sion. For the
Bible is a unity. If but one book be mutilated the whole organism is
disturbed.

The contest having been hitherto connected with other features of
revelation more than with the person of Christ, it was no part of the
design of the Rationalists to submit without staking a great battle upon
the incarnation of the Messiah. Let them succeed here, and they can
rebuild more firmly all they have lost, but if they fail, they will only
bring to a more speedy ruin an edifice already in decay. Strauss
undertook the work; and having written for the learned alone, no one was
more surprised than himself at the popular success of the _Life of
Jesus_.

According to him, the explanation of the mysterious accounts of Jesus of
Nazareth can be found in the theory of the myth. Strauss held that the
Holy Land was full of notions concerning his speedy appearance. The
people were waiting for him, and were ready to hail his incarnation with
rapture. Their opinions concerning him were already formed, owing to the
expectations they had inherited from their fathers. Therefore, any one
who answered their views would be the Messiah. There was much in both
the character and life of Christ which approached their crude notions of
the promised one. For this reason their hearts went out toward him, and
they called him "Jesus." The world was already prepared, and since
Christ best fitted it, he was entitled to all the honor of being waited
for and accepted. All the prophecies of his incarnation were purely
historical events. But the Jewish mind is very visionary and prone to
allegory. Consequently, when Christ appeared among the Jews, it was not
difficult to trace a resemblance between him and other marked personages
in history.

Thus Christ did not organize the Church as much as the church created
him. He existed and lived on earth, but very different was the real
Jesus from that wonderful character described in the Gospels. The
veritable Messiah was born of humble parentage, was baptized by John,
collected a few disciples, inveighed against the Pharisees and all
others who placed themselves in antagonism to him, and finally fell a
victim to the cruelty of his foes. Years passed by after his death, and
the popular imagination went wild with reports and exaggerations of the
once obscure Nazarene. Great as the ideas of the people were before
Christ appeared, they were infinitely magnified during the lapse of the
thirty years between his d