2. To another broad fact I had been astonishingly blind, though the truth of it flashed upon me as soon as I heard it named;--that Paul shows total unconcern to the human history and earthly teaching of Jesus, never quoting his doctrine or any detail of his actions. The Christ with whom Paul held communion was a risen, ascended, exalted Lord, a heavenly being, who reigned over arch-angels, and was about to appear as Judge of the world: but of Jesus in the flesh Paul seems to know nothing beyond the bare fact that he _did_[24] "humble himself" to become man, and "pleased not himself." Even in the very critical controversy about meat and drink, Paul omits to quote Christ's doctrine, "Not that which goeth into the mouth defileth the man," &c. He surely, therefore, must have been wholly and contentedly ignorant of the oral teachings of Jesus. 3. This threw a new light on the _independent_ position of Paul. That he anxiously refused to learn from the other apostles, and "conferred not with flesh and blood,"--not having received his gospel of many but by the revelation of Jesus Christ--had seemed to me quite suitable to his high pretensions. Any novelties which might be in his doctrine, I had regarded as mere developments, growing out of the common stem, and guaranteed by the same Spirit. But I now saw that this independence invalidated his testimony. He may be to us a supernatural, but he certainly is not a natural, witness to the truth of Christ's miracles and personality. It avails not to talk of the _opportunities_ which he had of searching into the truth of the resurrection of Christ, for we see that he did not choose to avail himself of the common methods of investigation. He learned his gospel _by an internal revelation_.[25] He even recounts the appearance of Christ to him, years after his ascension, as evidence co-ordinate to his appearance to Peter and to James, and to 500 brethren at once. 1 Cor. xv. Again the thought is forced on us,--how different was his logic from ours! To see the full force of the last remark, we ought to conceive how many questions a Paley would have wished to ask of Paul; and how many details Paley himself, if _he_ had had the sight, would have felt it his duty to impart to his readers. Had Paul ever seen Jesus when alive? How did he recognize the miraculous apparition to be the person whom Pilate had crucified? Did he see him as a man in a fleshly body, or as a glorified heavenly form? Was it in waking, or sleeping, and if the latter, how did he distinguish his divine vision from a common dream? Did he see only, or did he also handle? If it was a palpable man of flesh, how did he assure himself that it was a person risen from the dead, and not an ordinary living man?