Paul the Apostle

Paul of Tarsus, originally named Saul, was a first-century Jewish-Roman apostle and theologian whose letters constitute the earliest extant Christian writings. Born a Pharisee and Roman citizen in Tarsus of Cilicia, he first persecuted followers of Jesus before experiencing a dramatic conversion near Damascus. He subsequently undertook at least three major missionary journeys throughout the eastern Mediterranean, establishing communities in Asia Minor, Macedonia, and Greece, and his epistles to those communities shaped Christian theology for two millennia. Arrested in Jerusalem and held in Caesarea, he exercised his right as a Roman citizen to appeal to Caesar and was transported to Rome, where tradition holds he was martyred under Nero.