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able date and repute. No neutral scribe, no adverse critic, has furnished us with any personal impressions of his career bearing the intrinsic marks of truth and simplicity. Nor can it be affirmed that any character fairly discernible on the stage of history ever knew an apostle. The Twelve who are credited with having disseminated the faith of the Gospel from east to west lie buried in a more than prehistoric obscurity, the writings ascribed to them doubted, denied, or clearly disproved.[1] It can scarcely be a matter of surprise, therefore, if some serious scholars of modern times have committed themselves to an absolute denial that the nominal founder of Christianity has had any real existence.[2] Yet the*
- ↑ The more timorous critics still cling to one or two of the Epistles grouped together under the name of St. Paul, but the advanced school has decided to reject them in their entirety; see Van Manen, Encycl. Biblica, sb. "Paul." I may exemplify the general discrepancy of views still prevailing in this field of research by a single illustration: "It has now been established that the latter (Epistles of Ignatius) are genuine"; Encycl. Britan., sb. "Gospels" and "Ignatius": "certainly not by Ignatius"; Encycl. Biblica, sb. "Old Christ. Lit." Such opposing statements will continue to be put forward as long as we have Faculties of Divinity at Universities filled by scholars who are constrained to treat historical questions in conformity with the requirements of an established ministry; and so long shall we be edified by the spectacle of men engaged in balancing truth and error in such a manner as to pretend not to be refuting the latter, so that in perusing their treatises we must either suspect their candour or distrust their judgement. Yet in not a few instances the men may be observed exulting amid the ruins of the fortress which they had entered to hold as an invincible garrison.
- ↑ A. D. Loman decided in 1881 that Jesus had not been a real personage, but he now thinks he went too far; Encycl. Biblica, sb. "Resurrection." Edwin Johnson, author of Antiqua Mater, 1887, has marshalled the evidence against his existence very fully and fairly, but in some of his later work he has gone too far, and such exaggerated scepticism, while it may often amuse, can scarcely succeed in convincing. Jn. M. Robertson, author of A Short History of Christianity, 1902, and
