CONCLUSION.
But enough. A book in which Jesus gives the explanation of the
Supper a year before its celebration; in which 139500, if not 1000, soldiers, when he whom they are sent to take
prisoner says “I am he,” recoil and fall to the ground (xviii. 3-6); in which one
hundred pounds of spices are used to embalm his body (xix. 39), ought, at the outset,
to be safe from the misunderstanding that it recounts real events. These three points
are enough to show that it is dominated by complete indifference as to the faithfulness
of a record; that importance is attached only to giving as impressive a representation
as possible of certain ideas; and that the whole is sustained by a reverence of
Jesus which has lost every standard for measuring what can really happen.
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