Note 9 — Chapter II · THE CENTRAL MYTH
Reading edition
Where Strauss was rash, later rationalistic writers have been more so. My old friend, the English translator of Jules Soury’s early work on Jesus, took for granted that behind legendary heroes in general there is always a nucleus of fact; but Soury, after postulating a large part of the gospel story as veridical, gave up a number of his own items.9 As soon as he began to apply criticism, they were seen to be arbitrary assumptions. Equally arbitrary is the assumption of “some basis,” made upon no scientific principle.