destroyed in the night of some future barbarian invasion, we should
still here possess the secret of the wonderful impression which Jesus
made upon those who heard him speak. Added to the Essenian scorn of
Pharisaic formalism, and the spiritualized conception of the Messianic
kingdom, which Jesus may probably have shared with John the Baptist, we
have here for the first time the distinctively Christian conception
of the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of men, which ultimately
insured the success of the new religion. The special point of
originality in Jesus was his conception of Deity. As Strauss well says,
"He conceived of God, in a moral point of view, as being identical in
character with himself in the most exalted moments of his religious
life, and strengthened in turn his own religious life by this ideal. But
the most exalted religious tendency in his own consciousness was exactly
that comprehensive love, overpowering the evil only by the good, which
he therefore transferred to God as the fundamental tendency of His
nature." From this conception of God, observes Zeller, flowed naturally
all the moral teaching of Jesus, the insistence upon spiritual
righteousness instead of the mere mechanical observance of Mosaic
precepts, the call to be perfect even as the Father is perfect, the
principle of the spiritual equality of men before God, and the equal
duties of all men toward each other.

[20] "The biographers [of Becket] are commonly rather careless as
to the order of time. Each.... recorded what struck him most or what
he best knew, one set down one event and another; and none of them paid
much regard to the order of details."--Freeman, Historical Essays, 1st
series, p. 94.

How far, in addition to these vitally important lessons, Jesus may have
taught doctrines of an ephemeral or visionary character, it is very
difficult to decide. We are inclined to regard the third gospel as
of some importance in settling this point. The author of that gospel
represents Jesus as decidedly hostile to the rich. Where Matthew has
"Blessed are the poor in spirit," Luke has "Blessed are ye poor." In
the first gospel we read, "Blessed are they who hunger and thirst after
righteousness, for they will be filled"; but in the third gospel we
find, "Blessed are ye that hunger now, for ye will be filled"; and this
assurance is immediately followed by the denunciation, "Woe to you that
are rich, for ye have received your consolation