Page:Early Christianity outside the Roman empire.djvu/16

Rh Church, and has come down to us, only through certain literary channels. Those events of the early Galilean ministry which are recorded in S. Mark's narrative are known to us, but how few others! The Church's acquaintance with the first stage of Christianity rested on written documents, not on living tradition: for good and for evil the Greeks did not know Christ after the flesh.

Let me remind you in passing that this is not a mere literary question of . On the contrary, it is the keystone of Protestantism. The one thing which historically justifies us in breaking with the Catholic tradition is this breach of continuity at the earliest period. We are entitled to criticise the Greek Gospels freely, to suggest on due evidence that phrases or figures have been wrongly or imperfectly apprehended, in a word we have a right privately to revise the judgments of the Church, mainly because the Church of the second century was so far removed in spirit and in knowledge from the life of Judaea in our Lord's day. Do not let me be misunderstood. I am not