How does the character of Paul of Acts differ from Paul of Epistles?

Answer 1

The Acts of the Apostles is universally seen as a history of the Church in the years immediately following the resurrection of Jesus, with its focus on the lives and works of St Peter and St Paul. We have Paul's own epistles as an alternative source of information about Paul, but there are major differences that scholars have long sought to explain.

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According to the epistles, Paul did not spend time in any existing Christian community for the purpose of instruction, nor did he have a mentor who travelled with him in order to instruct him in the faith. In fact, Galatians 2:9 suggests that the Jerusalem leaders and Paul were unknown to each other until nearly twenty years after Paul's conversion. Moreover, Paul claimed to have gone to Jerusalem to communicate to the brethren that gospel which he taught among the Gentiles.

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Acts made Paul a lesser character in the history of the early church, one who did not act on his own initiative but sought the authority of Peter and James on important matters. Paul's miraculous conversion left him temporarily blind and helpless, dependent on the goodwill of the church brethren, who then had the opportunity to instruct him in the faith.

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In the Epistles, Paul seems a particularly modest man, who admitted to having no great power of oratory. He shows no great interest in converting Jews. The Paul of Acts seems to have been a rather headstrong and foolhardy missionary, absolutely determined to convert Jews. In chapter 9, he continued to preach in the synagogues of Damascus until the Jews took counsel to kill him. Again, in chapter 17, Paul "as was his way" preached in the synagogues of Thessalonica until the brethren had to send him away for his own safety.

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In the epistles, there is no mention of Paul performing or experiencing miracles, and Paul presented himself as a man unlikely to have experienced miracles, other than the revelations from God. However, after an interval of several decades, the author of Acts attributed miracles to Paul.

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In the Epistles, Paul seems a quite saintly man. A theme of Galatians, 1 Corinthians, 2 Corinthians and Romans seems to be Paul's willingness to expend political capital for the collection for the poor of Jerusalem. Acts gives Paul no real credit in the collection and shows him as willing to use the power of miracles in malicious ways (Acts 13:11, where he blinded Elymas [Bar-jesus] the sorcerer).

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According to Paul's own account, Paul was well disposed towards the Gentiles and demanded that they be treated with respect. He took it upon himself to preach to the Gentiles and even rebuked Peter in Antioch for refusing to eat with them (Galatians 2:11ff). Compare this to Acts chapters 10 and 11, which show Paul as merely someone who followed instructions on this matter. Here, Peter experienced a miraculous vision and was visited by the Holy Ghost, giving him a sign to bring Gentiles into the Church. In Acts, Peter defended his own decision to eat with the Gentiles and asserted that the Church must preach to the Gentiles.

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The most famous story about St Paul is of his conversion on the road to Damascus, when he was blinded by a light and heard a heavenly voice. This is an account that comes only from Acts, with no hint of it in Paul's own writings. Acts has three mutually incompatible versions, that theologians and scholars have struggled to reconcile. In the first two cases, Paul went immediately to Damascus and, since he was blinded by the light, the disciple Ananius miraculously cured him and gave him baptism. In the third case, presented as Paul's own account of the event, Paul is arguably shown as a dissembler, unwilling to talk of his disability or the debt he owed to other Christians.