One hypothesis might, indeed, be hazarded to save the possibility of an actual evangel by the Founder. If, taking him to be historical, we assume him to have preached a political doctrine subversive of the Roman rule, and to have thereby met his death, we could understand that, in a later period in which the writers connected with the movement were much concerned to conciliate the Romans, it might have been felt expedient, and indeed imperative, to suppress the facts. They would not specify the evangel, because they dared not. On this view the Founder was a Messiah of the ordinary Jewish type, aiming at the restoration of the Jewish State. But such a Jesus would not be the "Jesus of the Gospels" at all. He would merely be a personage of the same (common) name, who in no way answered to the Gospel figure, but had been wholly denaturalized to make him a cult-centre. On this hypothesis there has been no escape from the "myth-theory," but merely a restatement of it. A Jesus put to death by the Romans as a rebel Mahdi refuses to compose with the Teacher who sends out his apostles to preach his evangel; who proclaims, if anything, a purely spiritual kingdom; and who is put to death as seeking to subvert the Jewish faith, the Roman governor giving only a passive and reluctant assent. On the political hypothesis, as on the myth-theory here put, the whole Gospel narrative of the Tragedy which establishes the cult remains mythical. We have but to proceed, then, with the analysis which reveals the manner of its composition and of its inclusion in the record. It is admitted by the reconstructors that the primitive Gospel had no conclusion, telling nothing of Last Supper, Agony, Betrayal, Crucifixion, or Resurrection. It did not even name Judas as the betrayer. And they explain that it was because of lacking these details that it passed out of use, superseded by the Gospels which gave them. As if the conclusion, were it compiled in the same fashion, could not have been added to the original document, which ex hypothesi had the prestige of priority. Why the composer of the original did not add the required chapters is a question to which we get only the most futile answers, as is natural when the exegetes have not critically scrutinized the later matter. Thus even Mr. Jolley is content to say:-- The omission of any account of the Passion or Resurrection is natural enough in a writing primarily intended for the Christians of Judæa, some of them witnesses of the Crucifixion, and all, probably, familiar with the incidents of the Saviour's Judæan ministry, as well as with the events preceding and following the Passion, especially when we remember that the author had no intention (!) of writing a biography. [30] Here the alleged fact that only some had seen the Crucifixion, while all knew all about the ministry, is given as a reason why the ministry should be described and the Crucifixion left undescribed and unmentioned!