St Paul must have lived the ascetic life of an athlete hardening his physique for the many hardships ahead, not least his shipwreck on the rocky shores of Malta. It was a long-standing tradition in Jewish culture to train their bodies to become muscular Jews.

In his letter to the tough Corinthians, a prosperous maritime city where St Paul worked as a tanner, he felt justified in boasting what he had to endure in defence of the faith: “Five times the Jews have given me the 39 strokes, three times I have been beaten with rods, once I was stoned, three times I have been shipwrecked and for 24 hours I have been adrift on the open seas.”

On his feast day it is most opportune to highlight his total mastery of the sporting metaphor in many of his epistles, particularly to his young friend Timothy and to the Corinthians in whose city he had lived for some years.

The main altarpiece at St Paul’s Shipwreck Collegiate Church, Valletta: a painting of St Paul’s shipwreck by Matteo Perez d’Aleccio.

Saul of Tarsus, then a young Jewish student and a brilliant disciple of the highly-respected Gamaliel, was surely a frequent visitor to the gymnasium and the stadium in his native Tarsus as well as in Damascus, Jerusalem and Corinth.

It was a time when the Games of the hallowed sanctuaries of Ancient Olympia, mysterious Delphi, secluded Nemea and tumultuous Corinth were still a major force in the Pan-Hellenic world that included Italy, Sicily, parts of Turkey and the North African littoral, which all competed in these games with Olympia being the greatest festival of them all, celebrated with poems, songs and magnificent artistic works.

Greek civilisation, with its cult of beauty and the sublime encapsulated by the term of kalos kagathos meaning the harmonious development of body and mind held sway over the whole eastern Mediterranean region.

Every athlete goes into strict training. They do it to win a fading wreath: we are a wreath that never fades

St Paul’s familiarity with the interminable values of athleticism whose noble virtues he so brilliantly expounds makes us conclude that this great apostle from his boyhood in Tarsus was a keen follower of athletics. The language of sport (then known as agones meaning sacrifice) springs constantly and effortlessly in his writings as he makes cogent observations on athletics and competition.

A Greek vase showing two Olympic boxers.

Christian life to him was analogous to an athletic contest whose efforts are deeply entrenched in Christian philosophy of excellence.

Ancient Corinth, renowned for its loose-living and luxurious lifestyle, organised one of the most important Pan-Hellenic Games every two years – known as the Isthmus Games – dedicated to the sea-god Poseidon. While in Olympia the winners were crowned with olive branches, and those of Delphi with laurel leaves, the winners at the Isthmus Games were originally crowned with pine branches.

However, early in the first millennium, the organisers decided to crown the winners with a wreath made of wild celery that quickly withered away.

This was done to send a philosophical message that earthly triumphs are ephemeral.

Living for over two years in this commercial port for over two years, St Paul was undoubtedly aware and familiar with the ceremonials of the Games. In his first epistle to the people of Corinth who celebrated the Games with great pomp, St Paul brilliantly expounds Christian life in athletic terminology:

“You know, do you not, that at the sports all runners run the race though only one wins the prize. Like them run to win. But every athlete goes into strict training. They do it to win a fading wreath: we a wreath that never fades.

“For my part I run with a clear goal before me; I am like a boxer who does not beat the air. I bruise my body and make it know its master for fear that after preaching to others I find myself rejected.”

The ruins of the Temple of Poseidon, protector of the Isthmus Games, at Sounio, Athens, Greece.

I know of no other quotation in the Holy Scripture, indeed in all classical literature, that is so rich in sports metaphor. This epistle was echoed by modern philosophers like J.J. Rouseau in different ways to demonstrate the power of the mind over the body through sport.

St Paul coveys this metaphor further by encouraging his young gentile friend Timothy to the practice of sport and religion. St Paul reminds him of the importance of fair play and of the rules inherent in every sport discipline.

“No athlete can win the prize”, warns Paul, “unless he has kept the rules”.

The competitive element in sport, the agones, is extolled by St Paul because he is fully aware what real athletes go through in pursuit of excellence. Like the great philosopher Socrates before him, St Paul had undoubtedly attended the Pan-Hellenic Games of the Isthmus.

In utter defiance of conventional moralists like Euripides as well as Diogenes, originator and arch-type of the sect known as the Cynics who denied any benefits derived from sport, he urges the sports-minded Timothy: “Keep yourself in training for the practice of religion.”

Many doubt whether St Paul coming from a devout family of the diaspora was ever an athlete himself. Nakedness was something repugnant to the Jewish traditions but Greek culture glorified the naked athlete.

However, there are strong reasons to conclude that Jews living in Greek communities very often ignored this restriction. If not a practising athlete himself, St Paul was undoubtedly a keen adept of athleticism in his early years.

Research reveals that at that time his native Tarsus had a stadium where regular sports festivals were held. There was also a gymnasium for young men on the banks of the river Cyndus. Olympic records of the Ancient Games at the Museum of Archaeology in Athens show that Tarsus once had an Olympic winner, a magnificent achievement in those times, when in AD65 Apollophanes won the stade, the most prestigious event in the Olympic Games.

St Paul was not there to join in the celebrations for he had already “run the great race, finished the course and kept the faith”.

Regrettably, today the spiritual dimension of sport may not be sufficiently perceived by a few of our spiritual leaders with the result that the Catholic laity in Malta is only mildly receptive, if not altogether averse, to the importance of vigorous sports as a transmitter of Christian values.

It is manifestly clear that these sports disciplines contribute substantially to the Christian lifestyle.

Blessed Pope Paul VI pointed out at a Vatican meeting with delegations from the European Olympic Committees in 1978: “In fact does one not find in athletic competition an effective antidote to idleness, slackness... an easy life, which are usually the propitious ground for the sad proliferation of all sorts of vices?”

The Pope concluded his address by calling well-organised sport “a school of virtue”.

Undoubtedly, the first person of Olympian stature to set foot on our island was a tough man indeed!

• Lino Bugeja is former honorary general secretary of the Malta Olympic Committee.