ttacked had
ceased to be important, it was turned against the only Jewish party
which still survived to oppose Christianity at the time when the
gospels were written. See also p. 32.

[8] This is a free rendering, somewhat paraphrased to bring out the
meaning, of the account of the martyrdom of Akiba under Tinnius
(Turnus) Rufus in the Jerusalem Talmud (_Berakh._ ix. 7). See
_Prolegomena to Acts_, I. 62.

[9] J. Klausner's _Die messianische Vorstellungen des juedischen Volkes
im Zeitalter der Tannaiten_ is probably the clearest statement of the
facts.

[10] The fourth book of Ezra is in many ways the finest of all
Apocalypses, and the English authorised version (in which it is called
2 Esdras) is a magnificent piece of English, needing, however,
occasional elucidation and correction by the critical editions of G. H.
Box, _The Ezra Apocalypse_, and of B. Violet, in the edition of the
Greek Christian writers of the first three centuries published by the
Berlin Academy.

[11] J. Weiss, _Die Predigt Jesu vom Reiche Gottes_. The first edition
of this book is smaller and better than the second.

[12] The _Quest of the Historic Jesus_.

[13] I have endeavoured to deal with this question in the _Stewardship
of Faith_, pp. 36 ff.

[14] Mark x. 17 ff.

[15] Mark xii. 35.

[16] Mark ix. 43 ff.; cf. Matt. v. 29. ff.

[17] Quoted by C. G. Montefiore in the _Prolegomena to Acts_, pp. 71 f.

[18] See Mark ii. 27. For the meaning of Son of Man in this passage
see p. 60.

[19] Neither reason nor conscience is infallible: the tribunal of
history condemns many actions which were undoubtedly dictated by
conscience. Nevertheless we have no better guides in action, and both
reason and conscience have the peculiarity that the more they are used
the better do they become, and conversely that if they be neglected
they cease to be available in time of need. Men who habitually use
their powers in order to circumvent either conscience or reason in the
end find they are unable to use them at all. The distinction between
right and wrong disappears when conscience dies, and that between fact
and fiction when reason is neglected. The one is the danger which
besets clever politicians, the other the nemesis which waits on popular
preachers.

[20] The situation becomes pathetically impossible when men's
theological conscience is shocked by the suggestion that Jesus was
wrong, and their political conscience by the claim that he