{6. The Lord's commands. {7. Paul's companions' posture. _Contradictions_ {8. Paul's companions' hearing or not hearing. {9. If hearing, what they heard. {10. Nothing seen but light. 1. _Light seen._ Between Acts account and Paul's 1st or supposed unstudied account, no disconformity worth remarking. In Acts it is a "_light_," in Paul 1st a "_great light_";[4] in both it is about midday. But in Paul's 2d or supposed studied account, it is above the brightness of the sun at that time of the day. In Acts the passage is simply narrative: in Paul's 1st, the urgency of the occasion left no room for flowers. But in Paul's 2d, time being abundant, flowers were to be collected, and this is one of them. In the ordinary course of nature there exists not upon earth any light equal in brightness to that of the sun; especially the sun at midday, and in such a latitude. Supposing the light in question ever so much greater than the midday sun, neither Paul nor this his historian could, without a miracle on purpose, have had any means of knowing as much. For a miracle for such a purpose, the existence of any effectual demand does not seem probable. For the purpose mentioned,--namely the bereaving of the power of vision every open eye that should direct itself towards it,--to wit, so long as that same direction should continue,--the ordinary light of the sun would have been quite sufficient. At the time and place in question, whatever they may have been, suppose it true that, though midday was the time, the atmosphere was cloudy, and in such sort cloudy, that without something done for the purpose, a light productive of such effects could not have been produced. Still, for this purpose, a specially created body of light different from that of the sun, and exceeding it in intensity, could not be needful. The removal of a single cloud would have been amply sufficient:--a single cloud, and that a very small one. * * * * * But if the light was really a light created for the purpose, and brighter than that of the sun; of circumstances so important, mention should not have been omitted in the standard narrative. * * * * * Here then is either a deficiency in the standard narrative,--and this deficiency, as already observed, an inexcusable one,--or a redundancy in the subsequent account: a redundancy, the cause of which seems sufficiently obvious: a redundancy--in that account which, being premeditated on the part of the historian, is given by him as being premeditated on the part of the speaker, whom he represents as delivering it: a redundancy,--and that in a word a falsehood: a falsehood, and for what purpose?--for deception: the hero represented by his historian as using endeavours to deceive.