Jeremy Bentham - Not Paul, But Jesus

Part 4. The purpose continued and concluded… "that they may receive forgiveness of sins, and inheritance among them which are sanctified by faith that is in me." Good. But this is not doctrine; this is not gospel; this is not itself the promised doctrine: but it is a description of the effect, of which the promised doctrine was to be the cause.

Now it is, as we have just seen, that Paul is represented as commencing his preaching, or sallying forth upon his mission; preaching, from instructions received in a supernatural way – received by revelation. Yet, after all, no such instructions has he received. Thrice has the historian – once in his own person, twice in that of his hero – undertaken to produce those instructions. But by no one, from first to last, have they anywhere been produced.

Truly, then, of his own making was this Gospel which Paul went preaching; of his own making, as well as of his own using; that Gospel, which he himself declares to his Galatians was not of man, was not, therefore, of those Apostles, to whom the opposition made by him is thus proclaimed.

When, after having given in his own person an account of a supposed occurrence, – an historian, on another occasion, takes up the same occurrence; and, in the person of another individual, gives of that same occurrence another account different from, and so different from, as to be irreconcileable with it; can this historian, with any propriety, be said to be himself a believer in this second account which he thus gives? Instead of giving it as a true account, does he not, at any rate, in respect of all the several distinguishable circumstances in which it differs from the account given in his own person – give it in the character of a fable? a fable invented on the occasion on which the other person is supposed to speak – invented in the intent that it shall promote the purpose for which this speech is supposed to be made? Yet this account, which in the eyes of the very man by whom it is delivered to us, is but a fable, even those to whom in this same character of a fable it is delivered – this account it is that Christians have thus long persisted in regarding, supporting, and acting upon, as if it were from beginning to end, a truth – a great body of truth! – O Locke! O Newton! where was your discernment!

On such evidence would any Judge fine a man a shilling? Would he give effect to a claim to that amount? Yet such is the evidence, on the belief of which the difference between happiness and misery, both in intensity as well as duration, infinite, we are told, depends!

By the nature of the acts which are the objects of it, the command, we see, is necessarily pregnant with information: but now comes the information given as such – the piece of information with which the command is followed. This information – in and by which another, an antecedent vision, is brought upon the carpet, and communicated – has been reserved for a separate consideration.

This information is in its complexion truly curious: to present a clear view of it, is not an altogether easy task. The information thus given by the Lord – given to this Ananias – this information, of which Paul is the subject, is – what? that, on some former occasion, neither time nor place mentioned, he, Ananias, to whom the Lord is giving the information, had been seen by this same Paul performing, with a certain intention, a certain action; the intention being – that, in relation to this same Paul, a certain effect should be produced – to wit, that of his receiving his sight. The Lord declares, Acts ix. 12, to Ananias, that Paul "had seen in a vision a man, Ananias himself, coming and putting his hand on him, that he (Paul) might receive his sight."

Well then – this action which the Lord thus informs Ananias that he, Ananias, had performed, – did he, at any time and place, ever perform it? Oh, no; that is not necessary: the question is not a fair one; for it was only in a vision that it was performed. Well then – if it was only in a vision that it was performed, then, in reality, it was never performed. The Lord said that it had been performed; but in so saying the Lord had said that which was not true. The Lord had caused him to believe this – the Lord knowing all the while that it was not true. Such is the deed, which, according to our historian, the Lord relates himself to have achieved.

But the intention , was that true? Oh, no; nor was there any need of its being so: for the intention, with which the act was supposed to be performed, was part and parcel of the divinely-taught untruth.

The effect, the production of which had been the object of the intention, was it then – had it then been – produced? Wait a little; no, not at that time. But the time was not then as yet come; and now it is coming apace.

But this effect – what is it? a man's receiving his sight; this same Paul's receiving his sight; this same Paul, of whom Ananias knew nothing, nor had ever heard anything, except what he had just been hearing – to wit, that, by a man of that name, he, Ananias, had once been seen – seen to do so and so – he, all the while – he, the doer, knowing nothing of what he was doing – knowing nothing at all about the matter. However, only in a vision did all this pass; which being the case, no proper subject of wonder was afforded to him by such otherwise somewhat extraordinary ignorance.

But this sight – which, at the hands of this seer of visions, to whom this information is thus addressed, this stranger, whose name was still Saul , was to receive – how happened it that it was to him, Ananias, that he came to receive it? This faculty – at his birth, was he not, like any other man, in possession of it? If he was, what was become of it? In this particular, the information thus supposed to have been given by Omniscience, was rather of the scantiest.

Supposing the story to have any foundation in truth, – such, to Ananias, it could not but have appeared; and, supposing him bold enough to ask questions, or even to open his mouth, a question, in the view of finding a supply for the deficiency, is what the assertion would naturally have for its first result. No such curiosity, however, has Ananias: instead of seeking at the hands of Omniscience an information, the demand for which was so natural, the first use he makes of his speech, or rather would have made of it, if, instead of being imagined in a vision, the state of things in question had been true, is – the furnishing to Omniscience a quantity of information of a sort in no small degree extraordinary. For, hereupon begins a speech, in and by which Ananias undertakes to give Omniscience to understand, what reports, in relation to this same Paul, had reached his (Ananias's) ears. What he is willing thus to speak is more, however, than Omniscience is willing to hear: the story is cut short, and the story-teller bid to "go his way." "Then Ananias," says the text, Acts ix. 13. "Then Ananias answered, Lord, I have heard by many of this man, how much evil he hath done to thy saints at Jerusalem. And here he hath authority from the Chief Priests to bind all that call on thy name. But the Lord said unto him, Go thy way; for…" &c.

But, though thus cut short, he is far from being in disgrace. So far from it, that he is taken into confidence. Then comes – still in a vision, and the same vision – information of the till then secret acts and intentions of Omnipotence in relation to this same Paul: he had actually been "chosen" as "a vessel to bear the Lord's name before the Gentiles, and kings, and the children of Israel: " and the determination had been taken, says the Lord in this vision, "to show him how great things he must suffer for my name's sake." "For I will show him," says the Acts, ix. 16, "how great things he must suffer for my name's sake." And, with the announcement thus made of this determination, the historical account, thus by the historian in his own person given, of this same vision, closes.