Bible. New Testament -- Criticism, interpretation, etc.; Christianity -- Origin; Paul, the Apostle, Saint
Meantime, if all these miraculous visions and other miracles must needs
be supposed,--a cluster of other miracles, though not mentioned, must be
supposed along with them: miracles, for the production of which a still
greater mass of supernatural force must have been expended. Here, their
existence being supposed, here were those companions of his, who,
unknown in names and number, saw or saw not all or anything that he saw,
and heard or heard not all or anything that he heard. These men, at any
rate, if so it be that they themselves, blind or not blind, led him, as
it is said they did, into the city, because he could not see to guide
himself,--must, in some way or other, have perceived that something in
no small degree extraordinary had happened to him: so extraordinary,
that, in the condition in which he was, and in which, if they saw
anything, they saw him to be--no such commission, as that, for the
execution of which, if, as well as companions, they were his destined
assistants, they were put under his command,--could, in any human
probability, receive execution at his hands. If they were apprised of
this commission of his, could they, whether with his consent or even
without his consent, avoid repairing to the constituted authorities to
tell them what had happened? This commission of his, so important in
itself, and granted to a man of letters by men of letters, could not but
have been in writing: and accordingly, in the form of letters we are, by
the historian, expressly informed it was. Of the existence of these
letters, on the tenor of which their future proceedings as well as his
depended,--these conductors of his, if _he_ did not, with or without his
consent would of course have given information, to the rulers to whom
these same letters were addressed. Not being struck dumb, nor having,
amongst the orders given by the voice, received any order to keep
silence, or so much as to keep secret anything of what little they had
heard, they would scarcely, under these circumstances, have maintained
either silence or secrecy. The historian, knowing what he (the
historian) intended to do with his hero--knowing that, at three days'
end, he intended not only to make scales fall from his eyes, but to fill
his belly,--might not feel any great anxiety on his account. But Paul
himself, if he, in the condition he is represented in by the
historian,--was, for three days together, with scales on his eyes, and
nothing in his stomach: and, at the end of the three days, as ignorant
as at the beginning, whether the scales would, at any time, and when,
drop off, and his stomach receive a supply: in such a state surely, a
man could not but feel a curiosity, not unattended with impatience, to
know when and how all this was to end. Under these circumstances, by
some means or other, would all these tongues have been to be stopped:
otherwise, instead of the house of Judas in Straight-street, Paul might
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