The most heartbreaking scene in St. Paul's letters is the description of his call to apostleship. After Jesus' death, says Paul, the savior appeared to over 500 believers. Most translations of 1 Corinthians 15:8 then offer some version of "And last of all, as it were to one untimely born, he appeared to me."
The Greek rendered as "one untimely born" is to ektroma, a neuter noun meaning "the abortion." Self-described as bodily afflicted (2 Cor. 12:7), Paul perhaps relates "abortion" to a nickname applied by his enemies. Calling him The Abortion would have mocked not only his fleshly shortcomings (Paulos means "little guy"), but his premature self-nomination to an apostleship gained without ever encountering the pre-resurrection Jesus.
If Paul was tagged The Abortion, though, the usual word choice would have been to exambloma, meaning "something badly made" and referring to the common ancient practice of abandoning imperfect offspring. Paul the master wordsmith, however, selected to ektroma, which literally means "something that came out of a wound" -- still an abortion, but one caused by a blow.
And Paul's apostleship was caused by a blow. On the road to Damascus, the dedicated Christian-killer was knocked to the ground as he beheld a flash of light and heard Jesus asking, "Why do you persecute me?" He was blinded by the light for three days.
Although Paul calls himself "the least of the apostles" (1 Cor. 15:9) because of his persecution activities, his lack of direct teaching by Jesus and his late calling, he shows pride in his distinct status as a hardworking, educated man, divinely selected for his talents and not to be compared with some random Galilean fisherman. He doesn't even bother to contact the other apostles for three years (Gal. 1:18) after his Damascus moment. He believes God "set me apart from my mother's womb" (a telling phrase, Gal. 1:15) and that he has received his own personal revelation (2 Cor. 12). Before any other apostle leaves home, he will spread his revelation worldwide. Without Paul, Christianity would have assumed an entirely different shape.
Alongside Paul's pride walk insecurity and guilt. The blood of early Christians torments him. As a younger man, he even witnessed the brutal stoning of the first martyr, St. Stephen (Acts 7:58), yet followed the path of violence. The blinding light and the visions of the Third Heaven could easily have arisen from a bad conscience.
Since Paul made strengths of his weaknesses, he was glad to be called The Abortion, a designation that implied little fault. In his time, abortion was just something that happened -- deliberately or accidentally, sooner or later, maybe even after birth. Sometimes long after birth, the way we like it now.
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The Sex Pistols, "Bodies," 1978. "I'm an abortion!"
Manfred Mann's Earth Band, "Blinded by the Light," 1977. Bowing to criticism, the vocalist has begun singing Bruce Springsteen's original "deuce" instead of "douche."
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Painting detail by Caravaggio.