These tongues then--Paul's tongue, his companions' tongues--this assemblage of tongues, all so strongly urged to let themselves loose--by what could they have been stopped? If, by anything, by a correspondent cluster of miracles--nothing less.
That, from Jerusalem, about the time in question, Paul went to Damascus,--and that it was with some such letters in his possession,--seems, as will be seen presently, altogether probable;--also, that when there, he acted in the way his historian speaks of, betraying the confidence reposed in him by the constituted authorities, and joining with those whom he had solicited and received a commission to destroy;--that these were among the circumstances of his alleged conversion, seems probable enough:--though he, with all the need he had of miracles, if any were to be had, gives not--in what he himself, writing to his Galatian converts, says of his conversion--any of the slightest hint of them.
As to his conversion--meaning his _outward_ conversion, which was all that was necessary to the production of the effect so notoriously produced by him--to _that_, it will be seen, no miracle was necessary: nothing but what belonged to the ordinary course of things. As to companions on the journey--whether he had any or not; and if he had any, whether they were attendants on his orders, or acquaintances of his not under his orders; or mere strangers into whose company accident threw him--all this we must satisfy ourselves, as well as we can, under the ignorance of.
That, for giving effect, by his means, to the sort of commission he went entrusted with, the power of local authorities was trusted to, is a supposition altogether natural. For bringing to Jerusalem "bound, for to be punished (Acts ix. 2. xxii. 4), all the Christians that could be found in Damascus, both men and women," if the Damascus rulers were favourable to the persecuting design, no large force from Jerusalem could be needful. Even a small one would be superfluous: and, by a force, great or small, sent from the one set of constituted authorities, a slight would be shown to the other.
IN PAUL'S EPISTLE TO HIS GALATIANS,--BY HIS SILENCE, ACTS' ACCOUNTS OF HIS CONVERSION ARE VIRTUALLY CONTRADICTED.