It appears certain that this apostle was filled with enthusiasm and
zeal. It will perhaps be asked whether we have a right to regard him
as an impostor? a thousand examples prove to us, that nothing is more
common, than to witness enthusiasm, zeal and imposture united in the
same person. The most sincere enthusiast is generally a man whose
passions are turbulent, and capable of blinding him; he takes his
passions for divine impulses, be deludes himself, and if we may be
allowed the expression, gets intoxicated with his own wine. A man who
at first engages in a particular cause from motives of interest, or
ambition, very frequently finishes by attaching himself to it with
sincerity and with strength proportioned to the sacrifices he may have
made for it. If he succeed in persuading himself, that the cause of his
passions is the cause of God, he will make no scruple of supporting
it by all sorts of means, he will sometimes allow the use of artifice,
deceit, and oblique ways of maintaining the opinions of which he happens
to be convinced. It is thus we daily see very zealous devotees, employ
deception, fraud, and sometimes crime, in support of the interests of
religion, i. e. of the cause they have embraced.
Thus although in the first instance the desire of being revenged on the
priests, or ambitious views, may have determined St. Paul to join the
sect of Christians, he might have been able by degrees to attach himself
strongly to it, to persuade himself that it was preferable to the
religion of the Jews, and to employ objectionable means, in order to
make it succeed in the world.
The examination that now remains for us to make of some features in the
conduct of our apostle, and of some passages in the writings which are
attributed to him, will serve better than any reasoning to determine the
judgment, we ought to come to respecting this person. Let us then hear
what he has to say for himself. This analysis will shew us whether
Paul was so sincere, disinterested, humble, mild, and upright as his
partizans, maintain him to have been.
St. Paul in speaking of himself says: "That he knew a man who was caught
up into the third heaven, and that there he heard unspeakable words,
which it was not lawful for man to utter*." It appears in the first
place that no one but a man of a very heated imagination could with
sincerity pretend to have been caught up into the third Heaven; and no
one but an impostor, could assert such a fact without being persuaded
of it. In the second place we may ask of what use could it be to mankind
that St. Paul should hear in the third heaven, unspeakable words, that
is to say, such as it was unlawful for man to utter? What should we
think of a man who should come and assure us, that he possessed a secret
most important to our happiness, but yet one which he was not permitted
to divulge? Thus the voyage of St. Paul is either a chimera engendered
by a sickly brain, or a fable, contrived by a cheat, who sought to make
himself respected by boasting of the peculiar favours of the almighty.
This voyage then was perfectly useless, since it was not permitted him
who made it to relate that which he learnt from it. In short there is
malice in St. Paul thus irritating the curiosity of his hearers and
refusing to satisfy it. Under whatever point of view then we behold this
history or tale of Paul's ravishment into the third heaven, it can be of
no utility to us, and reflects but little honour upon himself.
* 2 Corinthians, chap. xii. ver. 2, 3, 4.