Conversion of St Paul: The Story, Feast and Caravaggio

The Conversion of St Paul is the moment when Saul of Tarsus, on his way to Damascus to arrest the Christians, was thrown to the ground by a light from heaven and heard the voice of Jesus: "Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?" Three days later, baptized by Ananias, the persecutor began to preach Christ, and became the Apostle of the Gentiles. The Church keeps the feast of the Conversion of St Paul on 25 January, a feast of the third class in white vestments in the calendar of 1962. Below are the story as Scripture tells it, what it means, the prayers of the feast in Latin and English, and the famous painting by Caravaggio.

What is the conversion of St Paul?

It is the sudden turning of Saul, a young Pharisee "of the tribe of Benjamin" (Philippians iii. 5), "born at Tarsus in Cilicia" (Acts xxii. 3), from the most zealous enemy of the Church into its greatest missionary. He tells it himself: "you have heard of my conversation in time past in the Jews' religion: how that, beyond measure, I persecuted the church of God and wasted it" (Galatians i. 13). He had kept the garments of those who stoned St Stephen, the first martyr (Acts xxii. 20), and "made havock of the church, entering in from house to house: and dragging away men and women, committed them to prison" (Acts viii. 3).

The Church has made of this one event a feast of its own: not only a saint is honoured, but the power of grace that can turn a persecutor into an Apostle in one instant. The whole life of the Apostle, from Tarsus to his martyrdom at Rome, is told in our page on St Paul the Apostle; this page keeps to the road to Damascus and its feast.

The story of the conversion of St Paul (Acts 9)

The Acts of the Apostles tell the story three times: once in St Luke's narrative (Acts ix), and twice in the mouth of Paul himself, before the crowd at Jerusalem (Acts xxii) and before King Agrippa (Acts xxvi). Here are the main verses of the first account, which is read as the Epistle of the feast, in the Douay-Rheims version.

On the road to Damascus

"And Saul, as yet breathing out threatenings and slaughter against the disciples of the Lord, went to the high priest, and asked of him letters to Damascus, to the synagogues: that if he found any men and women of this way, he might bring them bound to Jerusalem. And as he went on his journey, it came to pass that he drew nigh to Damascus. And suddenly a light from heaven shined round about him. And falling on the ground, he heard a voice saying to him: Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me? Who said: Who art thou, Lord? And he: I am Jesus whom thou persecutest. It is hard for thee to kick against the goad. And he, trembling and astonished, said: Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?" (Acts ix. 1-6)

In his own retelling Paul adds that it was "at mid-day" (Acts xxii. 6), and that the light was "above the brightness of the sun" (Acts xxvi. 13). The answer of Christ, "Why persecutest thou me?", is a whole doctrine in a few words: to persecute the Church is to persecute Christ, for the Church is His Body.

Three days in darkness

"And Saul arose from the ground: and when his eyes were opened, he saw nothing. But they, leading him by the hands, brought him to Damascus. And he was there three days without sight: and he did neither eat nor drink." (Acts ix. 8-9)

Ananias and the vessel of election

The Lord then sent a disciple of Damascus, Ananias, to the house of Judas in "the street that is called Strait". Ananias was afraid, for he knew what evil Saul had done to the saints in Jerusalem. "And the Lord said to him: Go thy way: for this man is to me a vessel of election, to carry my name before the Gentiles and kings and the children of Israel. For I will shew him how great things he must suffer for my name's sake." (Acts ix. 15-16)

"And Ananias went his way and entered into the house. And laying his hands upon him, he said: Brother Saul, the Lord Jesus hath sent me, he that appeared to thee in the way as thou camest, that thou mayest receive thy sight and be filled with the Holy Ghost. And immediately there fell from his eyes as it were scales: and he received his sight. And rising up, he was baptized." (Acts ix. 17-18)

The persecutor preaches Christ

"And immediately he preached Jesus in the synagogues, that he is the son of God. And all that heard him were astonished... But Saul increased much more in strength and confounded the Jews who dwelt at Damascus, affirming that this is the Christ." (Acts ix. 20-22)

St Paul himself, writing to the Galatians, adds that he did not go up at once to the Apostles, but went into Arabia and returned to Damascus, and that "after three years, I went to Jerusalem to see Peter: and I tarried with him fifteen days" (Galatians i. 17-18). To the Corinthians he speaks of the risen Christ who "last of all... was seen also by me, as by one born out of due time. For I am the least of the apostles, who am not worthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. But by the grace of God, I am what I am" (1 Corinthians xv. 8-10).

The meaning of the conversion of St Paul

At Matins of the feast, the Breviary reads a sermon of St Augustine, which turns on the blessing that the patriarch Jacob gave to his son Benjamin, from whose tribe Paul came: "Benjamin a ravenous wolf, in the morning shall eat the prey, and in the evening shall divide the spoil" (Genesis xlix. 27). In the morning of his life, says Augustine, Saul seized his prey, dragging Christians to the priests; in the evening he divided the food, feeding the nations with the Gospel. "Christ struck down the persecutor to make him a teacher of the Church: striking him and healing him, slaying him and giving him life; the Lamb slain by the wolves, and making lambs of wolves."

The feast teaches three things. No sinner is beyond the reach of grace, which is why this is a day to pray for the conversion of those we love, as in our prayer for the conversion of a loved one. Grace does not destroy nature but turns it: the same zeal that persecuted the Church built it. And the convert asked at once the question of every true conversion: "Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?"

The feast of the Conversion of St Paul (25 January)

In the Roman calendar of 1962 the Conversion of St Paul falls on 25 January, a feast of the third class, in white vestments, with the Gloria, the Creed and the Preface of the Apostles. As on every feast of St Paul, the Church does not separate him from St Peter: the Mass adds a commemoration of St Peter, just as the feast of the Chair of St Peter on 22 February adds a commemoration of St Paul. The calendar of 1969 kept the feast on the same day.

The Introit is taken from the second Epistle to Timothy: "I know whom I have believed, and I am certain that He is able to keep that which I have committed unto Him against that day, being a just judge" (2 Timothy i. 12). The Epistle is the account of Acts ix. 1-22 quoted above, and the Gradual sings with the Apostle: "The grace of God in me hath not been void, but His grace abideth ever in me."

The feast stands in a little group of three days: the day before is the feast of his disciple St Timothy, bishop of Ephesus, and the day after that of St Polycarp of Smyrna, disciple of St John. All of them are in our traditional Catholic calendar of 1962, and their lives in our guide to the Catholic saints, listed by feast day.

The prayer of the Conversion of St Paul (Missal of 1962)

The Church never separates the two Apostles: by the rubrics of 1960 (n. 110), the prayer of St Peter is added to the collect of the day under a single conclusion, with no second Oremus between them.

Collect, 25 January, with the prayer of St Peter

Deus, qui univérsum mundum beáti Pauli Apóstoli prædicatióne docuísti: da nobis, quǽsumus; ut, qui ejus hódie Conversiónem cólimus, per ejus ad te exémpla gradiámur. Deus, qui beáto Petro Apóstolo tuo, collátis clávibus regni cœléstis, ligándi atque solvéndi pontifícium tradidísti: concéde; ut, intercessiónis ejus auxílio, a peccatórum nostrórum néxibus liberémur: Qui vivis et regnas cum Deo Patre, in unitáte Spíritus Sancti, Deus, per ómnia sǽcula sæculórum. Amen.

O God, who didst teach the whole world by the preaching of blessed Paul the Apostle: grant, we beseech Thee, that we who this day keep his Conversion may, by following his example, walk towards Thee. O God, who, giving to blessed Peter Thy Apostle the keys of the kingdom of heaven, didst confer on him the pontifical power of binding and loosing: grant that by the help of his intercession we may be set free from the bonds of our sins. Who livest and reignest with God the Father, in the unity of the Holy Ghost, God, world without end. Amen.

Secret

Apóstoli tui Pauli précibus, Dómine, plebis tuæ dona sanctífica: ut, quæ tibi tuo grata sunt institúto, gratióra fiant patrocínio supplicántis. Per Dóminum nostrum.

Sanctify, O Lord, the gifts of Thy people through the prayers of Paul, Thy Apostle: that what is pleasing to Thee because Thou didst institute it may become more pleasing through the patronage of his supplication. Through our Lord.

Postcommunion

Sanctificáti, Dómine, salutári mystério: quǽsumus; ut nobis ejus non desit orátio, cujus nos donásti patrocínio gubernári. Per Dóminum nostrum.

Sanctified, O Lord, by the saving mystery, we beseech Thee that we may never lack the prayer of him by whose patronage Thou hast granted us to be governed. Through our Lord.

The Collect is the traditional prayer for the Conversion of St Paul, and it asks for the one thing the feast is about: not only to admire his conversion, but to walk to God by his example.

The Chair of Unity Octave (18-25 January)

The feast closes an octave of prayer that many traditional Catholics still keep. In January 1908 Father Paul James Wattson, then an Episcopalian clergyman and founder of the Society of the Atonement at Graymoor, in the state of New York, began with his community eight days of prayer for the unity of the Church. He set them between two feasts: the feast of the Chair of St Peter at Rome, then kept on 18 January, and the Conversion of St Paul on 25 January.

It was first called the Church Unity Octave, and later the Chair of Unity Octave, to make plain its bond with the See of Peter. In 1909 Father Paul and his community were received into the Catholic Church; St Pius X gave the octave his blessing, and Benedict XV extended its observance to the whole Church.

Two points of care. First, the feast of 18 January was suppressed by the rubrics of 1960: in the calendar of 1962 only one feast of the Chair of St Peter remains, on 22 February, explained in our page on the Chair of St Peter; the octave nevertheless kept its traditional dates. Second, the octave as Father Paul conceived it prayed for unity with the Chair of Peter, which the name expresses; the later "Week of Prayer for Christian Unity", kept on the same dates, gave it a broader ecumenical intention.

Caravaggio's Conversion of St Paul

The most famous image of the feast is Caravaggio's Conversion on the Way to Damascus, painted in 1601 for the chapel of Monsignor Tiberio Cerasi, treasurer of Pope Clement VIII, in the church of Santa Maria del Popolo in Rome. It still hangs there, in the Cerasi Chapel, facing Caravaggio's Crucifixion of St Peter: the two princes of the Apostles, once again, side by side.

What is Caravaggio highlighting in the Conversion of St Paul?

Caravaggio shows neither Christ nor angels nor a crowd. Saul lies on his back on the ground, arms raised; above him an old groom holds a great horse, which fills most of the canvas, and the scene is plunged in darkness except for a strong light falling on the three figures. The painting does not show the vision; it shows a man struck down and opened to a light that the others do not understand, the moment of Acts ix. 4: "falling on the ground, he heard a voice". Scripture, for that matter, says nothing of a horse: it entered the scene through the painters.

The first version

Caravaggio had painted an earlier version for the same chapel, brighter and more crowded, showing Christ, held up by an angel, reaching towards the blinded Saul. According to his contemporary Giovanni Baglione, it was not accepted and passed to Cardinal Giacomo Sannesio; it is now in the Odescalchi Balbi collection. Why it was replaced is not known for certain.

Other paintings of the conversion of St Paul

The subject was painted by many masters: Michelangelo, in his fresco in the Pauline Chapel of the Vatican, and Rubens, among many others.

Frequently Asked Questions

When is the feast of the Conversion of St Paul?

On 25 January, a feast of the third class in the calendar of 1962, with a commemoration of St Peter. It has the same date in the calendar of 1969.

Where is the conversion of St Paul in the Bible?

In the Acts of the Apostles, chapter ix (verses 1-22), told again by St Paul himself in chapters xxii and xxvi; he refers to it in his Epistles, especially Galatians i. 13-17 and 1 Corinthians xv. 8-10.

What happened in the conversion of St Paul?

On the road to Damascus, a light from heaven threw Saul to the ground and Jesus spoke to him: "Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?" Blind for three days, he was healed and baptized by Ananias, and at once began to preach that Jesus is the Son of God.

Was St Paul a different person before his conversion?

He was the same man, Saul of Tarsus, a Pharisee trained in the Law; Scripture calls him Paul from his first mission among the Gentiles (Acts xiii. 9). What changed was not his zeal but its object.

Did St Paul fall from a horse?

The Acts say only that he fell to the ground; no horse is mentioned. The horse comes from Christian art, and Caravaggio's painting made it famous.

Where is Caravaggio's Conversion of St Paul?

In the Cerasi Chapel of the church of Santa Maria del Popolo in Rome, for which it was painted, facing his Crucifixion of St Peter.

The Iter Fidei app carries the Roman Missal of 1962 with the Mass of the Conversion of St Paul, the Breviary with St Augustine's sermon for the feast, the Douay-Rheims Bible and the traditional calendar. Join early access here.

Sources. Holy Bible, Douay-Rheims version: Acts viii. 3; ix. 1-22; xiii. 9; xxii. 3-10, 20; xxvi. 13-18; Galatians i. 13-18; Philippians iii. 5; 1 Corinthians xv. 8-10; 2 Timothy i. 12; Genesis xlix. 27. Roman Missal (1962), Proper of Saints, 25 January, and 22 February (commemoration of St Peter). Roman Breviary, 25 January, lessons of Matins (St Augustine, Sermon 14 on the Saints).