The Conversion of St Paul
Caravaggio

‘On the whole, artists were not especially interested in St Paul. The one event though that did attract artistic attention was his dramatic conversion. St Luke describes vividly in the Acts of the Apostles  how he fell to the ground while he was on his way to Damascus “breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord”. Nobody could have better appreciated this all-consuming anger than Caravaggio, perhaps the most violent artist in history. I sometimes think, equally, that no artist might have so longed to be overthrown, turned from his headlong career into savagery, and brought to his senses as St Paul was. Caravaggio enters fully into the shock of this incident but maybe his fellow feeling is almost envy.

‘This was the central event of St Paul’s life, “a conversion” that changed him completely, but which poor, angry Caravaggio was never to know. He shows us St Paul, or rather, not yet St Paul but still the hostile Saul, flung from the security and eminence of his horse. Saul’s head almost juts out into our space; he is upside down, dislocated, we cannot see his facial expression, but must read the whole story from his body language. A bright light is shining full upon him, blinding him, and he hears the voice of Jesus: “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?” All Saul can stutter in reply is, “Who are you, Lord?” The heavenly answer must have chilled him to the bone. His use of the word “Lord” means that Saul understood well that it was God who was speaking to him. And God says, “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting”.

‘St Paul was to spend his life unravelling the depth of that reply. How many of us understand it? All he had done against the Christians in Jerusalem, Jesus saw as done against himself. Years later, in the Gospels, his words would be remembered that “as you did it to one of the least of these my brethren, you did it to me” (Matt. 24:40). This was something Jesus tried again and again to teach his apostles. St Paul, ‘last of the apostles, an apostle born out of due time’, may well have been the first to understand to the full the impact of this teaching. He had not consciously persecuted anyone but those who he thought were enemies of God. But to persecute is an act wholly alien to God’s love. St Paul was to learn from this shattering experience that our neighbour, any neighbour, the most obnoxious neighbour, is still Jesus. Caravaggio dwells upon Saul’s horror and abasement. The very horse seems to withdraw from him – notice that uplifted hoof – and his companion looks down on him in sad amazement. But those arms, outstretched in fear and astonishment, are also outstretched in surrender. It never enters Saul’s mind but to obey the vision and change his entire lifestyle.’

The Conversion of Saul

Pieter Bruegel the Elder

‘Bruegel has an unusual gift for showing how little the world notices the central truths of our faith. He shows Jesus on the way to Calvary almost indistinguishable from the crowd of sightseers and attendants who throng the way. Mary, his mother, sees him, but we have to peer. He uses the same powerful technique when he paints the conversion of Saul. Here is a great throng of travellers, winding through the mountains as they pass from Jerusalem to Damascus. Almost unseen among the bustle and stress of the journey is one solitary Jew falling from his horse. Hardly anyone notices. Yet Saul is encountering the living Jesus, is being forced, almost violently, to understand that his rejection of Christianity is a rejection of God, and that an unknown future awaits him. As he lies on his back, Jesus rouses him. He is not allowed to stay motionless in his humiliation and fear, but he is given a precise command, “Rise and enter the city, and you will be told what you are to do”.

‘St Luke tells us that “the men who were travelling with him stood speechless, hearing the voice but seeing no one.” Bruegel, however, imagines that there were very few who were “speechless” and that this central event that would lead to the spread of the Faith to the utmost ends of the earth, was central only for those who have eyes to see. And I also warm to Bruegel’s setting. Those steep cliffs and towering rocks, with little vegetation to soften and adorn the pathway, are a good symbol of what lies ahead for humiliated Saul. From now on his life will be one far removed from those pleasant undemanding lowlands that we can see on the left. Saul is being summoned to the heights, where it will be difficult to breathe and where every step forward is arduous.

‘Never again will Saul merely be one of a multitude. When he reaches Damascus, he will find Ananias, to whom God has revealed that Saul “is a chosen instrument of mine to carry my name before the Gentiles and kings and the sons of Israel; for I will show him how much he must suffer for the sake of my name.” All this lies ahead of the stricken and wondering Saul but, somehow, Bruegel, that great artist, suggests it in the very landscape. This is a heedless, anxious world which needs the light of the holy Name and in which the chosen apostle will, indeed, find much to suffer. There is bright sky behind him, there is dark sky ahead, yet we know, as Saul is to know, that in that darkness he will find the God who is “all in all”.’

The Conversion of St Paul

‘St Luke so understood the significance of St Paul’s conversion that he tells the story three times in the Acts of the Apostles. St Paul tells it too, in his Epistles. This, after all, was the crucial event of his life which completely changed the direction of his journey, transforming him “from an enemy of the cross of Christ to its great apostle”. This was how he became an apostle, and whenever he writes to his converts he can only explain “his authority” by this encounter with the risen Jesus and the sacred commission given to him. “For I would have you know, brethren, that the gospel that was preached by me is not man’s gospel. For I did not receive it from man, nor was I taught it, but it came through a revelation of Jesus Christ. For you have heard of my former life in Judaism, how I persecuted the church of God violently and tried to destroy it…but…he who set me apart before I was born, and had called me through his grace, was pleased to reveal his Son to me, in order that I might preach him among the gentiles” (Gal. 1:11-16).

‘What distinguishes Parmigianino’s majestic picture is the wonderful horse towering in animal splendour above the stricken human and the artist’s poignant depiction of Saul’s blindness. The ironic effect of spiritual enlightenment, which is the essence of all conversion, was physical blindness. The light from heaven took away Saul’s sight. We are told “he could see nothing; so they led him by the hand and brought him into Damascus” Somehow Parmigianino makes us aware that Saul sees spiritually, and is overwhelmed by it, to the extent that he can “see” nothing else. The light of God has completely taken possession of him.

‘That great dappled grey, surely one of the most splendid horses ever painted, sees well enough because the blinding revelation is completely remote from all that is animal. The truth of God should illuminate everything that we see, but when we first encounter its dazzling purity we may be blind to all else. Here Saul is even shown as semi-naked, as if the sheer impact of the presence of Jesus has stripped him of his clothes as well as his dignity and his pride. Blind Saul is frightened. He feels lost in a strange world that he cannot understand or control. But he accepts that it is Jesus who has spoken, Jesus who is Lord, and is ready to rise up and be led, humbly, toward the next stage of his journey.’

With kind permission of St Pauls Publishing UK.
Saint Paul in Art, Sister Wendy Beckett,
ISBN 978-0-84439-752-5. Available from all St Pauls bookshops.