been recorded by the same historian,--So again, in
regard to the allusion made by Jesus to Zacharias, son of Barachias,
as _last of the martyrs_, it was difficult for me to shake off the
suspicion, that a gross error had been committed, and that the person
intended is the "Zacharias son of Baruchus," who, as we know from
Josephus, was martyred _within the courts of the temple_ during the
siege of Jerusalem by Titus, about 40 years after the crucifixion. The
well-known prophet Zechariah was indeed son of Berechiah; but he was
not last of the martyrs,[2] if indeed he was martyred at all. On the
whole, the persuasion stuck to me, that words had been put into
the mouth of Jesus, which he could not possibly have used.--The
impossibility of settling the names of the twelve apostles struck me
as a notable fact.--I farther remembered the numerous difficulties of
harmonizing the four gospels; how, when a boy at school, I had tried
to incorporate all four into one history, and the dismay with which
I had found the insoluble character of the problem,--the endless
discrepancies and perpetual uncertainties. These now began to seem to
me inherent in the materials, and not to be ascribable to our want of
intelligence.

I had also discerned in the opening of Genesis things which could
not be literally received. The geography of the rivers in Paradise is
inexplicable, though it assumes the tone of explanation. The curse
on the serpent, who is to go on his belly--(how else did he go
before?)--and eat dust, is a capricious punishment on a race of
brutes, one of whom the Devil chose to use as his instrument. That
the painfulness of childbirth is caused, not by Eve's sin, but by
artificial habits and a weakened nervous system, seems to be proved
by the twofold fact, that savage women and wild animals suffer but
little, and tame cattle often suffer as much as human females.--About
this time also, I had perceived (what I afterwards learned the Germans
to have more fully investigated) that the two different accounts of
the Creation are distinguished by the appellations given to the divine
Creator. I did not see how to resist the inference that the book
is made up of heterogeneous documents, and was not put forth by the
direct dictation of the Spirit to Moses.

A new stimulus was after this given to my mind by two short
conversations with the late excellent Dr. Arnold at Rugby. I had
become aware of the difficulties encountered by physiologi