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The Fundamentals lively, but in the briefest way and with many apologies for being compelled to speak thus of himself. (2 Cor. 11:1-30.) When he had a vision of heaven, he modestly withheld his own name and covered it up in the third person. For four- teen years he observed absolute silence in regard to this spe- cial mark of the divine favor. (2 Cor. 12:1-12.) Would this be the way a vain man would act? Neither is Paul that plant- eth, nor Apollos that watereth, anything, but God who gives the increase. (1 Cor. 3:4-7.) Instead of self-conceit, he writes of himself in terms of the most complete abnegation. Everywhere it is “not I, but the grace of God that was with me.” (1 Cor. 15:10.) His modesty appears on every page. (6) But now suppose that in some way Wholly unaccount- able, Paul had actually been swept away by enthusiasm at the time, and imposed on himself, by imagining the events that took place. Lyttelton’s reply is that such a thing was impossible. He here uses the argument that has since been employed so effectively to dispose of Renan’s vision theory of the resur- rection of our Lord. In such circumstances men always see what they expect to see. An imagined vision will be in accord with the opinions already imprinted on one’s mind. Paul’s purpose was clearly fixed. At his own request he had been clothed with authority to persecute the Christians, and he was now on his way from Jerusalem to Damascus on this very errand. He looked upon Christ as an impostor and a blas- phemer who had justly been put to death. All his passions were inflamed to the highest degree against His followers. He started on his northward journey “breathing out threatenings and slaughter against the disciples of the Lord” (Acts 9:1). “And being exceedingly mad against them, I persecuted them even unto foreign cities” (Acts 26:11). “There was the pride of supporting a part he had voluntarily engaged in, and the credit he found it procured him among the chief priests and rulers, whose commission he bore.” In these circumstances
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