Well, I don't blame them. There is so much to tell! – from the Lord's Virgin birth, to his innocent childhood, to his dynamic ministry, to his unpleasant crucifixion, to his glorious resurrection. It is surely the greatest story ever told. Only I have not yet told it. Well, sit tight, brothers and sisters! Jesus Christ is coming soon!

Second things first: I am not done telling you about Saul of Tarsus, a.k.a. the apostle Paul, a.k.a. Saint Knucklehead. Here was a poor Turkish Jew, none too bright, who became the greatest missionary of all time! What a success story! And so unlucky for Western Civilization! Truly, no one can know Jesus without first knowing about Paul – it would be like trying to apprehend a Black Hole without having read Stephen Hawking, or like trying to believe in Chaos Theory without knowing Henri Poincaré. Indeed, some Church historians go farther. Some scholars say that Paul practically invented Christianity. (But that may be giving the man more blame than he deserves; it's more accurate to say that Paul gave the new religion its first big booster-shot in the arm.)

Here, then, is Saint Paul's life story, in brief – would it were briefer!

Lucifer's True Life of Paul

(from the Authorised Version)

The apostle Paul (0 BCE - 66 CE), was a strict orthodox Jew of ancient Turkey begotten...

(Oy veh! pardon me, while I suppress a guffaw at my unintended witticism... Get a grip, Lucifer. Okay, start again:)

There once was a tent dealer named Saul – his surname slips me, something like Abbaskoptzi. He was a strict orthodox Jew from Tarsus, in what is now modern Turkey (Cilicia). Saul and his wife Esther were childless (which Saul publicly blamed on his wife, although I privately suspect that the man was shooting blanks). Mr. and Mrs. Abbaskoptzi prayed earnestly for a son, and the Lord heard their prayer, eventually, and said okay.

Now it so happens that Esther became pregnant, up in Tarsus, on the same precise night that the Virgin Mary got pregnant down in Judaea, although not in the same precise way. Thus it came to pass nine months later, when Quirinius was not yet governor of Syria, that a firstborn son was born unto Esther and Saul Abbaskoptzi, and a firstborn son was born unto the Virgin Mary and the holy Ghost.

Call it coincidence or call it divine providence, but the future apostle was born in Tarsus, on 25 December, 1 BCE – the same day of the same year on which Jesus was born in Bethlehem. Jesus was born in a cave; Paul was born in a tent – very similar venues. Both babies' bottoms were wrapped in swaddling cloth, and for the same reason. The Star of David, which shone over Bethlehem on a clear night, could be seen from Tarsus. Jesus was born near the river Jordan. Paul was born near the river Cydnus. And there were similar fish in both rivers. You may also remember that the carpenter, Joseph, was not Jesus of Nazareth's real biological father. The elderly tent dealer, Saul Abbaskoptzi, probably really was the biological father of Esther's child, but not everyone in Tarsus believed that, which makes it another close parallel.

These early signs indicated that Paul was specially chosen of God. When he was still young, no one noticed. Paul himself figured it out later, as an adult. The one thing Paul could never learn was the exact hour of Jesus' birth, so that he could compare it with his own. It was not that Paul ever believed in horoscopes – he didn't. For Paul, it was more like a chicken-or-the-egg thing: who really came first, Jesus or Paul, Paul or Jesus? Not that it mattered; Paul was just curious.

– L.

(To be continued!)