(2) The effect upon the attendants is recorded with varia- tions. In A they ai'e described as Ix.-mmvti; jj-im tJ)'; (^amfi fjt.'riSivu 5s hiaipouvri;. In B, ty^v Se (puv/,v oux vixovtrccv tov XtuKouvros u.ot. In C the attendants are not mentioned. It is usually said that the distinction of case after x-^oOhm implies that the attendants heard the sound (genitive) but could not distinguish the sub- stance (accusative) of the message (cf. Grimm-Thayer, Lex.).
But, taking' the extreme case that these details cannot be I'econciled, do they vitally alter the central affirmation ? Is not sonae confusion be- tween the effect on St. Paul and that upon the attendants very readily accounted for on the re- ligious principle that receptiveness varies with spirituality ? Zeller (followed by Pfleiderer, Ur- christentum, i. 61) has, indeed, made the most of these differences (Acts, vol. i. p. 287), on the ground that for the objective character of the ap- pearance great importance must attach to the testimony of St. Paul's companions. But the essential points are perfectly clear ; that the attend- ants were bewildered and confused by an external incident whose nature they evidently took for supernatural but could not further explain. ■
On the three narratives in Acts, see, further, Knowling, Testi- Viony of St. Paul ; Sabatier, L'apotre, Paul ; Goguel, L'apotre Paul et Jisus Christ ; Chase, Credibility of Acts ; Rackham, Acts.
So far as to St. Paul's personal testimony re- corded in Acts. To this must be added the refer- ences in his Epistles. It is certainly remarkable that amid his courageous self-revelation no account of his own conversion is given in the Epistles. And yet any such account would obviously be necessary for his opponents rather than for his converts, who must have heard the story orally -, an^ this is precisely what the allusions and in- ferences in the Epistles suggest. There are here three points to be remembered : (1) The ex- ternal or objective character of the appearance outside Damascus ; (2) the fact that this external appearance is not incompatible with intellectual preparation for the change ; nor (3) Avith an inner revelation in the department of the intellect as to the significance and far-reaching character of the external revelation bestowed (cf. Maurice Goguel, Uapvtre Paul et Jesus Christ).
(a) Theologians were formerly disposed to con- fine the intellectual change in St. Paul to the period of reflexion subsequent to conversion. Modern writers place it chieHy in the period be- fore. It may well have been in both. Conscious- ness of the impossibility of unaided compliance with the requirement of the moral ideal (Ro 7) may well have prepared the Avay for the accept- ance of Christianity, although by no means neces- sarily even suggesting, still less involving, its truth. On this point the greatest caution is essential. We have no information. The elaborated hy- potheses whereby St. Paul is supposed to have made the transition to Christianity in purely sub- jective ways are wonderful feats of critical in- genuity, but they have no necessary relation to history. What is certain is that he believed the transition to have been suddenly effected by the manifestation of the Risen Christ.
(b) Similarly with the question of the inner revelation of Christ within the mind of St. Paul (Gal 115-16 i^Q reveal his Son in me'). Because St. Paul received a mental enlightenment, it cannot po.ssibly follow that he did not see an outward vision or hear a voice. Rather that which he heard and saw formed the external data of his inward thoughts and convictions. The careful distinction drawn by St. Paul betAveen inner visions of the Lord (2 Co 12), as to which he cannot tell whether
they were in the body or out of the body, and the event appealed to in 1 Co 9' as the certificate of his Apostleship, show how vividly conscious he was of the external objective nature of that vision of the Risen Christ (see Goguel, p. 82). But that there was an inner revelation also as the result of the external vision is, of course, essential to the value of the vision. Indeed, it would not be easy to exaggerate the vastness of this inner revelation to St. Paul, provided always that space is left for the external circumstance which created it.
As to the external, objective character of St. Paul's vision of the Risen Christ, this and nothing- less is required by the Apostle's language. ' The metaphor of an untimely birth, which he employs in regard to himself (1 Co 15**), implies a sudden, violent, abnormal change which brought him weak and immature into a new spiritual world ' (Chase, Credibility, p. 72). Moreover, St. Paul places the appearance to himself in the same category a-^ ith those to the Apostles in general (1 Co 15 ; cf. Gal 213. 14 g^jjj Lightfoot's paraphrase).
3. Evidence of the Evangelists. — The Synoptic problem must, of course, be studied elsewhere. Nor do our limits allow an analysis of the various documents. (1) The original of Mk., so far as we possess it, ends with the vacant grave, but no ap- pearance of the Risen Master. [On the question of the last twelve verses of the present Mk. see above, p. 131 ff.]. (2. 3) But what the original Mk. no longer gives us is supplied by Mt. and Lk., who almost certainly wrote with Mk. before them ; and whose agreements may partially supply the missing conclusion of the earliest narrative. To do full justice to the documents would require a careful analysis and comparison of the appear- ances given by Mt., Lk., and Jn., together with the existing conclusion to Mark.