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The subordinates, it is true, do not allow themselves to be disturbed by the change of attitude at head-quarters. They keep busily at work That is their right, and therein consists their significance. By keeping on trying to take the positions, and constantly failing, they furnish a practical proof that the plan of operations worked out by the general staff is not capable of being carried out, and show why it is so, and what kind of new tactics will have to be evolved.

The credit of having written a life of Christ which is strictly scientific, in its own way very remarkable, and yet foredoomed to failure, belongs to Oskar Holtzmann. He has complete confidence in the Marcan plan, and makes it his task to fit all the sayings of Jesus into this framework, to show "what can belong to each period of the preaching of Jesus, and what cannot." His method is to give free play to the magnetic power of the most important passages in the Marcan text, making other sayings of similar import detach themselves from their present connexion and come and group themselves round the main passages.