In Bauer, however, the aesthete is at the same time a critic. Although much in the Fourth Gospel is finely “felt,” like the opening scenes referring to the Baptist and to Jesus, which Bauer groups together under the heading “The Circle of the Expectant,” yet his art is by no means always perfect. The author who conceived those discourses, of which the movement consists in a kind of tautological return upon itself, and who makes the parables trail out into dragging allegories, is no perfect artist. “The parable of the Good Shepherd,” says Bauer, “is neither simple, nor natural, nor a true parable, but a metaphor, which is, nevertheless, much too elaborate for a metaphor, is not clearly conceived, and, finally, in places shows much too clearly the skeleton of reflection over which it is stretched.” Bauer treats, in his work of 1840,(91) the Fourth Gospel only. The Synoptics he deals with only in a quite incidental fashion, “as opposing armies make demonstrations in order to provoke the enemy to a decisive conflict.” He breaks off at the beginning of the story of the passion, because here it would be necessary to bring in the Synoptic parallels. “From the distant heights on which the Synoptic forces have taken up a menacing position, we must now draw them down into the plain; now comes the pitched battle between them and the Fourth Gospel, and the question regarding the historical character of that which we have found to be the ultimate basis of the last Gospel, can now at length be decided.” If, in the Gospel of John, no smallest particle could be found which was unaffected by the creative reflection of the author, how will it stand with the Synoptists? When Bauer broke off his work upon John in this abrupt way—for he had not originally intended to conclude it at this point—how far did he still retain a belief in the historical character of the Synoptics? It looks as if he had intended to treat then as the solid foundation, in contrast with the fantastic structure raised upon it by the Fourth Gospel. But when he began to use his pick upon the rock, it crumbled away. Instead of a difference of kind he found only a difference of degree. The “Criticism of the Gospel History of the Synoptists” of 1841 is built on the site which Strauss had levelled. “The abiding influence of Strauss,” says Bauer, “consists in the fact that he has removed from the path of subsequent criticism the danger and trouble of a collision with the earlier orthodox system.” Bauer finds his material laid ready to his hand by Weisse and Wilke. Weisse had divined in Mark the source from which criticism—becoming barren in the work of Strauss—might draw a new spring of vigorous life; and Wilke, whom Bauer places above Weisse, had raised this happy conjecture to the level of a scientifically assured result. The Marcan hypothesis was no longer on its trial.