Chapter II: The Evidence of Paul (3)

What was the private utility or advantage of the supernatural gift? How did he who spoke with a tongue edify himself? (v. 4.) Paul clearly states that he does not edify the church (vv. 2 ff.). In the passage just quoted the Apostle, however, says that the speaker "with a tongue" "speaketh to God"; and further on (vv. 18, 19) he implies that, although he himself does not use the gift in public, he does so in private. He admonishes (v. 28) any one gifted with tongues, if there be no interpreter present, to "keep silence in a church, but let him speak to himself and to God." But in what does the personal edification of the individual consist? In employing language, which he does not comprehend, in private prayer and praise? In addressing God in some unintelligible jargon, in the utterance of which his understanding has no part? Many strange purposes and proceedings have been attributed to the Supreme Being, but probably none has been imagined more incongruous than a gift of tongues unsuitable for the edification of others, and not intelligible to the recipient, but considered an edifying substitute in private devotion for his own language. This was certainly not the form of prayer which Jesus taught his disciples.(1) And this gift was valued

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more highly in the Corinthian Church than all the rest! Do we not get an instructive insight into the nature of the other Charismata from this suggestive fact? The reality of miracles does not seem to be demonstrated by these chapters.(1)

We have already stated that the vast majority of critics explain [------] as speech in an ecstatic condition;(2) and all the phenomena described by Paul closely correspond with the utterance of persons in a state of extreme religious enthusiasm, and excitement, of which many illustrations might be given from other religions before and since the commencement of our era, as well as in the history of Christianity in early and recent times. Every one knows of the proceedings of the heathen oracles, the wild writhings and cries of the Pythoness and the mystic utterances of the Sibyl. In the Old Testament there is allusion to the ecstatic emotion of the prophets in the account of Saul, 1 Sara. xix. 24; cf. Isaiah viii. 19, xxix. 4. The Montanists exhibited similar phenomena, and Tertullian has recorded several instances of such religious excitement, to which we have elsewhere referred. Chrysostora had to repress paroxysms of pious excitement closely resembling these in the fourth century;(3) and even down to our own times instances have never been wanting of this form of hysterical religion. Into none of this can we enter here. Enough, we trust, has been said to show the true character of the supposed supernatural Charismata of Paul from his own account of them, and the information contained in his epistles.

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Although we have been forced to examine in considerable detail the passages in the writings of Paul cited by apologists in support of miracles, the study is one of great value to our inquiry. These are the only passages which we possess in which a contemporary and eye-witness describes what he considers supernatural phenomena, and conveys to us his impression of miraculous agency. Instead of traditional reports of miracles narrated by writers who are unknown, and who did not witness the occurrences in question, we have here a trustworthy witness dealing with matters in which he was personally interested, and writing a didactic homily upon the nature and operation of Charismata, which he believed to be miraculous and conferred upon the Church by the immediate agency of the Holy Spirit. The nineteenth century here comes into direct contact with the age of miracles, but at the touch the miracles vanish, and that which, seen through the golden mist of pious tradition, seems to possess unearthly power and beauty, on closer examination dwindles into the prose of every day life. The more minutely reported miracles are scanned, the more unreal they are recognized to be. The point to which we now desire to call attention, however, is the belief and the mental constitution of Paul. We have seen something of the nature and operation of the gift of tongues. That the phenomena described proceeded from an ecstatic state, into which persons of highly excitable nervous organization are very liable to fall under the operation of strong religious impressions, can scarcely be doubted. Eminent apologists(1) have gravely illustrated the phenomena by the analogy of mesmerism,

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somnambulism and the effects of magnetism. Paul asserts that he was subject to the influence, whatever it was, more than anyone, and there is nothing which is more credible than the statement, or more characteristic of the Apostle. We desire to speak of him with the profoundest respect and admiration. We know more, from his epistles, of the intimate life and feelings of the great Apostle of the Gentiles than of any other man of the apostolic age, and it is impossible not to feel warm sympathy with his noble and generous character. The history of Christianity, after the death of its Founder, would sink almost into common-place if the grand figure of Paul were blotted from its pages. But it is no detraction to recognize that his nervous temperament rendered him peculiarly susceptible of those religious impressions which result in conditions of ecstatic trance, to which, as we actually learn from himself, he was exceptionally subject. The effects of this temperament probably first made him a Christian; and to his enthusiastic imagination we owe most of the supernatural dogmas of the religion which he adopted and transformed.

One of these trances the Apostle himself recounts,(1) always with the cautious reserve: "whether in the body or out of the body I know not, God knoweth," how he was caught up to the third heaven, and in Paradise heard unutterable words which it is not lawful for a man to speak; in immediate connection with which he continues: "And lest I should be exalted above measure by the excess of the revelations, there was given to me a stake [------] in the flesh, an angel of Satan to buffet me"(2) This was one of

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the "visions [------] and revelations [------] of the Lord" of which he speaks, and of which he had such an excess to boast. Can any one doubt that this was nearly akin to the state of ecstatic trance in which he spoke with tongues more than all the Corinthians? Does any one suppose that Paul, "whether in the body or out of the body," was ever actually caught up into "the third heaven," wherever that may be? or doubt that this was simply one of the pious hallucinations which visit those who are in such a state? If we are seriously to discuss the point,--it is clear that evidence of such a thing is out of the question; that Paul himself admits that he cannot definitely describe what happened; that we have no other ground for considering the matter than the Apostle's own mysterious utterance; that it is impossible for a person subject to such visions and hallucinations to distinguish between reality and seeming; that this narrative has not only all the character of hallucination, but no feature of sober fact; and finally that, whilst it accords with all experiences of visionary hallucination, it contradicts all experience of practical life. We have seen that Paul believes in the genuineness and supernatural origin of the divine Charismata, and he in like manner believes in the reality of his visions and revelations. He has equal reason, or want of reason, in both cases.

What, however, was the nature of the "stake in the flesh" which, upon the theory of the diabolical origin of disease, he calls "an angel of Satan to buffet me"? There have been many conjectures offered, but one explanation which has been advanced by able critics has special force and probability. It is suggested that this "stake in the flesh," which almost all now at

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least recognise to have been some physical malady, and very many suppose to have been headache or some other similar periodical and painful affection, was in reality a form of epilepsy.(1) It has been ably argued that the representation of the malady as "an angel of Satan" to buffet him, directly connects it with nervous disorders like epilepsy, which the Jews especially ascribed to diabolical influence; and the mention of this [------] in immediate continuation of his remarks on "visions" and "revelations," which a tendency to this very malady would so materially assist in producing, further confirms the conjecture.(2) No one can deny, and medical and psychological annals prove, that many men have been subject to visions and hallucinations which have never been seriously attributed to supernatural causes. There is not one single valid reason removing the ecstatic visions and trances of the Apostle Paul from this class.

We do not yet discuss the supposed vision in which he saw the risen Jesus, though it is no exception to the rest, but reserve it for the next chapter. At present, it suffices that we point out the bearing of our examination of Paul's general testimony to miracles upon our future consideration of his evidence for the Resurrection. If it be admitted that his judgment as to the miraculous character of the Charismata is fallacious, and that what he considered miraculous were simply natural phenomena, the theory of the reality of miracles

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becomes less tenable than ever. And if, further, it be recognized, as we think it necessarily must be, that Paul was subject to natural ecstatic trances, with all their accompanying forms of nervous excitement: "kinds of tongues," visions, and religious hallucinations, a strong and clear light will fall upon his further testimony for miraculous occurrences which we shall shortly have before us.