The Adventures of St Paul in Damascus: Chapter 1

Over the next few blogs, I’d like to tell about St Paul’s association with Damascus, and our detective work in tracking down the places where he had been. This may not be too accurate, as the trail is nearly 2,000 years old.
At this stage, I’ll follow roughly this plan:
1. St Paul: Baddie to Goodie
2. St Paul: The Road to Damascus
3. St Paul and the Street Called Straight
4. St Paul and St Ananais
5. St Paul’s Adventure in a Basket
So here we go:
1. St Paul: Baddie to Goodie
Have you noticed that God seems to have a habit of asking the most unlikely people to do his greatest works, and then makes life very difficult for them?
Let’s start with the Old (or as former BCT lecturer Elaine Wainwright would say), First Testament. Abraham was 90 when God asked him to pack up everything and go off to Canaan to found the Jewish nation. He was 100 when he and his wife Sarah (90) had their first little Jew Isaac, who almost didn’t make it as God asked Abraham to sacrifice him, just giving him a reprieve at the last minute.

In the nick of time, an angel arrives and tells Abraham he doesn’t need to sacrifice his son Jacob, but can sacrifice instead the unfortunate ram caught by his horns in a nearby thicket.
Picture: http://www.menorah.org/abraham&.jpg

Isaac’s son Jacob cheated his older brother Esau out of his birthright, yet Jacob’s 12 sons gave their names to the 12 tribes of Israel (but not before Jacob had to endure various trials such as wrestling with an angel.)

Picture:  http://www.jamescordovaarts.com/2004/jacob_angel.html

Jacob’s youngest (and hence most insignificant, in those days) son Joseph (of amazing technicolour dreamcoat fame) was hated by his brothers, left in a pit to be devoured by wild animals, sold as a slave and then falsely imprisoned for two years for seducing Potiphar’s wife, when it was actually the other way round.

Picture: http://www.maryofvernon.org/smv/prod/files/images/Joseph_Coat.jpg

David, to whom the book of Psalms is traditionally ascribed, was another youngest son, who had to be called in from the fields where he was looking after the sheep, to be anointed by Samuel as king of Israel. When he was king, he saw Bathsheba bathing on the roof (rather unwisely) and arranged for her husband Uriah to be killed in battle so he could have her for himself.

I imagine David is the lecherous one with the harp.  I’m glad to see Bathsheba is sensibly wearing a hat for her bath.
Picture:  http://www.arts-info.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/david-and-bathsheba-by-lucas-cranach-1534.jpg

Jonah tried to run away when God called him to be a prophet, but was thrown into the sea and swallowed by a large fish.

Jonah picture 1:  http://www.gardenofpraise.com/images/jon.jpg
 
Jonah picture 2:  http://www.halfthedeck.com/images/Jonah%20And%20The%20Whale.gif

Let’s look at the New (Second) Testament.
John the Baptist, who foretold Jesus’ ministry, was distinctly unorthodox in his choice of dwelling, diet and dress (the wilderness, locusts and wild honey, and a camel hair tunic, respectively).

This is where we were told John the Baptist spent much of his early life, near where the Jordan flows into the Dead Sea.  Locusts and wild bees would have had a hard time finding something to eat there, let alone a fully grown John the Baptist.


John the Baptist was eventually imprisoned by Herod for expressing his opinion about Herod’s marriage to Herodias, his late brother’s wife, and then of course ended his earthly days with his head on a platter.  His said head is considered to be resting in this shrine to him in the Umayyad Mosque, Damascus.  Pat looks somewhat bemused.

Mary, chosen for the enormous responsibility to be the mother of Jesus, was a simple, very young, peasant girl, who had to deal with the stigma of being pregnant before her marriage to Joseph, and then saw her son die in the most appalling circumstances.

Picture:  http://www.cartoonstock.com/newscartoons/cartoonists/cgo/lowres/cgon63l.jpg

Peter (I’ve always liked Peter) was a passionate, hot-headed simple fisherman. When he saw Jesus walking on the water during a storm, he leapt out of the boat to meet him, and nearly came to grief. When Jesus was washing his disciples’ feet, at first Peter refused that Jesus should perform such a menial task for him, but when Jesus explained the significance of this action, Peter impulsively asked for his head and hands to be washed as well. The Gospel of John claims that it was Peter who cut off the ear of a servant of the high priest who came to arrest Jesus, but then Peter denied Jesus three times when Jesus really needed a friend. Even so, it was to Peter that Jesus entrusted his earthly Church. After a life of preaching the Gospel, Peter was imprisoned and, according to tradition, crucified upside down, at his own request, not considering himself worthy to die in the same way as Jesus.

Jesus gives Peter a lesson on walking on water.
Picture:  http://www.wga.hu/frames-e.html?/html/b/borrassa/st_peter.html

Now we come to Paul. To be honest, I’ve always found Paul a bit hard to like, even after his conversion. Paul was a Jew who had Roman citizenship, born in the late 1^st century BC or early in the 1^st century AD. He was involved in the persecution of the early Christians in Jerusalem (they weren’t called that then) and during the stoning of the Christian martyr Stephen later recounts “I stood there giving my approval and guarding the clothes of those who were killing him.” (Acts 22:20) He spent his days “entering house after house; dragging off both men and women” (Acts 8:3) and committing them to prison. He had done such a thorough job in Jerusalem rounding up the followers of Jesus that he asked permission from the high priest to go to Damascus and continue his activity there.

Paul (or Saul as he was called pre-conversion) is the sanctimonious one holding the clothes.
Picture:  http://www.beloit.edu/nuremberg/book/images/New%20Testament/big/Stoning%20of%20St.%20Stephen%20CIIIv.jpg
Of course, on the road to Damascus, he experienced his vision and blindness, was healed by Ananais in Damascus, and then went on to preach the gospel, and write the first books of the New Testament. Although the New Testament begins with the Gospels of Mathew, Mark, Luke and John, followed by the Acts of the Apostles, the letters of St Paul, considered to have been written in A.D.50-62, actually predate these. Paul’s writings have continued to have an enormous influence on Christian thinking to the present day.
After many years of travelling, preaching and writing, Paul was imprisoned in Rome and reported to have been beheaded under Nero in either A.D. 64 or 67.