Conversion of Paul

This was actually done as one of a pair of paintings. It’s companion is “The Denial of Peter.” These were reactive to some study I’d done of the first two factions of Christianity. These divergent views are generally referred to as “Petrinism” and “Paulinism,” referencing Peter and Paul.

There are indications that the theology spread by Peter kept Christianity within the framework of Judaism, with recognition of the Jewish laws, and a treatment of Christianity as a specifically Jewish religion. On the other hand, Paul, although himself Jewish, represented Christianity as an entirely new idea available to both Jew and gentile, vanquishing any necessary adherence to Jewish laws or customs.

In the hands of gentiles, who approached Christianity from outside of the Jewish spectrum, the result was some weird and wild cults. But it’s these cults that I’ve always found the most interest in, and so my treatment of either subject established my own preference for Paulinism.

In this, my favorite of the two, Paul is at a crossroads, or an intersection of his life. The blinding light that appears to him is here borne by the same character who appears as Seth in my “Cain, Abel, and Seth,” (see commentary on that painting for a description of the Seth character.) The corpse held by this figure is that of Saint Stephen, Biblically the first Christian martyr. Paul had been implicated in Stephen’s death by stoning. The blood on Paul’s hand represents his guilt in the persecution of the earliest Christians, and the barbed wire tangled around his foot indicates that he has been “kicking against the pricks.”

 

Return to "Conversion of Paul."

 

(Paintings that feature the Seth character are "Cain, Abel, and Seth," "Conversion of Paul," "Crucifixion," and "Christ and the Adulterous Woman.)