The Transformation of Paul

A participant in your virtue, Tarso, who through a different mode of punishment, but with a single purpose of piety, analyzed himself with you toward Christ. Paul the lawgiver, the loud-voiced trumpet of the gospel, who formerly was a bitter enemy of Christians, but finally a strong advocate for the church, was more recently reached by the apostles through grace; and in time he was second among the disciples of Christ, but equal according to the proven virtue, so that I may say nothing more than to exceed the twelve in redness. He was a zealous follower of Moses, if anyone else was, a wall of the law, a tower of the Old Testament, enduring and unshakeable; and until he held his purpose unchangeable, there was a great danger to those speaking of Christ, and he fled everywhere from our people. Truly, according to the prophecy of Jacob (Gen 49:10), a wolf snatched the Benjamin, tearing the lambs of the New Testament and scattering the flocks.

Because he also performed the drama according to Saint Stephen, and having his hands still stained with blood, he ran toward Damascus, seeking to join persecution to persecution and murder to murder, and to uproot Christianity, the first blooming nature. Our God saw well what he had done, that the strong enemy might become a noble friend; and having suddenly surrounded him with light, He strikes him with astonishment and changes him toward humility, making him stand in the road through fear, and having brought to sobriety the eyes that were looking with fiery and angry temper through the darkness. And He punishes him not in silence, but also added a word to the deed, saying that written thing: 'Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me? It is hard for you to kick against the pricks' (Acts 26:14). For it was not as if he himself needed a discussion, since the words of the facts were sufficient, but so that he might have an occasion within to ask and to learn that he who was thought to be dead and to be Christ lives, and appears from the heavens, and thus defends those who are grieving from authority. Nothing is more like the words themselves to explain to us the hunt of the Hebrew wolf.

And Saul, still breathing threats and murder, the word describes to me a man whose mind is being shattered by the pressure...

While the mixed nature of the event was still being perceived through the whistling of the stones, seeing a wind and a wild thing as if it were the murderer, the symbols were being saved in the beginning of the patriarch's prophecy. For he, since he was about to die, having surrounded his children from every side, foretold by the Spirit at the bedside.

Thus, while blessing Judah, he was speaking in one way, but allegorically he praised the Christ coming from him. Furthermore, having prophesied to all the things to come, he came last upon Benjamin, who was also more recent in time; and at times he spoke toward the son, but in reality he signified Paul, as we know, descending from that tribe. 'Benjamin is a wolf; in the morning he shall snatch, and in the evening he shall deliver prey' (Gen 49:27).

Let us investigate what is said. Is it certainly this: that after having eaten the first things—that is, having pursued, having murdered, having shed blood, having scattered the church like a flock—he became last a shepherd and a good pastor, having laid aside the persecutor and having put on the apostle, distributing to all as food the Word and having established this holy table for us?

For the power of the Lord is such, disarming the fury and the impious thoughts of those standing in opposition, and approaching gracefully and subduing, working to make sheep by day instead of beasts that tear. Upon this, what does the Scripture say? That having approached the high priest, he requested from him letters to the synagogues in Damascus, so that he might bring the Christians to Jerusalem (Acts 9:2).

O what a fight and a difference of letters, those then being sought from Paul and those which he later wrote announcing Christ! Some were binding Christians, while others put on the chains for Christ, causing the persecutor to endure many heavy and difficult things; and there it was written: 'Saul, a Hebrew, a defender of the law, an enemy of the cross, an opponent of the gospel'; but in the later and more temperate letters: 'Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ.' Of whom? Add this: of him who was crucified.

O what a wonder! What a moment ago was a dream, now has become a boast, and what was being reviled is remembered today as glory. For no glory-seeker and boastful king has thus sent forth the splendor of the beginning.