Note 4 — Chapter XVII · THE JESUS-FIGURE OF M. LOISY

Decidedly M. Loisy had been somewhat superficial in his estimate of the tendencies of the argument over Paul. Now, the myth theory, as it happens, is neither made nor marred by any decision as to the spuriousness of the Pauline letters. The crucial point is that, whether early or late—and the dating of them as pseudepigrapha is a difficult matter—the cardinal epistles have been interpolated. This became clear to me at an early stage in my studies, independently of any previous criticism. That the two passages, 1 Cor. xi, 23–28; xv, 3–11, are interpolations, and that in the second case the interpolation has been added to, are as clear results of pure documentary analysis as any in the whole field of the discussion.4 And when M. Loisy ascribes to Professor Drews an “entirely gratuitous hypothesis of interpolation,” and implies that such hypotheses are set up because the texts are “extremely awkward for the mythic theory,”5 he is himself misled by his parti pris. Whereas I came to my conclusions6 as to interpolation while working towards the myth theory, exactly the same conclusions as mine, I afterwards found, had been previously reached by at least one continental scholar7 who had not the mythic theory in view; and later by others8 who equally stood aloof from it. M. Loisy would do well to ask himself whether it is not he who is uncritically swayed by his presuppositions, and whether the men to whom he imputes such bias are not the really disinterested critics.