“My belief is that Christ’s words extended to only the first half of Matthew’s tradition. The disciples complain, in effect, ‘If a man cannot divorce his wife when he dislikes her, it is best not to marry.’ To this Christ replies, as I interpret him, ‘Not all grasp the mystery of the true marriage contemplated from the beginning (namely, “the two shall become one”) but only those to whom it is given.’ This seems to me to have been explained in a wrong sense in the words that follow about ‘eunuchs.’ At all events, Paul twice quotes the words quoted by Christ (about the ‘two’ becoming ‘one’) as though they were the basis of his doctrine about marriage and also a type of the mysterious wedlock between Christ and the church. I do not think, however, that any confident conclusion is deducible. Christ elsewhere indicates—when dealing with an imaginary case where a woman has married seven brothers consecutively—that the marriage tie does not extend to the next life. By the Jews, marriage is, and was, regarded as honourable, and almost as a duty. But a Jewish sect called the Essenes, or some of them, practised celibacy; and you know how Epictetus inculcates celibacy on his Cynics of the first class. These facts, and the pressure of hard times, and Paul’s example, may not only have favoured abstinence from marriage among Christians but also have favoured some tampering with tradition in order to enjoin celibacy. A letter to Timothy speaks of certain heretics as ‘forbidding to marry.’ Perhaps the only safe conclusion about Matthew’s tradition is that no conclusion can be deduced from it.” Scaurus next discussed the question whether Christ inculcated poverty on his disciples. He denied it. Not that he denied Luke to be more correct verbally in saying “Blessed are _the poor_” than Matthew in “Blessed are _the poor in spirit_.” But he asserted that Christ meant “_poor in spirit_.” Similarly (said Scaurus) Christ meant “hungering _after righteousness_,” as Matthew says, though Luke was right verbally in omitting “after righteousness.” For, according to Scaurus, “Christ hardly ever used such words as ‘bread,’ ‘leaven,’ ‘water,’ ‘hunger,’ ‘thirst,’ ‘fire,’ ‘salt,’ ‘treasure,’ and so on, except metaphorically.” Then he quoted the following instance out of Mark’s version of Christ’s instructions to the twelve apostles, where, he said, Mark’s metaphors had been misunderstood literally—and consequently altered—by Matthew and Luke.