"The Walking of the Apostle Paul through Torment"

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The Apostle Paul’s Walk through Torments (The Word and Vision of the Apostle Paul) is an apocrypha dating back to the Greek original published by Tischendorf in his Apocalypses apocryphae. The reason for its creation was the place in the Second Epistle to the Corinthians, which says that the Apostle Paul was raptured in paradise to the third heaven. The journey begins with the command of the Lord to the Apostle Paul to call people to repentance. All nature complains of the sins of the human race: the sun, the night lights (the moon and the stars), and especially the earth tell of the iniquities of people. In strong expressions, the earth is indignant: it is condemned more than all creation and can no longer tolerate fornication, stealing, robbery, deceit and all the evils of men. The angels of good people come to God with joy, the angels of evil people report to the Lord about sins with weeping and weeping. After this entry comes the very Walking. The angel shows the apostle the place of the righteous and the torment of sinners. Paul saw the insignificance of the earth and knew the vanity of “the greatness of man.” He saw the souls of the sinner and the righteous depart from the body and stand before the judgment of God. Paradise in Walking is depicted as a luxurious garden with a river, flowing milk and honey; righteous people live and enjoy it. Then comes the description of the torment. The first part of the Walking was influenced by the Old Testament apocrypha of the Book of Enoch, where, among other things, there is a parallel between nature and man. Further, the Church’s teaching on toll-houses was influenced, which was taken to extremes in the Walking. There is something in common between “walking” and the walk of the Virgin through torment; in both there is an appeal to the mercy of God. In the Walking of Paul, Christ gives sinners a privilege. The spiritual verse Lamentation of the Earth is based on Walking. The Walking was referred to by Saint Epiphanius of Cyprus.

Candidate of Art Studies Anastasia Dolgova noted the influence of the “Walking of the Apostle Paul through torments” on the iconography of the “Labyrinth of the Spiritual” in Russian icon painting of the XVIII century. The apocrypha describes, and the icon depicts the death of the sinner and the death of the righteous. Dolgova noted that the scene of the death of the righteous is depicted close to the text of “Visions of the Apostle Paul”, but the death of the sinner is “a little differently”, as “the opposite of the death of the righteous, almost mirroring its overall composition.”

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Apocryphal Revelations