VIII AGNOSTICISM : A REJOINDER 299 



much as to baptize Cornelius; and Paul, in the 

 Galatians, knows nothing of words which would 

 have completely borne him out as against those 

 who, though they heard, must be supposed to 

 have either forgotten, or ignored them. On the 

 other hand, Peter and John, who are supposed to 

 have heard the " Sermon on the Mount," know 

 nothing of the saying that Jesus had not come to 

 destroy the Law, but that every jot and tittle of 

 the Law must be fulfilled, which surely would 

 have been pretty good evidence for their view of 

 the question. 



We are sometimes told that the personal 

 friends and daily companions of Jesus remained 

 zealous Jews and opposed Paul's innovations, 

 because they were hard of heart and dull of 

 comprehension. This hypothesis is hardly in 

 accordance with the concomitant faith of those 

 who adopt it, in the miraculous insight and super- 

 human sagacity of their Master ; nor do I see any 

 way of getting it to harmonise with the orthodox 

 postulate ; namely, that Matthew was the author 

 of the first gospel and John of the fourth. If that 

 is so, then, most assuredly, Matthew was no 

 dullard; and as for the fourth gospel a theo- 

 sophic romance of the first order it could have 

 been written by none but a man of remarkable 

 literary capacity, who had drunk deep of 

 Alexandrian philosophy. Moreover, the doctrine 

 of the writer of the fourth gospel is more remote 



