in" the argument as stated in the latter of these two
extracts, so much the worse for his whole case. For I am of opinion
that there is the gravest reason for doubting whether the "Sermon on
the Mount" was ever preached, and whether the so-called "Lord's
Prayer" was ever prayed, by Jesus of Nazareth. My reasons for this
opinion are, among others, these:--There is now no doubt that the
three Synoptic Gospels, so far from being the work of three
independent writers, are closely interdependent,[67] and that in one
of two ways. Either all three contain, as their foundation, versions,
to a large extent verbally identical, of one and the same tradition;
or two of them are thus closely dependent on the third; and the
opinion of the majority of the best critics has of late years more and
more converged towards the conviction that our canonical second gospel
(the so-called "Mark's" Gospel) is that which most closely represents
the primitive groundwork of the three.[68] That I take to be one of
the most valuable results of New Testament criticism, of immeasurably
greater importance than the discussion about dates and authorship.

But if, as I believe to be the case, beyond any rational doubt or
dispute, the second gospel is the nearest extant representative of the
oldest tradition, whether written or oral, how comes it that it
contains neither the "Sermon on the Mount" nor the "Lord's Prayer,"
those typical embodiments, according to Dr. Wace, of the "essential
belief and cardinal teaching" of Jesus? Not only does "Mark's" gospel
fail to contain the "Sermon on the Mount," or anything but a very few
of the sayings contained in that collection; but, at the point of the
history of Jesus where the "Sermon" occurs in "Matthew," there is in
"Mark" an apparently unbroken narrative from the calling of James and
John to the healing of Simon's wife's mother. Thus the oldest
tradition not only ignores the "Sermon on the Mount," but, by
implication, raises a probability against its being delivered when and
where the later "Matthew" inserts it in his compilation.

And still more weighty is the fact that the third gospel, the author
of which tells us that he wrote after "many" others had "taken in
hand" the same enterprise; who should therefore have known the first
gospel (if it existed), and was bound to pay to it the deference due
to the work of an apostolic eye-witness (if he had any reason for
thinking it was so)--this writer, who exhibits