CHAPTER XII.
ON THE CHARACTER OF PAUL AND HIS MANNER OF REASONING.
As Christians lay great stress upon their argument for the truth of their Religion, derived from the supposed miraculous conversion of Paul; and since almost the whole of Systematic Christianity is built upon the foundation of the Epistles ascribed to him, we shall pay a little more attention to his character and writings.
Paul was evidently a man of no small capacity, a fiery temper, great subtilty, and considerably well versed in Jewish Traditionary, and Cabbalistic Learning, and not unacquainted with the principles of the Philosophy called the "Oriental." He is said by Luke to have been converted to Christianity by a splendid apparition of Jesus, who struck him to the ground by the glory of his appearance.

But by the Jews and the Nazarene Christians, he is represented as having been converted to Christianity from a different cause.

They say that being a man of tried abilities and of some note, he demanded the High Priest's daughter in marriage, and being refused, his rash and rageful temper, and a desire of revenge, drove him to join the "sect of the Nazarenes," at that time beginning to become troublesome to the Sanhedrim.

However this may be, whether he became a Christian from conviction, or from ambition; it is certain from the Acts that he always was considered by the Jewish Christians, as a suspected character; and it is evident that he taught a different doctrine from that promulgated by the twelve apostles.

And this was the true cause of the great difficulty he was evidently under of keeping steady to him, his Gentile converts.