88 HOE^ PAULINA. 



and blood : neither went I up to Jerusalem to them which 

 were apostles before me ; but I went into Arabia, and re- 

 turned again unto Damascus. Then after three years ] 

 went up to Jerusalem." 



Besides the diiierence observable in the terms and gen- 

 eral complexion of these two accounts, " the journey into 

 Arabia" mentioned in the epistle and omitted in the history, 

 affords full proof that there existed no correspondence be- 

 tween these writers. If the narrative in the Acts had been 

 made up from the epistle, it is impossible that this journey 

 should have been passed over in silence ; if the epistle had 

 been composed out of what the author had read of St. Paul's 

 history in the Acts, it is unaccountable that it should have 

 been inserted.^ 



The journey to Jerusalem related in the second chapter 

 of the epistle — "then fourteen years after, I went up again 

 to Jerusalem" — supplies another example of the same kind. 

 Either this was the journey described in the fifteenth chap- 

 ter of the Acts, when Paul and Barnabas were sent from 

 Antioch to Jerusalem to consult the apostles and elders upon 

 the question of the Gentile converts, or it was some journey 

 of which the history does not take notice. If the first opin 

 ion be followed, the discrepancy in the two accounts is so 

 considerable, that it is not without difficulty they can be 

 adapted to the same transaction ; so that upon this supposi- 

 tion, there is no place for suspecting that the writers were 

 guided or assisted by each other. If the latter opinion be 

 preferred, we have then a journey to Jerusalem, and a con- 

 ference with the principal members of the church there, cir- 



* N. B. The Acts of the Apostles simply inform us that St. Paul 

 left Damascus In order to go to Jerusalem, " after many days were 

 fulfilled." If any doubt whether the words "many days" could be 

 m';ended to express a period which included a terra of three years, he 

 will find a complete instance of the same phrase used with the same 

 latitude in the fii-st book of Kings, chap. 11 :38, 39 : "And Shimei 

 dwelt in Jerusalem many days. And it came to pass at the en 3 of 

 three years, that two of the servants of Shimei ran away." 



