nicknames; he must have a shrewd eye for the real features of his
victim. Jesus, then, was a historical person; and about him we have
a mass of stories in the Gospels, which our theory for the moment
asks us to say are all false; but they have a certain unity of tone,
and they agree in pointing to a character of a certain type, and the
general aspects and broad outlines of that character they make
abundantly clear. Even on such a hypothesis we can know something of
the character of Jesus. But the hypothesis is gratuitous, and
absurd, as the paragraphs that follow may help to show. The Gospels
are essentially true and reliable records of a historical person.

A survey of some of the outstanding features of the Gospels should
do something to assure their reader of their historical value. But
there is a necessary caution to be given at this moment. When
Aristotle discusses happiness, he adds a curious limitation--"as the
man of sense would define." He postulates a certain intelligence of
the matter in hand. Similarly Longinus, the greatest of ancient
critics, says that in literature sure judgement is the outcome of
long experience. In matters of historical and literary criticism, a
certain instinct is needed, conscious or unconscious, perhaps more
often the latter, which without a serious interest and a long
experience no man is likely to have.

The Gospels are not properly biographies; they consist of
collections of reminiscences--memories and fragments that have
survived for years, and sometimes the fragment is little more than a
phrase. Such and such were the circumstances, and Jesus spoke--a
story that may occupy four or five verses, or less. Something
happened, Jesus said or did something that impressed his friends,
and they could never forget it. The story, as such impressions do,