# 17 - This Thing Was Not Done in a Corner

My neighbours have built a magnificent tent. Whatever you imagined, think again. Their tent is in their garden, and is also the same size as their garden. My neighbours are from Iraq where tents are still things people know how to enjoy, and so they’ve done an excellent job building it. It starts with a layer of pallets, tarpaulin to keep groundwater out, then carpets, luscious carpets. The walls are sturdy, with tarps on the outside and tapestries on the inside. It has a proper wooden door, and in the recent upgrade, a porch.

They invited me in, and plied me with tea and coffee, served from handsome copper pots. Achmed is extremely generous, and has a large and happy family.

The Bible has a lot of tents, and its best-known tent-maker was Saul of Tarsus, also known as St. Paul. He worked with leather and made leathern tents. (’leathern’ is an old word meaning ‘made of leather’, in the same way golden, wooden, brazen, flaxen, earthen and woolen mean made of gold, wood, brass, flax, earth and sheep-fluff). Saul of Tarsus is one of the most conspicuous figures in the New Testament, despite not appearing in any of the gospels. He wrote almost all of the letters in it in ways which continue to inspire, frustrate and in all other ways fire up Christians. To vastly oversimplify, God came as Jesus, and did things and said things and died and lived, and then Paul came in and spaded it all and wrote the wiki, and suddenly there was theology.

I read an interesting biography of St. Saul, as nobody ever calls him: Paul of Tarsus by T R Glover, which looks into the text and brings out a lot that can be reasonably inferred - or at times just speculated - about his life and his character. First of all, his tent-building. Secondly, his enthusiasm of sports. The book makes the case that Paul had a history as a competitive wrestler, which certainly suits him. Once he was on the road as a missionary, he was disabled - we’re never quite told how - he called it his ‘thorn in the flesh’, but there’s compelling reason to believe he was losing his eyesight. Whatever it was, Saul prayed with passion to be relieved of his impairment, but it was not taken from him, and he accepted it as something to keep him from getting proud. And if you’ve read St Paul talking about himself, you may know it’s good that he had something to keep him humble.

At times in his writing, he admits that he’s venturing into personal opinion, rather than God-given rulings - and I respect that. In 1 Corinthians: ‘Now concerning virgins, I have no command of the Lord, but I give my opinion as one who by the Lord’s mercy is trustworthy’. It’s actually a relief to know that some sentences of the Bible may reflect individual and social views, rather than utterly Word of God, though I know that’s contentious.

You may hear people claim that Saul was his original name, but that he changed it to Paul when he became Christian, but this isn’t the case, and certainly isn’t said in the Bible. He had two names, because he was both Jewish - and named after King Saul - and a Roman citizen, and like all Roman citizens had a Roman name, Paulus. The fact he had Roman citizenship is pretty important, as it meant he was held to different standards under Roman law. We mainly see him use ‘Saul’ at the start when he’s in Israel, and ‘Paul’ later on, as he goes into non-Jewish areas, different cities around Asia minor, and the rest of the Gentile world.

The other thing we know a lot about, re: Paul, which the book actually surprised me with its take on, is Paul’s conversion on the Road to Damascus. He was travelling along the road, and suddenly he had a vision of Jesus, and believed. As a child, this was always explained as him being zapped with faith, miraculously made to believe, but as the book unpacks, this makes much more sense if it’s the inevitable crisis of Saul’s knowledge and reasoning. He had an impeccable Jewish education, and knew the laws, the histories and all Messianic prophecies inside out, and loved to use them in debate. He had been going around persecuting Christians, but he also had personal knowledge of Christianity from his own family members. He says, in Romans 16, ‘Salute Andronicus and Junia, my kinsmen, and my fellow prisoners, who are of note among the apostles, who also were in Christ before me.’ He had been mulling this all in his heart for the months of his anti-crusade, and the road to Damascus is where he finally went ‘oh heck!’

The biggest evidence that Saul’s conversion to Christianity was not a miracle or mind-control, but the culmination of logic and experience (and, in either case, the spirit) is the fact that he believes others like him can be converted just be applying their knowledge. Acts chapter 24-26, which for me are the rhetorical highlight of the New Testament, and are up there with the best bits of Julius Caesar, see Paul on trial. He was on trial for preaching Christianity, and to be honest he could have got off with a pardon by now if he hadn’t insisted on escalating and escalating his case to progressively higher courts, so he can preach to more people and eventually, perhaps to Caesar. Paul is having a great time laying out the whole thing in front of governor Festus and the Jewish king Agrippa. Paul points out that Agrippa knows Jewish prophecy just as well as he does, and shares that thorough knowledge — and also that Agrippa has seen and heard all the evidence of what Jesus did, a very few years earlier. He says, ‘these are not obscure things, Jesus’s words and works weren’t hidden, or in the darkness, or obscure or obtuse - they were right out in the open’. The actual quote, as given in the KJV: “This thing was not done in a corner”! Which is an amazing phrase! Agrippa should be able to put two and two together - or, a more complex but still achievable sum for a person of his wisdom and learning - and should be able to see the truth just as clearly as Paul does.

And Agrippa says, either sincerely, or joking, or mocking, ‘you’ve almost persuaded me’. ‘Almost thou persuadest me to become a Christian’. It pains me, if he really came so close to believing. ‘Paul, you’ve got me half convinced’, to which Paul replies, ‘I really wish — I really wish you were half convinced, and also the other half convinced, and in fact I wish everyone in this court was just like me, except not in chains’.

Paul is a fascinating figure, and Acts 24-26 are well worth reading as one of his passionate highlights. I set them to music once, and they continue to draw me back. I’d love to have met Paul, as I think he would be a hot-blooded and exciting conversationalist. He comes to mind whenever I think ‘who are the six people, living or dead, who I’d invite to a dinner party’. Ultimately, I always decide to leave St Paul off the list because I don’t think he’d let anyone else get a word in edgeways. He’s more loquacious than gracious, so out of the billions who have lived, I’d rather invite Roy Castle.

*If you’d like to hear my song on St. Paul and Agrippa, you’ll find it on this Bandcamp as part of my unspellable and unpronouncable album of Biblical songs, Kibrothhattaavah, a word which is notable for having three double-letters. If you would instead like to hear somebody else’s song on St. Paul and Agrippa, I’m pretty sure there’s one on on Flying Scroll Flight Control by Half-Handed Cloud, who are my favourite Biblical musical artiste, and sets portions of the Bible to music that nobody else would dare. And what music!*

The last thing I will say for Saul / Paul: his oratorical style is much as the same as his day-job: he was in tents.