PRESENT DAY FACTORS IN NEW TESTAMENT STUDY. 49 



material as amongst the most valued factors for New Testament 

 study, yet we must not forget that St. Paul, especially in his 

 eschatology, was dependent not merely upon current Jewish 

 literature and tradition but upon the canonical books of the 

 Old Testament, and above all upon the teaching of our Lord 

 Himself. It is a matter of further surprise that this fact has 

 not been more emphasized, and we are put off with the bold 

 assertion that St. Paul knew nothing of the teaching of his 

 Master, whereas what may well have been his first Epistle, 

 I Thessalonians, is full of what may be justly regarded as 

 reminiscences of our Lord's own eschatological discourse. 



But without pressing this we may recognize in Schweitzer a 

 strong supporter of the view that St. Paul looked to Judaism, 

 and not to Hellenism, for his theological knowledge and 

 teaching. 



IV. We pass to a brief consideration of the relation of 

 psychology to New Testament study. In this connection it may 

 be noted that we have just had an able book not so much upon 

 psychology in general as upon the psychology of the New 

 Testament by Mr. M. Scott Fletcher, Lecturer in the University 

 of Sydney, with a preface by Dr. Eashdall. This book contains 

 an interesting and valuable study of one of the most epoch- 

 making events in the New Testament, the Conversion of 

 St. Paul. And it is of importance to note that the writer 

 maintains that the vision on the Damascus road should be 

 classed as objective, and not merely subjective. " The vision 

 theory makes the appearance of the glorified Christ a merely 

 subjective experience on the part of Paul. But the New 

 Testament as a whole regards the spiritual world as objective. 

 . . . The main point to remember is that the New 

 Testament regards man as open to God on the spiritual side of 

 his nature. The psychological explanation is not in itself 

 adequate, although the Biblical standpoint does not exclude a 

 psychological account of the strictly human conditions under 

 which the conversion took place. It supplements it and does 

 more justice to all the facts of the experience " {The Psychology of 

 the New Testament, pp. 185-187). 



I do not, of course, say that we should endorse these remarks 

 in toto, but such an explanation stands out in marked contrast 

 to the attempt to identify St. Paul's " thorn in the flesh " with 

 epilepsy, and then to affirm that his " visions and revelations " 

 were the result of abnormal psychical conditions. The question 

 has lately been asked in Germany, " War Paulus Epileptiker ? " 

 and more than one medical man of eminence in Germany has 



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