I profess to make of my own knowledge is true. All which things I
notice, merely to illustrate the great truth, forced on me by long
experience, that it is only from those who enjoy the blessing of a firm
hold of the Christian faith that such manifestations of meekness,
patience, and charity are to be expected.

I had imagined that no one who had read my preceding papers, could
entertain a doubt as to my position in respect of the main issue, as it
has been stated and restated by my opponent:

an Agnosticism which knows nothing of the relation of man to God
must not only refuse belief to our Lord's most undoubted teaching,
but must deny the reality of the spiritual convictions in which He
lived.[70]

That is said to be "the simple question which is at issue between us,"
and the three testimonies to that teaching and those convictions
selected are the Sermon on the Mount, the Lord's Prayer, and the Story
of the Passion.

My answer, reduced to its briefest form, has been: In the first place,
the evidence is such that the exact nature of the teachings and the
convictions of Jesus is extremely uncertain; so that what ecclesiastics
are pleased to call a denial of them may be nothing of the kind. And, in
the second place, if Jesus taught the demonological system involved in
the Gadarene story--if a belief in that system formed a part of the
spiritual convictions in which he lived and died--then I, for my part,
unhesitatingly refuse belief in that teaching, and deny the reality of
those spiritual convictions. And I go further and add, that, exactly in
so far as it can be proved that Jesus sanctioned the essentially pagan
demonological theories current among the Jews of his age, exactly in so
far, for me, will his authority in any matter touching the spiritual
world be weakened.

With respect to the first half of my answer, I have pointed out that the
Sermon on the Mount, as given in the first Gospel, is, in the opinion of
the best critics, a "mosaic work" of materials derived from different
sources, and I do not understand that this statement is challenged. The
only other Gospel--the third--which contains something like it, makes,
not only the discourse, but the circumstances under which it was
delivered, very different. Now, it is one thing to say that there was
something real at the bottom of the two discourses--which is quite
possible; and another to affirm that we have any right to say what that