date

1817 Oct. 13 Not Paul Period
1817 Oct. 13

Not Paul

Period before Conversion

§. 2 Cloven tongues

As to the cloven tongues, it seems to have been added /slipped in/ by the historian, for the improvement of the miracle for the purpose of adding to the compound mass of the efficient causes of wonder: with the principal effect /result/ it has no particular /peculiar/ connection in any one of three characters, that of a cause that of an effect or that of a concomitant circumstance. If in any part of the room so it really was that by any part of the light by it passage through a transparent body the prismatic spectrum happened to be /was/ produced, the figure of such a spectrum resembles that of a tongue, and if a straw or any other […?] body happened to coincide with the axis of the cylinder /divide it longitudinally in any part of its length/, the tongue would be a cloven one. By multiplying by the number of the persons present any one such cloven tongue would produce ‘the cloven tongues like as of fire’ which ‘sat upon each of them’. In any such muliplication it is not natural that the author should find much difficulty: he who on that same occasion brings to Jerusalem and makes /making/ them dwellers there ‘men out of every nation under heaven’ ‘all of them devout.’

But when it is considered how many years were there that had intervened between the supposed time of the supposed incident and the time of the penning this account of it, and that in /for/ the writing of the words which in English have been rendered by cloven tongues no more labour was necessary than in the writing of any two other words of equal length, it will be manifest how little need there can be for any such supposition as that of a prismatic mass frequently as we see it produced by accident, or any other supposition, the expence of which shall be incurred for no better purpose than that of giving /affording/ credibility to a fact so compleatly destitute of importance.
Similar Items
  • Title: [1817 Oct r 15 Not Paul Ch Period]
    Description: 1817 Oct r 15

    Not Paul

    Ch Period before Conversion

    § 3 Cloven tongues

    Add to[?] slander this about the wine: witness Paul

    Wine not forbidden by Jesus

    On this occasion two meetings it is true are spoken of: one at which the number present was no more than 120: the other in which it was three thousand and more or if we suppose the converts made on that occasion are supposed not to have been all present at one time an any rate some large number abundantly larger than the hundred and twenty: and it is in the first meeting at which there were but the hundred and twenty that the quasi-miracle composed of the wind and the cloven tongues is stated as having place.

    But on this first occasion though ‘they were all filled with the Holy Ghost’ yet so far as regards language learning in particular nothing as here stated which has so much as the appearance of being miraculous /a miracle upon the face of it/: all they do is to ‘begin to speak with other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance II. 4: and from this commencement no sort of effect is stated as produced. An idea of communicating the inestimable gift to the Gentiles in a word to the whole world […?] the inestimable gift having been started each of them in a flow of spirits mustered up and began uttering such expressions taken from foreign tongues as it had happened to him to pick up, and there the matter ended.

    At the second meeting and not before - at that meeting at which Jews from all the nations /countries/ known in /to/ Jerusalem were assembled - at that meeting and not at the first that be it is /was/ that the wonderful concert of languages is stated as having been heard.
  • Title: [1817 Oct 13 Not Paul Period]
    Description: 1817 Oct 13

    Not Paul

    Period before Conversion

    Cloven tongues

    that on this occasion ‘they that gladly received his (Peter’s) word were baptized:’ and as to the number of the persons in whose instance this preparation to /for/ or substitute to an admission ticket is an entry in a register book was performed /had place/, though is such a case exaggeration is an incident altogether natural, yet no particular reason /ground/ for diminishing /defalcation/ the number presents itself.

    Be the assembly what it may and be the occasion of it what it may, in the eyes of every man in whose instance it exceeds the number that had been expected by law, it will in proportion to the excess be the subject /an object/ of wonder.

    In the instance in question so it really happened that in the instance of a portion more or less considerable of the company the enthusiasm had received assistance from the exciting powers of the intoxicating beverage, the intensity of the sentiment /passion/ of wonder would naturally receive a proportionable encrease. The fact that wine had been at work is not only directly asserted but indirectly admitted: the denial deduced /insinuated by a reference/ from the time of the day is but argumentative, and the argument seems to want much of being conclusive.

    If at the time the wind happened to be higher than common, in this supposition by whatsoever in the degree of its velocity there was or appeared to be beyond the ordinary degree the aggregate sensation would naturally be excited.
  • Title: [1817 Sept. 24  […?] Not Paul]
    Description: 1817 Sept. 24  […?]

    Not Paul

    Ch Period before Conversion

    § Cloven tongues

    Peter’s Speech

    Immediately After these cloven tongues are reported to have been seen, and the confused concert of languages heard comes the report of a speech from Peter.

    The result is that they (the auditors) were pricked to the heart such as were converts were baptized and the number of those converts is reckoned at three thousand.

    With the account thus given of the effects it is curious to compare the account given of the cause: of the proximate cause at any rate viz. this speech which we have of Saint Peter.

    It consists of three arguments: viz. a passage which in his eyes is a prophecy - a prophecy of Jesus from the prophet Joel 2. an appeal to the miracles of Jesus - to the personal knowledge which speaking to his auditors he informs them they themselves had of the miracle wrought by Jesus. 3 a passage out of the Psalms of King David.

    1 As to the miracles alluded to, if of the persons present any there were that possessed any such personal knowledge that of itself should naturally /rationally/ speaking have sufficed for making converts of them /their conversion/: if by this knowledge of the miracles themselves that effect had not been produced, it seems rather difficult to conceive how it was that by the vague allusion there made to those same miracles the effect should have been produced. Shall it be said /we say/, that though to no one any miracle was known, yet to any number of others for aught any one could say such miracles in any number might be known to have been wrought?

    For the production of the effect then, abstraction made of the cloven tongues and the concert of languages, all that remains in the character of a cause is composed of the two passages /quotations/ the passage from the prophet Joel, and the passage from David’s Psalms.

    If by these passages either or both of them not to speak of imitation[?] any the least tendency was produced towards the production of the effect it must be allowed that in that particular instance not to say in that age and nation a small quantity of hearing[?] would go a good way, and that to operate in that way it was not necessary that between the thing to be proved and the proof it was not necessary that any very particular relation should have place.

     Go on to shew this.