was over; the elements of the Pauline gospel, which were all present before, fell at once into their proper places. [34] Holsten, _Zum Evangelium des Paulus und des Petrus_, 1868. Against Holsten, see Beyschlag, "Die Bekehrung des Apostels Paulus, mit besonderer Rücksicht auf die Erklärungsversuche von Baur und Holsten," in _Theologische Studien und Kritiken_, xxxvii, 1864, pp. 197-264; "Die Visionshypothese in ihrer neuesten Begründung. Eine Duplik gegen D. Holsten," _ibid._, xliii, 1870, pp. 7-50, 189-263. The other way of explaining the conversion starts from the seventh chapter of Romans and the dissatisfaction which Paul is thought to have experienced under the Law. Paul, it is said, was a Pharisee; he made every effort to keep the Law of God. But he was too earnest to be satisfied with a merely external obedience; and real obedience he had not attained. He was therefore tormented by a sense of sin. That sense of sin no doubt led him into a more and more feverish effort to keep the letter of the Law and particularly to show his zeal by persecuting the disciples of Jesus. But all his efforts were vain; his obedience remained insufficient; the curse of the Law still rested upon him. What if the vain effort could be abandoned? What if the disciples of Jesus were right? Of course, he believed, they were not right, but what if they were? What if the Messiah had really died for the sins of believers, in accordance with Isaiah liii? What if salvation were attainable not by merit but by divine grace? These questions, it is supposed, were in the mind of Paul. He answered them still in the negative, but his misery kept them ever before his mind. The Law was thus a schoolmaster to bring him to Christ. He was ready for the vision. In both of these lines of explanation importance is often attributed to the impression produced upon Paul's mind by the character of the disciples. Whence did they derive their bravery and their joy in the midst of persecution? Whence came the fervor of their love, whence the firmness of their faith? The persecutor, it is said, was impressed against his will. The fundamental objection to all these theories of psychological development is that they describe only what might have been or what ought to have been, and not what actually was. No doubt Paul ought to have been coming nearer to Christianity; but as a matter of fact he was rather getting further away, and he records the fact in no uncertain terms in his Epistles. There are objections, moreover, to the various theories of development in detail; and the advocates of one theory are often the severest critics of another.