The Acts of the Apostles

viii PREFACE
shock. And yet the view—or rather the pecuhar
psychological solution of the problem of these writings
—now propounded by Dr. Harnack, has had at least
one champion among English scholars of the so-called
critical school. The translator calls to mind a con-
troversy many years ago at a meeting of the
"CCC"—mystic signs known to the initiated
—
when the Rev. Dr. Hastings Rashdall, Fellow and
Tutor of New College, Oxford, argued almost in the
words of Dr. Harnack that the difficult account of
Acts ii. could perfectly well have been written by a
companion of St. Paul
—
i.e. by one who knew the
real nature of the phenomenon of « Speaking with
Tongues." The translator then denounced such a
position as unscientific ; he now assures Dr. Rashdall
of his reluctant yet complete conversion, and begs to
dedicate to him his own work in rendering these
notable researches accessible to the English reader.