_For we did not follow cunningly devised fables._ Here the Apostle speaks in the plural number, and it may well be that he means to include St. Paul with himself and James and John. For the evidence which converted that Apostle, though not the same as that vouchsafed to St. Peter, was of the same kind. The Lord had appeared unto him in the way, had made His glory seen and felt, and fixed for ever in the Apostle's heart the reality of His power and presence. His cry, "Lord, what wilt Thou have me to do?" came from a heart conquered and convinced. He too followed no cunningly devised fable. By the word (σεσοφισμένο) which is rendered "cunningly devised" we are reminded of the (σοφία) wisdom which St. Paul so earnestly disclaims in his first letter to the Corinthians. "I came not with excellency of speech or of _wisdom_," he says; "my preaching was not in persuasive words of _wisdom_, that your faith should not stand in the _wisdom_ of men, but in the power of God." The _wisdmom_ which he speaks is not of this world, but God's _wisdom_ in a mystery (1 Cor. ii. 1-7). St. Paul also warns against giving "heed to fables, which minister questionings rather than a dispensation of God which is in faith" (1 Tim. i. 4; cf. also iv. 7 and 2 Tim. iv. 4). In another place (Titus i. 14) he calls them "Jewish fables," a name which is of the same import as the "Jewish vanities" of Ignatius,[13] a name by which he intimates that they darken and confuse the mind. The legends of the Talmud, the subtleties of the rabbinical teaching, and the allegorising interpretations of Philo are the delusions to which both the Apostles refer. The evidence on which they ask credence for their teaching is of another kind. "That which was from the beginning," is the testimony of another Apostle, "that which we heard, that which we have seen with our eyes, that which we beheld, and our hands handled, concerning the word of life, ... that declare we unto you also, that ye also may have fellowship with us" (1 John i. 1-3). St. Peter had seen, and so had St. Paul; and they constantly appealed to, and rested their teaching on, facts and the historic reality of Christ's life and work. [13] _Ep. ad Magn. 8._