Idiom
road to Damascus
Meaning
An important point in someone's life where a great change, or reversal, of ideas or beliefs occurs.
Meaning adapted from Wiktionary, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Examples
“His change of heart was a real road to Damascus moment.”
“After years of ignoring environmental issues, her trip to the rainforest was a road to Damascus that changed her career path.”
“The philosopher described his sudden rejection of his earlier theories as a road to Damascus, marking a complete transformation in his intellectual life.”
Examples
simple
“His change of heart was a real road to Damascus moment.”
contextual
“After years of ignoring environmental issues, her trip to the rainforest was a road to Damascus that changed her career path.”
complex
“The philosopher described his sudden rejection of his earlier theories as a road to Damascus, marking a complete transformation in his intellectual life.”
Origin
The phrase comes from Acts 9:1-19. Saul of Tarsus, a zealous persecutor of the early Christians, is travelling to Damascus to arrest more of them when a blinding light stops him on the road and a voice asks why he is persecuting it. Struck sightless, he is led into the city, and days later his sight and his allegiance are both restored. The persecutor becomes Paul, the movement's most tireless advocate. The reversal could hardly be sharper: a man sets out to destroy a cause and arrives converted to it.
What English took from the story is the suddenness and completeness of the turnaround, a change of conviction so total it amounts to becoming a different person.
A road-to-Damascus moment now means a sudden, dramatic conversion or reversal of belief, a point at which someone abruptly comes to see things the opposite way. It need not be religious; it applies to any abrupt, wholesale change of mind.
Key words
Related idioms
Stories
Paul & the Early Church · See all Biblical origin
Acts and the letters of Paul to the first churches.
reap what you sow — Your actions produce their own inevitable consequences, good or bad.
the root of all evil — The underlying source of much wrongdoing — most often applied to money.
fight the good fight — To persevere with determination in a worthy and difficult struggle.
a thorn in the side — A persistent source of irritation, trouble, or difficulty.
the wages of sin — The inevitable painful consequences of wrongdoing.
in the twinkling of an eye — In an instant; extremely quickly.
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