48 PIONEERS OF EVOLUTION PART 



as ' Very God of Very God ' the final appeal was, 

 logically, to the words of Jesus. Hence another 

 barrier against enquiry. 



Conflict has never arisen on the ethical sayings 

 of Jesus, which, making allowance for the impractic- 

 ableness of a few, place him high among the sages 

 of antiquity. Comparing their teaching with his, it 

 is easy to group together maxims which do not yield 

 to the more famous examples in the Sermon on the 

 Mount as guides to conduct, or as inspiration to high 

 ideals. The 'golden rule' is anticipated by Plato's 

 * Thou shalt not take that which is mine, and may I 

 do to others as I would that they should do to me ' 

 (Jowett, Trans. Bk. xi. 913). And it is paralleled by 

 Isocrates, a contemporary of Plato, in these words, 

 which he puts into the mouth of King Nicocles, 

 when addressing his governors : * You should be 

 to others what you think I should be to you.' 

 But if there was nothing new in what Jesus 

 taught, there was freshness in the method. Con- 

 flict is waged only over statements the nature and 

 limits of which might be expected from the place 

 and age when they were delivered. They who hold 

 that Jesus was God the Son Eternal, and therefore 

 incapable of error, may reconcile, as best they can 

 with this, his belief in the mischievous delusions of 

 his time. If they say that so much of this as may be 

 reported in the records of his life are spurious, they 

 throw the whole contents of the gospels into the 

 melting-pot of criticism. 



Taking the narratives as we have them, docu- 

 ments stamped with the hall-mark of the centuries, 

 1 declaring,' as a body of clergymen proclaimed re- 



