Northern Ireland has celebrated a year of normal political life.
At least St Paul got hit by a bolt of lightning and, and if we are to believe Carvaggio, got knocked off his horse. He even had a shout from a passing satellite to help him make up his mind. Three pretty strong hints that he should mend his ways.
Two thousand years later, what did Ian Paisley get to persuade him to change from a brand-name for bigotry into a reasonable human being?
In a recent biography of the big man, Paisley. From Demagogue to Democrat, journalist Ed Moloney examines a number of possible reasons for his conversion so late in life.
In 2004 Paisley had a serious illness requiring a hospital stay of more than a week. According to his son Kyle he was at death's door. But the man himself would have none of it. On emerging, he raged against those who suggested he was human.
'I hope to take a few thousand pounds off some newspapers who lied about me. And I would say it is just because I happen to be a Protestant and journalists happen to be Romanists that they think they can take it out on me.' The spots had not changed.
It was of course necessary to insist he was in good health if he was to take his place at the head of a delegation at Leeds Castle later in the year to meet with Tony Blair, Bertie Ahern and White House representative Mitchell Reiss to discuss the future of Northern Ireland.
At this time, according to Moloney, Paisley had in mind that he wanted the post of First Minister and it is possible that his recent illness made him more amenable to compromise.
It was another two years before the Leeds discussions bore fruit, this time at St Andrews. In the interim, there was the robbery of £26.5 million from the Northern Bank and the killing of Robert McCartney, the first almost certainly with the approval of the top echelons of the IRA, the second a piece of thuggery that involved the organisation in covering up murder by some of its members.
These were real life updates on Gerry Adams' famous comment to his followers in an earlier ceasefire: 'We have not gone away, you know.'
They allowed Paisley — indeed demanded of him — a suspension of contact with Sinn Fein.
Moloney believes Paisley never