hailed the divine Augustus. With Tiberius began a new era, new thoughts, and new forms: he was the New

Caesar, Neos Kaisar.

There are already some signs that, as people begin to learn these facts, which stand before us on the stones

engraved before the birth of Christ, this line of argument is beginning to be developed. It will at least have

this great advantage, that it assigns correctly the period when the Christian narrative originated, and that it

cuts away the ground beneath the feet of those who have maintained that the Gospels are the culmination of

a long subsequent growth of mythology about a more or less historical Jesus. The Gospels, as we have

them, though composed in the second half, and for the most part in the last quarter, of the first century, are a

faithful presentation in thought and word of a much older and well-attested history, and are only in very

small degree affected by the thoughts and language of the period when their authors wrote, remaining true

to the form as fixed by earlier registration.

Similarly, the Seven Letters are the growth of their time, and must be studied along with it. They belong to

the last quarter of the first century; and it is about that time that we may look for the best evidence as to the

meaning that they would bear to their original readers.