Great lion of God - Taylor Caldwell

Like Dear and Glorious Physician, Taylor Caldwell’s new novel deals with one of the great figures of the Bible: this time it is St. Paul, the man who spread Christianity throughout the Roman world and kept it from disappearing like so many other Jewish sects both before and after Christ.

At the very outset, the reader discovers that Saul didn’t come from a poor tent-making family in Tarsus but from a very rich and powerful Roman-Jewish family. He was taught to make tents because every wealthy Jewish boy in his day was taught a trade. Also, he was given an excellent education, first by his Greek tutor and then by the scholars in Tarsus and Jerusalem. There is a moving affair with a slave girl which comes early in the book and which explains his hatred of women. It is easy to understand also his dislike of the Christians, who in many ways were the hippies of their day.

From the very beginning, he had the enormous power which was to stay with him all his life—power which was first used against the Christians, and later, after his conversion, was used on their behalf.