You may say that the Gospels _may_ have behind them some tiny, ultimate nucleus of fact, but that is all you can say: And you have no right whatever to single out what you choose to regard as true from what you choose to regard as false, simply upon the plea of probability. You can say, “In these stories there does appear a certain human figure: he may have existed: he probably did. But as he perpetually claims and exercises miraculous powers, and, as these are incredible, there is no certitude to be based on such documents.” But you have no sort of right to say, “He certainly said this. He certainly did not say that,” on the strength of such documents. Least of all can you exclude matter which is in no way marvellous or unusual but simply out of gear with some imagined theory, e.g. the Petrine texts, the intensely vivid touches concerning Our Lady, Her rhapsody, Her Visitation, Her warning of tragedy (such things are said to mothers every day), Our Lord’s recommendation of her to St. John from the Cross, etc. None of these things are miraculous: they are called “unauthentic” simply because they support Our Lady and St. Peter—whom the critics don’t like. If the Gospels had not about them the traditional appeal to the heart and to the ancestral memories which the Modernist is too weak to strip off, our author would throw over the _whole_ of them. If they came to him as documents from another tradition he would certainly do so. Belonging as they do to his past, he cannot bear to part with them altogether, and so picks out a few words to retain for his consolation. Similarly, it is grossly unhistorical to imagine impossible motives at work in the composition of the Gospels. Suppose the Gospels to be contemporary, but the work either of people too daft to judge reality or of people who were telling lies. Then the historical way of attacking them is to say: “They are contemporary; but they, being written under such and such a motive consonant to the time, tell such and such falsehoods, or are subject to such and such illusions for which the character of the time will account.” That is how critics with good historical knowledge, but of sceptical temper, deal with, say, the marvels in The Venerable Bede’s _Ecclesiastical History_, or in _The Life of St. Martin_. But if you do not know the motives consonant to the time, you will make a muddle of it—and Mr. Wells, not knowing the time, has made a muddle of it. A very good example of his attempt at understanding something which he has insufficiently studied is his comment on the double lineage given for Our Lord through His Foster-Father, St. Joseph, and through His Blessed Mother, “both leading to David.” Mr. Wells remarks: “As if it were any honour to descend from such a man.”