CHRISTIANITY AND AGNOSTICISM. 333 



embody a certain record older than themselves. But by what 

 right does he ask me to accept this as evidence, or as affording 

 even the slightest presumption, that there was no other ? Be- 

 tween his allegation in one sentence that the second Gospel " most 

 closely represents the primitive groundwork of the three," and 

 his allegation, in the next sentence but one, that "the second 

 Gospel is the nearest extant representative of the oldest tradition," 

 there is an absolute and palpable non sequitur. It is a mere juggle 

 of phrases, and upon this juggle the whole of his subsequent argu- 

 ment on this point depends. St. Mark's Gospel may very well 

 represent the oldest tradition relative to the common matter of the 

 three, without, therefore, necessarily representing " the oldest tra- 

 dition " in such a sense as to be a touchstone for all other reports 

 of our Lord's life. Prof. Huxley must know very well that from 

 the time of Schleiermacher many critics have believed in the ex- 

 istence of another document containing a collection of our Lord's 

 discourses. Holtzmann concludes ("Lehrbuch," page 376) that 

 " under all the circumstances the hypothesis of two sources offers 

 the most probable solution of the synoptical problem " ; and it is 

 surely incredible that no old traditions of our Lord's teaching 

 should have existed beyond those which are common to the three 

 Gospels. St. Luke, in fact, in that preface which Prof. Huxley 

 has no hesitation in using for his own purposes, says that " many 

 had taken in hand to set forth in order a declaration of those 

 things which are most surely believed among us"; but Prof. 

 Huxley asks us to assume that none of these records were old, and 

 none trustworthy, but that particular one which furnishes a sort 

 of skeleton to the first three Gospels. There is no evidence what- 

 ever, beyond Prof. Huxley's private judgment, for such an assump- 

 tion. Nay, he himself tells us that, according to Holtzmann, it is 

 at present a " burning question " among critics " whether the rela- 

 tively primitive narration and the root of the other synoptic texts 

 is contained in Matthew or in Mark." * Yet while his own author- 

 ity tells him that this is a burning question, he treats it as settled 

 in favor of St. Mark, " beyond any rational doubt or dispute," and 

 employs this assumption as sufficiently solid ground on which to 

 rest his doubts of the genuineness of the Sermon on the Mount 

 and the Lord's Prayer ! 



But let us pass to another point in Prof. Huxley's mode of 

 argument. Let us grant, again for the sake of argument, his non 

 sequitur that the second Gospel is the nearest extant representa- 

 tive of the oldest tradition. " How comes it," he asks, " that it 

 contains neither the Sermon on the Mount nor the Lord's Prayer ?" 

 Well, that is a very interesting inquiry, which has, in point of 

 fact, often been considered by Christian divines ; and various 



* "Popular Science Monthly " for June, 18S9, p. 1C9. 



