Red-Letter Day
The Conversion of St. Paul
January 25
also known as Conversion of St. Paul, St. Paul's Conversion, Damascus Road
On the twenty-fifth of January the Church remembers the day the man who had set out to destroy her was stopped on the road and made her apostle. The date is liturgical, not historical: Scripture gives the encounter near Damascus no calendar day. Since 1908 the same date has closed the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity.
Saul of Tarsus was travelling to Damascus with authority to arrest the followers of Jesus and bring them back bound. He was not a bystander to the persecution; by his own later account, written in his own hand, he had persecuted the church of God beyond measure and wasted it. What the Church celebrates on this day is that the journey did not end as he intended it. A light out of heaven, a fall to the ground, and a voice: "Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?" He asked who was speaking, and the answer was, "I am Jesus whom thou persecutest." He rose blind, was led into the city by the hand, and three days later was baptized by a disciple named Ananias, who had been afraid of him.
That is Luke's telling, in the Book of the Acts of the Apostles, set down a generation and more after the event. Paul's own letters, earlier and first-hand, keep almost none of the scene. To the Galatians he writes only that it pleased God to reveal his Son in him, that he might preach him among the heathen, and that he conferred not with flesh and blood. The bare claim is his; the road, the light, the blindness and the friend sent to receive him are Luke's gift to the Church's memory, told three times in Acts for three different hearers, and told with the plain differences of a story remembered rather than a report filed.
The day itself has a later and more modest history than the event. It is a Western feast. The oldest Roman sacramentary to survive from the eighth century, the Old Gelasian, has no Mass for the twenty-fifth of January at all; nor has the Metrical Calendar of York from the same century any entry for that day. It appears in the Frankish sacramentaries of the later eighth century, and by the time of Charlemagne it stands plainly in the calendar of the Roman Office. Even inside the Gregorian Sacramentary its formulary was written in, as that book's modern editor observed, a crude and unpractised hand later than the rest. Whatever the day first commemorated, the Church cannot now recover it with certainty.
What the Church has said the day is for is better attested than where it came from. Preaching in North Africa in 414, long before any such feast existed, Augustine said that Paul was pardoned for precisely this reason: that none who may have been involved in great sins should despair of themselves, as though they would not receive pardon. Eight centuries later the Golden Legend gave three reasons for keeping the day, and put that one first: that no sinner, whatsoever he be, should despair of pardon when he sees one who was in so great sin brought into so great joy. An English parish priest of the 1380s, John Mirk, opened his sermon for the day by simply telling his people that such a day was coming and what it was called, then gave them the same comfort with a warning fastened to it, having seen the comfort used as a licence.
The English Church kept the day through the Reformation, one of a small number of holy days retained with a proper collect, epistle and gospel; Parliament swept it away with all others in 1647, and 1662 restored it, praying that God, who through the preaching of the blessed Apostle Saint Paul had caused the light of the Gospel to shine throughout the world, would grant that we, having his wonderful conversion in remembrance, might show forth our thankfulness. Since 1908 the date has carried a second freight: it closes the octave, now the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, that begins with the Confession of Peter on the eighteenth. Preaching at St Paul Outside the Walls on this day in 2009, Benedict XVI drew the two together: unity, he said, requires conversion.
The oldest thing said about this day is still the truest thing to say: that the chief of sinners obtained mercy, and that the door he was brought through was not shut behind him.
You may find the drama of this day difficult to use. Most lives do not turn on a road in an afternoon, and Newman, preaching on Paul in the nineteenth century, argued that even this one did not: what fell away suddenly, he said, was the outward profession of an error that had long been losing its root. But the feast does not ask you to match Paul's experience. It asks you to believe what Augustine drew out of it and what the Church has repeated for sixteen hundred years, that the man who had done the worst was met, named, and sent. Mirk knew that a congregation can turn that comfort into a reason to delay. Where in your own life have you quietly decided that God has more patience than you have time?
The event this day commemorates carries no date. Acts gives no calendar day for the encounter near Damascus, and reconstructions placing it a few years after the Crucifixion are inferences from Galatians and Acts rather than attestations. The direction of travel in the sources runs the other way: the Golden Legend, compiled about 1260, assigns the event to the eighth calends of February, which is to say it read the date off the feast rather than the feast off the date.
The feast's own record begins with two silences. H. A. Wilson's 1894 edition of the Old Gelasian Sacramentary, whose Roman material belongs to the seventh century, runs its January sequence from Felix and Marcellus through Fabian, Agnes and Sebastian to Agnes a second time, and then to the Purification on the second of February, with no Mass for the twenty-fifth. The Metrical Calendar of York, of the mid-eighth century, has no entry for that day at all. Against these stand the Frankish sacramentaries of the later eighth century, the Angoulême and Autun books among them, which carry the collect that survives into the English Prayer Book. The earliest positive attestation that can be independently confirmed is Pierre Batiffol's reconstruction of the calendar of the Roman Office in the time of Charlemagne, built by cross-checking the Antiphonary of St Peter's against the Gregorian Sacramentary and a Trier lectionary of the first years of the ninth century: its January table reads "25. Conversion of S. Paul." In the Gregorian Sacramentary itself, Wilson's 1915 edition notes that the Masses for the Conversion and for the Chair of Peter were written in a crude and unskilled hand, apparently of the late ninth or early tenth century, later than the book around them.
The manuscript picture therefore points to a Gallican or Frankish rather than a Roman origin, which sits awkwardly beside the best-known account of the day's beginnings. The Catholic Encyclopedia of 1908 held that the feast was of comparatively recent origin, that the day was first observed to mark the translation of Paul's relics at Rome, and that it is unknown to the Greek Church. That is one sentence of early twentieth-century scholarship resting on a martyrology no one in this pipeline read; it should be attributed and not asserted. A modern Vatican page dating the feast to the sixth century cites nothing and is contradicted by both eighth-century silences.
The Eastern absence, unlike the origin, is well established. The twenty-fifth of January in the Byzantine calendar belongs to Gregory the Theologian, who died on that day in 390, with Apollo of the Thebaid and the martyr Felicitas of Rome; Peter and Paul are kept jointly on the twenty-ninth of June. The Coptic, Armenian and Ethiopian calendars were separately checked and carry no conversion feast. This is not a shared feast kept on two dates but one the East never received, and no Eastern source disputing it was found either. Whether the Syriac churches nearest Damascus mark the day is genuinely unknown.
The day produces no object and no dish. Unlike Candlemas with its candles or Palm Sunday with its crosses, no enduring liturgical article belongs to it, and searches across Western, Maltese, Iberian and Eastern practice turned up no feast dish and no fast. That silence is a finding, not a gap.
What it has produced is weather. Robert Chambers records medieval Latin verses beginning Clara dies Pauli bona tempora denotat anni, which he says are found very frequently in the manuscripts of the middle ages, and their English form, "If St Paul's day be fair and clear, / It does betide a happy year." Several English translations circulated, so no single wording is the wording. Chambers judged that of all such day-prognostics none were anything like so generally held and believed in as the day of the Conversion of St Paul. The belief has lapsed; it survives in folklore collections describing early modern and nineteenth-century English country practice.
Twice the day carried the weight of the state. On the twenty-fifth of January 1555 London kept it with a general procession of the children of all the city's schools and the Bishop of London bearing the sacrament under a canopy, the king and Cardinal Pole hearing Mass at St Paul's; that night, by command, bonfires were lit through the city for joy of the people that were converted as St Paul was converted. The chronicler of the Grey Friars records it, and his next entry is the burning of John Rogers at Smithfield ten days later. Ninety-two years later the same day was abolished by ordinance. Older still, a Sir William Baud was permitted in 1375 to enclose twenty acres of the Dean's land at St Paul's on condition of presenting the cathedral clergy a fat buck and doe each year on this day and on the Commemoration of Paul, the buck offered at the high altar and its head carried in procession; the custom lapsed in the sixteenth century.
The living observance is Maltese and Roman. Paul is Malta's patron by the shipwreck tradition, and Mdina keeps the day with the veneration of his relic, Pontifical Mass, and First and Second Vespers, while the Valletta parish holds its patronal festa with a statue procession. At Rome, popes have kept Vespers at St Paul Outside the Walls on this date across recent pontificates, at the close of the week of prayer that begins with Peter's confession.
Scripture is quoted from the Authorized (King James) Version: Acts 9:1-9 for the narrative of the road, and Galatians 1:11-17 for Paul's own account, both from the text at Wikisource; 1 Timothy 1:15, "Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners; of whom I am chief," which Cranmer set among the Comfortable Words of the Communion service.
For the liturgical texts: the collect of 1662 and the day's epistle and gospel are quoted from the Church of England's own edition of the Book of Common Prayer; the 1549 collect from The First and Second Prayer-Books of King Edward the Sixth (Everyman, at archive.org); and the Sarum propers from J. Wickham Legg, ed., The Sarum Missal, edited from three early manuscripts (Oxford: Clarendon, for the Henry Bradshaw Society, 1916), pp. 243-244. The ACNA propers and collect are quoted from the official Holy Day leaflet at bcp2019.anglicanchurch.net.
For the calendar history: H. A. Wilson, ed., The Gelasian Sacramentary (Clarendon, 1894), for the January sequence that omits this day; Wilson, ed., The Gregorian Sacramentary under Charles the Great (Henry Bradshaw Society, 1915), p. 379, for the note that the Conversion and Chair Masses were written in a later and unskilled hand; and Pierre Batiffol, History of the Roman Breviary, trans. Baylay, pp. 139-140, for the reconstructed Carolingian calendar entry.
For the pastoral tradition: Augustine, Sermon 278 §1, in the Works of Saint Augustine translation by Edmund Hill, whose editorial note establishes that the sermon was not preached on this feast, which did not exist in the North African calendar; Jacobus de Voragine, The Golden Legend, Caxton's English, chapter "Of the Conversion of S. Paul," at CCEL, for the three reasons and the dating of the event; John Mirk, Festial, sermon 13, ed. Erbe, Early English Text Society ES 96, pp. 52-56; John Henry Newman, "Sudden Conversions," Parochial and Plain Sermons VIII.xv, pp. 217-229; and Benedict XVI's homily at St Paul Outside the Walls, 25 January 2009, at vatican.va.
For the English legislation and the customs: Acts and Ordinances of the Interregnum, at British History Online, p. 954, for the ordinance of 8 June 1647; the Chronicle of the Grey Friars of London (Camden Society, 1852), p. 94, for the procession and bonfires of 1555; and Robert Chambers, The Book of Days I, pp. 157-158, for the weather verses, Butler's report of the council of Oxford, and the Baud obligation. The Catholic Encyclopedia article "St. Paul" (1908) at New Advent supplies the relic-translation hypothesis and the observation that the feast is unknown to the Greek Church. The chronology of the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity follows the published history of the Dicastery for Promoting Christian Unity.
He is not converted that shrives him to the priest of one sin and hides another. It is said conversion, for S. Paul this day was converted to the faith leaving his vices. Why he is said Paul, it shall be said afterward.
Of the Conversion of S. Paul.
The conversion of S. Paul was made the same year that Christ suffered his passion, and S. Stephen was stoned also, not in the year natural, but appearing. For our Lord suffered death the eighth calends of April, and S. Stephen suffered death the same year, the third day of August and was stoned. And S. Paul was converted the eighth calends of February. And three reasons been assigned wherefore the conversion of S. Paul is hallowed more than of other saints.
First for the ensample, because that no sinner, whatsomever he be, should despair of pardon when he sees him that was in so great sin to be in so great joy. Secondly for the joy, for like as the church had great sorrow in this persecution, so had she great joy in his conversion. Thirdly, for the miracle that our Lord showed when of one so cruel a persecutor was made so true a preacher. The conversion of him was marvellous by reason of him that made him, and of him that ordained him, and of the patient that suffered it. By reason of him that made him to be converted, that was Jesu Christ, which showed there his marvellous puissance in that he said: It is hard for you to strive against the alle or pricks; and in that he changed him so suddenly, for anon as he was changed he said: Lord what will you that I do? Upon this word says S. Austin: The lambs slain of the wolves have made of a wolf a lamb, for he was ready for to obey, that tofore was wood for to persecute. Secondly, he showed his marvellous wisdom. His marvellous wisdom was in that he took from him the swelling of pride in offering to him the inward things of humility and not the height of majesty. For he said I am Jesus of Nazareth, and he called not himself God ne the son of God, but he said to him, take your infirmities of humanity and cast away the squames of pride. Thirdly, he showed his pitiful debonairty and mercy, which is signified in that that he that was in deed and in will to persecute, he converted, how be it he had evil will, as he that desired all the menaces and threatenings, and had evil purpose; as he that went to the prince of priests; as he that had a joy in his evil works that he led the christian men bound to Jerusalem. And therefore his journey and voyage was right evil, and yet nevertheless by the mercy of God was he converted. Secondly the conversion was marvellous of him that ordained it, that is of the light that he ordained in his conversion. And it is said that this light was dispositive, sudden, and celestial, and this light of heaven advironed him suddenly. Paul had in him these vices. The first was hardiness, which is noted when it is said that he went to the prince of the priests, and as the gloss says, not called, but by his own will and envy that enticed him. The second was pride, and that is signified by that he desired and sighed the menaces and threatenings. The third was the intent carnal, and the understanding that he had in the law, whereof the gloss says upon that word: I am Jesus, etc. I God of heaven speak, the which you suppose to be dead by the consent of the Jews. And this light divine was sudden, it was great, and out of measure, for to throw down him that was high and proud, into the ditch or pit of humanity; it was celestial, because it turned and changed his fleshly understanding into celestial, or it may be said that this ordinance or disposition was in three things; that is to wit in the voice crying, in the light shining, and in the virtue of puissance. Thirdly, it was marvellous by the virtue of the suffering of the patient, that is of Paul in whom the conversion was made. For these three things were made in him withoutforth marvellously, that it is to wit, that he was beaten to the earth, he was blind and fasted three days, and was smitten down to the ground for to be raised. And S. Austin says that he was smitten down for to be blind, for to be changed, and for to be sent; he was sent to suffer death for truth. And yet says S. Austin, he that was out of the faith was hurt for to be made believe, the persecutor was hurt for to be made a preacher, the son of perdition was hurt for to be made the vessel of election, and was made blind for to be illumined, and this was as touching his dark understanding.
Then in the three days that he abode thus blind, he was learned and informed in the gospel, for he learned it never of man ne by man, as he himself witnesses, but by the revelation of Jesu Christ. And S. Austin says thus: I say that S. Paul was the very champion of Jesu Christ, taught of him, redressed of him, crucified with him, and glorious in him. He was made lean in his flesh that his flesh should be disposed to the effect of good operation, and from forthon his body was established and disposed to all good. He could well suffer hunger and abundance, and was informed and instructed in all things, and all adversities he gladly suffered. Chrysostom says: He overcame tormentors, tyrants, and people full of woodness, like as flies; and the death, the torments and all the pains that might be done to him, he counted them but as the play of children. All them he embraced with a good will, and he was ennobled in himself to be bound in a strong chain more than to be crowned with a crown, and received more gladly strokes and wounds than other gifts. And it is read that in him were three things against the three that were in our foremost father Adam, for Adam erected and addressed him against God our Lord. and in S. Paul was contrary for he was thrown down to the earth. In Adam was the opening of his eyes, and Paul was on the contrary made blind, and Adam ate of the fruit defended, and S. Paul contrary was abstinent of convenable meat.
In the West the day was widely kept by the high middle ages. Alban Butler reported, and Robert Chambers repeated in 1864, that it was for some time a holiday of obligation in most churches of the West and was mentioned as such in England at the council of Oxford in 1222; no primary conciliar text was located, and the claim travels only on that authority. The Sarum books rank it a simple feast of nine lessons, a middling grade, with a full proper Mass: the introit Letemur omnes in domino, a gradual, alleluia and tract twice naming Paul the chosen vessel, a sequence, and a postcommunion praying that we too, turned from our vices, might rejoice in God's service. Of all that, only the collect and the epistle and gospel passed into the English Prayer Book in 1549. The 1662 revision expanded the collect substantively, adding both the phrase about the light of the Gospel and an entire clause of thanksgiving; the older claim that 1662 merely modernised 1549's spelling does not survive a comparison of the two texts. Parliament abolished the day with all other holy days on 8 June 1647, naming only Christmas, Easter and Whitsun and sweeping the rest in under a general clause, and substituting recreation for scholars, apprentices and servants on the second Tuesday of each month, though only with their masters' leave first obtained. The Restoration brought the feast back as a red-letter day in 1662, and it runs unbroken from there. Scotland's First Book of Discipline in 1560 and Wesley's Sunday Service of 1784 each removed it by category rather than by name, abolishing the feasts of the apostles and the saints' days respectively; neither primary text was consulted here.
The modern chapter is the best documented and the most deliberate. In 1908 Paul Wattson and Lurana White of Graymoor began an octave of prayer for unity running from the eighteenth of January, then the Chair of St Peter at Rome, to the twenty-fifth. Benedict XV extended it to the whole Latin church in 1916. In 1935 Paul Couturier reframed it as prayer for the unity Christ wills by the means he wills, so that Christians outside Rome could keep it; the date survived the change of purpose, and the original purpose did not. Joint preparation with the World Council of Churches began in 1966 and the first officially joint material was used in 1968. On the twenty-fifth of January 1959, at St Paul Outside the Walls, John XXIII announced his intention to convoke an ecumenical council.
The propers have moved once more in living memory. From Sarum through the 1928 American book the day read Acts 9 and Matthew 19, Luke's narrative and Peter's "we have forsaken all." The 1979 book and the ACNA Book of Common Prayer of 2019 appoint instead Acts 26, Paul's testimony before Agrippa, with Psalm 67, Galatians 1 and Matthew 10, and an opening greeting from Isaiah 49. Baptism and renunciation leave the propers; testimony under examination and the mission to the Gentiles come in.
O God, by the preaching of your apostle Paul you have caused the light of the Gospel to shine throughout the world: Grant, we pray, that having his wonderful conversion in remembrance, we may show ourselves thankful to you by following his holy teaching; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.
British (Received Pronunciation): Augustine /ɔːˈɡʌstɪn/
Acts 26:9–21Psalm 67Galatians 1:11–24Matthew 10:16–25