Great Lion of God: A Major Novel About St. Paul

x, 597 pages. "This classic, epic novel by the acclaimed novelist Caldwell, is a fascinating, moving and spiritual story about St. Paul, and the life and times of the Jews, Romans and early Christians during the time of Jesus and shortly thereafter. It is a rich and textured work that combines Caldwell's wonderful literary skills with a profound spiritual depth that reveals the amazing story of Paul, the persecutor turned Apostle, and the powerful impact he had on his times and long after." ABOUT THE AUTHOR: "Janet Miriam Holland Taylor Caldwell (September 7, 1900 - August 30, 1985) was an Anglo-American novelist and prolific author of popular fiction, also known by the pen names Marcus Holland and Max Reiner, and by her married name of J. Miriam Reback. She used often in her works real historical events or persons. Taylor Caldwell's best-known works include Dynasty of Death (1938), an epic story about intrigues and alliances of two Pennsylvania families involved in the manufacture of armaments. Her last major novel, Answer as a Man, appeared in 1980, and told a story of a man who begins his rise to prestige and power in the midst of the Great Depression. "You hard man," said Mr. Maggiotti. "Learned it the hard way," Bernard would reply. "Men are bastards." "God loves all men, Bernie." "More fool he," said Bernie. (from Answer as a Man) Taylor Caldwell was born in Manchester, England, into a family of Scottish background. Her family descended from the Scottish clan of MacGregor of which the Taylors are a subsidiary clan. In 1907 she emigrated to the United States with her family. At the age of eight she started to write stories, and in fact wrote her first novel, The Romance of Atlantis, at the age of twelve¹ (although it was to remain unpublished until 1975). In 1919 she married William F. Combs and divorced in 1931. Between the years 1918 and 1919 she served in the United States Navy Reserve. From 1923 to 1924 she was a court reporter in New York State Department of Labor in Buffalo, New York and from 1924 to 1931 a member of the Board of Special Inquiry at the Department of Justice in Buffalo. In 1931 she graduated from the University at Buffalo. In collaboration with her second husband, Marcus Reback, she wrote several bestsellers, the first of which was Dynasty of Death. Caldwell had started to write the story in 1934. It begins from the year 1837 and focuses on the entangled relationships of two families, who control a huge munitions trust. Joseph Barbour is a servant, who becomes a successful businessman and arms manufacturer. His son Martin is not interested in money, he is an idealist and altruist. Ernest, the elder son, is an egoist and believes that money is the greatest power in the world. Ernest loves Amy Drumhill, the niece of Gregory Sessions, owner of a steel factory. However, she marries Martin, who establishes a hospital, and dies in the American Civil War. Ernest's hardness ruins Joseph, and he is cursed by his mother. Dynasty of Death attracted wide attention when it was revealed that behind the male pseudonym was a woman. The story was continued in The Eagles Gather (1940) and The Final Hour (1944). As a writer Caldwell was praised for her intricately plotted and suspenseful stories, which depicted family tensions and the development of the U.S. from an agrarian society into the leading industrial state of the world. Caldwell's heroes are self-made men of pronounced ethnic background, such as the German immigrants in The Strong City (1942) and The Balance Wheel (1951). Her themes are ethnic, religious and personal intolerance (The Wide House, 1945), the failure of parental discipline (Let Love Come Last, 1949) and the conflict between the desire for power and money and the human values of love and sense of family, presented in such works as Melissa (1948), A Prologue to Love (1962) and Bright Flows the River (1978). In her later works Caldwell explored the American Dream and wrote stories "from rag to rich