PRESENT DAY FACTORS IN NEW TESTAMENT STUDY. 33 



facts of the resurrection and the atonement was the same at 

 this early date as that maintained by the brethren who were 

 with him, and by the Ohurcties of Galatia, whatever that phrase 

 may mean. 



It will be noted that St. Paul in his Galatian Epistle lays 

 stress upon the gifts of healing, and it is popular in our own 

 day to regard Christ as a Healer of astonishing power. 



But whether we take Galatians or i Thessalonians to be the 

 Apostle's earliest Epistle, we recognize that he assigns the first 

 place to the miracle of our Lord's own resurrection, and we do 

 well to follow his method of procedure. 



Origen long ago did the same, and he, too, laid stress, as St. 

 Paul did, upon the moral and spiritual effects of the miraculous 

 powers which our Lord and, through Him, His Apostles 

 possessed. A study from the papyri enables us to see something 

 of the function of miracles in the New Testament and it would 

 appear that in Mark xvi, 20, the tli ought is not only that the 

 signs accompanied or followed, but that the signs acted as a 

 kind of authenticating signature to the word.* 



But I do not, of course, affirm that Dr. Conybeare's somewhat 

 unexpected avowal should be regarded as final by all schools of 

 thought, and II Thessalonians, Ephesians and the Pastoral 

 Epistles are still keenly disputed. Personally, I think that the 

 evidence, botli external and internal, is fully adequate for their 

 acceptance, and that that evidence has not been always realized 

 at its full value. Thus we forget Kenan's avowal that the external 

 evidence for the Ephesians was as strong as for that of any book 

 of the New Testament, and that external evidence has been 

 increased by the statements in the recently recovered letter of 

 St. Irenaeus. It has been sometimes urged that the contents of 

 this long-lost letter are disappointing, but at least they bear 

 unmistakable testimony to the attribution of the Epistle in 

 question to St. Paul. And yet the same old objections are raised 

 again and again, as if they had never been answered. Professor 

 H. A. Kennedy, writing a few months ago (September, 1912) 

 with reference to the Pauline Epistles, remarks that he includes 

 Ephesians, as the only argument which appears really valid 

 against St. Paul's authorship is that of the style, and in this 

 respect there seems to be a far closer affinity between Ejjhesians 

 and Colossians than between Colossians and any of the other 

 Epistles. 



* Dr. G. MiUigaii, Inaugural Lecture in Glasg()w, p. 20, 1910, and his 

 comments on jSe.Satoo) and enaKoKovOeo). 



D 



