really is, which he has wasted in finding minute faults in me, he might
have spared himself the trouble of giving these instances at all. If
such considerations have vital importance, the position of the question
may easily be understood. Dr. Lightfoot, however, evidently seems to
suppose that I can be charged with want of candour and of fulness,
because I do not reproduce every shred and tatter of apologetic
reasoning which divines continue to flaunt about after others have
rejected them as useless. He again accuses me, in connection with the
fourth Gospel, of systematically ignoring the arguments of "apologetic"
writers, and he represents my work as "the very reverse of full and
impartial." "Once or twice, indeed," he says, "he fastens on passages
from such writers, that he may make capital of them; but their main
arguments remain wholly unnoticed." [26:1] I confess that I find it
somewhat difficult to distinguish between those out of which I am said
to "make capital" and those which Dr. Lightfoot characterises as "their
main arguments," if I am to judge by the "samples" of them which he
gives me. For instance, [26:2] he asks why, when asserting that the
Synoptics clearly represent the ministry of Jesus as having been limited
to a single year, and his preaching as confined to Galilee and
Jerusalem, whilst the fourth Gospel distributes the teaching of Jesus
between Galilee, Samaria, and Jerusalem, makes it extend over three
years, and refers to three passovers spent by Jesus at Jerusalem:

"Why then," he asks,

"does he not add that 'apologetic' writers refer to such passages as
Matt. xiii. 37 (comp. Luke xiii. 34), 'O Jerusalem, Jerusalem ...
_how often_ would I have gathered thy children together'? Here the
expression 'how often,' it is contended, obliges us to postulate
other visits, probably several visits, to Jerusalem, which are not