Four Similarities in the Lives of Jesus Christ and St. Paul

Edgar A. Gamboa
THEO 60114-01
Rev. Fr. Jerome Murphy-O’Connor, OP 
 
Four Similarities in the Lives of Jesus Christ and St. Paul
 
It is interesting to note that there are perceptible similarities between the lives of Our Lord Jesus Christ and St. Paul, the Apostle to the Gentiles. Four remarkable connections come to mind.
 
The Time of Birth
St. Paul (Saul of Tarsus) was by birth a Galilean (1). He was born, not in Tarsus as is commonly assumed, but in Gischala, a region in Judea (Jish in Galilee), at about the time Jesus Christ was born in Bethlehem of Judea (Matthew 2.1), 6-4 BC. In the letter to Philemon (Phil 1.9), written when Paul was in captivity, the Apostle refers to himself as a presbytes (Gk.) translated as “ambassador” (NAB and RSV). A position of authority, however, does not fit the context of the letter and the term for “ambassador” (Gk. presbeutes) does not appear in any surviving manuscript of the book. (2) The more accurate translation, therefore, is “old man” (NRSV, NJB) or “elderly”. (3)
This would have indicated that Paul was in his mid 50s or older when he wrote to the slave owner Philemon, urging him to welcome back Onesimus, one of his runaway slaves. This is the logical assumption if we take into consideration the Greek and Jewish traditions which relate to a man’s normal lifespan. Philo, the Jewish philosopher from Alexandria, in his De Opificio Mundi measured infancy to old age by seven year periods, as did Solon, the Athenian lawgiver, who divided the lifespan of a man into ten periods of seven years each. (3a) Solon’s stages corresponds well to that of the Bible (Ps. 90.10) and the characteristics he assigned to his ninth stage (“gentle but not marked decline”) are similar to what we today consider as “elderly” rather than “old”. (3b). It is commonly held that Paul wrote the “Captivity Letters” (Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, and Philemon) under house arrest in Rome, around AD 60-62. However, as painstakingly analyzed by Fr. Jerome Murphy-O’Connor, the letter to Philemon was likely written earlier in AD 53 (3c) and not in Rome but in Ephesus (3d).
If the “presbytes” or “elderly” Paul was indeed 56-63 years old at the time, a more accurate (revised) chronological framework, with its consequent historical implications, would “put his birth in the last years of the pre-Christian era….(St. Paul) would have been born about the same time as Christ” (3e). 

Growing up as Child Refugees
Jesus and Paul were child refugees. The story of the Flight to Egypt is familiar. As recounted in Matthew’s Gospel (2.13-15), “the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said: ‘Get up, take the child and his mother and flee to Egypt, and remain there until I tell you; for Herod is about to search for the child to destroy him’. Then Joseph got up, took the child and his mother by night, and went to Egypt, and remained there until the death of Herod.” In Paul’s case, the death of King Herod in 4 BC caused an uprising among the Jews who revolted against the dead king’s heirs. To quell the uprising, Roman legions, ordered by Varus, the governor of Syria, marched into Palestine and destroyed Sepphoris, the capital of Galilee. (4)
Paul’s parents were taken as captives and, as was the practice with dealing with non-combatant but vanquished civilians at the time, sold to slave traders. Two-year old Paul and his parents would have been shipped out of Ptolemais, ending up as slave refugees in Tarsus, the capital of the Roman province of Cilicia Pedias. (4a) In Tarsus, the refugee family would have been purchased by a Roman, which could explain how Paul eventually obtained Roman citizenship (Acts 22.27-8). (4b)

 Temporary Vocation and Second Conversion
  Jesus and Paul both had temporary vocations before finding their authentic calling in life. Jesus apprenticed under his foster father, Joseph, who was a carpenter --“Is not this the carpenter’s son?” (Matthew 13.55) or “Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary?”(Mark 6.3) --before he became an itinerant prophet and rabbi, subsequent to the illuminating and transforming event of his baptism in the Jordan river by John the Baptist (Matthew 3.16-17, Mark 1.9-11, Luke 3.21-22, John 1.32-34). Early in life, Jesus had been a faithful Jew and a follower of the Mosaic Law. Later, in juxtaposition to the law, he consorted with sinners and people with questionable reputations, loving and accepting them as they were. He healed on the Sabbath and challenged the Pharisees, saying: “The sabbath was made for humankind and not humankind for the sabbath...” (Mark 2.27). He even instructed his followers to disregard the law altogether in favor of the kingdom of God. “Let the dead bury their own dead; but as for you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God” (Luke 9.60).
Paul, on the other hand, was a law-abiding Pharisee in Jerusalem (Phil. 3.5) before the life-changing event happened on his journey to Tarsus by way of Damascus, when the Risen Christ appeared to him (1Cor.12.8). The specific details of Paul’s conversion experience are subject to speculation but the impact it had on him was, without question, extraordinarily profound and lasting. “I was apprehended by Christ Jesus”, Paul proclaimed years later (Phil. 3.12). From that transforming moment on, the erstwhile Pharisee, whose life had been dedicated to strict adherence to Jewish traditions and the Mosaic Law, became a zealous missionary for Christ the Messiah and dedicated Apostle to the Gentiles.
 
Steadfastness and Sacrifice
Jesus Christ was steadfast in His mission, unwaveringly faithful to His Father’s will, and “obedient unto death, even to death on the cross” (Philippians 2.8). Paul, too, once he realized what his mission was, traveled back and forth, through Asia and Europe to evangelize the Gentile world, risking life and limb in the relentless pursuit of his missionary goals.
Christ did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, Paul pointed out (Philippians 2.6). Rather, as the sinless Messiah (the New Adam who was not subject to the inevitability of death), Christ totally emptied himself (Philippians 2.7), freely choosing to give His life fully to others (and to us, to all humanity) in an act of Infinite Love. Following in Christ’s footsteps, Paul ultimately gave his life in selfless love and sacrifice. He was martyred under the reign of the Roman Emperor Nero in 67 AD. (5)
Parenthetically, it is interesting to note that St. Paul gradually came to the conclusion that this complete emptying (kenosis) in the act of giving oneself and offering one’s life in selfless love to others was the core of Christ’s message and mission (Philippians 2.7). To this end, he enjoined us to be, as he was, “imitators of Christ” (1Cor. 11.1) (Ephesians 5.1-2). Such radical Christology should “make Christianity an authentic instrument of change. It is not that the Pauline version of Christianity has failed”, as Fr. Jerome Murphy-O’Connor contends, “it has never been seriously tried”. (6)
In summary, we recognize four notable links in the lives of Jesus Christ and St. Paul:
(a) they were born in Judea at about the same time, 6-4 BC; (b) both were child refugees;
(c) they underwent a second conversion upon discovering their true humanity, and
(d) they persevered in their mission to the point of sacrificing their lives.



Notes

1.Jerome Murphy-O’Connor. Paul: His Story (Oxford University Press, 2005), p.2.
2.Ignatius Catholic Study Bible. The Letters of St. Paul to the Philippians, Colossians, and Philemon. (Ignatius Press, San Francisco, 2005), p. 39.
3.Jerome Murphy-O’Connor. Paul: A Critical Life (Oxford University Press, 1997), p.1.
a.p. 2
b.p. 3
c.p 4
d.pp. 175-179
e.p. 4
4.Jerome Murphy-O’Connor. Paul: His Story (Oxford University Press, 2005), p.2.
a.p.2-3
b.p.4
5.Murphy-O’Connor. His Story, p. 233-234, Critical Life, p. 370-371.
6.Murphy-O’Connor. Paul: His Story, p. 239.