f Mark, Matthew, and Luke.
Loisy, in his "_Quelques Lettres_," states, "If there is one thing above
others that is obvious, but as to which the most powerful of theological
interests have caused a deliberate or unconscious blindness, it is the
profound, the irreducible incompatibility of the Synoptical Gospels, and
the Fourth Gospel. If Jesus spoke and acted as he is said to have
spoken and acted in the first three Gospels, he did not speak and act as
he is reported to have done in the fourth."

The Martian is forced to the conclusion that the New Testament, with its
version of the Virgin Birth, Elizabeth, the cousin of Mary, Zacharias
and the Angel Gabriel, Jesus and the Sinner, are on par with the
eroticism of the Old Testament. The interpolations, the myth, and fable
also compare with the first revelation, and, in his opinion, he prefers
Andersen's Fairy Tales, or AEsop's Fables.

Meanwhile, a Protestant Brother mentions the name of Luther, and the
conclusions he draws are that the exciting cause of the Reformation was
an extravagant sale of indulgences conceded to the German Dominicans.
The Augustinians grew jealous of the Dominicans, and an Augustinian
Monk, Martin Luther, affixed to the door of Wittenberg Cathedral
ninety-five articles against the abuse of indulgences. This started the
fray in Germany with Luther at the head of this heresy. The gravest
difference of opinion had to do with the Communion. "Luther retained
one-half of the mystery, and rejected the other half. He confesses that
the body of Jesus Christ is in the consecrated element, but it is, he
says, as fire is in the red-hot iron. The fire and the iron subsist
together. This is what they called impanation, invination,
consubstantiation. Thus, while those they called Papists ate God without
bread, the Lutherans ate God and bread; soon afterwards came the
Calvinists, who ate bread and did not eat God." In short, Luther was in
harmony with the Roman Church in nothing but the doctrines of the
Trinity, Baptism, the Incarnation, and the Resurrection. Luther thought
it was time to abolish private mass. He pretended the devil had appeared
to him and reproached him for saying mass and consecrating the
elements. The devil had proved to him, he said, that it was idolatry.
Luther declared that the devil was right and must be believed. The mass
was abolished in Wittenberg, and soon afterwards throughout Saxony; the
images were thrown down, monks and nuns left