y resurrection,
might have some such explanation as this. No one had ever undertaken to
apply this method consistently, from one end to the other of the gospel
narrative. What was of more significance, no one had clearly defined the
conception of legend. Strauss was sure that in the application of this
notion to certain portions of the Scripture no irreverence was shown. No
moral taint was involved. Nothing which could detract from the reverence
in which we hold the Scripture was implied. Rather, in his view, the
history of Jesus is more wonderful than ever, when some, at least, of
its elements are viewed in this way, when they are seen as the product
of the poetic spirit, working all unconsciously at a certain level of
culture and under the impulse of a great enthusiasm.

There is no doubt that Strauss, who was at that time an earnest
Christian, felt the relief from certain difficulties in the biography of
Jesus which this theory affords. He put it forth in all sincerity as
affording to others like relief. He said that while rationalists and
supernaturalists alike, by their methods, sacrificed the divine content
of the story and clung only to its form, his hypothesis sacrificed the
historicity of the narrative form, but kept the eternal and spiritual
truth. In his opinion, the lapse of a single generation was enough to
give room for this process of the growth of the legendary elements which
have found place in the written Gospels which we have. Ideas entertained
by primitive Christians relative to their lost Master, have been, all
unwittingly, transformed into facts and woven into the tale of his
career. The legends of a people are in their basal elements never the
work of a single individual. They are never intentionally produced. The
imperceptible growth of a joint creative work of this kind was possible,
however, only on the supposition that oral tradition was, for a time,
the means of transmission of the reminiscences of Jesus. Strauss'
explanation of his theory has been given above, to some extent in his
own words. We may see how he understood himself. We may appreciate also
the genuineness of the religious spirit of his work. At the same time
the thorough-going way in which he applied his principle, the relentless
march of his argument, the character of his results, must sometimes have
been startling even to himself. They certainly startled others. The
effect of his work was instantaneous and immense. It was not a