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 count of the coming of rationalism into religion, based on the earliest documents available. Viewed as such an account, it is only relevant to the region between the Tigris and the Nile. It exhibits the note of progressive solitariness in the religious idea: first, types of thought generally prevalent; then protesting prophets, isolated figures of denunciation and exhortation stirring the Jewish nation; then one man, with twelve disciples, who met with almost complete national rejection; then the adaptation for popular survival of this latter doctrine by another man who, very significantly, had no first-hand contact with the original teaching. In his hands, something was added and something was lost; but fortunately the Gospels also survive.

It is evident that I have drawn attention to the span of six thousand years because, in addition to being reasonable when we have regard to all the evidence, it corresponds to the chronology of the Bible. We — in Europe and America — are the heirs of the religious