[8] This is a free rendering, somewhat paraphrased to bring out the meaning, of the account of the martyrdom of Akiba under Tinnius (Turnus) Rufus in the Jerusalem Talmud (_Berakh._ ix. 7). See _Prolegomena to Acts_, I. 62. [9] J. Klausner's _Die messianische Vorstellungen des juedischen Volkes im Zeitalter der Tannaiten_ is probably the clearest statement of the facts. [10] The fourth book of Ezra is in many ways the finest of all Apocalypses, and the English authorised version (in which it is called 2 Esdras) is a magnificent piece of English, needing, however, occasional elucidation and correction by the critical editions of G. H. Box, _The Ezra Apocalypse_, and of B. Violet, in the edition of the Greek Christian writers of the first three centuries published by the Berlin Academy. [11] J. Weiss, _Die Predigt Jesu vom Reiche Gottes_. The first edition of this book is smaller and better than the second. [12] The _Quest of the Historic Jesus_. [13] I have endeavoured to deal with this question in the _Stewardship of Faith_, pp. 36 ff. [14] Mark x. 17 ff. [15] Mark xii. 35. [16] Mark ix. 43 ff.; cf. Matt. v. 29. ff. [17] Quoted by C. G. Montefiore in the _Prolegomena to Acts_, pp. 71 f. [18] See Mark ii. 27. For the meaning of Son of Man in this passage see p. 60. [19] Neither reason nor conscience is infallible: the tribunal of history condemns many actions which were undoubtedly dictated by conscience. Nevertheless we have no better guides in action, and both reason and conscience have the peculiarity that the more they are used the better do they become, and conversely that if they be neglected they cease to be available in time of need. Men who habitually use their powers in order to circumvent either conscience or reason in the end find they are unable to use them at all. The distinction between right and wrong disappears when conscience dies, and that between fact and fiction when reason is neglected. The one is the danger which besets clever politicians, the other the nemesis which waits on popular preachers. [20] The situation becomes pathetically impossible when men's theological conscience is shocked by the suggestion that Jesus was wrong, and their political conscience by the claim that he should be obeyed. {36} II JERUSALEM For the history of the disciples after the death of Jesus we are dependent upon a single source, the Acts of the Apostles, which can, however, be controlled, and to some extent corrected, by the gospels and by the epistles of Paul.