William Clayton, on 5 January 1841, recorded the following comments from Joseph Smith who described the apostle Paul thusly:
Description of Paul—He is about 5 foot high; very dark hair; dark complection; dark skin; large Roman nose; sharp face; small black eyes, penetrating as eternity; round shoulders; a whining voice, except when elevated and then it almost resembles the roaring of a Lion. (The Words of Joseph Smith: The Contemporary Accounts of the Nauvoo Discourses of the Prophet Joseph Smith [comp. Andrew F. Ehat and Lyndon W. Cook; Orem, Utah: Grandin Book Company, 1991], 59)
Some may wonder how Joseph Smith got this information, whether supernaturally (from a revelation or vision) or another source. On this issue, the source was from his reading of a book he had in his possession, William Hone’s Apocryphal New Testament. In some of the works contained therein, most notably the Acts of Paul and Thecla (AKA Acts of Paul) dating to about AD 160, the description the prophet gave of the apostle Paul matches perfectly with this work, showing that Joseph was dependent upon this source for his description of Paul.
In Paul and Thecla, we read the following description of the Apostle:
At length they saw a man coming (namely Paul), of a low stature, bald (or shaved) on the head, crooked thighs, handsome legs, hollow-eyed; had a crooked nose; full of grace; for sometimes he appeared as a man, sometimes he had the countenance of an angel. And Paul saw Onesiphorus, and was glad. (1:7)
