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The Fundamentals compact pages. I t is addressed in the form of a letter to Gilbert West. In the opening paragraph he says, “The con- version and apostleship of St. Paul alone, duly considered, was of itself a demonstration sufficient to prove Christianity to be a divine revelation.” Dr. Johnson remarked that it is a treatise “to which infidelity had never been able to fabricate a specious answer.” Dr. Philip Doddridge, who became Lyttel- ton’s most intimate religious friend, speaks of it as “masterly,” and, “as perfect in its kind as any our age has produced.” Testimonials of this kind might be multiplied indefinitely. Let us now turn to an examination of the book itself. Lyttelton naturally begins by bringing before us all the facts that we have in the New Testament regarding the conversion of S t Paul; the three accounts given in the Acts; what we have in Galatians, Philippians, Timothy, Corinthians, Colos- sians and in other places. (Acts 9:22-26; Gal. 1:11-16; Phil. 3:4-8; 1 Tim. 1:12, 13; 1 Cor. 15:8; 2 Cor. 1:1; Col! 1■ etc.) Then he lays down four propositions which he considers exhaust all the possibilities in the case. 1. Either Paul was “an impostor who said what he knew to be false, with an intent to deceive;” or 2. He was an enthusiast who imposed on himself by the force of “an overheated imagination;” or 3. He was “deceived by the fraud of others;” or, finally, 4. What he declared to be the cause of his conversion did all really happen; “and, therefore the Christian religion is a divine revelation.” I . PAUL NOT A N IMPOSTOR More than half hiS argument (about forty pages) is de- voted to the first of these propositions, which is really the key to the whole situation. Is this story of Paul’s conversion so often repeated in Acts and Epistles a fabrication, put forth by a designing man with the deliberate purpose and intention of deceiving ?
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