THE EARLY YEARS
Before examining the various hypotheses which have been advanced to
account for the origin of Paulinism, the investigator must consider
first the outline of Paul's life, at least so far as the formative
years are concerned. Paulinism has been explained by the influence
upon Paul of various features of his environment. It is important,
therefore, to determine at what points Paul came into contact with
his environment. What, in view of the outline of his life, were his
probable opportunities for acquainting himself with the historical
Jesus and with the primitive Jerusalem Church? Whence did he
derive his Judaism? Where, if at all, could he naturally have been
influenced by contemporary paganism? Such questions, it is hoped,
may be answered by the two following chapters.
In these chapters, the outline of Paul's life will be considered not
for its own sake, but merely for the light that it may shed upon the
origin of his thought and experience. Many questions, therefore, may
be ignored. For example, it would here be entirely aside from the
point to discuss such intricate matters as the history of Paul's
journeys to Corinth attested by the Corinthian Epistles. The present
discussion is concerned only with those events in the life of Paul
which determined the nature of his contact with the surrounding
world, both Jewish and pagan, and particularly the nature of his
contact with Jesus and the earliest disciples of Jesus.
Paul was born at Tarsus, the chief city of Cilicia. This fact is
attested only by the Book of Acts, and formerly it did not escape
unchallenged. It was called in question, for example, in 1890 by
Krenkel, in an elaborate argument.[17] But Krenkel's argument is
now completely antiquated, not merely because of the rising credit
of the Book of Acts, but also because the birth of Paul in a Greek
city like Tarsus is in harmony with modern reconstructions. Krenkel
argued, for example, that the apostle shows little acquaintance
with Greek culture, and therefore could not have spent his youth
in a Greek university city. Such assertions appear very strange
to-day. Recent philological investigation of the Pauline Epistles
has proved that the author uses the Greek language in such masterly
fashion that he must have become familiar with it very early in
life; the language of the Epistles is certainly no Jewish-Greek
jargon. With regard to the origin of the ideas, also, the tendency
of recent criticism is directly contrary to Krenkel; Paulinism is
now often explained as being based either upon paganism or else upon
a Hellenized Judaism. To such reconstructions it is a highly welcome
piece of information when the Book of Acts makes Paul a native not
of Jerusalem but of Tarsus. The author of Acts, it is said, is here
preserving a bit of genuine tradition, which is the more trustworthy
because it runs counter to the tendency, thought to be otherwise
in evidence in Acts, which brings Paul into the closest possible
relation to Palestine. Thus, whether for good or for bad reasons,
the birth of Paul in Tarsus is now universally accepted, and does
not require defense.
[17] Krenkel, _Beiträge zur Aufhellung der Geschichte und der Briefe
des Apostels Paulus_, 1890, pp. 1-17.
A very interesting tradition preserved by Jerome does indeed make
Paul a native of Gischala in Galilee; but no one to-day would be
inclined to follow Krenkel in giving credence to Jerome rather
than to Acts. The Gischala tradition does not look like a pure
fiction, but it is evident that Jerome has at any rate exercised
his peculiar talent for bringing things into confusion. Zahn[18]
has suggested, with considerable plausibility, that the shorter
reference to Gischala in the treatise "De viris illustribus"[19] is
a confused abridgment of the longer reference in the "Commentary on
Philemon."[20] The latter passage asserts not that Paul himself but
only that the parents of Paul came from Gischala. That assertion may
possibly be correct. It would explain the Aramaic and Palestinian
tradition which undoubtedly was preserved in the boyhood home of
Paul.
[18] _Einleitung in das Neue Testament_, 3te Aufl., i, 1906, pp.
48-50 (English Translation, _Introduction to the New Testament_, 2nd
ed., 1909, i, pp. 68-70).
[19] _De vir. ill._ 5 (ed. Vall. ii, 836).
[20] _Comm. in Philem._ 23 (ed. Vall. vii, 762).
Tarsus was an important city. Its commercial importance, though
of course inferior to that of places like Antioch or Corinth, was
considerable; and it was also well known as a center of intellectual
life. Although the dramatic possibilities of representing the
future Christian missionary growing up unknown under the shadow of
a Greek university may sometimes have led to an exaggeration of the
academic fame of Tarsus, still it remains true that Tarsus was a
real university city, and could boast of great names like that of
Athenodorus, the Stoic philosopher, and others. The life of Tarsus
has recently been made the subject of two elaborate monographs,
by Ramsay[21] and by Böhlig,[22] who have collected a mass of
information about the birthplace of Paul. The nature of the pagan
religious atmosphere which surrounded the future apostle is of
peculiar interest; but the amount of direct information which has
come down to us should not be exaggerated.
[21] _The Cities of St. Paul_, 1908, pp. 85-244.
[22] _Die Geisteskultur von Tarsos_, 1913.
The social position of Paul's family in Tarsus must not be regarded
as very humble; for according to the Book of Acts not only Paul
himself, but his father before him, possessed the Roman citizenship,
which in the provinces was still in the first century a highly
prized privilege from which the great masses of the people were
excluded. The Roman citizenship of Paul is not attested by the
Pauline Epistles, but the representation of Acts is at this point
universally, or almost universally, accepted. Only one objection
might be urged against it. If Paul was a Roman citizen, how could he
have been subjected three times to the Roman punishment of beating
with rods (2 Cor. xi. 25), from which citizens were exempted by
law? The difficulty is not insuperable. Paul may on some occasions
have been unwilling to appeal to a privilege which separated
him from his Jewish countrymen; or he may have wanted to avoid
the delay which an appeal to his privilege, with the subsequent
investigation and trial, might have caused. At any rate, the
difficulty, whether easily removable or not, is quite inadequate
to overthrow the abundant evidence for the fact of Paul's Roman
citizenship. That fact is absolutely necessary to account for the
entire representation which the Book of Acts gives of the journey
of Paul as a prisoner to Rome, which representation, it will be
remembered, is contained in the we-sections. The whole account of
the relation between Paul and Roman authorities, which is contained
in the Pauline Epistles, the Book of Acts, and trustworthy Christian
tradition, is explicable only if Paul possessed the rights of
citizenship.[23]
[23] Compare Mommsen, "Die Rechtsverhältnisse des Apostels Paulus,"
in _Zeitschrift für die neutestamentliche Wissenschaft_, ii, 1901,
pp. 88-96.
Birth in a Greek university city and Roman citizenship constitute
the two facts which bring Paul into early connection with the larger
Gentile world of his day. Other facts, equally well-attested,
separate him just as clearly from the Gentile world and represent
him as being from childhood a strict Jew. These facts might have
been called in question, in view of the present tendency of
criticism, if they had been attested only by the Book of Acts. But
fortunately it is just these facts which are attested also by the
epistles of Paul.
In 2 Cor. xi. 22, Paul is declared to be a "Hebrew," and in Phil.
iii. 5 he appears as a "Hebrew of Hebrews." The word "Hebrew"
in these passages cannot indicate merely Israelitish descent or
general adherence to the Jews' religion. If it did so it would be a
meaningless repetition of the other terms used in the same passages.
Obviously it is used in some narrower sense. The key to its meaning
is found in Acts vi. 1, where, within Judaism, the "Hellenists"
are distinguished from the "Hebrews," the Hellenists being the
Jews of the Dispersion who spoke Greek, and the Hebrews the Jews
of Palestine who spoke Aramaic. In Phil. iii. 5, therefore, Paul
declares that he was an Aramaic-speaking Jew and descended from
Aramaic-speaking Jews; Aramaic was used in his boyhood home, and the
Palestinian tradition was preserved. This testimony is not contrary
to what was said above about Paul's use of the Greek language--not
improbably Paul used both Aramaic and Greek in childhood--but it
does contradict all those modern representations which make Paul
fundamentally a Jew of the Dispersion. Though he was born in Tarsus,
he was, in the essential character of his family tradition, a Jew of
Palestine.
Even more important is the assertion, found in the same verse
in Philippians, that Paul was "as touching the law a Pharisee."
Conceivably, indeed, it might be argued that his Pharisaism was not
derived from his boyhood home, but was acquired later. But surely
it requires no excessively favorable estimate of Acts to give
credence to the assertion in Acts xxiii. 6 that Paul was not only a
Pharisee but the "son of Pharisees"; and it is exceedingly unlikely
that this phrase refers, as Lightfoot[24] suggested, to teachers
rather than to ancestors. For when Paul says in Gal. i. 14 that he
advanced in the Jews' religion beyond many of his contemporaries,
being more exceedingly zealous for his paternal traditions, it
is surely natural, whatever interpretation may be given to the
word "paternal," to find a reference to the Pharisaic traditions
cultivated in his boyhood home.
[24] On Phil. iii. 5.
There is not the slightest evidence, therefore, for supposing that
Paul spent his early years in an atmosphere of "liberal Judaism"--a
Judaism really though unconsciously hospitable to pagan notions and
predisposed to relax the strict requirements of the Law and break
down the barrier that separated Israel from the Gentile world.
Whether such a liberal Judaism even existed in Tarsus we do not
know. At any rate, if it did exist, the household of Paul's father
was not in sympathy with it. Surely the definite testimony of Paul
himself is here worth more than all modern conjectures. And Paul
himself declares that he was in language and in spirit a Jew of
Palestine rather than of the Dispersion, and as touching the Law a
Pharisee.
According to the Book of Acts, Paul went at an early age to
Jerusalem, received instruction there from Gamaliel, the famous
rabbi, and finally, just before his conversion, persecuted the
Jerusalem Church (Acts xxii. 3; vii. 58-viii. 1; ix. 1, etc.). In
recent years, this entire representation has been questioned. It has
been maintained by Mommsen,[25] Bousset[26], Heitmüller,[27] and
Loisy[28] that Paul never was in Jerusalem before his conversion.
That he persecuted the Church is, of course, attested unequivocally
by his own Epistles, but the persecution, it is said, really took
place only in such cities as Damascus, and not at all in Palestine.
[25] _Op. cit._, pp. 85f.
[26] _Kyrios Christos_, 1913, p. 92. Bousset's doubt with regard to
the early Jerusalem residence of Paul extended, explicitly at least,
only to the persecution in Jerusalem, and it was a doubt merely, not
a positive denial. In his supplementary work he has admitted that
his doubt was unjustified (_Jesus der Herr_, 1916, p. 31).
[27] "Zum Problem Paulus und Jesus," in _Zeitschrift für die
neutestamentliche Wissenschaft_, xiii, 1912, pp. 320-337.
[28] _L'épitre aux Galates_, 1916, pp. 68-73; _Les mystères païens
et le mystère chrétien_, 1919, pp. 317-320.
This elimination of the early residence of Paul in Jerusalem is no
mere by-product of a generally skeptical attitude toward the Book
of Acts, but is important for the entire reconstruction of early
Christian history which Bousset and Heitmüller and Loisy propose;
it is made to assist in explaining the origin of the Pauline
Christology. Paul regarded Jesus Christ as a supernatural person,
come to earth for the redemption of men; and toward this divine
Christ he assumed a distinctly religious attitude. How could he
have formed such a conception of a human being who had died but a
few years before? If he had been separated from Jesus by several
generations, so that the nimbus of distance and mystery would have
had time to form about the figure of the Galilean prophet, then his
lofty conception of Jesus might be explained. But as a matter of
fact he was actually a contemporary of the Jesus whose simple human
traits he obscured. How could the "smell of earth" have been so
completely removed from the figure of the Galilean teacher that He
could actually be regarded by one of His contemporaries as a divine
Redeemer? The question could perhaps be more easily answered if
Paul, before his lofty conception of Christ was fully formed, never
came into any connection with those who had seen Jesus subject to
the petty limitations of human life. Thus the elimination of the
early Jerusalem residence of Paul, by putting a geographical if
not a temporal gulf between Jesus and Paul, is thought to make the
formation of the Pauline Christology more comprehensible. Peter and
the original disciples, it is thought, never could have separated
Jesus so completely from the limitations of ordinary humanity; the
simple memory of Galilean days would in their case have been an
effective barrier against Christological speculation. But Paul was
subject to no such limitation; having lived far away from Palestine,
in the company, for the most part, of those who like himself had
never seen Jesus, he was free to transpose to the Galilean teacher
attributes which to those who had known the real Jesus would have
seemed excessive or absurd.
Before examining the grounds upon which this elimination of Paul's
early Jerusalem residence is based, it may first be observed that
even such heroic measures do not really bring about the desired
result; even this radical rewriting of the story of Paul's boyhood
and youth will not serve to explain on naturalistic principles the
origin of the Pauline Christology. Even if before his conversion
Paul got no nearer to Jerusalem than Damascus, it still remains
true that after his conversion he conferred with Peter and lived in
more or less extended intercourse with Palestinian disciples. The
total lack of any evidence of a conflict between the Christology of
Paul and the views of those who had walked and talked with Jesus of
Nazareth remains, for any naturalistic reconstruction, a puzzling
fact. Even without the early Jerusalem residence, Paul remains too
near to Jesus both temporally and geographically to have formed
a conception of Him entirely without reference to the historical
person. Even with their radical treatment of the Book of Acts,
therefore, Bousset and Heitmüller have not succeeded at all in
explaining how the Pauline Christology ever came to be attached to
the Galilean prophet.
But is the elimination of the early Jerusalem residence of Paul
historically justifiable? Mere congruity with a plausible theory
of development will not serve to justify it. For the Jerusalem
residence is strongly attested by the Book of Acts. The testimony
of Acts can no longer be ruled out except for very weighty reasons;
the history of recent criticism has on the whole exhibited the
rise of a more and more favorable estimate of the book. And in the
case of the early Jerusalem residence of Paul the testimony is so
insistent and so closely connected with lifelike details that the
discrediting of it involves an exceedingly radical skepticism. The
presence of Paul at the stoning of Stephen is narrated in the Book
of Acts in a concrete way which bears every mark of trustworthiness;
the connection of Paul with Gamaliel is what might have been
expected in view of the self-testimony of the apostle; the account
of Paul's vision in the Temple (Acts xxii. 17-21) is based, in a
manner which is psychologically very natural, upon the fact of
Paul's persecuting activity in Jerusalem; the presence of Paul's
sister's son in Jerusalem, attested in a part of the narrative of
which the essential historicity must be universally admitted (Acts
xxiii. 16-22), suggests that family connections may have facilitated
Paul's residence in the city. Finally, the geographical details of
the three narratives of the conversion, which place the event on a
journey of Paul from Jerusalem to Damascus, certainly look as though
they were founded upon genuine tradition. One of the details--the
place of the conversion itself--is confirmed in a purely incidental
way by the Epistle to the Galatians, and the reader has the
impression that if Paul had happened to introduce other details
in the Epistles the rest of the narrative in Acts would have been
similarly confirmed. Except for Paul's incidental reference to
Damascus in Gal. i. 17, the conversion might have been put by
Heitmüller and others in a place even more conveniently remote than
Damascus from the scene of Jesus' earthly labors. But the incidental
confirmation of Acts at this point raises a distinct presumption in
favor of the account as a whole. The main trend of modern criticism
has been favorable on the whole to the tradition embodied in the
accounts of the conversion; it is a very extreme form of skepticism
which rejects the whole framework of the tradition by eliminating
the journey from Jerusalem to Damascus.
Enough has been said to show that the early Jerusalem residence of
Paul stood absolutely firm in the tradition used by the author of
Acts; the author has taken it as a matter of course and woven it in
with his narrative at many points. Such a tradition certainly cannot
be lightly rejected; the burden of proof clearly rests upon those
who would deny its truthworthiness.
The only definite proof which is forthcoming is found in Gal. i.
22, where Paul says that after his departure for Syria and Cilicia,
three years after his conversion, he was "unknown by face to the
churches of Judæa which are in Christ." If he had engaged in active
persecution of those churches, it is argued, how could he have been
personally unknown to them?
By this argument a tremendous weight is hung upon one verse. And,
rightly interpreted, the verse will not bear the weight at all. In
Gal. i. 22, Paul is not speaking so much of what took place before
the departure for Syria and Cilicia, as of the condition which
prevailed at the time of that departure and during the immediately
ensuing period; he is simply drawing attention to the significance
for his argument of the departure from Jerusalem. Certainly he would
not have been able to speak as he does if before he left Jerusalem
he had had extended intercourse with the Judæan churches, but when
he says that the knowledge of the Judæan churches about him in the
period just succeeding his departure from Jerusalem was a hearsay
knowledge merely, it would have been pedantic for him to think about
the question whether some of the members of those churches had or
had not seen him years before as a persecutor.
Furthermore, it is by no means clear that the word "Judæa" in Gal.
i. 22 includes Jerusalem at all. In Mark iii. 7, 8, for example,
"Jerusalem" is clearly not included in "Judæa," but is distinguished
from it; "Judæa" means the country outside of the capital. It may
well be so also in Gal. i. 22; and if so, then the verse does not
exclude a personal acquaintance of Paul with the Jerusalem Church.
But even if "Judæa" is not used so as to exclude the capital,
still Paul's words would be natural enough. That the Jerusalem
Church formed an exception to the general assertion was suggested
by the account of the visit in Jerusalem immediately preceding,
and was probably well known to his Galatian readers. All that Paul
means is that he went away to Syria and Cilicia without becoming
acquainted generally with the churches of Judæa. It is indeed often
said that since the whole point of Paul's argument in Galatians
was to show his lack of contact with the pillars of the Jerusalem
Church, his acquaintance or lack of acquaintance with the churches
of Judæa outside of Jerusalem was unworthy of mention, so that he
must at least be including Jerusalem when he speaks of Judæa. But
this argument is not decisive. If, as is altogether probable, the
apostles except Peter were out of the city at the time of Paul's
visit, and were engaging in missionary work in Judæan churches, then
acquaintance with the Judæan churches would have meant intercourse
with the apostles, so that it was very much to the point for Paul
to deny that he had had such acquaintance. Of course, this whole
argument against the early Jerusalem residence of Paul, based on
Gal. i. 22, involves a rejection of the account which the Book of
Acts gives of the visit of Paul to Jerusalem three years after his
conversion. If Gal. i. 22 means that Paul was unknown by sight to
the Jerusalem Church, then he could not have gone in and out among
the disciples at Jerusalem as Acts ix. 28 represents, but must
have been in strict hiding when he was in the city. Such is the
account of the matter which is widely prevalent in recent years.
Not even so much correction of Acts is at all required by a correct
understanding of Gal. i. 22. But it is a still more unjustifiable
use of that verse when it is made to exclude even the persecuting
activity of Paul in Jerusalem.
If, however, the words of Galatians are really to be taken in the
strictest and most literal sense, what is to be done with Gal.
i. 23, where (immediately after the words which have just been
discussed) Paul says that the churches of Judæa were receiving
the report, "He that persecuted us formerly is now preaching as
a gospel the faith which formerly he laid waste"? What is meant
by the pronoun "us" in this verse? Conceivably it might be taken
in a broad sense, as referring to all disciples wherever found;
conceivably, therefore, the persecution referred to by the Judæan
disciples might be persecution of their brethren in the faith in
Tarsus or Damascus. But that is not the kind of interpretation
which has just been applied to the preceding verse, and upon which
such a vast structure has been reared. It may well be urged against
Heitmüller and those like him that if Paul's words are to be taken
so strictly in one verse they should be taken in the same way in the
other; if the "Judæa" and "unknown by face" of verse 22 are to be
taken so strictly, then the "us" of verse 23 should also be taken
strictly, and in that case Paul is made to contradict himself, which
of course is absurd. Verse 23 certainly does not fully confirm the
representation of Acts about the persecuting activity of Paul in
Judæa, but at any rate it tends to confirm that representation at
least as strongly as verse 22 tends to discredit it.[29]
[29] Compare Wellhausen, _Kritische Analyse der Apostelgeschichte_,
1914, p. 16.
Thus the early Jerusalem residence of Paul is strongly attested
by the Book of Acts, and is thoroughly in harmony with everything
that Paul says about his Pharisaic past. It is not surprising that
Bousset has now receded from his original position and admits
that Paul was in Jerusalem before his conversion and engaged in
persecution of the Jerusalem Church.
That admission does not necessarily carry with it an acceptance of
all that the Book of Acts says about the Jerusalem period in Paul's
life, particularly all that it says about his having been a disciple
of Gamaliel. But the decisive point has been gained. If the entire
account of the early Jerusalem residence of Paul is not ruled out
by the testimony of his own Epistles, then there is at least no
decisive objection against the testimony of Acts with regard to the
details. Certainly the common opinion to the effect that Paul went
to Jerusalem to receive rabbinical training is admirably in accord
with everything that he says in his Epistles about his zeal for the
Law. It is also in accord with his habits of thought and expression,
which were transformed and glorified, rather than destroyed, by
his Christian experience. The decision about every detail of
course depends ultimately upon the particular conclusion which the
investigator may have reached with regard to the Book of Acts. If
that book was written by a companion of Paul--an opinion which is
gaining ground even in circles which were formerly hostile--then
there is every reason to suppose that Paul was brought up in
Jerusalem at the feet of Gamaliel (Acts xxii. 3). Some important
questions indeed still remain unanswered, even with full acceptance
of the Lucan testimony. It can never be determined, for example, at
exactly what age Paul went to Jerusalem. The words, "brought up in
this city," in Acts xxii. 3 might seem to suggest that Paul went to
Jerusalem in early childhood, in which case his birthplace would
be of comparatively little importance in his preparation for his
lifework, and all the elaborate investigations of Tarsus, so far as
they are intended to shed light upon the environment of the apostle
in his formative years, would become valueless. But the Greek word
"brought up" or "nourished" might be used figuratively in a somewhat
flexible way; it remains, therefore, perfectly possible that Paul's
Jerusalem training began, not in childhood, but in early youth.
At any rate, an early residence in Jerusalem is not excluded by
the masterly way in which the apostle uses the Greek language. It
must always be remembered that Palestine in the first century was
a bilingual country;[30] the presence of hosts of Greek-speaking
Jews even in Jerusalem is amply attested, for example, by the early
chapters of Acts. Moreover, even after Paul's Jerusalem studies had
begun, his connection with Tarsus need not have been broken off. The
distance between the two cities was considerable (some four or five
hundred miles), but travel in those days was safe and easy. A period
of training in Jerusalem may have been followed by a long residence
at Tarsus.
[30] See Zahn, _Einleitung in das Neue Testament_, 3te Aufl., i,
1906, pp. 24-32, 39-47 (English Translation, _Introduction to the
New Testament_, 2nd Ed., 1917, i, pp. 34-46, 57-66).
At this point, an interesting question arises, which, however, can
never be answered with any certainty. Did Paul ever see Jesus before
the crucifixion? In the light of what has just been established
about the outline of Paul's life, an affirmative answer might seem
to be natural. Paul was in Jerusalem both before and after the
public ministry of Jesus--before it when he was being "brought up"
in Jerusalem, and after it when he was engaged in persecution of the
Jerusalem Church. Where was he during the interval? Where was he on
those occasions when Jesus visited Jerusalem--especially at the time
of that last Passover? If he was in Jerusalem, it seems probable
that he would have seen the great prophet, whose coming caused such
a stir among the people. And that he was in the city at Passover
time would seem natural in view of his devotion to the Law. But the
matter is by no means certain. He may have returned to Tarsus, in
the manner which has just been suggested.
The question could only be decided on the basis of actual testimony
either in Acts or in the Epistles. One verse has often been thought
to provide such testimony. In 2 Cor. v. 16, Paul says, "Even if
we have known Christ after the flesh, yet now we know him so no
longer." Knowledge of Christ after the flesh can only mean, it is
said, knowledge of Him by the ordinary use of the senses, in the
manner in which one man in ordinary human intercourse knows another.
That kind of knowledge, Paul says, has ceased to have significance
for the Christian in his relation to other men; it has also ceased
to have significance for him in his relation to Christ. But it is
that kind of knowledge which Paul seems to predicate of himself,
as having existed in a previous period of his life. He does not
use the unreal form of condition; he does not say, "Even if we had
known Christ after the flesh (though as a matter of fact we never
knew Him so at all), yet now we should know Him so no longer."
Apparently, then, when he says "if" he means "although"; he means to
say, "Although we have known Christ after the flesh, yet now we know
Him so no longer." The knowledge of Christ after the flesh is thus
put as an actual fact in Paul's experience, and that can only mean
that he knew Him in the way in which His contemporaries knew Him
in Galilee and in Jerusalem, a way which in itself, Paul says, was
altogether without spiritual significance.
One objection to this interpretation of the passage is that it
proves too much. If it means anything, it means that Paul had
extended personal acquaintance with Jesus before the crucifixion;
for if Paul merely saw Him for a few moments--for example, when the
crowds were surging about Him at the time of the last Passover--he
could hardly be said to have "known" Him. But, for obvious reasons,
any extended intercourse between Paul and Jesus in Palestine is
exceedingly improbable. It is natural, therefore, to look for some
other interpretation.
Other interpretations undoubtedly are possible. Some of the
interpretations that have been proposed must indeed be eliminated.
For example, Paul cannot possibly be contrasting a former immature
stage of his Christian experience with the present mature stage;
he cannot possibly mean, "Even if in the first period after my
conversion I had a low view of Christ, which made of Him merely
the son of David and the Jewish Messiah, yet now I have come to a
higher conception of His divine nature." For the whole point of
the passage is found in the sharp break which comes in a man's
experience when he appropriates the death and resurrection of
Christ. Any consciousness of a subsequent revolution in the thinking
of the Christian is not only unsupported anywhere in the Pauline
Epistles, but is absolutely excluded by the present passage. Another
interpretation also must be eliminated. Paul cannot possibly be
contrasting his pre-Christian notions about the Messiah with the
higher knowledge which came to him with his conversion; he cannot
possibly mean, "Even if before I knew the fulfillment of the
Messianic promise I cherished carnal notions of what the Messiah
was to be, even if I thought of Him merely as an earthly ruler who
was to conquer the enemies of Israel, yet now I have come to have a
loftier, more spiritual conception of Him." For the word "Christ,"
especially without the article, can hardly here be anything
other than a proper name, and must refer not to the conception
of Messiahship but to the concrete person of Jesus. But another
interpretation remains. The key to it is found in the flexible use
of the first person plural in the Pauline Epistles. Undoubtedly, the
"we" of the whole passage in which 2 Cor. v. 16 is contained refers
primarily to Paul himself. But, especially in 2 Cor. v. 16, it may
include also all true ambassadors for Christ whose principles are
the same as Paul's. Among such true ambassadors there were no doubt
to be found some who had known Christ by way of ordinary intercourse
in Palestine. "But," says Paul, "even if some of us have known
Christ in that way, we know him so no longer." This interpretation
is linguistically more satisfactory, perhaps, than that which
explains the sentence as simply a more vivid way of presenting a
condition contrary to fact. "Granted," Paul would say according to
this interpretation, "even that we have known Christ according to
the flesh (which as a matter of fact we have not), yet now we know
him so no longer." But our interpretation really amounts to almost
the same thing so far as Paul is concerned. At any rate, the passage
is not so clear as to justify any certain conclusions about Paul's
life in Palestine; it does not clearly imply any acquaintance of
Paul with Jesus before the passion.
If such acquaintance is to be established, therefore, it must be
established on the basis of other evidence. J. Weiss[31] seeks to
establish it by the very fact of Paul's conversion. Paul, Weiss
believes, saw a vision of the risen Christ. How did he know that the
figure which appeared to him in the vision was Jesus? Why did he not
think, for example, merely that it was the Messiah, who according
to one strain of Jewish Messianic expectation was already existent
in heaven? Apparently he recognized the person who appeared to him
as Jesus of Nazareth. But how could he have recognized Him as Jesus
unless he had seen Jesus before?
[31] _Paulus und Jesus_, 1909, pp. 22, 23. Compare Ramsay, _The
Teaching of Paul in Terms of the Present Day_, 1914, pp. 21-30.
This argument depends, of course, altogether upon the naturalistic
conception of the conversion of Paul, which regards the experience
as an hallucination. In the account of the conversion given in the
Book of Acts, on the contrary, it is distinctly said that far from
recognizing the person who appeared to him, Paul was obliged to ask
the question, "Who art thou, Lord?" and then received the answer,
"I am Jesus." Such a conversation between Paul and the One who
appeared to him is perfectly possible if there was a real appearance
of the risen Christ, but it exceeds the ordinary limits of
hallucinations. Weiss has therefore merely pointed out an additional
psychological difficulty in explaining the experience of Paul as
an hallucination, a difficulty which, on naturalistic principles,
may have to be removed by the assumption that Paul had seen Jesus
before the passion. But if Jesus really appeared to Paul in such a
way as to be able to answer his questions, then it is not necessary
to suppose that Paul recognized Him. The failure of Paul to
recognize Jesus (according to the narrative in Acts) does not indeed
positively exclude such previous acquaintance; the two disciples on
the road to Emmaus, for example, also failed to recognize the Lord,
though they had been acquainted with Him before. But, at any rate,
if the supernaturalistic view of Paul's conversion be accepted,
the experience sheds no light whatever upon any previous personal
acquaintance with Jesus.
Thus there is no clear evidence for supposing that Paul saw Jesus
before the passion. At the same time there is no evidence to the
contrary, except the evidence that is to be found in the silence of
the Epistles.
The argument from silence, precarious as it is, must here be
allowed a certain amount of weight. If Paul had seen Jesus before
the crucifixion, would not so important a fact have been mentioned
somewhere in the Epistles? The matter is by no means absolutely
clear; a brief glimpse of Jesus in the days of His flesh would
perhaps not have seemed so important to Paul, in view of the richer
knowledge which came afterwards, as it would seem to us. The silence
of the Epistles does, however, render improbable any extended
contact between Paul and Jesus, particularly any active opposition
of the youthful Paul toward Jesus. Paul was deeply penitent for
having persecuted the Church; if he had committed the more terrible
sin of having helped bring the Lord Himself to the shameful cross,
the fact would naturally have appeared in his expressions of
penitence. Even if Paul did see Jesus in Palestine, then, it is
highly improbable that he was one of those who cried out to Pilate,
"Crucify him, crucify him!"
One thing, however, is certain. If Paul never saw Jesus in
Palestine, he certainly heard about Him. The ministry of Jesus
caused considerable stir both in Galilee and in Jerusalem. These
things were not done in a corner. The appearance of Jesus at the
last Passover aroused the passions of the multitude, and evidently
caused the deepest concern to the authorities. Even one who was
indifferent to the whole matter could hardly have helped learning
something of the content of Jesus' teaching, and the main outline
of the story of His death. But Paul, at least at a time only a very
few years after the crucifixion, was not indifferent; for he was an
active persecutor. If he was in Palestine at all during the previous
period, his interest probably began then. The outlines of Jesus'
life and death were known to friend and foe alike, and certainly
were not unknown to Paul before his conversion, at the time when he
was persecuting the Church. It is only a woeful lack of historical
imagination which can attribute to Paul, even before his conversion,
a total ignorance of the earthly life of Jesus.
The opposite error, however, is even more serious. If Paul before
his conversion was not totally ignorant of Jesus, on the other
hand his knowledge only increased his opposition to Jesus and
Jesus' followers. It is not true that before the conversion Paul
was gradually coming nearer to Christianity. Against any such
supposition stands the explicit testimony of the Epistles.
Despite that testimony, various attempts have been made to trace
a psychological development in Paul which could have led to the
conversion. Paul was converted through a vision of the risen
Christ. According to the supernaturalistic view that vision was a
"vision," not in any specialized meaning of the word, but in its
original etymological meaning; Paul actually "saw" the risen Lord.
According to the modern naturalistic view, which rejects any direct
creative interposition of God in the course of nature, different in
kind from His works of providence, the vision was produced by the
internal condition of the subject, accompanied perhaps by favorable
conditions without--the heat of the sun or a thunder storm or the
like. But was the condition of the subject, in the case of Paul,
really favorable to a vision of the risen Christ? If the vision
of Christ was an hallucination, as it is held to be by modern
naturalistic historians, how may the genesis of this pathological
experience be explained?
In the first place, a certain basis for the experience is sought in
the physical organism of the subject. According to the Epistles,
it is said, the apostle was subject to a recurrent malady; this
malady is spoken of in 2 Cor. xii. 1-8 in connection with visions
and revelations. In Gal. iv. 14, where it is said that the
Galatians did not "spit out" when the apostle was with them, an
allusion is sometimes discovered to the ancient custom of spitting
to avoid contagion. A combination of this passage with the one in
2 Corinthians is thought to establish a diagnosis of epilepsy, the
effort being made to show that "spitting out" was particularly
prevalent in the case of that disease. The visions then become an
additional symptom of the epileptic seizures.[32]
[32] See Krenkel, _Beiträge zur Aufhellung der Geschichte und der
Briefe des Apostels Paulus_, 1890, pp. 47-125.
But the diagnosis rests upon totally insufficient data. The visions
are not regarded in 2 Corinthians as part of the buffetings of
the angel of Satan; on the contrary, the two things are sharply
separated in Paul's mind; he rejoices in the visions, but prays
the Lord that the buffetings may cease. It is not even said that
the visions and the buffetings came close together; there is no
real basis for the view that the buffetings consisted in nervous
exhaustion following the visions. In Gal. iv. 14, the "spitting
out" is probably to be taken figuratively, and the object is "your
temptation in my flesh." The meaning then is simply, "You did
not reject me or spue me out"; and there is no allusion to the
custom of "spitting out" for the purpose of avoiding contagion. It
is unnecessary, therefore, to examine the elaborate argument of
Krenkel by which he sought to show that epilepsy was particularly
the disease against which spitting was practised as a prophylactic
measure.
There is therefore absolutely no evidence to show that Paul was an
epileptic, unless the very fact of his having visions be thought to
furnish such evidence. But such a use of the visions prejudges the
great question at issue, which concerns the objective validity of
Paul's religious convictions. Furthermore, the fact should always be
borne in mind that Paul distinguished the visions very sharply from
the experience which he had near Damascus, when he saw the Lord. The
visions are spoken of in 2 Corinthians apparently with reluctance,
as something which concerned the apostle alone; the Damascus
experience was part of the evidence for the resurrection of Christ,
and had a fundamental place in the apostle's missionary preaching.
All efforts to break down this distinction have failed. The apostle
regarded the Damascus experience as unique--not a mystery like
the experiences which are mentioned in 2 Corinthians, but a plain,
palpable fact capable of being understood by all.
But if the Damascus experience is to be regarded as an
hallucination, it is not sufficient to exhibit a basis for it in the
physical weakness of the apostle. Even if Paul was constitutionally
predisposed to hallucinations, the experience of this particular
hallucination must be shown to be possible. The challenge has often
been accepted by modern historians. It is maintained that the
elements of Paul's new conviction must have been forming gradually
in his mind; the Damascus experience, it is said, merely brought to
light what was really already present. In this way, the enormous
disparity between effect and cause is thought to be removed; the
untold benefits of Paulinism are no longer to be regarded as due to
the fortunate chance of an hallucination, induced by the weakness
of the apostle and the heat of the desert sun, but rather to a
spiritual development which the hallucination merely revealed.
Thus the modern view of Paul's conversion, it is thought, may face
bravely the scorn of Beyschlag, who exclaimed, when speaking of
the naturalistic explanation of Paul's vision, "Oh blessed drop of
blood ... which by pressing at the right moment upon the brain of
Paul, produced such a moral wonder."[33] The drop of blood, it is
said, or whatever may have been the physical basis of the Damascus
experience, did not produce the wonders of the Pauline gospel; it
merely brought into the sphere of consciousness a psychological
process which had really been going on before.
[33] Beyschlag, "Die Bekehrung des Apostels Paulus," in
_Theologische Studien und Kritiken_, xxxvii, 1864, p. 241.
The existence of such a psychological process, by which the apostle
was coming nearer to Christ, is sometimes thought to receive
documentary support in one verse of the New Testament. In Acts xxvi.
14, the risen Christ is represented as saying to Paul, "It is hard
for thee to kick against the goads." According to this verse, it
is said, Paul had been resisting a better conviction, gradually
forming in his mind, that the disciples might be right about Jesus
and he might be wrong; that, it is said, was the goad which was
really driving him. He had indeed been resisting vigorously; he
had been stifling his doubts by more and more feverish activity
in persecution. But the resistance had not really brought him
peace; the goad was really there. And at last, near Damascus, the
resistance was overcome; the subconscious conviction which had
brought tumult into his soul was at last allowed to come to the
surface and rule his conscious life.
At this point, the historian is in grave danger of becoming
untrue to his own critical principles. Attention to the Book of
Acts, it has been maintained, is not to be allowed to color the
interpretation of the Pauline Epistles, which are the primary
sources of information. But here the procedure is reversed. In the
interests of a verse in Acts, standing, moreover, in a context
which on naturalistic principles cannot be regarded as historical,
the clear testimony of the Epistles is neglected. For Paul was
certainly not conscious of any goad which before his conversion was
forcing him into the new faith; he knows nothing of doubts which
assailed him during the period of his activity in persecution. On
the contrary, the very point of the passage in Galatians, where
he alludes to his persecuting activity, is the suddenness of his
conversion. Far from gradually coming nearer to Christ he was in
the very midst of his zeal for the Law when Christ called him.
The purpose of the passage is to show that his gospel came to him
without human intermediation. Before the conversion, he says, there
was of course no human intermediation, since he was an active
persecutor. He could not have spoken in this way if before the
conversion he had already become half convinced that those whom he
was persecuting were right. Moreover, throughout the Epistles there
appears in the apostle not the slightest consciousness of his having
acted against better convictions when he persecuted the Church. In
1 Tim. i. 13 he distinctly says that he carried on the persecution
in ignorance; and even if Timothy be regarded as post-Pauline, the
silence of the other epistles at least points in the same direction.
Paul was deeply penitent for having persecuted the Church of God,
but apparently he did not lay to his charge the black sin of having
carried on the persecution in the face of better convictions. When
he laid the Church waste he thought he was doing God service. In the
very midst of his mad persecuting activity, he says, apart from any
teaching from men--apart, we may certainly infer, from any favorable
impressions formed in his mind--the Lord appeared to him and gave
him his gospel. Paul stakes everything upon the evidential value of
the appearance, which was able suddenly to overcome an altogether
hostile attitude. Such is the self-testimony of the apostle. It
rests as a serious weight upon all attempts at making the conversion
the result of a psychological process.
Certainly the passage in Acts will not help to bear the weight.
When the risen Christ says to Paul, "It is hard for thee to kick
against the goads," He need not mean at all that the presence of
the goad had been known to Paul before that hour. The meaning may
be simply that the will of Christ is resistless; all opposition
is in vain, the appointed hour of Christ has arrived. Conscious
opposition on the part of Paul to a better conviction is certainly
not at all implied. No doubt Paul was really miserable when he was
a persecutor; all activity contrary to the plan of Christ brings
misery. But that he had the slightest inkling of the source of his
misery or even of the fact of it need not be supposed. It is even
possible that the "hardness" of resistance to the goad is to be
found only in the very moment of the conversion. "All resistance,"
says the risen Christ, "all hesitation, is as hopeless as for the ox
to kick against the goad; instant obedience alone is in place."
The weight of the apostle's own testimony is therefore in no sense
removed by Acts xxvi. 14. That testimony is unequivocally opposed to
all attempts at exhibiting a psychological process culminating in
the conversion. These attempts, however, because of the importance
which has been attributed to them, must now be examined. In general,
they are becoming less and less elaborate; contemporary scholars
are usually content to dismiss the psychological problem of the
conversion with a few general observations about the secret of
personality, or, at the most, a brief word about the possible
condition of the apostle's mind. Since the direct interposition of
the risen Christ is rejected, it is held that there must have been
some psychological preparation for the Damascus experience, but
what that preparation was remains hidden, it is said, in the secret
places of the soul, which no psychological analysis can ever fully
reveal.
If, however, the problem is not thus to be dismissed as insoluble,
no unanimity has been achieved among those who attempt a solution.
Two principal lines of solution of the problem may perhaps be
distinguished--that which begins with the objective evidence as
it presented itself to the persecutor, and that which starts with
the seventh chapter of Romans and the persecutor's own sense of
need. The former line was followed by Holsten, whose monographs
still constitute the most elaborate exposition of the psychological
process supposed to lie back of the conversion.[34] According to
Holsten, the process centered in the consideration of the Cross
of Christ. That consideration of course resulted at first in an
attitude of hostility on the part of Paul. The Cross was a shameful
thing; the proclamation of a crucified Messiah appeared, therefore,
to the devout Pharisee as an outrageous blasphemy. But the disciples
represented the Cross as in accordance with the will of God, and
supported their contention by the evidence for the resurrection;
the resurrection was made to overcome the offense of the Cross. But
against the evidence for the resurrection, Holsten believes, Paul
was helpless, the possibility of resurrection being fully recognized
in his Pharisaic training. What then if the resurrection really
vindicated the claims of Jesus to be the Messiah? Paul was by no
means convinced, Holsten believes, that such was the case. But the
possibility was necessarily in his mind, if only for the purposes
of refutation. At this point Paul began to advance, according to
Holsten, beyond the earlier disciples. On the assumption that the
resurrection really did vindicate the claims of Jesus, the Cross
would have to be explained. But an explanation lay ready to hand,
and Paul applied this explanation with a thoroughness which the
earlier disciples had not attained. The earlier disciples removed
the offense of the Cross by representing the Cross as part of the
plan of God for the Messiah; Paul exhibited the meaning of that
plan much more clearly than they. He exhibited the meaning of the
Cross by applying to it the category of vicarious suffering, which
could be found, for example, in Isaiah liii. At this point the
pre-Christian development of Paul was over. The Pauline "gnosis of
the Cross" was already formed. Of course, before the conversion it
was to Paul entirely a matter of supposition. On the supposition,
still regarded as false, that the resurrection had really taken
place, the Cross, far from being an offense, would become a glorious
fact. All the essential elements of Paul's gospel of the Cross were
thus present in Paul's mind before the conversion; the validity
of them had been posited by him for the purposes of argument. The
only thing that was lacking to make Paul a disciple of Jesus was
conviction of the fact of the resurrection. That conviction was
supplied by the Damascus experience. The unstable equilibrium then
was over; the elements of the Pauline gospel, which were all present
before, fell at once into their proper places.
[34] Holsten, _Zum Evangelium des Paulus und des Petrus_, 1868.
Against Holsten, see Beyschlag, "Die Bekehrung des Apostels Paulus,
mit besonderer Rücksicht auf die Erklärungsversuche von Baur und
Holsten," in _Theologische Studien und Kritiken_, xxxvii, 1864, pp.
197-264; "Die Visionshypothese in ihrer neuesten Begründung. Eine
Duplik gegen D. Holsten," _ibid._, xliii, 1870, pp. 7-50, 189-263.
The other way of explaining the conversion starts from the seventh
chapter of Romans and the dissatisfaction which Paul is thought to
have experienced under the Law. Paul, it is said, was a Pharisee; he
made every effort to keep the Law of God. But he was too earnest to
be satisfied with a merely external obedience; and real obedience he
had not attained. He was therefore tormented by a sense of sin. That
sense of sin no doubt led him into a more and more feverish effort
to keep the letter of the Law and particularly to show his zeal by
persecuting the disciples of Jesus. But all his efforts were vain;
his obedience remained insufficient; the curse of the Law still
rested upon him. What if the vain effort could be abandoned? What if
the disciples of Jesus were right? Of course, he believed, they were
not right, but what if they were? What if the Messiah had really
died for the sins of believers, in accordance with Isaiah liii? What
if salvation were attainable not by merit but by divine grace? These
questions, it is supposed, were in the mind of Paul. He answered
them still in the negative, but his misery kept them ever before his
mind. The Law was thus a schoolmaster to bring him to Christ. He was
ready for the vision.
In both of these lines of explanation importance is often attributed
to the impression produced upon Paul's mind by the character of
the disciples. Whence did they derive their bravery and their joy
in the midst of persecution? Whence came the fervor of their love,
whence the firmness of their faith? The persecutor, it is said, was
impressed against his will.
The fundamental objection to all these theories of psychological
development is that they describe only what might have been or what
ought to have been, and not what actually was. No doubt Paul ought
to have been coming nearer to Christianity; but as a matter of fact
he was rather getting further away, and he records the fact in no
uncertain terms in his Epistles. There are objections, moreover, to
the various theories of development in detail; and the advocates of
one theory are often the severest critics of another.
With regard to Holsten's exposition of the "gnosis of the
Cross," for example, there is not the slightest evidence that
the pre-Christian Jews interpreted Isaiah liii of the vicarious
sufferings of the Messiah, or had any notion of the Messiah's
vicarious death.[35] It is not true, moreover, as Beyschlag pointed
out against Holsten, that Paul was helpless in the face of the
evidence for the resurrection.[36] According to Paul's Pharisaic
training, the resurrection would come only at the end of the age; a
resurrection like the resurrection of Jesus, therefore, was by no
means a matter of course, and could be established only by positive
evidence of the most direct and unequivocal kind.
[35] See Schürer, _Geschichte des jüdischen Volkes_, 4te Aufl., ii,
1907, pp. 648-651 (English Translation, _A History of the Jewish
People_, Division II, vol. ii, 1885, pp. 184-187).
[36] Beyschlag, "Die Visionshypothese in ihrer neuesten Begründung,"
in _Theologische Studien und Kritiken_, xliii, 1870, pp. 19-21.
With regard to the sense of sin as the goad which forced Paul to
accept the Saviour, there is no evidence that before his conversion
Paul was under real conviction of sin. It is very doubtful whether
Rom. vii. 7-25, with its account of the struggle between the
flesh and the higher nature of man, refers to the unregenerate
rather than to the regenerate life; and even if the former view is
correct, it is doubtful whether the description is taken from the
apostle's own experience. At any rate, the struggle, even if it be
a struggle in the unregenerate man, is described from the point of
view of the regenerate; it is not implied, therefore, that before
the entrance of the Spirit of God a man is fully conscious of his
own helplessness and of the desperateness of the struggle. The
passage therefore, does not afford any certain information about
the pre-Christian life of Paul. Undoubtedly before the conversion
the conscience of Paul was aroused; he was conscientious in his
devotion to the Law. Probably he was conscious of his failings. But
that such consciousness of failure amounted to anything like that
genuine conviction of sin which leads a man to accept the Saviour
remains very doubtful. Recognized failure to keep the Law perfectly
led in the case of Paul merely to greater zeal for the Law, a zeal
which was manifested especially in the persecution of a blasphemous
sect whose teaching was subversive of the authority of Moses.
Finally, it is highly improbable that Paul was favorably impressed
by the bravery of those whom he was persecuting. It may seem strange
at first sight that the same man who wrote the thirteenth chapter
of 1 Corinthians should have haled helpless men and women to prison
without a qualm, or listened without pity to the dying words of
Stephen, "Lord, lay not this sin to their charge." But it is very
dangerous to argue back from the Christian life of Paul to the life
of Paul the Pharisee. Paul himself was conscious of a complete moral
transformation as having taken place in him when he saw the Lord
near Damascus. What was impossible for him after that transformation
may well have been possible before. Moreover, if, despite such
considerations, we could argue back from Paul the disciple of Jesus
to Paul the Pharisee, there is one characteristic of the apostle
which would never have permitted him to persecute those by whom
he was favorably impressed--namely, his complete sincerity. The
picture of Saul the doubter, torn by conflicting emotions, impressed
by the calmness and bravery and magnanimity of those whom he was
persecuting, yet stifling such impressions by persecuting zeal, is
very romantic, but very un-Pauline.
But in attributing the conversion of Paul altogether to the
experience on the road to Damascus, are we not heaping up into one
moment what must of very necessity in conscious life be the work
of years? Is it conceivable that ideas should have been implanted
in the mind of a person not by processes of acquisition but
mechanically as though by a hypodermic syringe? Would not such an
experience, even if it were possible, be altogether destructive of
personality?
The objection serves to correct possible misunderstandings. The
view of the conversion which has just been set forth does not mean
that when Paul drew near to Damascus on that memorable day he was
ignorant of the facts about Jesus. If he had never heard of Jesus,
or if having heard of Him he knew absolutely nothing about Him, then
perhaps the conversion would have been not only supernatural but
inconceivable. But it is not the traditional view of the conversion
which is guilty of such exaggerations. They are the product rather
of that separation of Paul from the historical Jesus which appears
for example in Wrede and in Bousset. According to any reasonable
view of Paul's pre-Christian experience, Paul was well acquainted,
before the conversion, with many of the facts about Jesus' life
and death; what he received on the road to Damascus was a new
interpretation of the facts and a new attitude toward them. He had
known the facts before, but they had filled him with hatred; now his
hatred was changed into love.
Even after exaggerations have been removed, however, the change
wrought by the Damascus experience remains revolutionary enough. Is
that change conceivable? Could hatred have been changed into love
merely by an experience which convinced Paul of the fact of the
resurrection? The answer to this question depends altogether upon
the nature of the Damascus experience. If that experience was merely
an hallucination, the question must be answered in the negative; an
hallucination could never have produced the profound changes in the
personal life of Paul which have just been contemplated; and the
historian would be obliged to fall back, despite the unequivocal
testimony of the Epistles, upon some theory of psychological
development of which the hallucination would only be the climax.
But even those who maintain the supernaturalistic view of the
conversion have too often failed to do justice to the content of
the experience. One fundamental feature of the experience has too
often been forgotten--the appearance on the road to Damascus was the
appearance of a person. Sometimes the event has been regarded merely
as a supernatural interposition of God intended to produce belief
in the fact of the resurrection, as merely a sign. Undoubtedly it
was a sign. But it was far more; it was contact between persons.
But contact between persons, even under ordinary conditions, is
exceedingly mysterious; merely a look or the tone of the voice
sometimes produces astonishing results. Who has not experienced
the transition from mere hearsay knowledge of a person to actual
contact? One meeting is often sufficient to revolutionize the
entire impression; indifference or hostility gives place at once
to enthusiastic devotion. Those who speak of the transformation
wrought in Paul by the appearance of Jesus as magical or mechanical
or inconceivable have never reflected upon the mysteries of personal
intercourse.
Only, it must have been a real person whom Paul met on the road to
Damascus--not a vision, not a mere sign. If it was merely a vision
or a sign, all the objections remain in force. But if it was really
Jesus, the sight of His face and the words of love which He uttered
may have been amply sufficient, provided the heart of Paul was
renewed by the power of God's Spirit, to transform hatred into love.
To call such an experience magic is to blaspheme all that is highest
in human life. God was using no unworthy instrument when, by the
personal presence of the Saviour, He transformed the life of Paul.
There is, therefore, no moral or psychological objection in the way
of a simple acceptance of Paul's testimony about the conversion.
And that testimony is unequivocal. Paul was not converted by any
teaching which he received from men; he was not converted as
Christians are usually converted, by the preaching of the truth or
by that revelation of Christ which is contained in the lives of His
followers. Jesus Himself in the case of Paul did in visible presence
what He ordinarily does by the means which He has appointed. Upon
this immediateness of the conversion, Paul is willing to stake the
whole of his life; upon it he bases his apostolic authority.