and
unreliable records. There are very few passages in the Gospels which can
stand the rigid application of honest criticism. In modern science and
philosophy, orthodox _Christology_ is out of the question.

"This 'sacred tradition' has in itself a glorious vitality, which
Christians may unblameably entitle immortal. But it certainly will not
lose in beauty, grandeur, or truth, if all the details concerning Jesus
which are current in the Gospels, and all the mythology of his person,
be forgotten or discredited. Christianity will remain without Christ.

"This formula has in it nothing paradoxical. Rightly interpreted, it
simply means: _All that is best in Judaeo-Christian sentiment, moral or
spiritual, will survive, without Rabbinical fancies, cultured by
perverse logic; without huge piles of fable built upon them: without the
Oriental Satan, a formidable rival to the throne of God; without the
Pagan invention of Hell and Devils_."

In modern criticism, the Gospel sources become so utterly worthless and
unreliable, that it takes more than ordinary faith to believe a large
portion thereof to be true. The _Eucharist_ was not established by
Jesus, and cannot be called a sacrament. The trials of Jesus are
positively not true: they are pure inventions.[528:1] The crucifixion
story, _as narrated_, is certainly not true, and it is extremely
difficult to save the bare fact that Jesus was crucified. What can the
critic do with books in which a few facts must be ingeniously guessed
from under the mountain of ghost stories,[528:2] childish
miracles,[529:1] and dogmatic tendencies?[529:2] It is absurd to expect
of him to regard them as sources of religious instruction, in preference
to any other mythologies and legends. That is the point at which modern
critics have arrived, therefore, the Gospels have become books for the
museum and archaeologist, for students of mythology and ancient
literature.

The spirit of dogmatic Christology hovers still over a portion of
civilized society, in antic organizations, disciplines, and hereditary
forms of faith and worship; in science and philosophy, in the realm of
criticism, its day is past. The universal, religious, and ethical
element of Christianity has no connection whatever with Jesus or his
apostles, with the Gospel, or the Gospel story; _it exists independent
of any person or story_. Therefore it needs neither the Gospel story nor
its heroes. If we profit by the example, by the teach