Paul of Tarsus, of Jewish name Saul of Tarsus or Saul Paul, and better known as St. Paul, is called the "Apostle of the Gentiles," the "Apostle of the Nations," or simply "the Apostle." Founder of Christian communities, evangelizer in several of the most important urban centers of the Roman Empire such as Antioch, Corinth, Ephesus and Rome, and editor of some of the first Christian canonical writings -including the oldest known, the First epistle to the Thessalonians- Paul is a first-rate personality of early Christianity and one of the most influential figures in the history of Christianity.
From the analysis of his authentic epistles, it appears that Paul of Tarsus gathered in his personality his Jewish roots, the great influence that Hellenic culture had on him and his recognized interaction with the Roman Empire, whose citizenship - in the words of the book of Acts of the Apostles - exercised. Paul used this set of conditions to found several of the first Christian centers and to announce the figure of Jesus Christ to both Jews and Gentiles. Without having belonged to the initial circle of the Twelve Apostles, and traveling paths marked by incomprehension and adversity, Paul became an eminent architect in the construction and expansion of Christianity in the Roman Empire, thanks to his talent, his conviction and his character unquestionably missionary, his thought shaped the so-called Pauline Christianity, one of the four basic currents of primitive Christianity that ended up integrating the biblical canon.
Of the so-called Pauline epistles, the Epistle to the Romans, the First and Second epistles to the Corinthians, the Epistle to the Galatians, the Epistle to the Philippians, the First Epistle to the Thessalonians and the Epistle to Philemon have in Paul of Tarsus its author practically undisputed. They are, together with the book of the Acts of the Apostles, the independent primary sources whose exhaustive scientific-literary study allowed to fix some dates of their lives, to establish a relatively precise chronology of their activity, and a quite finished semblance of their passionate personality His writings, of which copies as old as papyrus have come to the present... P...46 dated from the years 175-225, were accepted unanimously by all the Christian Churches. His figure, associated with the summit of Christian experimental mysticism, was inspiring in such diverse arts as architecture, sculpture, painting, literature, and cinematography and is for Christianity, from its earliest times, an inescapable source of doctrine and spirituality.