That was the last time that any popular excitement was aroused in connexion with the critical study of the life of Jesus; and it was a mere storm in a tea‐cup. Moreover, it was the man and not his work that aroused the excitement. Henceforth public opinion was almost entirely indifferent to anything which appeared in this department. The great fundamental question whether historical criticism was to be applied to the life of Jesus had been decided in connexion with Strauss’s first work on the subject. If here and there indignation aroused by a Life of Jesus brought inconveniences to the author and profit to the publisher, that was connected in every case with purely external and incidental circumstances. Public opinion was not disquieted for a moment by Volkmar and Wrede, although they are much more extreme than Schenkel. Most of the Lives of Jesus which followed had, it is true, nothing very exciting about them. They were mere variants of the type established during the ’sixties, variants of which the minute differences were only discernible by theologians, and which were otherwise exactly alike in arrangement and result. As a contribution to criticism, Keim’s(140) “History of Jesus of Nazara” was the most important Life of Jesus which appeared in a long period. It is not of much consequence that he believes in the priority of Matthew, since his presentment of the history follows the general lines of the Marcan plan, which is preserved also in Matthew. He gives it as his opinion that the life of Jesus is to be reconstructed from the Synoptics, whether Matthew has the first place or Mark. He sketches the development of Jesus in bold lines. As early as his inaugural address at Zurich, delivered on the 17th of December 1860, which, short as it was, made a powerful impression upon Holtzmann as well as upon others, he had set up the thesis that the Synoptics “artlessly, almost against their will, show us unconsciously in incidental, unobtrusive traits the progressive development of Jesus as youth and man.”(141) His later works are the development of this sketch. His grandiose style gave the keynote for the artistic treatment of the portrait of Jesus in the ’sixties. His phrases and expressions became classical. Every one follows him in speaking of the “Galilaean spring‐ tide” in the ministry of Jesus.