An Irish Diary

Bolt from the blue – An Irishman’s Diary about the conversion of St Paul

Caravaggio: The Conversion of Saint Paul (1600). Odescalchi Balbi Collection, Rome

Frank McNally's face
Frank McNally
Wed Jan 25 2017 - 00:01

In Christian tradition, today – a full calendar month after Christmas – is the feast-day of the conversion of St Paul, a man sometimes called the religion’s “second founder”. As even devout atheists will know, the pivotal event in his life is said to have happened when he was travelling from Jerusalem to Damascus, where he was planning to arrest some believers.

Instead, near his destination, he was himself arrested by a “light from heaven” [...] “brighter than the sun”. Some unseen force threw him to the ground, as it did the men around him. Then a thunderous voice spoke, and the rest is religious history.

After three days of blindness, he recovered his sight, amended his name and ways, and became as ardent a promoter of Christianity as he had been its persecutor – to the extent that some 25 years later, about 60 AD, he himself died a martyr.

Nearly 2,000 years on, countless millions still believe the story of his conversion to be literally true.

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Others have sought scientific explanations, ranging from sunstroke to temporal lobe epilepsy. And only in the last few years, a dramatic new addition to the field of alternative explanations has arisen, courtesy of the Chelyabinsk meteor of 2013.

You may recall that the latter event was captured on video by startled onlookers in southern Russia. The meteoroid involved was the largest natural object known to have entered the earth's atmosphere since 1908, and its blast wave caused 1,500 injuries, mostly minor, as well as damaging 7,000 buildings.

But in the brief period for which it burned, the object was also brighter than the sun.

And at least one US astronomer noticed uncanny similarities between this event and the one St Paul experienced circa 35 AD.

Writing for the journal Meteoritics & Planetary Science, William Hartmann argued that the biblical accounts of Paul's conversion were exactly consistent with a celestial fireball, Chelyabinsk-style.

That might indeed have thrown people within its blast wave to the ground, and temporally blinded anyone who saw it. As for the thunderous voice, allowing for poetic licence, a meteor would have had one of those too.

Against all of which it must be said (and was, in a subsequent issue of New Scientist) that, to prove the Pauline fireball theory, somebody would need to find the "smoking gun" (ie meteorite fragments) in modern Syria.

But of course, it wouldn’t be smoking anymore. And even the best dating techniques would be approximations. So for now, the theory remains just that.

In the meantime, religion aside, St Paul’s story has also provided humanity with a powerful metaphor for dramatic personal change in mid-career. Politicians should be especially grateful. Their mere U-turns are frowned upon as signs of weakness, but conversions on the “Road to Damascus” can seem statesmanlike, and everybody is allowed one.

It must also be for its Damascene connections that January 25th used to be considered the most ominous of the many weather-predicting dates of the year, like Groundhog Day or St Swithin’s, but more far-reaching.

Conditions on the day were believed to predict the general events of a year. Rain or snow foretold a good harvest. Mist meant animal mortalities. Storms, more worryingly, pointed to war. “But if high winds shall be aloft,” went the rhyme, “wars shall vex this realm full oft.” (Given recent events, nervous readers may be reassured that today’s winds are predicted to be very mild, on both sides of the Atlantic.)

The date’s dangerous reputation may also have been influenced by its inclusion in a list of so-called “Egyptian days” which, from ancient times, were said to be unlucky. The belief in them was regularly condemned by the early Christian church, but continued to be marked by calendars into the medieval era.

History books do not suggest that January 25th has been particularly cursed down the centuries. By coincidence, it did mark the start of the Egyptian revolution of 2011, and is now celebrated as such.

But the jury is still out on the extent to which that event was auspicious or otherwise.

Nor can I find any particularly ominous birthdays on this date. Back in 1759, however – on a stormy night, by all accounts – it heralded the arrival of a literary star: a country’s future national poet.

His career could well be described as “meteoric”, because it was as short as it was brilliant. It also ended badly, as meteors do, and the trajectory may even have been foretold by his surname. This was of course “Burns”.

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