Unmanly Men: Refigurations of Masculinity in Luke-Acts

Brittany E. Wilson

Print publication date: 2015

Print ISBN-13: 9780199325009
Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: April 2015
DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199325009.001.0001

An Out-of-Control Convert
Paul on the Way to Damascus (Acts 9)

Brittany E. Wilson

DOI:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199325009.003.0006

Abstract and Keywords

Chapter 5 focuses on Paul’s conversion, or call, on the road to Damascus in Acts 9. Paul’s conversion
not only inaugurates his identity as a member of “the Way,” but it provides our first in-depth glimpse
of Paul and shapes his characterization throughout the remainder of Acts. During his roadside
encounter with Jesus, Paul loses two key markers of manliness in the ancient world: self-control and,
more specifically, sight. The chapter begins by recounting Paul’s blinding and the gendered
ramifications of sight and blindness in the ancient world. The chapter then turns to Paul’s lack of
control later in Acts, including his lack of control over his emotions and his body. It concludes by
looking at Luke’s continued emphasis on Paul’s conversion, mainly via Paul’s two retellings of his
conversion in Acts 22 and 26 and the blinding of Bar-Jesus in Acts 13. Paul’s emasculating encounter
on the Damascus road reverses his status from one who persecutes Jesus to one who is persecuted on
behalf of Jesus. Paul demonstrates that obedience to Jesus may lead to persecution (or being an object
of “the gaze”) and that discipleship itself is characterized by dependency.

Keywords: Acts 9, Paul, sight, blindness, the gaze, self-control, emotions, Bar-Jesus, conversion, discipleship, persecution

DIRECTLY AFTER THE Ethiopian eunuch’s conversion to the Way, Luke turns to Paul’s own
conversion, or call, on the way to Damascus in Acts 9. Although Paul does not “convert” from Judaism
to Christianity because of his experience on the Damascus road, he does “convert” his stance toward
Jesus and his followers, signified by Paul’s reversal from one who persecutes the Way to one who
proclaims the Way.1 As second in a string of unlikely conversions spanning Acts 8–10, Paul’s roadside
encounter with Jesus acts as a foil to the eunuch’s own roadside encounter.2 Indeed, Paul is not a
model convert who eagerly receives the gospel, but rather the greatest enemy of the nascent church.
Paul is the most zealous persecutor of Jesus’ followers, imprisoning “both men and women” (8:3; 9:2),
and like Zechariah, he is the recipient of a divinely inflicted miracle that manifests itself in his body.
Paul, then, is also “taken down” via a divine agent, except instead of losing his ability to speak, Paul
loses his ability to see.

Scholarship on the Lukan Paul often contrasts Paul’s characterization before and after his conversion
and asserts that, postconversion, Paul emerges as the single most heroic figure in Acts. This popular
trend in Acts scholarship underlines Paul’s apologetic role in the narrative and often promulgates
(p.154) a “manly” looking Paul, even though his status as a man often goes unmarked.3 According to
this interpretative tendency, Luke parades Paul as a hero of the faith in an effort to legitimize Paul in
the eyes of his audience.4 Paul, so the argument goes, navigates the landscape of Acts in the guise of
an able philosopher and rhetorician, displaying the cardinal virtues of the Hellenistic world, especially
the virtue of self-control. Before his conversion, Paul was out of control, but after his conversion, he in
fact epitomizes self-control.

Works on the Lukan Paul and gender, few though they may be, take up this emphasis on Paul as a
powerful speaker and a man of self-mastery.5 Such works portray Paul as an especially potent “manly
man” who perpetuates imperial virtues of masculinity and reinscribes male control among followers of
the Way.6 Paul, so some argue, functions as a powerful apologetic (p.155) in Luke-Acts, for he
persuades men of high standing like himself that following a crucified “Lord” (κύριος) is actually
manly.

To be sure, such arguments have validity on several fronts. In the ancient world, public speaking and
self-control were important markers of masculinity, and Paul exhibits both of these qualities after his
encounter with Jesus on the Damascus road.7 Paul speaks quite frequently in a variety of public forums
ranging from the Areopagus in Athens (17:22) to the audience hall in Caesarea (25:23). He also
addresses his speeches to other men (13:16; 14:15; 17:22; 22:1; 23:1, 6; 27:21, 25; 28:17) in the vein
of his predecessors Peter and Stephen (2:14, 22; 3:12; 7:2), and he frequently follows rhetorical
practices that were popular among elite males.8 Paul also conveys more self-control after his
Damascus road encounter in the sense that he no longer performs excessive acts of violence against
followers of the Way (8:3; 9:1–2, 13–14; 22:4–5; 26:9–11) and remains calm in crisis situations in
contrast to those around him (e.g., 27:17–36). He even discusses “self-control” (ἐγκράτεια) with the
Roman procurator Felix (24:25) and counters the charge that he is “out of his mind” (μαίνομαι, 26:24-
25) with the response that he speaks words of “reason” (σωφροσύνη, 26:25).9 Furthermore, as a
prominent male leader, Paul reinforces the overall impression throughout Acts that men play a more
vital role in the leadership of the early church than women.

Yet while Paul evinces some characteristically masculine traits, he is by no means the epitome of a
“manly,” self-controlled man according to ancient elite standards. Paul, after all, lacks his own
household, sometimes encourages circumcision (16:1–3; 21:18–26; cf. 15:1–21), and emphasizes his
Jewish identity (e.g., 21:39; 22:3; 23:6; 26:4–5).10 All of these collective identity markers would have
impinged on Paul’s manliness in many elite (p.156) eyes.11 Paul himself is also not an elite—despite
claims to the contrary—since Paul’s status is ambiguous in Acts.12 Paul may be a well-educated
Roman citizen with access to money, but he is also a tentmaker (18:3) who works with his own hands
to support himself (20:34).13 Indeed, many elites deemed that manual labor undermined a man’s
dignity, with Plutarch writing that workmen, such as dyers and perfumers, were despised, illiberal, and
vulgar (Per. 1.4–2.2) and Cicero claiming that receiving a wage for manual labor was a form of slavery
(Off. 1.42.150).14 Furthermore, Paul and other followers of Jesus do not convert only those of high
status but a range of people across the social strata.15 Indeed, the most elite characters in Acts are often
ambivalent toward his message (e.g., 17:18–33; 18:12–17; 24:27; 26:24, 28), and they are at times
even hostile (albeit at the instigation of “the Jews”) (13:50; 14:2–5).

Paul’s failure to fit the profile of a manly man, however, is particularly evident during his conversion
itself, for here Paul is blinded and loses control of his bodily faculties. Paul’s blinding on the road to
Damascus in Acts 9 not only results in Paul’s reversal from “persecutor to proclaimer” but also sets the
stage for Paul’s ensuing story. In this defining event for Paul’s later characterization, Paul encounters
“the Lord” in a contest of power and as a result loses control of his bodily faculties, including his
ability to see. To an elite hearer, Paul’s divinely inflicted blindness would have arguably (p.157)
undermined his standing as a manly man since blindness was typically viewed as debilitating, and, for
a man who had that debilitation foisted on him, emasculating. In our first in-depth glimpse of Paul,
then, we find that this central male character loses two important markers of manliness in the ancient
world: self-control and more specifically sight.

This chapter explores the gendered ramifications of Paul’s call on the way to Damascus in three main
sections. The first section focuses on Paul’s divinely inflicted loss of sight and self-control in Acts 9
and how this loss intersects with constructions of masculinity in the ancient world. The second section
explores how Paul’s loss of self-control shapes his identity as a follower of the Way in the remainder of
Acts. Finally, the third section discusses specific incidents in Acts that reinforce the import of Paul’s
conversion and its message of God’s all-encompassing power. These incidents include Paul’s retelling
of his call in Acts 22:6–16 and 26:12–18, as well as the blinding of Bar-Jesus in Acts 13:4–12.

After journeying with Paul on the way to Damascus, we shall see that Luke’s first snapshot of his so-
called hero Paul is anything but heroic and in fact manifestly unmanly. Due to his “unmanning” on the
Damascus road, Paul is rendered powerless and recognizes that ultimate power resides with the God of
Israel who has acted in Jesus. According to Luke, Paul’s loss of sight and self-control launches his
newfound status as a man subject to God’s Son, the one whom he has been persecuting (9:5). Like
Paul, followers of the Way are not to subscribe to elite understandings of power and masculinity, for
their identity is found in a persecuted, crucified messiah.

An Incapacitating Conversion: Paul Blinded

According to elite dictums, the blinding of Paul would have very likely amounted to his unmanning
since he loses self-control. As Michel Foucault and many since have demonstrated, manly men were to
exercise self-control and to safeguard the boundaries of their bodies from outside invasion or
penetration.16 Maintaining self-control and bodily boundaries distinguished (p.158) “true” men from
all those marked as nonmen, including effeminate men, women, the conquered, “barbarians,” and
slaves.17 The “rules” of ancient masculinity dictate that a man is manly when he exerts control over
himself and others, but unmanly when he loses self-control or falls under the control of others.

The Blinding of Paul in Acts 9

In Acts 9, Paul’s own loss of self-control occurs as a result of an encounter with Jesus, an encounter
that leaves him powerless and reliant on others. Even though Paul—or Saul as he is consistently called
until Acts 13:9—begins his journey to Damascus by breathing threats and murder against the
“disciples of the Lord [τοῦ κυρίου]” (9:1), he ends up being accosted by “the Lord” (κύριος) before he
reaches his destination (vv. 4–6). Luke concludes this confrontation by focusing on Saul’s three-day
duration of blindness and abstention from eating and drinking (v. 9). Before switching scenes to the
disciple Ananias and Saul’s reliance on him (vv. 10–19), Luke leaves Saul in Damascus decimated,
lacking basic bodily necessities such as food and drink.18 Saul begins his journey to Damascus actively
seeking to imprison members of the Way (vv. 1–2), yet he ends passively waiting in Damascus,
sightless, weak, and dependent on others.

Luke sets up this human-divine encounter in a manner that pits Saul against Jesus in a contest of
power. While Luke applies the epithet κύριος to both the God of Israel and Jesus throughout Luke-Acts
with purposeful ambiguity, he quickly specifies that Saul encounters Jesus on his way to Damascus (v.
5; see also v. 17).19 Just as Saul is singled out earlier in 7:58–8:3 for his zealous persecution of the
church, so is he singled out—by Jesus no less!—throughout 9:1–9. Saul’s plans for further
persecutions (9:1–2) are (p.159) abruptly interrupted, however, for as he draws near Damascus,
“suddenly” (ἐξαίφνης) a light from heaven shines around him (v. 3). Saul is the target of this heavenly
light, for the light shines around “him” (αὐτόν) alone (v. 3). Saul is also the only one to fall to the
ground (v. 4), which is made all the more ignominious since his traveling companions are still standing
(v. 7).20 In Jewish Scripture, manifestations of light often signify a theophany, or an appearance of God
(e.g., Isa 60:1–2, 19; Ps 18:12), and earlier in Luke’s Gospel, such manifestations of light are applied
both to God and Jesus (Luke 2:9, 32). The heavenly light, then, is not a “natural” phenomenon, but
points to the divine’s very presence and, in this case, a presence that causes Saul to lose control of his
body.

Via this theophany—or christophany—Jesus continues to single out Saul, now with his voice, by
addressing Saul. Jesus opens his address to Saul by twice repeating his name, confronting him with the
double vocative: “Saul, Saul” (v. 4).21 Jesus then twice repeats that Saul is persecuting him (vv. 4–5)
and connects this persecution to his identity: “I am [ἐγώ εἰμι] Jesus, whom you are persecuting” (v. 5).
Saul persecutes “the church” (8:3) and the “disciples of the Lord” (9:1), but Jesus identifies this
persecution as an attack on himself. Saul is in effect fighting against God, something that the Jewish
leader Gamaliel warns against earlier in 5:34–39 when he cautions that, if the disciples’ plan is from
God and not of human origin, the Jewish council may be “fighting against God” (θεομάχοι, v. 39). As
Gamaliel, Saul’s former instructor (22:3), ironically predicts, Saul does not have the power to
overthrow Jesus’ disciples. God’s power instead overthrows Saul’s plan of persecution (cf. 5:38–39).
In this one-on-one contest of power, Jesus clearly comes out on top, for the light (and presumably
voice) comes from heaven (ἐκ τοῦ οὐρανοῦ, v. 3) and Saul falls to the earth (ἐπὶ τὴν γῆν, v. 4). Saul,
the single most persistent persecutor of Jesus, is literally brought down.

In this contest of power, Saul experiences a loss of bodily control, culminating in his loss of sight.
Despite Jesus’ command for Saul to stand up (ἀνάστηθι, v. 6), Saul is only able to stand with
assistance, suggested by Luke’s usage of the passive verb: “Saul was raised [ἠγέρθη] from the earth”
(p.160) (v. 8).22 After Saul is assisted to his feet, he may also receive assistance in opening his eyes
since the participle ἀνεῳγμένων can function as either a middle or a passive: “but when his eyes were
opened [ἀνεῳγμένων], he saw nothing” (v. 8).23 Regardless, Saul finds that he sees “nothing” (οὐδὲν).
Saul’s inability to see means that he can only complete his journey to Damascus with assistance (v. 8),
and his blindness continues while he is in Damascus for a total of three days (v. 9). Despite this
demarcation of time, Saul’s restoration of sight does not occur for another nine verses, and his inability
to see during this interim is specifically recalled in verses 12 and 17. Throughout this period of Saul’s
blindness, narrative tension hinges around whether Saul will have his sight restored and simultaneously
whether he will fully “see” Jesus.

Luke also couches Saul’s blindness as a punitive miracle. Some commentators attempt to elide Saul’s
punishment, pointing to the “light” (φῶς) as a naturalistic explanation for Saul’s blinding.24 Yet this
light, as we saw earlier, is anything but “naturalistic” since it points to God’s presence. Saul’s
encounter with Jesus is the source of his blindness, and this divinely instigated punishment can only be
overcome by a divinely instigated healing, which God performs through the disciple Ananias (vv. 10–
19). When Saul is finally healed, the detail that “something like scales [ὡς λεπίδες] fell from his eyes”
(v. 18) cements the impression that Saul’s blindness is the result of divine infliction. Scale-like objects,
after all, are outside obstructions that do not naturally appear from gazing too long at a light. Saul’s
blindness, then, is foisted on him from an outside divine source; he is a man who loses his sight due to
the intervention of Jesus.

Luke continues to dwell on Saul’s loss of control by depicting his resulting dependency on others. This
dependency includes most immediately (p.161) the men who are traveling with him. Directly after his
blinding, Saul is at the mercy of his traveling companions and has to be led into the city, a leading that
is emphasized twice: “leading by the hand, they led him into Damascus” (χειραγωγοῦντες δὲ αὐτὸν
εἰσήγαγον εἰς Δαμασκόν, v. 8). The detail of being led by the hand underlines Saul’s lack of control, as
evidenced by the usage of this image elsewhere in Acts and other ancient texts. In Acts, Luke
incorporates this image a total of four times: twice in reference to Saul’s blinding (9:8; 22:11), once in
reference to the magician Bar-Jesus’ blinding (13:11), and once in reference to Saul’s nephew (23:19),
who remains unnamed but is thrice identified as a “young man” (νεανίας, 23:17; νεανίσκος, 23:18,
22).25 In this latter instance, the nameless youth is led to the Roman tribune Claudius Lysias (23:17,
18), and Claudius himself takes the young man aside by the hand (v. 19). Here Claudius’s “hand
holding” in effect gestures to the age and power differential between Claudius and the youth,
reinforcing for the hearer that Claudius, as the government official acting on behalf of Rome, is the one
who is (at least ostensibly) in control.

Luke’s incorporation of this hand-holding gesture in reference to the blind and a youth, or not-yet man,
is consonant with other texts in the ancient world that likewise make these associations. Greek, Roman,
Jewish, and Christian texts all associate this gesture with those who were dependent on others due to
age (usually old age), disability, or some other marker that disqualified a person from attaining manly
prowess.26 In Luke’s Gospel, Jesus himself connects the image of being “led by the hand” to both
blindness and dependency when he asks, “Can a blind person guide [ὁδηγεῖν] a blind person? Will they
not both fall into a pit?” (6:39; cf. Matt 15:14). In Luke’s narrative and beyond, the image of guiding a
person by the hand signals the person’s reliance on others and lack of control. Since manly men are
supposed to be in control of both themselves and others, such dependency is by definition unmanly.
(p.162) Saul’s dependency continues in Damascus, for the disciple Ananias acts as a mediator for Saul
and the one on whom Saul’s restoration of sight depends.27 After Ananias abruptly makes his
appearance (9:10), Jesus commands Ananias to heal Saul (vv. 11–12) and reveals to Ananias the role
that Saul will play in God’s divine plan (vv. 15–16). Although Jesus addresses Ananias, however, we
never witness him directly addressing Saul. Despite Jesus’ earlier assurance that once Saul arrives in
Damascus, “it will be told to you what it is necessary for you to do” (v. 6), Saul does not actually “do”
anything to regain his sight. Instead, Saul discovers in a vision that a man named Ananias will heal him
(vv. 11–12). What is more, Luke also relates this detail indirectly: we only know of this vision because
Jesus tells Ananias in a vision (vv. 10–12). Saul thus becomes a passive recipient of healing and a
doubly indirect object of sight in that we only “see” him through Ananias’s own vision. Saul is not
simply dependent on Ananias for his sight, but he has also become the object of sight itself.

Overall, Saul’s encounter with Jesus on the road to Damascus leaves him passive, powerless, and
dependent on others. In Acts 9, Saul is a man who loses power, sight, and self-control and in the
process recognizes the greater power of God. Saul’s loss of sight is especially striking since sight, as
we shall now see, was considered the most powerful and the most masculine of all the senses in the
ancient world. When read in light of these gendered views on vision in the ancient world, we shall find
that Saul’s loss of sight especially undermines his standing as a manly man.

Blindness and Sight in the Greco-Roman World

Sight played a critical role in constructions of Greco-Roman masculinity. This point is made all the
more clear by Foucault, among others, who highlights how vision, or “the gaze,” functions as an
instrument and symbol of power.28 Indeed, a common theme in twentieth- and twenty-first-century
(p.163) philosophy concerns “ocularcentrism,” or the tendency in Western thought to valorize vision
as the most powerful and masculine sense.29 Feminists and cultural theorists further demonstrate how
“the politics of sight” often encode men as the subject of the gaze and women as the object.30
Although scholars debate the degree of continuity between ancient and modern modes of “seeing,” it is
evident that sight and power are often linked in the ancient world.31 The Latin linguist Varro, for
instance, aptly illustrates this widespread association of sight with power when he writes: “I see from
sight, that is, from vis, ‘force,’ since it is the strongest of the five senses.”32 The eye itself was also
viewed as powerful, with ancient theories envisioning the eye as an active agent rather than a passive
recipient.33 According to the popular theory known as “extramission,” the eye actively emits rays of
light toward the object of sight rather than passively receiving light rays as in modern optics. The eye
also had the power to inflict harm, as seen in widespread beliefs concerning the “evil eye” and the
proliferation of countervailing apotropaic remedies.34 From Plato and Aristotle onward, sight is
typically considered the most important of all the senses, and numerous (p.164) texts stress the power
of sight and assume that men are the ones who exercise this power.35

However, since not all males were considered “true” men in antiquity, only those with considerable
power, such as the emperor or other elites, correspondingly had powerful gazes.36 Blindness and other
vision impairments, to no surprise, were often equated to the absence of power and associated with
traits such as ignorance and helplessness.37 Yet even among elite males, Greek and Roman authors
emphasize how the eyes (as well as the ability of those eyes to see) reveal a man’s manliness or lack
thereof.38 Physiognomical texts, for instance, hold the eye in a place of prominence as the most
important “sign” in discerning a man’s masculinity, with Polemo, among others, expounding at length
on how the eye betrays characteristics ranging from courage to effeminacy.39 Many considered the eye
to “reflect the man” more than any other physical feature, for the eye was “the gateway to the soul.”40

With respect to the punishment of blindness, this punishment was often employed in instances of
sexual violations and associated with emasculation.41 A famous example involves the prophet Tiresias,
who is blinded for accidentally glimpsing Athena as she bathed and for divulging that women enjoy
sex more than men.42 The theme of blindness as (p.165) emasculation is especially evident in stories
that depict women exacting revenge by gouging out the eyes of men.43 Even in cases where women
are not the perpetrators of the blinding, the act of blinding itself often involves piercing the pupils. In
the case of Oedipus, for instance, he self-inflicts his blindness by piercing his eyes with the pins of his
mother’s (and wife’s) brooches.44 Oedipus’s self-blinding in effect mimics his own incestuous bodily
penetration, except instead of penetrating his mother, he uses his mother’s brooches to penetrate
himself.

Blindness with respect to sexual transgressions, however, falls within a larger pattern of blindness with
respect to transgressions of the natural and social order, especially boundaries between the human and
divine.45 When these boundaries become blurred, the punishment of blindness is often a result. Indeed,
blindness was the most frequent punishment inflicted by the gods in Greek and Roman literature.46
The Muses, for example, blind the lyre player Thamyris for boasting that his musical accomplishments
surpassed their own.47 In like manner, Zeus blinds the king Lycurgus for his persecution of Dionysus
(Homer, Il. 6.130–140), and Philip of Macedon loses an eye because he saw his wife in bed with the
god Amon (Plutarch, Alex. 3.1–2). When such men transgress the boundary between the human and
divine, they are “put back in their place,” so to speak, through the act of blinding. With this
demonstration of power, the (typically male) transgressor is rendered relatively powerless and
reminded of his place in the cosmic hierarchy.

Of course, blindness is not always portrayed as a negative, powerless condition. Prophecy and poetry,
for example, are linked to blindness. Tiresias epitomizes the blind prophet who can “truly see,” and
Homer (p.166) represents the quintessentially blind poet.48 Even when men are punished with
blindness, this “deficiency” is often balanced by extraordinary traits. Hera, for example, blinds
Tiresias, but Zeus grants him the gift of prophecy in compensation.49 Supernatural abilities coincide
with disabilities, divinely instigated or otherwise, and sometimes divinely instigated disabilities such as
blinding are only temporary if the blinded party makes amends.50 What is more, representations of
blindness in both written and material culture do not necessarily correspond to the lived experience of
blind people in the ancient world. A large percentage of the population probably had vision
impairments of some kind, and many may have conceived of blindness in ways that were more
empowering than our extant evidence suggests.51

All the same, our available Greek and Roman sources overwhelmingly depict blindness as an
undesirable, unmanly condition. Even with the example of the iconic blind prophet, prophetic prowess
does not necessarily overcome the gendered liminality of blindness. Tiresias, for instance, hardly
qualifies as a manly man given his well-known status as a successive hermaphrodite.52 Blindness also
tends to be gendered in that men, rather than women, are the ones who are punished with blindness.53
Men are the ones who exercise the power of sight, and men are the ones who (p.167) correspondingly
have this power taken away. When this occurs, they are effectively feminized, for they are descending
to the level of women who do not exercise the right to “gaze” in the first place.

Constructions of sight and blindness in Jewish and early Christian literature are often consonant with
the above constructions in the larger Greco-Roman world.54 As with Greek and Roman authors,
Jewish and Christian authors do not always depict blindness as a negative feature.55 Overall, however,
sight indicates power in Jewish and Christian texts, and blindness indicates powerlessness, as well as
ignorance and bad judgment.56 According to Philo, for example, sight is the “queen of the other
senses” (Abr. 149–150).57 Sight is also gendered in that men are typically the ones who exercise their
vision or who correspondingly have their vision taken away. In Genesis, for instance, physical
disability manifests itself along gendered lines: males are blind (Isaac and Jacob) and females are
barren (Sarah and Rachel).58 Moses himself, one of God’s ideal male representatives, never loses his
“seeing” power (Deut 34:7), whereas Isaac and Eli have “dim” or “fading” eyesight that parallels their
own fading acumen (Gen 27:1; 1 Sam 3:2; 4:15). Legal texts also point to the connection between sight
and the model male (Lev 21:18, 20; Deut 28:28–29), and the Dead Sea Scrolls extend this (p.168)
connection by intensifying Pentateuchal prohibitions against the blind and others with disabilities.59
Vision and masculinity are even more explicitly wed in the story of Tobit, who memorably becomes
blind due to bird droppings. When Tobit loses his eyesight, he is reduced to relying on others,
including his wife (2:9–14), and this inverse of gender relations causes Tobit so much grief that he
prays for death (3:6; see also 5:10).

In Jewish scriptural texts, blindness also functions as a punishment for men who violate sexual
protocols and exemplify other character “flaws.” For example, two angels blind the men of Sodom for
their attempted rape (Gen 19:11), and the Philistines blind the lusty Samson after Delilah subdues his
insurmountable strength by having his hair cut (Judg 16:21, 28).60 Jewish texts also specifically cite
God employing the punishment of blindness. In Isaiah, an important text for the Gospel authors, a
common theme includes God (or God’s servants) figuratively blinding Israel (e.g., Isa 6:9–10; 29:10)
and in turn offering sight (e.g., Isa 29:18; 35:5–6; 42:6–7).61 God also more explicitly “blinds” a
number of men due to their disobedience. Deuteronomy 28:28–29, for example, maintains that God
inflicts blindness (and additional physical vulnerability) on those who fail to follow the Law. In such
accounts, blinding points to a power differential and highlights a favorite theme found throughout
Jewish Scripture: namely, the all-powerful nature of the God of Israel.62 God can both blind (e.g.,
Exod (p.169) 4:11) and restore sight (e.g., Ps 146:8), and both these acts demonstrate God’s power.

In early Christian texts, sight, though not as explicitly wed to masculinity as in Greek, Roman, or
Jewish texts, still plays an especially prominent role. Sight is powerful and even dangerous, to the
extent that Jesus says it is better for a man to tear out his eye than to look at a woman with lust (Matt
5:27–29; cf. Mark 9:47; Matt 18:9). In the book of Revelation, Jesus has eyes “like a flame of fire”
(1:14; 2:18; 19:12), and the language of spectacle and vision appears throughout.63 Indeed, the
language of spectacle becomes paramount in Christian martyr texts, with persecuted Christians
receiving visions and emerging as objects of the gaze.64 Sight also reflects a man’s character in early
Christian texts.65 Jesus maintains that the eye is the “lamp of the body” (Matt 6:22–23; Luke 11:34–
36) and that a “speck” or “log” in the eye reveals sin (Matt 7:3–5; Luke 6:41–42). The second-century
church father Clement of Alexandria also claims that the eye can reveal effeminacy (Paed. 3.11).
Blindness, on the other hand, typically functions as a metaphor for spiritual ignorance or rejection of
the gospel. All of the Gospel authors, for example, connect Isaiah’s commission to “shut eyes” (Isa
6:9–10) in relation to Jesus’ message and its reception, and Jesus’ ministry itself captures the Isaianic
theme of bringing sight to the blind.66 Unnamed blind men are frequently depicted as being objects of
Jesus’ healing, and “the blind” as a group often appear alongside marginalized groups such as the lame
and the poor.67

(p.170) Blindness and Sight in Luke-Acts

The author of Luke-Acts in particular weaves sight and blindness throughout his two-volume work.68
Jesus begins his ministry in the Gospel of Luke by announcing that he will bring “recovery of sight to
the blind” (Luke 4:18; cf. Isa 58:6; 61:1–2), and Paul’s final words in the book of Acts reference
Israel’s blindness (Acts 28:26–27; cf. Isa 6:9–10). Jesus himself has a powerful gaze (e.g., Luke
22:61), yet he also becomes the object of sight during the “spectacle” (θεωρίαν) of the crucifixion
(23:48). Sight likewise plays an important role on the road to Emmaus, for the disciples’ eyes are kept
from recognizing the resurrected Jesus until he breaks bread in their presence (24:16, 31). Sight
imagery pervades the narrative of Acts as well, with visions occurring throughout the narrative, and
Paul—in addition to Peter and John—exercising his own powerful gaze.69 Indeed, “witnessing,” or
“testifying,” is one of the central themes in Acts, with “seeing” often serving as a necessary
prerequisite (e.g., 1:8, 21–22).

In concert with this emphasis on the power of sight, Luke also couches blindness in terms of
helplessness and punishment more so than the other canonical Gospel authors. Luke, for example,
presents the blind beggar that Jesus heals outside Jericho as being more helpless than his Markan
counterpart (Mark 10:46–52//Luke 18:35–43). Unlike blind Bartimaeus in Mark, the blind beggar in
Luke is nameless, shows less initiative, is more reliant on others, and has to be led to Jesus.70 Luke
also includes a number of punitive miracles in his narrative, two of which include the blinding of Paul
in Acts 9 and the blinding of Bar-Jesus in Acts 13.71 In the blinding of Bar-Jesus, which has many
parallels to Paul’s own blinding, the false prophet Bar-Jesus leaves the scene groping about in the
darkness (p.171) (13:11). This detail in particular alludes to God’s curse of blindness in Deut 28:28–
29, a text that also comes into play with Luke’s second retelling of Paul’s blinding in Acts 22.72 With
these depictions, Luke mimics larger cultural conceptions of blindness as a debilitating, powerless
quality. At the same time, he applies these conceptions to Paul himself, an ostensible hero of the faith,
to help craft a picture of Paul that does not easily align with elite conceptions of masculinity. Indeed,
Luke reveals that Paul only gains the ability to “see” when he loses his ability to see with his eyes.73

In our first detailed picture of Paul, Luke presents a man whose claims to manliness are suspect since
Jesus blinds him in a contest of power. When a man is specifically punished with blindness, he not
only becomes reliant on others but he loses the most powerful—and for elite pagans in particular—the
most masculine of all the senses. His lack of power in relation to the one who blinded him (human or
divine) is literally inscribed in his body. Men stripped of their power to see fail to protect the
boundaries of their body and to exercise their assumed right to gaze. In short, they lose their standing
as manly men.

In Acts 9, Paul’s loss of sight positions him outside the realm of the sighted, impenetrable, self-
controlled male who exerts his power over himself and others.74 Instead, Jesus is the one who exerts
power over Paul by blinding him. When this incident is viewed in light of ancient vision theories, Jesus
impedes Paul’s eyes from emitting rays by covering his eyes with scale-like objects, turning his eyes
from active to passive agents. By rendering Paul and his eyes passive, Luke demonstrates that Paul’s
ostensible power pales in comparison to God’s ultimate power. By impeding Paul’s ability to see, Luke
shows the futility in fighting against this God. Indeed, by blinding Paul, Luke disassociates Paul from
elite understandings of what it takes to “be a man.”

(p.172) The Power of God: Paul after His Conversion

Of course, Paul’s blindness is a temporary situation. Paul’s encounter with Jesus leaves him blinded
and reliant on others, but Paul’s state of unmanly incapacitation is not permanent. Like Zechariah, Paul
is the target of a punitive miracle, and he also recovers from that miracle: just as Zechariah regains his
voice, Paul regains his sight. Indeed, Paul regains his sight and corporeal control immediately after
Ananias lays his hands on Paul and speaks to him, (9:18–19), thus reversing his state of utter
debilitation. Paul once was associated with a plethora of passive verbs; now he is an active subject.
Earlier he fell and had to be assisted to his feet (vv. 4, 8); now he stands on his own (v. 18). For three
days Paul neither ate nor drank (v. 9); now he eats and is subsequently strengthened (ἐνίσχυσεν, v. 19).
Paul once was blind, but now he can see.

Yet Paul’s recovery after his blinding does not amount to a newfound manliness or mastery of control.
Instead, Luke is quick to show that Paul remains dependent on others and that he regains strength—
soon followed by speaking prowess—in service to Jesus, his former foe. After receiving his sight via
Ananias, Paul is directly baptized (v. 18), an act that inaugurates him into Jesus’ service and that Paul
must likewise receive via a mediator. After Paul is strengthened, he is with the disciples in Damascus,
and he “immediately” (εὐθέως) proclaims in the synagogues that Jesus is the Son of God (vv. 19–20).
Paul goes from gaining strength to proclaiming Jesus in the following verse, showing that his public
speech is subject to the one whom he once persecuted (see also vv. 21–30).75 Directly after his
conversion, Paul also depends on the disciples and his “brothers” to help him escape two separate
attempts on his life (vv. 23–25, 29–30). He must even rely on Barnabas to plead his case before the
apostles due to suspicions among the disciples themselves (vv. 26–27). In the immediate aftermath of
Paul’s incapacitating encounter, Luke depicts Paul as a man (p.173) dependent on others, persecuted
on behalf of the one he once persecuted, and subject to the “Son of God” whom he now proclaims.

Throughout the rest of Acts, Paul remains a man who is subject to the one he formerly persecuted.
From 9:19 onward, Paul is literally “bound” to God’s divine plan (see esp. 21:10–11). Paul is also
“bound” to the Holy Spirit (e.g., 20:22), and he does not act unless the Spirit directs him (e.g., 16:6–
10). Luke even describes Paul as a “slave” of God (16:17; 20:19), a designation that positions Paul at
the opposite end of the spectrum from manly men.76 Paul shares this status with other faithful
followers in Luke-Acts (Luke 1:38; Acts 2:18; 4:29), and his identity as God’s “slave” converges with
his ambiguous social status in general.77 Although authors from Plato onward applaud men who act
out of obedience to the gods (e.g., Leg. 4.716c–d; Phaedr. 273e), describing such obedience in terms of
slavery is less common. As Beverly Roberts Gaventa observes: “Unlike Epictetus who claims to be his
own king and master (Discourse 3.22.38–49) or Seneca, who declares himself not God’s slave but
God’s follower (On Providence 5.4–7), in Luke the men who are portrayed favorably all understand
themselves to be under God’s direction.”78 Paul’s dependence on God emerges out of Luke’s
overarching apocalyptic outlook in which one is either a “slave” of Satan or a “slave” of God in a
cosmos of two competing realms.79 According to Luke, a person is either under the power of Satan or
under the power of God, and the power of Satan has already been defeated (at least in part) by Christ’s
death and exaltation.80 For Luke, then, Paul does not have the ability to be his own “master” because
humans must always serve a higher Master. Indeed, Paul does not control his actions in Acts, (p.174)
for his actions must now coincide with God’s course of action as revealed in Jesus.

Paul’s Passions and Bodily Invasion in Acts

In addition to Paul’s dependence on God and others, Luke also repeatedly emphasizes that Paul does
not control his own body after his conversion to the Way. For one thing, Paul does not always master
his emotions, or “passions,” after his conversion. According to many ancient authors, especially those
with Stoic leanings, manly men were to control their emotions and avoid emotional displays given the
association of the passions with women, effeminate men, and other so-called nonmen.81 Yet after his
conversion, Paul displays both anger and grief, two common antitheses to the ideal of manly self-
control in the ancient world.82

Paul displays anger in three separate instances. Paul’s first expression of anger surfaces in 15:39 when
he has a “sharp disagreement” (παροξυσμός) with Barnabas about John Mark that causes Paul and
Barnabas to part ways and never reunite. In 16:18, Paul expresses an emotion more akin to extreme
annoyance (διαπονηθείς) in reaction to the slave girl with a Pythian spirit. In this instance, the grounds
on which Paul’s feelings of anger arise are unclear since the girl proclaims the truth about Paul and his
traveling companions (cf. Acts 4:2–3).83 Finally, Paul experiences vexation (literally: “his spirit within
him was provoked to anger” [παρωξύνετο τὸ πνεῦμα αὐτοῦ ἐν αὐτῷ]) in 17:16 when he sees that
Athens is full of idols. Overall, Paul’s anger is not as extreme as, for example, the violent anger of the
Jewish council (5:33; 7:54), Herod (12:20), or the crowds in Ephesus (19:28).84 But (p.175) while the
element of violence is not present, Luke shows that Paul is still not immune to the emotion of anger
after his conversion.

In addition to showing anger, Paul also sheds tears. In his farewell address to the Ephesian elders, Paul
recollects the ceaseless tears he has shed, with tears punctuating the beginning, middle, and end of the
speech (20:17–38). Paul begins his speech by saying that he has been enslaved (δουλεύων) to God with
“all humility and tears [δακρύων]” (v. 19). He mentions his tears yet again near the middle of the
speech, reminding the elders that “for three years, night and day, I did not cease warning each one of
you with tears [δακρύων]” (v. 31).85 The speech then concludes with collective crying and grief:
“much weeping [κλαυθμὸς] came upon all, and falling upon the neck of Paul, they kissed him, grieving
[ὀδυνώμενοι] very much at the word which he had said” (v. 37).86 In this summary of his work in
Asia, and perhaps the whole of his ministry, Paul does not recount the triumphant spread of the gospel
nor reminisce over his spectacular healings and miracles.87 Paul instead recalls his past struggles and
points ahead to future ones, highlighting his humility and tears. After his conversion, Paul is by no
means devoid of passion, for Paul himself characterizes his ministry as involving a ceaseless amount of
tears.88 Overall, Paul’s emotions may be domesticated, to use Plutarch’s turn of phrase, but they are
not eradicated according to Stoic ideals.89

(p.176) Beyond displays of passion, Paul also does not exercise control over his body, because his
body becomes vulnerable to persecution. Paul, the former persecutor, is now the persecuted. In his
vision to Ananias, Jesus mandates that Paul is “to suffer” (παθεῖν, Acts 9:16), using a word that
connotes passivity, punishment, and suffering from an external source, and his words are fulfilled in
short order (9:23–30).90 Paul experiences persecution directly after his conversion and this persecution
continues throughout the remainder of Acts. Paul is pelted with stones (14:19), stripped naked (16:22),
and beaten and whipped (16:22–23; 21:32).91 He is also bound in chains and consistently seized,
dragged, and led from place to place.92 Indeed, Paul spends the entire latter half of Acts in custody
(21:33–28:31), and he is presumably killed while imprisoned in Rome.93 Unlike Jesus’ execution on
the cross, we do not witness Paul’s own execution, but his death is implied nonetheless (20:22–25;
21:13).94 As someone who undergoes persecution, incarceration, and a slow march to his inevitable
death, Paul knows that his body is no longer simply his own. Paul is not his own master, but subject to
the power of Jesus, who was himself “subject to suffering” (παθητός, Acts 26:23).95 Jesus even
foretells the divine necessity (δεῖ) of Paul’s suffering in a manner that mimics Jesus’ own necessary
suffering (Acts 9:16; cf. Luke 24:26).96 Thus Paul’s suffering is not a means to achieve manly self-
control in the face of hardship, but a response to God’s (p.177) divine plan. Paul may at times look
“noble” in his sufferings, but it is not for his own sake that he suffers.

Excursus: Paul’s References to “Self-Control” (ἐγκράτεια; σωφροσύνη)

Although Paul does not control his body according to his own interests after his conversion, he twice
references the topic of self-control—first in 24:25 (ἐγκράτεια) and again in 26:25 (σωφροσύνη)—
during his imprisonment by Roman officials. Interpreters such as John Lentz take Paul’s explicit
mention of this cardinal virtue to mean that Paul himself embodies self-control, an argument that
dovetails with scholarship that presents Paul as an emblem of moral virtue.97 While Luke does place
philosophical terms associated with manly self-control on the lips of Paul in these two verses, Paul’s
employment of these terms does not disclose his unqualified endorsement of a key virtue in the
construction of manliness. Instead, Paul’s usage of these terms reflects his ability to speak the lingua
franca of his respective locales—in this case a Hellenized setting with ties to Rome—in order to
reorient his listeners to the gospel.

Paul first mentions self-control with the procurator Felix in 24:25. Paul’s reference here to “self-
control” (ἐγκράτεια), along with “justice” (δικαιοσύνη), is cited as evidence that Paul exhibits virtue
since both terms were cardinal virtues in the ancient world in addition to “prudence” (φρόνησις) and
“courage,” or “manliness” (ἀνδρεία).98 A quick look at a concordance, however, proves it difficult to
argue that Paul (or anyone in Luke-Acts for that matter) espouses the cardinal virtues. Luke only uses
“prudence” (φρόνησις) once in his two volumes (Luke 1:17), and he only references “self-control”
(ἐγκράτεια or σωφροσύνη) these two times (Acts 24:25; 26:25). Luke (along with the other New
Testament authors) also never uses the term “courage,” or literally “manliness” (ἀνδρεία).99 The few
times Luke mentions courage, he employs nongendered terms (εὐθυμεω, θαρσέω, and θάρσος) and
specifically (p.178) cites God as the source of this courage (Acts 23:11; 27:22, 25; 28:15). While Luke
does frequently use the term “justice” (δικαιοσύνη) and its cognates, his usage typically conveys God’s
justice or a person’s righteousness with respect to God.100

Indeed, Paul does not mention self-control because it is a cardinal virtue of Christianity, but because he
tailors his proclamation of the gospel to the procurator Felix. Felix’s lack of righteousness is apparent
since he hopes that Paul will give him a bribe (24:26), and Felix’s lack of self-control may likewise be
implied by the mention of his wife, Drusilla (v. 24). According to Josephus at least, Felix’s marriage to
Drusilla was sexually immoral (Ant. 20.141–144), and Luke elsewhere critiques the marriages of
political leaders (Luke 3:19) and evinces an interest in sexual asceticism.101 Paul’s words concerning
justice, self-control, and the coming judgment fill Felix with fear (v. 25) and hence appear to be
directed to Felix’s own situation.

The second and final time Paul mentions “self-control”—here σωφροσύνη—occurs in 26:25 when
Paul responds to Felix’s successor, the procurator Festus.102 After Paul’s defense before Agrippa and
the elite men of Caesarea, Festus exclaims, “You are out of your mind [μαίνῃ] Paul! Too much learning
is driving you to insanity [μανίαν]!” (26:24). To this accusation Paul counters, “I am not insane
[μαίνομαι], most excellent Festus, but I speak words of truth and reason [σωφροσύνης]” (v. 25). Luke’s
juxtaposition of σωφροσύνη with μανία has prompted scholars such as Lentz to characterize Paul as
lacking self-control prior to his conversion and gaining self-control after his conversion.103 Luke, for
example, elsewhere uses cognates of μανία—a word often paired opposite σωφροσύνη—to describe
(p.179) Paul’s preconversion persecutions.104 In 8:3, Paul is “trying to destroy” (ἐλυμαίνετο) the
church, and in 26:11, Paul describes himself as being “very much enraged” (περισσῶς … 
ἐμμαινόμενος) against the saints. Excessive violence was at times associated with effeminacy in the
ancient world, and the excessive nature of Paul’s actions is clear (8:3; 9:1–2, 13–14, 21; 22:4–5;
26:10–11).105 Paul is singled out as the church’s most zealous persecutor, and his escalating
persecution of the church (7:58–8:3; 9:1–2) parallels the Jewish leaders’ escalating violence against the
disciples (5:33, 40; 6:9–15; 7:54, 57–59).106 Yet while Paul’s most obvious displays of “passion” are
his preconversion acts of persecution, Paul, as we have seen, still displays emotion after his
conversion. Furthermore, while Paul highlights the discontinuity between his preconversion and
postconversion life (by using the technique of synkrisis) in chapter 26, he highlights the continuity
between his preconversion and postconversion life in chapter 22. Here before his Jewish listeners, Paul
adapts his story by emphasizing his Jewish identity and zeal for serving God, a zeal that now extends
to Jesus of Nazareth (22:1–21). Arguments, then, that claim Paul embodies self-control after his
conversion typically overlook how Paul shapes his conversion account for his different narrative
audiences.107

As in 24:25, Paul does not hold up self-control as a key virtue of Christianity. Paul instead directs his
comment concerning self-control to his situation, this time addressing a charge leveled at him. To some
such as Festus (and very likely other male elites!), Paul sounds out of his mind (26:24).108 Festus’s
accusation recalls that the slave girl Rhoda was also wrongly accused of being out of her mind (μαίνῃ,
Acts 12:15), yet Paul quickly rebuts Festus’s charge of madness. At the same time, Paul’s rebuttal
(p.180) mainly functions as a defense of the gospel rather than a defense of himself. As Beverly
Roberts Gaventa notes, Paul’s speech before the Greco-Roman elite in Acts 26 may begin as a personal
defense, but it quickly moves to a proclamation of Jesus and a call for conversion.109 In this context,
Paul uses a word common in elite circles to serve his larger purpose of proclaiming Jesus as the
fulfillment of God’s promise to Israel and the extension of that promise to the Gentiles.

Overall, Luke does not present Paul as a prototype for pagan philosophy and its emphasis on
controlling the passions. Kavin Rowe shows that the Epicureans’ and the Stoics’ encounter with Paul
in Athens is not a glowing recommendation of these two representative philosophical schools since the
philosophers misconstrue Paul’s message, insult him, and forcefully drag him to the Areopagus
(17:18–19).110 Of all the philosophical schools, Stoicism in particular emphasized the importance of
controlling the passions, yet Luke does not treat the Stoics (or the Epicureans) in a manner that
applauds their philosophical tenets or confirms their worldview. Luke also does not intimate that any of
the philosophers were convinced by Paul’s Areopagus speech, just as none of the elite listeners in
Caesarea appear to be moved by his call for their conversion. Paul may reference self-control when
speaking to representatives of Rome, but he employs this philosophical term in service to the gospel.
Later Christian interpreters, as well as Jewish interpreters such as Philo and the author of 4 Maccabees,
emphasize the virtue of self-control, but the Lukan Paul primarily applies the term “self-control” to
reorient his listeners to Jesus.111

Repetitions of God’s Power: Paul’s Conversion Revisited

The story of Paul’s blinding is our first in-depth look at this central character and sets the stage for his
ensuing depiction in Acts. Paul’s blinding is so (p.181) integral to his identity as a follower of Jesus
that Luke recounts this story three separate times: first in 9:1–19, second in 22:6–16, and third in
26:12–18. Luke also alludes to Paul’s blinding with the blinding of another individual named Bar-Jesus
in 13:4–12. The blinding of Bar-Jesus in many ways mimics Paul’s own blinding in Acts 9, suggesting
that these two punitive miracles should be read in tandem.112 While some scholars argue that these
repetitions of Paul’s conversion demonstrate Paul’s so-called assumption of self-control, as we shall
now see, these incidents ultimately point to Paul’s reneging of self-control in light of God’s all-
encompassing power.

The Blinding of Paul Once Again (Acts 22:6–16; 26:12–18)

In one of the most famous instances of repetition in the New Testament, Luke recounts Paul’s
conversion two additional times, now narrated by Paul himself. Paul’s two retellings of his conversion
form bookends around his series of defense speeches since they appear in both his first and final
defenses. Paul initially recounts his conversion in 22:6–16 when he defends himself before a Jewish
crowd and again in 26:12–18 when he defends himself before representatives of the Roman
government. As Gaventa notes: “Because Luke does tell of Paul’s conversion three times, and at three
significant points in the narrative, it appears that Luke understands the conversion to be definitive or
constitutive of Paul.”113

While Paul’s call is foundational to his identity as a follower of Jesus, scholars often observe that Paul
gradually recovers self-control in the latter two accounts.114 These accounts increasingly abbreviate
Paul’s incapacitation, and some exegetes argue that Paul’s increase of self-control coincides with
(p.182) his increasing activity as a witness to God’s word in the book of Acts as a whole.115 Paul’s
gradual acquisition of self-control has gendered ramifications, and proponents of a manly Paul
highlight how his assumption of self-control coincides with his assumption of manliness.116 In this
interpretative vein, Luke “corrects” Paul’s story as Acts unfolds to reflect Paul’s virtuous, virile
character as a Christian.

Daniel Marguerat, however, rightly observes that the three accounts of Paul’s conversion cannot be
plotted in a linear fashion that parallel Paul’s own development as a character. Instead, Luke’s first
account overshadows the latter two accounts in terms of its narrative authority.117 In the first account,
Luke relates Paul’s conversion via third person omniscient narration, whereas in the latter two
accounts, Luke switches to first person limited discourse. That is, in the second and third accounts,
Luke does not provide us with an objective point of view, but with Paul’s own perspective, or
subjective point of view. Unlike Paul’s respective narrative audiences, Luke’s so-called ideal audience
would have heard all three accounts, with Paul’s incapacitating encounter in chapter 9 coloring all
subsequent readings.118

Furthermore, Paul’s first person limited retellings of his conversion are modified with respect to his
different narrative audiences and argumentative ends. In Acts 22, Paul specifically tailors his defense
speech for his Jewish audience, and in Acts 26, he crafts his defense for his elite Greco-Roman
audience. Luke carefully designates these speeches as apologies (22:1; 26:1), thus stamping them with
a rhetorical aim that authorizes Paul to bend the facts in favor of his argument.119 Before his Jewish
auditors, Paul emphasizes his own Jewishness and the continuity between faith in Jesus and faith in the
God of Israel (esp. 21:39; 22:3).120 Before his elite Greco-Roman auditors, however, Paul plays up his
own skills as an (p.183) effective orator and connects faith in Jesus to the world stage (26:26).121
Indeed, Paul’s audience in chapter 26 not only comprises elite men such as King Agrippa and the
procurator Festus but “military tribunes and the prominent men [ἀνδράσιν] of the city” (25:23).122 It is
understandable, then, that Paul lessens the extent of his helplessness in his last defense speech since
elite males would have been the ones to find his story the most unmanly.123 The very fact that Luke
curtails the details surrounding Paul’s call in chapter 26 suggests that Paul’s lack of control may have
been heard in a negative way, especially for elite men to whom the dictates of masculinity most strictly
applied. Once again, however, Luke’s ideal audience knows the entire scope of Paul’s conversion and
would recognize that Paul is adjusting his story for his own persuasive purposes.

Moreover, Paul still positions himself in a posture of powerlessness before God in his two conversion
retellings. In Paul’s account of his conversion before the Jewish crowd, he still falls to the ground,
loses his sight, and has to be led by the hand (22:7, 11).124 Ananias still acts as his mediator, restoring
his sight and relating God’s plan for him (vv. 12–16). Indeed, Ananias now plays a more authoritative
role since he is respected by all the Jews (v. 12), specifically relates God’s plan (vv. 14–15), directs
Paul’s actions (v. 16), and even mimics Jesus’ command for Paul to stand up (ἀναστὰς, vv. 10, 16).
Paul is not only in a subordinate position to Ananias figuratively speaking, but he is literally below
Ananias since he must “look up” (ἀνέβλεψα) to see Ananias from his position on the ground (v. 13).125
Paul is also, of course, in a subordinate position to Jesus. Paul is on the ground throughout the (p.184)
duration of his interchange with Jesus, and he cannot see because of the “glory” [δόξης] of the light (v.
11). Luke—using the language of theophany—associates light and glory with Jesus elsewhere and thus
hints that Paul’s blindness has a divine source in this second account as well.126 Furthermore, Paul’s
inclusion of the detail that he fell at “noon” (μεσημβρίαν, v. 6) evokes the punitive nature of his
blindness, since this uncommon word in the New Testament appears in two well-known texts from
Jewish Scripture that relate God’s punishment of blindness (Deut 28:28–29; Isa 59:10).127 Though not
as pronounced as the narrator’s rendition in chapter 9, Paul still conveys his lack of control when he
encounters the power of Jesus.

In Paul’s final account of his conversion before the Greco-Roman elite, Paul likewise conveys his lack
of control. Paul does not lose his eyesight here, but he still depicts himself as falling in response to the
light (albeit with his companions) (26:14). He also highlights the power of this light more than any
other account. Over the course of all three accounts, the intensity of the light escalates from simply
being “a light from heaven” (9:3) to a “strong light from heaven” (22:6) to “a light from heaven greater
than the brilliance of the sun” (26:13).128 Coupled with this escalation of the light’s power is the
diminishment of Paul’s own role in the narrative. In chapter 26, for example, Paul expands Jesus’
speech to approximately eighty-seven words (vv. 14–18) in contrast to Paul’s three (τίς εἶ κύριε;) (v.
15).129 Jesus’ speech to Paul—by far the lengthiest of all three accounts—also includes the Hellenistic
proverb “It hurts you to kick against the goads” (v. 14). This proverb, which conveys the futility of
fighting against power, identifies Paul as an unruly beast of burden whose master controls him (p.185)
with goads, or spurs.130 Here Paul is reduced to the status of an animal, a far cry from a manly man, or
even a human.131 Furthermore, Jesus appoints Paul to be a “servant” (ὑπηρέτην, v. 16), and Paul acts
out this position of servanthood by relating his obedience to the heavenly vision (v. 19) and his
continual assistance from God (v. 22).132

Overall, Luke’s tripartite repetition of Paul’s call on the way to Damascus underscores the importance
of his incapacitating encounter with Jesus. While Paul increasingly recovers a modicum of control in
the latter two accounts, Paul also increasingly emphasizes God’s power in these accounts.133 From
beginning to end, Luke consistently directs his hearers to the power of God and characterizes Paul
himself as God’s “overthrown enemy” in service to this larger theme.134 To be sure, Paul alters the
unmanly nature of his conversion to various degrees according to his different narrative audiences. Yet
Luke’s ideal audience knows the whole story of Paul’s unmanly call and likewise knows that the core
message remains the same: namely that God has the power to transform the course of history and the
lives of people living within that history. It is Paul’s recognition of this power—not his assumption of
manly control—that becomes central to his identity as a member of “the Way.”

The Blinding of Bar-Jesus (Acts 13:4–12)

In Acts 13:4–12, Luke returns to Paul’s blinding once again, except this time Luke recalls Paul’s
blinding by depicting the blinding of the magician and Jewish false prophet known as Bar-Jesus or
Elymas. Like Paul at the outset of Acts 9, Bar-Jesus is attempting to impede the faith (13:8, 10), and he
is temporarily blinded as a result (v. 11).135 In this instance, however, (p.186) Paul is the mediator, not
the recipient, of the blinding. Here Paul—exercising the sight he was earlier denied—looks intently at
Bar-Jesus (ἀτενίζω, v. 9) and rebukes him with the promise of blindness. From this point onward,
“Saul” is known primarily as “Paul” and emerges as the primary leader of the Christian mission.136
Paul now joins other male leaders in Acts who exercise their powerful gaze, and Paul’s newfound sight
is so powerful that he can even mediate the blinding of another.137 In this contest between men in Acts
13:4–12, Paul wins the allegiance of the “intelligent man” (ἀνδρὶ συνετῷ, v. 7) Sergius Paulus, whereas
Bar-Jesus loses his ability to see.

On another level, however, Luke demonstrates that this contest between Paul and Bar-Jesus reflects a
larger cosmic contest that ultimately points to the power of God. Luke makes it clear that God, not
Paul, is the source of Bar-Jesus’ blindness, for Paul tells Bar-Jesus that “the hand of the Lord is upon
you” (v. 11). God’s “hand” (χεὶρ) is responsible for Bar-Jesus’ blinding, and Bar-Jesus in turn must rely
on others to lead him by the hand (χειραγωγούς, v. 11). Indeed, Paul acts under God’s direction since
he is filled with the Holy Spirit (v. 9) and has just been commissioned by the Holy Spirit a few verses
earlier (13:2–4). The concluding line of the story corroborates that God is the principal actor in the
story, for Sergius Paulus is amazed “by the teaching of the Lord [κυρίου]” (v. 12). God is the victor in
this story, and God’s victory is simultaneously a victory over Satan, for Paul identifies Bar-Jesus as a
“son of the devil” (υἱὲ διαβόλου, v. 10). As Susan Garrett argues, earthly dramas reflect larger cosmic
conflicts in Acts, and Satan’s impotence after Jesus’ glorification is evident by the repeated defeat of
Satan’s allies, among them Bar-Jesus (see also Acts 5:3; 8:4–25; 19:8–20).138 Overall, Paul’s powerful
gaze functions to further God’s—not Paul’s—purposes.

A quick glance at other opponents in Acts confirms that Luke is mainly preoccupied with establishing
God’s power in toto rather than with making Paul look manly at the expense of those who oppose
God’s power. On the one hand, opponents in Acts are at times depicted in an out-of-control manner,
including Herod, Felix, antagonistic crowds, and the sons of Sceva. (p.187) Herod exhibits both anger
and violence, which leads to his divinely instigated death (12:1–4, 19–23).139 Felix shows fear and
(possibly) lack of self-control (24:25), and both Jewish and Gentile crowds are swept up in frenzies of
violence and mob-like behaviors.140 The sons of Sceva are forced to flee naked and wounded from the
scene of their attempted exorcism when an evil spirit subdues (κατακυριεύσας) and overpowers
(ἴσχυσεν) them (19:11–20).141 On the other hand, all these “out-of-control” portrayals (along with their
effeminizing connotations) arise from confrontations with the power of God or Satan. Herod dies
because he did not give glory to God (12:22–23), and Felix is fearful because of Paul’s words
concerning faith in Jesus and the coming judgment (24:25). The crowds become frenzied in response
to the proclamation of Jesus, which “turns the world upside down” (e.g., 17:6), and the sons of Sceva
are assaulted by an evil spirit because the spirit does not recognize them as proper purveyors of God’s
power (19:11–16).

Overall, the unmanning of Bar-Jesus and other opponents in Acts may appear to draw a simplistic
divide between “manly” insiders and “unmanly” outsiders, but a closer look at Acts reveals that Luke’s
portrayal of “insiders” and “outsiders” is anything but simplistic.142 The relationship between insiders
and outsiders is complex in part because this very issue is being negotiated and renegotiated
throughout the entirety of Acts: namely, with respect to the rejection of the gospel by some Jews and
the extension of the gospel to the Gentiles. It is also complex because certain characters may have been
viewed as either an insider or an outsider depending on the status and ethnicity of Luke’s audience.143
For instance, an elite Gentile (p.188) may have viewed Sergius Paulus as an insider, whereas a
nonelite Jew may have viewed this same character as an outsider.

If by “insiders” one means followers of Jesus, the division between unmanly outsiders and manly
insiders is still problematic. Paul himself becomes the most prominent insider in Acts, but his unmanly
conversion is constitutive of his identity as a follower of Jesus. Furthermore, insiders consistently
experience corporal vulnerability throughout Acts. Peter, Stephen, James, and Paul (to name only a
few) all experience persecution or death by the hands of nonfollowers. Other insiders, such as Ananias
and Sapphira, are killed (presumably) by divine retribution.144 In Acts, some insiders, such as Ananias
and Sapphira, become outsiders, and some outsiders, such as Paul, become insiders.145 Luke blurs the
lines between insiders and outsiders, for obedience to the all-powerful God of Israel, now made
manifest in Jesus, is the criterion by which all are measured. Insiders and outsiders, Jews and Gentiles,
elite and nonelite, male and female: all are powerless in comparison to the power of the crucified,
resurrected “Lord.” While there may be different gradients of power distributed among these human
subjects, God is the ultimate arbiter of this distribution and God’s ways, according to Luke, are not
subject to human directives.

Summary
Luke’s account of Paul’s out-of-control conversion is our first snapshot of this so-called hero and
begins to develop the picture of a man who recognizes God’s power. By blinding Paul, Luke
effectively emasculates Paul and situates the ostensible power of men beneath the ultimate power of
God. Although his blindness is temporary, Paul is not the same after his incapacitating encounter in
Acts 9. Instead, Paul’s blinding on the road to Damascus ushers in his characterization as a man
dependent on those whom he formerly persecuted, including, above all, Jesus “the Lord.” Paul may
gain relative power after his conversion and display some characteristically manly traits, but his
identity is primarily rooted in following the (p.189) persecuted “Lord” and not in the ideals of elite
masculinity. After his programmatic conversion to “the Way,” Paul becomes subject to his former foe,
Jesus of Nazareth, and his body—like Jesus’ own body—becomes vulnerable to suffering and
persecution. Paul must progress on a “passion” of his own, for he is now following in the footsteps of
Jesus.

Despite the claims of many commentators, it is not so much the case that Paul moves from being out-
of-control (preconversion) to exemplifying self-control (postconversion).146 Instead, Paul moves from
being the subject of violence by exerting control over other people’s bodies (preconversion) to being
the object of violence by having others exert control over his body (postconversion). In other words,
Paul becomes obedient to “the Lord’s” power—and the “necessary” (δεῖ) suffering such obedience
entails—via a divine encounter in which he completely loses power and self-control. Overall, self-
control per se is not a virtue Luke applauds, for Luke is more interested in humans recognizing that
God is ultimately in control. According to Luke, faithful followers do not exert power or cultivate self-
control for their own purposes, but act in response to the auspices of the all-powerful God of Israel
who has acted in Jesus.147 Faithful followers are “slaves” of God, and the master they serve is not the
masculine ideal of self-mastery. For Luke, dependency—not self-control—is the necessary disposition
of discipleship.

Due to his programmatic call, Paul fails to meet the elite standards of manly men since he consistently
falls under the control of others and recognizes that “the Lord” is the one ultimately in control. Like
Zechariah, Paul must be “brought down” before he is “lifted up” (Luke 1:52; 2:34). Furthermore,
God’s power renders not only Paul but all people—both opponents and proponents of the Way—
comparatively powerless, especially those who wield ostensible power via violence or via Satan. In
Acts 9, Paul’s unmanning initiates his status as a man who obeys Jesus and who models this obedience
for other believers. By losing his seeing power, Paul is able to “see” God’s power. Indeed, by losing his
sight and self-control, Paul is able to follow a God whose power is made complete in the persecuted
person of Jesus, the crucified κύριος.

Notes:
(1) Scholars to this day debate whether Paul experiences a “conversion” or a “call” in Acts 9. This
debate stems from Krister Stendahl’s famous essay “Call Rather than Conversion,” in Paul among
Jews and Gentiles (London: SCM, 1977), 7–23. For a survey of this debate, see Larry W. Hurtado,
“Convert, Apostate, or Apostle to the Nations: The ‘Conversion’ of Paul in Recent Scholarship,” SR 22
(1993): 273–84. Because Paul’s Damascus road encounter incites his reversal from “persecutor to
proclaimer,” I primarily adopt the language of conversion in the sense that Paul becomes a follower of
“the Way” even while remaining a Jew.
(2) For a discussion of Paul’s conversion in the context of these other conversions, see Beverly Roberts
Gaventa, From Darkness to Light: Aspects of Conversion in the New Testament (OBT 20; Philadelphia:
Fortress, 1986), 52–129; Philip H. Kern, “Paul’s Conversion and Luke’s Portrayal of Character in Acts
8-10,” TynBul 54 (2003): 63–80.

(3) For those who favor an apologia pro Paulo, see esp. Robert L. Brawley, “Paul in Acts: Lucan
Apology and Conciliation,” in Luke-Acts: New Perspectives from the Society of Biblical Literature
Seminar (ed. C. H. Talbert; New York: Crossroad, 1984), 129–47; Abraham J. Malherbe, “‘Not in a
Corner’: Early Christian Apologetic in Acts 26:26,” SecCent 5 (1986): 197–208; John T. Carroll,
“Literary and Social Dimensions of Luke’s Apology for Paul,” in SBLSP (27; Atlanta: Scholars Press,
1988), 106–18; John Clayton Lentz Jr., Luke’s Portrait of Paul (SNTSMS 77; Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1993); James A. Kelhoffer, “The Gradual Disclosure of Paul’s Violence Against
Christians in the Acts of the Apostles as an Apology for the Standing of the Lukan Paul,” BR 54
(2009): 25–35.

(4) As Beverly Roberts Gaventa notes, references to Paul as Luke’s “hero” appear with regularity in the
secondary literature (“Theology and Ecclesiology in the Miletus Speech: Reflections on Content and
Context,” NTS 50 [2004]: 36–52, here 43–44n21).

(5) While no work treats the Lukan Paul’s relation to gender in any sustained fashion, a few studies
treat Paul tangentially. See Abraham Smith, “‘Full of Spirit and Wisdom’: Luke’s Portrait of Stephen
(Acts 6:1-8:1a) as a Man of Self-Mastery,” in Asceticism and the New Testament (ed. L. E. Vaage and
V. L. Wimbush; New York: Routledge, 1999), 97–114, here 101–104; Mary Rose D’Angelo, “The
ΑΝΗΡ Question in Luke-Acts: Imperial Masculinity and the Deployment of Women in the Early
Second Century,” in A Feminist Companion to Luke (ed. A.-J. Levine with M. Blickenstaff; London:
Sheffield Academic Press, 2002), 44–69, here 56–58; D’Angelo, “‘Knowing How to Preside over His
Own Household’: Imperial Masculinity and Christian Asceticism in the Pastorals, Hermas, and Luke-
Acts,” in New Testament Masculinities (ed. S. D. Moore and J. Capel Anderson; SemeiaSt 45; Atlanta:
Society of Biblical Literature, 2003), 265–95, esp. 284–93; Todd Penner and Caroline Vander Stichele,
“Gendering Violence: Patterns of Power and Constructs of Masculinity in the Acts of the Apostles,” in
A Feminist Companion to the Acts of the Apostles (ed. A.-J. Levine with M. Blickenstaff; Edinburgh:
T&T Clark, 2004), 193–209, esp. 203–208; Penner and Vander Stichele, “Script(ur)ing Gender in Acts:
The Past and Present Power of Imperium,” in Mapping Gender in Ancient Religious Discourse (ed. T.
Penner and C. Vander Stichele; Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2007), 231–66, esp. 247–66;
Colleen M. Conway, Behold the Man: Jesus and Greco-Roman Masculinity (New York: Oxford
University Press, 2008), esp. 127–42; Bonnie J. Flessen, An Exemplary Man: Cornelius and
Characterization in Acts 10 (Eugene, Ore.: Pickwick, 2011), esp. 32–35.

(6) See esp. Penner and Vander Stichele, “Gendering Violence,” esp. 208.

(7) For an overview of public speaking and corporeal control as key markers of Greco-Roman
masculinity, see Maud W. Gleason, “Elite Male Identity in the Roman Empire,” in Life, Death, and
Entertainment in the Roman Empire (rev. and enl. ed.; ed. D. S. Potter and D. J. Mattingly; Ann Arbor:
University of Michigan Press, 2010), 67–84. See also chapter 2.
(8) See, e.g., Fred Veltman, “The Defense Speeches of Paul in Acts,” in Perspectives on Luke-Acts (ed.
C. H. Talbert; Danville, Va.: Association of Baptist Professors of Religion, 1978), 243–56; Derek
Hogan, “Paul’s Defense: A Comparison of the Forensic Speeches in Acts, Callirhoe, and Leucippe and
Clitophon,” PRSt 29 (2002): 73–87.

(9) On Paul’s “virtue” of self-control in this passage and the larger narrative of Acts, see Lentz, Luke’s
Portrait of Paul, 62–104.

(10) For discussions of Luke’s view on circumcision, see Eric D. Barreto, Ethnic Negotiations: The
Function of Race and Ethnicity in Acts 16 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2010), 61–118; Matthew
Thiessen, Contesting Conversion: Genealogy, Circumcision, and Identity in Ancient Judaism and
Christianity (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011), 111–41.

(11) For a discussion of these identity markers, see chapter 2.

(12) Cf. Lentz, Luke’s Portrait of Paul, esp. 23–61; Jerome H. Neyrey, “Luke’s Social Location of
Paul: Cultural Anthropology and the Status of Paul in Acts,” in History, Literature, and Society in the
Book of Acts (ed. B. Witherington III; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 251–79.

(13) On Paul’s education see esp. Acts 22:3; cf. 21:37, 40. On Paul’s Roman citizenship, see Acts
16:37, 38; 22:25, 27–28. (Yet note Eric Barreto’s argument that Paul’s designation as [literally] a
“Roman” in chapters 16 and 22 not only references his citizenship but more importantly his hybrid
ethnicity as both a “Jew” and a “Roman” living in the Roman colonized Greek East [Ethnic
Negotiations, 139–80].) On Paul’s access to wealth, see 21:24; 24:26; 28:30. On Paul’s identity as a
tentmaker and the low status associated with this trade, see Ronald F. Hock, The Social Context of
Paul’s Ministry: Tentmaking and Apostleship (2nd ed.; Minneapolis: Fortress, 2007).

(14) Jennifer Larson, “Paul’s Masculinity,” JBL 123 (2004): 85–97, here 93–94. See also Hock, Social
Context of Paul’s Ministry, esp. 26–49.

(15) Paul and the apostles convert individuals ranging from the proconsul Sergius Paulus (13:7) to
“low-status” Jews such as the Samaritans (8:5–8, 12). Indeed, the majority of conversions in Acts
include thousands of nameless Jews in Jerusalem (2:41, 47; 4:5; 5:14; 6:7; 21:20) and countless Jewish
and Gentile residents living throughout the Mediterranean basin (9:35; 10:44–48; 11:20–21; 13:48;
14:1, 21; 16:5; 17:4; 19:17–20). For more on this point, see the conclusion.

(16) See esp. Michel Foucault, The Use of Pleasure (vol. 2 of The History of Sexuality; trans. R.
Hurley; New York: Pantheon, 1985), esp. 63–77; Jonathan Walters, “Invading the Roman Body:
Manliness and Impenetrability in Roman Thought,” in Roman Sexualities (ed. J. P. Hallett and M. B.
Skinner; Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1999), 29–43; David Fredrick, “Mapping
Penetrability in Late Republican and Early Imperial Rome,” in The Roman Gaze: Vision, Power, and
the Body (ed. D. Fredrick; Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2002), 236–64.

(17) See Craig A. Williams, Roman Homosexuality (2nd ed.; New York: Oxford University Press,
2010), esp. 145–51.
(18) Interpreters often assert that Saul’s lack of food and drink reflects Saul’s penance or prebaptismal
fasting. Beverly Roberts Gaventa, however, is correct in that Luke does not describe this three-day
period as penance and that evidence elsewhere in Luke-Acts does not support either of these
conclusions (cf. Luke 4:2; 7:33; Acts 23:12; Beverly Roberts Gaventa, The Acts of the Apostles
[Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2003], 150). Instead, Saul’s lack of food and drink (coupled with his lack
of sight) highlights Saul’s passivity. Saul’s passivity parallels his earlier passivity in Acts 7:58 and
likewise hints that his passivity will be followed by activity: except this time Saul will proclaim—not
persecute—“the Way.”

(19) On Luke’s usage of the term κύριος in this manner, see C. Kavin Rowe, Early Narrative
Christology: The Lord in the Gospel of Luke (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2006).

(20) Compare these details to Saul’s later account of his call in 26:13–14. Here the light shines around
Saul and his companions, and they “all” fall to the ground. See the discussion below.

(21) For Luke’s use of a double vocative as a form of rebuke or correction, see Luke 10:41; 13:34;
22:31; cf. 6:46.

(22) Of course, the aorist passive ἠγέρθη may also convey a middle (intransitive) sense (see, e.g., Luke
11:8; 13:25). However, rendering ἠγέρθη as a passive (“he was raised”) provides a sharper contrast
with the detail that Saul raises himself up (ἀναστάς) after his recovery in 9:18.

(23) A passive reading of ἀνεῳγμένων is preferable given Saul’s reversal from being an active subject
to a passive one in vv. 1–9. Note that after Saul encounters Jesus, Saul is associated with a plethora of
passive or middle-passive verbs (ἀνάστηθι, v. 6; λαληθήσεται, v. 6; ἠγέρθη, v. 8; ἀνεῳγμένων, v. 8)
and an absence of action (being led around, v. 8; not seeing, vv. 8, 9; not eating nor drinking, v. 9). See
Dennis Hamm, “Paul’s Blindness and Its Healing, Clues to Symbolic Intent (Acts 9, 22 and 26),” Bib
71 (1990): 63–72, here 64–65; Daniel Marguerat, The First Christian Historian: Writing the “Acts of
the Apostles” (trans. K. McKinney, G. J. Laughery, and R. Bauckham; SNTSMS 121; Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2002), 179–204, here 191–92.

(24) See, e.g., Ernst Haenchen, The Acts of the Apostles (trans. B. Blackwell; Philadelphia: Westminster
Press, 1971), 323.

(25) In Acts 7:58, Saul is initially introduced as a “young man” (νεανίας), but he has presumably
attained full “manhood” by the time he encounters Jesus in 9:1–9 since Ananias protests in 9:13 that he
has heard from many people about “this man” (τοῦ ἀνδρὸς τούτου). It is clear that some time passes
between 8:3 and 9:1, although definite time markers are absent. After 7:58, Saul is consistently
identified as a “man” (ἀνήρ) in Acts: 9:13; 21:11; 22:3; 23:27, 30; 24:5; 25:5, 14, 17.

(26) See, e.g., Euripides, Phoen. 834–848, 1530–1550; Lucian, Nigr. 34; Seneca, Oed. 300; Sophocles,
Ant. 988–990, 1087; Deut 27:18; Isa 42:16; Tobit 11:16; Mark 8:23; Rom 2:19–20; Philo, Somn. 2.102,
161; Spec. 4.70. On the liminal status of male youths and disabled men with respect to masculinity, see
Walters, “Invading the Roman Body,” 33–35.

(27) Saul also apparently relies on the character Judas, since he is staying at his house (9:11, 17).
(28) Foucault famously discusses the intimate relationship between power and sight in his book
Surveiller et punir: Naissance de la Prison (Paris: Gallimard, 1975). (For the English translation, see
Foucault, Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison [trans. A. Sheridan; 2nd ed.; New York:
Vintage, 1995]). Other theorists who discuss “the gaze” include, among others, Luce Irigaray, Jacques
Lacan, Emmanuel Levinas, and Jean-François Lyotard. For an exploration of this philosophical trend
with respect to ancient Rome, see David Fredrick, ed., The Roman Gaze: Vision, Power, and the Body
(Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2002).

(29) For an overview of Western ocularcentrism and its critics, see Martin Jay, Downcast Eyes: The
Denigration of Vision in Twentieth-Century French Thought (Berkeley: University of California Press,
1993).

(30) For an application of these theoretical concerns to the ancient world, see Amy Richlin ed.,
Pornography and Representation in Greece and Rome (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992). See
also Jennifer Glancy, “Text Appeal: Visual Pleasure and Biblical Studies,” Semeia 82 (1998): 63–78.

(31) Foucault, for example, classifies premodern modes of seeing as “spectacle” and modern modes as
“surveillance.” On the debate regarding continuity between different visual traditions, see David
Fredrick, introduction to The Roman Gaze, 1–30. On the association of sight with power, see esp.
Cindy Benton, “Split Vision: The Politics of the Gaze in Seneca’s Troades,” in The Roman Gaze:
Vision, Power, and the Body (ed. D. Fredrick; Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2002), 31–
56.

(32) De Lingua Latina 6.80; trans. Fredrick, introduction to The Roman Gaze, 1. While the derivation
of the verb video (“I see”) from the word vis (“force,” “violence”) is incorrect, Varro’s association of
sight with power is telling.

(33) For an outline of ancient vision theories, see Dale C. Allison, “The Eye Is the Lamp of the Body
(Matthew 6:22-23 = Luke 11:34-36,” NTS 33 (1987): 61–83; Hans Dieter Betz, “Matthew vi.22f and
Ancient Greek Theories of Vision,” in Text and Interpretation: Studies in the New Testament Presented
to Matthew Black (ed. E. Best and R. McL. Wilson; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979),
43–56.

(34) Apotropaic remedies against the “evil eye” often include phalluses in the form of amulets. For
examples of the “evil eye,” see, e.g., Pliny the Elder, Nat. 7.2.16–18; Philo, Flacc. 29; Wis 4:12; Sir
14:8–10; 31:13; Mark 7:22. John H. Elliot has written extensively on the topic of the “evil eye” (see
esp. “The Evil Eye and the Sermon on the Mount: Contours of a Pervasive Belief in Social Scientific
Perspective,” BibInt 2 [1994]: 51–84).

(35) See Plato, Tim. 45b–47e; Aristotle, Sens. 437a–439a.

(36) See, e.g., Epictetus, Dis. 4.1.145; Seneca, Ira 3.19.1; Tacitus, Agr. 45.1–2.

(37) For a discussion of the theme of blindness as ignorance, helplessness, and punishment in the
Greco-Roman world, see Eleftheria A. Bernidaki-Aldous, Blindness in a Culture of Light: Especially
the Case of Oedipus at Colonus of Sophocles (New York: Peter Lang, 1990), 11–131; Chad Hartsock,
Sight and Blindness in Luke-Acts: The Use of Physical Features in Characterization (Leiden: Brill,
2008), 60–81. For a comprehensive compilation of blindness in Greek and Roman sources, see Albert
Esser, Das Antlitz der Blindheit in der Antike (Leiden: Brill, 1961).

(38) See, e.g., Cicero, De or. 3.221–223; Leg. 1.26–27; Quintilian, Inst. 11.3.75–76.

(39) See Polemo, Physiogn. (Leiden) A5–A23. See also Adamantius, Physiogn. A4–A23; B1; B36;
B44–B60; Anon. Lat., Physiogn. 20–43; 81; 91–133; Aristotle, [Physiogn.] 3 (807b–808a); 6 (811b;
812b; 813a; 814b). (All citations from Simon Swain, ed., “Seeing the Face, Seeing the Soul”:
Polemon’s Physiognomy from Classical Antiquity to Medieval Islam [New York: Oxford University
Press, 2007].)

(40) Adamantius, Physiogn. A4. See also Pliny, Nat. 11.54.145–146. On the relationship between
eyesight and character in the ancient world, see Hartsock, Sight and Blindness in Luke-Acts, esp. 58–
60.

(41) See Gerard Devereux, “The Self-Blinding of Oidipous in Sophokles: Oidipous Tyrannos,” JHS 93
(1973): 36–49; R. G. A. Buxton, “Blindness and Limits: Sophokles and the Logic of Myth,” JHS 100
(1980): 22–37.

(42) Apollodorus, Bibl. 3.6.7; Callimachus, Hymn. 5; Ovid, Metam. 3.316–340. See also Buxton,
“Blindness and Limits,” esp. 30–35.

(43) E.g., Apollodorus, Bibl. 2.8.1; Apuleius, Metam. 8.12–13; Chariton, Chaer. 6.5; Ovid, Metam.
6.615–619; 13.533–575; Pausanias, Descr. 2.20.2; Terence, Eun. 645; 740.

(44) See Sophocles, Oed. tyr. 1265–1275; Devereux, “Self-Blinding of Oidipous,” esp. 48–49. See also
the discussion above in chapter 2, where Odysseus famously blinds the Cyclops Polyphemos by
grinding a stake into his eye (Euripides, Cycl. 665; Homer, Od. 9).

(45) Buxton, “Blindness and Limits”; Bernidaki-Aldous, Blindness in a Culture of Light, 57–93.

(46) See Buxton, “Blindness and Limits,” esp. 30–35; Bernidaki-Aldous, Blindness in a Culture of
Light, 57–93; Nicholas Vlahogiannis, “Disabling Bodies,” in Changing Bodies, Changing Meanings:
Studies on the Human Body in Antiquity (ed. D. Montserrat; London: Routledge, 1998), 13–36, esp.
29–32.

(47) E.g., Homer, Il. 2.590–600; Pausanias, Descr. 4.33.7; Robert Garland, The Eye of the Beholder:
Deformity and Disability in the Graeco-Roman World (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1995;
2nd ed.; London: Bristol Classical, 2010), 112.

(48) Other blind prophets and poets include, inter alia, Euenius (Herodotus, Hist. 9.93–94), Phineus
(Apollodorus, Bibl. 1.9.21), Phormion (Pausanias, Descr. 7.5.7–8), Ophioneus (Pausanias, Descr.
4.12.10, 13.3), and Stesichorus (Plato, Phaedr. 243a–b). Dio Chrysostom even records that blindness is
a prerequisite for all poets, a blindness that is “contracted” from Homer (Borysth. 10–11).

(49) Apollodorus, Bibl. 3.6.7; Ovid, Metam. 3.316–340. On the paradox of blindness and insight, see
Bernidaki-Aldous, Blindness in a Culture of Light.
(50) Stesichorus, for example, regains his eyesight after making amends to Helen (Plato, Phaedr. 243a–
b). Blindness is also a temporary, contingent condition for Antylus (Plutarch, Mor. 310A), Ilus
(Plutarch, Mor. 309F), and Phormion (Pausanias, Descr. 7.5.7–8).

(51) On the ubiquity of sight impairments in the ancient world and the incongruity between
representation and reality with respect to these impairments, see Martha L. Rose, The Staff of Oedipus:
Transforming Disability in Ancient Greece (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2003), 79–94;
Dominik Opatmy, “The Figure of a Blind Man in the Light of the Papyrological Evidence,” Bib 91
(2010): 583–94.

(52) Tiresias’s gender liminality is connected both to sight and sex: he becomes a woman after seeing
two snakes copulating, and he is turned back into a man when he sees the same snakes copulating
again (Apollodorus, Bibl. 3.6.7; Ovid, Metam. 3.316–340). See Luc Brisson, Sexual Ambivalence:
Androgyny and Hermaphroditism in Graeco-Roman Antiquity (trans. J. Lloyd; Berkeley: University of
California Press, 2002), 115–45.

(53) It is telling, for example, that Ovid lists a number of characters afflicted with blindness, all of
whom are men (Ib. 259–274).

(54) For a comprehensive discussion of blindness in Jewish and early Christian texts, see Felix N. W.
Just, “From Tobit to Bartimaeus, from Qumran to Siloam: The Social Role of Blind People and
Attitudes toward the Blind in New Testament Times” (Ph.D. diss., Yale University, 1998), esp. 71–238.
For a catalog of references to blindness in Jewish sources, see Lynn Holden, Forms of Deformity
(JSOTSup 131; Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1991), 122–41.

(55) See, for example, the blind prophet Ahijah, who possesses divine insight in spite of—or perhaps
because of—his blindness (1 Kgs 14:1–18), and the blind beggar Bartimaeus, who actively pursues
Jesus in a way that many of his “sighted” followers do not (Mark 10:46–52). See also instances where
God and humans are advocates for the blind (e.g., Lev 19:14; Deut 27:18; Job 29:15; Isa 42:16; Ps
146:8).

(56) On sight as power, see, e.g., Philo, Abr. 149–159; T. Reu. 2.1–9; Rev 1:14. On blindness as
powerlessness, ignorance, and bad judgment, see, e.g., Exod 23:8; Deut 16:19; 2 Sam 5:6; Isa 6:9–10;
42:18–20; 56:10; 59:10; Zeph 1:17; Matt 15:14; 23:16–17, 19, 24; Luke 6:39; John 9:39–41; Rom
2:19–20; 2 Cor 4:4; 2 Pet 1:9; 1 John 2:8–11; Rev 3:17; Philo, Cher. 58–59; Ebr. 155–156.

(57) While Philo associates sense perception with the body and “femaleness” in general, he ranks sight
as the most masculine of the “female” senses because of the eyes’ active role in the perception of
visible objects. Indeed, sound ranks below sight because the ears are passive recipients of sound and
are “more sluggish and womanish [θηλύτερα] than eyes” (Abr. 149–150). See Sharon Lea Mattila,
“Wisdom, Sense Perception, Nature, and Philo’s Gender Gradient,” HThR 89 (1996): 103–29, esp.
127–28.

(58) See Rebecca Raphael, Biblical Corpora: Representations of Disability in Biblical Hebrew
Literature (London: T&T Clark, 2008), esp. 54–81. See also Jer 31:8, where the blind and the lame are
associated with women.
(59) 1QM 7:4–6; 1QSa 2:3–11; 4QMMT (MMT) B 49–54; 11Q19 (11QT) 45:12–14; CD 15:15–18;
Saul M. Olyan, Disability in the Hebrew Bible: Interpreting Mental and Physical Differences (New
York: Cambridge University Press, 2008), 101–18. Cf. Lev 22:22; 2 Sam 5:8; Mal 1:8; Thomas
Hentrich, “Masculinity and Disability in the Bible,” in This Abled Body: Rethinking Disabilities in
Biblical Studies (ed. H. Avalos, S. J. Melcher, and J. Schipper; SemeiaSt 55; Atlanta: Society of
Biblical Literature, 2007), 73–87.

(60) For a discussion of eye gouging and other forms of bodily mutilation as a common wartime
practice in the ancient Near East and the Greco-Roman world, see T. M. Lemos, “Shame and
Mutilation of Enemies in the Hebrew Bible,” JBL 125 (2006): 225–41; Olyan, Disability in the Hebrew
Bible, 38–45; Maud W. Gleason, “Mutilated Messengers: Body Language in Josephus,” in Being Greek
under Rome: Cultural Identity, The Second Sophistic, and the Development of Empire (ed. S. Goldhill;
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), 50–85. See also Num 16:14; 1 Sam [10:27]; 11:2; 2
Kgs 25:7; Jer 39:7; 52:11; 4 Macc 5:30; 18:21; cf. Exod 21:23–26; Lev 24:19–20; Deut 19:21; Ezek
12:10–13.

(61) See Robert P. Carroll, “Blindsight and the Vision Thing: Blindness and Insight in the Book of
Isaiah,” in Writing and Reading the Scroll of Isaiah: Studies in an Interpretive Tradition (ed. C. C.
Broyles and C. A. Evans; Leiden: Brill, 1997), 79–93; Raphael, Biblical Corpora, 119–30.

(62) See Olyan, Disability in the Hebrew Bible, 9; Raphael, Biblical Corpora, 131–37. See also 2 Kgs
6:17–18; 3 Bar. 3.8; L.A.B. 27.10; L.A.E. (Apoc.) 8.2; (Vita) 34.1–2; cf. T. Sol. 12.2; Vis. Ezra 40. Such
blindings relate to a larger pattern of men suffering physical impairments after encountering the divine.
See, e.g., Gen 32:24–32; Isa 6:5–7; Dan 8:27; 10:15–17; Luke 1:19–22; Apuleius, Metam. 11.14.

(63) On the power of vision and the language of spectacle in Revelation, see Christopher A. Frilingos,
Spectacles of Empire: Monsters, Martyrs, and the Book of Revelation (Philadelphia: University of
Pennsylvania Press, 2004).

(64) See Elizabeth A. Castelli, Visions and Voyeurism: Holy Women and the Politics of Sight in Early
Christianity (ed. C. Ocker; PCCHS 2; Berkeley, Calif.: Center for Hermeneutical Studies, 1995). See
also Blake Leyerle, “John Chrysostom on the Gaze,” JECS 1 (1993): 159–74.

(65) See Hartsock, Sight and Blindness, 143–46.

(66) See Craig A. Evans, To See and Not Perceive: Isaiah 6.9–10 in Early Jewish and Christian
Interpretation (JSOTSup 64; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1989).

(67) On blind men as the objects of Jesus’ healing, see Mark 8:22–26; 10:46–52; Matt 9:27–31; 12:22;
15:30–31; 20:29–34; Luke 18:35–43; John 9:1–41. On “the blind” appearing alongside other
marginalized groups, see, e.g., Matt 11:5; 15:30–31; Luke 4:18; 7:22; 14:13, 21; John 5:3; John S.
Roth, The Blind, the Lame, and the Poor: Character Types in Luke-Acts (JSNTSup 144; Sheffield:
Sheffield Academic Press, 1997).

(68) See R. Alan Culpepper, “Seeing the Kingdom of God: The Metaphor of Sight in the Gospel of
Luke,” CurTM 21 (1994): 434–43; Dennis Hamm, “Sight to the Blind: Vision as Metaphor in Luke,”
Bib 67 (1986): 63–72; Stephen D. Moore, Mark and Luke in Poststructuralist Perspectives: Jesus
Begins to Write (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1992), 111–44; Nils Aksel Røsæg, “The
Blinding of Paul: Observations to a Theme,” SEÅ 71 (2006): 159–85.

(69) For visions in Acts, see 2:17; 7:55–56; 9:10–16; 10:3–11:18; 12:9; 16:9–10; 18:9–10; 26:19. For
the powerful gaze of Peter, John, and Paul, see 3:4; 11:6; 13:9; 14:9; 23:1.

(70) Mary Ann Beavis, “From the Margin to the Way: A Feminist Reading of the Story of Bartimaeus,”
JFSR 14 (1998): 19–39; Hartsock, Sight and Blindness, 182–84. Cf. Matt 9:27–31; 20:29–34.

(71) In addition to Paul (Acts 9:1–19a) and Bar-Jesus (Acts 13:4–12), see Zechariah (Luke 1:19–22),
Ananias and Sapphira (Acts 5:1–11), Herod (Acts 12:20–23), and the sons of Sceva (Acts 19:11–20).

(72) In Acts 22:6, Paul specifically mentions that he is blinded at “noon” (μεσημβρία), and Deut
28:28–29 reads: “you shall grope about at noon [μεσημβρίας] as blind people grope in darkness.” See
also Isa 42:16; 59:10, and the discussion below.

(73) For a discussion of how the power of God is paradoxically made complete in “inability,” see
Simon Horne, “‘Those Who Are Blind See’: Some New Testament Uses of Impairment, Inability, and
Paradox,” in Human Disability and the Service of God: Reassessing Religious Practice (ed. N. L.
Eiesland and D. E. Saliers; Nashville: Abingdon, 1998), 88–102.

(74) Hence blindness as emasculation does not apply, for example, to the philosopher Democritus, who
allegedly blinded himself in order to gain better spiritual insight (Aulus Gellius, Noct. att. 10.17.1–4).
Since Democritus exercises control over his own body with this act, his self-inflicted blindness may
have even been considered manly. See also Seneca, Ben. 3.17.2; Ep. 9.4, 122.4.

(75) In vv. 27–28, Paul “speaks openly” in the name of Jesus (ἐπαρρησιάσατο, v. 27; παρρησιαζόμενος,
v. 28). Luke uses the noun παρρησία and the verb παρρησιάζομαι a total of twelve times in Acts and
some have argued that these usages depict Paul in particular as exercising the “frank speech” of a
moral philosopher (S. C. Winter, “Παρρησία in Acts,” in Friendship, Flattery, and Frankness of
Speech: Studies on Friendship in the New Testament World [ed. J. Fitzgerald; NovTSup. 82; Leiden:
Brill, 1996], 185–202). In the LXX, however, God and the righteous are the ones who speak with
παρρησία, and in Acts, speaking with παρρησία becomes the mark of those who preach unhindered in
the name of Jesus. As Stanley Morrow argues, “speaking openly” in Acts is not a virtue attained by
personal application and rhetorical exercise, but a divine gift (“Parresia in the New Testament,” CBQ
44 [1982]: 431–46).

(76) See, e.g., Walters, “Invading the Roman Body”; Williams, Roman Homosexuality, 31–40. On
slavery as the antithesis to freedom and self-control, see, e.g., Dio Chrysostom, 1 Serv. lib.; 2 Serv. lib.;
Epictetus, Dis. 4.4.33.

(77) See the discussion above on Paul’s ambiguous status.

(78) Beverly Roberts Gaventa, “What Ever Happened to Those Prophesying Daughters?,” in A
Feminist Companion to the Acts of the Apostles (ed. A.-J. Levine with M. Blickenstaff; Edinburgh:
T&T Clark, 2004), 49–60, here 58.
(79) For an overview of Luke’s apocalyptic discourse and outlook, see L. Gregory Bloomquist, “The
Intertexture of Lukan Apocalyptic Discourse,” in The Intertexture of Apocalyptic Discourse in the New
Testament (ed. D. F. Watson; Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2002), 45–68; Steve Walton,
“‘The Heavens Opened’: Cosmological and Theological Transformation in Luke and Acts,” in
Cosmology and New Testament Theology (ed. J. T. Pennington and S. M. McDonough; London: T&T
Clark, 2008), 60–73.

(80) See Susan R. Garrett, The Demise of the Devil: Magic and the Demonic in Luke’s Writings
(Minneapolis: Fortress, 1989).

(81) See, e.g., Marcus Aurelius, Med. 11.10; Cicero, Tusc. 2.21.50; Dio Chrysostom, 3 Regn. 34–35;
Pliny, Ep. 4.2, 7; Plutarch, Mor. 452F–464D; Seneca, Ep. 99; Ira 1.20.3. On the varied accounts of the
passions in the Greco-Roman world, see John T. Fitzgerald, ed., Passions and Moral Progress in
Greco-Roman Thought (New York: Routledge, 2007).

(82) On the importance of controlling the passion of anger in particular, see William V. Harris,
Restraining Rage: The Ideology of Anger Control in Classical Antiquity (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard
University Press, 2001).

(83) Many educated Romans during the early principate probably approved of anger when it was
directed in an appropriate quantity against an appropriate target (Harris, Restraining Rage, 218–19). In
this instance, however, it is unclear on what basis Paul can justify his emotion toward the slave girl.

(84) Luke relates that the members of the Jewish council “were enraged [διεπρίοντο]” (5:33; 7:54),
Herod “was furious [ἦν … θυμομαχῶν]” (12:20), and the crowds in Ephesus were “full of anger
[θυμοῦ]” (19:28). In each of these instances, anger leads to violence. The terms employed to describe
Paul’s anger after his conversion are milder than terms such as διαπρίομαι or θυμός/θυμομαχέω, but
they convey anger nonetheless.

(85) On how tears may function as a rhetorical device, see Thomas H. Olbricht, “Pathos as Proof in
Greco-Roman Rhetoric,” in Paul and Pathos (ed. T. H. Olbricht and J. L. Sumney; SBLSymS 16;
Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2001), 7–22. See also David E. Fredrickson, “‘Through Many
Tears’ (2 Cor 2:4): Paul’s Grieving Letter and the Occasion of 2 Corinthians 1-7,” in Paul and Pathos
(ed. T. H. Olbricht and J. L. Sumney; SBLSymS 16; Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2001),
161–79.

(86) Paul might very well be among the “all [πάντων]” who weep in v. 37.

(87) See Gaventa, “Theology and Ecclesiology.”

(88) Paul also shows deep emotion in 14:14 when he tears his clothes, rushes into a crowd, and shouts.
Clothes-tearing can convey mourning (as in Gen 37:29; Esth 4:1; Jdt 14:16) and is also a response to
blasphemy (as in Mark 14:63). In 21:13, Paul criticizes weeping, but he does so because the weeping is
breaking his heart: τί ποιεῖτε κλαίοντες καὶ συνθρύπτοντές μου τὴν καρδίαν.

(89) On Plutarch’s view that the domestication (not eradication) of the emotions enables the progress
toward virtue, see Richard A. Wright, “Plutarch on Moral Progress,” in Passions and Moral Progress
in Greco-Roman Thought (ed. J. T. Fitzgerald; New York: Routledge, 2007), 136–50.

(90) On the connotations of παθεῖν, see Thomas H. Olbricht, TDNT 9:904–39. See also the discussion
in chapter 6.

(91) On the indignity and emasculation of being physically beaten, see Jennifer A. Glancy, Corporal
Knowledge: Early Christian Bodies (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), 24–47.

(92) See Acts 9:25, 27, 30; 14:19; 16:19, 24; 17:19; 18:12; 21:27, 33–34; 22:24, 29–30; 23:10, 24, 27–
28, 30–35; 24:25; 25:6, 17, 23, 25, 26; 27:1; 28:17, 20.

(93) On the custody context of Acts 21–28, the negative connotations that imprisonment evoked, and
the inability of Paul’s imprisonment to impede his proclamation of “the Way,” see Matthew L. Skinner,
Locating Paul: Places of Custody as Narrative Settings in Acts 21–28 (Atlanta: Society of Biblical
Literature, 2003). Cf. Marie-Eloise Rosenblatt, Paul the Accused: His Portrait in the Acts of the
Apostles (Collegeville, Minn.: Liturgical Press, 1995).

(94) Martin Dibelius famously wrote that Luke presses “the crown of martyrdom” upon Paul’s head
during his Miletus speech (“The Speeches in Acts and Ancient Historiography,” in Studies in the Acts
of the Apostles [London: SCM, 1956], 138–85, here 158). For a summary of the options that explain
why Luke does not narrate Paul’s death, see Colin J. Hemer, The Book of Acts in the Setting of
Hellenistic History (WUNT 49; ed. C. H. Gemph; Tubingen: Mohr, 1989), 383–87.

(95) Note Marguerat’s apt summary: “The vision of the Risen One culminates not in the prerogative of
a spiritual experience, but in a state of subordination to a Word to be told, that will conform Paul to the
suffering destiny of this Master” (First Christian Historian, 203n72).

(96) On δεῖ conveying divine necessity, see the frequently cited article by Charles H. Cosgrove, “The
Divine ΔΕΙ in Luke-Acts,” NovT 26 (1984): 168–90. See also Acts 14:22; cf. 5:41.

(97) E.g., Lentz, Luke’s Portrait of Paul, 62–104.

(98) On the four cardinal Greek virtues as classically formulated by Plato and Aristotle, see Plato, Leg.
1.631c; Phaed. 69c; Aristotle, Eth. nic. 2–5. Later authors writing in the tradition of various
philosophical schools continue to discuss these virtues, including Jewish authors influenced by
Stoicism (e.g., Philo, Leg. 1.63–73; Wis 8:7; 4 Macc 1:1–3:18).

(99) New Testament authors do not use the language of “manliness” (ἀνδρεία) and its cognates, with
the exception of 1 Cor 16:13. Here Paul exhorts the Corinthians to “act like a man” (ἀνδρίζομαι). See
Moisés Mayordomo, “ ‘Act like Men!’ (1 Cor 16:13): Paul’s Exhortation in Different Historical
Contexts,” Cross Currents 61 (2011): 515–28.

(100) On God’s justice or “righteousness,” see Luke 7:29; Acts 17:31. On a person’s righteousness
before God, see Luke 1:6, 17, 75; 5:32; 14:14; 15:7; 18:9; 20:20; Acts 4:19; 10:22, 35; 13:10; 24:15;
cf. Luke 12:57. On Jesus as God’s suffering “righteous one,” see Acts 3:14; 7:52; 22:14; cf. Luke
23:47. For a discussion of δικαιοσύνη and its cognates in Luke-Acts, see Robert J. Karris, “Luke 23:47
and the Lucan View of Jesus’ Death,” JBL 105 (1986): 65–74; repr., Reimaging the Death of the Lukan
Jesus (ed. D. D. Sylva; Frankfurt am Main: Hain, 1990), 68–78; Peter Doble, The Paradox of
Salvation: Luke’s Theology of the Cross (SNTSMS 87; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1996), 70–160.

(101) On the theme of sexual asceticism that runs throughout Luke-Acts, see, e.g., Turid Karlsen Seim,
“Children of the Resurrection: Perspectives on Angelic Asceticism in Luke-Acts,” in Asceticism and
the New Testament (ed. L. E. Vaage and V. L. Wimbush; New York: Routledge, 1999), 115–25.

(102) John Lentz highlights this occurrence as “the most important instance in Acts of Luke making an
explicit mention of one of the cardinal virtues” (Luke’s Portrait of Paul, 83).

(103) Lentz, Luke’s Portrait of Paul, 62–104.

(104) On the development from Homer to early Christianity of the notoriously difficult-to-translate
term σωφροσύνη, see the locus classicus, Helen North, Sophrosyne: Self-Knowledge and Self-Restraint
in Greek Literature (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1966). On the pairing of σωφροσύνη with
μανία, see North, Sophrosyne, 21, 77, 90, 115, 178, 249.

(105) On the association of excess violence with anger and effeminacy in the ancient world, see Harris,
Restraining Rage, 229–82.

(106) On Luke’s presentation of “the Jews” in Acts as a disorderly mob, see Lawrence M. Wills, “The
Depiction of the Jews in Acts,” JBL 110 (1991): 631–54. However, note that disorderly mobs also
comprise Gentiles in Acts (e.g., 14:8–20; 16:19–24; 17:1–15; 19:23–41).

(107) For more on this point, see below.

(108) The charge of “madness” (μανία) was apparently frequently leveled at Christians. Justin Martyr,
for instance, writes: “They say that our madness [μανία] consists in the fact that we put a crucified man
in second place after the unchangeable and eternal God, the Creator of the world” (1 Apol. 13.4).

(109) Gaventa, Acts of the Apostles, 338–39.

(110) The philosophers misconstrue Paul’s message by calling him a “babbler” (σπερμολόγος) and a
proclaimer of foreign divinities (17:18), and they forcefully drag him to the Areopagus by “seizing”
and “leading” him (ἐπιλαβόμενοί τε αὐτοῦ ἐπὶ τὸν Ἄρειον πάγον ἤγαγον, v. 19). See C. Kavin Rowe,
World upside Down: Reading Acts in the Graeco-Roman Age (New York: Oxford University Press,
2009), 27–41, esp. 28–29, 31.

(111) On the Christian virtue of self-control among the church fathers, see North, Sophrosyne, 312–79.
On the virtue of self-control in Philo and 4 Maccabees, see David E. Aune, “Mastery of the Passions:
Philo, 4 Maccabees and Earliest Christianity,” in Hellenization Revisited: Shaping a Christian
Response within the Greco-Roman World (ed. W. E. Hellerman; Lanham, Md.: University Press of
America, 1994), 125–58. See also the discussion in chapter 2.

(112) In addition to the thematic parallel of God blinding a man, there are a number of verbal linkages
between the two passages, such as the word “straight” (9:11; 13:10) and the image of being led by the
hand (9:8; 13:11). Both passages, of course, also involve Paul.

(113) Gaventa, “Prophesying Daughters?,” 57.

(114) Scholarship that compares the three conversion accounts all note this point. See David M.
Stanley, “Paul’s Conversion in Acts: Why the Three Accounts?,” CBQ 15 (1953): 315–38; Charles W.
Hedrick, “Paul’s Conversion/Call: A Comparative Analysis of the Three Reports in Acts,” JBL 100
(1981): 415–32; Gaventa, From Darkness To Light, 52–95; S. R. Bechtler, “Meaning of Paul’s Call and
Commissioning in Luke’s Story: An Exegetical Study of Acts 9, 22, and 26,” Studia Biblica et
Theologica 15 (1987): 53–77; Hamm, “Paul’s Blindness and Its Healing”; Ronald D. Witherup,
“Functional Redundancy in the Acts of the Apostles: A Case Study,” JSNT 48 (1992): 67–86; Sophie
Reymond, “Paul sur le chemin de Damas (Ac 9, 22 et 26). Temps et espace d’une expérience,” NRTh
118 (1996): 520–38; Marguerat, First Christian Historian, 179–204.

(115) According to Witherup, for instance, the three conversion accounts parallel Paul’s development
into an eloquent spokesperson for the faith (“Functional Redundancy”). See also Hedrick, “Paul’s
Conversion/Call.”

(116) D’Angelo, “ΑΝΗΡ Question in Luke-Acts,” 56–58; Smith, “‘Full of Spirit and Wisdom,’” 101–4.

(117) Marguerat, First Christian Historian, 179–204, esp. 186–87.

(118) For a discussion of Luke’s ideal audience, see chapter 1.

(119) Marguerat, First Christian Historian, esp. 191.

(120) Paul also specifically speaks in “the Hebrew language” (i.e., Aramaic) (21:40), addresses his
audience as “brothers and fathers” (22:1), highlights Ananias’s Jewish roots (22:12, 14), and responds
to Ananias by praying in the temple (22:17).

(121) Here Paul begins his defense speech with a hand gesture typical of orators (26:1), addresses King
Agrippa and Festus with exalted titles (26:2, 7, 25), and uses some of the best Greek in the entirety of
Acts.

(122) A military tribune (or χιλίαρχος) was a high-ranking military officer in charge of six hundred to a
thousand men. Tribunes ranked below legates and above centurions and were often men from the
equestrian class. Note also that King Agrippa and his wife, Bernike, arrive at the audience hall with
“great pomp [πολλῆς φαντασίας]” (25:23).

(123) On the adaptability of masculinity and its destabilizing consequences in Acts, see Brittany E.
Wilson, “Destabilizing Masculinity: Paul in the Book of Acts and Beyond,” JBR, forthcoming.

(124) Notice, though, the shift in person with respect to the hand holding. In 9:8, the companions do all
the leading (χειραγωγοῦντες … εἰσήγαγον), whereas in 22:11 Saul is the subject (χειραγωγούμενος …
ἦλθον).

(125) The verb ἀναβλέπω can be translated “to regain sight” or “to look up.” While both meanings of
the verb may be in play in 22:13, the phrase ἀνέβλεψα εἰς αὐτόν in this verse is better translated as “I
looked up to him.”

(126) On light and glory signaling theophany in Jewish Scripture, see, e.g., Isa 4:5; 42:6–8; 60:1–2, 19;
Ps 18:12. On the association of light and glory with Jesus in Luke-Acts, see Luke 2:32; 9:32; 24:26;
Acts 7:2, 55.

(127) In the New Testament, μεσημβρία only appears here and in Acts 8:26. In the LXX, μεσημβρία
appears in Deut 28:28–29 and Isa 59:10. In Deut 28:28–29, the “Lord” (κύριος) afflicts those who
disobey the commandments with blindness, relating that “you shall grope about at noon [μεσημβρίας]
as blind people grope in darkness, but you shall be unable to find your way.” In Isa 59:10, the prophet
Isaiah pronounces an oracle of judgment, declaring that “they grope like the blind along a wall,
groping like those who have no eyes; they fall at noon [μεσημβρίᾳ] as in the twilight.” Given that Paul
delivers this speech to a Jewish audience, Paul’s use of μεσημβρία may have evoked these scriptural
resonances. (Compare this to 26:13 when Paul, in the presence of his Greco-Roman audience, simply
says ἡμέρας μέσης.)

(128) On the increasing intensity of the light, see Witherup, “Functional Redundancy,” 76.

(129) Compare Jesus’ approximately eighty-seven words in chapter 26 to his roughly twenty-six words
(spoken to Paul directly) in chapter 9 and forty-eight words in chapter 22.

(130) This proverb is found in a number of texts, including Aeschylus Ag. 1624; Pindar Pyth. 2.94;
Euripides Bacch. 794–795.

(131) I thank Ross Wagner for this observation.

(132) Lentz argues that the proverb (“It hurts you to kick against the goads”) captures Paul’s lack of
self-control prior to his conversion (Luke’s Portrait of Paul, 84–87). If this is so, however, Paul shifts
from being a beast of burden (preconversion) to a servant (postconversion).

(133) See Marguerat, First Christian Historian, 179–204.

(134) See Beverly Roberts Gaventa, “The Overthrown Enemy: Luke’s Portrait of Paul,” in SBLSP (24;
Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1985), 439–49; Gaventa, From Darkness to Light, esp. 66.

(135) Although Luke does not narrate Bar-Jesus’ recovery, he indicates that Bar-Jesus’ blindness is
temporary since he will not see “until a certain time [ἄχρι καιροῦ]” (v. 11).

(136) On this point, see Penner and Vander Stichele, “Gendering Violence,” 204. For a discussion of
Paul’s name shift in relation to ancient masculinity and the gendered connotations of the respective
names “Saul” and “Paul,” see Wilson, “Destabilizing Masculinity.”

(137) On Paul’s powerful gaze in Acts, see 13:9; 14:9; 23:1. On other male leaders’ powerful gaze, see
3:4; 11:6.

(138) Garrett, Demise of the Devil, esp. 57–60.

 (139) On the trope of rulers or “tyrants” expressing excess anger in the ancient world, see Harris,
Restraining Rage, 229–63. See also O. Wesley Allen, Jr., The Death of Herod: The Narrative and
Theological Function of Retribution in Luke-Acts (SBLDS 158; Atlanta: Scholars, 1997).

(140) Violent crowds appear in Acts 6:11–14; 7:54–60; 13:50; 14:19; 16:19–24; 17:5–9; 19:28–41;
21:27–36; 22:22–24; 23:7–10.

(141) On the association of the sons of Sceva with magic, Satan, and Luke’s apocalyptic worldview, see
Garrett, Demise of the Devil, 89–99. Cf. Penner and Vander Stichele, “Gendering Violence,” esp. 207–
8; Todd Penner, “Res Gestae Divi Christi: Miracles, Early Christian Heroes, and the Discourse of
Power in Acts,” in Miracle Discourse in the New Testament (ed. D. F. Watson; SBLSymS; Atlanta:
Society of Biblical Literature, 2012), 125–73.

(142) Compare this statement with Todd Penner and Caroline Vander Stichele, for instance, who write:
“a reader is easily enticed into reading ‘with’ the text in terms of its rather simplistic portrayal of
insiders versus outsiders” (“Gendering Violence,” 197).

(143) See the discussion in chapter 1.

(144) For a recent discussion of Ananias’s and Sapphira’s deaths and the role of human and divine
agency therein, see F. Scott Spencer, “Scared to Death: The Rhetoric of Fear in the ‘Tragedy’ of
Ananias and Sapphira,” in Reading Acts Today: Essays in Honour of Loveday C. A. Alexander (ed. S.
Walton et al.; New York: T&T Clark, 2011), 63–80.

(145) Furthermore, God chooses some outsiders, such as the zealous persecutor Paul, to suffer for the
sake of Jesus’ name, yet selects others, such as Herod (who also persecutes the Way), to be struck
down by an angel of the Lord.

(146) E.g., Lentz, Luke’s Portrait of Paul.

(147) See also Susan R. Garrett, “‘Lest the Light in You Be Darkness’: Luke 11:33–36 and the
Question of Commitment,” JBL 110 (1991): 93–105; Beverly Roberts Gaventa, “Initiatives Divine and
Human in the Lukan Story World,” in The Holy Spirit and Christian Origins: Essays in Honor of
James D. G. Dunn (ed. G. N. Stanton, B. W. Longenecker, and S. Barton; Grand Rapids, Mich.:
Eerdmans, 2004), 79–89.

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