The admission, however, that Paul in the principles of his exegesis was in agreement with Rabbinism was made by theologians with comparative readiness. This did not carry with it the surrender of anything that had been much valued, since the verbal comparison and contrast of passages which he practises, and the illogical and fantastic reasoning which appears in his arguments, had always been distasteful to theological science. It was therefore rather welcome to it than otherwise, to find, in consequence of the increased knowledge of parallel products of late Judaism, an explanation of a weakness which did not properly harmonise with the greatness of this heroic spirit, in the influences to which he had been subjected by reason of his theological education._(_46_)_ Along with this was accepted the fact that, in common with his contemporaries, he naively treats the Haggadic embellishments of Old Testament stories as on the same footing with the Scripture itself. His assumption that the Law was given by the angels (Gal. iii. 19), and his reference to the rock that followed the children of Israel in the wilderness and poured out water (I Cor. x. 4), are to be explained from passages in the Rabbinic literature. [pg 047] No thoroughgoing investigation was undertaken with a view to determining whether the Rabbinic principles suffice to explain Paul’s method of scriptural argument. In general the view prevails that his “typological” and “spiritualising” _(pneumatisch)_ interpretation goes beyond what can elsewhere be shown in Palestinian theology. It is true these two methods of exegesis, going beyond the simple literal sense, are not wholly unknown, but they only came to their full development in contemporary Alexandrian Biblical scholarship. For this reason it is proposed to assume that Paul had also received an influence from this side. As examples of Alexandrian exegesis are quoted the interpretation of Hagar and Sarah as representing the earthly and the heavenly Jerusalem (Gal. iv. 22 f.), that of the water-giving rock as representing Christ (I Cor. x. 4), and the argument from the threshing oxen to the preachers of the gospel (I Cor. ix. 9 ff.). One of the greatest problems of the Pauline use of Scripture is not mentioned in these works. It is assumed that the Apostle attached special importance to proving the Messiahship of the crucified Jesus. How then can we explain the fact that he never makes any use of the passage about the Suffering Servant of the Lord in Isaiah liii? This fact is the more surprising because it may be taken as certain that the apologetic of the primitive Christian community gave this passage a most prominent place in its plan of operations.