of his didactic utterances; and conversely, if it could be proved
that not only did the miracles actually occur, but that he had
wrought a thousand other miracles a thousand times more
wonderful, not a jot of weight would be added to his doctrine.
And yet the intellectual energy of sceptics and divines has been
wasted for generations in arguing about the miracles on the
assumption that Christianity is at stake in the controversy as to
whether the stories of Matthew are false or true. According to
Matthew himself, Jesus must have known this only too well; for
wherever he went he was assailed with a clamor for miracles,
though his doctrine created bewilderment.

So much for the miracles! Matthew tells us further, that Jesus
declared that his doctrines would be attacked by Church and
State, and that the common multitude were the salt of the earth
and the light of the world. His disciples, in their relations
with the political and ecclesiastical organizations, would be as
sheep among wolves.


MATTHEW IMPUTES DIGNITY TO JESUS.

Matthew, like most biographers, strives to identify the opinions
and prejudices of his hero with his own. Although he describes
Jesus as tolerant even to carelessness, he draws the line at the
Gentile, and represents Jesus as a bigoted Jew who regards his
mission as addressed exclusively to "the lost sheep of the house
of Israel." When a woman of Canaan begged Jesus to cure her
daughter, he first refused to speak to her, and then told her
brutally that "It is not meet to take the children's bread and