50 



EEV. CANON R. J. KNOWLING^ ON 



been concerned with an answer to this inquiry. The pamphlet, 

 the title of which has just been given, was written by 1)y. A. 

 Seligmiiller, Professor of the Study of Nervous Diseases in the 

 University of Halle. According to Dr. Seligmiiller none of the 

 symptoms attending upon the severer form of epilepsy were 

 present in the case of .St. Paul. The Professor passes in review 

 many of the alleged instances of epilepsy, and maintains that 

 for some of them at all events the evidence is very slight. He 

 concludes that one of two kinds of disease was that from which 

 St. Paul suffered, viz., either malarial fever or Aug en-migr cine. 

 Sir W. Eamsay, who closely examines the German pamphlet in 

 the Expositor, November, 1911, sees no reason to alter his 

 former view that malarial fever was meant, and that such a 

 fever, as many inscriptions found in the country, and 

 published in recent times, attest, was regarded as a direct 

 penalty inflicted by some offended deity. 



But another eminent physician has joined in the dispute in 

 Germany, Dr. H. Fischer, Professor of Chirurgery in Breslau {Die 

 Kranklieit des Apostels Fauhis, 1911). Dr. Fischer argues for 

 regarding St. Paul's weakness as epilepsy, but that if so it was 

 epilepsy of the less severe kind, and — a most important point — he 

 adheres to the belief that St. Paul himself clearly distinguishes 

 between " the visions and revelations " vouchsafed to him in 

 II Corinthians, xii, 1-6, and of which he speaks with hesita- 

 tion and reserve, and the " seeing " which he referred to as 

 the basis of his claim to the Apostolic office, and which occupied 

 the forefront of his teaching, " Am I not an Apostle ? have I 

 not seen Jesus our Lord ?" (i Corinthians, ix, l,and xv, 8). 



Thus then for Dr. Fischer no special disease needs to be 

 mentioned to account for the Conversion on the Damascus 

 road — that was an actual event which St. Paul himself expressly 

 differentiates from the other visions vouchsafed to him. It is 

 an interesting acknowledgment from an accredited medical 

 authority. 



St. Paul's Conversion thus stands out as the type of a sudden 

 conversion as contrasted with a gradual conversion, although 

 there may well have been psychological factors which contributed 

 to it. 



But whether we class conversions as sudden or gradual, or 

 whether we make a wider division, and classify them as moral, 

 spiritual, intellectual, practical, yet as we study the New 

 Testament we can scarcely fail to see their evidential value and 

 bearing. The Church, for example, found itself face to face in 

 Corinth with a gigantic task, with a society which had become 



