elieved that some such credible elements do exist. Five
passages prove by their character that Jesus was a real person, and that
we have some trustworthy facts about him. These passages are: Matthew
xii. 31, Mark x. 17, Mark iii. 21, Mark xiii. 32, and Mark xv. 34, and
the corresponding passage in Matthew xxvii. 46, though these last two
are not found in Luke. Four other passages have a high degree of
probability--viz., Mark viii. 12, Mark vi. 5, Mark viii. 14-21, and
Matthew xi. 5, with the corresponding passage in Luke vii. 22. These
texts, however, disclose nothing of a supernatural character. They
merely prove that in Jesus we have to do with a completely human being,
and that the divine is to be sought in him only in the form in which it
is capable of being found in all men.[M]

The four Gospels were compiled from earlier materials which have
perished, and the dates when they first appeared in their present form
are given as follows:--Mark, certainly after the destruction of
Jerusalem in the year 70; Matthew, about 119 A. D.; Luke, between 100
and 110; and John, between 132 and 140.

The question of the genuineness of the Pauline Epistles, is now far from
being so clear as was once universally supposed. Advanced criticism,
Professor Van Manen tells us in his elaborate article on "Paul", has
learned to recognize that none of these Epistles are by him, not even
the four generally regarded as unassailable. They are not letters to
individuals, but books or pamphlets emanating from a particular school.
We know little, in reality, of the facts of Paul's life, or of his
death: all is uncertain. The unmistakable traces of late origin indicate
that the Epistles probably did not appear till the second century.

The strange book of Revelation is not of purely Christian origin.
Criticism has clearly shown that it can no longer be regarded as a
literary unit, but it is an admixture of Jewish with Christian ideas and
speculations. Ancient testimony, that of Papias in particular, assumed
the Presbyter John, and not the Apostle, as its author or redactor.

The Epistles of Peter, James and Jude are none of them held to be the
work of the Apostles. They probably first saw the light in the second
century; the second Epistle of Peter may even belong to the latter half
of that period.

All the above conclusions are summarized, as nearly as may be, in the
words of the authors of the respective articles. Their significance is
surely