tle difficult to see.

The result of this concentration of attention on the value of synoptic
criticism for the life of Jesus {38} and of the neglect of the
editorial subjectivity of the evangelists has been a general tendency
to overlook the value of the gospels as the record of the opinion of
the generation which produced them. Yet obviously there are no other
documents which tell us the views held in the early Church of the
teaching and office of Christ. On this subject they give even more
information than Acts, and enable us to control it by showing the
gradual development of thought and language in the Christian community.

Similarly, for a slightly later period and for a different locality,
the Pauline epistles give us glimpses of the process of development--a
process by no means always peaceable--of which the results are recorded
in the second part of Acts.

In this way the critical use of the gospels, the Acts, and Pauline
epistles enable us to trace the general outline of the early stages of
the synthesis between primitive Jewish Christianity and the spirit of
Graeco-Oriental mysteries. It takes us in succession into Jerusalem,
Antioch, and Corinth, not because these were the only churches which
grew up in this period, but because it is in the main their tradition
which is preserved in the documents at our disposal.

What was the course of events immediately after the death of Jesus?
There is no period of which the details are more obscure, but the
criticism of Mark and Acts enables us to reconstruct its general
outline. The fortunate preservation of Mark enables us to {39} correct
the narrative of Acts. If we had Acts alone we should have no doubt
but that the disciples stayed in Jerusalem, and settled there from the
time when they entered it with Jesus on the first Palm Sunday until the
day when they left it to preach to the world outside. Mark, however,
is convincing proof that Acts has omitted a complete incident. In Mark
xiv. 28 Jesus is represented as saying, "After I am risen I will go
before you into Galilee," and in Mark xvi. 7 the young man at the tomb
says, "Go tell his disciples and Peter that he goes before you into
Galilee, there ye shall see him." The sequence of events clearly
implied is that the disciples after the death of Jesus went back to
Galilee, where they saw the risen Jesus. Inspired by this vision, they
returned to Jerusalem to wait for his return in triumph, and meanwhil