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Observations on the Conversion of St. Paul
1747 · 80 pages
Observations on the Conversion of St. Paul
by George Lyttelton
Lyttelton and his friend Gilbert West, both drifted into deism, agreed to divide the work of exposing Christianity between them: West would take the resurrection, Lyttelton the conversion of St. Paul. Each published the opposite of what he had planned. Lyttelton's essay, addressed as a letter to West, argues that Paul was neither impostor nor enthusiast nor deceived — and that his conversion alone is sufficient proof of the Christian claim.
The convert behind the argument
Lyttelton was a Whig politician and man of letters who had, in the account preserved with the book, imbibed the principles of infidelity from a superficial reading of the scriptures and was fully persuaded the Bible was an imposture. He and West sat down to their tasks 'full of prejudice' and met afterwards not to celebrate an exposed fraud but to compare notes on their joint conviction that they had been wrong.
Summary
The essay takes the form of a letter to Gilbert West, and its argument is a closed disjunction. Paul was either an impostor who knew he was lying, or an enthusiast deceived by his own imagination, or deceived by the fraud of others, or he was telling the truth. Lyttelton works through the first three and argues that each is incompatible with the known facts of Paul's conduct, his sufferings and his lack of any worldly gain.
The evidential move that gives the book its long life is the concentration on a single figure. Rather than defending the whole canon, Lyttelton stakes the case on one man's change of mind and the life that followed it — an argument from a changed life, made a century before the phrase became common.
The book was widely reprinted through the nineteenth century, often bound with West's companion volume, and their joint story became one of the standard set-pieces of English apologetics. Samuel Johnson thought the essay unanswerable.
Who was George Lyttelton?
George Lyttelton, first Baron Lyttelton (1709–1773), was an English politician, briefly Chancellor of the Exchequer, and a patron of poets — Thomson, Fielding and Pope were among his circle. He drifted into deism as a young man in the fashionable manner of his time and class.
With his friend Gilbert West he undertook to demolish Christianity in print; both were converted by the attempt. The Observations was published in 1747 and remained in print, in tract-society editions, for well over a century.
Common questions
- What is the story behind Lyttelton's Observations?
- Lyttelton and Gilbert West, both deists, agreed to demolish Christianity between them — West taking the resurrection and Lyttelton the conversion of St. Paul. Both were converted in the course of the work and published defences instead of the attacks they had planned.
- What is the argument of the book?
- That Paul was not an impostor, not an enthusiast deceived by his own imagination, and not the victim of anyone else's fraud — and that if none of those hold, his conversion is itself sufficient evidence for the truth of what he preached.
A note on the text. Observations on the Conversion of St. Paul is in the public domain. What you're buying is our edition: the careful typesetting and correction. The original text is also available free here.
Related reading
The other half of the plot
Observations on the History and Evidences of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ
Gilbert West · 1747
Gilbert West's half of the agreement: he took the resurrection while Lyttelton took St. Paul, and the two attacks on Christianity turned into two defences of it.