Thus while, according to the author of the Acts the time--during which Jesus was seen by the persons in question was not less than _forty_ days,--according to Saint Luke, the whole time, during which this same Jesus was seen by those same persons, was not more than _one_ day. And who was this historian, who, on the supposition of the identity, speaking of this all-important scene, on one occasion says, that it lasted no more than _one_ day; and, on another occasion, professing, Acts 1:1, to be giving continuance to such his former discourse, declares, in so many words, that it lasted "forty days"? It is Saint Luke, one of the Apostles of Jesus;--one, of the eleven, before whose eyes, everything of that which has just been read, is stated as having passed. With all this before him, does the editor of the edition of the Bible, called Scholey's Bible, in a note to the commencement of the Acts, very composedly assure us, that "from its style, and other internal marks, it is evidently the production of Luke": quoting for his authority, Bishop of Lincoln's _Elements of Christian Theology_, vol. 4. Who this same Bishop of Lincoln was, by whose Elements of Christian Theology, instruction such as this is administered, let those inquire, in whose eyes the profit of the inquiry promises payment for the trouble. From any such particular inquiry, the profit will perhaps appear the less, the greater appears the probability, that, in the minds of all Bishops,--from the first that ever committed his instructions in theology to the press, down to those by whom the Christian world is illuminated at this present writing,--the same sort of discernment, or the same sort of sincerity, has all along had place. When 20,000_l_, a year--or though it were but 20_l_, once told--or, though it were but salvation from everlasting torment--is to be gained; gained, by the perception, that two men, the one of whom writes in point-blank contradiction to the other, are one and the same man,--the task is not, naturally speaking, of the number of those, by the performance of which much wonder need be excited. The sort of improvement, made by the author of the later history, upon the account given in the earlier, has now been seen. Would anyone wish to see the inducement? He will not have far to look for it. For making the impression, which it was his desire to make,--the _one_ day, allotted to the occurrence by one of the company, was not, in the estimation of the anonymous writer, sufficient. To render it sufficient, he calls in the powers of arithmetic: he multiplies the _one_ by forty; and thus, to the unquestionable satisfaction of a host of mathematicians,--Barrow, Newton, and so many other mathematical divines, not to speak of Locke, of the number--thus is done what is required to be done: thus, by so simple an operation, is the probative force of the occurrence multiplied forty-fold.[80] SECTION 3. AS TO ASCENSION, ACTS IS INCONSISTENT WITH LUKE.