He stood in chains at Caesarea, then in Rome under house arrest, and the curious thing was this: the man who had once hauled Christians towards prison now spent his days preaching from a rented room, waiting for Caesar’s judgement. By the time he reached Rome, around AD 60, he had already crossed the Mediterranean on journeys that had carried him from Antioch to Corinth, Ephesus, and Jerusalem.

He had begun as Saul of Tarsus, born around 5 BC to 5 AD in a devout Jewish family from Tarsus in Cilicia, a city famed for trade and learning. Acts says he was a Roman citizen by birth, and he called himself a Hebrew of the Hebrews, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Pharisee. As a young man he was sent to Jerusalem and educated under Gamaliel, while also working as an artisan in leather or tent-making.

Before he ever became an apostle, Paul persecuted the followers of Jesus beyond measure, especially the Greek-speaking Hellenists in Jerusalem. Then came the road to Damascus, between AD 31 and 36. According to Acts, a bright light struck him down, he heard Jesus ask, Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?, and he was blinded for three days until Ananias of Damascus laid hands on him. Baptised, he began at once to proclaim Jesus as the Son of God.

From Damascus he went first to Arabia, then back to Damascus, and three years later to Jerusalem, where he met James and stayed fifteen days with Simon Peter. Barnabas later brought him to Antioch, the first place where the disciples were called Christians. From there, in the mid-40s and 50s AD, he and Barnabas founded communities in Cyprus and southern Asia Minor, and at the Council of Jerusalem in AD 49 Peter, James, and John accepted his mission to the gentiles without requiring circumcision.

That agreement did not end the quarrels. In Antioch, Paul publicly opposed Peter when Peter would not eat with gentile believers, and even Barnabas sided with Peter. Yet Paul pushed on. In his second journey he travelled with Silas and Timothy to Macedonia, where in Philippi he was beaten and jailed, then on to Athens and Corinth. There, around AD 50 to 51, he founded the church and stayed eighteen months, meeting Priscilla and Aquila, who became trusted co-workers.

His third journey took him through Galatia, Phrygia, and Ephesus, where he remained nearly three years, working as a tent-maker and writing letters to Corinth. After unrest over Artemis, he crossed Macedonia and Achaia again, and in 57 AD returned to Jerusalem with money for the local church. There he was seized in the temple, saved from a plot involving forty men, held by Felix for two years, and then, as a Roman citizen, appealed unto Caesar.