It is interesting to note that both Weiss and Weizsäcker deliberately avoid a discussion of Greek and Hellenistic influence on Paul, and confine themselves to an objective account of Paul’s doctrine. Indeed, it may be remarked that in the study of the subject between Baur and Holtzmann the problem is never thoroughly discussed. The question how far the alleged influences are proved or provable may be held over for the present, and in the first place we may interrogate Holsten, Pfleiderer and their followers as to what their view really means, and what they think they can explain by means of it. At bottom the question turns on the antithesis of flesh and spirit. In the clearly defined form in which this antithesis presents itself in Paul, it is held that it must be regarded as Greek. This view had been expressed by Lüdemann, who was the first to develop it clearly. Independently of him, Holsten_(_59_)_ and Pfleiderer brought it into general currency. It is universally taken for granted that the dualism is derived from Platonism. Whether Paul took it direct from Greek sources or from Jewish Hellenism is not clearly explained. Lüdemann seems to assume the former, Holsten to imply the latter; Pfleiderer is doubtless to be understood in the sense that both possibilities have to be taken into account, separately and in combination. The psychological process is differently conceived by [pg 067] Holsten and by Pfleiderer. The former holds that Greek ideas were already in his pre-Christian period present to the mind of the Apostle, who had been in touch with Jewish Hellenism, but they had as yet played no part in his thinking. By his religious experience at the vision of Christ on the Damascus road they were called into activity and helped him to give form to his new knowledge. In this way Holsten thinks it possible to understand Paulinism as both a personal creation of the Apostle and at the same time a product of the influence of Greek ideas. The emphasis lies, however, on the personal creation; the influence of the Greek ideas is thought of as subsidiary. For Pfleiderer the process was more largely determined from without. Paul’s conversion creates as it were a void in his Jewish consciousness. The thought-forms which he has hitherto used prove incapable of dealing satisfactorily with the implications of his new faith. So the Apostle is driven to have recourse to another system of ideas. He no longer remains indifferent to the ideas which stream in upon him from Jewish Hellenism and Greek thought. They become significant to him; he allows them to exercise their influence upon him. In this way there arises a remarkable duality in his thought. Pharisaic and Hellenistic trains of ideas form two streams “which in Paulinism meet in one bed without really coalescing.” By way of conjecture Pfleiderer several times advances the suggestion that Apollos the Alexandrian may have introduced the Apostle to the Alexandrian Platonism.