Note 25 — Chapter III · THE DESTRUCTIVE CHARACTER OF MODERN BIBLE CRITICISM

Now, what are these omissions in St. Mark? Are they trivial? Let us judge for ourselves by taking a few selections. There is no mention whatever of the story of Christ’s miraculous birth, nor of the other incidents of His childhood which are said to be in fulfilment of prophecy, and there is no mention of the great Sermon on the Mount. The story of the Resurrection is told in a few sentences, and the Ascension in one sentence. Unfortunately, too, these very sentences are admittedly interpolations, and St. Mark really ends at xvi. 8.25 So there is no account of either the Incarnation, Resurrection, or Ascension, and we are left with oral traditions, “lost” documents, and unknown copyists, as the only source from which to obtain any detailed information concerning the very groundwork of our Creed! Could anything be more unsatisfactory, more calculated to arouse suspicion of the “Christian Verities”—the Gospel truths? I am completely at a loss to understand how the Bishop of Gloucester26 can say that the “Higher Criticism” has been a “gain to the Church,” or the Bishop of London26 that “the New Testament stands ten times as strong as it did fifty years ago.” It would seem to be a case of “where ignorance is bliss,” etc., or else of the wish being father to the thought.