justification
of Peter for admitting uncircumcised Gentiles: yet not once is
"interpretation" alluded to, except in Paul's epistle. Paul could not
go against the whole Church. He held a logic too much in common with
the rest, to denounce the tongues as _mere_ carnal excitement; but he
does anxiously degrade them as of lowest spiritual value, and wholly
prohibits them where there is "no interpreter." To carry out this
rule, would perhaps have suppressed them entirely.

This however showed me, that I could not rest on Paul's practical
wisdom, as securing him against speculative hallucinations in the
matter of miracles; for indeed he says: "I thank my God, that I speak
with tongues _more than ye all_."

2. To another broad fact I had been astonishingly blind, though the
truth of it flashed upon me as soon as I heard it named;--that Paul
shows total unconcern to the human history and earthly teaching of
Jesus, never quoting his doctrine or any detail of his actions. The
Christ with whom Paul held communion was a risen, ascended, exalted
Lord, a heavenly being, who reigned over arch-angels, and was about to
appear as Judge of the world: but of Jesus in the flesh Paul seems to
know nothing beyond the bare fact that he _did_[24] "humble himself"
to become man, and "pleased not himself." Even in the very critical
controversy about meat and drink, Paul omits to quote Christ's
doctrine, "Not that which goeth into the mouth defileth the man," &c.
He surely, therefore, must have been wholly and contentedly ignorant
of the oral teachings of Jesus.

3. This threw a new light on the _independent_ position of Paul. That
he anxiously refused to learn from the other apostles, and "conferred
not with flesh and blood,"--not having received his gospel of many but
by the revelation of Jesus Christ--had seemed to me quite suitable to
his high pretensions. Any novelties which might be in his doctrine, I
had regarded as mere developments, growing out of the common stem, and
guaranteed by the same Spirit. But I now saw that this independence
invalidated his testimony. He may be to us a supernatural, but he
certainly is not a natural, witness to the truth of Christ's miracles
and personality. It avails not to talk of the _opportunities_ which he
had of searching into the truth of the resurrection of Christ, for we
see that he did not choose to avail himself of the common methods of
investigation. He learned his gospel _by an internal revelati