276 AGNOSTICISM : A REJOINDER vill 



long interpolations, one of 30 verses before and 

 one of 34 verses after, the middlemost parallelism 

 with Luke. Under these circumstances it is quite 

 impossible to admit that there is more probability 

 that " Matthew's " version of the Sermon is histori- 

 cally accurate, than there is that Luke's version is 

 so ; and they cannot both be accurate. 



" Luke " either knew the collection of loosely- 

 connected and aphoristic utterances which appear 

 under the name of the ' " Sermon on the Mount " 

 in " Matthew " ; or he did not. If he did not, he 

 must have been ignorant of the existence of such 

 a document as our canonical " Matthew/' a fact 

 which does not make for the genuineness, or the 

 authority, of that book. If he did, he has shown 

 that he does not care for its authority on a matter 

 of fact of no small importance ; and that does not 

 permit us to conceive that he believed the first gospel 

 to be the work of an authority to whom he ought 

 to defer, let alone that of an apostolic eye- 

 witness. 



The tradition of the Church about the second 

 gospel, which I believe to be quite worthless, but 

 which is all the evidence there is for " Mark's " 

 authorship, would have us believe that " Mark " 

 was little more than the mouthpiece of the apostle 

 Peter. Consequently, we are to suppose that 

 Peter either did not know, or did not care very 

 much for, that account , of the "essential belief 

 and cardinal teaching " of Jesus which is con- 

 tained in the Sermon on the Mount ; and, certainly, 



