology appears to confirm a few circumstantial details mentioned in his letters and yet the biblical account gives one cause to wonder.
On the Island of Love
What better way to begin the mythology of Christian triumph in the Gentile world than a spectacular conversion? For Paul's first adventure on the missionary path the chosen venue was
Cyprus, a strategically placed island ruled by the Ptolemies of Egypt until annexed by Rome in 58 BC. Many of the vast number of rock-cut tombs on the island follow the
peristyle fashion of Egypt. Mark Antony gave the island to Cleopatra as a wedding gift but it was restored as a Roman province after the Battle of Actium (31 BC).
Economically prized for its copper mines (half of which were awarded to
Herod the Great by Augustus), in 22 BC the island became a senatorial province, under the rule of a
propraetor (although granted the honorary rank of
proconsul). Aside from a severe earthquake in 77 AD and a violent Jewish insurrection in 115/6, the peaceful, prosperous island barely figured in Roman histories.
But it seems that Paul's co-worker, Barnabas, was
a Jew from Cyprus, so what better place to start the grand missionary tour than Barney's homeland? (
Well, actually, a more obvious choice would have been the cities of the Decapolis – thoroughly Gentile and far more accessible). Paul's first journey, so it is said, began about the year 46 AD, after the apostle had passed more than 10 years in retirement at Tarsus, performing no evident work for the Lord or even maintaining contact with the brethren. Yet Paul is chosen by the church in Antioch (or rather, by the
Holy Spirit) to carry the good news to Cyprus and Asia Minor. (
Not that he was really the first – Acts 11.19 tells of unnamed "scattered" brethren already there, preaching to the "Jews alone".
The aside is very important, as we will see).
After a stopover at Salamis the apostles "go through" the island (
the cities of Citium, Amathus and Curium don't get a mention) and make straight for the
Governor in Paphos, who conveniently has sent word that he wants to hear them. (
Why, one wonders? Did they cause such a commotion at the other end of the island? And if so why do we not know of it?) All it takes is the spiteful
blinding of a rival magician (curiously named "
Bar Jesus") and
Sergius Paulus, Roman aristocrat and doubtless the richest, as well as the most powerful, man on the island, is enrolled among the ranks of the Christians. "By tradition" Cyprus becomes the first country governed by a Christian,
though oddly we never hear of Sergius again, and nor is there any evidence of early Christianity on the island. Hereafter, Rabbi Saul is known by his latin name Paulus (
which just happens to be the name of the Governor).
One good yarn deserves another
Not only was Paul a soar away success with proconsul Sergius –
he also got given a thrashing by him! Sounds a little contradictory? Well, it is another "Church tradition" so all things are possible. But for this yarn, remarkably, there is
physical evidence – a remnant of the very column about which Paul was whipped! Apparently, the faithful can reconcile the two ideas by insisting Paul
first was thrashed by and
then converted the governor to Christianity (
it will only take you a moment to dream up the movie script – speak to Mel Gibson).
The miraculous upshot of all this is that a stump of marble selected at random in modern times provides "proof" for the missionary activity of Paul and,
ipso facto, "evidence for Jesus."
If you can believe this, you probably believed there were WMDs in Iraq and your government would not lie to you.
If it makes you happier, you can believe that St Paul was "scourged 39 times" against this innocuous stump of a pillar before converting his tormentor Sergius Paulus.
Rather more acceptable evidence (of Sergius Paulus, that is, not St Paul) is an engraved stone found at the site of ancient Soli (Kyrenia) in northern Cyprus, at the end of the 19th century.
About the same time, a boundary stone was found in Rome from the reign of Emperor Claudius (41-54) recording the name of a Sergius Paulus appointed a curator "of the banks and the channel of the River Tiber." Was it the same man? Paul's "epistle to the Romans" fails to greet him, which suggests it was not.
Reality Check
"Paul's first missionary journey under the auspices of Antioch is narrated only by Luke ... A close analysis of this account brings to light
so many improbabilities that it becomes
impossible to accord it any real confidence."
– Murphy O'Connor, Paul, His Story, p44.
In reality, the Cyprian story falls apart for a number of reasons, not least because the Governor's palace, even today, is a visible celebration of
a vibrant paganism, spanning centuries of Roman occupation. The huge palace complex, measuring 120 x 90 metres, includes the normal panoply of public and state rooms, gardens and bath houses. Exquisite mosaic floors feature the major Roman-Hellenic gods – and
all without a Christian icon in sight! Ancient Paphos had its theatre, agora and even
Asklepion, the shrine-cum-hospital of the ever-popular healing god
Asclepius, until his overthrow by Jesus. We might also reasonably suspect a fraudster's work because of a curious similarity (yet again) between the work of
"Luke" (the purported author of
Acts) and the history of
Josephus written in the 90s.
Aerial view of the proconsul's residence, Paphos.
Did Paul make it past the front door?
Where did they get their ideas from?
Josephus (Antiquities 20.7.2) Acts 13, 4-8
'Jewish Cypriot magician, pal of Roman governor, works a dirty deed.' 'Jewish Cypriot magician, pal of Roman governor, attempts to work a dirty deed.'
"While Felix was
procurator of Judea, he saw this Drusilla, and fell in love with her; ... He sent to her a person whose name was
Simon*,one of his friends; a Jew he was, and by birth a Cypriot, and one who pretended to be a magician, and endeavoured to persuade her to forsake her present husband, and marry him."
"... They sailed to Cyprus ... And when they had gone through the isle unto Paphos, they found a
certain sorcerer, a false prophet, a Jew, whose name was
Bar-Jesus: Which was
with the
proconsul, Sergius Paulus, a prudent man; who called for Barnabas and Saul, and desired to hear the word of God. But
Elymas* the sorcerer (for so is his name by interpretation) withstood them, seeking to turn away the deputy from the faith."
* But according to some manuscripts the name given by Josephus is "Atomos", itself possibly a corruption of
Hetoimos (Elymas?) or a Greek word for
small (as indeed is
Paulus in Latin)
. In no way is
Elymas a translation or even an equivalent of
Bar-Jesus.
Not to waste a useful bit of story, Felix and his "adulterous" bride Drusilla show up later in
Acts – when Paul, it seems, gave them a dressing down!
"And after certain days, when Felix came with his wife Drusilla, which was a Jewess, he sent for Paul, and heard him concerning the faith in Christ. And as he reasoned of righteousness, temperance, and judgment to come,
Felix trembled, and answered,
Go thy way for this time; when I have a convenient season, I will call for thee." (Acts 24.24,25)
Acts 13, 9-12
By a malicious act of cruelty, St Paul blinds his rival – and so impresses the governor that he immediately becomes a Christian.
Our noble St Paul sets the tone for two thousand years of vicious curses. The author of Acts continues his demonising of "the Jews".
The colourful spell is composed of words and phrases drawn from the
Septuagint (the Greek translation of Jewish scripture).
"Then Saul, (who also is called Paul,) filled with the Holy Ghost, set his eyes on him, and said,
O full of all subtilty and all mischief, thou child of the devil, thou enemy of all righteousness, wilt thou not cease to pervert the right ways of the Lord?And now, behold, the hand of the Lord is upon thee, and thou shalt be blind, not seeing the sun for a season.
And immediately there fell on him a mist and a darkness; and he went about seeking some to lead him by the hand. Then
the deputy, when he saw what was done, believed, being astonished at the doctrine of the Lord."
Facing down the "children of the devil"
"Persecutions, afflictions, which came unto me at Antioch, at Iconium, at Lystra; what persecutions I endured: but out of them all the Lord delivered me."
– Timothy 3.11
Rather than capitalise on the conversion of a rich and powerful acolyte in Cyprus, Saul-now-Paul sails off to Pisidia for far tougher challenges. Reaching the city of
Pisidian Antioch (modern Yalvac) high in the Taurus Mountains, Paul delivers in the local synagogue "part two" of Stephen's address of Acts 7 (
together, the two sermons neatly summarize Jewish history from Abraham through to John the Baptist). Like Stephen, Paul finishes his lecture by
insulting his Jewish audience ("
Behold, you despisers, and wonder, and perish!"– Acts 13.41) . On the next Sabbath "
almost the whole city" come to hear the charismatic provocateur and "
the Jews envied" Paul's pulling power.
We thus reach a crucial point in the whole Christian saga: "
We turn to the Gentiles", says Paul.
"It was necessary that the word of God should be spoken to you first, but since you reject it and judge yourselves unworthy of eternal life, behold, we now turn to the Gentiles. For so the Lord commanded us, I have set thee for a light to the Gentiles, to be a means of salvation to the very ends of the earth."
– Acts 13, 46,47.
The Jews of Antioch, after all, had had
a whole week (Acts 13.44) to abandon their ancestral faith and join Paul's new sect
, even if they were not treated to the spectacle of an instant blinding like our dear friend Sergius Paulus!
Pisidian Antioch.Settled with Roman veterans by Augustus in 25 BC, the city covered 14 sq. km. and had a population of perhaps a 100,000 in the 1st century AD.
Could Paul really have competed with the theatre, stadium, taverns and baths? The distortion lens of Christian belief encourages the silly notion that the apostle passed through the city like a whirlwind, overturning pagan cults and Jewish synagogue alike.
Not unexpectedly, "the Jews" had Paul and Barnabas expelled from the city. None abashed, our intrepid heroes dust themselves off and journey a hundred miles further east to the city of
Iconium (modern Konya). Here the drama repeats itself (although the apostles supposedly "abode a long time" in the city). They speak "boldly" in the synagogue, divide the whole city into "believers" versus "the Jews", and precipitate threats of a stoning. Paul and Barnabas now flee south and east to
Lystra(Hatunsaray) and
Derbe (Kerti Hüyük).
In Lystra, a pronouncement from Paul allows a lame man to walk (
the trick closely parallels Peter's healing in Acts 3). The miracle causes the locals to declare Paul to be the god
Hermes, and Barnabas, oddly, to be the king of the gods,
Zeus.
As it happens, the
visit of Zeus and Hermes to Phrygia is to be found in
Ovid's 1st century anthology of myths "Metamorphoses" but surely "Luke" didn't copy the idea?
The adulation of the apostles is short-lived, however, because Paul launches a diatribe against an imminent sacrifice to the very god Barnabas is thought to be.
The people, now stirred up "by Jews" from far off Antioch and Iconium (
do they just happen to be there or have they followed the apostles for 150 miles?)
stone Paul and
dump his "dead" body outside the city (Acts 14.19). However, miraculously he "
rose up" and returns to Lystra. By the standards of Paphos, this wondrous working of the Holy Spirit should have converted the entire city, if not the whole of Lycaonia. Yet instead of dazzling the multitude with his recovery (or is it a resurrection?), the very next day the dynamic duo make off to Derbe, a further 50 miles southeast. (
They are now less than 200 miles from Paul's home town of Tarsus).
A real life stoning. What would you say were the chances of survival?
In
Derbe the apostles "preached, taught and exhorted" many. They then retrace their steps through the hostile towns of Lystra, Iconium, Antioch, evangelise Perge (
ignored first time round), and ordain elders "
in every church" (Acts 14.23). Evidently all the earlier enmity had abated (
or the story teller has run out of story) and churches had sprung up like mushrooms emerging from horse manure. An uneventful voyage home allows the heroes to regale the brethren of Antioch "
how they had opened the door of faith unto the Gentiles." Jolly well done. We now have Christian communities all over Asia Minor.
But is it fact or fiction?
Theological Agenda
Viewed without the rose-tinted spectacles of Christian faith, the first voyage of Paul is as fanciful as the first voyage of Sinbad.
Improbable, unlikely incidents are juxtaposed with the
miraculous and the
ridiculous. Faith can offer special pleas for every incongruity but logical thinking cannot.
The first missionary journey of Paul has a clear
theological agenda: to portray "
the Jews" as
obdurate and
villainous and to record the supposed successful establishment of a
network of Pauline churchesamong the Gentiles. In each little drama –
the contest of magicians in Paphos, the "envy" encountered at Pisidian Antioch, the "threats" of Iconium, the attempted murder in Lystra – the Jews are demonised, "just won't listen" and try to stop the "good news" of Jesus Christ reaching the ears of the Gentiles. Clearly, the Jews are the children of the Devil.
In contrast, the Gentiles everywhere, from the Governor at Paphos to the crowds of Derbe and Perge, are
instantly, wildly enthusiastic – abandoning their traditional religions with alacrity. Even Jesus did not establish churches with such panache. And what does Paul have to offer them? He has no Gospels (
they have not yet been written); he has no first hand reminiscences of his Lord and Saviour (
he never met the guy). What can he say of the Disciples he never met ? ("
But I saw no one else of the apostles, only James the brother of the Lord" – Galatians 1.19). For the story to work, Paul has indeed to be "filled with the Holy Spirit" – has to be a veritable brigade of Billy Grahams or Ted Haggards on speed. To regard it as "history" requires a suspension of all critical thought, a huge leap of faith and a large measure of self-deception.
The yarn works, but only if we view the story through Christian eyes. From the very first, everywhere they tread, the servants of the Lord carouse with kings, governors, grand dames and the leading men of their day. The Holy Spirit which accompanies them ensures their entry into all the best parties and rescues them from all the worst scrapes. But if there is no Holy Spirit then we are dealing with sacred myth not history.