IX AGNOSTICISM AND CHRISTIANITY 351 



any rate, I cannot tell how much of either is true. 

 And, if some fervent admirer of the Idumean 

 should build up a theory of Herod's piety upon 

 Josephus's evidence that he propounded the 

 aphorism, is it a " mere evasion " to say, in reply, 

 that the evidence that he did utter it is worth- 

 less ? 



It appears again that, adopting the tactics of 

 Conachar when brought face to face with Hal o' 

 the Wynd, I have been trying to get my simple- 

 minded adversary to follow me on a wild-goose 

 chase through the early history of Christianity, in 

 the hope of escaping impending defeat on the 

 main issue. But I may be permitted to point out 

 that there is an alternative hypothesis which 

 equally fits the facts; and that, after all, there 

 may have been method in the madness of my 

 supposed panic. 



For suppose it to be established that Gentile 

 Christianity was a totally different thing from the 

 Nazarenism of Jesus and his immediate disciples ; 

 suppose it to be demonstrable that, as early as the 

 sixth decade of our era at least, there were violent 

 divergencies of opinion among the followers of 

 Jesus ; suppose it to be hardly doubtful that the 

 Gospels and the Acts took their present shapes 

 under the influence of those divergencies ; sup- 

 pose that their authors, and those through whose 

 hands they passed, had notions of historical vera- 

 city not more eccentric than those which Josephus 



138 



