468 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



can be proved that Jesus sanctioned the essentially pagan demon- 

 ological theories current among the Jews of his age, exactly in 

 so far, for me, will his authority in any matter touching the spir- 

 itual world be weakened. 



With respect to the first half of my answer, I have pointed out 

 that the Sermon on the Mount, as given in the first Gospel, is, in 

 the opinion of the best critics, a " mosaic work " of materials de- 

 rived from different sources, and I do not understand that this 

 statement is challenged. The only other Gospel, the third, which 

 contains something like it, makes, not only the discourse, but the 

 circumstances under which it was delivered, very different. Now, 

 it is one thing to say that there was something real at the bottom 

 of the two discourses — which is quite possible; and another to 

 affirm that we have any right to say what that something was, or 

 to fix upon any particular phrase and declare it to be a genuine 

 utterance. Those who pursue theology as a science, and bring to 

 the study an adequate knowledge of the ways of ancient histo- 

 rians, will find no difficulty in providing illustrations of my mean- 

 ing. I may supply one which has come within range of my own 

 limited vision. 



In Josephus's " History of the Wars of the Jews " (chap, xix) 

 that writer reports a speech which he says Herod made at the 

 opening of a war with the Arabians. It is in the first person, and 

 would naturally be supposed by the reader to be intended for a 

 true version of what Herod said. In the " Antiquities," written 

 some seventeen years later, the same writer gives another report, 

 also in the first person, of Herod's speech on the same occasion. 

 This second oration is twice as long as the first, and though the 

 general tenor of the two speeches is pretty much the same, there 

 is hardly any verbal identity, and a good deal of matter is intro- 

 duced into the one which is absent from the other. Now Jose- 

 phus prides himself on his accuracy ; people whose fathers might 

 have heard Herod's oration were his contemporaries ; and yet his 

 historical sense is so curiously undeveloped, that he can, quite 

 innocently, perpetrate an obvious literary fabrication ; for one of 

 the two accounts must be incorrect. Now, if I am asked whether 

 I believe that Herod made some particular statement on this 

 occasion ; whether, for example, he uttered the pious aphorism, 

 " Where God is, there is both multitude and courage," which is 

 given in the " Antiquities," but not in the " Wars," I am com- 

 pelled to say I do not know. One of the two reports must be erro- 

 neous, possibly both are : at any rate, I can not 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 evi- 

 dence that he propounded the aphorism, is it a " mere evasion " to 

 say, in reply, that the evidence that he did utter it is worthless ? 



