VIII AGNOSTICISM: A REJOINDER 277 



he could not have shared Dr. Wace's view of its 

 importance. 1 



I thought that all fairly attentive and intelligent 

 students of the gospels, to say nothing of theo- 

 logians of reputation, knew these things. But 

 how can any one who does know them have the 

 conscience to ask whether there is " any reason- 

 able doubt" that the Sermon on the Mount 

 was preached by Jesus of Nazareth ? If conjecture 

 is permissible, where nothing else is possible, 

 the most probable conjecture seems to be that 

 " Matthew," having a cento of sayings attributed 

 rightly or wrongly it is impossible to say to Jesus 

 among his materials, thought they were, or might 

 be, records of a continuous discourse, and put them 

 in at the place he thought likeliest. Ancient his- 

 torians of the highest character saw no harm in 

 composing long speeches which never were spoken, 

 and putting them into the mouths of statesmen 

 and warriors ; and I presume that whoever is re- 

 presented by " Matthew " would have been griev- 

 ously astonished to find that any one objected to 

 his following the example of the best models 

 accessible to him. 



1 Holtzmann (Die synoptischen Evangelicn, 1863, p. 75), 

 following Ewald, argues that the ' Source A " ( = the threefold 

 tradition, more or less) contained something that answered to 

 the * c Sermon on the Plain " immediately after the words of our 

 present Mark, "And he cometh into a house" (iii. 19). But 

 what conceivable motive could "Mark" have for omitting it ? 

 Holtzmami has no doubt, however, that the "Sermon on the 

 Mount" is a compilation, or, as he calls it in his recently- 

 published Lehrbuch (p. 372), "an artificial mosaic work." 



