A man travels from Jerusalem to Damascus. He is a religious man, he is accompanied by a small entourage. His mission is by mandate from the High Priest; he is going to Damascus to arrest followers of Jesus and bring them to Jerusalem for trial and possibly execution. His name is Saul, and he is fanatic in his persecution of Christians.
At this point in his life, he has already been an accomplice in the stoning of Stephen. He has imprisoned followers of Jesus in Jerusalem, destroyed their church and scattered its members across Judea. If he has any feelings of remorse or theological scruples, it is certainly not clear from the text. He is described as angry and ambitious [Acts of the Apostles 8:1 and 9:1].
At this point in his life, he has already been an accomplice in the stoning of Stephen. He has imprisoned followers of Jesus in Jerusalem, destroyed their church and scattered its members across Judea. If he has any feelings of remorse or theological scruples, it is certainly not clear from the text. He is described as angry and ambitious [Acts of the Apostles 8:1 and 9:1].
But then something happens:
As he neared Damascus on his journey, suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him. He fell to the ground and heard a voice say to him, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?”“Who are you, Lord?” Saul asked.“I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting,” he replied. “Now get up and go into the city, and you will be told what you must do.”The men traveling with Saul stood there speechless; they heard the sound but did not see anyone. Saul got up from the ground, but when he opened his eyes he could see nothing. So they led him by the hand into Damascus. For three days he was blind, and did not eat or drink anything.[Acts 9:3-9, NIV]
The experience changes Saul's beliefs entirely. In Damascus, Saul is baptized, and he begins to preach that Jesus is the Christ. Due to his previous reputation of persecuting Christians, he is initially met with distrust. But his preaching is convincing, his faith is pure. Later, he changes his name to Paul. He travels most of the ancient world, visiting congregations or establishing churches. His writings - along with the gospels - lay out the very foundation of Christianity.
The story of the revelation on the road to Damascus is retold three times in Acts of the Apostles [Acts 9:3-13, 22:6-21, 26:12-26] and several times in the following letters [1st Corinthians 15:3-8, Galatians 1:11-16, Philippians 3:4-6].
To a man in the first century, it is divine intervention. A miracle.
To a 21st century neurologist, this experience is a typical description of an epileptic complex partial seizure.
To a man in the first century, it is divine intervention. A miracle.
To a 21st century neurologist, this experience is a typical description of an epileptic complex partial seizure.
Epileptic seizures are often depicted as violent convulsions agitating the whole body, causing wide opened eyes, salivation and contorted grimaces of the face. An epileptic seizure is a dramatic event, and bystanders are often horrified by the uncontrolled motor spasms.
I have met a lot of scared people in my work, but never anyone more scared than parents who have just witnessed their child having an epileptic seizure. It looks horrible. The condition is most often self limiting, but it can become life threatening.
Epilepsy is caused by excessive and uncontrolled discharges of neurons in the brain. The discharges can originate in any small site in the brain, but they will often spread out over the entire cortex of the brain, like a small underwater earthquake causing a massive and devastating tsunami. The involvement of larger areas of the brain will cause loss of consciousness. When the motor area of the brain is involved, rhythmic convulsions occur.
But the excessive discharge of neurons can occur in any part of the brain, and can be limited to the specific functions of that area. For instance, epileptic activity originating in the sensory cortex will cause an experience of changed sensation as a numbness or tingling feeling in the skin, often crawling across the skin as the discharges spread through the different sensory areas in the brain. If the epileptic focus is in the occipital lobe, where visual input is enterpritated, the epileptic seizure may take the form of flashes of light or moving colours.
After the fit, the affected part of the brain may be exhausted. Motor spasms can leave part of the body paralyzed for hours or days. Speech may be inhibited after a seizure, and interestingly, a seizure involving the occipital lobe can leave the patient completely blind for days.
The temporal lobe of the brain is a complex structure. It holds functional areas responsible for the interpretation of language, for sounds and smells, and for memory.
An epileptic seizure originating in the temporal lobe can cause a variety of psychic experiences or changed perceptions. Visual and auditory hallucinations are common, changed perception of sizes are well described as micropsia (everything looks small) or macropsia (everything looks large), and altered memory can be experienced as déjà vue (something not previously occurred seems familiar) or jamais vécu (something familiar seems uncommon).
One patient told me of seizures characterized by a certain music playing in his head, always pleasant and accompanied by a feeling of joy. He would recognize the music at the onset of the seizure, but to his own regret, he could not recall the piece of music when the epileptic activity had passed. Another patient described the recurring feelings of jamais vécu as utterly unpleasant, as she would not recognize her husband or children or home during a seizure, and consequently she felt alarmed and threatened.
Temporal lobe epilepsy may cause emotional experiences only. The seizures may take the form of dramatic feelings of anger and aggressiveness. One patient feared his seizures because he would react with uncontrolled rage and violence, and he would repeatedly be brought to the hospital handcuffed and escorted by the police. But the opposite may also occur with an epileptic seizure causing feelings of joy and ecstatic wellbeing, some patients even describing the seizures as religious revelations or heavenly bliss. Ecstatic seizures are rare, but one famous epileptic, Russian writer Dostoevsky, described one as the touch of God:
An epileptic seizure originating in the temporal lobe can cause a variety of psychic experiences or changed perceptions. Visual and auditory hallucinations are common, changed perception of sizes are well described as micropsia (everything looks small) or macropsia (everything looks large), and altered memory can be experienced as déjà vue (something not previously occurred seems familiar) or jamais vécu (something familiar seems uncommon).
One patient told me of seizures characterized by a certain music playing in his head, always pleasant and accompanied by a feeling of joy. He would recognize the music at the onset of the seizure, but to his own regret, he could not recall the piece of music when the epileptic activity had passed. Another patient described the recurring feelings of jamais vécu as utterly unpleasant, as she would not recognize her husband or children or home during a seizure, and consequently she felt alarmed and threatened.
Temporal lobe epilepsy may cause emotional experiences only. The seizures may take the form of dramatic feelings of anger and aggressiveness. One patient feared his seizures because he would react with uncontrolled rage and violence, and he would repeatedly be brought to the hospital handcuffed and escorted by the police. But the opposite may also occur with an epileptic seizure causing feelings of joy and ecstatic wellbeing, some patients even describing the seizures as religious revelations or heavenly bliss. Ecstatic seizures are rare, but one famous epileptic, Russian writer Dostoevsky, described one as the touch of God:
The air was filled with a big noise and I tried to move. I felt Heaven was coming down upon the earth and that it engulfed me. I have really touched God. He came into me myself, yes God exists, I cried, and I don't remember anything else. You all, healthy people ... can't imagine the happiness which we epileptics feel during the second before our fit. ... I don't know if this felicity lasts for seconds, hours or months, but believe me, for all the joys that life may bring, I would not exchange this one.
Epileptics are scattered throughout all of Dostoevsky’s authorship, probably most famously as Prince Myshkin in The Idiot. The condition also helped the writer himself out of the army; an artist with temporal lobe seizures and armed with a gun was a convincingly bad idea.
It can be speculated that Saul had an epileptic seizure originating in the left temporal lobe, bringing him to an ecstatic state of wellbeing and an overwhelming feeling of divinity. The epileptic activity seems to have spread backwards across the lobe involving areas of speech perception, leading to the auditory hallucinations of a conversation with Jesus. Finally, the epileptic discharges would involve the occipital lobe, leaving Saul blinded for days after the exhaustive activity.
It is difficult to establish Saul as an epileptic. After his conversion there is no further mention of episodes that could constitute epileptic seizures. However, throughout Paul’s letters to his congregations, he often mentions his own illness, a condition whose characteristics never become quite clear.
It has been suggested that epileptics with temporal lobe seizures have a certain personality. They are described as circumstantial and tedious in conversation, inclined to mysticism and preoccupied with rather naive religious or philosophical ideas. Obsessionalism, a tendency to paranoia and mood swings with aggressive outburst have also been ascribed to patients with temporal lobe epilepsy. Behavioral abnormalities as hyposexuality (diminished sexual interest), hypergraphia (increased productivity in writing) and hyperreligiosity have all been suggested in the condition. The obvious inspiration for these personality traits is Dostoevsky, but it has also been speculated that Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard and the composer Mozart owed their impressive productivity to temporal lobe epilepsy.
The suggested personality traits in epilepsy have been disputed and remains to be clarified. Nevertheless, the characteristics of a religious man with an almost compulsive urge to write could certainly also be applied to Paul.
The suggested personality traits in epilepsy have been disputed and remains to be clarified. Nevertheless, the characteristics of a religious man with an almost compulsive urge to write could certainly also be applied to Paul.
In the first century, theological fractions within the Jewish community were accepted, and Christianity was originally a sect of Judaism. There was nothing especially captivating about the preachings of Jesus, nothing scandalous in his disputes with older rabbis or radical in his interpretations of the laws. Young men claiming to be prophets or even the Messiah were not uncommon. That the gospel of Jesus should reach thousands and become a worldwide religion was not inevitable. Especially as Jesus himself did not write down a single word of his teachings.
The theological thinking of Jesus was conveyed by apostles. And no one would be more instrumental in the interpretation and dissemination of his words than Paul.
Jesus as man’s final sacrifice to God, the ultimate sacrifice to reconcile man and God for eternity, was not a message easily understood. Neither was the abandonment of the strict rules of Judaism to introduce a religion of faith only, a religion allowing the inclusion of tribes and peoples other than the direct descendants of Abraham. But in the writings of Paul, the promises were explicit and crystal clear: After the sacrifice, all men were forgiven.
This promise of salvation and resurrection was addressed in Paul’s letters to the congregations, most easily accessible in the Epistle to the Romans (56 CE), and most beautifully composed in the First Epistle to the Corinthians (54 CE). The promise, its pitfalls and its consequences, was thoroughly considered by Paul, and he conveyed it elegantly. Paul's writings would be the pillar of Christianity and its dissemination.
It took a profound and dedicated thinker to turn the preachings and parables of a young rebel into a comprehensive and organized theology. It took Paul to turn Jesus into Christ.
On that road to Damascus, Saul had a revelation. He heard the voice of Jesus. After this, he converted to Christianity and changed his name to Paul. He travelled from Judea through Anatolia and Greece, meeting congregations and preaching in churches. He was imprisoned and sent to Rome, where he was finally executed. Throughout his travels and his imprisonment, he wrote a detailed and well-organized theology. He introduced the radically new message of salvation, justification and sanctification through faith in God, and he introduced the promise of resurrection. There was no pain or death, only martyrdom and salvation. Salvation was obtainable for anyone of faith. Paul gave Christianity its essence and its appeal. After him, this religion was irrepressible.
Persecutions would follow, wars would be fought. But the promise of eternal life in return for faith was received with gratitude by the thousands living in poverty or under oppression. This idea would prevail. Within three centuries, Roman Emperor Constantine the Great adapted the religion, decriminalized Christianity and was baptized. In 380, Christianity was declared the state religion of the Roman Empire.
And I would like to think that these events, these world changing thoughts and movements, these ideas of faith and forgiveness, were all caused by a small epileptic discharge in the neurons of the left temporal lobe in the brain of an ambitious man.
I wish you all a merry Christmas and peace on Earth.
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Landsborough D: St Paul and temporal lobe epilepsy. Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery and Psychiatry. 1987.
Ropper AH, Brown RH: Adams and Victor's Principles of Neurology (8th Edition). McGraw-Hill. 2005.
Iniesta I: Epilepsy in the process of artistic creation of Dostoevsky. Neurologia. 2011.
Sacks O: Seeing God in the Third Millennium. The Atlantic. 2012.
Wood J: The Radical Origins of Christianity. The New Yorker. 2017.
Ropper AH, Brown RH: Adams and Victor's Principles of Neurology (8th Edition). McGraw-Hill. 2005.
Iniesta I: Epilepsy in the process of artistic creation of Dostoevsky. Neurologia. 2011.
Sacks O: Seeing God in the Third Millennium. The Atlantic. 2012.
Wood J: The Radical Origins of Christianity. The New Yorker. 2017.
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