Year of Paul

This column is not specifically on Paul’s theology or individual letters but on our images of Paul. A colleague begins her introductory course on Paul by presenting her students with 10 pictures of Paul and asking them which one comes closest to their image of him. Here I have space to discuss only six images, through which you will catch a glimpse of the multifaceted Paul of Tarsus. Use them to tease out your own image of Paul.

Albrecht Dürer’s engraving of Paul depicts him preaching with Bible in left hand, right index finger pointing to a specific text, and a halo around his head. If this is your favorite portrait or image of Paul, then you see him as a saint (halo) and preacher who taught that Christ and his Gospel were the fulfillment of God’s ancient promises.

A very popular image is “Paul of the Maps,” found in most New Testaments, with the map of Paul’s three missionary journeys. The message seems to be that once you have mastered Paul’s itinerary, you have mastered the apostle. The image of Paul of the Maps can be very helpful in appreciating Paul if you recall the motivating force of Paul’s journeys: “The love of Christ thrusts us forth” (2 Cor 5:14). It is also important to remember that on those three missionary journeys Paul was shipwrecked thrice, stoned once, five times given the Jewish synagogue punishment of 39 lashes, in constant danger from enemies, hungry, thirsty, cold, and in great toil and hardship (see 2 Cor 11:23–27).

Caravaggio’s painting of Paul’s conversion is very frequently displayed. (It is on the front cover of John Gager’s recent study on Paul, Reinventing Paul [Oxford University Press, 2000].) Paul is flat on his back, having fallen off a huge horse. His sword lies uselessly at his side. His eyes are blinded. With outstretched arms he pleads with the source of a very bright light. This image speaks mightily of the power of God’s grace to transform Paul from persecutor to apostle to the gentiles. Or as Paul puts it in Galatians 1:13–16: “I persecuted God’s church, even trying to destroy it. I outstripped my Jewish contemporaries in my zeal for our ancestral traditions. But then God, who had called me from my mother’s womb, revealed his Son in me and sent me to preach to the Gentiles.”

The front cover of Abraham Malherbe’s recent Anchor Bible commentary on 1and 2 Thessalonians (The Letters to the Thessalonians: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary, Anchor Bible, Vol 32B [Doubleday, 2000]) has a captivating but rare portrayal of Paul the tentmaker. A bearded and bald Paul uses his muscular arms to plunge a needle through leather. While we may treasure the image of Paul addressing huge crowds either in a synagogue or a public market place, the reality is far more prosaic. Paul’s critics seem to be right when they accuse him of writing harsh and finely crafted letters but of cutting a poor physical figure and of being a lousy speaker (2 Cor 10:10). Paul was very well educated. Nevertheless, he was an artisan and tentmaker (Acts 18:3) who worked night and day with his hands (1 Thes 2:9), preaching to fellow workers or the few people who came into the household or the shop where he labored.

The Acts of Paul (ca. 300) contains one of my favorite portraits of Paul: “A man small of stature, with a bald head and crooked legs, in a good state of body, with eyebrows meeting and nose somewhat hooked, full of friendliness. For now he appeared like a man, and now he had the face of an angel.” Surely, this Paul would win no beauty contests, but he was vigorous. Also he loved people, or as he himself tells the Philippians: “I love you and long for you” (4:1). The detail that “he had the face of an angel” clearly indicates that Paul’s authority came from the heavenly realm.

I borrow my final image from the late Monsignor Jerome Quinn, who relished referring to Paul and his “traveling chancery office.” In this regard I can helpfully compare Paul to the late Cardinal Bernardin, Archbishop of Chicago, who governed with a cabinet made up of very competent men and women. Paul calls these collaborators in mission “co-workers.” I think of men and women: Barnabas,Timothy, Titus, Silvanus, Prisca and Aquila, Mary, Andronicus and Junia, Urbanus, Epaphroditus, Euodia, Syntyche and Clement. Paul, the consummate administrator, may have preached the Gospel to the far-flung nations, but he didn’t do it alone nor did he make all his crucial ministerial decisions on his own.

ML

Robert J. Karris, OFM, is a professor at St. Bonaventure University, St. Bonaventure, N.Y., and a New Testament scholar. His latest book is St. Bonaventure’s Commentary on the Gospel of Luke Chapters 1–8 (Franciscan Institute of St. Bonaventure University, 2001).