This paper has been prompted by recent discussions of what is called ‘Demythologizing’. The movement which marches under that banner is important because its principal aim is to present Christianity to the modern mind in terms which will be more acceptable than those in which it has been traditionally clothed by Bible, Creed and Liturgy; and this is an aim which, whatever we may think of the method adopted for its pursuit, will be shared by all who have the Christian cause at heart. Those who believe the method to be mistaken are among the first to recognize the worth of the aim and feel all the more constrained in consequence to point to what they regard as a more excellent way.

Das so lange und heftig umkärnpfte Problem des Rechtes im Neuen Testament scheint mir deshaib nicht in fruchtbarer Weise angefalßt zu sein, weil die Partner dieses Gesprächs durchweg moderne Anschauungen und Verhältnisse für die Urchristenheit voraussetzen zu können meinten, gleichgültig ob sie deren Vorhandensein oder Fehien konstatierten. Aber mit moderner Fragestellung ist diesem Problem nicht letztlich und zentral beizukommen. Das eben entnehrne ich der Debatte, die in Deutschland hauptsächlich urn die Thesen von Rudolf Sohms 1892 erschienenen, aber noch heute bewegenden und faszinierenden Arbeit über das Kirchenrecht kreiste. Das Neue Testament selber bietet uns einen andern Ausgangspunkt. Denn es enthält in semen verschiedensten Teilen merkwürdig gebaute Aussagen, die ich vorläufig noch möglichst umfassend Sätze heiligen Rechtes nenne. Was zu soicher Bezeichnung führt und durch sie ausgedrückt werden soil, wird im folgenden schrittweise erarbeitet.

The present paper originates from a conviction that the famous confession of the apostle Paul concerning his principles of evangelism in I Cor. ix has not been fully evaluated. In igio Johannes Weiss commented: ‘Für die Beurteilung der Persönlichkeit und religiösen Stellung des Paulus ist dies em (viel zu wenig gewürdigtes) Dokument ersten Ranges’, and his remark still holds good.

The character of Paul's conversion as it appeared to the convert is clear from his references in his letters. He experienced a sudden conversion which was effected, or at least accompanied, by a vision of the risen Christ, or, as he might have preferred to say, by an encounter with Jesus, alive, exalted and glorified. He had no doubt that the initiative was God's initiative. ‘God revealed His Son in my case’: in view of this phrase in Gal. i. 16, Goguel would take the earlier reference in v. 12, where Paul claims to have been taught his gospel ‘through the revelation of Jesus Christ’ as meaning that Jesus Christ was the object of the revelation.

M. Vaganay's important book, Le Problème Synoptique (Desclée, 1954), offers a ‘working hypothesis’ of some complexity. He suggests, among other things, that each of our Synoptic Gospels is dependent on a lost Greek translation (Mg) of a lost Aramaic Gospel; that Luke is also heavily, and Matthew slightly, indebted to Mark; and that Matthew and Luke further shared another lost source (Sg), to be distinguished from ‘Q’ inasmuch as several of the so-called Q passages are to be derived not from Sg but from Mg. In his long Excursus IV (pp. 361−404) M. Vaganay analyses the ‘discours communautaire’ of Matt. xviii. 1−35; Mark ix. 33−50; Luke ix. 46−50, and offers. a reconstruction of this discourse as, he thinks, it appeared in Mg.