date

1817 Oct r 15 Not Paul Ch Period
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.
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  • Title: [1817 Oct 13 Not Paul Heading]
    Description: 1817 Oct 13

    Not Paul

    Heading for

    §. Languages many -

    tongues cloven.

    §. 3. At meetings, many languages heard - cloven tongues seen.

    Acts II. 1 to 47.

    In the scene as above painted /depicted/ Upon examination, the incident /circumstance/ of the cloven tongues excepted, nothing presents itself as foreign to the ordinary course of nature. As being Among the talents of this author has been mentioned one in which he has since found so many sharers viz. that of putting an extraordinary and even a miraculous gloss upon the most ordinary occurrences. In all the several countries here enumerated there seems no reason to doubt but that at that time Jews were to be found born as well as resident, as would probably be found to be the case even at this present time. To the language of the country in which he was bred, one /none/ of these would /could/ avoid adding an acquaintance with the language of the Jewish Scriptures: in that language a Jew therefore need but speak, and he would be understood by inhabitants of all those different regions, speakers of all those different languages. So far as regards /concerns/ language, this much and no more is what will be found there asserted in the texts.

    On the occasion of this annual festival, religion, commerce and ecclesiastical polity combined to produce an assemblage of Jews from all foreign countries in which fraternities of that religion were established: at the end of such a course of social /private/ concern with each as zeal and opportunity had happened to produce, a meeting was got together to hear a speech from him. Without supposing that of all the matter here put into his mouth so much as a single sentence ever found utterance from it no /there/ may without difficulty give credence to that which is stated as the result of it: viz.

    On the subject of religion the gift of eloquence has no where been found incompatible with illiterateness and ignorance. In this same history to Peter the gift of eloquence is ascribed from first to last: witness his eight reported speeches and presently[?] Acts IV. 13. with this gift we shall find coupled in his instance in express terms the infirmity of ‘ ignorance’.
  • Title: [1817 Oct r 15 Not Paul Ch.]
    Description: 1817 Oct r 15

    Not Paul

    Ch. Period before Conversion

    § Simon Magus

    II. 4. All filled with the H. G. II. 38. […?] to be baptized and ye shall receive the gift of the H. G.

    1. At the feast of Pentecost on the occasion on which the /of the/ cloven tongues are spoken of, the whole number of believers being stated at 120 they are all of them stated as being filled with the Holy Ghost: and this without any operation performed by any human hand for the production of the effect.

    II. 4

    2. In the same chapter when an assembly is represented as having met an assembly composed of persons not as yet disciples but so numerous that three thousand formed but a part of it then it is that Peter says to them ‘Repent and … be baptized every one of you … and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. Was this a promise? /What was meant by this/ the performance of it is not stated. Was it a simple prediction? the fulfilment of it is not stated. In the English it is a promise: in the Greek it may be either: for to the English tongue belongs this great and almost peculiar advantage, that when an event is spoken of as future it may and commonly is and always may be made known without ambiguity whether the speaker does or does not it be or be /is or is/ not the intention of the speaker that he should be regarded as being /having been/ instrumental[?] in the production of it. Promise or prediction it seems not much to the credit of the historian, that after having thus reported the delivery of it, it should not have appeared to him worth while to state the accomplishment of it. On that same day about three thousand is stated as the number of those who were then baptized, and who by receiving this gift thus gave themselves so compleat a title /unquestionable a title/ to the other: yet that they ever received it is not stated. To be sure Neither is the contrary stated: and so thus the matter rests.
  • Title: [1817 Oct. 13 Not Paul Period]
    Description: 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.