“Now I must pass to the last year or last but one of Domitian. You have heard your father speak of Flavius Clemens (not exactly a strong man, but a good one) who was put to death by his uncle, the Emperor, for ‘Judaism’ (so it was called) and his poor wife exiled. ‘Judaism,’ with our people, was only a more respectable name for ‘Christianism,’ though the two superstitions are poles asunder. Poor Domitilla was a downright Christian. Her husband Clemens was at all events Christian enough for Domitian’s purposes. He was put to death and his effects confiscated. I bought a few of his books as memorials of my old friend, and among these were certain Christian publications called ‘gospels.’ “Every Christian missionary is supposed to ‘preach the gospel’; so, of course, there might be, theoretically, as many gospels as missionaries, and ‘a gospel according to’ each missionary, if each chose to write down what he preached. Accordingly I gather from Flaccus that there have been a great number of these ‘gospels’; but only three are now in large demand among Christians in Rome—the three he sent you. The earliest of these is ‘The Gospel according to Mark.’ That it is the earliest you can see thus. Put them (that is, of course, the parallel parts of them) in three columns, Mark in the middle. Then imagine three schoolboys seated together—Sinister, Medius, and Dexter—writing a translation of Homer. Suppose Sinister and Dexter to be cribbing from Medius, who sits between them. The experienced schoolmaster will speedily discover that, whenever Sinister and Dexter closely agree, it is because they cribbed from Medius. Similarly Matthew and Luke largely copied—not ‘cribbed,’ for they did it honestly enough, no doubt—from Mark. Consequently (subject to certain exceptions, which I will state later on) Matthew and Luke _never agree together—in those parts of the gospel where there are three parallel narratives—without also agreeing with Mark_. Don’t trust me for this. Try it yourself.” I did try it. And I found that—subject to the exceptions defined by Scaurus in another letter—his statement was correct. His letter continued, “So I began with Mark. Do not suppose that I began with any prejudice against him. On the contrary, your old friend, whom you are so fond of calling Misomythus, must plead guilty, I fear, to a latent desire of the philomythian kind—that Mark might contain truth and not myth. But hereby hangs another tale, and I must begin another confession.