Note 1 — Chapter III · ILLUSIONS AS TO GOSPEL ETHIC

For anyone who will soberly and faithfully face the facts there must sooner or later arise the problem, Is there any unifying personality behind this medley of many sets of doctrines, many voices, many schools? Even if it were possible to piece together from it a coherent body of either ethical or religious thought, and jettison the rest, is there any reason to believe that the selected matter belongs to the Gospel Teacher with the Twelve Disciples, crucified on the morning after the Passover under Pontius Pilate? When the crowning doctrine of sacrament and sacrifice is seen to be but the consummation of a religious lore beginning in prehistoric and systematic human sacrifice, and traceable in a score of ancient cults, is it possible to claim that the palpably dramatic record of Last Supper, Agony, Betrayal, Trial, and Crucifixion is a historic record of a strange coincidence between cult practice and biography? And if that goes, what is left? If, says Loisy, the condemnation of Jesus as pretended Messiah by Pilate “could be put in doubt, one would have no motive for affirming the existence of Christ.”1 And it can!