accounts. With reference to this the author of The Jesus of History
(Williams and Norgate, 1866)--a work to which my brother admitted
himself to be under very great obligations, and which he greatly
admired, in spite of his utter dissent from the main conclusion
arrived at, has the following note:-

"Dean Alford, N.T. for English readers, admits that the narratives as
they stand are contradictory, but he believes both. He is even
severe upon the harmonists who attempt to frame schemes of
reconciliation between the two, on account of the triumph they thus
furnish to the 'enemies of the faith,' a phrase which seems to imply
all who believe less than he does. The Dean, however, forgets that
the faith which can believe two (apparently) contradictory
propositions in matters of fact is a very rare gift, and that for one
who is so endowed there are thousands who can be satisfied with a
plausible though demonstrably false explanation. To the latter class
the despised harmonists render a real service."

Upon this note my brother was very severe. In a letter, dated Dec.
18, 1866, addressed to a friend who had alluded to it, and expressed
his concurrence with it as in the main just, my brother wrote: "You
are wrong about the note in The Jesus of History, there is more of
the Christianity of the future in Dean Alford's indifference to the
harmony between the discordant accounts of Luke and Matthew than
there would have been EVEN IN THE MOST CONVINCING AND SATISFACTORY
explanation of the way in which they came to differ. No such
explanation is possible; both the Dean and the author of The Jesus of
History were very well aware of this, but the latter is unjust in
assuming that his opponent was not alive to the absurdity of
appearing to believe two contradictory propositions at one and the