172 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



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 historians 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 represented by " Matthew" would have 

 been grievously astonished to find that any one objected to his 

 following the example of the best models accessible to him. 



So with the " Lord's Prayer." Absent in our representative of 

 the oldest tradition, it appears in both " Matthew " and " Luke." 

 There is reason to believe that every pious Jew, at the commence- 

 ment of our era, prayed three times a day, according to a formula 

 which is embodied in the present Schmone-Esre* of the Jewish 

 prayer-book. Jesus, who was assuredly, in all respects, a pious 

 Jew, whatever else he may have been, doubtless did the same. 

 Whether he modified the current formula, or whether the so-called 

 " Lord's Prayer " is the prayer substituted for the Schmone-Esre 

 in the congregations of the Gentiles, who knew nothing of the 

 Jewish practice, is a question which can hardly be answered. 



In a subsequent passage of Dr. Wace's article f he adds to the 

 list of the verities which he imagines to be unassailable, "The 

 story of the Passion." I am not quite sure what he means by 

 this — I am not aware that any one (with the exception of certain 

 ancient heretics) has propounded doubts as to the reality of the 

 crucifixion; and certainly I have no inclination to argue about 

 the precise accuracy of every detail of that pathetic story of suffer- 

 ing and wrong. But, if Dr. Wace means, as I suppose he does, 

 that that which, according to the orthodox view, happened after 

 the crucifixion, and which is, in a dogmatic sense, the most impor- 

 tant part of the story, is founded on solid historical proofs, I must 

 beg leave to express a diametrically opposite conviction. 



What do we find when the accounts of the events in question, 

 contained in the three synoptic Gospels, are compared together ? 

 In the oldest, there is a simple, straightforward statement which, 

 for anything that I have to urge to the contrary, may be exactly 

 true. In the other two, there is, round this possible and probable 

 nucleus, a mass of accretions of the most questionable character. 



The cruelty of death by crucifixion depended very much upon 

 its lingering character. If there were a support for the weight of 

 the body, as not unfrequently was the case, the pain during the 



* See Schiirer, " Geschichte des jiidischen Volkes," Zweiter Theil, p. 384. 

 f "Popular Science Monthly" for May, 1889, p. 69. 



