Critical Examination of the Life of St. Paul

by Peter Annet

The Jews proceeded to accuse Paul before the new governor, and demanded that he should be sent to Jerusalem. The accused, well knowing that the place of this scene would be unfavourable to him, and fearing that Festus would yield to the importunities of his enemies, appealed from him to Cæsar. This appeal suspended all proceedings. However Festus having spoken of his prisoner to King Agrippa, who had the curiosity to see a man that had made so much noise in Judea. Paul appeared before this prince, justified himself from the accusations brought against him, and finished by preaching the resurrection of Jesus Christ. This doctrine appeared so strange to Festus that he did not doubt a moment of his being deranged. However as folly did not seem to him a crime worthy of death, he would instantly have acquitted him, had he not made an appeal to Cæsar. In consequence of this appeal, Paul was put on board a ship about to sail for Italy. After many difficulties he was shipwrecked on the coast of the isle of Malta, where the author of the Acts, from whom we have taken this narrative, does not fail to make him perform miracles, a necessary seasoning to legends.

Amongst other wonders which Paul wrought in the isle of Malta, he cured himself, in a very natural manner, of the bite of a viper; in fact, it appears that he applied fire to it immediately, a simple and well known remedy, but which was such a prodigy in the eyes of the poor Maltese, that they took him, who was in possession of so fine a secret, for a God*. There was apparently nothing more wonderful in the Apostle curing the son of his host, whom he found ill of a fever and dysentery; disorders which we find yield to very simple remedies. Still this cure gained Paul great reputation, they soon brought him a great number of sick, who, according to our historian, he did not fail to cure. They rendered him great honours, furnished him with the necessary provisions for his voyage, and he embarked for Italy.

* Acts chap. xxviii. ver. 3-6.

Upon his arrival at Rome, Paul was permitted to confer with the Christians, and to preach to the Jews, whom he endeavoured to convert to the faith of Christ by the law of Moses and the prophets, which he had the talent of applying wonderfully to his views: Some smitten with the mystical, cabalistical, and allegorical explications, that our Apostle gave them, adopted his opinions, while many others resisted his arguments.

Indignant against the latter, he told them that their hardness of heart had been predicted by Isaiah; he then gave them to understand, that God had formed the project of blinding them, in order to have a fair pretext for rejecting them, and transferring to the Gentiles, the light and salvation of which the Jews had made themselves unworthy, by the obstinacy in which it was the will of God that they should persist.

This conduct of the Divinity must doubtless have appeared very strange to the Jews. So the Acts inform us, that there arose from these preachings of Paul, great contests among them. They turned apparently upon predestination and grace; questions upon which Christian theologians, have not after eighteen centuries been able to come, either to an understanding or agreement.

It appears that notwithstanding the obscurity of his doctrine our Apostle succeeded in gaining proselytes to his sect; this obscurity itself, has charms for many persons, who believe that a doctrine, is so much the more marvellous or divine, as it is above the power of the understanding. He preached during two years to the Romans, without any person throwing obstacles in his way, and thus laboured to spread this religion in the capital of the world.

The Acts of the Apostles, which the church orders us to receive as of divine inspiration, informs us nothing more. St Luke to whom this work is generally attributed, has transmitted to us, neither the actions, miracles nor death of his heroes. We are reduced to seek our information thereupon from traditions, which the interests of the clergy would wish us to regard, almost as sacred as divine inspirations. According to these respectable traditions, our Apostle shed his blood for the faith in the propagation of which he had laboured; he was, say they, beheaded in the reign of Nero, and in the sixty-sixth year of the Christian era.

After what has been said, we ought naturally to regard St. Paul as the true founder of the pontifical see of Rome. Nevertheless certain traditions, useful to the Roman Pontiffs, oblige us to believe that it was St. Peter, who established his throne in the capital of the world; the popes have thought, that their interests required, that they should pass for the authorized successors of this Prince of the Apostles, to whom Christ himself according to the Gospel, granted immense rights and privileges. These traditions then make St. Peter travel to Rome, prior to St. Paul, and only regard the latter as the subaltern associate in the Apostolic labours of the former.

Nevertheless some critics have ventured to doubt of the reality of St. Peter's voyage to Italy, and his foundation of the first see in the world, some authors otherwise very orthodox, without regarding the interests of the Pope, or respect for the traditions which favour them, have treated those pretensions as chimeras: as to the heretics, the sworn enemies of the authority of the Roman Pontiff, they have asserted, that the voyage of St. Peter to Rome was a fable invented by the supporters and partizans, with a design to exalt his authority. Both parties found their doubts or assertions upon these grounds. First, That the books which the church considers as inspired, make no mention of the voyage of Simon Peter, although the circumstance of going to plant the faith in the capital of the world, was sufficiently remarkable to claim a notice in preference to all the minor cities, which the Acts inform us that he visited to preach; in fact, the Holy Ghost, or St. Luke his organ, wishing to inform us in this history of the means made use of by God, to propagate the Gospel, could not without injustice, omit such a signal success, nor fail to give the honour of it to St. Peter, in case he had a claim to it.