Saul was breathing threatening and slaughter against the Christians, and
received from the high priest letters to go to Damascus and seize all
them that were of the Christian faith, both men and women, and bring
them bound to Jerusalem. When he drew nigh unto Damascus, there suddenly
shone round about him a light from heaven. He fell upon the earth and
heard a voice, saying: Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me? I am Jesus,
whom thou persecutest. It is hard for thee to kick against the goad!
Saul asked: What wilt thou, Lord, that I should do? The Lord answered:
Arise, and enter into the city, and it shall be told thee what thou must
do. Saul rose up; he was blind, and had to be led by the hand.
There was in Damascus a Christian named Ananias. The Lord said to him in
a vision: Go to Saul that he may receive his sight. Ananias answered: I
have heard of this man, how much evil he did to Thy saints at Jerusalem,
and to all that call upon Thy name. The Lord said: Go; for he is a
chosen vessel unto me, to bear my name before the Gentiles and kings and
the children of Israel. And Ananias went, and laid his hands upon him.
And straightway there fell as it were scales from his eyes, and he
received his sight and was baptized. And straightway in the synagogues
he proclaimed Jesus, that He is the Son of God. Later on he was called
Paul, and was acknowledged by the other apostles as a fellow-apostle;
and by the grace of God he labored more than the other apostles.
He made three great journeys, going far abroad, and is called the
Apostle of the Gentiles. At Antioch in Syria he preached for a whole
year, and it was here the believers were first called Christians. He
proceeded to Greece, Europe, and the Word made good progress, and he
strengthened the converts by the letters he wrote to the churches.
But the Jews persecuted him in every place, and when he, after his third
journey, came to Jerusalem, they laid hold on him and would kill him;
but the Roman governor sent him to Rome to be judged by the emperor, to
whom Paul had appealed; for he was a Roman citizen. The emperor Nero
acquitted him, and it is told that he undertook a fourth missionary
journey. During his absence Nero began the first great persecution
against the Christians. When Paul came back from his last journey, he
was beheaded at Rome, at the same time that Peter was crucified (about
sixty-seven years after the birth of Christ.) (Acts 9, 13-28.)