On the occasion here in question, towards the individualization of the portion of space some approach is made: the town being foreknown, to wit, Damascus, the _street_ is particularized; it is the street called _Straight_: as in Westminster we have _Long-ditch_, and in London _Crooked-lane_. Moreover, the _house_ is particularized; it is the house of Judas. To this Judas had any one of those marks of distinction been added, which in that age and nation we find to have been common,--as in the instance of the too notorious Judas the Iscariot, _i.e._, the inhabitant of Iscara, and in that of Judas Barsabas, _i.e._, the son of Sabas, or, as we should say, Sabasson, not long after mentioned, Acts 25:22,--it would have been something. But, destitute of such limitative adjunct, _Judas_ of itself was nothing. In that age and country, even without reckoning notorious traitors, there was never any want of Judases. Not inferior in plenty were Ananiases: in the Acts we have three of them;--this private inhabitant of Damascus: the High Priest, whose seat was at Jerusalem; and the husband of Sapphira: and in Josephus they vie in abundance with the Johns and Jesuses. But, on the occasion in question, and to the purpose in question, though a distinctive adjunct as above would have done something, it would have done very little. In the field of time,--seven-and-twenty years at least, and we know not how much more, according to the received chronology, was the distance between the event in question, and the report given of it in this history. Neither in Damascus nor yet in Jerusalem was any such thing as a newspaper,--not even an enslaved newspaper, in existence; no, nor yet so much as a printing-press,--not even an enslaved printing-press. For writing, the materials were expensive; and handwriting was the only mode of copying. Publication was not, as under the printing-press, promiscuous: unless by accident, for an indefinite length of time, into no other hand did any copy find its way, other than those of the author's confidential friends, or friends separated from the author by a greater or less number of removes, as it might happen; but all of them linked to one another by the bonds of amity, and unity of principle and practice.