The apostle to the Gentiles is Paul of Tarsus. He is called so because he took the message about ʿĪsā ibn Maryam ʿalayhi al-salām, peace be upon him to non-Jews, the Gentiles, in the cities of Asia Minor and Greece, and because he claimed that this work had been given to him by God. The title comes from his own letter to the Romans, where he writes “I am the apostle of the Gentiles”.1 This page sets out where the title appears, who gave it to him, and how it fits the mission of ʿĪsā ibn Maryam himself.
Where the title appears #
In the seven letters accepted as Paul’s own, the title is always his claim about himself. The fullest statement is in Romans.
13Ὑμῖν δὲ λέγω τοῖς ἔθνεσιν. ἐφʼ ὅσον μὲν οὖν εἰμι ἐγὼ ἐθνῶν ἀπόστολος, τὴν διακονίαν μου δοξάζω,
13For I speak to you Gentiles, inasmuch as I am the apostle of the Gentiles, I magnify mine office:2
He says the same of his calling in Galatians: God revealed his Son in him “that I might preach him among the heathen”. To the Romans he describes himself as “the minister of Jesus Christ to the Gentiles”.3
Acts gives the commission to Christ, in words only Paul and Ananias hear. In Damascus the Lord tells Ananias that Saul “is a chosen vessel unto me, to bear my name before the Gentiles”, and Paul later tells a Jerusalem crowd that the Lord said to him in the Temple, “Depart: for I will send thee far hence unto the Gentiles”.4 The letters written in Paul’s name after his death repeat the title in its fullest form. 1 Timothy, which most scholars do not accept as his, has him “ordained a preacher, and an apostle, (I speak the truth in Christ, and lie not;) a teacher of the Gentiles in faith and verity”.5
Who gave Paul the title? #
Paul did. No source records any of the men who had walked with ʿĪsā ibn Maryam calling Paul an apostle, and Paul insists that he needed no one to. He opens Galatians by calling himself “an apostle, (not of men, neither by man, but by Jesus Christ, and God the Father, who raised him from the dead;)”.6 The calling, the gospel and the field were, on his account, all given to him by revelation. How he made the claim, and whom he cursed for doubting it, is set out in Was Paul an apostle? A self-appointed one.
What the Jerusalem leaders did give him was an agreement. Paul describes it in Galatians, the only firsthand account:
7ἀλλὰ τοὐναντίον ἰδόντες ὅτι πεπίστευμαι τὸ εὐαγγέλιον τῆς ἀκροβυστίας καθὼς Πέτρος τῆς περιτομῆς, 8ὁ γὰρ ἐνεργήσας Πέτρῳ εἰς ἀποστολὴν τῆς περιτομῆς ἐνήργησεν καὶ ἐμοὶ εἰς τὰ ἔθνη, 9καὶ γνόντες τὴν χάριν τὴν δοθεῖσάν μοι, Ἰάκωβος καὶ Κηφᾶς καὶ Ἰωάννης, οἱ δοκοῦντες στῦλοι εἶναι, δεξιὰς ἔδωκαν ἐμοὶ καὶ Βαρναβᾷ κοινωνίας, ἵνα ἡμεῖς εἰς τὰ ἔθνη, αὐτοὶ δὲ εἰς τὴν περιτομήν·
7But contrariwise, when they saw that the gospel of the uncircumcision was committed unto me, as the gospel of the circumcision was unto Peter; 8(For he that wrought effectually in Peter to the apostleship of the circumcision, the same was mighty in me toward the Gentiles:) 9And when James, Cephas, and John, who seemed to be pillars, perceived the grace that was given unto me, they gave to me and Barnabas the right hands of fellowship; that we should go unto the heathen, and they unto the circumcision.7
The agreement divided the work. It did not make Paul an apostle in the sense of the Twelve, and it came with a condition Paul records in the next verse: “Only they would that we should remember the poor”.8 It also broke down. Within a short time Paul was rebuking Peter at Antioch to his face, over whether Jewish believers might eat with Gentiles, as The parting with Barnabas, and open conflict with Peter relates.
Peter first: the Gentiles in Acts #
In Acts the Gentile mission begins with Peter. Its first Gentile convert is the Roman centurion Cornelius, baptised by Peter at Caesarea, before Paul’s first journey.9 At the council in Jerusalem it is Peter who claims the Gentiles as his own charge:
7πολλῆς δὲ ζητήσεως γενομένης ἀναστὰς Πέτρος εἶπεν πρὸς αὐτούς· Ἄνδρες ἀδελφοί, ὑμεῖς ἐπίστασθε ὅτι ἀφʼ ἡμερῶν ἀρχαίων ἐν ὑμῖν ἐξελέξατο ὁ θεὸς διὰ τοῦ στόματός μου ἀκοῦσαι τὰ ἔθνη τὸν λόγον τοῦ εὐαγγελίου καὶ πιστεῦσαι,
7And when there had been much disputing, Peter rose up, and said unto them, Men and brethren, ye know how that a good while ago God made choice among us, that the Gentiles by my mouth should hear the word of the gospel, and believe.10
In Galatians, Peter is the apostle of the circumcision and Paul of the Gentiles. In Acts, Peter tells the council that God chose him for the Gentiles. The two accounts cannot both stand as they are, and on Paul’s own life his letter is the earlier and better witness. The letter shows a division of labour Paul says was agreed, and a title only Paul uses.
The mission of ʿĪsā ibn Maryam: sent to Israel #
The Gospels record a different commission. When ʿĪsā ibn Maryam sent out the Twelve, Matthew says, he forbade them the Gentiles:
5Τούτους τοὺς δώδεκα ἀπέστειλεν ὁ Ἰησοῦς παραγγείλας αὐτοῖς λέγων· Εἰς ὁδὸν ἐθνῶν μὴ ἀπέλθητε καὶ εἰς πόλιν Σαμαριτῶν μὴ εἰσέλθητε· 6πορεύεσθε δὲ μᾶλλον πρὸς τὰ πρόβατα τὰ ἀπολωλότα οἴκου Ἰσραήλ.
5These twelve Jesus sent forth, and commanded them, saying, Go not into the way of the Gentiles, and into any city of the Samaritans enter ye not: 6But go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.11
And when a Canaanite woman asked him for help, he answered, “I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel”.12 Matthew ends with a command to “teach all nations”, written decades after Paul’s letters. The leaders of the first community did not act as men who had received that command. They argued at length over whether Gentiles could be received at all, and on what terms, which they would hardly have done had they been sent to the nations from the start.
The Qurʾān agrees with Matthew’s first account. It names ʿĪsā ibn Maryam وَرَسُولًا إِلَىٰ بَنِىٓ إِسْرَٰٓءِيلَ, “a messenger to the Children of Israel”,13 and gives his own words:
وَإِذۡ قَالَ عِيسَى ٱبۡنُ مَرۡيَمَ يَـٰبَنِىٓ إِسۡرَٰٓءِيلَ إِنِّى رَسُولُ ٱللَّهِ إِلَيۡكُم مُّصَدِّقًا لِّمَا بَيۡنَ يَدَىَّ مِنَ ٱلتَّوۡرَىٰةِ وَمُبَشِّرًۢا بِرَسُولٍ يَأۡتِى مِنۢ بَعۡدِى ٱسۡمُهُۥٓ أَحۡمَدُ
“And when Jesus, the son of Mary, said, ‘O Children of Israel, indeed I am the messenger of Allāh to you confirming what came before me of the Torah and bringing good tidings of a messenger to come after me, whose name is Aḥmad.’”14
Every messenger, the Qurʾān says, was sent in the language of his own people: وَمَآ أَرْسَلْنَا مِن رَّسُولٍ إِلَّا بِلِسَانِ قَوْمِهِۦ لِيُبَيِّنَ لَهُمْ, “And We did not send any messenger except speaking in the language of his people to state clearly for them”.15 The Prophet ﷺ named the universal mission as one of the five things given to him and to no prophet before him:
وَكَانَ النَّبِيُّ يُبْعَثُ إِلَى قَوْمِهِ خَاصَّةً، وَبُعِثْتُ إِلَى النَّاسِ عَامَّةً
“Every prophet was sent to his own people alone, and I have been sent to all mankind.”16
What the title shows #
Taken together, the sources give a plain result. ʿĪsā ibn Maryam was sent to the Children of Israel and sent his disciples to them. A mission to all peoples was given, by the Prophet’s own word, to the last messenger, Muḥammad ﷺ. Between the two, Paul gave himself a title neither of them gave him, and with it the right to carry to the nations a gospel he said he had received from no man.
The Gentile churches that grew from his journeys, traced in Paul’s missionary journeys: the routes Acts records, received the message of ʿĪsā ibn Maryam in Paul’s version: without the law their teacher kept, and with doctrines he never taught, which Seven doctrines: God, the cross and faith sets out. That is this site’s verdict on the apostle of the Gentiles: a man who appointed himself to a mission that was not his, Paul laʿnat Allāh, the curse of God.
In short #
- The apostle to the Gentiles is Paul of Tarsus.
- The title comes from Paul’s own words, “I am the apostle of the Gentiles” (Romans 11:13).
- James, Peter and John agreed to a division of the work (Galatians 2:9); Acts gives the first Gentile mission to Peter (Acts 15:7).
- ʿĪsā ibn Maryam, Matthew says, was sent to Israel (Matthew 15:24), and the Qurʾān calls him a messenger to the Children of Israel (3:49).
Was Paul one of the Twelve at all? That question, and Matthias, are answered in Was Paul one of the twelve?
- Romans 11:13 (KJV). “Gentiles” translates ἔθνη (ethnē), “the nations”, which the KJV renders both “Gentiles” and “heathen”. ↩
- Romans 11:13 (KJV; Greek from the SBLGNT). ↩
- Galatians 1:16; Romans 15:16 (KJV). ↩
- Acts 9:15; 22:21; compare 26:17 (KJV). ↩
- 1 Timothy 2:7; compare 2 Timothy 1:11 (KJV). On the letters written in Paul’s name, see Two Pauls. ↩
- Galatians 1:1 (KJV). ↩
- Galatians 2:7–9 (KJV; Greek from the SBLGNT). ↩
- Galatians 2:10 (KJV). The collection that followed is examined in The purse: the collection for Islamicjerusalem. ↩
- Acts 10:1–48; 11:1–18. ↩
- Acts 15:7 (KJV; Greek from the SBLGNT). ↩
- Matthew 10:5–6 (KJV; Greek from the SBLGNT). ↩
- Matthew 15:24 (KJV). ↩
- Sūrah Āl ʿImrān 3:49. Qurʾānic verses are rendered after Saheeh International. ↩
- Sūrah al-Ṣaff 61:6. ↩
- Sūrah Ibrāhīm 14:4. ↩
- Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī, no. 335 (no. 328 in the numbering of Muṣṭafā al-Bughā’s edition), from Jābir ibn ʿAbd Allāh (shamela.ws/book/735/578); also Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim, no. 521. ↩