The audience, before which this speech was supposed to be delivered, of whom was it composed? With the exception of a few Romans, to whom it was probably unintelligible unless by accident, altogether of Jews; and these--no one can say in what proportion, probably in by much the largest, Jews not christianized. Hence then the sort of character, which the occasion and the purpose required should be given, to this supposed miraculously formed acquaintance of the person who, upon the strength of this acquaintance, was to be numbered among the Apostles. TOPIC 2.--_Mode of Conversation._ By this vision is produced a dialogue. Interlocutors, the Lord and Ananias. In the course of the dialogue, speeches five: whereof, by the Lord, three; the other two by Ananias. In and by the first pair of speeches the Lord calls the man by his name: the man answers, Behold, says he, I am here, Lord. In the English translation, to atone for the too great conciseness of the Greek original, the words "_am here_" are not improperly interpolated. Giving to this supposed supernatural intercourse what seemed to him a natural cast--a cast suited to the occasion--seems to have been the object of the historian in the composition of this dialogue. But, upon so supernatural a body, a natural colouring, at any rate a colouring such as this, does not seem to fit quite so completely as might have been wished. On the road, when the voice,--which turned out to be that of the Lord, that is, being interpreted, Jesus's,--addressed itself to Paul, this being the first intercourse, there was a necessity for its declaring itself, for its declaring whose it was; and the declaration was made accordingly. Here, on the other hand, no sooner does Ananias hear himself called by his name, than he knows who the person is by whom he is thus addressed. Taken as it stands, an answer thus prompt includes the supposition of an already established intercourse. Such intercourse supposed--in what way on former occasions had it been carried on? Laying such former occasion out of the question--in what way is it supposed to be carried on on the occasion here in question? On the occasion of his visit to Paul,--the Lord, to whomsoever he may have been audible, had never, from first to last, as we have seen, been visible. On the occasion of this visit of his to Ananias--was the Lord audible only, or visible only, or both audible and visible? If both audible and visible, or even if only visible,--the mode of revelation was more favourable to this secondary and virtually unknown personage, than to the principal one.