We see, therefore, that the idea of the _S_ruti, while approaching to our idea of revelation as _apaurusheya_, that is, not human, does not quite coincide with it. What was ancient and incomprehensible, was called superhuman, and soon became infallible and beyond assault. If we look at other religions, we find that Buddhism denied the Veda every authority, and in conformity with its own character especially excluded every idea of superhuman revelation. In China, too, we look in vain for revelation. In Palestine, however, we find the idea that the Lord Himself spoke with Moses, who delivered His commands to Israel, and the tables of the commandments were even written by God’s own fingers on both sides. But this must not be confounded with written literature. The idea that the entire Old Testament was written or revealed by Jehovah is absolutely not of ancient Jewish origin, whatever respect may have been shown to the holy books as recognised in the Synagogue. As for Islam, the Koran is looked upon as communicated to Mohammed by the angel Gabriel, even as Zoroaster in the Avesta claims to have received certain communications in conversation with Ahuramazda. In Christianity, in whose history the theory of revelation has played so great a part, there is in fact—and this is frequently overlooked—no declaration on the subject by Christ or the apostles themselves. That the Gospels, as they have come down to us, have been revealed, is nowhere stated in them, nor can it be gathered from the Acts of the Apostles or the Epistles. No one has ever maintained that any New Testament Scripture was known to Christ or even to the apostles.(51) On the contrary, if we take the titles of the Gospels in their natural meaning, they do not purport to have been written down by Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John themselves: they are simply the sacred history as it was recorded by others according to each of these men. Attempts have indeed been made to reason away the meaning of κατά, “according to,” and interpret it as “by,” but it is more natural to take it in its ordinary sense. When Paul, in his second Epistle to Timothy (iii. 16), says, “Every scripture inspired of God is also profitable for teaching,” this is the usual mode of expression applied to the Scriptures of the Old, not of the New Testament (John v. 39), and would merely signify inspired, breathed in, not revealed in each word and letter.