Originally Posted by
stlukesguild
Acts 9:15- But the Lord said unto him, Go thy way: for he is a chosen vessel unto me, to bear my name before the Gentiles, and kings, and the children of Israel:
II Corinthians 12:2-4-I knew a man in Christ above fourteen years ago, (whether in the body, I cannot tell; or whether out of the body, I cannot tell: God knoweth; such an one caught up to the third heaven. And I knew such a man, (whether in the body, or out of the body, I cannot tell: God knoweth; How that he was caught up into paradise, and heard unspeakable words, which it is not lawful for a man to utter.
Commentary on the passage states that the letter written by Paul of Tarsus (Saint Paul or the Apostle Paul) to the Christians of Corinth, Greece speaks in a veiled manner of his own experience in which his soul was dislodged from the body for a time, and taken up into heaven... while he was still alive.
Dante's choice of the term, the "chosen vessel" makes clear that it is indeed Paul he refers to.