narrowness of Judaism and others in the low morality of heathendom, invented an ideal character free from all local, racial, and temporal limitations, harmoniously combining compassion with justice, humility with conscious greatness, the human with the divine—a character which the world has ever since pronounced unique and unsurpassable;

(2) That they imagined a series of deeds by which such a character found remarkable and always appropriate expression, including among them miracles so full of grace and meaning that even a sceptic confesses "the halo of the miracles is worthy of the figure" (Goldwin Smith);

That they put into the mouth of this fictitious character the purest and sublimest teachings, free from the fanaticism that fired their own souls, and in strong contrast to the religious ideas they had been taught in childhood-teachings whose rich contents the world has by no means yet exhausted; and

(4) That they did all this by no deliberate co-operation or conscious effort, but simply by allowing their imaginations to have free play, and offering the various results as contributions to the gospel story.

Such a theory, when we realize what it involves, is evidently incredible. We could more easily believe that the house-painters in some obscure town transformed a tavern sign into a rival of the Sistine Madonna by adding touches of paint from time to time as they

passed on their way to work. It would never have been seriously advocated had not those writers who pronounce the gospel story a fiction felt, with good reason, that they must in some way explain the origin of the fiction, and that the theory of deliberate invention by the apostles or evangelists was even more incredible.

If we want to know what the imagination of the early church would probably have produced, we may look at such a book as the Gospel of Thomas which is a fiction of the second century. It is an attempt to fill in by imagination the period of Jesus' history between his infancy and his visit to the temple at the age of twelve-a period that naturally arouses curiosity, but is passed over in the gospels with a single verse. It seems to have been popular in its day, and to have aroused no objections, but to us it is a monstrous production. The child Jesus works miracles, of which some are absurd, as carrying water in his cloak, while others are vindictive, as striking blind those who accuse him. He is disrespectful to his teachers, angry with his parents and companions, ready to injure or kill by a curse any who offend him. The whole village is in constant fear of him, and with good reason they say to Joseph: "Since thou hast such a child, either leave the village or teach him to bless and not to curse; for he is killing our children." There are other apocryphal gospels of the same century or later; but they all are on the same low level. Worthless in other re

spects, these gospels are valuable as a revelation of the historical imagination possessed by the early church; and they render still more improbable the theory that the story recorded by the evangelists was the product of that imagination. Though John Stuart Mill rejects all miracles and pronounces much of the Fourth Gospel to be "poor stuff," he sums up the situation correctly when he says, "It is of no use to say that Christ, as exhibited in the gospels, is not historical, and that we know not how much of what is admirable has been superadded by the tradition of his followers. Who among his disciples or among their proselytes was capable of inventing the sayings ascribed to Jesus, or of imagining the life and character revealed in the gospels?" ("Three Essays on Religion,” 253). Or, as van Dyke puts it, "He is such a person as men could not have imagined if they would, and would not have imagined if they could" ("Gospel for an Age of Doubt," 59).

If it is impossible to account for the gospel story as fiction, we must take it as history, and treat it accordingly. This does not mean that we must accept all its details without question, refusing to admit the possibility of error; even the most extreme believer in the inspiration of the Bible would not take such a position. If the gospels are historical documents, they must be submitted to historical criticism; the demand is just,

and in the present day it cannot be denied. In fact, in proportion as we are persuaded that they are trustworthy, we are glad to have them submitted to the most searching tests-provided the tests are fair and honestly applied. All that we ask is that the story of Jesus be not contemptuously waived aside as preposterous fiction, but be treated with respect and serious consideration. And if thus treated, we can wait with confidence the verdict of the honest seeker after truth.

CHAPTER XII

THE USE OF THE GOSPELS FOR A LIFE OF CHRIST

PRACTICALLY all that we know concerning the life of Jesus is what is recorded in the four canonical gospels. There is bare mention of him in heathen writers and possibly in Josephus: some incidents or sayings of doubtful genuineness are found in the Apostolic Fathers and the Apocryphal Gospels: a very few but precious items may be gleaned from the Book of Acts and the New Testament Epistles; but nowhere is there anything that really adds to the evangelists or takes away from it.

story of the four Some of the Lives

of Christ fill bulky volumes, but they reach their great size either by describing minutely the environment in which Jesus lived and worked, or by discussing at wearisome length the statements in the gospels. They may make the gospel narrative more intelligible: they cannot bring any further facts to supplement it. And not infrequently they are open to the criticism that we almost lose sight of the central figure in the mass of irrelevant details they heap about him.

The great question, then, concerning any Life of Jesus is, What is the author's attitude toward the gos