8. Paul's companions—their hearing or not hearing. Per Acts, they not only saw the light, but heard the voice. Per Paul 1st, they did NOT hear the voice. In the supposed hasty and unstudied speech is the oratorical account made to contradict the historical one. In this particular, which of the accounts was true? If the historical, the haste must, in the oratorical, be the apology, not only for the incompleteness but for the incorrectness. In Paul 2d, nothing is said about their hearing or not hearing.
Supposing the story in any of the accounts to have had any truth in it, there was a middle case, fully as possible and natural as either of these extreme and mutually contradictory ones. It may have been, that while some stood their ground, others fell. And the greater the numbers, the greater the probability of this middle case. But as to their number, all is darkness.
9. Paul's companions—if they heard, what it was they heard. If they heard anything, they heard, as far as appears, whatever Paul himself heard. Per Acts, it is after the order given to Paul to go on to Damascus,—with the promise thereupon, that there and then, and not before, he should receive the information he should receive; it is after the statement made of his hearing all this from the voice, that the further statement comes, declaring that it was by Paul's companions also that this same voice was heard. But this same voice was, it is said, the Lord's voice. That when the voice had answered to the name by which Paul called it, to wit, the name of Lord, it stopt there, so far as concerned Paul's companions;—and that it reserved what followed, to wit, the above-mentioned order with the promise, for Paul's single ear; true it is, this may be imagined as well as anything else: but at any rate it is not said.
If Paul 2d—the studied oratorical account—is to be believed, all the information for the communication of which this miracle was performed was, as will be seen, communicated here upon the road: viz. immediately after the voice had been called by him Lord. But, if this was the case, and, as above, Paul's companions heard all that he heard,—then so it is, that the revelation was made as well to them as to him;—this revelation, upon the strength of which we shall see him setting himself up above all the Apostles; himself and that Gospel of his own, which he says was his own, and none of theirs. Now then—these companions—was it upon the same errand as his that they went, to wit, the bringing in bonds to Jerusalem all the Damascus Christians? If so, or if on any other account they were any of them in a condition to need conversion,—they were converted as well as he; or else, so far as concerned them, the miracle was thrown away. Companions as they were of his, were they or were they not respectively attendants of his? attendants going under his orders, and on the same errand? Unless, by the Jerusalem rulers, on the part of the Damascus rulers, both will and power were depended upon, as adequate to the task of apprehending the followers of Jesus and sending them bound to Jerusalem, such these companions ought to have been, every one of them—supposing always on the part of this about-to-be Apostle an ordinary prudence: that sort and degree of prudence with which no ordinary police-officer is unprovided. Some persons under his orders he must have had, or he could never have been sent on so extensively and strongly coercive an errand.
These companions, if, on this occasion, any such or any other companions he had, had each of them a name. To this vision, such as it was, they being each of them respectively, as well as himself, whether in the way of sight and hearing both, or in the way of sight alone, percipient witnesses, their names, in the character of so many percipient witnesses, ready upon every proper occasion to answer in the character of reporting witnesses, would have been of no small use: of use, were it only for the giving to this story a little more substance than it has in the form we see it in.
As to Ananias—the supposed principal actor in the scene next to Paul—for him, indeed, supposing any such person to have existed, a name, it is seen, was found. But, with a view to any purpose of evidence, how little that name amounted to, will be seen likewise.
In this vision of Paul's, as it is called,—was any person seen, or anything but light—light at midday? No; positively not any person, nor as far as appears, the light excepted, anything whatsoever. Per Acts, chap. ix:8, when "his eyes were opened,"—so it is expressly said,—"he saw no man." This was after he had fallen to the earth; for it was after he arose from the earth. But, it was before he fell to the earth, and thereupon heard the voice, that, according to this same account, he saw the extra light—the light created for the purpose: and, forasmuch as at the conclusion of the dialogue with the five speeches in it—forasmuch as at the conclusion of it, such was the effect produced upon him by the light, as to render him at that time stone-blind, requiring to be led by the hand, it could not from the first have been anything less effective. Per Acts, in this state he continues all the way as far as Damascus, and for three days after his arrival there. So likewise in the supposed unstudied speech, Paul 1st. But in the studied speech, Paul 2d, there is no blindness; the blindness is either forgotten or discarded.
But the curious circumstance is, his being led by the hand—all the way to Damascus led by the hand:—led by the hand by these same companions. Now these same companions, how was it that they were able to lead him by the hand? All that he saw was the light, and by that light he was blinded. But all that he saw they saw: this same light they saw as well as he. This same light, then, by which he was blinded—were they not blinded likewise by it? Was it a privilege—a privilege reserved for a chosen favourite—a privilege which it cost a miracle to produce—the being blinded when nobody else was blinded?
Blinded then as they were, how came he to be led by them, any more than they by him? Can the blind lead the blind? Let Jesus answer. Shall they not both fall into the ditch?