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, it is 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 madness of my
supposed panic.

For suppose it to be established that Gentile Christianity was a
totally different thing from the Nazarenism of Jesus and his immediate
disciples; suppose it to be demonstrable that, as early as the sixth
decade of our era at least, there were violent divergencies of opinion
among the followers of Jesus; suppose it to be hardly doubtful that
the Gospels and the Acts took their present shapes under the influence
of those divergencies; suppose that their authors, and those through
whose hands they passed, had notions of historical veracity not more
eccentric than those which Josephus occasionally displays: surely the
chances that the Gospels are altogether trustworthy records of the
teachings of Jesus become very slender. And, since the whole of the
case of the other side is based on the supposition that they are
accurate records (especially of speeches, about which ancient
historians are so curiously loose), I really do venture to submit that
this part of my argument bears very seriously on the main issue; and,
as ratiocination, is sound to the core.

Again, when I passed