The High Priest Sends Saul to Damascus

12th century
Mosaic
Palatine Chapel, Palermo, Sicily

Saul is the name Paul used before his conversion. Here he requests and receives from the High Priest in Jerusalem "letters to Damascus, to the synagogues: that if he found any men and women of this Way, he might bring them bound to Jerusalem" (Acts 9:2). The men behind the High Priest represent the "council of elders" that Paul mentions in his much later account of the episode before the Jerusalem Jews (Acts 22:5).

The inscription at the top says SAULUS IN IHERUSALEM ACCIPIT POTESTATEM UT PERSEQUATUR CHRISTIANOS, "In Jerusalem Saul accepts the authority to persecute Christians."

View this image in full resolution.
View the entire Peter and Paul Cycle in the Palatine Chapel.
Read more about St. Paul.

• Home Page
• Iconography of St. Peter
• The Chapel's Peter-Paul Cycle
• This Mosaic

Photographed at the chapel by Richard Stracke, shared under Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike license.