106 The Fundamentals tions of the New Testament literature, the Pauline writings, are not to be considered as genuine sources, because, as Pro- fessor Wernle states, “Jesus knew nothing of that which to S t Paul is everything. That Jesus regarded Himself as an object of worship must be doubted; that He ascribed any meritorious atonement to His death is altogether improbable. Paul is not a disciple of Jesus. He is a new phenomenon. Paul is much further removed from Jesus in his teaching than he would seem to be when regarded only chronologically.” We turn now to the four Gospels, but of these “the Gospel of John can in no wise be considered a historical source,” says Harnack; and he is seconded in this assertion by all liberals. Says Wernle: “St. John must retire in favor of the Synoptic Gospels as source of the life of Christ. Jesus was as the Synoptics represent Him, not as St. John depicts Him.” And again: “In the first Gospels there is nothing taught concerning redemption, atonement, regenera- tion, reception of the Holy Spirit An altogether different picture is presented by the greater part of the other New Testament writings, especially by the writings of Paul and John.” But even the Synoptic Gospels have to be critically ana- lyzed in order to find the true portrait of Christ. The Gos- pels of Matthew and Luke, especially in their accounts of the infancy and of the death of Jesus and of the events that took place after His death, and in many other instances as well, are rather a portraiture of the crude beliefs of the early Christian churches than a historically trustworthy ac- count of the real facts. Even in the Gospel of Mark, which is considered the oldest and purest, we find, according to Professor Wernle, that “the historic portrait of Jesus is quite obscured; His person is placed in a grotesquely fantastic light.” Thus analytical criticism is compelled to search for the sources of the Gospels, and it claims to have found princi-
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