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 the mythical explanation of the history takes a very subordinate place in the controversy. Few understood what Strauss's real meaning was; the general impression was that he entirely dissolved the life of Jesus into myth.

There appeared. Indeed, three satires ridiculing his method. One showed how, for the historical science of the future, the life of Luther would also become a mere myth, the second treated the life of Napoleon in the same way; in the third, Strauss himself becomes a myth.

M. Eugene Mussard, "candidat au saint ministere," made it his business to set at rest the minds of the premier faculty at Geneva by his thesis, Du systeme mythique applique a I'histoire de la vie de Jesus, 1838, which bears the ingenious motto ou sesofismenoiV muqoiV (not ... in cunningly devised myths, 2 Peter i. 16). He certainly did not exaggerate the difficulties of his task, but complacently followed up an "Exposition of the Mythical Theory," with a "Refutation of the Mythical Theory as applied to the Life of Jesus."

The only writer who really faced the problem in the form in which it had been raised by Strauss was Wilke in his work "Tradition and Myth." He recognises that Strauss had given an exceedingly valuable impulse towards the overcoming of rationalism and supernaturalism and to the rejection of the abortive