himself been present to witness it all. Again and again the
critical reader feels prompted to ask, How do you know all this?
or why, out of two or three conflicting accounts, do you quietly
adopt some particular one, as if its superior authority were
self-evident? But in the eye of the uncritical reader, these
defects are excellences; for it is unpleasant to be kept in
ignorance when we are seeking after definite knowledge, and it is
disheartening to read page after page of an elaborate discussion
which ends in convincing us that definite knowledge cannot be
gained.

In the thirteenth edition of the "Vie de Jesus," Renan has
corrected some of the most striking errors of the original work,
and in particular has, with praiseworthy candour, abandoned his
untenable position with regard to the age and character of the
fourth gospel. As is well known, Renan, in his earlier editions,
ascribed to this gospel a historical value superior to that of
the synoptics, believing it to have been written by an eyewitness
of the events which it relates; and from this source,
accordingly, he drew the larger share of his materials. Now, if
there is any one conclusion concerning the New Testament
literature which must be regarded as incontrovertibly established
by the labours of a whole generation of scholars, it is this,
that the fourth gospel was utterly unknown until about A. D. 170,
that it was written by some one who possessed very little direct
knowledge of Palestine, that its purpose was rather to expound a
dogma than to give an accurate record of events, and that as a
guide to the comprehension of the career of Jesus it is of far
less value than the three synoptic gospels. It is impossible, in
a brief review like the present, to epitomize the evidence upon