In attempting to do justice to this narrative and to Scaurus’s criticisms of it, I felt at a great disadvantage owing to my ignorance of Jewish literature and thought; and at first I was much more disposed to put by the whole story as an inexplicable legend than to accept Scaurus’s explanation. But afterwards, looking at Matthew’s narrative, I found that Matthew described an “angel” as “rolling away the stone,” and as saying to the women, “Fear not.” This seemed decidedly to confirm the conclusion that the women saw “a vision of angels” (a phrase used by Luke) in which vision the stone was seen rolled away—or (as Mark says) “rolled upward”—when the angels went up to heaven. But all this—though it confused and wearied me—did not prevent me from believing that the spirit, or spiritual body, of Christ had really risen from the dead, since I had all along supposed that this alone was what was meant by Christ’s resurrection, in accordance, as it appeared to me, with Paul’s statements. Nothing that Scaurus had said, so far, seemed to me to shake Paul’s testimony to the resurrection. But Scaurus’s next remarks dealt with this matter, and greatly shook my faith. “I had almost forgotten,” he said, “to speak of Christ’s appearance to Paul. It was clearly a mere image of Paul’s thought, called up by his conscience—nothing more. I need write no further about it. Flaccus has sent you Luke’s Acts of the Apostles. If you are curious, look there, and you will find enough and more than enough. My belief is, that, if Stephen had not seen Christ, Paul would not have seen Christ. That puts the matter epigrammatically, and therefore (to some extent) falsely; for all epigrams are partly false. But it is mainly true. There may have been other Stephens whom Paul persecuted. But Stephen, I think, summed up the effect of all. Read what Paul says to the Romans about the persecuted and their conquest of persecutors:—‘Bless them that persecute you’; that is, instead of resorting to the fire of vengeance against one’s enemy, use, he says, the refiner’s fire of kindness, ‘for in doing this thou shalt heap coals of fire on his head’; finally, ‘Be not conquered by evil, but conquer evil with good.’ Read this. Then reflect that Paul ‘persecuted.’ Then read the Acts and see how he persecuted Stephen, and how Stephen interceded for his enemies. I take it that Paul is writing from experience—that the intercession of Stephen ‘overcame’ Paul (_he_ would say ‘overcame,’ _I_ should say ‘hypnotized’ him) and compelled Paul to see what Stephen saw, namely, Jesus raised from the dead and glorified. Read the Acts and see if I am not right.”