Chapter 4 - Page 2

study his character. He combines to perfection the qualities that make a good witness--capacity and integrity: add to this that his conclusions were forced upon him. We therefore feel that, whereas from a scientific point of view, the Gospel narratives can only be considered as the testimony of early and sincere writers of whom we know little or nothing, yet that in the evidence of St. Paul we find the missing link which connects us securely with actual eye-witnesses and gives us a confidence in the general accuracy of the Gospels which they could never of themselves alone have imparted. We could indeed ill spare either the testimony of the Evangelists or that of St. Paul, but if we were obliged to content ourselves with one only, we should choose the Apostle.

Turning then to the evidence of St. Paul as derivable from I. Cor. xv. we find the following:

"Moreover, brethren, I declare unto you the gospel which I preached unto you, which also ye have received and wherein ye stand. By which also ye are saved if ye keep in memory what I preached unto you, unless ye have believed in vain. For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures: and that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures; and that He was seen of Cephas, then of the twelve: after that He was seen of above five hundred brethren at once; of whom the greater portion remain unto this present, but some are fallen asleep. After that He was seen of James; then of all the Apostles. And last of all He was seen of me also, as of one born out of due time."

In the first place we must notice Paul's assertion that the Gospel which he was then writing was identical with that which he had originally preached. We may assume that each of the appearances of Christ here mentioned had in Paul's mind a definite time and place, derived from the account which he had received and which probably led to his conversion; the words "that which I also received" surely imply "that which I also received IN THE FIRST INSTANCE": now we know from his own mouth (Gal. i., 16, 17) that AFTER his conversion he "conferred not with flesh and blood"--"neither," he continues, "went I up to Jerusalem to them which were Apostles before me, but I went into Arabia, and returned again unto Damascus: then after three years I went up to Jerusalem to see (?st???sa?) Peter, and abode with him fifteen days, but others of the Apostles saw I none, save James the Lord's brother." Since, then, he must have heard SOME story concerning Christ's reappearances before his conversion and subsequent sojourn in Arabia, and since he had heard nothing from eye-witnesses until the time of his going up to Jerusalem three years later, it is probable that the account quoted above is the substance of what he found persisted in by the Christians whom