Note 1 — Chapter XVII · THE JESUS-FIGURE OF M. LOISY

Taking no note of any other conception of a possible origination of the cult, M. Loisy pronounces that to explain it we must hold that the “group of adherents” had before the crucifixion evolved a “religious life” sufficiently deep to sustain the feeling that the death of the Master was an accident, “grave no doubt [!] and perturbing, but reparable”;1 and to explain this religious life he goes back to the Master’s doctrine. And the moment he begins his exposition he vacillates anew over the old dilemma:—