If Luther’s dictum is true that “the heart is the best theologian,” Strauss must be regarded as destitute of the main qualification for his task. Encyc. Britannica, 22:592—“Strauss’s mind was almost exclusively analytical and critical, without depth of religious feeling, or philosophical penetration, or historical sympathy. His work was rarely constructive, and, save when he was dealing with a kindred spirit, he failed as a historian, biographer, and critic, strikingly illustrating Goethe’s profoundly true principle that loving sympathy is essential for productive criticism.” Pfleiderer, Strauss’s Life of Jesus, xix—“Strauss showed that the church formed the mythical traditions about Jesus out of its faith in him as the Messiah; but he did not show how the church came by the faith that Jesus of Nazareth was the Messiah.” See Carpenter, Mental Physiology, 362; Grote, Plato, 1:249. We object to the Myth-theory of Strauss, that (_a_) The time between the death of Christ and the publication of the gospels was far too short for the growth and consolidation of such mythical histories. Myths, on the contrary, as the Indian, Greek, Roman and Scandinavian instances bear witness, are the slow growth of centuries. (_b_) The first century was not a century when such formation of myths was possible. Instead of being a credulous and imaginative age, it was an age of historical inquiry and of Sadduceeism in matters of religion. Horace, in Odes 1:34 and 3:6, denounces the neglect and squalor of the heathen temples, and Juvenal, Satire 2:150, says that “Esse aliquid manes et subterranea regna Nec pueri credunt.” Arnold of Rugby: “The idea of men writing mythic histories between the times of Livy and of Tacitus, and of St. Paul mistaking them for realities!” Pilate’s sceptical inquiry, “What is truth?”_ (John 18:38)_, better represented the age. “The mythical age is past when an idea is presented abstractly—apart from narrative.” The Jewish sect of the Sadducees shows that the rationalistic spirit was not confined to Greeks or Romans. The question of John the Baptist, _Mat. 11:3—_“Art thou he that cometh, or look we for another?” and our Lord’s answer, _Mat. 11:4, 5—_“Go and tell John the thing which ye hear and see: the blind receive their sight ... the dead are raised up,” show that the Jews expected miracles to be wrought by the Messiah; yet _John 10:41—_“John indeed did no sign” shows also no irresistible inclination to invest popular teachers with miraculous powers; see E. G. Robinson, Christian Evidences, 22; Westcott, Com. on John 10:41; Rogers, Superhuman Origin of the Bible, 61; Cox, Miracles, 50.