Randomonia Pauli

 Randimonia Pauli 

August 1031, 2014

Yet another random entry* from “a work in progress,” Gaspar Stephens’ Neo Encyclopedia of Greek and Roman Mythology (long in progress but still listed as forthcoming from Balthazar & Melchior Stephens Press).  For previous entries from the Neo Encyc. featured on The Ambiguities, see 08.33.14, 08.59.14, and 08.1023.14.

Paul (also Saul, also the Apostle) [Gk. Παῦλος, L. Paulus]. While technically neither a Greek nor Roman mythological figure, Paul, self-styled ὁ ἐθνϖν ἀπόστολος (the apostle to the nations), was a Roman citizen who wrote in Greek and a legendary figure both in his own mind and heart and then and since in many others’ as well.

The Apopsicle, though
Paul was never known
to have "chilled."

     Born in Tarsus in Asia Minor around the turn of the era, a Pharisee tent-maker by trade, Saul began his religious career with the Christian persecution arm (ΣΚΧ¹) of the Judean Inquisition.² But having met the risen Christ on his way to Damascus to suppress Christianity there, Paul converted to the new faith in order to harass believers from within.

     Now “the Apostle,” Paul trekked tirelessly throughout the known world. Based in Jerusalem, but accountable to no one there, he journeyed to Cyprus, Pamphylia, Derbe, Philippi, Salonica, Athens, Corinth, Thessalonica, Galatia, and Phrygia, in all but one of which he gathered people together, told them what to do and what not to do, and they listened. His singular lack of success came at Athens, his arrival haphazard with a time in the city’s cultural history when people already had “more than enough shit to think about,” according to the contemporary philosopher Protoiulian. So, “we didn’t need one more crackpot telling us what was what – and how to do it – where was where – and how to get there – or why was why, and that was that!” (The Lakides II.333).

     Paul spent considerable time in prison beginning in Jerusalem and continuing toward the end of his life in Rome; and prison life seemed to agree with him. It was on his way from one incarceration to another that he was shipwrecked on Malta, though he came safely to Puteoli and then to Rome. His imprisonment in Rome ended when he was beheaded by Nero, after which he went to Spain, where he settled in Augusta Bilbilis (now Calatayud), where – here legend is unclear – he was either friends with Martial (Marcus Valerius Martialis) or the cause of the poet’s leaving Spanish wine country for Rome.

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¹ τὸ συνέδριον κάκωεος τϖν χριστιανϖν² The term is Leopold von Ratzinger’s.

05.27.17 

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      * Our motto: “Everything is random, and there is nothing that not random is.”