This religious statue is in one side of the door "Puerta del Perdón", where you can access to the "Patio de los Naranjos", close the Cathedral of Sevilla.
We can see San Pablo with the toga and with a sword leaning on the ground with his hand.
SAIN PAUL
"St. Paul's efforts to bring his vision of a world church to fruition were instrumental in the rapid spread of Christianity and its subsequent consolidation as a universal religion. None of the followers of Jesus Christ contributed as much as he did to establish the foundations of Christian doctrine and practice.
Biography
The fundamental sources about the life of Saint Paul all belong to the New Testament: the Acts of the Apostles and the fourteen Epistles attributed to him, addressed to various Christian communities. Of these, various sectors of biblical criticism have questioned the Pauline authorship of the so-called pastoral letters (the first and second Epistle to Timothy and the Epistle to Titus ), while there is practically unanimity in considering the Epistle to the Hebrews as written by a different author. Despite the availability of such sources, their chronological data is vague, and when there are divergences between the Actsand the Epistles , preference is usually given to the latter.
Saul (such was his Hebrew name) was born into a wealthy family of artisans, Jewish Pharisees of Hellenistic culture who had the legal status of Roman citizens. After the usual studies in the Jewish community of the place, Saul was sent to Jerusalem to continue them in the school of the best doctors of the Law, especially in that of the famous Rabbi Gamaliel. He thus acquired a solid theological, philosophical, legal, mercantile and linguistic training (he spoke Greek, Latin, Hebrew and Aramaic).
He was not, however, to reside in Jerusalem in the year 30, at the time of the crucifixion of Jesus of Nazareth ; but he was surely living in the holy city when, in the year 36, Deacon Stephen, a martyr for his faith, was stoned to death. In accordance with the education he had received, presided over by the strictest observance of the Pharisaic traditions, Saul stood out in those years as a staunch persecutor of Christianity, then considered a heretical sect of Judaism. Uncompromisingly orthodox, young Saul of Tarsus was present not only at Stephen's stoning, but also offered to keep an eye on the assassins' clothing.
The Apostle to the Gentiles
In the company of Saint Barnabas , Saint Paul began the first of his missionary journeys from Antioch, which took him in the year 46 to Cyprus and then to various locations in Asia Minor. In Cyprus, where they obtained the first fruits of his work, Saul definitively abandoned his Hebrew name to adopt the Latin cognomen of Paulus, which he probably had as a second surname since he was a child. His Romanity could seem opportune for the development of the mission that the apostle intended to carry out in Gentile environments. Henceforth, it would be he who would carry the word of the Gospel to the pagan world; with Paul, the message of Jesus would leave the Jewish, Palestinian framework, to become universal.
Throughout his preaching, Saint Paul appeared successively in the synagogues of the various Jewish communities; but this presentation almost always ended in failure. Very few were the Hebrews who embraced Christianity through his work. Word of him fell much more effectively among the Gentiles and among the indifferent who knew nothing of the Hebrew monotheistic religion. In this first trip he traveled, in addition to Cyprus, some remote regions of Asia Minor. He created Christian centers in Perge (Pamphylia), in Antioch of Pysidia, in Lystra, Iconium and Derbe of Lycaonia. The success was remarkable; but there were also numerous difficulties. At Lystra he escaped death only because his stoners mistakenly believed that he was already dead.
Between the first and second trips, Saint Paul resided for some time in Antioch (49-50 AD), from where he went to Jerusalem to attend the so-called "Council of the Apostles". The questions that were going to be dealt with in the council were of a gravity hardly conceivable in our days. It was necessary to elucidate the legality of baptizing pagans (some Judeo-Christians were still opposed to such an initiative), and, above all, to establish or reject the obligatory nature of the Jewish precepts for converts who came from paganism. The success of his evangelizing work allowed Saint Paul to impose the thesis that the Gentile Christians should have the same consideration as the Jews; he profound expositor of the value of the Mosaic Law and its historical importance,
The second evangelical journey (50-53) included a visit to the Christian communities of Anatolia, founded a few years earlier; then he went through part of Galatia proper, visited some cities of proconsular Asia and then went to Macedonia and Achaia. Evangelization was particularly evident in Philippos, Thessalonica, Berea and Corinth. Athens was also visited by Saint Paul, who delivered the famous Areopagus speech there, in which he combated Stoic philosophy. The result, from the evangelizing point of view, was rather meager. During his stay in Corinth, where he was in contact with the governor of the province, Gallón (brother of Seneca), apparently Saint Paul began his activity as a writer, sending the first and second Epistle to the Thessalonians , in which he enlightens the faithful about the parousia or second coming of Christ and the resurrection of the flesh.
The third trip (53-54-58) began with a visit to the communities of Asia Minor and also continued through Macedonia and Achaia, where Saint Paul the Apostle spent three months. But as the main center the great city of Ephesus was chosen. There he remained for almost three years, working with a group of collaborators in the city and its region, especially in the towns of the Lico Valley. It was a very profitable apostolate, but also full of fatigue for Saint Paul: these culminated in the riot in Ephesus, provoked by Demetrius, representative of the numerous merchants who exploited the sale of the souvenir statuettes of Artemis. Saint Paul, referring to a previous episode, speaks of a fight with wild beasts; he is almost certain that the expression is metaphorical,
From Ephesus he wrote the first Epistle to the Corinthians , in which the difficulties encountered by Christianity in a licentious and frivolous environment such as that of the city of the Isthmus are very transparent. The writing of the Epistle to the Galatians and the Epistle to the Philippians is probably located in the same city , while the second Epistle to the Corinthians was written shortly after in Macedonia. From Corinth the apostle sent the important Epistle to the Romans , in which he deals thoroughly with the relationship between faith and works in regard to salvation. With this he intended to prepare his next visit to the capital of the empire.
Last years
However, events unfolded differently. Paul having gone to Jerusalem to deliver a large collection to that poor church, he was imprisoned by the chiliarch Lysia, who sent him to the Roman proconsul Felix of Caesarea. There the apostle spent two years in military custody. They decided to ship it, heavily guarded, bound for Rome, where Nero 's courts would rule on it. The sea voyage was, on the other hand, fruitful in picturesque episodes (such as the shipwreck and the miraculous salvation), and during it the prestige of the apostle was finally imposed on his guardians (winter 60-61).
From the years 61 to 63 Saint Paul lived in Rome, part in prison and part in a kind of parole and supervised release, in a private home. In the course of this first Roman captivity he wrote at least three of his letters: the Epistle to the Ephesians , the Epistle to the Colossians , and the Epistle to Philemon .
Released, since none of the accusations made against him had been considered consistent by the imperial courts, he resumed his ministry; but from this point on the story is not so accurate. Missing for this period is the precious help of the Acts of the Apostles , which are interrupted by his arrival in Rome. St. Paul traveled through Crete, Illyria, and Achaea; with great probability he was also in Spain. Two letters of disputed attribution would date from this period, the first Epistle to Timothy and the Epistle to Titus ; he also by then he would have composed the Epistle to the Hebrews . An intense organizational activity of the Church is perceived in them.
In the year 66, when he was probably in the Tréade, Saint Paul was arrested again on the denunciation of a false brother. From Rome he wrote the most moving of his letters, the Second Epistle to Timothy ., in which he expresses his only desire: to suffer for Christ and to give his life together with Him for the Church. Locked up in a hideous prison, he lived the last months of his existence illuminated only by this supernatural hope. He felt humanly abandoned by everyone. In circumstances that have remained quite obscure, he was sentenced to death; according to tradition, as he was a Roman citizen, he was beheaded with the sword. This probably happened in the year 67 AD. C., not far from the road that leads from Rome to Ostia. According to a respectable tradition, the abbey of the Three Fontanas occupies the exact place of the beheading.
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