St. Paul outside the Walls

Last updated on: December 21, 2019 at 1:23 am by Ben Witherington

St. Paul outside the Walls 2019-11-27T09:35:59-05:00 Ben Witherington

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On our recent visit to Rome Ann and I visited two churches we had not seen before, and the most recently re-built of these is the beautiful St. Paul outside the (old city) Walls, which is well worth a visit. Actually, there had been other churches called St. Paul’s outside the Wall on this same spot, but even the 19th century one burned down, and the church you see now was constructed in the late 19th and into the 20th century. It is one of four Papal basilicas in Rome, which means it belongs to the Vatican even though it’s in Italian territory. The first basilica in this location is said to go back to Constantine’s era in A.D. 324, but more importantly there is the one built by Theodosius on this locale in 386. Through lightning strikes, Saracen raids, fires and various other calamities the church has been rebuilt again and again. Oddly, from 1215 to 1964 it was the site of the Latin patriarch of Alexandria. The most devastating destruction happened due to a fire in 1823, and the church was not rebuilt until the 1840s. Most recently the Vatican claimed to have found the sarcophagus of St. Paul due to excavations under the church. This may be doubted.

Let’s start instead with the images of St. Paul himself at this church.

(Once again, if your viewing of the picture is sideways, click on the image and St. Paul will stand up right!)

You may well ask— why in the world is St. Paul carrying a sword. Well… in the Catholic tradition he is said to have been a Roman soldier before his conversion— who knew?? The NT of course says no such thing, it simply says that he persecuted Christians and stood by at the stoning of Stephen, which does not make him a Roman soldier by any means. There are, as usual, other things from the Catholic tradition in this church which are likely to cause Protestants to say—- Whaattttt??? For instance, the claim that the very chain with which Paul was chained while under house arrest in Rome in A.D. 60 is found in a glass case in a shrine here…. I think we can say confidently, this is not that chain, but a much more recent one. The whole subject of faux relics will have to be a post for another time and place.

Here are some shots of both the outside and the inside of this beautiful church, including note the gallery high up on the wall of all the Popes (starting of course with Peter and currently finishing with Francis. Note the image of Clement of Rome as the fourth Pope— see the following post about the church of St. Clement).

Here’s a nice Latin inscription which reads ‘preacher of the truth, doctor of the Gentiles’.

Note above what looks like a stained glass window. Actually, it’s not. It’s translucent alabaster!!!
The oddest feature in this large sanctuary is the column to the right of the central altar space which has all sorts of mythological images, gargoyles, and saints on it.

We can conclude with a close up of another odd feature of this basilica– look closely at the following picture. What looks like a turtle approaching the feet of Christ in the central dome is actually an image of a Pope kissing Christ’s feet.

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