Like every great spiritual teacher Jesus built on the beliefs of his time, refining, enlarging, ennobling, and transforming men’s conceptions of God and of his kingdom, of man and of his salvation. His teachings were concrete; he made no attempt to present his views in philosophic form, but inculcated his lessons as occasion offered or required. His words and the history of his life are preserved to us in imperfect and fragmentary forms, having been recorded after his death at a time when his followers had considerably increased in numbers and were to be found at many places outside Judea and Syria. For our present purpose we must confine ourselves to the three synoptic gospels. Of these Mark in essentially its present form was written shortly after 70; Matthew and Luke can hardly be earlier than 80-90 A.D. These gospels are necessarily both historical and interpretative; their writers were children of their own day and shared in its beliefs and superstitions. They were naturally credulous toward the myths and legends which had rapidly grown up about Jesus. When we consider their great eschatological interest, we realize that the authors actually tell us an extraordinary amount concerning Jesus’ life and teachings. The historical interpretation of the gospels must take all these matters into account. It is impossible to understand Jesus’ teachings if we detach them from his person, for in a very real sense he was himself the gospel. Only by grasping so far as possible his personality can we comprehend in any adequate degree the impression which he made on his followers. Their discipleship at the time and the whole development of Christianity after Jesus’ death depended on that personality. Nor is there anything strange in this fact; we are in a degree familiar with it in our own experience, whenever any great teacher or leader appears.