s the conversations of Socrates. They are, so to speak, the
variations of a musician improvising on a given theme. The theme is
not without some authenticity; but in the execution, the imagination
of the artist has given itself full scope. We are sensible of the
factitious mode of procedure, of rhetoric, of gloss.[6] Let us add
that the vocabulary of Jesus cannot be recognized in the portions of
which we speak. The expression, "kingdom of God," which was so
familiar to the Master,[7] occurs there but once.[8] On the other
hand, the style of the discourses attributed to Jesus by the fourth
Gospel, presents the most complete analogy with that of the Epistles
of St. John; we see that in writing the discourses, the author
followed not his recollections, but rather the somewhat monotonous
movement of his own thought. Quite a new mystical language is
introduced, a language of which the synoptics had not the least idea
("world," "truth," "life," "light," "darkness," etc.). If Jesus had
ever spoken in this style, which has nothing of Hebrew, nothing
Jewish, nothing Talmudic in it, how, if I may thus express myself, is
it that but a single one of his hearers should have so well kept the
secret?

[Footnote 1: The verses, chap. xx. 30, 31, evidently form the original
conclusion.]

[Footnote 2: Chap. vi. 2, 22, vii. 22.]

[Footnote 3: For example, that which concerns the announcement of the
betrayal by Judas.]

[Footnote 4: See, for example, chaps. ii. 25, iii. 32, 33, and the
long disputes of chapters vii., viii., and ix.]

[Footnote 5: We feel often that the author seeks pretexts for
introducing certain discourses (chaps. iii., v., viii., xiii., and
following).]

[Footnote 6: For example, chap. xvii.]

[Footnote 7: Besides the synoptics, the Acts, the Epistles of St.
Paul, and the Apocalypse, confirm it.]

[Footnote 8: John iii. 3, 5.]

Literary history offers, besides, another example, which presents the
greatest analogy with the historic phenomenon we have just described,
and serves to explain it. Socrates, who, like Jesus, never wrote, is
known to us by two of his disciples, Xenophon and Plato, the first
corresponding to the synoptics in his clear, transparent, impersonal
compilation; the second recalling the author of the fourth Gospel, by
his vigorous individuality. In order to describe the Socratic
teaching, should we follow the "dialogues" of Plato, or the
"discourses" of Xenophon? Doubt, in this respect, is n