Christian faith lay belief in a Messiah. It was a thoroughly Jewish belief, springing out of the covenant with the fathers, and based upon the Law and the Prophets. The difference was not one of principle but one of details. Their interpretation of the promises was strangely dissimilar, but the trust of both was in the God of Israel. To pass from one to the other did not involve the adoption of a new religion, but merely a modification of the views of the old. Once convinced that the Messiah was not a political ruler but a spiritual guide, not a victorious leader, but a suffering servant of Jehovah, the transition from judaic hopes to recognition of Jesus was almost accomplished.
It is clear that Paul in his capacity of Persecutor must have become well acquainted with the views of the Christians, and probably must have heard them repeatedly expounded by his captives before the Jewish Sanhedrin.1 He must have heard the victims of his blind religious zeal affirming their faith with all that ecstatic assurance which springs out of persecution. The vision of Peter contributed to the vision of Paul. There can be no doubt that Paul must have become aware of the application to Jesus of Old Testament prophecies, and of the new conception thence derived of a suffering Messiah. The political horizon was certainly not suggestive of the coming of the Lord's Anointed. Never had the fortunes of Israel been at a lower ebb. The hope of a Prince of the house of David to restore dominion to the fallen race was hard to entertain. The suggestion of an alternative theory based upon a new interpretation of the prophets, if startling, was not untimely, when the old confidence
was becoming faint in many minds, and the hope of his coming seemed so distant and unsure. If we do not misjudge the character of Paul, however shocked he may have been at first by the substitution of a crucified Nazarene for the triumphant Messiah of his earlier visions, there must have been something profoundly pleasing to his mind in the conception of a spiritual Messiah. As he became familiar with the idea, it is probable that flashes of doubt must have crossed his mind as to the correctness of his more material views. If the belief were true, which Christians professed, that this Jesus, despised and rejected of men, was actually the suffering servant of Jehovah, and this servant of Jehovah the Messiah! If the claim of this Jesus who had been esteemed smitten of God and afflicted, had been verified by his rising again from the dead and ascending to the right hand of God! This aspect of the Messianic idea had a mystery and significance congenial to the soul of Paul. The supernatural elements could have presented no difficulties to him. Belief in the Resurrection was part of his creed as a Pharisee. That the risen Messiah should have been seen by many, the fundamental idea once admitted, could not surprise the visionary Jew. We can well imagine the conflict which went on in the ardent mind of Paul when doubts first entered it; his resistance and struggle for the faith of his youth; the pursuance as duty of the course he had begun, whilst the former conviction no longer strengthened the feverish energy; the excitement of religious zeal in the mad course of persecution, not to be arrested in a moment, but become, by growing doubt, bitterness and pain to him; the suffering
inflicted sending its pang into his own flesh. There was ample preparation in such a situation for the vision of Paul.
The constitution and temperament of the Apostle were eminently calculated to receive impressions of the strongest description.(1) We have mentioned the conjecture of many able men that his "stake in the flesh" was a form of epilepsy. It is, of course, but a conjecture, though one which has great probability,(2) and we must not treat it otherwise; but, if it could be proved correct, much light would be thrown upon Paul's visions. We have discussed the Apostle's statements regarding the supernatural Charismata in the Church, and have seen his extreme readiness to believe in the lavish bestowal of miraculous gifts where others could recognise but ordinary qualities. That Paul should be able to claim the power of speaking with tongues more than all the Corinthians, whose exercise of that spiritual gift he so unceremoniously restrains, is in perfect keeping with all that we elsewhere learn about him. Everywhere we find the keenly impressionable nature so apt to fall into the ecstatic state when brought under the influence of active religious emotion. "I must glory," he exclaims with irresistible impulse on coming to a theme so congenial to him, "I must glory; it is not indeed expedient, but I will come to visions and revelations of the Lord."(3) Even when he speaks of the stake in his flesh, which he does in such suggestive connection with his visions, he describes it as sent lest he should "be exalted above measure by the
excess of the revelations."(1) We have so repeatedly had to refer to Paul's claim to have received his Gospel by special revelation that we need not again speak of it here. If we could quote Acts as a genuine representation of Christian tradition regarding Paul, we might point out the visions and revelations therein so freely ascribed to him, but his own writings are amply sufficient for our purpose. Even his second journey to Jerusalem is attributed to the direction of revelation.(2)
The only vision regarding which the Apostle gives any particulars is that referred to, 2 Cor. xii. 2: "I know a man in Christ above fourteen years ago (whether in the body I know not, whether out of the body I know not, God knoweth), such an one caught up even unto the third heaven. 3. And I know such a man (whether in the body or out of the body I know not, God knoweth), 4. that he was caught up into paradise and heard unspeakable words which it is not lawful for a man to utter. 5. For such an one will I boast," etc.(3) It has been argued from this passage and the repetition of the expression "whether in the body or out of the body I know not," that Paul himself could clearly distinguish objective facts from subjective impressions.(4) No interpretation could well be more erroneous. It is evident that Paul has no doubt whatever of his having been in the third heaven and in Paradise, and as little of