How could Paul remember his rapture?

Traditionally, Paul was thought to have seen God without any mediating images. Yet, if no images had been involved, no images could have remained following his rapture, and therefore, there would have been no imprint in his mind by which he could have recalled and shared with the audience what he had seen. The chapter describes the various solutions that were suggested to explain what possible residues enabled this memory, among them, that all Paul had when he returned from ecstasy were mere words and definitions; or, in opposition, that he still possessed part of the light in which he had been illuminated, thus arguing for a continuity between the experiencing subject and later processing. These opposing solutions are then examined considering the perception of transformation and the continuity of the self they imply; then in the context of the role of experience and experiment on the one hand, and words on the other, in the medieval university. Theologians of the time, it is argued, attempted to define the relation between experience and words in their own profession, drawing inspiration from both the image of science in Aristotle’s Analytics and Physics and twelfth-century mysticism.