CHRISTIANITY AND AGNOSTICISM. 331 



Testament seem to me often extravagantly skeptical and far- 

 fetched, and though I can not, therefore, quite agree with Prof. 

 Huxley that his " Lehrbuch " gives " a remarkably full and fair 

 account of the present results of criticism," yet I agree that it 

 gives on the whole a full and fair account of the course of criti- 

 cism and of the opinions of its chief representatives. Instead, 

 therefore, of imitating Prof. Huxley, and pronouncing an ipse 

 dixit as to the state of criticism or the opinions of critics, I am 

 very glad to be able to refer to a book of which the authority is 

 recognized by him, and which will save both my readers and my- 

 self from embarking on the wide and waste ocean of the German 

 criticism of the last fifty years. " Holtzmann, then," says Prof. 

 Huxley in a note on page 489, " has no doubt 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/ " Now, let the 

 reader attend to what Holtzmann really says in the passage re- 

 ferred to. His words are : " In the so-called Sermon on the Mount 

 (Matt, v-vii) we find constructed, on the basis of a real discourse 

 of fundamental significance, a skillfully articulated mosaic 

 work." * The phrase was not so long a one that Prof. Huxley 

 need have omitted the important words by which those he quotes 

 are qualified. Holtzmann recognizes, as will be seen, that a real 

 discourse of fundamental significance underlies the Sermon on 

 the Mount. That is enough for my purpose ; for no reasonable 

 person will suppose that the fundamental significance of the real 

 discourse has been entirely 'obliterated, especially as the main 

 purport of the sermon in St. Luke is of the same character. But 

 Prof. Huxley must know perfectly well, as every one else does, 

 that he would be maintaining a paradox, in which every critic of 

 repute, to say nothing of every man of common sense, would be 

 against him, if he were to maintain that the Sermon on the Mount 

 does not give a substantially correct idea of our Lord's teaching. 

 But to admit this is to admit my point, so he rides off on a side 

 issue as to the question of the precise form in which the sermon 

 was delivered. 



I must, however, take some notice of Prof. Huxley's argument 

 on this irrelevant issue, as it affords a striking illustration of that 

 superior method of ratiocination in these matters on which he 

 prides himself. I need not trouble the reader much on the ques- 

 tions he raises as to the relations of the first three Gospels. Any 

 one who cares to see a full and thorough discussion of that diffi- 

 cult question, conducted with a complete knowledge of foreign 

 criticism on the subject, and at the same time marked by the 

 greatest lucidity and interest, may be referred to the admirable 



" In der sog. Bergpredigt, Mt. 5-7, gibt sich eine, auf Grand einer wirklichen Rede 

 von fundamentaler Bedeutiing sich erhebende, kunstreich gcgliederte Mosaikarbeit." 



