Jeremy Bentham - Not Paul, But Jesus

Thus highly distinguished, and favoured with a confidence, equalling, if not surpassing, any which, according to any of the Gospel accounts, appears ever to have been imparted to any one of the Apostles, how comes it that Ananias has never been put in the number of the Saints? meaning always the Calendar Saints – those persons, to wit, who, as a mark of distinction and title of honour, behold their ordinary names preceded by this extraordinary one? Still the answer is: Aye, but this was but in vision: and of a vision one use is – that of the matter of which all that there is not a use for, is left to be taken for false; all that there is a use for, is taken, and is to pass, for true. When, by the name of Ananias, who, humanly speaking, never existed but in name, the service for which it was invented has been performed – to wit, the giving a support to Paul and his vision, – it has done all that was wanted of it: there is no, further use for it.

Supposing that thirdly mentioned vision really seen, at what point of time shall we place the seeing of it? In this too there seems to be no small difficulty.

Between the moment at which Paul is said to have had his vision, if a vision that can be called in which, the time being midday, he saw nothing but a glare of light, – between the moment of this vision, of which a loss of sight was the instantaneous consequence – between the moment of this loss of sight and the moment of the recovery of it, the interval is mentioned: three days it was exactly. Acts ix. 9, "And he was three days without sight, and neither did eat nor drink."

The time during which, in verse 9, he has just been declared to have been the whole time without sight, – this is the time, within which he is declared – declared, if the historian is to be believed, declared by the Lord himself – to have seen this introductory vision – this preparatory vision, for which it is so difficult to find a use. And thus it is, that in a vision, though vision means seeing, it is not necessary a man should have sight.

Meantime, of all these matters, on which his own existence, not to speak of the salvation of mankind, so absolutely depends, not a syllable is he to know, but through the medium of this so perfectly obscure and questionable personage – this personage so completely unknown to him – this same Ananias.

Three whole days he is kept from doing anything: during these three whole days the business of the miracle stands still. For what purpose is it thus kept at a stand? Is it that there might be time sufficient left for his learning to see, when his sight is returned, this preparatory vision, by which so little is done, and for which there is so little use?

As to the matter of fact designated by the words Paul's conversion , so far as regards outward conversion, the truth of it is out of all dispute: – that he was converted, i.e. that after having been a persecutor of the votaries of the new religion, he turned full round, and became a leader. Whether the so illustriously victorious effect, had for its cause a supernatural intercourse of Paul with Jesus after his resurrection and ascension, and thence for its accompaniment an inward conversion – in this lies the matter in dispute.

From those, by whom, in its essential particular, the statement is regarded as being true, a natural question may be – If the whole was an invention of his own, to what cause can we refer the other vision, the vision of Ananias? To what purpose should he have been at the pains of inventing, remembering, and all along supporting and defending, the vision of the unknown supposed associate? Answer. – To the purpose, it should seem, of giving additional breadth to the basis of his pretensions.

Among that people, in those times, the story of a vision was so common an article, – so difficultly distinguishable from, so easily confounded with, on the one hand the true story of a dream, on the other hand a completely false story of an occurrence, which, had it happened, would have been a supernatural one, but which never did happen, – that a basis, so indeterminate and aërial, would seem to have been in danger of not proving strong enough to support the structure designed to be reared upon it.

On the supposition of falsity, the case seems to be – that, to distinguish his vision from such as in those days were to be found among every man's stories, as well as in every history, – and which, while believed by some, were disbelieved and scorned by others, – either Paul or his historian bethought himself of this contrivance of a pair of visions: – a pair of corresponding visions, each of which should, by reference and acknowledgment, bear witness and give support to the other: a pair of visions: for, for simplicity of conception, it seems good not to speak any further, of the antecedent vision interwoven so curiously in the texture of one of them, after the similitude of the flower termed by some gardeners hose in hose .

Of this piece of machinery, which in the present instance has been seen played off with such brilliant success upon the theological theatre, the glory of the invention may, it is believed, be justly claimed, if not by Paul, by his historian. With the exception of one that will be mentioned presently 13, no similar one has, upon inquiry, been found to present itself, in any history, Jewish or Gentile.

The other pair of visions there alluded to, is – that which is also to be found in the Acts: one of them ascribed to Saint Peter, the other to the centurion Cornelius.

Paul, or his historian? – The alternative was but the suggestion of the first moment. To a second glance the claim of the historian presents itself as incontestable. In the case of Peter's pair of visions, suppose the story the work of invention, no assignable competitor has the historian for the honour of it: in the case of Paul's pair of visions, supposing that the only pair, the invention was at least as likely to have been the work of the historian as of the hero: add to this pair the other pair – that other pair that presents itself in this same work of this same history – all competition is at an end. In the case of even the most fertile genius, copying is an easier task than invention: and, where the original is of a man's own invention, copying is an operation still easier than in the opposite case. That an occurrence thus curious should find so much as a single inventor, is a circumstance not a little extraordinary: but, that two separate wits should jump in concurrence in the production of it, is a supposition that swells the extraordinariness, and with it the improbability, beyond all bounds.

Per Acts, in the historical account, is stated the existence of a commission: – granters, the Jerusalem rulers; persons to whom addressed, Paul himself at Jerusalem; and the synagogues, i. e. the rulers of the synagogues, at Damascus: object, the bringing in custody, from Damascus to Jerusalem, all Christians found there: all adult Christians at any rate, females as well as males; at Paul's own desire , adds this same historical account (ix. 2.); "for to be punished," adds Paul 1st supposed unpremeditated oratorical account, xxii. 5. In the supposed premeditated oratorical account, Paul 2nd, the existence of authority and commission granted to him by the Chief Priests is indeed mentioned, xxvi. 12: but, of the object nothing is said.

In the unpremeditated oratorical account, such is the boldness of the historian, nothing will serve him but to make the orator call to witness the constituted authorities – the Jerusalem rulers – whoever they were, that were present, – to acknowledge the treachery and the aggravated contempt he had been guilty of towards themselves or their predecessors: towards themselves, if it be in the literal sense that what on this occasion he says is to be understood: "As also the High Priest doth bear me witness, and all the estate of the Elders, from whom also I received letters," &c., Acts xxii. 5. In the premeditated oratorical account, the boldness of the orator is not quite so prominent; he says – it was "with authority and commission from the Chief Priests" at Jerusalem, that he went to Damascus; but, for the correctness of this statement of his, he does not now call upon them, or any of them, to bear witness.