Arthur Drews

“ That the apostle has such a person in mind, and not a heavenly being, a saviour-god Jesus, who has become man, cannot be deduced from the Epistles, but is read into them, so that the existence of an historical Jesus is merely assumed. ”

“ Moreover, the identity of the Matthew who is said by Papias to have written the words of the Lord with the evangelist Matthew is not certain, as the latter drew from Greek sources, and the tax-gatherer whom Jesus calls (Mark ii, 14) , and in whom we are supposed to have the author of the gospel, was not named Matthew, but Levi, son of Alphaeus, and seems not to have been identified with the apostle Matthew until a later period. [5] That is what theologians call “a sound tradition”! ”

“ We do not, moreover, learn from Papias whether Peter gathered from his own intercourse with Jesus what he told to Mark, or, if he did not, whence this original witness derived his knowledge of the Saviour. It does not follow from the words of Papias that Peter was a personal disciple of Jesus, however emphatically Eusebius may regard him as such, and however Papias may have thought so. The good bishop was not at all the kind of man to have a clear idea of such a thing. ”

“ However much the figure of Jesus, as it is set forth in the acts and words of the gospel narrative, may move and enchain the sentiments of the reader, it cannot be deduced from these sentiments that an historical personality was the model of the character. ”

“ It would not have even if the exact contents of the sources were known to us, as Weinel seems to think, and if the reconstruction of the sources in Harnack's German translation, which is by no means generally admitted, were something more than a mere hypothetical attempt, and Wernle's corresponding analyses were not sheer and uncertain conjectures. ”