II. OPPOSING VIEWS
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IT IS true that some evil men do not even take the name of Jesus upon their lips except by way of an idle curse, but even so, they pay him an involuntary homage.
Some in their hatred insist that such a man never existed, that he is a pure invention; but the fact of Jesus as a historic personage does not admit of serious question. Such an effect as he has produced in human history cannot be accounted for except by an adequate reality back of it. And, moreover, his historic existence is proved to the satisfaction of mankind from profane as well as from sacred sources. To doubt it is to place oneself among the sophists, who end by doubting everything, even themselves, and who become at length incapable of passing a rational judgment upon any matter.
Other men claim that Jesus uttered nothing new, pointing to Confucius, Gotama, Zoroaster, and other religious teachers whose teachings
