St. Paul: The Apostle We Love to Hate (Icons)

by Karen Armstrong

Until well into the second century, it was regarded both by outsiders and members of the Jesus movement as a sect within Judaism. Jesus’s followers would not begin to call themselves “Christians” until the end of the first century, and the term

“Christianity” occurs only three times in the New Testament.

“holy” (qaddosh in Hebrew),

But for Paul, the most important thing about his experience was that he actually did see the Lord and that Jesus appeared to him in exactly the same way as he had appeared to the Twelve.

For Paul, an apostle was someone who had seen the

risen Christ. “Am I not an apostle?” he would demand. “Have I not seen the Lord?”

One could never see God himself—that lay beyond human capacity—but it was possible to glimpse God’s “glory,” a kind of afterglow of the divine presence adapted to the limitations of human perception.

God had shown that he did not judge by these earthly standards and that he stood by people who were despised and denigrated by the rules and laws of this world.

The Mishnah would later recommend Torah students to combine their study with a practical trade,

This profession enabled Paul to remain economically independent and sometimes even provided him with a place to live.

he had been born into the social elite and was able to devote his life to study, a luxury that was possible only for the leisured classes.