St. Paul is known throughout the world as the first Christian writer,
authoring fourteen of the twenty-seven books in the New Testament. But
as Karen Armstrong demonstrates in St. Paul: The Apostle We Love to
Hate, he also exerted a more significant influence on the spread of
Christianity throughout the world than any other figure in history. It
was Paul who established the first Christian churches in Europe and Asia
in the first century, Paul who transformed a minor sect into the largest
religion produced by Western civilization, and Paul who advanced the
revolutionary idea that Christ could serve as a model for the
possibility of transcendence. While we know little about some aspects of
the life of St. Paul--his upbringing, the details of his death--his
dramatic vision of God on the road to Damascus is one of the most
powerful stories in the history of Christianity, and the life that
followed forever changed the course of history.