something was, or to fix upon any particular phrase and declare it to be
a genuine utterance. Those who pursue theology as a science, and bring
to the study an adequate knowledge of the ways of ancient historians,
will find no difficulty in providing illustrations of my meaning. I may
supply one which has come within range of my own limited vision.

In Josephus's "History of the Wars of the Jews" (chap, xix.), that
writer reports a speech which he says Herod made at the opening of a
war with the Arabians. It is in the first person, and could naturally be
supposed by the reader to be intended for a true version of what Herod
said. In the "Antiquities," written some seventeen years later, the same
writer gives another report, also in the first person, of Herod's speech
on the same occasion. This second oration is twice as long as the first
and, though the general tenor of the two speeches is pretty much the
same, there is hardly any verbal identity, and a good deal of matter is
introduced into the one, which is absent from the other. Josephus prides
himself on his accuracy; people whose fathers might have heard Herod's
oration were his Contemporaries; and yet his historical sense is so
curiously undeveloped that he can, quite innocently, perpetrate an
obvious literary fabrication; for one of the two accounts must be
incorrect. Now, if I am asked whether I believe that Herod made some
particular statement on this occasion; whether, for example, he uttered
the pious aphorism, "Where God is, there is both multitude and courage,"
which is given in the "Antiquities," but not in the "Wars," I am
compelled to say I do not know. One of the two reports must be
erroneous, possibly both are: at any rate, I cannot tell how much of
either is true. And, if some fervent admirer of the Idumean should build
up a theory of Herod's piety upon Josephus's evidence that he propounded
the aphorism, is it a "mere evasion" to say, in reply, that the evidence
that he did utter it is worthless?

It appears again that, adopting the tactics of Conachar when brought
face to face with Hal o' the Wynd, I have been trying to get my
simple-minded adversary to follow me on a wild-goose chase through the
early history of Christianity, in the hope of escaping impending defeat
on the main issue. But I may be permitted to point out that there is an
alternative hypothesis which equally fits the facts; and that, after
all, there may have been method in the madne