Produced by David Widger
CRITICAL EXAMINATION OF THE LIFE OF ST. PAUL
By Boulanger
Translated From The French Of Boulanger
"Paul, thou art beside thyself, much learning doth make thee mad."
Acts, chap. 26, ver. 24.
1823
INTRODUCTION.
EPISTLE DEDICATORY TO M. L. N.
Sir, In our last conversation you appeared to me, very much smitten with
St. Paul and his works; you recommended me to reperuse his writings;
assuring me that I should there find arguments well calculated to shake
incredulity and confirm a Christian in his faith.
Although the actions of this celebrated Apostle, related in the Acts,
and his doctrine contained in his Epistles, were already perfectly known
to me, yet to conform myself to your desires, and give you proofs of
my docility, I have again read those works, and I can assure you that
I have done it with the greatest attention. You will judge of that
yourself, by the reflections I send you; they will at least prove to you
that I have read with attention. A superficial glance is only likely to
deceive us or leave us in error. The passions and the prejudices of men
prevent them from examining with candour, and from their indolence they
are often disgusted with the researches necessary for discovering truth;
that has also been with so much care veiled from their eyes: but it is
in vain to cover it, its splendour will sooner or later shine forth;
the works of enthusiasm or imposture, will always end by betraying
themselves. As for the rest, read and judge. You will find, I think, at
least, some reasons for abating a little from that high opinion, that
prejudice gives us of the Apostle of the Gentiles, and of the religious
system of the Christians, of which St. Paul was evidently the true
architect. I am not ignorant that it is very difficult to undo at
one blow the ideas to which the mind has been so long accustomed;
but whatever may be your judgment it will not alter the sentiments of
friendship and attachment which are due to the goodness of your heart.
I am, &c, &c.
CRITICAL EXAMINATION OF THE LIFE OF ST. PAUL
CHAPTER I. Is the Conversion of St. Paul a proof in favour of the
Christian Religion?
Many theologians would make us regard the miraculous conversion and
apostleship of St. Paul as one of the strongest proofs of the truth of
Christianity. But in viewing the thing closely it appears that this
conversion, far from proving any thing in favour of this religion,
invalidates the other proofs of it, in fact, our doctors continually
assure us that the Christian religion draws its strongest proofs from
the prophecies of the Old Testament, whilst there is not in fact a
single one of these prophecies that can be literally applied to the
Messiah of the Christians. St. Paul himself willing to make use of these
oracles of the Jewish nation to prove the mission of Christ, is obliged
to distort them, and to seek in them a mystical, allegorical, and
figurative sense. On the other side, how can these prophecies made by
Jews and addressed to Jews, serve as proofs of the doctrine of St.
Paul, who had evidently formed the design of altering, or even of
destroying, the Jewish religion, in order to raise a new system on its
ruins? Such being the state of things, what real connection, or what
relation, can there be between the religious system of the Jews, and
that of St. Paul? For this Apostle to have had the right of making use of
the Jewish prophecies, it would have been necessary that he should have
remained a Jew; his conversion to Christianity evidently deprived him of
the privilege of serving himself, by having recourse to the prophecies
belonging to a religion that he had just abandoned, and the ruin of
which he meditated. True prophecies can only be found in a divine
religion, and a religion truly divine, can neither be altered, reformed,
nor destroyed: God himself, if he is immutable, could not change it.
In fact, might not the Jews have said to St. Paul, "Apostate that you
are! you believe in our prophecies, and you come to destroy the religion
founded upon the same prophecies. If you believe in our oracles, you
are forced to believe that the religion which you have quitted is a true
religion and divinely inspired. If you say, that God has changed his
mind, you are impious in pretending that God could change, and was not
sufficiently wise, to give at once to his people a perfect worship, and
one which had no need of being reformed. On the other side, do not the
reiterated promises of the Most High, confirmed by paths to our fathers,
assure us, that his alliance with us should endure eternally? You are
then an impostor, and, according to our law, we ought to exterminate
you; seeing that Moses, our divine legislator, orders us to put to
death, whoever shall have the temerity to preach to us a new worship,
even though he should confirm his mission by prodigies. The God that you
preach is not the God of our fathers: you say that Christ is his son;
but we know that God has no son. You pretend that this son, whom we have
put to death as a false prophet, has risen from the dead, but Moses has
not spoken of the resurrection; thus your new God and your dogmas
are contrary to our law, and consequently we ought to hold them in
abhorrence." In short these same Jews might have said to St. Paul: "You
deceive yourself in saying, that you are the disciple of Jesus, your
Jesus was a Jew, during the whole of his life he was circumcised, he
conformed himself to all the legal ordinances; he often protested
that he came to accomplish, and not to abolish the law; whilst you in
contempt of the protestations of the Master, whose Apostle you say you
are, take the liberty of changing this holy law, of decrying it, of
dispensing with its most essential ordinances."
Moreover the conversion of St. Paul strangely weakens the proof that
the Christian religion draws from the miracles of Jesus Christ and his
Apostles. According to the evangelists themselves the Jews were not
at all convinced by these miracles. The transcendant prodigy of the
resurrection of Christ, the wonders since wrought by some of his
adherents did not contribute more to their conversion. St. Paul believed
nothing of them at first, he was a zealous persecutor of the first
Christians to such a degree, that, according to the Christians, nothing
short of a new miracle, performed for him alone, was able to convert
him; which proves to us that there was, at least, a time when St. Paul
did not give any credit to the wonders that the partisans of Jesus
related at Jerusalem.
He needed a particular miracle to believe in those miracles, that we
are obliged to believe in at the time in which we live, without heaven
operating any new prodigy to demonstrate to us the truth of them.