Saint Paul, also called Paul the Apostle, the Apostle Paul or Paul of Tarsus (died c 64-65), was a Hellenistic Jew, who called himself the "Apostle to the Gentiles", and was, together with Saint Peter and James the Just, the most notable of early Christian missionaries. His efforts to accept gentile converts and to define the Torah as superseded by Christ were successful and "decisive."

According to the Acts of the Apostles, his conversion (or metanoia) took place on the road to Damascus, where he experienced a vision of the resurrected Jesus after which he was temporarily blinded. Unlike Jesus' apostles in Jerusalem, Paul had not known Jesus in person. Paul asserted that he received the Gospel not from man, but by the revelation of Jesus Christ, Paul claimed almost total independence from the "mother church" in Jerusalem.

Thirteen epistles in the New Testament are attributed to Paul. Scholarly consensus is virtually united in agreement that seven of these are genuinely by Paul. Opinions differ about the remaining six, with some regarding all to be by other hands, some taking all to be genuine, and most scholars accepting some but not others. In addition, the Letter to the Hebrews was thought by some in antiquity such as Clement of Alexandria (Fragments from Eusebius Ecclesiastical History Book VI) to be by Paul, though it does not identify itself as such. However, Tertullian (On Modesty 20) indicates that Barnabas is the author of the epistle to the Hebrews - "For there is extant withal an Epistle to the Hebrews under the name of Barnabas ??“ a man sufficiently accredited by God, as being one whom Paul has stationed next to himself??¦". Paul apparently dictated all his epistles through a secretary (or amanuensis). These epistles were circulated within the Christian community, where they were read aloud in church along with other works. Paul's epistles were accepted early as scripture and later established as Canon of Scripture. Critical scholars regard Paul's epistles (written 50-62) to be the earliest-written books of the New Testament, being referenced as early as Clement of Rome (c. 96).

Paul's influence on Christian thinking arguably has been more significant than any other New Testament author. Christianity is commonly said to owe as much to Paul as to Jesus. Paul declared that faith in Christ made the Torah unnecessary for salvation, exalted the Christian church as the body of Christ, and depicted the world outside the Church as under judgment. Augustine's foundational work on the gospel as a gift (grace), on morality as life in the Spirit, on predestination, and on original sin all derives from Paul, especially Romans. Martin Luther expressed Paul's doctrine of faith most strongly as justification by faith alone. John Calvin developed Augustine's predestination into double predestination. Karl Barth's commentary on the Letter to the Romans had a political as well as theological impact. In the East, church fathers reduced the element of election in Romans 9 to divine foreknowledge, as have the Western humanists.

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