"The case stands thus: our Gospels present us with the picture of a glorious Christ; the mythic Gospels with that of a contemptible one. Our Gospels have invested Him with the highest conceivable form of moral greatness; the mythic ones have not ascribed to Him one action which is elevated. In our Gospels He exhibits a superhuman wisdom; in the mythic ones a nearly equal superhuman absurdity. In our Gospels He is arrayed in all the beauty of holiness; in the mythic ones, this aspect is entirely wanting. In our Gospels, not one stain of selfishness defiles His character; in the mythic ones, the Lord Jesus is both pettish and malicious. Our Gospels exhibit to us a sublime morality; not a ray of it shines in those of the mythologists. The miracles of the one and the other are contrasted in every point. A similar opposition of character runs through the whole current of thought, feeling, morality, and religion."[111] I ask my opponents to account for this difference, and specially to say why in the second century the mythic spirit began to create a ridiculous Christ, and in the first it produced a glorious one; and through how many stages of development the creation passed until it culminated in what we read in the Gospels, and the interval of time to be assigned to each. But according to the theories I am combating, the Messianic aspects of the character of the Jesus of the Evangelists must have passed through a succession of developments before they could have attained their present form. Different parties had to invent different aspects of it. Next, these had to procure acceptance in the various Churches. Each party would cling to its own views. The formation of hostile sects in the Church was a certain consequence. If they gradually wore themselves out, all experience of sectarian warfare proves that the interval must have been long. We know as fact that nothing is more difficult than to effect compromises between contending religious factions; and that they are only, if at all, possible after long and bitter experience. I ask you to compute for yourselves how many developments and compromises must have been required, and the interval of time each must have occupied?