A Dominican on St Paul

My friend Br Paul Rowse, O.P., has generously given his permission for me to post here the text of his recent talk on his apostolic namesake, which he gave on Sunday as part of the "Lenten Journey with St Paul" organized by the Canterbury Council of Churches (an ecumenical organization in the eastern suburbs of Melbourne, centred near St Dominic's Priory, East Camberwell).

[I haven't managed to upload the PDF file he sent me, so I instead put up the Word file he previously emailed... but have now uploaded the final version that Br has supplied.  Unfortunately, his footnotes seem to have gone astray in the process!  I've put them at the end as endnotes, and hopefully footnoted the right sentences in the text.]

THE JEW, THE CITIZEN, THE APOSTLE

AN INTRODUCTION TO ST PAUL

Br Paul Rowse, O.P.

A brief and unassuming inscription is found on a marble tablet atop an ancient sarcophagus in a certain church in Rome. The abbreviated text reads in Latin, Paul Apostle Martyr. Since the earliest times, Christians have journeyed to the Roman Basilica of St Paul to honour the life and work of the Apostle and seek his intercession. St Paul’s remains were initially preserved by a devout woman, Lucina, and later by popes and Roman Emperors.(1) The simplicity of this inscription, which must be earlier than the fourth century, only lends greater credence to the claim that this tablet covers the tomb of St Paul himself – there being no need for pre-Constantine Christians to spell out beyond these few words who this man was, since the identity of a “Paul” who is both apostle and martyr was well-known. For us too, we have a great degree of familiarity with this apostle and martyr. We often refer to him just as “Paul”. His is a household name. Our lectionaries include a large number of readings from his letters and other accounts of his life and work. Bible studies and prayer groups often make use of Paul’s writings in their little journeys of faith. Quotes from his letters are among our favourites. Our Paul is the most famous by that name by a long shot, and one of the most remarkable and important figures in Christianity.

The Year of St Paul which we are celebrating until late June recalls the birth of the Apostle about two millennia ago. This year emphasises for us a return once again to the Word of God and allow it opportunities to speak into our lives. Perhaps foremost among all the good reasons why we’d keep this Year of St Paul is the re-engagement of Christians with one of the authentic sources of our faith, the Scriptures. Interaction with the Word of God whether through the liturgy or private prayer, or study or preaching, is good for the spiritual life. Meeting the Word of God in Scripture is salutary for the Church as a whole. An encounter with the Word is an encounter with God, and so we do well to make a habit of reading and praying with the Scriptures – when we do, our relationship with God invariably shines through for others to see. What is more, the Word of God contemplated and lived nourishes us as it did Christ himself (Deuteronomy 8:3; Matthew 4:4). Our Christian ancestors meditated on the Scriptures for a taste of heaven. It’s to be remembered that St Paul himself meditated on the Torah and the rest of the Bible of the Hebrews; so much so that it really became part of himself. This is evidenced by his being able to drop into any of his letters a string of references from the Old Testament to buttress his theology (for example, see Romans 3:10b-18). The Word becomes flesh in us whenever we make it our own in prayer and contemplation, which we then take with us into the world in which we live.

When St Paul wrote to the churches, he shows us his deeply paternal disposition towards them. With the exception of the churches in Rome and Ephesus, and perhaps also Colossae, he had founded them personally and raised them from their infancy. For example, when he addressed the Thessalonians, among whom the Gospel had taken with particular strength despite the high personal cost to Paul of working at night as well as by day, he says to them, “As you know, we dealt with each one of you like a father with his children, urging and encouraging you and pleading that you lead a life worthy of God, who calls you into his own kingdom and glory.” (1 Thessalonians 2:11-12). The messages he sent to his churches have an abiding meaning for us as well. In a sense, he writes to us also. The questions we can have about the meaning of personal suffering, the efficacy of Christ’s death, the manner of the general resurrection, are answered in Paul’s own way in his letters. This Year of St Paul invites a re-visiting of St Paul’s wisdom and teaching, that he would be to us as he once was to the Philippians, to the Thessalonians, to the Galatians and Corinthians. We read St Paul so that he would truly be our Apostle of Christ Jesus (2 Corinthians 1:1).

Another reason for the Church’s commendation of the Year of St Paul is the example to us of the Apostle’s own Christian life. His is a lived witness to the power of the Gospel and to its enduring eloquence in every age of human history. For example, in his letter to the Philippians, Paul manifests to us his stubborn resolve to be a servant of Jesus Christ (Philippians 1:1), confident of the veracity of his Gospel: “It is my eager expectation and hope that I will not be put to shame in any way, but that by my speaking with all boldness, Christ will be exalted now as always in my body, whether by life or by death.” (Philippians 1:20). Our Paul shows us what holding fast to the death of Jesus means, and also what is possible, of what fruit might come if we remain true to the universal call to Christian holiness.

This last point, that the example of St Paul considered in this year dedicated to him will fortify our resolve to live as servants of Christ Jesus, is the focus of the rest of this presentation. Hopefully, a little contact with his life and ministry of preaching will win us over once again to reverence for the great Apostle. First, we will consider the early life of St Paul, most especially his Jewish heritage. Second, we will treat of Paul’s social status and lifestyle, which will include a look over the question of his Roman citizenship. Third and finally, we ought to address briefly the question of the authorship of the letters bearing Paul’s name in the New Testament.

The Jew

While it would be wonderful to have an ancient source offering us a complete life of St Paul, that is sadly not available. Apart from the letters themselves, the only other source like it that we have is St Luke’s Acts of the Apostles. Unfortunately, Acts is often called into doubt and consequently regarded with suspicion by scholars because Luke’s account of Paul’s life and work doesn’t always quite line up with Paul’s. For example, Luke mentions five times when Paul goes up to Jerusalem (Acts 9:26-30, 11:29-30, 15:1-19, 18:22, 21:17), Paul himself only three (Galatians 1:18; 2:1-2; Romans 15:25-26). So, there are questions to be addressed before piecing together anything like a complete life of St Paul, which is beyond us this afternoon. But it is refreshing to read a scholar who thinks Acts can be taken seriously as a historical source, and says so.(2)    Baltimore Biblicist Michael Gorman and others are convinced that the import of Acts is that it purports to offer a coherent narrative of Paul’s missionary activities.(3)   While there are still difficulties to be resolved with a maximalist reading of Acts, I believe Michael Gorman and his colleagues are right in not dismissing Acts too quickly, and that we do well to flag the differences in the two accounts as difficulties rather than seek to resolve them hastily given the amount of evidence we have available to us.

Among our many certainties of Paul’s life is that he was Jewish and proud of it. He tells us that he was “... circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew born of Hebrews, as to the law a Pharisee ... as to righteousness under the law, blameless.” (Philippians 3:4-6). If we take the word of St Jerome, the eminent fourth/fifth-century Scripture scholar, who himself confirms an even older tradition, Paul was an Aramaic-speaking Galilean to begin with – a view which modern scholars are not quick to reject.(4)   His parents went to Tarsus some time after 4 BC, in all likelihood as captives in the political fallout following the death of Herod the Great. Jerome Murphy-O’Connor, a New Testament scholar in Jerusalem, believes Paul was about two years old when his family was captured and taken to Tarsus around 4 BC.(5)   Paul’s Aramaic was the language of the household, but as he grows older, he picked up the local Greek language from his environs and from his invaluable education.

In his letters, Paul shows knowledge of the Hebrew version of the Old Testament, but he especially favours the Septuagint, the Greek translation.(6)   This familiarity with both versions of the Scriptures of the Hebrews shows an unusually high level of training among tradesmen.(7)   This gives credence to the hypothesis that Paul’s family were not labourers all their lives, and that at a certain point they had sufficient means to educate their boy.(8)   We know from Paul’s own self-description as a Hebrew-among-Hebrews (Philippians 3:4) that he had excellent schooling in Judaism. This strong Jewish formation for Paul probably began very early, what with the inclusion in his letters of memorised lines from the Old Testament and his eventual accessing of the tutelage of Gamaliel (Acts 22:3).(9)   Paul’s facility with Greek is competent, but not glossy, and so we can say with reasonable confidence that he also had training in the language and its rhetorical devices; though nothing quite like those of Apollos, who could well have had Philo of Alexandria for a tutor.(10)   We know from Paul’s letters that he is familiar with key components of ancient Greek rhetoric, but not how to turn it into oratory (2 Corinthians 10:10). His use of imaginary conversation partners (for example parts of Romans 1-11) and the rhetorician’s corrective beginning with his famous “May it never be” or “By no means” (for example Romans 3:4), reveal a letter-writer who knew very well how rhetoric, particularly deliberative rhetoric, could be used to the advantage of the Gospel.(11)   Gorman points out an irony in Paul’s use of rhetoric in his letters: namely, that Paul’s own suspicion of rhetoric in preaching the Gospel is put to one side by Paul when he comes to do his own (delayed) preaching in the letters – though it is noted that it is the showmanship of rhetoric which Paul rails against and which was seen in the church in Corinth in his day (1 Corinthians 1:18-25; 2:1-5).(12)

Paul also tells us that he was a Pharisee; in fact, he practically boasts about it, as a badge of Jewish honour in his list in Galatians 1:14 and Philippians 3:5. No doubt, the status of Pharisee in Israel was indeed something of which to be proud. We must be careful here and not confuse Paul the Pharisee with the Rabbis of post-AD 70 Judaism, the Rabbinic Judaism which emerged after the destruction of the Temple. In the Pharisees, Paul had joined a group devoted to the study and interpretation of the Law, the proud stewards of an ancient tradition whose lives were marked by zealous observance of the Law and great moral fortitude to apply it.(13)   Indeed, he was an excellent Pharisee, having come to the vocation relatively late compared with others his own age.(14)   Why the Pharisees? Paul had neither the wealth to be a Sadducee nor the lineage to be a priest of the Temple. For a young, middle-class Jew of the tribe of Benjamin, intent on faithfully living out God’s election of Israel (Galatians 1:4), the Pharisees with their common life of study and discussion were a good fit.(15)

With evidence supporting Paul’s well-rounded education and Jewish formation, we ought be a little stunned that any scholar, especially one as recently published as in 2005, can say as confidently and starkly:

"Nothing in [Paul’s letters] indicates that he was intellectually discerning or even that he had a superior education. Rather, he was profound in feeling, not in intellectual acumen."(16)

There is no question that Paul’s letters are full of strong expressions of his emotions. It is not unheard of in the letters that he forgets himself in the course of dealing with a community’s problem and gives in to his anger and impatience (for example, see 2 Corinthians 7:8-9; Galatians 1:1-24).(17)   But Paul was an extremely shrewd leader, who made mistakes sure, but who could win his community back over to his side by a well-structured argument and superb dialectic – as an example, I am thinking here of Paul’s refutation in 2 Corinthians 1-9 of both the Antiochene Judaisers and Corinthian spiritualisers.(18)   So, Paul was certainly no slouch, and indeed had a good mind for sound rhetoric.(19)   We cannot set up emotion and education in opposition to one another. It is hardly likely that his years as a Pharisee alone were sufficient training in rhetoric to write such in his letters. No, with both Paul’s use of rhetoric in his letters and yet also his expression of contempt for it, it seems much more likely that Paul had received training in the important skill early in his life, before he became a Pharisee, before he went up to Jerusalem.

The Citizen

There has been some debate among scholars about whether St Paul in fact had Roman citizenship. The starting point for us for critical reflection on the question is that Paul never mentions it, never even so much as alludes to it in his letters. The only testimony we have on the question is Luke’s (Acts 22:25-29; cf. 16:37). As I have said, there are recurring doubts in academic minds as to Luke’s historical accuracy in Acts, a work rich in romantic readings of events and diplomatic ways of describing failure and disagreement (Council of Jerusalem in Acts 15:1-35; and Paul in Athens in Acts 17:16ff).(20)   We need to tread carefully.

That said, the case against Paul’s having Roman citizenship is thin on the ground.(21)   Paul’s silence in his letters on the matter is not to be taken as testimony for or against it. One thought goes that Paul’s manual trade betrays his lower class status, which would exclude the reception of Roman citizenship. Conversely, it has been argued that tent-making also involved leather work and linen manufacture for the wealthy, and that Paul’s business, popping up in Thessalonica and Corinth and elsewhere, came with his parents’ reputation back in Tarsus. We can bear in mind as well that this trade, which he had in common with Prisca and Aquila, was lucrative enough for them to set up shop in Ephesus ahead of Paul’s arrival.(22)   Another strand of thought not in favour of Paul’s Roman citizenship is the one that goes that he suffered the punishment of scourging under both synagogue and civic authorities (for example, see 1 Thessalonians 2:2). But Josephus tells us that a Judean procurator in the middle of the first century had Jews whipped and crucified even though they were members of the Roman equestrian order, that is, minor Roman aristocracy (Josephus, Jewish War, 2.306-308). But we ought to temper that with the magistrates’ apology which was a response to Paul’s protest after the scourging in Philippi (Acts 16:38-39). It is more likely that punishments in the first century were meted out as required and not on the failure to produce a birth certificate, which in Paul’s case could have been lost in a ship-wreck for example.

If Paul indeed had Roman citizenship, we can ask, where did he get it? From Acts we can recall that the tribune attending Paul at his flogging receives the news from Paul that he was born a citizen (Acts 22:28). Murphy-O’Connor sees this as highly likely.(23)   It should not be surprising that the number of Roman citizen families in Tarsus expanded in the first century AD. Tarsus was influenced in culture and trade from both East and West, being situated on a major trade route. The city also enjoyed the consistent Imperial interest from major figures like the Caesars Julius and Augustus and also Mark Antony.(24)   A simple explanation for Paul’s citizenship is that he acquired it when his parents did, that is, automatically upon emancipation.(25)

Education of the kind that Paul exhibits in his letters requires a good deal of money, and also time for leisure. These the more influential families had. For those without influence, education would have been the means to acquiring and maintaining higher status. For an ambitious family (remembering they had begun in Galilee, were enslaved, set free and had become citizens), educating their Paul would have been a priority. While attendance at the school of Tarsus, from which Stoic philosophers came (including one Athenodorous of Tarsus(26)), was perhaps not open to many Jews, a Jewish family who held Roman citizenship would have been more likely to put their boy through school.

Apart from maybe getting him a cheap ticket to Rome (Acts 25:10-12), citizenship for Paul meant exposure to the Hellenised Roman culture. Being a citizen in Tarsus opened doors for him in his youth and also once he had begun his missionary journeys. He could speak with Jews as a Jew himself, and preach to pagans on their own terms. In both cases, it meant that he knew how to win them for Christ, how to convince them. We can happily say that the warm reception Paul’s Gospel received from pagans as well as Jews was due in some part to his cultural formation, thanks to the doors Roman citizenship opened. The culture to which Paul’s citizenship exposed him gave him a common language, as it were, alongside his Jewish heritage, with which to speak to them. Maybe even before he began his ministry, our Paul, a Roman citizen from an emancipated Jewish family, was already all things to all (1 Corinthians 9:22). Through the exposure to the Hellenised culture he received, citizenship made Paul more effective as a preacher and witness to the Gospel, able thereby to access people and places that the Fisherman perhaps could not as well.

The Apostle

Daily life for the Apostle was almost certainly much more labour-oriented than it was back in Tarsus as a leisurely citizen of the middle-class (1 Corinthians 9:19; 2 Corinthians 11:7) or in Jerusalem at the feet of Gamaliel.(27)   He had left everything behind for the following of Christ (Philippians 3:8) and had become a tent-maker or leather-worker. Tent-making was an excellent choice for Paul.(28)   It was a trade which was easy to learn and whose tools were transported with convenience, which gave him enough work to support himself, and could put him in touch with a large number of people from various backgrounds.

A point that needs to be emphasised before proceeding further into Paul’s apostolic life is that the pace of life was much slower than it is now. Travelling, for example, was made safer in the first and second Christian centuries. The Romans had eliminated most national borders and patrolled the main traffic routes, but getting around was still no faster than it had been.(29)   And yet Pliny the Younger could report without surprise the disappearance of a Roman knight or a centurion on an Umbrian road.(30)   Careful planning was required of travellers to make the 30 kilometre daily average to safe houses and villages, out of the sight of those whose rural poverty had forced them into robbery. Overland road networks had made quite remote destinations more accessible, and a strong imperial naval fleet protected shipping trade routes. I wonder whether at any time in Paul’s apostolate was the thought of sending a letter more appealing for a busy apostle, who would rather push on to a new city than finely comb out the problems of an existing community in person. Sailing wasn’t all plain either, for our Paul recounts that he had been ship-wrecked three times and spent a night and day adrift (2 Corinthians 11:25). The distances involved in Paul’s missionary journeys suggest to us that, while he might have intended to spend as many as nine to 12 months with any one community, he could have no assurance that he would return to them when and as he wished. Subsequent visits would be foreseeable for Paul when he was en route somewhere else, or perhaps giving them a quick a check up. A slow pace of life and travel, allowing for the best weather conditions for making long journeys, meant that the paternal affections Paul had for the communities with which he was involved required him to be less ambitious about maintaining them in person himself. He had to make allowances for his long absences from the nascent Christian churches.

There were two principal measures which Paul employed to deal with the tyranny of distance. The first, and probably the one he preferred, was to send someone he trusted, one of his companions, in his stead. Paul was never a ‘sole trader’ as an Apostle. Even when he had lonely moments, he was on his way from and to people that he knew and had worked with and loved. In all, Paul named some thirty or more co-workers who had spent varying amounts of time with him.(31)   Barnabas was his senior co-missionary from the Antioch church, Prisca and Aquila among his closest confidants, Timothy was a great long-time companion and in whom he trusted.(32)   Apollos, a Jewish convert to Christianity, had lived in Alexandria, the city second in influence in the Empire and known for its being a centre of learning and trade. He would have been exposed to a great variety of philosophies. Paul we know also used scribes, one we know was named Tertius (Romans 16:22). The extensive greetings to the leading disciples in various places, in Rome most especially (Romans 16:3-16), show just how many Christian people, men and women, he knew and had worked with at various stages in his apostolate.

The second way Paul exerted his influence from a distance was the letter, which enabled Paul to speak directly and to the whole community at once. Sending a companion in his stead was a much more subtle approach. The letter, on the other hand, was often used by Paul to embarrass and refute his opponents publicly, who in turn had no possibility of debate with him. For example, Paul does not name the Judaisers in his letter to the Galatians, though there is a good chance he knew them from his days in Antioch.(33)   Paul also used a letter to get word to the community about some question which had been asked, a practice which the Corinthian Christians seemed to use well – there being at least four letters of Paul to the Corinthians, of which it is thought we have the second (see 1 Corinthians 5:9) and fourth (see 2 Corinthians 2:4).(34)

There are 13 letters bearing Paul’s name in the New Testament (Romans, 1st and 2nd Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, 1st and 2nd Thessalonians, 1st and 2nd Timothy, Titus and Philemon).(35)   Of those, scholars are generally agreed that seven (namely Romans, 1st and 2nd Corinthians, Galatians, Philippians, 1st Thessalonians) were written or dictated by Paul himself. None of the 13, let alone the seven, is in the original form that Paul wrote. All of his letters have been subjected to a process of revision for the sake of preservation. For example, the Letter to the Philippians is the product of an editor’s combining three letters into one (Philippians 1:1-3:1 and 4:2-9; 3:4-8; 4:10-20).(36)   I’ve mentioned the loss of the original first and third letters to the Corinthians, and it is good to note that we do not have the Corinthians’ letters to Paul either. In all this, we do well to consider the role and authority of the Apostle in the early Church. A large corpus of writings carry Paul’s name and exhibit many attributes of Paul’s letters (the identification of the author and greeting to the recipient(s), the message, the prayer, the final greetings and farewell). The authors of these other letters gave them Paul’s name to piggy-back on the authority of the Apostle himself to give it a better hearing. Far from fraud, this practice honouring authority was widespread in the ancient world, and is present in the rest of the Bible. The Pentateuch, for example, was ascribed by Jewish tradition to Moses and the Gospels do not name their authors. It is more helpful for us to avoid trying to distil the authentic writings from the ascribed writings of Paul. Would it not be better to look rather to their place in the New Testament tradition and influence over twenty Christian centuries? If we are too keen on the question of authorship, we run the risk of losing out on the great insights and theological reflection these other letters have to offer us. For example, the Letter to the Hebrews made its way into the canon because it was thought to be one of Paul’s, and it isn’t, and yet Hebrews is a Lenten favourite. What is more, these letters which were written by those close to Paul are evidence of the influence of the Apostle over the Church in the earliest days. They show us that the whole Church is learning from Paul even in the late first century, and that it is important to preserve his memory and the inspired teaching he bequeathed us who follow him in faith.

* *

A final word on St Paul: Paul is the one who, more than any other of the early disciples of Christ, took the message into another culture, namely the Hellenised Roman culture. Paul may be seen as an innovator whose vocation it was to come to terms with and reconcile to a certain degree the culture in which the Gospel was to be proposed. In so doing, Paul’s writings have a unique quality about them among those in the New Testament. Paul eluded the influence of the Twelve, of James and the Judaisers so as to present the Gospel in places other than those over which they had influence, due to his conviction that the Gospel has universal application; “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” (Romans 3:23). The letters lead us to the fact of our call, our vocation, to apostolic witness coming through the wisdom and teaching of Paul himself.

"I pray that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation as you come to know him, so that, with the eyes of your heart enlightened, you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance among the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power for us who believe, according to the working of his great power."

- Ephesians 1:17-19

Br Paul Rowse, O.P. is a Dominican friar preparing for Catholic priesthood and a research student in Pauline studies at the Melbourne College of Divinity.

“The Jew, The Citizen, The Apostle: An Introduction to St Paul” was the first lecture in a series given for the Canterbury Council of Churches’ Lenten Journey with St Paul, 1st March 2009.

Suggestions for Further Reading

Barrett, C.K. On Paul: Essays on His Life, Work and Influence in the Early Church. London: T&T Clark, 2003.

Cook, J.G. “1 Cor 9:5: The Women of the Apostles.” Biblia 89 (2008): 352-368.

Donaldson, Terence L. Paul and the Gentiles: Remapping the Apostle’s Convictional World. Minneapolis: Fortress, 1997.

Elmer, Ian J. “I, Tertius: Secretary or Co-author.” Australian Biblical Review 56 (2008): 45-60.

Freed, Edwin D. The Apostle Paul and His Letters. London: Equinox, 2005.

Gorman, Michael J. Apostle of the Crucified Lord: A Theological Introduction to Paul and His Letters. Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans, 2004.

Harpur, James. The Journeys of St Paul. The Living Bible. London: Marshall, 1997.

Horrell, David G. An Introduction to the Study of St Paul. 2nd edition. London: T&T Clark, 2006.

Keith, Chris. “In My Own Hand: Grapho-Literacy and the Apostle Paul.” Biblia 89 (2008): 39-58.

Martini, Carlo M. The Testimony of St Paul: Meditations on the Life and Letters of St Paul. Translated by Susan Leslie. New York: Crossroad, 1989.

Meggitt, Justin J. Paul, Poverty and Survival. Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1998.

Murphy-O’Connor, Jerome. Paul: His Story. OUP, 2004.

Peerbolte, L.J. Lietaert. Paul the Missionary. Leuven: Peeters, 2003.

Riesner, Rainer. Paul’s Early Period: Chronology, Mission Strategy, Theology. Translated by Doug Stott. Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans, 1998.

Roetzel, Calvin. The Letters of Paul: Conversations in Context. 4th edition. Louisville: Westminster/John Knox, 1998.

----- Paul: The Man and the Myth. Minneapolis: Fortress, 1997.

Endnotes

1. The Papal Basilica of St Paul’s Outside the Walls, http://www.vatican.va/various/basiliche/san_paolo/en/basilica/tomba.htm. Accessed via internet, 9 February 2009.
   
2. “The present writer has become convinced in recent years that Acts is a much more reliable guide to the first-century world and to the history of early Christianity than many scholars recognise.” Michael J. Gorman, Apostle of the Crucified Lord: A Theological Introduction to Paul and His Letters, [Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans, 2004], 43.
   
3. Gorman, Apostle of the Crucified Lord, 43.
   
4. Jerome Murphy-O’Connor, Paul: His Story, [OUP, 2004], 2.
   
5. Murphy-O’Connor, Paul, 2.
   
6. Roetzel, Paul, 16. Roetzel has an excellent summary of the contribution the Septuagint makes to Paul’s writings, in The Letters of Paul: Conversations in Context, 4th ed., [Louisville: Westminster/John Knox, 1998], 7-12.
   
7. Rainer Riesner, Paul’s Early Period: Chronology, Mission Strategy, Theology, Doug Stott (trans.), [Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans, 1998], 154.
   
8. “Since he penned greetings (i.e., not only formulae) and therefore was capable of at least a limited degree of compositional writing, Paul was more proficient than a “slow-writer” in Greek... If Paul wrote all of Philemon, this would set him even further apart from a slow-writer.” Chris Keith, “In My Own Hand: Grapho-Literacy and the Apostle Paul,” in Biblia 89 (2008): 57.
9. Murphy-O’Connor notes that Paul’s time in Jerusalem coincides with the prime of Gamaliel I. See Paul, 12.
   
10. Murphy-O’Connor, Paul, 5.
    
11. Gorman, Apostle of the Crucified Lord, 84.
    
12. Gorman, Apostle of the Crucified Lord, 84.
    
13. Carlo M. Martini, The Testimony of St Paul: Meditations on the Life and Letters of St Paul, Susan Leslie (trans.), [New York: Crossroad, 1989], 21.
    
14. Murphy-O’Connor, Paul, 13.
    
15. Murphy-O’Connor, Paul, 13.
    
16. Edwin D. Freed, The Apostle Paul and His Letters, [London: Equinox, 2005], 6.
    
17. Freed, The Apostle Paul and His Letters, 6.
    
18. Murphy-O’Connor has a fuller treatment of this in Paul, 179-186.
    
19. Murphy-O’Connor, Paul, 29.
    
20. C.K. Barrett, On Paul: Aspects of His Life, Work and Influence in the Early Church, [London: T&T Clark, 2003], 2, and Calvin Roetzel, Paul: The Man and the Myth, [Minneapolis: Fortress, 1997], 10. Justin J. Meggitt puts well the case against Paul’s upper/middle class upbringing, in Paul, Poverty and Survival, [Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1998], 75-97.
    
21. What follows in this regard is developed from Riesner, Paul’s Early Period, 147ff.
    
22. Murphy-O’Connor, Paul, 98.
    
23. What follows in this regard is developed from Murphy-O’Connor, Paul, 4.
    
24. Murphy-O’Connor, Paul, 3-4.
    
25. Riesner, Paul’s Early Period, 153.
    
26. Murphy-O’Connor, Paul, 5.
    
27. Murphy-O’Connor, Paul, 4.
    
28. What follows in this regard is developed from Murphy-O’Connor, Paul, 29.
    
29. Riesner, Paul’s Early Period, 307-308.
    
30. Murphy-O’Connor, Paul, 49.
    
31. Gorman, Apostle of the Crucified Lord, 67.
    
32. A treatment of some of the women associated with St Paul’s ministry is found in J.G. Cook, “1 Cor 9:5: The Women of the Apostles,” in Biblia 89 (2008): 358-363.
    
33. Murphy-O’Connor has a fuller treatment of Paul’s reaction to the situation in Galatia in Paul, 129-132, & ff.
    
34. Murphy-O’Connor, Paul, 158, 172.
    
35. Freed, The Apostle Paul and His Letters, 5.
    
36. Murphy-O’Connor, Paul, 144-146.