istorical
criticism. We see the plain man, Muhammed, expressly declaring in the
Qoran that he cannot perform miracles, yet gradually becoming a
miracle worker and indeed the greatest of his class: he professes to
be nothing more than a mortal man: he becomes the chief mediator
between man and God. The scanty memorials of the man become voluminous
biographies of the saint and increase from generation to generation.

Yet more remarkable is the fact that his utterances, his _logia_, if
we may use the term, some few of which are certainly genuine, increase
from year to year and form a large collection which is critically
sifted and expounded. The aspirations of mankind attribute to him such
words of the New Testament and of Greek philosophers as were
especially popular or seemed worthy of Muhammed; the teaching also of
the new ecclesiastical schools was invariably expressed in the form of
proverbial utterances attributed to Muhammed, and these are now
without exception regarded as authentic by the modern Moslem. In this
way opinions often contradictory are covered by Muhummed's authority.

The traditions concerning Jesus offer an analogy. Our Gospels, for
instance, relate the beautiful story of the plucking of the ears of
corn on the Sabbath, with its famous moral application, "The Sabbath
was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath." A Christian papyrus
has been discovered which represents Jesus as explaining the sanctity
of the Sabbath from the Judaeo-Christian point of view. "If ye keep
not the Sabbath holy, ye shall not see the Father," is the statement
in an uncanonical Gospel. In early Christian literature, contradictory
sayings of Jesus are also to be found. Doubtless here, as in
Muhammedan tradition, the problem originally was, what is to be my
action in this or that question of practical life: answer is given in
accordance with the religious attitude of the inquirer and Jesus and
Muhammed are made to lend their authority to the teaching. Traditional
literary form is then regarded as historical by later believers.

Examples of this kind might be multiplied, but enough has been said to
show that much and, to some extent, new light may be thrown upon the
development of Christian tradition, by an examination of Muhammedanism
which rose from similar soil but a few centuries later, while its
traditional developments have been much more completely preserved.

Such analogies as these can be found, however, in any of t