Paul’s conversion is often explained (rightly so) not of a bad man suddenly becoming good, but of an already very good and passionate religious man, a “Pharisee of Pharisees”, whose trajectory was tweaked by his meeting with the risen Jesus Christ.
From the standpoint of violence though (what Girard cares about), Paul’s conversion needs to be described a bit differently.
Reality is not rational, but religious. This is what the Gospels tell us. This is at the heart of history’s contradictions, in the interactions that people weave with one another, in their relations, which are always threatened by reciprocity. This awareness is needed more than ever now that institutions no longer help us and we each have to make the transformation by ourselves. In this, we have returned to Paul’s conversation, to the voice asking, “why do you persecute me?” Paul’s radicalism is a very appropriate for our time. He was less the hero who “rose” to holiness than the persecutor who turned himself back and falls to the ground.
-Rene Girard, Battling to the End, p.112