A Short History of Freethought Ancient and Modern, Volume 2 of 2 by J. M. Robertson

been made at clearing the ground by removing the Fourth Gospel from the historical field. Lessing had taken this gospel as peculiarly historical, as did Fichte and Schleiermacher and the main body of critics after him. Only in England (by Evanson) had the case been more radically handled. In 1820 Bretschneider, following up a few tentative German utterances, put forth, by way of hypothesis, a general argument [1783] to the effect that the whole presentment of Jesus in the Fourth Gospel is irreconcilable with that of the Synoptics, that it could not be taken as historical, and that it could not therefore be the work of the Apostle John. [1784] The result was a general discussion and a general rejection. The innovation in theory was too sudden for assimilation: and Bretschneider, finding no support, later declared that he had been "relieved of his doubts" by the discussion, and had thus attained his object. Strauss himself, in his first Leben Jesu, failed to realize the case; and it was not till the second (1863) that he developed it, profiting by the intermediate work of F. C. Baur.