uttered on some occasion during his life, and then transferred to the story of the days after his resurrection and made the centre of this incident of the doubt of Thomas. On the other hand, again, the prophecy of the details of Peter's death[1] is almost certainly an addition after the event, because it is not at all in the manner of Jesus. What is in his manner, and what he had probably at some time said, are the words given elsewhere: 'Whither I go thou canst not follow me now, but thou shalt follow me afterwards.'[2] So, too, it is extremely improbable that Jesus should have ever charged his apostles to 'baptize all nations in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost.' There is no improbability in his investing them with a very high commission. He may perfectly well have said: 'Whosesoever sins ye remit, they are remitted; whosesoever sins ye retain, they are retained.'[3] But it is almost impossible he can have given this charge to baptize in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost; it is by far too systematic and what people are fond of calling an anachronism. It is not the least like what Jesus was in the habit of saying, and it is just like what would be attributed to him as baptism and its formula grew in importance. The genuine charge of Jesus to his apostles was, almost certainly: 'As my Father sent me, even so send I you,'[4] and not this. So that our three creeds, and with them the whole of our so-called orthodox theology, are founded upon words which Jesus in all probability never uttered.
We may leave all questions about the Church, its rise, and its organisation, out of sight altogether. Much as is made of them, they are comparatively unimportant. Jesus
