Though concerned with a period anterior to the apostle's conversion, with events whereof he had no knowledge, and with a life from which he professed to derive only his impulse, the gospels are written, not in the style of chronicles or memoirs, but in the style of disquisitions rather. Far from being the artless, guileless, unstudied compositions they have passed for, they are imbued with an atmosphere of reflection, are ingeniously elaborate and, in parts painfully studied. They are meditated biographies, in which the biographical material is selected and qualified by speculative motives. Nevertheless, these are the only fragments presumably of historical character that we possess. The period that Paul's ministry supposes must be searched for in these after-minded books. Hence arise grave literary difficulties. Several points must be borne in mind; the absence of any contemporaneous account of the ministry of Jesus; the utter dearth of early memoranda; the advanced age of the evangelists at the time they wrote, even on the common reckoning, and the effect of age in weakening recollection, suggesting fancies, raising queries, inflaming imaginations, making the mind receptive of theories and marvels; the influence on the disciples and on the intellectual world of a man so powerful as Paul, and the altered speculative climate of the later apostolic age. The literary laws forbid under these circumstances our reading the gospel narratives as authentic histories--constrain us in fact to read them, in some sort, as disquisitions, making allowance as we go along, for the infusion of doctrinal elements. The actual Jesus is, thus understood, inaccessible to scientific research. His image cannot be recovered. He left no memorial in writing of himself; his followers were illiterate; the mind of his age was confused. Paul received only traditions of him, how definite we have no means of knowing, apparently not significant enough to be treasured, nor consistent enough to oppose a barrier to his own speculations. The character of Jesus is a fair subject for discussion and conjecture; but at this stage in a literary study such discussion and conjecture would be out of place. We have at present simply to inquire into the character of the Messianic hope as it was illustrated in the ante-Pauline period. This task is less difficult, and may be accomplished without detriment to moral or spiritual qualities which Jesus may have possessed.